The following commentary by Chris Bowers, originally published on Open Left on 10/21, is an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of Democratic strategy:
New polling on the 2009 Virginia Governor’s election is horrendous for Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. Of the five polls where the majority of interviews were conducted over the last ten days (that is, since October 11th), Deeds trails by an average of 12.0%. The margin is the same whether you are looking at the median or the simple mean. With only 13 days until the election, it is highly unlikely that Deeds is going to make up such a large deficit.
Perhaps the most important factor in Deeds’ impending defeat will be the lack of turnout among Obama voters. In 2008, President Obama won Virginia by a margin of 52.6%-46.3%. However, two recent polls, Survey USA (by 1%) and PPP (by 6%), show McCain voters outnumbering Obama voters within the 2009 Virginia electorate.
In both the Survey USA and PPP polls, Deeds scores 80% of Virginians who voted for Obama in 2008, and 5% of Virginians who voted for McCain. McConnell has 12% of Obama voters in PPP, and 19% in Survey USA. The Republican nominee also has the support of 88% of McCain voters in PPP, and 95% according to Survey USA.
As such, if the 2009 Virginia electorate had the same 52.6%–46.3% proportion of Obama and McCain voters as it did last year, Creigh Deeds would be 9% closer in both the Survey USA and PPP polls:
Survey USA (2008 turnout model in parenthesis)
McDonnell (R): 59% (54%)
Deeds (D): 40% (44%)
PPP (2008 turnout model in parenthesis)
McDonnell (R): 52% (47%)
Deeds (D): 40% (44%)
If the Obama-voting Democratic base was an excited in 2009 as it was a year ago, Deeds would still be losing, but he would be within striking distance. Instead, he is about to get wiped out, and decided to rev up the base with statements like this from last night :

At the final debate of race last night, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds said he “shared the broad goals” of health care reform, but would “certainly consider opting out” of a public option “if that were available to Virginia.”
“I’m not afraid of going against my fellow Democrats when they’re wrong,” Deeds said. “A public option isn’t required in my view.”

Deeds has since backpedaled from this statement, but a campaign clarification at a press gaggle doesn’t cancel out a televised debate. The damage is done: Deeds isn’t afraid to go against Democrats when they are wrong. Fine. If that is the way he thinks, then I hope enjoys getting wiped out at the polls because Democrats don’t turn out for him. At least, as the Democratic nominee, he ran on a campaign he could believe in: attacking Democrats.
Many Democrats still take it as obvious that moving to the right is the best way to win elections, because the Democratic and liberal vote is static and doesn’t change. Deeds’ predicament is a perfect example of why that thinking is stupid and self-defeating. Currently, he trails by 12%, but he would be 9% closer if Democrats in Virginia were as excited about his candidacy as they were about Obama’s.
The liberal and Democratic vote is not static. It can vary both as a percentage of the total electorate, and in its support for Democratic nominees. For example, in the 2008 election, liberals were actually a slightly larger swing vote for President Obama than either moderates or conservatives. Also, in 2006, Democrats improved their share of the national House vote more from self-identified Democrats than from Republicans and Independents combined.
I am not arguing here that exciting the liberal and Democratic base is the most important aspect of a campaign for Democratic nominees. Rather, I simply wish to point something out that should be obvious to Democratic politicians and campaign operatives: both turnout levels and partisan preference for self-identified liberals and self-identified Democrats vary from election to election. Those variations will have an impact on the outcome of any given election, and are largely determined by the behavior of the Democratic nominee. As such, ignore–or even actively distance yourself from–the liberal and Democratic base at your own peril.

This item was cross-posted at The New Republic.
It´s too early to write off the gubernatorial aspirations of Creigh Deeds in Virginia, but if he doesn´t overcome a consistent lead by Republican Bob McDonnell in the next twelve days, you can be sure many pundits will attribute his defeat to Barack Obama.
There´s only one problem with this hypothesis: despite his extraordinary unpopularity in other parts of the South, the President remains relatively popular in the Old Dominion. According to pollster.com, Obama´s average approval/disapproval ratio in recent Virginia polls is 51/46. Even Rasmussen has him in positive territory at 53/47, and the latest Washington Post poll had him at 53/46. This is precisely the same margin by which Obama carried the Commonwealth last November.
Nor does general disdain for the Democratic Party appear to be the culprit. The current governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, is chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His average approval ratio at pollster.com currently stands at 53/39.
It´s always tempting to interpret state electoral contests as bellwethers for national political trends, particular in odd years like this one. But it´s usually wrong.

Open Left‘s AdamGreen flags Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com post, “Why The (Impure) Public Option is (Probably) Gaining Momentum,” which provides an insightful 10-point explanation of why this pivotal health care reform is finding new traction. Silver’s #1 should be a source of encouragement (despite the zinger) for progressive bloggers:

1. The tireless, and occasionally tiresome, advocacy on behalf of liberal bloggers and interest groups for the public option. Whatever you think of their tactics — I haven’t always agreed with them — the sheer amount of focus and energy expended on their behalf has been very important, keeping the issue alive in the public debate.

Among Silver’s other factors:

2. The fact that the CBO thinks it will save money.
5. The “innovation” of the opt-in/opt-out family of compromises, which have more liberal “street cred” than co-ops or triggers and are potentially also much more politically advantageous.
6. The fading from memory of the tea party protests and the “government takeover” meme.
7. Polls in myriad swing states and swing districts showing the public option is reasonably popular in these regions.

And, in addition to points 1 and 6, Silver’s point #9 should be of particular interest to activists concerned about media strategy for health care reform:

9. The insurance industry’s “senior moment”: forgetting that this isn’t 1993 and that the shelf life of a misleading study would be measured in hours (rather than days or weeks) and would damage its credibility in the process.

Green’s post also includes a video clip, in which Rachel Maddow (who else?) conducts a substantive interview of Green, co-chair of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Green presents a compelling argument explaining why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s most important legacy as a public servant would be providing strong leadership for the public option — and may be his best shot at saving his own bacon (54 percent of Nevadans want it).

Anyone familiar with sentiment in the region is aware that Barack Obama isn´t very popular among white voters in the Deep South. The Obama-Biden ticket did worse than Kerry-Edwards `04 among white voters in much of that area, despite the Democratic breakthroughs in nearby North Carolina and Virginia.
But the scope of the continuing unpopularity of Obama and Democrats in the South is graphically demonstrated in recent analysis from DKos-R2K. Obama´s overall national favorable/unfavorable ratio in its October poll was 55/37. In the South, it was 27/68. The Republican Party´s rating nationally was 21/67. In the South, it was 48/37. The Democratic Party´s national rating was 41/51. In the South, it was 21/72. And on the congressional ¨generic ballot,“ Democrats led nationally 35/29; GOPers led in the South 47/21.
These are regional averages which almost certainly overstate Democrats´ problems in Florida, NC, and Virginia, but may also understate the problem in the Deep South.
Such numbers will undoubtedly reinforce already strong tendencies by non-southern Democrats to “write off“ the region as intractably reactionary if not incurably racist. That would be a major mistake. Most of the congressional districts held by southern Democrats are far friendlier to Obama than the regional averages indicate, and we need to hold as many of them as possible (the same is true of many statewide offices, and in the state legislative contests that will determine control of redistricting). And as the 2008 results in FL, NC and VA showed, there are demographic trends in the region that give Democrats considerable future hope wherever sufficient concentrations of minority voters, upscale professionals, and academic/research centers co-exist.
What the current numbers probably reflect more than anything is the exceptional unhappiness of southerners with the economy, which has reversed decades of sunbelt growth. If high southern unemployment rates begin to turn around by 2010 or 2012, the South´s outlier status may moderate as well.

Admirers of Rep Alan Grayson have a post to read at The Nation, where John Nichols reports on the congressman’s new project:

The Florida Democrat who drew national attention last month when he declared on the House floor that the Republican plan for uninsured Americans was “don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly,” was back on the House floor this week to announce the creation of a website to honor the victims of the current system.
Grayson, who has taken the lead in highlighting a Harvard study that shows 44,000 Americans die annually because they have no health insurance, told the House and the nation: “I think it dishonors all those Americans who have lost their lives because they had no health coverage, by ignoring them, by not paying attention to them, and by doing nothing to change the situation that led them to lose their live.”
With that in mind, he announced the launch of a Names of the Dead website.

Nichols quotes from Rep. Grayson’s welcoming message at his website:

Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die simply because have no health insurance…I have created this project in their memory. I hope that honoring them will help us end this senseless loss of American lives. If you have lost a loved one, please share the story of that loved one with us. Help us ensure that their legacy is a more just America, where every life that can be saved will be saved.

Naturally, the Republicans are going ballistic about Grayson’s latest project. But it’s a wonderful idea and a highly creative use of the internet to promote awareness of the brutality of the current ‘system’ and the urgent need for comprehensive, affordable health care reform. Rep. Grayson is providing either a courageous template for Democrats running in moderate to conservative districts or a cautionary example of political harakiri. Either way, in my book, he merits consideration for the JFK Library’s Profile in Courage Award (make your nomination here).

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America has a fresh angle on Fox News being taken seriously as a bonafide news organization. Instead of simply blasting Fox for its bogusity, Boehlert asks a more pertinent question:

I understand Fox News still wants to enjoy the benefits of being seen as a news operation. It still wants the trappings and the professional protections that go with it. But it no longer functions as a news outlet, so why does the rest of the press naively treat it that way?

Boehlert expalins further:

Rupert Murdoch’s cable cabal is now, first and foremost, a political entity. Fox News has transformed itself into the Opposition Party of the Obama White House, which, of course, is unprecedented for a media company in modern-day America. That partisan embrace means the news media have to expand beyond typing up Fox News-ratings-are-up and the White-House-is-angry stories, and it needs to start treating the cable channel for what it is: a partisan animal.
The press needs to drop its longstanding gentleman’s agreement not to write about other news outlets as news players –not to get bogged down in criticizing the competition — because those newsroom rules no longer apply. Fox News has exited the journalism community this year. It’s a purely political player, and journalists ought to start covering it that way.

Boehlert quotes Glen Greenwald’s observation that “Seems like a fairly new phenomenon that we now have a political movement led by a TV “news” outlet — that usually happens elsewhere” and adds,

In a follow-up email to me, Greenwald noted the similarities between Fox News’ overt role in U.S. politics with places like Venezuela, where the opposition TV station led the failed 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, as well as Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a media magnate, uses his TV ownership to agitate. “Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are really using that model to organize and galvanize this protest movement,” wrote Greenwald. “It’s a totally Fox News-sponsored event.”
Completely detached from traditional newsroom standards, Fox News has become a political institution, and the press needs to start treating it that way. The press needs to treat Fox News the same way it treats the Republican National Committee, even though, frankly, the RNC probably can’t match the in-your-face partisanship that Fox News flaunts 24/7. Think about it: Murdoch’s “news” channel now out-flanks the Republican Party when it comes to ceaseless partisan attacks on the White House…in recent years the RNC used to use Fox news to help amplify the partisan raids that national Republicans launched against Democrats. It was within the RNC that the partisan strategy was mapped out and initiated. (i.e. it was the RNC that first pushed the Al-Gore-invented-the-Internet smear). But it was on talk radio and Fox News where the partisan bombs got dropped. Today, that relationship has, for the most part, been inversed. Now it’s within Fox News that the partisan witch hunts are plotted and launched, and it’s the RNC that plays catch-up to Glenn Beck and company.

Need some quantitative verification? Boehlert’s got it.

…The Fox News defense that it’s a just a few on-air pundits who (relentlessly) attack the White House and that the news team still plays it straight is, at this point, a joke. What kind of “news” team, in the span of five days, airs 22 clips of health reform forums featuring only people who oppose reform? What kind of “news” team tries to pass off a GOP press release as its own research — typo and all? What kind of “news” team promotes a partisan political rally? (Or did I miss the 100-plus free ads that CNN aired in 2003 promoting an anti-war rally?)

Boehlert also shares a perceptive quote from a New Yorker article by Hendrick Hertzberg:

This sort of lunatic paranoia — touched with populism, nativism, racism, and anti-intellectualism — has long been a feature of the fringe, especially during times of economic bewilderment. What is different now is the evolution of a new political organism, with paranoia as its animating principle. The town-meeting shouters may be the organism’s hands and feet, but its heart — also, Heaven help us, its brain — is a “conservative” media alliance built around talk radio and cable television, especially Fox News. The protesters do not look to politicians for leadership. They look to niche media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and their scores of clones behind local and national microphones.

Boehlert adds some scary statistics about the beliefs of Fox news viewers and he discusses the limp MSM reportage about Fox — essentially a free ride from some of the more ‘reputable’ national media, which Boehlert persuasively argues is the real scandal. Fox is now the most watched cable news program. But apparently that doesn’t mean Fox’s competitors have the good sense to take them on.

I´ve been something of a skeptic, perhaps even an alarmist, about the idea of dumping decisions on how to design the health care system on the states via some sort of state opt-in or opt-out of the public option, in part because of the likely impact on the 2010 campaign in states across the country, and the impact of the campaign on health care decisions.
Turns out we may be getting a preview of the latter dynamic:

At the final debate of the race last night, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds said he “shared the broad goals” of health care reform, but would “certainly consider opting out” of a public option “if that were available to Virginia.”
“I’m not afraid of going against my fellow Democrats when they’re wrong,” Deeds said. “A public option isn’t required in my view.”

This could become a pretty common line in 2010 if states are indeed asked to figure out the public option and the many related decisions about health care.

As the economy continues to struggle, it´s increasingly obvious that some sort of federal job tax credit may be the only ´´second stimulus package´´ that could gain traction in Congress.
The idea has long attracted conservative support, but lately progressives, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the Economic Policy Institute, have been out in front. It´s popular among some Democrats and economists in part because its costs are dependent on its success (unlike across-the-board tax cuts), and in part because it´s viewed as a way to counteract offshoring of jobs.
EPI has a new job tax credit proposal out, and it´s very focused on designing a credit that is large enough to have an immediate impact, temporary enough to keep its cost relatively low, and efficient enough to avoid corporate freeloading.
If there´s another idea that can serve as the centerpiece of a follow-up to the stimulus legislation, I don´t know what it would be. Waiting for a cyclical economic recovery seems irresponsible, and certainly dangerous to the party controlling the White House and Congress.

One of the most important current conservative political memes is to make George W. Bush a very distant memory, even though he was still Commander in Chief just ten months ago. There are two reasons for this, of course: conservatives want to blame Barack Obama for the policies and conditions he inherited, and they also want to pretend the 43d president’s ideology and policies had nothing to do with what his successors on the Right are promoting today.
Since it it rather difficult to argue on any rational basis that the domestic and international state of the nation was shaped far more by the man who was in the White House for the last eight years than the man who’s barely unpacked, a twist on the “blame card” meme is to suggest that Obama and Democrats are, well, being impolite and cowardly by failiing to suck it up and take responsibility for what they walked into on January 20. A good example is a new column by National Review’s Rich Lowry:

When Obama first burst on the scene, he seemed to respect the other side. That refreshing Obama is long gone. Now, he impugns his immediate predecessor with classless regularity, and attributes the worst of motives – pure partisanship and unrestrained greed – to those who oppose him. Their assigned role is to get the hell out of his way.
The acid test of the White House inevitably exposes a president’s character flaws: Nixon’s corrosive paranoia, Clinton’s self-destructive indiscipline, Bush’s stubborn defensiveness. Obama in the crucible is exhibiting an oddly self-pitying arrogance. It’s unbecoming in anyone, let alone the most powerful man on the planet.

So forget about facts; forget about actual responsibility; forget about justifying a different policy course at home and abroad by explaining why the Bush approach failed so dismally. Obama isn’t a mensch unless he shoulders Bush’s blame, and he must “respect” his opponents by absolving them of responsibility for their own deeds and for the policies of the man they so recently lionized as a world-historical colossus.
There’s little doubt that history will judge the Bush administration as a batch of gambles–from the invasion of Iraq, to the abandonment of ailliances, to the demonization of “enemies” overseas and domestic, to giant regressive tax cuts, to an effort to gut the New Deal legacy, and to a systematic attempt to govern in the most partisan manner possible–that failed. It’s simply wrong to forget all that, even for a moment.

There have obviously been a lot of lies told about health care reform this year, including lies about its provisions, costs and benefits, But as William Galston notes today in The New Republic, there’s a growing temptation among reform advocates to prevaricate a bit too, particularly via the sorts of accounting gimmicks that made the Bush administration notorious. The real problem, says Galston, is the risk of self-deception about the true costs of health reform:

This may strike some readers as a detail, or worse, as a diversion. I don’t think so. We’re already facing an unsustainable fiscal future. The least we can do is to honor the political version of the Hippocratic oath and do no harm. That’s what President Obama has promised. Serious legislators shouldn’t use accounting tricks—such as pushing deficits outside CBO’s scoring windows–to sidestep this pledge.

Yeah, we’ve had enough of that from the bad guys.