Today in Ohio Barack Obama announced that he would promote a much more robust initiative than George W. Bush to involve faith-based organizations in anti-poverty and other worthy public works, while insisting that public funds not be used to proselytize or discriminate.
As Steve Benen explains, there was some initial confusion due to a wire story–quickly corrected by the Obama campaign–that Obama would not insist on non-discrimination in the hiring and firing of staff for publicly-funded services.
And that clarification won’t satisfy those who believe that public dollars should not be extended to any organization, religious or ortherwise, that discriminates in any of its activities, however remote from publicly-funded activities.
It hasn’t drawn as much initial attention as the discrimination issue, but Obama also made it clear that recipients of public dollars under his initiative would be required to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs. That proviso was undoubtedly motivated by the widespread perception that much of Bush’s faith-based dollars were distributed as ill-disguised payoffs to ministers who supported the administration’s broader political and policy goals.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 11: If Biden “Steps Aside” and Harris Steps Up, There Should Be No Falloff in Support
At New York I discussed and tried to resolve one source of anxiety about a potential alternative ticket:
One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.
Apparently, under Obama’s proposal, you can also discriminate against gay people with U.S. taxpayer money, as long as you’re in a state and municipality that affords gays no legal protections:
“And while Bush supports allowing all religious groups to make any employment decisions based on faith, Obama proposes allowing religious institutions to hire and fire based on religion only in the non-taxpayer-funded portions of their activities — consistent with current federal, state, and local laws. ”That makes perfect sense,” he said.
Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring choices based on sexual orientation in the federally funded portion of the programs, he said he would support those being applied.”
If there are no such state or local laws, there are no similar strings of the federal money. So in Nebraska, you can take my federal tax dollars, and tell any gay applicants willing to work for those tax dollars to go away and — literally — go to hell.
I think the confusion relates to the distinction I made in the post between non-discrimination in publicly funded projects, and non-discrimination elsewhere. Looks to me like Obama will insist on the former, but not the latter. But presumably evidence of the latter would create a red flag requiring exceptional scrutiny of the former.
One way to resolve this (as indeed, has long been the case with Catholic hospitals and charities) is to require recipients of public money to set up separate organizations for the publicly-funded projects, to ensure that money doesn’t “leak” over to activities not covered by non-discrimination rules. But I gather this is considered a burden for many very small FBOs.
Thanks for the comment.
Ed Kilgore
It’s interesting that although Obama claims he wouldn’t allow employment discrimination, a member of his campaign credible enough to be quoted by the AP says that he DOES plan to allow it. I wonder if the latter is a previously agreed-upon fallback position, and Obama’s cover (as usual) will be the need to “compromise for the greater good.” The Salvation Army is on record as wanting an exemption from local anti-discrimination law so that it won’t have to hire any homosexuals. No need even to go into the Boy Scouts situation. The main (perhaps the only) effect of not requiring grantees to pledge employment non-discrimination would probably be on gay people. They’re the only minority anybody claims to have a RELIGIOUS objection to hiring. Even Christian evangelicals make common cause now with Jews.
This entire endorsement of Bush’s policy of chipping away at the separation of Church and State is so disappointing to me that I notice with great interest Taegan Goddard’s site (which takes note of everything else political that gets a headline anywhere) hasn’t touched it with a ten foot pole. Unless he plans on writing a long piece on it, he’s just ignoring it. Speaking of Taegan Goddard’s site, you’re allowed to call Barney Frank a “fudge fan” there without getting deleted, but when I posted something about the faith-based policy under a non-germane thread, it was gone instantly.