It’s become pretty common-place to note that most of the crew looking to run for president as Republicans in 2010 are trying mighty hard to leave no space to their right. By and large, they are churning out red meat to “the base” on every subject that comes up.
The exception, interestingly enough, may be immigration, where the pols haven’t quite kept up with activist demands. The firebrands at NumbersUSA have published a “report card” for proto-candidates on the issues they care about, from opposing “amnesty” to ending “birthright citizenship.” They are not happy with most of the candidates, less because of the positions they’ve taken than because of the controversies they’ve dodged (particularly on ending birthright citizenship and lowering rates of legal as well as illegal immigration).
Chris Christie is given a nice even “F”; Haley Barbour, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich all earn “D-minus” grades; Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee come in at “D.” Then comes Ron Paul at “C-minus.” At the top of the list are Tim Pawlenty at “C-plus” and Michele Bachmann at “B-minus.” Both the Minnesotans have come out for eliminating birthright citizenship.
Barack Obama, of course, is given an “F-Minus,” a hitherto unknown point of depth in the grading scale.
Perhaps falling levels of immigration and competing problems are creating fears among anti-immigrant zealots that their cause, given such a big lift last year by the viral spread of state laws resembling Arizona’s, is on the wane. Or maybe they just want to get the candidates’ attention and get their fair share of pandering. But it’s become a truly crazy conservative world in which even Michele Bachmann can’t win a higher grade than “B-minus” on an issue measuring ideological orthodoxy.

Many of you probably heard about the preliminary 2010 census estimates showing that the trend towards a nonwhite majority population has accelerated. Fortunately for us political junkies, the intrepid Ron Brownstein has already written up an informed glimpse for National Journal of what that might mean for the fate of the two major parties, beginning in 2012.
The relatively high percentage of minority Americans who are not old enough to vote (nearly half of under-18 Americans are from minority groups), and the significant number of Latinos who are not citizens, both mean non-Hispanic white voters will continue to punch above their demographic weight for some time to come. But even so, change is coming rapidly to that picture. Here’s Brownstein’s most important interpretation of the data:

If the minority share of the vote increases in 2012 by the same rate it has grown in presidential elections since 1992, it will rise to about 28 percent nationally. By itself, that could substantially alter the political playing field from 2010, when the minority vote share sagged to just 22 percent. It means that if Obama can maintain, or even come close to, the four-fifths share of minority votes that he won in 2008, he could win a majority of the national popular vote with even less than the 43 percent of whites he attracted last time.

Just as importantly, rapidly rising minority populations are especially notable in key battleground states. Check out these projections:

Obama, for instance, won Florida last time with 42 percent of the white vote; under this scenario, if he maintains his minority support he could win the Sunshine State with just under 40 percent of the white vote. With equal minority support in Nevada, the president could win with only 35 percent of the white vote, down from the 45 percent he garnered in 2008. Likewise, under these conditions, Obama could take Virginia with just 33.5 percent of whites, well down from the 39 percent he captured last time. In New Jersey, his winning number among whites would fall to just over 41 percent (compared with the 52 percent he won in 2008). In Pennsylvania, under these circumstances, 41 percent of white votes would be enough to put the state in Obama’s column, down from the 48 percent he won in 2008.

Brownstein also discusses the possibility that rising minority voting could put states like Texas and Georgia into play, which could have significant tactical implications in a close race even if winning these states is a reach for Obama.
Some analysts, of course, doubt that Obama will be able to replicate his astonishing 2008 performance among minority voters (or the historic turnout of African-Americans) in a less-historic election, and with the burdens of a struggling economy now on his back. Brownstein also runs state-by-state numbers under a scenario where Obama loses about a tenth of his 2008 minority support (roughly the percentage Democrats won in 2010, but with a higher turnout, as is typical in presidential years). Under that scenario, Obama would have to do as well or slightly better among white voters to win most battleground states. But anyway you slice it, the 2012 electorate will be significantly more positive for Democrats than the 2010 electorate, and even somewhat better than the 2008 electorate.
The variable that seems least likely to change between now and November of 2012 is stronger Republican appeal to minorities, given the hard-right trajectory of the GOP on virtually every policy issue, and the now-almost-anonymous hostility of GOP office-holders to comprehensive immigration reform (remember that both the outgoing Bush administration and 2008 GOP nominee John McCain had been conspicuous supporters, at least in the past, of comprehensive reform, which may have prevented an even more catastrophic performance among Latinos). Brownstein concludes by noting that the one thing GOPers could do to help themselves among Latinos is to put one of their number on the national ticket. I’d go further and say Marco Rubio is already a lead-pipe cinch for the vice-presidential nomination if he wants it.
All in all, elections are events in which demographic trends are relative to each other, and one vote equals another. But if a recovering economy and GOP radicalism make it possible for the Democratic ticket to get without shouting distance of its 2008 performance among white voters, demographic change is likely to be strong enough to put Obama back in office for a second term while giving Democrats a good chance at gains in the House and maintenance of control in the Senate. Meanwhile, the less immediate future looks very bright for the Donkey Party unless the Republican Party changes its atavistic ways.

Reports on what is happening with the negotiations over current-year federal appropriations are all over the place, with some suggesting an imminent deal (possibly complicated or even unraveled by revolts from both the left and right in Congress and elsewhere) and others a government shutdown. But a much bigger and more momentous battle is going to begin next Tuesday, when House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan finally unveils his draft long-range budget resolution.
Early indications are that Ryan will not go after Social Security benefits (other than rhetorically), but will really bring the hammer down on Medicaid and Medicare, with the former targeted for a cool trillion in cuts over the next ten years. Given the close connection between Medicaid and health reform, there’s zero question that hammering Medicaid eligibility and benefit levels will represent a collateral attack on “ObamaCare,” not to mention an opportunity to screw those shiftless po’ folks who caused the housing and financial meltdowns and stole the 2008 elections with the help of ACORN.
The overriding rationale for Medicaid cuts will be the program’s impact on state government budgets. Expect lots of talk from Republican governors about the need for “flexibility,” which can be pretty strictly translated as the “flexibility” to cut benefits. Nationally, conservatives have been longing for decades to dump Medicaid beneficiaries, typically through some “block grant” scheme that fixes federal spending at current levels (even though health care costs continue to rise rapidly) and liberates the states to make ends meet by abandoning services and those served. Ryan may propose such a block grant, or perhaps a version of the vouchers he’s already talked about using to “reform” Medicare (a tricky proposition for Medicaid since eligibility and benefit levels vary significantly from state to state, thanks to the “flexibility” already provided to states).
The impending GOP assault on Medicaid is ironic, since the program began back in the early 1960s as an accomodation of a long-standing GOP proposal for health coverage of the poor, its preferred alternative to universal health coverage.
Ryan’s treatment of Medicare will likely get more attention, and will be a lot less transparent, given the political sensitivity of cuts in a program much beloved among the GOP’s increasingly elderly base. For one thing, current beneficiaries will be “grandfathered,” with the brunt of reduced benefits falling on those qualifying for Medicare in a decade or so (this approach, which is also a standard feature of GOP Social Security “reform” schemes, hasn’t much worked in the past, viz. with Bush’s 2005 SocSec proposals).
In general, the budget debate will represent the most thorough-going conservative effort to explode the entire New Deal-Great Society legacy we’ve ever seen. We’ll also find out if Republicans are willing to look seriously at long-range defense budget reductions. The stakes couldn’t be much higher, particularly if you consider that a growing number of conservatives are linking votes for a public debt limit increase to acceptance of their “big ideas” on the budget. Indeed, it may well be that conservatives are switching their planned maximum temper tantrums from the short-term appropriations bill to the long-term budget measures.
I know many progressives are demoralized by the White House’s handling of the appropriations negotiations, and of other issues like Libya. But believe me, the fight that’s about to begin over the budget will make the appropriations wrestling match look like, well, a wrestling match, compared to the open warfare just on the horizon. And no, I do not think there is any significant chance that the president, regardless of his willingness to talk about “entitlement reform,” is going to “cave” and accept a Medicaid block grant or a voucherization of Medicare, particularly if Republicans predictably continue to oppose a restoration of Clinton-era tax rates for the wealthy and insist on repealing health reform.
So get ready for the real budget debate.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
The obvious way to think about Mitt Romney’s chances in 2012 is to revisit his 2008 campaign–what went well, what went poorly, and so on. But circumstances haven’t just changed for Romney since 2008–they’ve more or less inverted. Back then, running against “maverick” John McCain, social-issues heretic Rudy Giuliani, and economic-issues dissenter Mike Huckabee, Romney was essentially the movement conservative candidate in the race. Today, with likely opponents ranging from Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum to Michele Bachmann to Tim Pawlenty to Haley Barbour, Romney seems destined to be the GOP’s most moderate contender. It’s not that Romney himself has “moved to the center” since 2008; it’s more that the Republican Party moved significantly and very self-consciously to the right, and Mitt didn’t quite keep up. The upshot is that his chances in 2012 will be shaped by a very different set of circumstances from the ones he faced last time–for better or, more likely, for worse.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Romney’s new political situation could help him. If Iowa is won by a candidate unacceptable to the party as a whole–say, Michele Bachmann–then his status as the most mainstream candidate in the race could certainly start to look appealing.
But it seems much more likely that Romney’s position as the race’s moderate will greatly reduce his chances. For one thing, there is the matter of endorsements. In 2008, Romney’s status as the only true conservative in the race garnered him a victory in the CPAC straw poll, and endorsements from Jim DeMint, Paul Weyrich, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Robert Bork, Rick Santorum, and the editors of National Review–all people whose opinions carry weight with the Republican base. It’s hard to imagine him winning support from any of those people in 2012.
The bigger problem for Romney, however, is that the mood in the Republican Party at the moment is triumphalist. Movement conservatives believe they have finally conquered the GOP and will soon conquer the country–if they are not sold out by the hated GOP establishment. As Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen observed after reviewing the sharp upward trend in conservative self-identification among Republican voters, “The ideological composition of the GOP at this point is such that it’s probably just flat impossible for someone perceived as a moderate to be their nominee.”
Romney is in a particularly bad position in Iowa, where evangelical voters remain wary of his Mormonism and he suffers from the perception that he tried to buy the caucuses last time around. Indeed, there are signs that he might be planning to skip out on the contest altogether. But if he does, he’ll have to then avoid upsets in New Hampshire and Nevada, and find some way to survive South Carolina and Florida, potentially against a candidate from the South like Gingrich or Barbour. That’s the point at which his inability to run as the “true conservative,” and the doubts about his work on extending health care in Massachusetts, could take a major toll.
At this point Romney just doesn’t have the qualities that would make hundreds of thousands of conservative ideologues excited about his candidacy or trust in his leadership. They know they’ll have to carefully watch him, during the campaign and in office, to keep him from joining the long list of Republican presidents who have betrayed the cause. That’s not what they’ve bargained for in 2012, when the forces of righteousness are due to smite the hated foe and occupy the seats of power.
Many party elites, to be sure, still back Romney for the very reason that, in this new field, he suddenly appears the most “electable” candidate–and serious conservatives will accept him if they must. But given half a chance, they’ll reject him without a moment’s regret, and that’s a handicap few presidential candidates can overcome.

One of the reasons Tim Pawlenty has become something of the insider’s front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is that he enjoys an unusual amount of trust from the anti-abortion lobby, a powerful faction with veto powers over the ticket.
Sure, he’s got the standard-brand down-the-line “Pro-Life” issues positions, and as governor, has had the opportunity to sign plenty of legislation aimed at chipping away at abortion rights and harassing abortion providers and women seeking abortions. But all the putative candidates (unless you consider Rudy Giuliani a real candidate) have similar positions and records, with the only suspects being Mitch Daniels for his infamous recommendation of a “truce” on cultural issues (which has infuriated the Christian Right), and maybe Haley Barbour for once telling Republicans they needed to include pro-choice candidates in their ranks.
So why is Pawlenty considered so solid by these famously untrusting folk? There’s an fascinating hint in a National Review piece by LifeNews CEO Steven Ertelt, which, after summarizing T-Paw’s record and mentioning his appointment of a RTLer to the state Supreme Court, makes this point:

Pawlenty’s strength on judges also comes by way of his wife Mary, who is a former judge herself. Although pro-life voters appreciated the pro-life actions of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush, their wives did not share their pro-life perspective. Mary Pawlenty, an evangelical who attended Bethel College, is a heartfelt pro-life advocate who combines a passion for the unborn with an acute political and legal mind.

So unlike Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush, T-Paw’s wife isn’t going to be whispering any feminist sedition into her husband’s ear, or suggesting that maybe women know best on reproductive issues.

So, are you one of those progressives who is convinced the White House and Democratic congressional leaders are busy getting ready to sell out “the base” on a deal to avoid a government shutdown? If so, you might want to look at what one influential conservative is saying on the heels of reports that House Republicans are talking actively to Democrats as a hedge against conservative defections (and also to anticipate Senate Democratic positions). Here’s RedState’s Erick Erickson crying betrayal:

This is really amazing.
In other words, the House Republicans have decided to reject defunding Obamacare and reject defunding Planned Parenthood and reject defunding NPR. Instead, they will get House Democrats together and marginalize conservatives.
Why?
Because the House GOP is desperately afraid of a government shutdown.
With no spine, the GOP will fold and show no leadership. This is precisely what leadership by fear does. So fearful of a shutdown, the GOP will sell its soul, betray its base, and out negotiate itself all because it is scared of its own shadow.
Game over.

Erickson’s post is remarkable in part because it deploys every cliche known to humankind to convey the belief that ideological heterodoxy is necessarily a matter of cowardice, not some different strategic or tactical approach. Beyond that, though, it’s a reasonably faithful mirror image of what we are hearing from a decent number of progressives who are similiarly convinced Democrats are wandering the battlefield looking for someone to whom to surrender.

Those Americans who simply wanted a direct explanation of how, why and when the United States decided to participate in a military intervention in Libya were probably satisfied with the president’s speech last night at the National Defense University. Those who wanted “clarity” about the future, though–the exact fate of Gaddafi and his regime, and the “precedent” set for future situations–were undoubtedly disappointed, and were more than adequately represented in the immediate carping of pundits and Republican flacks.
FWIW, I posted an insta-analysis of the speech at the Daily Beast, emphasizing that there was little or nothing Obama could do to satisfy his GOP critics or assuage those consumed with the need for “clarity” about an impossible-to-predict future. Indeed, Obama’s rejection of the search for an all-size-fits-all “doctrine” struck me as the heart of the speech; he insists humanitarian interventions, and their terms and durations, inherently involve a case-by-case calculus, not the invocation of some binding precedent.
I don’t get the sense that progressive critics of the Libya intervention were much convinced by the speech, even though Obama tried pretty hard to suggest that the U.S. military role in the intervention has now entered a new and radically smaller phase in support of a NATO-led mission. Perhaps the feeling is that we’ve heard similar reassurances from this and previous administrations on other engagements. But even if it lacked certainty, it should be clear the president took a stance that does not create some endless open-ended commitment in Libya or bind the country to similar interventions (or the disappointment of expectations of interventions) in the future.
The trappings and timing of this speech were unusual, and may have also reflected the White House’s desire to make Libya more of a police action than a war. Or maybe something else was going on. Here’s Salon‘s Alex Pareene:

The speech was on not at television prime time, but at a time that generally belongs to network affiliates. While I thought at first that that was because the White House didn’t want to make this look like a proper presidential address about a proper war (it wasn’t from the Oval Office and all that), but apparently that was just because ABC didn’t want them preempting Dancing With the Stars. And the networks immediately cut to their regular programming. For some reason on NBC that involved Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush listening to Kid Rock. It was… weird.

Are you still puzzled by the extremist rhetoric of Republican pols in this era of domination by the Tea Party Movement (a.k.a., the GOP’s radicalized conservative base)?
A new 13-state survey from the University of Washington’s Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality finds some especially illuminating characteristics of self-identified Tea Party folk that helps explain the unusual heat of their political utterances. Asked if they subscribed to the proposition that “Barack Obama is destroying the country,” 71% of Tea Party Conservatives said “yes” while only 6% of other conservatives agreed.
The 6% represent the kind of conservatives who were until recently typical in the Republican Party–perhaps deeply convinced their opponents were terribly wrong about all sorts of things, but not really believing the whole country was going to hell in a handbasket. This essentially reflects the difference between people who view themselves as part of a democratic conversation over the future direction of America, and people who have adopted a separatist and proto-revolutionary posture.
Never underestimate what the latter group is capable of doing.

As you probably know, former congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first (and to this day the only Democratic) woman to appear on a major-party presidential ticket, died this weekend. Her renown was limited by the dismal performance of the Mondale-Ferraro ticket in 1984 (which was by no means significantly her fault), by the chronic aroma of scandal that pervaded her husband’s business career, and by several post-1984 political missteps, culminating in her brief role as Fox News’ favorite PUMA in 2008.
You can read all sorts of assessments of Ferraro’s life, career, and significance. But my favorite is Adele Stan’s memoir at TAP of what she meant to a young feminist from a working-class ethnic Catholic background much like Ferraro’s.
The barrier she broke really mattered, and her memory continues to serve as a reproach to the Democratic Party for its failure to nominate a woman to its national ticket since then–or to the top spot, ever.

At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen has done an important post on the rise of radical anti-public-school sentiment among conservatives.
The belief that public education is an illegitimate exercise was until recently a rare fringe phenomenon mainly confined to the more tedious of libertarians, to home-schoolers angry at having to pay school taxes, and to occasional outbursts from Jim DeMint.
Now hostility to public schools is breaking out all over:

[T]his talk is picking up in right-wing media. CNSNews’ Terry Jeffrey argued a few weeks ago, “It is time to drive public schools out of business.” Townhall columnist Chuck Norris has begun calling public schools “indoctrination camps.” Townhall columnist Bill Murchison argued last week that the American middle class has pulled its support for public education.

And in Iowa, probable 2012 presidential candidates are pandering to home-schoolers, a significant force in Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Caucus win in the state, by attacking public schools.
This does not, of course, mean there’s any immediate threat to the future of public education, but this new spirit of conservative radicalism does make it a lot easier for Republican politicians to take less radical but still destructive positons on the subject, from attacks on federal funding to equalize educational opportunities, to private school voucher initiatives, to efforts to break teachers unions. After all, if a sizable and influential portion of your party’s electoral base cheers proposals to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education as a way-station to elimination of state and local government support for schools, why not throw them a dog whistle more often?
Given the massive public support for public education, exposing the growing radicalism of the GOP on this issue is both a responsibility and an opportunity for Democrats. Retaking the mantle of genuine “school reform” aimed at improving the performance of public schools would, of course, help boost Democrats’ credibility to do so.