At a time when it seems most elections have been “nationalized,” it’s worth noting that local factors can have a major impact on individual contests. That’s being demonstrated by an incident in the red-hot competitive Alabama gubernatorial race.
Tim James, a Republican candidate closely associated with the Christian Right, has been struggling to get into a runoff position against “establishment” candidate Bradley Byrne. James recently got a boost from an infamous Fred Davis’ “viral” ad that fed the post-Arizona immigration frenzy among Republicans by attacking Alabama’s system of allowing driver’s tests in languages other than English. A new R2K/DKos poll of Alabama shows James moving up and challenging “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore for a runoff spot.
But now James is dealing with a problem that is distinctive to Alabama: reports that he’s said he’d fire or cut the salary of Nick Saban, the coach of the reigning National Championship Alabama Crimson Tide football team. The rumor is apparently based on a remark–which might well have been a joke–the candidate made to a University of Alabama student newspaper. But its power is evidenced by the James’ campaign’s official denials, and the prominence the “issue” has acheived in the primary that will be held on June 1. It has added salience because James’ candidacy owes a lot to the legacy of his father, former Gov. Fob James, who was a star football player at Auburn (the school Tim James also attended).
A Georgia-based college football blogger hilariously referred to this “issue” as “the third rail of Alabama politics.” But in a close primary contest in a state where college football is a quasi-religious phenomenon, that may not be much of an exaggeration.

Before we move on from the controversy over Rand Paul’s comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s important to understand that controversy over his political philosophy is likely to persist. And ironically, that’s especially true if the accusations of active or latent racism on Paul’s part are completely unfair.
If Paul’s original observations on the Civil Rights Act were motivated by indifference to discrimination against minorities, or the conviction some conservatives share that any government action to protect minorities is itself racism, then the controversy is limited to this one topic. In that case, the damage is limited to those voters who care about civil rights, many of whom will not be voting for Rand Paul in Kentucky or Republicans anywhere else.
But if, as his defenders insist (and as the record seems to support), Paul is simply expressing the consistent view that the operations of free markets, not government, are the best guarantor of individual rights in general and the interests of the poor and minorities in particular, and that the U.S. Constitution, rightly interpreted, reflects this conviction, then other, equally controversial issues may come into play, and not just those that involve other types of discrimination.
Most immediately, it’s worth remembering that principled, non-racist opponents of civil rights laws have to accept responsibility for their tacit alliances with racists. Best I can tell, Barry Goldwater did not have a prejudiced bone in his body. But there can be zero doubt that thanks to his “principled” opposition to the Civil Rights Act, his 1964 presidential campaign was totally dominated by segregationists in five of the six states he carried in the General Election, and served as the “bridge” whereby segregationists eventually migrated from the Democratic to the Republican party. At some point, the subjective motivation of civil rights opponents, past, present or future, becomes rather irrelevant.
But more importantly, Rand Paul’s concerns with the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act suggest a radical outlook with political implications that go far beyond civil rights. After all, the provisions of the Civil Rights Act that limit the right to discriminate by private property owners depend on the same chain of “activist” Supreme Court decisions that made possible the major New Deal and Great Society initiatives, involving interpretations of the General Welfare, Commerce and Spending clauses that today’s (like yesterday’s) “constitutional conservatives” routinely deplore. Rand Paul’s campaign platform reflects the common Tea Party demand that the federal government be restricted to the specific enumerated powers spelled out in the Constitution. This constitutional fundamentalism, which appears to object to every expansion of federal power enacted since 1937, is made more explicit by Rand and Ron Paul’s friends in the Constitution Party, which forthrightly calls Social Security unconstitutional and demands that it be phased out immediately.
So: instead of challenging Rand Paul’s latest backtracking on the Civil Rights Act, or calling him racist, progressives would be better advised to corner him on his attitude towards the constitutionality of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which, like the Civil Rights Act, reflect functions of the federal government that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.
Add in the fact that Rand Paul has been calling for an immediate balancing of the federal budget without tax cuts, which would require some drastic action on federal spending, and it becomes plain that his honest and principled (at least up until his flip-flop on the Civil Rights Act) efforts to apply “constitutional conservative” doctrines to current affairs imply policies that when spelled out would repel many, many voters–just like Goldwater’s platform in 1964.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the past views and associations of new Republican superstar Rand Paul all come to light, but he’s currently on track to serve as the living link between all sorts of older forms of radical conservatism and the contemporary Tea Party movement. Indeed, it appears that his Lester Maddox-ish instincts about the supremacy of private property rights could be the least of his problems. Now it transpires that just last year he was guest speaker at an event held by the Constitution Party.
Now this is hardly a surprise, since his old man has long been friends with CP founder Howard Phillips, and endorsed that party’s presidential candidate in 2008. But most people don’t know much about the CP, which combines limited-government conservatism with the peculiar doctrines of Christian Reconstructionists, for which a simpler term is Theocrats. And no, I’m not using “Theocrats” as an insult, but as a technical description of what they support.
Here, right off the Constitution Party’s web page, are the opening words of its party platform:

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.
This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

What the Constitution Party means by “Constitutonal boundaries” is made clearer in the later sections of its platform, particularly this section:

Social Security is a form of individual welfare not authorized in the Constitution.
The Constitution grants no authority to the federal government to administrate a Social Security system. The Constitution Party advocates phasing out the entire Social Security program, while continuing to meet the obligations already incurred under the system.

Do you suppose Rand Paul would like to go on Rachel Maddow’s show and discuss the constitutionality of Social Security or the Dominion of Jesus Christ and His Believers over the United States? Probably not. Theocracy and abolishing Social Security don’t poll well. And maybe he doesn’t actually believe this stuff, but simply enjoys the company of extremists.
But Paul does not have some sort of inherent right to pose as a victim when he own words and his own associations come back to haunt him. And I suspect we are just at the tip of that particular iceberg.
UPDATE: Clearly, Rand Paul wants to stay in the news. He’s just been quoted defending BP from “un-American” attacks by the Obama administration.

So welcome to the Big Time, Rand Paul! Fresh from his primary victory on Tuesday, the Kentucky Tea Party idol managed to tie himself into knots on Rachel Maddow’s show last night under questioning about past remarks doubting the wisdom of the public accomodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This morning he “clarified” his remarks and then started blasting Maddow and his critics, as conservatives across the chattering classes characterized this unforced error as a “smear” of poor innocent Paul.
In better news for the son of Ron, Rasmussen released the first post-primary poll of the Kentucky Senate race, and showed an astounding 25-point lead for Paul over Jack Conway. Rasmussen, of course, has been known to find Republican support at levels higher than any other pollster, particularly in Kentucky (a pre-primary poll showed Paul up by 14 points over Conway, when other polls showed a close race). Nate Silver wrote up some pretty good reasons why Rasmussen may have gotten this is a little wrong, mostly relating to the traditional problem that robo-polls often produce skewed response rates based on the enthusiasm of the respondent, which is a particularly bad practice when you’re doing a snap poll in the wake of a big and much-hyped primary win.
All in all, it was an up-and-down day for the Republican Senate nominee, but he best start getting his story straight, because it doesn’t require the analytical or rhetorical skills of a Rachel Maddow to deduce that the man has some beliefs that are not within shouting distance of the political mainstream. I can’t wait for the first time an interviewer demands to know exactly how he would immediately balance the federal budget without tax increases.

I don’t have too much to add to J.P. Green’s analysis of the May 18 primaries. But here are a few thoughts:
(1) Blanche Lincoln failed to win without a runoff because she didn’t do nearly well enough in her old House district (the 1st, which is NE Arkansas) to offset a virtual drubbing in the 4th CD (southern Arkansas). She actually won Pulaski County (Little Rock), Bill Halter’s home town, very comfortably, and won throughout NW Arkansas. Since my own pre-primary analysis suggested that a large undecided African-American vote might be the key, it’s worth noting that the 4th and 1st districts have, respectively, the highest (24%) and next highest (19%) African-American population percentages. Without exit polls or precinct level data, it’s hard to say this is why Lincoln failed to win, but it looks like that might be the case, particularly since the black vote was tilting towards Halter in pre-primary polls. If so, this could be a danger sign for Halter in the runoff, since African-Americans traditionally don’t participate in southern runoff elections in anything like a proportionate manner. Otherwise, the runoff dynamics definitely favor the challenger, particularly if labor’s financial involvement on Halter’s behalf continues.
(2) The CW is that in Jack Conway KY Democrats nominated the stronger candidate against Rand Paul. That could well be true, though Dan Mongiardo’s regional strength in Eastern Kentucky, a traditionally Republican area where hard-core conservatives often struggle, might have posed some special problems for Paul.
(3) In retrospect, Arlen Specter’s long Senate career has been a continuing minor miracle. This is a guy who has managed over the course of decades to deeply alienate both liberals and conservatives, and he’s also known as one of the least attractive personalities in Washington, which is saying a lot. To survive after a party-switch would have been truly incredible.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
In a night of big political developments, the one that will echo for some time is the victory by Rand Paul in the Kentucky Republican Senate primary. Why? Well, for one thing, it’s not often that someone leapfrogs a still-active and very famous congressional father to get a short track to the U.S. Senate. While it may have been over the top to speculate about a “Paul Dynasty,” as one writer did following a quirky Rasmussen poll in April that showed Ron Paul running even with Obama in 2012, the story of Paul père et fils is a definite crowd-pleaser.
Just as importantly, Rand Paul’s win over State Treasurer Trey Grayson epitomizes the major themes that are emerging around the 2010 elections. (Unlike, say, victories by more “politically safe” candidates like Indiana’s Dan Coats.) Let’s review them :
(1) 2010 is the year that insurgents and outsiders overturn incumbents. Rand Paul is the ultimate outsider. An opthamologist who hasn’t run for office before, he set out to battle Grayson, who’s in his second term as a statewide elected official. And the Paul brand screams insurgent: Rand’s old man ran the entire 2008 presidential race as an outsider heading up a movement of outsiders. Rand Paul didn’t beat an incumbent senator—in fact, the incumbent senator in Kentucky, Jim Bunning, endorsed him—but it was Trey Grayson who looked like an establishmentarian, after he received endorsements from Dick Cheney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(2) 2010 is the year of the Tea Party. Sure, other major Republican candidates this year have worn the Tea Party label—but they haven’t done so very well. TP favorites lost the Republican Senate primaries in Illinois and Indiana. Scott Brown, who got into office with Tea Party help, quickly turned out to be a moderate Republican. And even Marco Rubio of Florida has declined to follow the Tea Party faithful into a potentially suicidal endorsement of Arizona’s new immigration law. Paul, on the other hand, is a true outsider with sterling ideological bona fides. His win embodies the kind of success that Tea Party folk hope to achieve.
(3) 2010 is “about” fiscal conservatism and little else. Paul is a nice example of the trend—real or imagined—in which economic issues have eclipsed concerns about social and foreign policy among Tea Partiers and conservatives. He brushed off Grayson’s efforts to make the primary turn on abortion or foreign policy: Republican voters apparently didn’t care that Rand’s “cuckoo” views about national security are far outside the post-9/11 GOP mainstream. (On his campaign website, the section on “National Defense” focuses heavily on border security, while its foreign policy content is limited to attacks on the U.N., the IMF, and the World Bank.) Meanwhile, Paul has been relentlessly radical on fiscal issues—demanding an immediate balanced budget, for example—despite Grayson’s warnings that Kentuckians will lose all their federal goodies with a guy like Paul representing them in the Senate.
You can see why the media will treat Rand Paul as an icon of the political times between now and November—and beyond that, if he wins (he has quite a lead in general election polls). But even more importantly: Beyond the short-term buzz of 2010, Rand Paul’s victory illustrates some deeper truths about latter-day conservatism and the Republican Party.
For one thing, Rand Paul didn’t draw on help from independent voters to execute his conquest of Grayson and McConnell. The primary that Paul just won was closed, and Kentucky also cut off changes in party registration for this primary back in December. So, if Paul’s victory represents a humiliating defeat for the Republican establishment, it was a defeat inflicted by Republicans themselves, not by the traditional independents who back “insurgents” like Ross Perot.
Furthermore, there’s evidence that Paul’s victory was driven by a trend that’s been going on in the GOP for decades, long before it occurred to anyone to brandish tea bags: the effort by “movement conservatives” to take over the GOP and root out heresy. Certainly, the endorsements that Paul won from Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint—and from Christian Right warhorse James Dobson, who originally endorsed Grayson—reinforce that impression. And check out this nugget from PPP’s pre-election survey of Kentucky Republicans:

A Paul victory will be a clear signal that Kentucky Republicans want the party to move further to the right. 32% of likely primary voters think the party is too liberal and Paul has a 71-21 lead with them that accounts for almost his entire polling lead.

This sort of finding raises the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement, for all its professions of populism and independence, is in many respects just a radicalized segment of the conservative GOP base (see John Judis’s new TNR piece for a learned discussion of that proposition). But whatever the “story” of conservatism turns out to be in retrospect, Rand Paul is likely to figure prominently, and colorfully, in that tale.

From time to time TDS publishes “strategy white papers” that provide an in-depth analysis of major strategic issues facing the Democratic Party and its leaders. Today we are publishing a new strategy white paper by Andrew Levison, whose study of white-working-class voters dates back all the way to the 1970s.
Levison’s study begins by isolating non-college-educated white voters who are not attracted to the Tea Party Movement, but who are rapidly trending Republican, as an important strategic target for Democrats in 2010 and particularly in 2012. He then examines the often-heard proposition that a strong anti-corporate “populist” message is the key to attracting these voters, and finds it lacking in terms of the strong anti-government and anti-politics sentiments that have become an entrenched factor in the world views of many non-college educated voters in recent years. He instead suggests a comprehensive message of “government reform” that addresses the legitimate and perceived concerns of those white working class voters who are still open to persuasion, and that contextualizes progressive policy proposals in a way that makes them far more acceptable to skeptics of government and politics.
Levison’s paper, which draws on the extensive academic literature on the white working class, along with public opinion research, communications theory and sociological findings, provides, we believe, something of a landmark on a subject of perennial interest to progressives, and of considerable urgency given today’s political landscape. It also constitutes a good antidote to oversimplified media discussions of the Tea Party Movement and of “populism,” by looking at what non-college-educated voters actually think and how they process information on politics and government. It is well worth the time it takes to read, digest, and we hope, discuss with others.

The headline at Politico, under a banner that says “Turbulent Tuesday,” kinda says it all: “Sex, lies and primaries: Oh my!”
The “primaries” part of today’s political news was expected, of course, and if you’re behind the curve on those, you can read my pithy toughts here and here and here. (You should also check out J.P. Green’s item on the special House election in Pennsylvania). The only thing I have to add is that turnout in Pennsylvania and Kentucky seems to be light; the former is probably bad news for Arlen Specter.
The “sex” part of the day’s festivities involves Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, a long-time “family values” conservative Republican who announced he was resigning his seat after his chief of staff confronted him with anonymous tips that he was having an affair with a part-time staffer. The staffer in question, who, like Souder, was married to someone else, was originally hired in 2004 to co-host a Souder radio show on a Christian station back home in Indiana. Souder did say the affair with the woman was “mutual,” which is apparently his way of saying “consensual.” His decision to resign rather than simply retiring at the end of the year was probably motivated by a desire to avoid an ethics investigation by the House, since having sex with House employees is very much against the rules.
As you might recall, Souder, a class of 1994 veteran, narrowly won renomination two weeks ago after fending off a challenge from a wealthy car dealer. Now Souder has plunged Hoosier Republicans into a complex scenario where they will have to hold a special election and also select a nominee for November. There’s some talk already that unsuccessful Senate candidate and hard-core-conservative favorite Marlin Stutzman could get one or the other nod.
Okay, that’s today’s sex news; on the “lies” front, Connecticut was roiled today by a New York Times story indicating that Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the odds-on favorite to succeed Chris Dodd in the Senate, has on at least a couple of occasions suggested erroneously that he fought in Vietnam (he actually served stateside in the Marine Reserves during the Vietnam War, after receiving a series of deferments). Blumenthal held a press conference today, and surrounded by veterans’ representatives, defiantly said he hadn’t done anything wrong beyond “misspeaking on occasion,” and pointedly did not indicate any intention rethinking of his Senate bid. The DSCC announced it was standing by its candidate.
Connecticut Democrats, as it happens, are holding their nominating convention this weekend. Thus they will have a few days to assess the damage and decide whether they want to go ahead with Blumenthal or find another candidate from their deep bench in the state.
Yeah, it’s been a rather turbulent day!