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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

J.P. Green

Roberts Court Thwarts Economic Fairness

One of the conclusions you get from Jedediah Purdy’s Democracy post “The Roberts Court v. America” is that the Democrats were too hasty in confirming the current CJ and the other conservative justices.
Subtitled “How the Roberts Supreme Court is using the First Amendment to craft a radical, free-market jurisprudence,” Purdy paints a disturbing portrait of a court majority dedicated to gratifying wealthy elites at the expense of working people. Most Dems were generally aware of this, but Purdy’s report should heighten concern about the future of economic progress in America under a High Court dedicated to de-regulation. As Purdy summarizes the philosophy of the current High Court:

In the last few years, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have shown a new hostility toward laws that regulate the economy and try to limit the effects of economic power. They have declared a series of laws unconstitutional, most famously limits on corporate campaign spending (the Supreme Court) and a key part of Congress’s 2010 health-care reform act (among others the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta; the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the coming year)… and struck down other state laws that try to constrain the effect of wealth on elections. These decisions don’t just trim around the edges of regulation: They go to the heart of whether government can act to balance out private economic power in an era of growing economic inequality and insecurity. These decisions chime with some of the more troubling themes of the time. They fit well with the economics-minded idea that most of life is best seen as a marketplace, and with the right-wing mistrust of government that has metastasized into Tea Party contempt and anger.
Liberals have denounced many of these decisions, but they have not yet spelled out the larger pattern. What’s missing from the criticism is a picture of what these cases add up to: an identity for the Roberts Court as the judicial voice of the idea that nearly everything works best on market logic, that economic models of behavior capture most of what matters, and political, civic, and moral distinctions mostly amount to obscurantism and special pleading.

The author believes the current court is headed in the direction of the “Lochner era,” named for an emblematic case which in which the Supreme Court of 1905 launched an era of some 200 decisions bashing worker rights and undermining economic fairness to benefit the already-wealthy, laying the foundation for unfettered corporate abuse. “The new cases have different doctrinal logic, and the economy has changed vastly, but the bottom lines are eerily alike: giving constitutional protection to unequal economic power in the name of personal liberty.”
Purdy sketches the ideological underpinnings of the Roberts Court:

The Supreme Court’s several-pronged attack on the regulation of spending, selling, and buying reinforces one of the most persistent and pernicious intellectual mistakes of the time…the idea that markets are natural phenomena, arising from their own organic principles and free human action, while politics and lawmaking are artificial interferences with this natural activity. In fact, as sophisticated economists, lawyers, and others have always understood, markets are the products of law, which defines and enforces the ownership and exchanges that set the market in motion. A laissez-faire market arises from one kind of law, a more social-democratic market from another. There are things to say for and against both kinds of markets, and any real-life economy has complex blends of both elements–for instance, minimum-wage laws, bans on racial discrimination and prostitution, speed and weight limits for long-haul truckers, and so forth are all straightforward limits on laissez-faire market freedom. It is obscurantist to suggest that some version of the laissez-faire market is a natural baseline, and anything that departs from it needs special justification…

Of recent decisions by the Roberts majority, Purdy adds,

That is the spirit of the new cases. Taken to their limit, they would set aside the intellectual and political gains of decades of struggle in the twentieth century: the New Deal recognition that the country must take responsibility for shaping its own economy, and the decision to remove the old American romance with economic libertarianism from constitutional judging…The new jurisprudence shares some special features with the old–in particular, a meshing of constitutional principle with economic libertarianism that calls into question the authority of democratic government to shape markets and, above all, check economic power.

Regarding the upcoming deliberations on HCR, Purdy writes, “The most extreme scenario would begin with invalidating the 2010 Affordable Care Act, but, win or lose, the mere fact that there is a viable constitutional argument against the law is a sign of how far the new economic libertarianism has gone.” Regarding elections and spending, he writes “It is in this market-fixated climate that courts can declare that spending is speech, advertisement is argument, and the transfer of marketing data is a core concern of the First Amendment.”
President Obama was able to get Justices Sotomayor and Kagan confirmed. But now the Senate Republicans are about blocking all Obama court appointments. If the Republicans win, Dems should put Republican court nominees, and particularly their economic philosophy, through more intense scrutiny. One more free market ideologue on the court, and reforms like the minimum wage, health and safety regulation and all remaining elements of the social and economic safety net will all be endangered, if not shredded.
Of course, the term “Robert’s Court” somewhat disses the four liberal/moderate court justices, who may be in the majority on occasion. There is also an argument that one more reactionary Supreme Court Justice won’t make such a big difference. But a 6-3 High Court would prolong the rule of the ‘free’ market purists, potentially for decades longer than the current 5-4 conservative majority.
Progressives have been fairly vigilant in monitoring the records of Court nominees with respect to their views on abortion, gun control, Gay marriage, prayer in school and all of the social issues. But it’s clear that Dems have been too lax in giving conservative court nominees a free ride on their economic philosophies, which are proving hugely consequential to America’s future.
There’s lots more in Purdy’s article that Dems should read to better understand what’s at stake in the November elections. But if political moderates needed just one good reason to vote Democratic in 2012, Purdy’s got it.


Political Strategy Notes

A majority, 58 percent of Americans want Congress to enact the payroll tax reduction, with 35 percent wanting it to expire, according to a new Associated Press-GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications poll conducted 12/8-12. “Letting the payroll tax break expire would cost a family making $50,000 about $1,000…If an agreement is not reached by the end of the year, payroll taxes will jump on Jan. 1 from this year’s 4.2 percent back to their normal level of 6.2 percent,” explains Laurie Kellman in her AP report. It’s not just Dems who support the extension, she notes: “Republicans were evenly divided,” while “Conservatives supported an extension, 54 percent to the 42 percent who prefer to let the reduction expire.”
It must be done. Think of it as basic training for Democratic warriors, this exploratory journey via AmericanCrossroadsWatch.org through the rancid belly of the beast.
Paul Waldman’s “Is the GOP Base Willing to Lose in 2012?” explores the interesting question also raised by Ed Kilgore about whether the ‘true believers’ are OK with Obama winning re-election — provided they get control of the Republican Party.
You go, guy.
Dems have been saying all along that unemployment compensation benefits the entire economy, as well as the jobless. And a new study by Mark Zandi and Alan Binder flagged at Demos finds that “UI has been one of the most effective forms of stimulus…Each dollar spent on extended UI benefits produced $1.61 in economic activity and has helped to mitigate the worst effects of the economic down turn…According to study by the Economic Policy Institute, letting extended benefits expire as a result of the debt ceiling deal will take $70 billion out of the economy in 2012, reduce GDP by 0.4 percent, and result in 528,000 fewer jobs.”
There are serious questions that should be answered about Ron Paul’s racial attitudes (audio clip here), but at least he’s transparent about his reactionary views on Medicare.
On the racism issue, Michael Tomasky speculates at the Daily Beast about Paul’s share of the youth vote: “I wonder what these young and gender-transcendent and differently melanined people would make, for example, of the racism charges. There is debate on this point, but back during the 2008 campaign, The New Republic’s James Kirchick tracked down old copies (late 1980s and early 1990s) of a newsletter that went out to subscribers under Paul’s name. The sentences that appear in these documents are so astonishing that they’d have stood out in Alabama in 1960…The name of New York City should be changed to “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” or “Lazyopolis.” David Duke’s near-win in the 1990 Louisiana Senate primary was celebrated. Mountains of material about welfare cheats and animals and arming oneself for the coming race riot and so on.”
Good news in The Keystone State — Obama up 10 points since August.
Public Policy Polling also has welcome news for the white house: “PPP has polled Virginia four times in 2011 and has come to the same conclusion every time: Barack Obama just hasn’t slipped there to the extent he has nationally. That’s a finding with major, major implications for his reelection prospects because if he wins Virginia he’s probably going to win the Electoral College…and our polling in the state over the course of the year has certainly suggested he’s in a good position to do it. Right now we find Obama on positive ground in the state with 48% of voters approving of him to 47% who disapprove…in Virginia he has a very strong base behind him…Obama leads both Mitt Romney (48-42) and Newt Gingrich (50-43) by margins comparable to his 6 point victory over John McCain in 2008. He leads both of them with independents- Romney by 4 and Gingrich by 8. And between the two match ups he’s picking up as many Republicans as he’s losing Democrats, again something we just aren’t seeing in very many places.” (Full results, cross tabs here)
Check out these interesting maps of five possible paths to 270 electoral votes for Obama.
Massimo Calabresi reports at Time Swampland on “Texas Trifecta: Control of Presidency, Congress and Courts May Be at Stake in Redistricting Fight,” and he does it with way-cool, jazzy maps. In addition to four new congressional seats at stake, the fight over the legality of the redistricting plan threatens to delay the TX primary from Super Tuesday, (March 6) to May 29, “nearly three extra months of expensive and damaging intra-party attacks between GOP candidates.”


Political Strategy Notes

It’s not easy, being a Mighty Job-Creator, especially when Kevin Drum is on the case, challenging the conservatives’ central meme in his Alternet post, “Rich People DON’T Create Jobs: 6 Myths That Have to Be Killed for Our Economy to Live.”
John Sides has a reminder at The American Prospect about “More Hype about Political Independents.” Sides grouses about a new Third Way report about independents which has “No acknowledgment of the fact that most of them lean toward a party and tend to vote loyally for that party. Or that presidential candidates routinely lose independents but win elections (at least the popular vote). See Jimmy Carter, Al Gore in 2000, and George W. Bush in 2004…”
Alyssa Battistoni’s “5 Anti-Environment Policies Republicans Don’t Want You To Notice” at Mother Jones should be of interest to Dems looking for an edge with green voters.
Fredreka Schouten of USA TODAY Politics has an update on the Republican war on early voting and the resistance to it. As for the motivation, Schouten makes it clear enough: “Overall, 34% of voters in the 2008 general election cast ballots before Election Day, up from 22.2% four years earlier, according to data from the Associated Press and Edison Research…In Florida, 54% of African-American voters cast their ballots early in the 2008 general election, and blacks made up nearly a third of statewide turnout the Sunday before Election Day, when some black churches organized a “Get Your Souls to the Polls” voter drive…”
This looks like fun, flagged and plugged by Digby.
Give Steve Kornacki’s Salon.com post, “When Cooter Took on Newt” a read. Kornacki interviews Ben Jones, a two-term Democratic congressman/Dukes of Hazard actor who whipped Republican Pat Swindall and did battle with Gingrich, and got soundly trounced by redistricting more than anything else. Jones, one of the savvier Newt-watchers calls Gingrich “a great demagogue. He has the ability to fire people up and appeal to the worst in them…I’ve known presidents of the United States, and foreign potentates, and real big-shot movie producers and actors. Newt is the only one who I thought really considered himself to be an important world figure – a transformative sort of historical figure. I mean, he has that image of himself…If anything is ever going to galvanize the Democratic Party, which is somewhat dispirited at this point, it would be a Newt Gingrich candidacy.”
The New Republic staff has a round-up of establishment Republicans dumping on Newt (They forgot to include Peggy Noonan). Call me paranoid, but there is something about the timing of the GOP old guard attacks that smells a little, well, concerted. The assault on Newt has a desperate “save Romney” feel about it. The prudent wing of the GOP is clearly worried.
Nate Silver goes kinda long on “Jon Huntsman’s Path to Victory“. I don’t see it happening (Huntsman doesn’t bring enough crazy for the 2011 GOP), but an interesting read nonetheless.
Suzi Parker’s “2012 Political Online Ad Tsunami Coming” at US News Politics reports on a new development that could transform political advertising: “CampaignGrid, a Washington-based tech company, has figured out how to hyper-target any website a registered voter visits and drop in political ads aimed directly at the user.” They’ve got a data base of 135 million registered voters, and yes, it’s done with cookies.
At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky ponders “Could Obama Be Headed for a Landslide?” Tomasky cites recent polls showing Obama narrowly beating Gingrich and Romney in SC and leading well outside the margin of error in FL, while Republican Governors of both states are tanking like leaden koi.
Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network also sees cause for Democratic optimism in his post, “A Year Out, The National Landscape Is Changing.” As Rosenberg notes, “President Obama is Stronger, Romney Weaker – President Obama is beating Mitt Romney in a direct head to head, 49% to 43%, up from 46%/44% in October. This puts Obama almost at 50, and at the same margin of victory as his landslide victory in 2008…Going deeper into the data there are many examples one can find of unexpected Obama strengths and surprising early Romney weakness. 64 percent say that Obama has performed better or just about as expected. On basic favorability, his number is net positive, 45/40. In all the measures about favorability and enthusiasm, Romney fares much worse than President Obama…”


GOP Still Clueless About Resentment of Inequality

In his New York Times opinion piece, “Let’s Not Talk About Inequality,” Thomas B. Edsall does a good job of tracing the change in public attitudes toward Republican economic policies in the wake of the 2008 meltdown.
Edsall quotes Gingrich’s and Romney’s pious pronouncements about workers needing to “become more employable” (Newt) and achieving “success and rewards through hard work” (Mitch), which is a little hard to digest, coming from a guy who gets six figures for a speech and another who made his fortune in hedge funds. This in “an American economy sharply skewed towards the affluent, with rising inequality, a dwindling middle class and the persistence of long-term unemployment.”
Not all Republicans are quite so clueless. Edsall quotes GOP framing guru Frank Luntz, “I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort” because “they’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” Edsalll also quotes Democratic strategist Geoff Garin, who explains “…The Republican/Tea Party narrative about the economy has been superseded by a different narrative – one that emphasizes the need to address the growing gap between those at the very top of the economic ladder and the rest of the country.”
Garin cites poll data indicating stronger support for “a set of policies generally favored by Democrats calling for the elimination of tax breaks for the rich and tougher regulation of major banks and corporations” and that the public believes the federal government should “pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans.” He also cites polling data spelling big trouble for the GOP:

The job ratings of Republicans in Congress have tanked at 74 percent negative to 19 percent favorable, dropping more steeply than Obama’s, which are 51 negative-44 positive. But the Post survey also found that congressional Republicans run neck and neck with the president when respondents are asked “who would you trust to do a better job” on handling the economy (42-42) and creating jobs (40-40). On an issue on which the public traditionally favors Democrats by wide margins, “protecting the middle class,” Obama held only a 45-41 advantage over congressional Republicans.

Republicans are scrambling to figure out how to blame Democrats for worsening inequality, explains Edsall. But “The issue of inequality is inherently dangerous for Republicans who are viewed by many as the party of the upper class.” Further,

An Oct. 19-24 CBS/New York Times poll asked respondents whether the policies of the Obama administration and the policies of Republicans in Congress favor the rich, the middle class, the poor or treat everyone equally. Just 12 percent said Obama favors the rich, while 69 percent said Republicans in Congress favor the rich.

And when Ryan’s budget scheme is explained to voters, they “are horrified by it,” according to Garin. Edsall marvels at the GOP’s blindness in making it possible for their two front runners to get bogged down in arguments about how much more to give the wealthy while weakening Medicare benefits for the middle class — “in a climate of stark economic adversity for millions of unemployed Americans.”
Edsall is right. Democrats could not have hoped for a more self-destructive scenario in the Republican camp. If Democrats can project a credible message that offers hope for a better future for middle class voters in the months ahead, the optimism that has begun to emerge in Democratic circles will be justified.


ALEC Expose a Must-Read

The must-read of the day has to be “Pssst … Wanna Buy a Law?: When a company needs a state bill passed, the American Legislative Exchange Council can get it done” by Brendan Greely and Alison Fitzgerald at Businessweek. Much of the article focuses on the organization’s conniving to control internet access for it’s member’s benefit in LaFayette, LA. But the article also reveals quite a lot about ALEC’s power, pro-corporate and pro-Republican biases, secrecy and unsavory influence on legislators, including:

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit based in Washington, brings together state legislators, companies, and advocacy groups to shape “model legislation.” The legislators then take these models back to their own states. About 1,000 times a year, according to ALEC, a state legislator introduces a bill from its library of more than 800 models. About 200 times a year, one of them becomes law. The council, in essence, makes national policy, state by state.
ALEC’s online library contains model bills that tighten voter identification requirements, making it harder for students, the elderly, and the poor to vote. Such bills have shown up in 34 states. According to NPR, the Arizona bill that permits police to detain suspected illegal immigrants started as ALEC model legislation. Similar bills have passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Utah, and have been introduced in 17 other states. Legislators in Oregon, Washington, Montana, New Hampshire, and New Mexico have sponsored bills with identical ALEC language requiring states to withdraw from regional agreements on CO2 emissions. Sound a national trend among state legislators, and often you will find at the bottom of your plumb line a bill that looks like something that has passed through the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Paul Weyrich started the council in 1973 with a group of Republican state legislators. Weyrich also founded the Heritage Foundation and coined the phrase “moral majority.” More than 2,000 state lawmakers belong to ALEC; each pays $50 in yearly dues. A look at former members now on the national stage suggests the organization is a farm team for Republicans with ambition. There are 92 ALEC alumni serving in the U.S. House, 87 of them Republicans. In the Senate, eight Republicans and one Democrat are ALEC alumni, according to information found on ALEC’s website in April that has since been removed. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison (Wis.) research group, four sitting governors were members, including John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin…ALEC is open and helpful about some parts of its work and quiet and evasive about others. It tends to withhold information that might shed light on its corporate members, the ones that pay almost 99 percent of the council’s $7 million budget.

In addition to the aforementioned voter suppression and anti-pollution control legislation, ALEC champions a range of bills to protect corporations from regulations, as the authors explain:

The broader ALEC library includes bills that limit how much a parent company might have to pay for asbestos-related injuries or illness caused by a company it acquired, another that bans cities and counties from requiring restaurants to post nutrition information or food ingredients, and a bill that would shift the tobacco tax burden from big cigarette makers such as Altria Group (MO) to smaller chewing tobacco companies…
None of this is illegal. And it’s effective. It allows companies to work directly with legislators from many states, rather than having to lobby in each state individually to get language into a bill. ALEC says its mission is to help state legislators collaborate around the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty. It does this, and something else, too. It offers companies substantial benefits that seem to have little to do with ideology. Corporations drop bills off at one end, and they come out the other, stamped with the imprimatur of a nonprofit, “nonpartisan” group of state legislators. Among other things, ALEC is a bill laundry.

Until recently, ALEC has largely escaped public scrutiny, partly because the MSM generally does a lousy job of reporting on state legislation. But ALEC’s influence is more potent than ever, especially after the 2010 elections:

…Republicans didn’t just flip the House in November 2010. They also won from Democrats 675 state legislative seats and now control both chambers in 26 states, up from 14 before the election. ALEC membership has grown by 25 percent this year. Sitting out there are new state legislators, and they’re looking for something to do in the fall.
…Membership in ALEC, among both legislators and companies, has increased. In its member brochure for the 2011 annual meeting, ALEC listed 82 companies as sponsors, almost double the 42 sponsors from 2010. Those companies included Altria, BlueCross and BlueShield, and BP America (BP), all $50,000 chairman-level sponsors, according to ALEC’s website.

Equally disturbing is the lack of transparency for such an influential organization. As Fitzgerald and Greely note,

…When bloggers from a liberal website, ThinkProgress, tried to photograph the panels, they were hustled out of the conference by security guards. Another blogger from the website AlterNet was denied credentials and then kicked out of the hotel’s public lobby two days in a row for tweeting the names of ALEC members who passed by him.

There is a lot more worth reading in their article. Democrats are understandably focused on the GOP primary circus and the doings in congress and the white house, which is where nearly all the political media coverage is trained. But it’s clearly time for Democrats to pay more attention to what is happening in America’s state legislatures under the lengthening shadow of ALEC’s manipulation.


Not All Presidential Templates Are Transferable

There are always good reasons to be skeptical about articles arguing that current presidents should emulate the examples of previous presidents. Such articles have no doubt been appearing since the first Adams administration. Often, there is some merit in the argument, but the adequacy of the suggested template for addressing current struggles is almost always exaggerated.
A good example of the phenomenon is Joseph Califano, Jr.’s WaPo op-ed “What Obama Can Learn from LBJ,” in which LBJ’s chief assistant for domestic affairs(1965-69) and President Carter’s HEW Secretary (1977-79) makes the case:

…As political and private-sector leaders nationwide realize that an engaged president is key to progress, many wish that Barack Obama was more like Lyndon B. Johnson. The refrain of many Democrats — and some Republicans — is that at least with LBJ, Washington worked and we got something done….Obama will never be like Johnson, but LBJ’s presidency offers lessons that could help him win a second term…

Califano reviews the impressive legislative accomplishments of LBJ’s Administration, which were truly extraordinary, a litany which includes landmark civil rights bills, Medicare, Medicaid, anti-poverty initiatives and other historic reforms. Arguably, no other president achieved so much without being elected to a second term.
But Califano complains that “LBJ spent enough time in the House and Senate and working with presidents to understand that Washington functions best with strong and involved presidential leadership. Obama does not seem to get that.” What Califano doesn’t seem to get here is that Obama simply didn’t have the time to forge the productive relationships that LBJ developed over many years. It’s crazy to suggest that he has the same leverage as did LBJ, who certainly earned the sobriquet “Master of the Senate” long before he assumed the Presidency.
I think there is an even bigger blind spot in Califano’s argument — his assumption, against all evidence, that today’s Republicans are as amenable to compromise as were the GOP leaders of Johnson’s time. Califano points out that Republicans could be pretty hard-assed back then. But there are no Dirksens or Javitzes or Margaret Chase Smiths around today. Gypsy Moths and even reasonable Republican leaders in congress have been hounded into near-extinction. The few that are left are still cringing in dark corners, until the tea party finds its rightful place on the dung heap of history. Only then will we again see Republicans who are willing to negotiate in good faith. Only then will real bipartisanship become possible again.
Moreover, President Obama has bent over backwards to compromise with Republicans to no avail whatsoever. I agree with those who argue that he has already given away too much of the store. But I’m glad that he now seems ready to do battle.
Despite Califano’s blind spot, I think he has a good point that President Obama could channel a little of LBJ’s hard-ball negotiation style, as well as FDR’s fighting spirit. But every president has had their strengths and weaknesses, LBJ included (Vietnam, ‘domino theory’). The challenge is to emulate the strengths when possible, but not buy into the whole template.


Political Strategy Notes

Raven Clabough has a round-up at the right-wing rag, The New American arguing that Dem leaders are almost giddy at the prospect of Newt getting the GOP nod. Sen. Harkin says a Newt nomination would be “heaven-sent.” Rep. Barney Frank: “I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican Party.” Clabough also has an interesting report on Newt’s unhinged self-image, e.g.: “I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it” and “I am now a famous person. I represent real power.” According to Clabough, he has also described himself as an “advocate of civilization, definer of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, leader of the civilizing sources.”
Jordan Michael Smith mulls over Newt’s foreign policy at Salon, and concludes it is characterized by “violent grandiosity, faux intellectualism and missionary zeal,” which sounds a lot like Bush II’s eight years of disaster.
At Bloomberg.com Seth Stern and Heidi Przybyla have a refresher course “Gingrich House Ethics Complaint Echoes in Criticism Lodged Today.” Contrary to Newt’s assertion that he was a victim of partisanship, the authors note “the House voted 395-28 to approve a settlement that concluded Gingrich twice misled the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct’s investigative subcommittee and required a $300,000 payment to recover some of the probe’s costs…In the final tally, 196 Republicans supported the rebuke of their own speaker, while 198 Democrats backed it. Twenty-six Republicans and two Democrats opposed it.”
Sure looks like Mitch is scared of the peeps.
Steven Rosenfeld makes the case at Alternet that the “GOP Can’t Erase Dems From Political Map,” despite their big wins in 2010. “Regardless of how miserable the 2010 election was for Democrats – losing a US House majority and the GOP gaining 63 seats, as well as winning majorities in 20 state legislative chambers and 16 governor’s races – it does not appear that the GOP will be able to draw enough new political lines to lock down Democrats for a decade, as many party activist had hoped.”
Caitlan Halligan Lost, and So Did You” is the title of a post at The Atlantic by award-winning legal commentator Andrew Cohen, concerning the GOP’s obstruction of President Obama’s nomination of a legal “superstar,” Caitlan Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Says Cohen: “…Republican senators now have lowered the standard for what constitutes “extraordinary circumstances”…that would warrant rejection. In Halligan’s case, The Washington Post reported, it was her participation in a lawsuit against gun manufacturers that evidently did her in. Either that or it was her position on detainee rights, which is consistent with Supreme Court precedent (but not current Senate politics).”
Lest Dems get too giddy, Rhodes Cook cautions at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball that “2012 Republican Race: The Field May Not Be Closed,” since the GOP primary calendar is not as front-loaded as in years past.
Elizabeth Warren is up 7 points, 49-42, over Sen. Scott Brown in a new University of Massachusetts at Lowell/Boston Herald poll — “a 10-point swing in Warren’s favor in less than two months,” according to Joe Battenfeld’s Boston Herald report on the poll.
Do not bet the ranch on any of this making much of a difference.
In his Common Dreams post, “Words That Don’t Work,” George Lakoff warns progressives to avoid getting hustled by a Frank Luntz’s bait. Says Lakoff: “There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy’s frame, you lose…To attack “capitalism” in this [Luntz’s] frame is to accept “socialism.” Conservatives are trying to cast Progressives, who mostly have businesses or work for businesses or are looking for good business jobs, as socialists. If you take the Luntz bait, you will be sucked into sounding like a socialist. Whatever one thinks of socialism, most Americans falsely identify it with communism, and will reject it out of hand.”
Steven Shepard reports at Hotline on Call that “Gallup Poll Shows Narrowing Enthusiasm Gap.” As Shepard explains: “Forty-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared to 44 percent who say they are less enthusiastic. In a mid-September survey, 58 percent of Republicans were more enthusiastic, while just 30 percent said they were less enthusiastic.”


Political Strategy Notes

Peter Nicholas of the L.A. Times D.C. Bureau writes on the importance of President Obama’s Pennsylvania campaign. “It’s too early to say the president is on the ropes,” writes Nicholas. “But there’s no question that his approval ratings have fallen, here as elsewhere. In a Quinnipiac poll last month, 44% of those surveyed said they approved of Obama’s performance in office. The same poll showed him in a dead heat statewide when matched against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney…Registered Democrats still far outnumber Republicans, but the GOP has narrowed the gap by 125,000 since the 2008 election.”
Marc Pitzke’s “The Republicans’ Farcical Candidates: A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses” at Spiegel Online International provides a capsule description of the GOP presidential field in the title. Says Pitzke, “They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic, ignorant, outrageous thing after another. They’ve shown such stark lack of knowledge — political, economic, geographic, historical — that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to cringe. …What a nice club that is. A club of liars, cheaters, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites and ignoramuses. “A starting point for a chronicle of American decline,” was how David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, described the current Republican race.”
Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul ain’t having it — something about maintaining a semblance of, ahem, dignity — but the rest of the GOP prez aspirants are lining up to kiss the ring of The Donald, reports WaPo’s Aaron Blake.
Clown allusions are all over the blogosphere and the MSM, as the stunned journalistic community struggles to describe the GOP circus. Paul Krugman’s “Send in the Clueless” sheds a little light on the surreal mess the Republicans have made of their pre-primary season: “Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year…You also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security…So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or totally clueless…that’s why the Republican primary has taken the form it has, in which a candidate nobody likes and nobody trusts has faced a series of clueless challengers, each of whom has briefly soared before imploding under the pressure of his or her own cluelessness.”
Not to pile on with the cluelessness theme, but today Romney will proudly welcome the much-coveted Dan Quayle endorsement, according to USA Today On Politics.
Nonetheless, T. W. Farnam reports at Washington Post Politics that 42 billionaires have contributed to Romney’s campaign, and adds “Although donors are limited to giving no more than $5,000 directly to a campaign, new rules allow them to give to “super PACs” that run independent ads supporting the candidates. Donations to super PACs are not limited, so billionaires can donate as much as they want.”
At CNN Politics, Julian Zelizer mulls over “How Democrats could win with a ‘fairness’ campaign.” Zelizer explains: “With President Obama’s low approval ratings, Democratic candidates won’t want to focus on his record. With the economy likely to still be in laggard condition, Democrats won’t be able to boast that it’s morning in America. With economic concerns front and center for most Americans, Democrats won’t be able to make much headway with talk about the foreign policy successes of this administration…This doesn’t leave candidates with many options. Although some could focus on local issues, they will be under pressure to develop a national theme since Republican candidates will be talking critically about Obama.The most potent theme that the party has to offer is the issue of fairness. Democrats can claim that as Americans struggle to survive in this economy, the party has championed policies that aim to soften the blows voters are suffering and to provide support for the middle class in hard times.”
Mark Schmitt’s “Why Republicans Don’t Mind Newt’s Brazen Flip-Flops” at The New Republic ponders the difference between Mitt’s and Newt’s flip-floppage: “Romney’s flips are tortured and self-conscious, shrouded in nuance and implausible stretches to reconcile two, three, or more positions…Gingrich, on the other hand, makes no such attempt to reconcile his positions…Gingrich seems able to live in an eternal present, in which the statements and actions of each moment are unconnected to anything before or after.”
Demos has a post, “Voter Registration for New Americans: New USCIS Guidance on Voter Registration at Naturalization Ceremonies,” that should be of keen interest to Democrats who want to accelerate naturalization — and voter participation — of Latinos in the U.S. The crux: “In October of 2011, the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) revised its guidelines regarding the provision of voter registration applications at naturalization ceremonies; and for the first time ever, the USCIS has committed to providing the opportunity to apply to register at every single administrative naturalization ceremony in the country.”
U.S. News Politics has a good update on the campaign for Jewish support. The gist: “Such attention is all being paid in recognition that Jewish voters, though comprising only 2 percent of the electorate nationwide, are an important part of Obama’s base and could make the difference in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada in a close election. Moreover, the Jewish community is an important source of donations, and Obama campaign supporters want to maintain that support as much as Republicans want to chip away at it.”
Things are looking up for Democratic Senate candidates, say Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, writing in Sabato’s Crystal Ball. The authors’ updated ratings cite improved prospects for Dems running for U.S. Senate in six Senate Races: AZ; FL; MA; MN; NJ and WV. “While we still favor Republicans to take the four seats they need to win control of the upper chamber, we can also see a conceivable if unlikely path for the Democrats to retain control if the breaks go their way, especially if President Obama picks up steam in his reelection bid.” Their report includes state by state analyses of all Senate races.


Jobless Trendline Improving

unemploymentchart.jpg
No one should get euphoric about the latest unemployment rate snapshot of 8.6 percent despite the drop, because it’s still too high and there are all kinds of stipulations and cautionary notes that come with it. Still, as this chart, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, (created by Matt McDonald at Hamilton Place Strategies and posted by WaPo’s Chris Cillizza) indicates, the unemployment trend line has improved significantly overall during the last year.
With unemployment figures, the trend is more important than a snapshot. As Cillizza wrote back in April,

Economists spend their lives poring over numbers that provide detailed information about how and whether the economy is growing. Average people, on the other hand, tend to look at a single number to assess the economy’s relative health: the unemployment rate.
And, it’s not even the exact number that most people fixate on. It’s the trend line. Are things getting marginally better, marginally worse or staying about the same?
That trend line is the single most telling image of how the American public feels — and how they are likely to vote on — the economy heading into the 2012 election….But, a downward trend line on the unemployment rate — if not a drastic reduction in the actual number — will allow the President to make the case that the economic policies he put into place over his first term in office are working and, therefore, he needs a second term to make things even better.
One need only to look as far as Ronald Reagan for evidence of the power of the economic trend line…In March 1983, the unemployment rate stood at 10.3 percent. It steadily declined over the intervening 20 months and in October 1984 it stood at 7.3 percent….While a 7.3 percent unemployment rate was no one’s economic dream scenario, the movement was in Reagan’s direction. And voters reacted accordingly — handing him a 49-state re-election victory over Walter Mondale.

There’s something about simple charts like the one above that can convey a sense of optimism when words describing the same thing fail to do the job. With a little luck, President Obama will have an impressive chart to show the public next October. It’s still early for high-fives, but Dems can be hopeful.


Political Strategy Notes

Kos gives due cred to OWS. “Until Tuesday, Republicans had been lukewarm on extending President Barack Obama’s payroll tax cut for workers…In the world where Occupy had never happened, Republicans would’ve held these tax cuts hostage without suffering any ill repercussions…In this world, Occupy has thrust income inequality to the forefront of the political debate — so much so that typically immovable Republicans are afraid to feed that narrative. In other words, a ragtag bunch of hippies with supposedly no demands have done what Democrats have never been able to do — get Republicans to cry ‘uncle’.”
For an interesting ‘down-home’ regional take on OWS, read “Tale of a Southern ‘Occupy’: Nashville aims to bridge political divides” by MSNBC’s Miranda Leitsinger. As one Occupy Nashville protester puts it in Leitsinger’s article, “This is a place where if people were really going to come together and form that ‘purple’ (combination of blue and red political affiliations) that everybody lusts for, it’s going to probably happen in this camp.” Says another, “We kind of pride ourselves on being a common denominator movement.”
George LaKoff has a different idea at HuffPo, where he urges OWS to “occupy elections” as the next step for the protest movement: “Whatever Occupiers may think of the Democrats, they can gain power within the Democratic Party and hence in election contests all over America. All they have to do is join Democratic Clubs, stick to their values, speak out very loudly, and work in campaigns for candidates at every level who agree with their values.”
Kyle Trygstad has a Roll Call Politics profile of the highly-regarded veteran Democratic Ad-maker Joe Slade White.
Joanne Boyer has a disturbing post up at OpEd news.com, “Is Your Vote Really Being Counted?,” which takes a suspicious look at electronic voting systems in the U.S. Boyer quotes voting technology expert Brad Friedman, who explains, “You now have one person, who with a few keystrokes on a computer can flip the results of an entire election with no possibility of ever being detected. It’s just that easy…we’ve seen scientific studies in state after state show how easy these voting systems are manipulated.”
If you’ve ever wondered what evidence there is that presidential candidate travel has a measurable influence on campaigns, John Sides has the answer at Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight blog.
More bad news for GOP union-busters, and especially the more clueless Republican presidential candidates who have popped off on the topic in NH. As John Nichols reports in The Nation: “On Wednesday, after months of wrangling over the issue, the New Hampshire House of Representatives killed a plan promoted by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to make New Hampshire a so-called “right-to-work” state. The law was blocked because not just Democrats but almost two dozen Republicans rejected the counsel of presidential candidate Perry — who addressed the legislature Wednesday morning — and voted with organized labor and community groups that rallied to defend collective-bargaining rights.”
At Polls and Votes, poll analyst Charles Franklin charts the fall and rise of Newt Gingrich in light of his unique ‘recognition’ factor and “steady progress, rather than a sudden bounce.”
At HuffPost Pollster, Mark Blumenthal looks at recent Quinnipiac and YouGov polls to explain why “Newt Gingrich Likely To See Poll Bump Should Herman Cain Exit Race.”
I believe this. But I also believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
CNN Politics’ Jessica Yellin and Ted Metzger take a look “Inside Obama’s re-election math” and his campaign in Pennsylvania in particular. There are routes to 270 without the Keystone State, say the authors. But it’s hard to see any of them materializing if Obama can’t take PA, with it’s bellwether demographics.
Lots of buzz out on the internets about Ron Paul’s attack ad targeting Newt. But it strikes me as dingy, melodramatic and lacking humor, even from a Republican point of view — not unlike Paul himself. I think Dems can do much better, when the right time for it comes, which would be after Newt’s bull-in-the-china shop act plays out, Romney’s coiffure has gotten all frizzed and his party has formed a perfect circular firing squad.