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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

J.P. Green

GOP Screwed Up With ‘Start Over’ Chorus

Now that President Obama has defined the legislative path forward for HCR (text of his remarks here), and Dems are lining up in support of the consensus, the glaring weakness of the Republicans’ strategy is coming into focus. With benefit of hindsight, it now seems terribly obvious that Republicans hurt their cause with their “throw it out and start over” message.
First, few Americans want to ditch all the work that’s been done and go through the whole yammering process all over again. People are simply growing tired of the health reform debate and it’s hard for a sane person not to agree with President Obama’s point that everything has been said and everyone has had their chance to say it. Clearly, they overestimated the public’s tolerance for never-ending debate.
Second, “let’s start over” is such a transparently partisan notion. ‘Let’s just trash all the Democrats’ efforts, and start over again so we Republicans, who just got one new, pivotal Senate vote, can dominate the deliberations.” No one with a triple-digit I.Q. could possibly believe that idea comes from a genuine bipartisan spirit.
You have to wonder what deluded world the authors of that strategy inhabit. Did they really think the Democrats would roll and say, “OK, you guys are right. let’s start all over again.” No. But it’s equally-dumb to believe that voters would think, “Gee, those reasonable, bipartisan Republicans have a point, we really should start over.”
Instead of “start over,” Republicans might have gotten more support by fighting hard for a few key measures, even if they lost. Then, at least, they would not look quite so obstructionist and negative. Their portfolio of ideas was admittedly limited, but they had a couple of measures they could have been positive about. Instead they went whole hog negative and amped up ‘the party of no’ meme.
Consider an alternate reality. What would be happening now if a few Republicans negotiated in good faith and could credibly claim they had a significant impact on the reforms? The Republican Party could then share some of the credit. Now President Obama and the Dems will get bipartisan cred for including a few Republican ideas of their choosing, while Mitch McConnell and his chorus of whining parrots will be reduced to dissing both majority rule and the enacted legislation, undoubtedly threatening to repeal it (more negativity) at some future date.
Assuming Dems have the votes to enact the legislation pretty soon, perhaps we have just been provided with an instructive lesson about the limitations of message discipline: When a party’s message is that lame, message discipline is not so great.


Bunning’s Bird: New Symbol of the G.O.P.

‘Tis a shame that no photograph of Jim Bunning’s flipped bird has yet emerged, although the photo on this web page captures the spirit of his attitude, and should do adequately for his legacy and Wikipedia page, where you can also read about his ‘foundation.’ Somewhere, however, in the darker corners of the G.O.P., where strategy is made, Frank Luntz, Ed Rollins and the smarter Republicans should be offering prayers of gratitude that Bunning’s bird escaped the cameras, for it would be hard to imagine a better symbolic representation of G.O.P. obstructionism.
That, however, shouldn’t stop cartoonists from doing their job. Have at it, guys. (They’re just getting started: See here, here and, best so far, here.)
Common sense suggests that Republicans should feel a little uneasy about Bunning punishing unemployed Americans with obstructionist theatrics. But this is not a good year for common sense in the G.O.P., where principled opposition to childish behavior is pretty-much non-existent. Michael Kieschnick puts it well in his HuiffPo post, “Republicans Use Jim Bunning to Say Tough S**t to America“:

…It is one thing to act in such a despicable manner, and quite another to be backed up by one’s colleagues. Surely one of the Republican leaders would have escorted Sen. Bunning off the floor so that a vote could be held. Surely a senior Senator of the same party might have made clear that such behavior is simply unacceptable in the Senate.
But no. No Republican has condemned Sen. Bunning. Indeed, Sen. Cornyn of Texas, in charge of electing more Republicans to the Senate, went out of his way to praise his colleague and said he understood.
Perhaps Sen. Bunning is just a bitter, deluded, old man, who used to be a great baseball pitcher. But he is also the public face of the Republican Senators. The party of no has now simply become the cruder party of tough shit and a raised middle finger.

Perhaps Bunning is running for president of tea party America, where expressions of mindless contempt are celebrated — even when directed toward the working people they claim to represent.


Conservatives Soft on Domestic Terrorism?

In yet another insightful op-ed article, this one entitled “The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich kicks off an important discussion on a topic, otherwise much-ignored by the traditional media. Here’s Rich on the reaction of conservatives to the February 18th suicide bombing by Andrew Joseph Stack III, the anti-tax terrorist who flew a plane into the IRS office building in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18:

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack’s crime. “It’s sad the incident in Texas happened,” he said, “but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary. And when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the I.R.S., it’s going to be a happy day for America.” No one in King’s caucus condemned these remarks. Then again, what King euphemized as “the incident” took out just 1 of the 200 workers in the Austin building: Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran nearing his I.R.S. retirement…

Sound familiar? Rich continues,

…Had Stack the devastating weaponry and timing to match the death toll of 168 inflicted by Timothy McVeigh on a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, maybe a few of the congressman’s peers would have cried foul.
It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.
Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.

Rich goes on to explain that most pro-terrorists hate the Republican Party almost as much as they hate the Democrats, because they are essentially anarchists. Nor would it be fair to imply that all anti-government activists are pro-terrorist. Says Rich: “They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington — a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.”
But Rich does quote a GOP presidential aspirant, former MN Governor Tim Pawlenty, who recently urged an audience to emulate Tiger Woods’s wife and “take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.” Rich adds:

Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous” to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry — no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that “the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

The wholesale government-bashing that became epidemic during the Reagan Administration took root in the conservative fringe until it warped and found tragic expression in Oklahoma City in in 1995. Back then conservatives roundly denounced McVeigh’s act of domestic terrorism. It would have been good for conservatives to denounce with due fervor the domestic terrorist attempt at mass murder that ocurred on Feb 18th.


New GOP Meme: Mocking the Unemployed, Uninsured

I do hope the DNC-DSCC-DCCC political ad-makers have their act together, because they are being presented a truckload of amazing material. Just in the last 24 hours we have a Republican U.S. Senator dissing the unemployed and three top conservative media personalities mocking the uninsured.
Ed Kilgore wrote earlier about Republican Sen. Jim Bunning screaming ‘tough shit” in response to an appeal for compassion for the jobless. Bunning is not running for re-election, due to his inept fund-raising skills, but he nonetheless makes an excellent poster boy for ‘GOP Obstructionist of the Week,’ although his fellow Kentuckian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell is always a finalist.
Now we got GOP media superstars Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham making merriment from the hardships of people who can’t afford health insurance. Here’s a little bite from Media Matters for America‘s story, “Let them eat applesauce: Right-wing media mock the uninsured“:

…The O’Reilly Factor, radio host Laura Ingraham said she “liked the dueling sob stories, OK? One Democrat was trying to outdo the next on the sob story about how rotten our health care system is. Louise Slaughter won the Olympics of sob stories by saying one of her constituents had to wear her sister’s dentures. OK? It got so bad with the health care system.” She later added, “You had Harry Reid on the cleft palate with his — I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous.”

If Ingraham was trying to replace Ann Coulter as the new Marie Antoinette of the Republican party, she may have pulled it off. The article also quotes Limbaugh, “”What’s wrong with using a dead person’s teeth? Aren’t the Democrats big into recycling?” and Beck’s “I’ve read the Constitution before. I didn’t see that you had a right to teeth.” The article quotes other conservative media personalities in a similar vein.
It seems that the tea party movement has emboldened Republicans to more venomously articulate their contempt for the poor and disadvantaged. The cameras are rolling, and one hopes the Democratic ad-makers are collecting the product.


Will Summit Help Pass HCR?

After watching a couple of hours of the health care reform summit today, I’d have to call it a big step towards enacting a credible bill. There were no major Democratic gaffes and the Republicans were unable to make a very persuasive case against the bill. Indeed, their incessant repetiton of the “my district hates this bill” put-down must have sounded a little scripted and unconvincing to viewers who were trying to make up their mind about the legislation, based on the best evidence presented by both parties.
President Obama looked large and in charge, calling everyone by their first names, while they all had to answer him as “Mr. President,” as he responded to most of the comments made by the Republicans and generally had the last word. This was a highly creative and effective use of the bully pulpit, which amplified the president’s image as a manager and a thoughtful leader who is sincerely trying to work some of the opposition’s ideas into the legislation. Again and again, he appealed to the Republicans to identify areas of agreement, which many Democrats noted, while few Republicans responded positively. President Obama’s performance will probably lend some cred to the public’s perception of the bill.
It was President Obama’s show. But other Dems acquitted themselves well enough. The Republicans did their best to appear as level-headed conservatives, not unduly influenced by tea party theatrics, and most pulled it off. Even the exchanges about resorting to budget reconciliation were impressively devoid of shrill demagoguery.
The civility of the exchanges is more a net plus for Dems because, as Chris Bowers notes in his OpenLeft post, “The largely positive impact of a boring health care summit,”

…makes charges of “communism” or “obstruction” seem a lot less credible. It looks like well informed people are discussing substantive legislation, rather than throwing bombs at each other…All in all, the summit is a huge net positive for the possibility of passing health reform this year. Democrats were losing the rhetorical battle on this bill, and a boring summit largely helps them.

A commenter called ‘workingclassdemocrat’ responds to Bowers, echoing,

I think summit deflated the fierceness of the GOP attacks. If nothing else, there haven’t been many “death panel” moments. That alone means the discussion is closer to reality. I think the time taken for this discussion and the buildup to it have allowed many on the left to reflect upon the benefit of choosing between this bill or nothing. Given the pressure of the media, the health industry, and the lack of pressure by the White House, something near to the Senate Bill is probably the reality.

The hysterical rhetoric about ‘socialism’ and Democratic reforms leading to economic disaster will probably sound a little less credible to open-minded voters, who the Republicans hope to win in November. No one can now say their views didn’t get a fair hearing, and the President addressed all of the critiques with calm, respectful authority. Hard to see any downside for the Dems.


Clue That White House is On Track with HCR

Democrats who are anxious about the white house summit on health care tomorrow should find comfort and encouragement in Michael Gerson’s WaPo op-ed. “Obama’s Health Reform Gamble Raises Questions of Judgment.” Gerson, who served as President Bush’s chief speechwriter and a senior GOP policy advisor, provides perhaps the best bellwether in newspaper journalism for Democratic policy-making, in that, whatever he advocates is designed to support Republican political interests, and therefore will likely screw everyone but the rich. Here’s Gerson’s critique of the budget reconciliation process:

…Enacting health reform through the quick, dirty shove of the reconciliation process — would add coercion to arrogance…the imposition of a House-Senate health-reform hybrid would confirm the worst modern image of the Democratic Party, that of intellectual arrogance. Parties hurt themselves most when they confirm a destructive public judgment. In this case, Americans would see Democrats pushing a high-handed statism…Obama’s decision on the use of reconciliation will define his presidency. If he trusts in his charmed political fortunes and lets the dice fly, it will raise the deepest questions about his judgment.

In Gerson-think a simple majority is tantamount to a “dirty shove,” “coercion,” “arrogance,” and “high-handed statism.” He suggests it’s “intellectual arrogance” to believe that a true majority requires less than 60 percent. His readers are supposed to buy the argument that passing legislation with anything less than 60 Senate votes is outrageous.
Gerson warns that budget reconciliation “would almost certainly maintain conservative and Republican intensity through the November elections” — as if there was any chance of that not happening. He says budget reconciliation “would both insult House and Senate Republicans and motivate them for future fights.” What, not like now? We certainly don’t want to hurt their tender feelings, since they have been so kind when they were in majority.
Gerson’s readers are supposed to believe that, if only the selfish Democrats would cave on the principles that elected them, Republicans would become more cooperative. He warns, “The minority would not only be defeated on health reform but its rights would be permanently diminished — a development that would certainly be turned against Democrats when they lose their majority” — which sounds an awful lot like majority rule.
Few Dems will be hustled by Gerson’s polemic. No one believes the Republicans would not use budget reconciliation to enact any part of their agenda, as they did to ram through Bush’s deficit-expanding tax cuts and in their failed attempt to open the Arctic National Wildlife refuge to oil drilling.
More importantly, majority rule — 50 percent plus one — is more than defensible. It’s a fundamental principle of great democracies. Arguing otherwise, that the party in minority should have a permanent stranglehold on the fate of all reform legislation– is the real elitist arrogance.


Does Ron Paul’s CPAC Staw Poll Win Show GOP Racism?

Ron Paulites are elated because their man won his first presidential straw poll of the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, with 31 percent of the vote. Paul decisively whipped Mitt Romney (22 percent) and Sarah Palin (7 percent), as well as Tim Pawlenty (6 percent) and Newt Gingrich (4 percent) and Mike Huckabee (4 percent).
No, it’s not a scientific poll, but it is an indicator of the preferences of the conservative activist base. What is most disturbing about the vote, however, is Paul’s long history of supporting racism, in his newsletter, and in his personal remarks.
Maybe the best thing written about Paul’s racial views comes from New Republic article “Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul” by James Kirchick. As Kirchick explains:

The Freedom Report’s online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul’s newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles “Lefty” Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that “opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions,” that “if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,” and that black representative Barbara Jordan is “the archetypical half-educated victimologist” whose “race and sex protect her from criticism.” At the time, Paul’s campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul’s explanation believable, “since the style diverges widely from his own.”
…the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him–and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing–but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.


Dems Have Mockery Edge

Abreen Ali has a post at Congress.org, “‘Mocktivists’ Use Humor to Protest” reporting on recent political skits subjecting the Ku Klux Klan, a wingnut religious group and tea party protesters to measured amounts of ridicule. Here’s how the Klan protest went:

Last summer, activists dressed up as clowns to counter a Klan march in Knoxville, Tenn. For each cry of “white power” from the Klan rally, the clowns had a carefully prepared response.
“White flour?” the clowns shouted at first, throwing fistfuls of flour into the air….Later, they shouted “white flowers?” while waving flowers…Finally they yelled, “wife power” and began jumping around in wedding gowns.
The counter-protest proved popular in Knoxville and online, helping undercut the otherwise ugly imagery projected by the Klan rally.
Wearing black suits and the occasional top hat, members of Billionaires for Bush have held signs like “Wealth care, not health care” at legitimate rallies and Tea Party events…”We want to confuse people long enough that we can engage with them behind party lines,” said Marco Ceglie, a “Billionaire” based in New York.
Ceglie said the problem with traditional protests is that people stop listening once they know you are from the other side. His group, though many of their stances are liberal, aims to be nonpartisan…”We want to tap that populist anger and put it towards the real culprit,” he said.

Ali also reports on a San Francisco group protesting church homophobia, which may not have had as much impact, given the ‘preaching to the choir’ aspect of the location of their protest.
I’ve been wondering for a while why we haven’t seen much counter-protesting at the tea party events. Turns out, however, that there have been some ‘mocktivist’ protests of note, according to Ali:

Billionaires for Bush is a group of demonstrators who pretend to be wealthy bankers and CEOs arguing that people should vote for Republicans…The ruse draws attention to the role money plays in politics, the activists say.


Moment of Truth Approaches for Dem Leaders

The public option for health care reform may be a dead issue for pundits and centrists, but CNN reports that group of Democratic Senators is calling for a vote on it under the budget reconciliation rule that requires 51 votes to pass the upper house. Sens. Michael Bennet (CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Jeff Merkley (OR) and Sherrod Brown (OH), along with 119 House of Reps members, signed a letter urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule a vote on the proposal under the rule. As the letter explains:

We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules…There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach — its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option.

Seems like a reasonable request from four level-headed U.S. Senators, none of whom have ever been associated with political suicide missions, or even unrealistic expectations. And they are on solid political ground, according to polling data. In a Kaiser Family Foundation Kaiser Health Tracking Poll conducted 1/7-12, 2010, 53 percent of respondents said they “would be more likely to support” legislation that creates “a government-administered public health insurance option to compete with private health insurance plans,” with only 31 percent saying they would be less likely to support the public option proposal.
This may be a moment of truth for the beleaguered majority leader, who is starting to look like President Obama’s General McClellan, Lincoln’s union army commander who wouldn’t attack. The comparison may be unfair in this case. If Reid’s head count indicates the votes simply aren’t there, then he would be wrong to schedule the vote. But if the votes are there, Reid should take the initiative, and soon after the Feb 25th health care reform summit. Confidence in Democratic leadership is fast eroding as a result of the perception of excessive hand-wringing and inaction. Further delay could metastasize into unnecessary defeats for Democratic candidates in November. We need a significant win, and soon.
It appears that the political party in power gets about a year to produce reforms that have some credibility, before disapproval takes root. It’s unfair in the sense that this expectation doesn’t take the draconian filibuster threshold into account, but we’re stuck with it — unless we take action via budget reconciliation. Even if the measure is defeated, however, Dems could come back quickly with a modified “plan B” strategy, to give the impression that were are at least trying to pass reforms and moving forward. Otherwise the public perception of do-nothing stagnation will fester on and do deeper damage. What we must convey to voters is the perception that Democrats have the gonads to lead.


G.O.P. = Gridlock, Obstruction & Paralysis

Thanks to the recent Supremes Citizens United decision, Dems can expect record-level spending on attack ads targeting Democratic policy from GOP supporters. The worst response would be to crouch down in a defensive posture and not initiate an aggressive counter-offensive.
For a hint of how nasty GOP attacks on Dems are going to be, read the recent editorial, “The Politics of Fear” in The New York Times supporting the Obama Administration’s adherence to the principle of civilian trials for most accused terrorists. The editorial notes that “Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, suggested — without any evidence — that vital intelligence was lost by that approach.” The objective here is to ‘slime’ Democrats as soft on national security — and Collins is one of the least conservative Republicans. Of course Collins and other Republicans said not a peep when the Bush Administration prosecuted over 300 accused terrorists in federal courts. This is just a preview of slimes to come.
Dems should fight back more aggressively on all fronts, with an emphasis on soundbite-sized attack memes that call out Republican candidates where they are vulnerable, and their party as a whole when the critique fits.
The headline for this post is one example. It fits nicely on a bumper sticker, picket sign or in a 10-second TV ad, and it does accurately describe GOP’ “leadership,” particularly during the last year. It’s a good political argument-starter because it puts the adversary on the defensive immediately. The Republicans have no bite-size slogan that so accurately describes what some voters may believe to be the worst impulses of the Democrats. It is not an ad hominem attack in that it criticizes organizational policy, not personalities, so no demerits for being mean-spirited.
The “GOP = Gridlock, Obstruction and Paralysis” meme is just one of many possible hard-hitting attacks Dems could launch in the months ahead. The Republicans have formidable advantages in attack messaging, including discipline, FoxTV, right-wing radio and money. But they also have a serious vulnerability — weak policy. Thus far they have been able to steer media coverage away from policy.
Dems need a strategy to better educate undecided voters about policy differences. But it’s more important to take the offensive and stop allowing them to monopolize media coverage of policy debates with fear-mongering cliches about Democratic policy being ‘socialistic’ or leading America to economic armageddon. Through sheer repetition in the media, Republican cliche-memes have taken root, even with some voters who, when asked, say they support the Democratic policies being slimed.
Democrats have to attack and hit a lot harder in the months ahead to correct the imbalance. One excellent example of how it’s done in the media can be found in Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC report last night on the utterly shameless Republican hypocrites who trashed the Obama stimulus package and voted against it, but who now are so eager to pose for pictures with “big goofy fake stimulus checks,” as Maddow terms them — checks that are now being spent in their districts. If Democratic opponents of these Republicans don’t use these images and nail them with ‘windmill’ ads and the like, they will be guilty of political negligence. Maddow’s interview with The Nation‘s Washington editor Chris Hayes in the segment also features an interesting discussion of requirements for hard-hitting political attacks.
At TPM, Christina Bellantoni reports on another example of an effective hard-hitting Democratic attack strategy, in this instance the DSCC compelling four Republican Senate candidates to take a stand on Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Social Security and slash Medicare benefits to create a voucher system. The DSCC publicity cites the jobs and economic impact of the Ryan scheme in each of the four states. Another good example of fierce attack strategy. Force them to diss long-standing wingnut policy or alienate senior voters in their state. Dems need more of the same.