Joan Walsh’s post, “Can right-wing hate talk lead to murder?” at Salon asks an important question that merits a thoughtful response. Walsh writes and talks in a “Hardball” video clip about the murders of Dr. George Tiller and Steven Tyrone Johns, a security guard at the Holocaust Museum, both by right wing extremists. Walsh focuses more on the murder of Tiller, because it was preceeded by some extreme rhetoric by Bill O’Reilly. As Walsh explains,

O’Reilly more than demonized Tiller; night after night he called him a baby killer, compared him to the Nazis, and suggested that he must be stopped. Roeder stopped him, all right. If I were O’Reilly I’d feel terrible for putting a private figure in my public sights night after night, simply for doing his lawful job. But O’Reilly has no conscience, so he’s proud of it.

Walsh goes on to cite the demonization of President Obama and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomajor as current concerns. Walsh is on to something with her point about demonization nurturing future violence. It’s too easy to dismiss the murder of Dr. Tiller as the work of a religious nutcase and the killing of Mr. Johns as the act of a neo-Nazi, and let it go at that. Violent extremists don’t exist in a vacuum; they are nourished in a culture or subculture.
I always felt that Ronald Reagan, who in 1980 launched his campaign for the presidency in Philadelphia, Mississippi , known primarilly as the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964, and Newt Gingrich, both went way over the top in their wholesale bashing of government. They ratcheted up the rhetoric of hatred and contempt for government, perhaps to an all-time high. Such a climate of hatred for government helped to nurture Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Walsh rightly points out that not all conservatives are violence-prone. In fact, I would argue that true conservatives don’t like extremist rhetoric. And I have to admit that I have on occasion heard my fellow liberals parroting hateful denunciations of conservatives. But I do believe that the problem of hateful rhetoric is growing among right-wing ideologues, particularly public figures, and seems to be undergirded by racist attitudes, religious bigotry and xenophobia. Conservative intellectuals have a responsibility to provide a little leadership to tone down the hate-mongering. There is probably not much that can be done about ideologues like O’Reilly and Buchanan, other than boycott O’Reilly’s sponsors. But it couldn’t hurt for serious conservatives to urge a little more civility and fewer ad hominem attacks.
The important thing for Democrats and progressives to keep in mind is that we also have to clean up our own act and discourage nasty personal attacks from liberal spokespersons. Vigorous criticism of ideas and policies, yes. A little snark is even OK in debating ideas and policies, but ease up on the name-calling and personal put-downs. In so doing, we will help make clear which party is being lead by the grown-ups.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.’ “Harry and Louise Have Changed” in today’s WaPo explores the strategic implications of the fact that comprehensive health coverage for all Americans means “fifty million new customers” to the industry. It is an important point, and one which gives significant leverage to the reform movement. Not that the insurance companies won’t fight the public option, forced coverage for pre-existing conditions and other specific reforms with a multimillion dollar ad campaign. However, as Dionne explains:

Many have expressed amazement that the interest groups historically opposed to fixing the health system seem ready to work with the reformers. Their public-spiritedness reflects enlightened self-interest: The health system is so unstable that even the drug industry and the insurance companies are worried that it will crash on top of them.
Health-care reform could bail out these interests by adding the currently uninsured — fast approaching 50 million people — to their customer base and by preventing more individuals and employers from dropping insurance altogether…Leaders of the health industry know that unless more government money flows into the system, they will suffer along with everyone else.

It’s a survival issue, and they know they need government help to stay afloat. They will fight the public option, but they know that some form of expanded government health coverage is inevitable. Still every health insurance company, hopes to get a share of the 50 million new customers. Dionne says the real fight in congress will be about cost containment, and he concludes “So by all means, let’s welcome the drug and insurance companies to the health-care bargaining table. But let’s also remember that they are sitting at that table as a matter of urgent necessity.”
Lisa Girion riffed on the same topic in the Sunday L.A. Times, explaining that

The customer base for private insurance has slipped since 2000, when soaring premiums began driving people out. The recession has accelerated the problem. But even after the economy recovers, the downward spiral is expected to continue for years as baby boomers become eligible for Medicare — and stop buying private insurance.
…The industry’s real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors

Meanwhile John Harwood reports in The New York Times “The Caucus” that a new “sense of inevitability” about health care reform has taken root, as key political leaders and interest groups begin an earnest search for consensus. Regarding funding for reforms, Harwood adds:

No one has spelled out how to finance the roughly $1 trillion over 10 years for an overhaul that would provide care to the uninsured. But two recent Obama White House shifts have made that easier.
First, Mr. Obama vowed to find another $200 billion to $300 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid, beyond the $300 billion or so already proposed. That would leave lawmakers needing about $500 billion in higher taxes.
Second, Mr. Obama signaled that he could support acquiring part of that money from limiting the existing tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits — a concept he criticized Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, for proposing in the 2008 presidential campaign. Taxing only the most lavish 10 percent of benefit plans would raise an additional $336 billion in income taxes, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Via Consortium News, Alternet leads today with an article by Robert Parry, “119 Million Americans Want a Public Health Option — Why Aren’t Politicians Listening?” Parry discusses Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s assertion at Politico that,

“As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would “put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system. … Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market.”
Grassley’s logic is that so many Americans would prefer a government-run plan that the private health insurance industry would collapse or become a shadow of its current self. That, in turn, would lead even more Americans entering the government plan, making private insurance even less viable.

Wait a minute. Polls indicate millions are happy with their current insurance, so where does the 119 million figure come from? Are they so happy with their current plan that they would be willing to switch to a public plan just for kicks? Perhaps Grassley’s argument is based on some other factor. In one of the more revealing graphs, Parry also notes,

…Grassley’s various political action committees have collected nearly $1.3 million in donations from the industries related to the health insurance debate, according to OpenSecrets.org. Grassley’s top four donor groups were Health ($411,956); Insurance ($307,348); Pharmaceuticals ($233,850); and Hospitals ($197,137). Eighth on Grassley’s donor list were HMOs at $130,684.

Today’s Wall St. Journal ‘Review and Outlook’ section has a more thougthful critique, “Obama’s Health Cost Illusion,” which notes:

Now the White House — especially budget chief Peter Orszag — claims there is new cause for hope. The magic key is the dramatic variations in per patient health spending among U.S. regions. Often there is no relationship between spending and the quality of care, according to a vast body of academic research, most of it coming out of Dartmouth College. If the highest spending areas could be sanded down to the lowest spending areas, about 30% in “waste,” or $700 billion each year, would be saved. More than enough to pay for ObamaCare. Or so the theory goes.
But — how? Mr. Orszag’s ideas include more health information technology; emphasizing prevention and healthy living; rejiggering reimbursement policies so doctors and hospitals are paid more for quality care; and funding federal research that compares the effectiveness of medical treatments. These are the lovable bromides of all politicians, and some of them may or may not improve health overall. But there’s scant evidence that any of them will ever save real money.

Most worrisome of all, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes in Salon today that “Big Pharma and Big Insurance go on the attack: Lobbyists are working behind the scenes to kill the public option in the healthcare bill. And they’re succeeding.” Says Reich:

So they’re pulling out all the stops — pushing Democrats and a handful of so-called moderate Republicans who say they’re in favor of a public option to support legislation that would include it in name only. One of their proposals is to break up the public option into small pieces under multiple regional third-party administrators that would have little or no bargaining leverage. A second is to give the public option to states where Big Pharma and Big Insurance can easily buy off legislators and officials, as they’ve been doing for years. A third is to bind the public plan to the same rules that private insurers have already wangled, thereby making it impossible for the public plan to put competitive pressure on the insurers.

Reich’s challenge ought to send reform advocates to the barracades:

This is it, folks. The concrete is being mixed and about to be poured. And after it’s poured and hardens, universal healthcare will be with us for years to come in whatever form it now takes. Let your representative and senators know you want a public option without conditions or triggers — one that gives the public insurer bargaining leverage over drug companies and that pushes insurers to do what they’ve promised to do. Don’t wait until the concrete hardens and we’ve lost this battle.

It’s hard to find anyone inside the D.C. beltway who actually believes single payer health care reform can be achieved in this session of congress. The majority of progressives seem to have settled for the “public option,” which can be seen as a step toward achieving a single-payer system down the road, make that way down the road.
The public option does seem to be the most promising proposal for achieving a progressive consensus for this session of congress. But I do hope the single payer warriors will keep the heat on as the ‘scary left’ that makes the publlic option seem like a moderate alternative.
I applaud incremental reform as generally a more practicable approach than “big package” reform. By providing a smaller target and a simpler policy, precisely defined incremental reforms have a certain edge in winning hearts and minds. Incremental reforms have less baggage than “big package” reforms and they reduce the opposition’s ability to use red herrings to distract voters. Republicans, for example, had an easier time of it trashing ‘Hillarycare’ than they would in fighting a bill that forces insurance companies to do one simple thing — cover pre-existing conditions.
The oft-cited advantage of big package reform is that you can build a broader coalition. Well, that’s true. But it gives a well-organized opponent plenty of targets for mobilizing opposition. The right is very good at distracting voters with specific objections to proposals that offer otherwise beneficial reforms. See our staff post yesterday on William Galston’s New Republic article to get a sense of how complicated are public attitudes toward various health care reforms.
Incremental reforms are often portrayed as a ‘sell-out’ of progressive principles because they invariably leave some constituency out. The pre-existing coverage requirement, for example, still leaves millions without coverage. But if there is an understanding that other specific reforms to broaden coverage will be strongly advocated shortly after pre-existing coverage is enacted as part of a coalition commitment, then it could become possible to achieve something resembling universal coverage in fairly short order. Voting on highly specific health care reforms one by one in rapid succession may be a quicker way of getting to universal, comprehensive reform than having a grand battle over a highly complicated health care reform bill with many moving parts that have to work together in synch.
Incremental reform is not a new idea. Governor Howard Dean proposed insuring all children first, which is a good example of a politically-attractive initial reform. I like the idea of first guaranteeing catastrophic coverage to everyone — codifying the principle that no one loses their home or retirement assets because of an illness. It would be politically-popular by providing a huge sense of relief to millions of voters and it could be financed through a single-payer mechanism, sort of a partial single-payer reform. Let the private insurer reforms and the public option address other coverage issues — for now. A comment by Daniel Bliss in response to an Ezra Klein post on health care reform at The American Prospect made the argument nicely:

The key thing, as I see it, is that a final plan will not be successful in the long run unless it has a single payer component. Note the qualifying word, “component.” It merely has to share the risk and streamline the core of the system, but does not have to be single-payer in its entirety, and indeed probably shouldn’t if we want the best possible system. There is after all a great deal of difference in how applicable a market is to something that people simply won’t do without (e.g. accident and emergency) compared to something that is relatively more discretionary (non-urgent care administered in relatively small and affordable increments, such as chiropractic treatment). It’s worth noting that the top-rated health care systems in the world, according to the World Health Organization, tend to embody this concept of mating single payer for catastrophic coverage with supplemental insurance taking care of more discretionary parts of health care. France is the outstanding example.

If the Obama Administration can say 3 years from now, “We eradicated the fear of ruinous health care costs for all American families,” that’s a hell of an impressive achievement to run on on 2012.
Given the complexity of attitudes toward health care proposals, I’d prefer to see a series of specific health care reforms debated, voted and enacted in succession, each piece standing on its own merits, rather than having them all linked together and inter-dependent on each other. It would bring more clarity — and simplicty — to the debate over health care reform, and my hunch is consumers/voters would welcome it.

Contending forces are streaming on to the field for what is certain to be the fiercest battle over health care reform ever fought. The health and economic security of millions of Americans are at stake, along with the fate of a huge industry and many billions of dollars. One important change over the last great battle, over “Hillarycare”: Thanks primarily to the blogosphere, this time around there will be a surfeit of good information about reform options immediately available to health care consumers who want to make informed choices. Those who want to get up to speed on the politics of health care reform will find no shortage of good reporting on the eve of the battle.
Here’s the basic timetable, according to a succinct summary by USA Today‘s Susan Page:

This year’s fast-track timetable on health care calls for leaders of key congressional committees to unveil legislation this month, debate it next month and pass it before leaving for the summer recess in August. Final passage would follow in September or October, before next year’s elections start to complicate things.
That, at least, is the plan.

Deepak Bhargava’s Huffpo article “Health Insurance You Can Trust,” makes a short, but tight case for insisting that there be a public insurance option. Bhargava notes:

According to the Harris Poll only 7% of people judge private health insurance companies to be “honest and trustworthy.”…a Lake Research poll found that a whopping 73% of voters want everyone to have a choice of a public health insurance plan while only 15% want everyone to have private insurance.

Bhargava recounts a familiar litany of horror stories of care denied and economic disaster for consumers and adds,

A Harvard study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses. Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.

At Daily Kos, RDemocrat has a long post that covers a lot of interesting ground regarding the politics of health reform. The author makes a strong case for establishing a single-payer system, which most observers believe is off the political table this year. But he also provides a wealth of facts for challenging the argument that the private sector can best deliver quality affordable coverage, including:

Fact One: The United States ranks 23rd in infant mortality, down from 12th in 1960 and 21st in 1990
Fact Two: The United States ranks 20th in life expectancy for women down from 1st in 1945 and 13th in 1960
Fact Three: The United States ranks 21st in life expectancy for men down from 1st in 1945 and 17th in 1960.
Fact Four: The United States ranks between 50th and 100th in immunizations depending on the immunization. Overall US is 67th, right behind Botswana
Fact Five: Outcome studies on a variety of diseases, such as coronary artery disease, and renal failure show the United States to rank below Canada and a wide variety of industrialized nations.

Meanwhile the U.S. Senate’s two Democratic heavyweights on health care, Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus are talking unity, despite their differences about providing a public option. Kennedy is leading the charge for “a robust public public health care plan,” while Senator Chuck Shumer reportedly has a compromise in the form of a watered down public option Baucus may find acceptable. Baucus wants a bill that passes with a filibuster-proof 60 vote majority, while Kennedy and other Senate liberals are ready to rumble with 51 votes in the budget reconciliation maneuver. According to a head count by Open Left‘s Chris Bowers, the 51 votes are in place.
Bring it on. Whatever it takes to put an end to profit-driven health care in America and the unending stream of horror stories, a few of which were recounted by Bhargava in his HuffPo post, will be long overdue. Given the amount of money at stake, we can safely assume that we are about to see a tidal wave of health care provider propaganda on a scale never before experienced. Democrats of all stripes have two choices this summer: get rolled or get unified and bring their “A” game.

In his “E.J.’s Precinct” blog at WaPo, E.J. Dionne is hosting an interesting discussion about the national sales tax, a.k.a. value added tax, as a not-so-new idea generating fresh interest among Democrats. Dionne’s blog riffs on a WaPo article by Lori Montgomery in Wednesday’s edition entitled “Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look.”
Broadly defined the VAT is a regressive tax, and rightly opposed by most progressives. Still the advantages are impressive and acceptable to most other social democracies, as Montgomery explains:

Enter the VAT, one of the world’s most popular taxes, in use in more than 130 countries. Among industrialized nations, rates range from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Hungary and in parts of Scandinavia. A 21 percent VAT has permitted Ireland to attract investment by lowering its corporate tax rate.
The VAT has advantages: Because producers, wholesalers and retailers are each required to record their transactions and pay a portion of the VAT, the tax is hard to dodge. It punishes spending rather than savings, which the administration hopes to encourage. And the threat of a VAT could pull the country out of recession, some economists argue, by hurrying consumers to the mall before the tax hits.

And pressure seems to be mounting to at least open a discussion about some form of the VAT. Montgomery quotes Democratic Senator Kent Conrad “I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table.” And even in its most regressive form, taxing nearly everything that is sold, using the revenues to finance universal health care for example, might make it more palatable to progressives. According to one estimate cited by Montgomery, “a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments.”
Dionne, who has opposed the VAT as regressive in the past, now says “I am starting to think such a tax may be inevitable because government is going to need a lot of revenue in the coming years.” One of the more interesting comments responding to Dionne’s blog comes from Tomscanlon1, who notes that a VAT can be modified to make it less regressive:

Canada was in a deep hole in the early 90s and bit the bullet on a very unpopular national sales tax of 7%. It saved them and today it’s down to 5%. It exempts basic necessities like food, rent and kid’s clothes, so it doesn’t punish the poor. Canada’s finances look a hell of a lot healthier than those of the US.

Certainly, alcohol, tobacco, fatty and sugar-heavy foods and sodas that cause so many health problems should be taxed more rigorously for health reasons as well as for enhancing federal revenues. Healthy food should be exempt. Jennythacker adds in Dionne’s blog:

The fed could follow California’s example and choose not to tax necessities. Food items bought in stores would not be taxed although restaurants might be. Entertainment items like theater tickets, ball games, etc. would be. Home utilities (heating oil, water, garbage pick up, recycling, electricity) might be considered basic necessities and therefore not taxed.
Or the fed could follow Virginia’s example and tax only luxury goods (cars, boats, RV’s etc. costing more than $20,000)…We can also keep the tax small. Few people will be severely hurt by a 1% tax, but the benefits to our federal budget would be enormous…There are ways to make the tax happen. There are ways to make it effective. And there are ways to do it that don’t necessarily hurt the poor more than the well-t-do. It is possible, and it might be a very good idea.

It may be that American voters will be more receptive to a national sales tax in the current economic crisis. As another commenter, Spencer99, adds,

…If we are going to promise European benefits, we need European taxes. Europeans vote for government benefits knowing they will actually be paying for the benefits. the VAT system is much closer to this

A commenter named Garak makes this point about a national sales tax being a tough sell, politically:

Any national VAT or sales tax will pressure states to cut their sales taxes. The higher the total sales tax, the more resistance from the public. It’s easier to pressure state and local governments to cut taxes than it is to pressure the federal gov’t.
Further, states will resist because first, sales taxes historically are reserved to the states, and second, because states rely on them to a very high degree. You will see states fighting a national VAT/sales tax tooth and nail…Europe doesn’t have this problem because taxes are primarily national taxes, not provincial.

Clearly there are lots of problems associated with federal sales tax proposals. But it’s not like income tax hikes are a cakewalk for the Administration. As the contributors to the discussion at E.J.’s Precinct have demostrated there are a range of modifications that can make the VAT an easier sell to American voters. Maybe now would be a good time for the Democratic Party to hold public hearings across the country to generate further discussion about creative ways to make a national sales tax a progressive alternative.

Bob Herbert’s latest New York Times column, “Our Crumbling Foundation,” updates the argument for major infrastructure upgrade projects as a near-perfect match for the nation’s employment needs. It’s a familiar argument that’s been made for decades, though seldom with such supportive economic realities, and Herbert makes his case about as good as can be done in the columnist’s limited format:

It’s not just about roads and bridges, although they are important. It’s also about schools, and the electrical grid, and environmental and technological innovation. It’s about establishing a world-class industrial and economic platform for a nation that is speeding toward second-class status on a range of important fronts.
It’s about whether we’re serious about remaining a great nation. We don’t act like it. Here’s a staggering statistic: According to the Education Trust, the U.S. is the only industrialized country in which young people are less likely than their parents to graduate from high school…We can’t put our people to work. We can’t educate the young. We can’t keep the infrastructure in good repair. It’s hard to believe that this nation could be so dysfunctional at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. It’s tragic….The link between the need to rebuild the nation’s crumbing infrastructure and the crucial need to find rich new sources of employment in this economic downturn should be obvious, a no-brainer.

Over the years, numerous Democratic candidates for congress and the white house have urged making infrastructure upgrades as a major federal priority. Yet the idea never gets much traction, despite the clear logic of the need for action. The political will ought to be there, but it hasn’t emerged thus far. Democrats just didn’t have the votes in congress to significantly increase expenditures for fixing America’s decaying roads, bridges, sewerage systems, port security and other critical public facilities.
Herbert didn’t analyze opinion polls for clues to how voters feel about infrastructure projects as a major federal investment. If he had, he would have seen that there is strong public support for the concept of a major government investment in shoring up our infrastructure. A poll conducted 12/22/08 by Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research (yes, that Frank Luntz) for Building America’s Future, an organization which promotes infrastructure projects, found 81 percent would pay an extra 1 percent on their taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs, while 84 percent believe their state governments should increase spending on public works.
But he would also have seen that the government does have a persistent image problem, which prevents needed political action. The BAF poll found, for example, that 51 percent said their governor had been very effective in improving infrastructure in the last five years, compared with only 22 percent who said the same for political leaders in Washington. (although here I wonder if Luntz’s Republican leanings have biased questions to get a desired the result). Government-bashing is still fashionable among conservatives and some moderates, though to a lesser extent than a decade ago. Asked “…which of the following will be the biggest threat to the country in the future: big business, big labor, or big government?,” 55 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted 3/27-29 said ‘big government,’ compared to 10 percent for ‘big labor’ and 32 percent for ‘big business.’ Other recent polls show public opinion more evenly divided on the question of whether the federal government should do more or less.
Knee-jerk government-bashing is now boilerplate rhetoric for GOP politicians. Thus far the Democratic response has been decidedly limp, usually changing the subject or ignoring the Republicans. What is absent is any party-wide commitment to address the problem head-on — to use the resources of the white house and the Democratic Party to strengthen the image of the federal government. I’m not talking so much about individual Democrats more assertively defending the federal government. What is needed is a major national campaign to educate the public about the positive accomplishments of the federal government, including federally-funded documentaries on key government agencies broadcast on PBS and major networks, public service advertising on television, radio and the internet, and generally making more aggressive use of public relations to educate taxpayers about the bargain they get for their taxes.
Ken Burns is premiering his new 12-hour documentary series on America’s national parks on PBS this Fall.. Presumably he will show viewers the wonderful resources of the federal parks and also reveal the need to better protect those resources. After giving due credit to Burns as a great private-sector documentary-maker, the question arises, why isn’t there already a great federally-funded documentary series on the federal parks? Or the FDA, NTSB, the NLRB and numerous other federal agencies that save taxpayers’ lives and money.
That’s what the private sector does when a company or industry develops an image-problem. They educate and advertise, and they do it because it works. It makes little sense for the Dems, including President Obama, to cede the case for government-bashing to the GOP, especially when we have a strong counter-argument and the resources to publicize it. A public education campaign about the very real accomplishments of the federal government, on the other hand, might help millions of taxpayers to see the folly in the GOP’s trashing of government and be more supportive of Democratic reforms.

Ronald Brownstein has a new National Journal article, “For GOP, A Southern Exposure” discussing how much of the Republican’s hopes for a return to domination are anchored in the south. Much of Brownstein’s article will be of more interest to political historians than those concerned with forward-focused political strategy. But he does provide insightful observations, including this about the Republicans’ recent experience in the region :

In the House and Senate, nearly half of all Republicans were elected from that region, defined as the 11 states of the Confederacy, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. In each chamber, Southerners are a larger share of the Republican caucus than ever before. Similarly, beginning with the 1992 presidential election, the South has provided at least 59 percent of the Electoral College votes won by the GOP nominee, including by George W. Bush in his 2000 and 2004 victories. That percentage is nearly double the South’s share of all Electoral College votes and by far the most that GOP presidential nominees have relied on the region over any sustained period.
…Elsewhere, though, the GOP’s presidential performance has tumbled in recent election cycles. Democrats have won at least two-thirds of the Electoral College votes outside the South in each of the past five elections. Even Bush won only about 30 percent of the non-Southern Electoral College votes in 2000 and again in 2004.

Of course, this is not the same thing as saying the region is hopeless for Democrats, as (then) Senator Obama so ably demonstrated in NC, VA and FL and as is indicated by southern Dems holding office in the U.S. congress, governorships, state legislatures and mayoral postions across the region. However, as Brownstein explains:

In both chambers, Republicans have surrendered some Southern seats since 2006 because of the public’s widespread disillusionment with Bush’s performance. (Most notably, Democrats have gained 11 Southern House seats.) But, the GOP still holds 56 percent of the region’s House seats and 19 of its 26 Senate seats.

Brownstein points out that the GOP share of non-Southern House seats has plunged to just 33.5 percent and 28 percent of U.S. Senate seats as a result of the last two elections, and “In both chambers, the Republican conference is now considerably more concentrated in the South than ever before.” He quotes GOP pollster Whit Ayres, an expert on Southern races, noting that Republican control of the South “looked great when we were holding on to our Northeastern and Midwestern seats and continuing to sweep the South…The challenge arises when the rest of the country says, ‘I don’t believe the same things,’ or ‘I don’t admire the same candidates,’ as the South does.” Brownstein continues,

Since Bush’s re-election in 2004, the GOP has lost ground electorally in the South and the rest of the nation. But the erosion has been much more severe outside the South. That dynamic has threatened Republicans with a spiral of concentration and contraction. Because the party has lost so much ground elsewhere, the South represents an increasing share of what remains — both in Congress and in its electoral coalition. The party’s increasing identification with staunch Southern economic and social conservatism, however, may be accelerating its decline in more-moderate-to-liberal areas of the country, including the Northeast and the West Coast. “Many of the things they have done to become the dominant party in the South have caused them to be less successful in other places,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, a South Carolina native.

And the concentration of Republican power in the South has a price:

…Some GOP strategists are gingerly suggesting that staunchly conservative Southerners are putting too much of their own stamp on the party, especially on social issues. GOP consultant Mike DuHaime, political director of McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said that “everybody in the party is concerned” about the GOP’s decline along the coasts and in the Upper Midwest. “It’s important that we always keep our base [in the South] as part of our party, but we need to have the ability to disagree on certain issues. That’s the only way we are going to expand,” he said. Republican pollster Ayres concurs. “The South is an incredibly important part of the Republican coalition, but it’s not sufficient to win,” he said. “You may very well have standards that are somewhat different for a Republican in the Philadelphia suburbs than you do for a Republican in Alabama.”

He argues that the Dems’ great southern hope is the rapidly growing percentage of Latinos and Asians in the region.

…The growth of other nonwhite populations, such as Hispanics and even Asians, is strengthening Democrats across the region, especially in the outer South, and even in portions of the Deep South such as Georgia. These “new minority” voters functioned like a thumb on the scale last year for Obama in Virginia (where they reached 10 percent of the vote) and North Carolina (where they comprised 6 percent). They were also instrumental in tipping Florida to the Democratic presidential nominee. “When you add the Democratic vote among African-Americans with that of the new minorities, that means the share of the white vote a Democrat needs to win goes down,” notes Merle Black.
Eventually, Hispanic population growth might even threaten the Republican hold on Texas, where whites last year constituted just 63 percent of the vote, the same as in California. Demography alone probably won’t flip Texas: To capture it, Democrats will almost certainly need to improve their performance among whites there, too. (Obama won just one-fourth of them, compared with twice that in California.) But at the least, Black notes, the growing nonwhite vote is allowing Texas Democrats to become competitive again in the state that has functioned as the jewel in the crown for Southern Republicans.

As Latinos and Asians pour into the region, a more vigorous pace of naturalization becomes a critical challenge for Democrats hoping to take a larger bite out of the South. A few well-funded naturalization projects could make a great difference in Democratic prospects in the southern states. Forcing Republicans to invest more resources in defending their southern base, even as they struggle to make needed gains in other regions, could weaken their prospects everywhere — and help to secure a new era of Democratic growth across the nation.

The pragmatic flexibility of President Obama’s decision-making strategy is nicely-limned in a May 16th L.A. Times article by Janet Hook and Christi Parsons.

Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, who styled himself as “the Decider” and took pride in sticking with decisions come what might, Obama is emerging as a leader so committed to pragmatism that he will move to a new position with barely a shrug.
Whether it’s a long-standing campaign promise or a recent Oval Office decision, Obama has shown a willingness to reverse himself and even anger his most liberal supporters if he can advance a higher-priority goal or avoid what he sees as a distracting controversy.

The article goes on to discuss Obama’s changed positions on releasing torture photos, using military tribunals, “extraordinary rendition” and dispersement of fees for exceeding carbon emissions caps. The list could be extended to inlcude changed positions regarding economic policy, Iraq withdrawall, stem cell and a range of other issues just 4 months into his term. The authors quote TDS Co-editor William Galston, who puts Obama’s reversals in context of “the basic optic”:

This is the story of an ambitious new administration running up against reality at home and abroad…The realities on the defense and foreign policy fronts are both more intractable and quicker to show themselves for what they are…If he’s basically faithful to the agenda he ran on, the reversals — such as they are — are going to be seen as tolerable exceptions rather than as leading indicators…If you are a single-issue person, what the president says in regard to your issue may be a bitter disappointment.

Not surprisingly, a growing number of progressives are displeased by the overall tilt of Obama’s reversals. And it does seem as if the flexibility Obama demonstrates rarely, if ever, bends toward the left. There is always a feeling that, as MLK, once put it “Ultimately a genuine leader is not of consensus but a molder of consensus,” a sense that a President ought to be more willing to fight for principles, and be a little less eager to compromise them. Of course MLK was a moral leader, whose job was more to awaken dormant consciences, rather than secure gradual reforms.
Some corroboration that Obama’s policy compromises are within the range of being “tolerable exceptions” and “basically faithful” to his campaign agenda, as Galston put it, comes from testimony in the conservative press. As Peter Berkowitz put it in an elegantly-written, if politically-wrong-headed piece in The Weekly Standard earlier this month:

…Obama’s pragmatism…appears to be another name for achieving progressive ends; flexibility is confined to the means. This helps explain the sometimes glaring gap between Obama’s glistening postpartisan promises and his aggressively partisan policies. Judging by his conduct–as pragmatism officially instructs–Obama appears to have concluded that the best way to maintain public support for progressive programs is to divert attention from the full range of their consequences and, where possible, to refrain from making progressive principles too explicit.
…A truly postpartisan pragmatist–or a pragmatist in the ordinary, everyday sense–would pay attention to the long-term economic consequences of massive government costs and expansion. He would also show interest in the full range of moral consequences of his policies, in particular the practical impact on citizens’ incentives for responsibly managing their lives of a great enlargement of government responsibilities for managing their lives for them. But a pragmatist for whom it is second nature to measure all policy by how well it promotes a progressive agenda might well ignore or deflect consideration of these awkward consequences…The problem is not partisanship, but a deceptive form of pragmatism, where pretending to be nonpartisan is a pragmatic strategy for imposing far-reaching progressive policies on an unwary public…

it seems reasonable to measure the left critique of Obama’s position reversals against the more blistering critiques of the conservatives to get a fair measure of his fidelity to the progressive agenda. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of the bold consensus-molding Dr. King referred to, of the sort Obama displayed at Notre Dame, as Ed notes today. What is indisputable is that what doesn”t bend will eventually break, and Bush’s rigid policies left him with a legacy of zero positive accomplishments. Although politics is the art of compromise, principled compromise is even better.

Here we go again with the neo-McCarthyist S-word name-calling. As Ed notes below, Roger Simon reports at Politico that the RNC will pass a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party” in “an extraordinary special session” next week. Simon keeps his source anonymous, so it’s hard to say whether the resolution is really a done deal. RNC Chair Michael Steele opposes the idea, as Simon reports:

Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Well, he’s right that the resolution will invite ridicule, but not only from left Dems, but solution-oriented centrists of all stripes, perhaps even in the GOP. It will be correctly seen by thoughtful voters as another childish ploy to deflect attention from the lack of ideas circulating among what’s left of the Republican cognoscenti. Parroting ad hominem atttacks ad nauseum tends to make obvious failed arguments more than anything else. I won’t be surprised if a great many of the voters they are targeting will yawn or scoff at the name-calling.
This twisted tactic worked to some extent back in the day when the GOP was able to peddle their hackneyed propaganda about the evils of government spending/high taxes as America’s Big Problem. Back then it was all about “Liberal”-bashing (and still is with Ann Coulter and other snarling Republican pundits). But that was before the colossal failures of W’s administration. And who knows, it might work again down the road, if economic trends cooperate. For now, however, the American people clearly support Obama’s economic initiatives in healthy majorities (see yesterday’s staff post on Teixeira’s “Public Opinion Snapshot”).
It appears that the GOP lost most of it’s brain power when Francis Fukuyama bailed and William Buckley and Jack Kemp died. Newt sees himself as one of their last ‘big idea’ guys, but he is sounding more than a little stale these days. I guess it’s all part of the dumbing down process inside their incredible shrinking tent.
In that regard, Judge Richard Posner, who has been called “the most cited legal scholar of all time,” has an interesting post, “Is the Conservative Movement Losing Steam?,” at The Becker-Posner Blog, with this delicious graph, flagged by Nate Silver:

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

Sounds about right. Still the Republicans behind this lame idea hope that linking the word ‘Socialist’ with every mention of the term ‘Democrat’ in the GOP echo chamber will somehow turn the tide of public opinion in their favor. A recent Rasmussen poll of LV’s, conducted April 23-24, however, suggests that the term may have lost some of its power to offend Americans, as only 53 percent of respondents in the poll now believe “capitalism is better than socialism.”
In any event, it is highly unlikely that a warped form of 21st century McCarthyism will produce the desired result of winning hearts and minds in any significant numbers—– and there are good reasons to believe it may backfire.

WaPo‘s Dan Eggen has an article today about the launching of the GOP’s ad campaign to stop health care reform. Eggen reports that the ads

feature horror stories from Canada and the United Kingdom: Patients who allegedly suffered long waits for surgeries, couldn’t get the drugs they needed, or had to come to the United States for treatment.

As if there are no long waits in private sector health care and Americans don’t spend many millions on cheaper drugs from Canada.
The ad campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the firm most famous for its “Swift Boat’ attack campaign to discredit 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. Rick Scott, a leader and spokesmen for the campaign and former partner with W in the Texas Rangers, is also a former hospital chief executive who Eggen reports was ousted from the helm of the Columbia/HCA health-care company during a fraud investigation in the 1990s. “The firm eventually pleaded guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans, paying a record $1.7 billion in fines,” explains Eggen.
The good news is that the ads are already being challenged, as Eggen reports:

In an ad broadcast in the Washington area and in Scott’s home town of Naples, Fla., last week, a group called Health Care for America Now says of Scott: “He and his insurance-company friends make millions from the broken system we have now.”
The group’s national campaign manager, Richard Kirsch, said: “Those attacking reform are really looking to protect their own profits, and he’s a perfect messenger for that. His history of making a fortune by destroying quality in the health-care system and ripping off the government is a great example of what’s really going on.”

The Scott/CRC ads are in line with the strategy suggested by GOP pollster Frank Luntz, whose paper on stopping President Obama’s health care refom initiative I discussed at TDS last week.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) says, via HuffPo, that the Luntz strategy is “intended to prolong the broken system we have today” and he describes it thusly:

So expect a massive misinformation campaign coming to a health care debate near you. Opponents using Dr. Luntz’s doublespeak will argue for a “balanced, common sense approach” to health care but what they really want is to keep the system the way it is. They’ll say that a public plan will not be “patient centered,” but their real goal is to block accessible health care for every American. They’ll say reform will deny Americans “choice” even when every American will be allowed to keep their health insurance and their doctor. They’ll claim that the “quality of care will go down,” while callously ignoring the fact that millions of Americans have no health care at all and millions more are denied the medications and procedures they need.

Also at HuffPo, Chris Weigant offers some good strategy pointers in his post “Countering the Luntz Playbook on Health Care,” including:

…We’ve got an easier job than Republicans in convincing the people, because they already agree with the most basic Democratic premises on health care — every family has a health insurance horror story. Meaning “the system is broken” is not something we have to convince people of. The Republicans, meanwhile, have only fear. Which brings us to our first talking point.

And when a Republican Senator/member of congress starts railing against government involvement in health care as a form of socialism, Weigant has a response:

“Excuse me, Senator, but I can’t help but pointing out that the health care you receive from the American taxpayers could be called ‘socialized medicine’ as well. And yet, I notice that you accept this health care — which is paid for straight out of the American taxpayer’s wallet. Are you over 65? Have you refused all Medicare benefits, since you are so adamant about the evils of ‘socialized medicine’? If you are trying to limit American citizens from getting the health care you yourself enjoy, which is incidentally paid for by those very same taxpayers, why should anyone listen to what you have to say? You are saying ‘I’ve got mine’ and at the same time ‘nobody else should get to choose what I’ve got’ even though they’re paying for yours. I will start to listen to you on the evils and dangers of government health care when you voluntarily give up your own government health care and go out and buy insurance on the open market. By doing so, you might begin to understand the crisis as the average Americans see it… but until you do, I have to say you’re being somewhat of a hypocrite, Senator.”

George Lakoff, along with colleagues Glenn W. Smith and Eric Haas, have a list of ten principles of health care reform messaging, also at HuffPo. Among the nuggets mined by Lakoff, Smith and Haas:

Why do HMO’s have a high administrative cost – 15 to 20 percent or more? They spend money to justify denying you the care you need and all too often delaying care so much that you are harmed by the delay…
The American Plan is there to provide you care, not deny or delay it. Its administrative costs would be low, about 3 percent….HMO’s are big spenders, not on your health, but on administrative costs, commercials to tout their plans, and profits to investors. As much as 20 to 30% of what you pay does not go to your care. In The American Plan, 97% of what you pay goes for your care. It’s a better deal for you and for our country.

The authors also emphasize the importance of stating that “Health care is a moral issue” and underscoring the “central principle of empathy.” While it is important to affirm the moral case for comprehensive health care reform, I would also emphasize that it is a compelling national security priority, when we have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, nearly 50 million citizens have zero health insurance, when tens of millions of Americans are in immediate danger of economic ruin in the event of a catastrophic illness and many more millions simply don’t know how much their insurance will cover —- until they get the bill.