Noam Scheiber has a New Republic article that calls attention to a misunderstanding that could spell trouble for the White House. Scheiber cites Washington Post and New York Times polls showing that President Obama is losing support among “Independents” and one major cause is rising gas prices.
Scheiber says “I don’t disagree with this, but I’d argue that the results underscore something broader: the way the White House has misunderstood independents for much of Obama’s first term.” He adds that the confusion first surfaced in White House advisers’ “impression that independents were most concerned about deficits” and a related delusion “that independents were exercised about out-of-control government spending.” Sheiber continues:

The problem with this is that it reflected a fundamental confusion about who independents were. In the book, I summarize some existing work showing that most people who call themselves independents are pretty similar to traditional partisan voters: They reliably vote Democrat or Republican and simply prefer not to state their party affiliation. The independents actually up for grabs tend to be working class whites, who base their vote first and foremost on their personal economic situation. Though many of these independents did tell pollsters they were upset about the deficit in 2010 and 2011, a slightly closer reading of the data suggested they weren’t upset about spending per se. They were upset that the spending–on the stimulus and health care–didn’t appear to have helped the economy, since unemployment was still extremely high. (I happen to disagree with them–I think the stimulus helped quite a bit–but that was undeniably their view.)
Which is to say, by focusing on deficit-reduction rather than job-creation, the White House was ignoring the problem independents were most exercised about.

Scheiber argues that the White House emphasis on solid job growth in recent months “has largely bombed among independents,” and,

…Longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that the riff in the State of the Union about recent job growth appealed to a mere 26 percent of independents. The reason, Greenberg explained, is both that such voters “have not seen these jobs or felt the effects of job creation” and that “they are also deeply concerned that these jobs are not permanent.”
Greenberg went on to note that, absent a genuine improvement in their personal bottom lines, the only reliable way to excite independents was to tout policies aimed at strengthening the middle class, which at least has the benefit of speaking to their anxieties. Given the likelihood that the economy and the unemployment rate stay about where they are between now and November–and the ever-present risk of still higher energy prices–the White House would be wise to heed his advice. That means no idle talk about deficits or the recent economic uptick, its favorite topics of the last twelve months…

As Scheiber noted above, most ‘Independents’ reliably vote Democratic or Republican, according to their leanings. But the important subset of the so-called “Independents” is the white working class, one of the largest groups of actual swing voters. As Scheiber concludes of Greenberg’s advice to focus on their concerns about economic security, “Will the White House have the presence of mind to hold that line? As I say, probably only if it’s finally thinking straight about independents.”

As part of a New Republic roundtable on what Obama’s agenda should be for a second term, Mark Schmitt argues as follows:

…If Obama wins re-election, he should tackle the challenge of political reform directly, aggressively, and creatively.
The political dysfunction in Washington is now its own crisis–one to be addressed on its own terms. If the economy recovery remains on solid ground–a big if, of course–Obama should reclaim, both on the campaign trail and upon re-election, his original mission and passion: Reform of the political process. Pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded in July 2011 that voters are more open than ever before to thinking about economic inequality and stress as connected to political inequality and a sense that the “the game is rigged” and people “do not think their voices matter.”
….Congressional obstruction has now crossed the line into what James Fallows of The Atlantic calls “nullification,” including blocking the implementation of existing laws. All the barriers of law and custom that had put a modest check on the influence of money on elections and legislation have fallen–most of them not directly because of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision but more because of a cultural sense that anything goes, combined with lack of enforcement. Rather than moving to open the electoral process, eleven states have enacted or tightened voter I.D. requirements since Obama took office.

Among his suggestions, Schmitt notes some proposals TDS also discussed in a Strategy Memo “A Common Sense Populist Communications Strategy for Rebuilding Trust in Government”. For example:

….While Obama’s dreams of a warm deliberative conversation with congressional Republicans were evidently naïve, the broader public, beyond the angriest activists and partisans, has shown itself open to a real conversation. When Obama inevitably moves back to thinking about long-term federal deficit reduction, rather than appoint yet another blue-ribbon panel of Washington grandees and CEOs, he should instead launch a process that would engage tens of thousands of Americans in a guided, deliberative discussion of the choices on taxes, health spending, and retirement.

And also:

…There are also small steps that Obama can take to make government more accessible to citizens. Consider, for example, the statement most of us now receive annually from the Social Security Administration detailing our lifetime earnings and expected benefits. That’s an innovation from the mid-1990s, and it helps dampen Social Security demagoguery by showing that the program is real and its benefits predictable. While open databases of information such as recovery.gov, which tracks spending from the 2009 economic stimulus, are great resources for specialists or people with time on their hands, they are no substitute for more tangible gestures that can make government visible to ordinary, busy people.

Be sure to check out Schmitt’s piece and also the TDS Strategy Memo.

The “bin Laden is dead, and GM is Alive” bumper sticker is not a bad short slogan for the president’s re-election campaign in terms of reminding the general public. But it’s also good to know that his foreign policy record has earned the respect of credible experts.
Dems looking to get up to speed on the President’s foreign policy achievements should read “Obama as progressive pragmatist,” by Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal and Michael O’Hanlon at Politico. The authors, top Brookings international affairs advisors and co-authors of “Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy,” offer insightful observations Dems can leverage, among them:

…On balance, Obama has proved tough, disciplined and, overall, reasonably successful in addressing the nation’s immediate security challenges. One might call him a reluctant realist: Holding onto his idealistic visions and pursuing them where possible but adroitly shifting to tougher measures when necessary.
…He has been disciplined and pragmatic — keeping Robert Gates, President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, at the Pentagon, for example; and hiring his chief rival, Hillary Clinton, at the State Department; working closely with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other top economic officials to cope with the urgency of the global financial crisis on taking office; tripling combat forces in Afghanistan; keeping U.S. troops in Iraq 20 months longer than originally promised; “rebalancing” toward Asia to reassure the region that the United States is reliable; and remaining resolute in the pursuit of terrorist leaders like the now late Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki.
In other words, Obama is a pragmatist. A progressive one, to be sure — since he sought, where possible, to make inroads in the pursuit of his bigger hopes. But a pragmatist just the same — and a hawkish one in many ways.

Not all Democrats like President Obama’s extended stay in Afghanistan, nor his retaining Geithner. But it’s hard to deny that his foreign policy is meeting with success overall. Further, despite current conflicts, the authors argue that “the threats to U.S. interests have been contained to date, and Obama has successfully mobilized other key countries, beyond a tight circle of allies, to increase pressure dramatically on Tehran as well as Pyongyang.” They also credit the President with “returning to diplomacy and countering the perception of Washington as prone to knee-jerk military interventionism.”
The President, unlike his predecessor, has avoided disaster, particularly regarding challenges associated with North Korea and Iran, and there is no reason to think that his adversaries could do any better. As the authors conclude, “…On balance, this president possesses an effective, even fairly strong, foreign policy track record to date — very different and far better than his Republican opponents are painting in their presidential campaigns.”

The GOP echo chamber trumpets the meme that President Obama’s auto bailout and stimulus policies were a failure. But the public isn’t buying it and has a much more positive view of both measures, as TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira points out. On the stimulus:

In a new Pew Center poll, 61 percent said the economic stimulus plan in 2009 mostly helped the economy, while just 31 percent thought it mostly hurt.

Regarding the auto bailout:

…In the same poll, 56 percent of the public described the bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler as mostly good for the economy, compared to 38 percent who thought the bailout was mostly bad for the economy.

No surprise that the conservative echo chamber would try to put two such successful progressive policies in a bad light. So far, however, polls indicate most voters aren’t so easily hustled. As Teixeira says the public is willing to “give credit where credit is due.”

The executive summary below is cross-posted from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research:
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted a survey on behalf of EMILY’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to explore the impact of the birth control debate on voters in eight battleground Senate states.
The debate on birth control provides a boost for Democratic candidates who support access to birth control. In fact, nearly half of voters say that if their member of Congress supported the Blunt Amendment (which would have allowed employers to opt out of covering birth control), it would make them less likely to support him or her. A near consensus exists that women should have access to birth control, that insurers should cover it, and that the decision to use birth control is a private one.
Key Findings:
*By wide margins, battleground voters believe that Democrats do a better job on access to birth control, women’s health issues, and abortion. While they give the Republicans an advantage on protecting religious freedom, voters are split on which party would respect their individual religious faith.
*Voters strongly oppose the Blunt Amendment. A majority believe that religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges should not have a religious exemption. Nearly half say that they would be less likely to support a candidate for office if he or she supported the Blunt Amendment, including a majority of Independents.
*Access to birth control has the potential to impact actual races. As a starting point, in this battleground, a generic Republican leads a generic Democrat by 5 point. In a generic informed match-up between a Democrat and a Republican given to half the sample, the Democrat trails. The other half sample received the same information with language about birth control, and the candidates are tied.
*Voters object to a wide range of attacks on access to healthcare and contraception occurring at the federal and state levels. Moreover, they strongly oppose attempts to defund Planned Parenthood.

Nearly two thirds oppose prohibiting Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for birth control, maternity care, and cancer screenings; most oppose it even when it is specified that some clinics provide abortion services. More generally, voters oppose eliminating federal Title X funding for health clinics that provide services – including access to birth control – to low income women.
Over half oppose so-called conscience clauses for pharmacists and health providers to opt out of prescribing and filling prescriptions for birth control, support requiring an employer to provide coverage for birth control through their insurance plans, and would allow women to get emergency contraception over the counter without a prescription.
Even on issues related to abortion, the electorate is divided; voters split evenly on a conscience clause when it includes abortion and undergoing an ultrasound prior to having an abortion, though a majority opposes an “invasive” ultrasound similar to what was proposed in Virginia.

The strategy memo below by Bill Burton, co-founder of Priorities USA Super-PAC, is cross-posted from Benjy Sarlin’s post at Talking Points memo:
TO: Interested Parties
FR: Bill Burton, Priorities USA Action
RE: Super Tuesday Memo: Romney’s Agenda for the Wealthy Hurting Him With Those Who Are Not
Mitt Romney’s narrow win in his home state of Michigan was only possible because of overwhelming margins with the wealthiest Republican primary voters. In what has become a predictable outcome during the Republican nomination fight, Romney once again lost voters making less than $100,000 per year.
Between Cadillacs, NASCAR, and $10,000 bets, Romney certainly has done his fair share to demonstrate an inability to understand the economic challenges facing most Americans. But more importantly, Americans understand that Romney’s policies would primarily help himself and other extremely wealthy individuals at the expense of the middle class.
On Wednesday, the Tax Policy Center released its analysis of Romney’s budget-busting tax plan showing that he would provide a new tax cut of $250,000 to those earning over $1 million a year but he would raise taxes on those struggling to get by. His other economic ideas seem designed to simply make life more convenient for the very wealthiest: deregulating Wall Street, rolling back clean air protections, cutting taxes for big corporations and bashing unions.
Romney’s agenda for the wealthy is measurably hurting him with those who are not. In a recent CNN poll, 65% of voters said Romney “favors the rich.” That’s substantially higher than any of his Republican primary opponents. Even John McCain and President Bush did not have such dismal numbers on a similar question. Exit polls have shown him underperforming with middle class votes in every primary so far and general election polls show a decisive majority of Americans believe Romney does not understand their needs.

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With public outrage about the Citizens United decision growing, it’s good to see other smokescreens for hiding big money political donors from the public being outed. The New York Times editorial “The I.R.S. Does Its Job” calls attention to a tea party charade that both hides the identity of conservative political donors and soaks American taxpayers:

Taxpayers should be encouraged by complaints from Tea Party chapters applying for nonprofit tax status at being asked by the Internal Revenue Service to prove they are “social welfare” organizations and not the political activists they so obviously are.
Tea Party supporters claim they are being politically harassed with extensive I.R.S. questionnaires. But the service properly contends that it must ensure that these groups are “primarily” engaged in social welfare, not political campaigning, to merit tax exemption under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.
Such I.R.S. inquiries are long overdue and should be applied across the board to the growing number of organizations, allied with the major political parties, that are also ludicrously posing as “social welfare” groups. Legitimate social welfare organizations are allowed limited political activity. But these political offshoots are using that tax status in a transparent ploy to keep big donors secret while funneling the money to campaigns. Chief among these groups are American Crossroads, the campaign machine created by Republican guru Karl Rove, and Priorities USA, the Democratic counterpart founded by former White House aides, now openly encouraged by President Obama as he runs for re-election.

The editorial cites other groups like “the conservative American Action Network, a “social welfare” claimant reported by the Center for Public Integrity to have spent more than 80 percent of its expenditures on the 2010 elections; and Americans Elect, a third-party effort enjoying “social welfare” secrecy as it secures ballot space across the nation.” The editorial rightly commends the I.R.S. for doing “its duty to enforce the tax code and root out political operatives who are abusing the law and conning taxpayers and voters. ”

TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira has a blistering critique of Linda Killian’s book, “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents,” at The New Republic. Teixeira takes on the cherished myth that refuses to die, “…that independents are all swing voters ready to move right or left politically–or in Killian’s feverish imagination, toward some inchoate centrist formation of the No Labels variety.”

…This premise is based on the greatest myth in American politics: that independents are actually independent. They are not. As numerous studies have shown, the overwhelming majority of Americans who say there are “independent” lean toward one party or the other. Call them IINOs, or Independents In Name Only. IINOs who say they lean toward the Republicans think and vote just like regular Republicans. IINOs who say they lean toward the Democrats think and vote just like regular Democrats.

Unlike the proponents of the Independent voters as pivotal force myth, Teixeira has the numbers to back up his assertions:

…In 2008, according to the University of Michigan’s National Election Study (NES), 90 percent of independents who leaned Democratic voted for Obama, actually a higher level of support than among weak Democratic partisans (those who said they were “not very strong” Democrats), 84 percent of whom voted for Obama. Among Republican-leaning independents, a still-high 78 percent voted for McCain, compared to 88 percent support among weak Republican identifiers.
Evidently, these two groups are quite different animals. On the one hand, we have a group of “independents” who voted 90 percent for Barack Obama. Moreover, as Alan Abramowitz and others have shown, the policy views of Democratic-leaning independents look just like the policy views of Democratic identifiers. On the other, we have a group of “independents” who voted 78 percent for John McCain and have policy views that look just like Republican identifiers. Clearly it does tremendous violence to the data to lump these two disparate groups together and give them a label–“independents”–that implies they do not have partisan inclinations.

Teixeira acknowledges that there is a comparatively small demographic of “so-called pure independents” who “split their vote much more evenly between the parties…In 2008, according to the NES, they were just 7 percent of all voters and only 20 percent of nominally independent voters.”
Taking this more sober view of Independents is a prerequisite for formulating a useful strategy, as Teixeira explains:

Clearly, from the standpoint of a political campaign, it makes no sense to treat all independents as an undifferentiated mass of swing voters who are located in the center of the political spectrum. The Obama campaign, for example, should have different strategies for appealing to Democratic-leaning independents (24 percent of their 2008 support), pure independents (6 percent of 2008 support) and Republican-leaning independents (4 percent of 2008 support), since each of these groups looks, thinks and acts differently from the others. To do otherwise would be political malpractice.

Thus, Teixeira adds, “…Killian’s book cannot be taken seriously as analysis, whatever its pretensions. It adds nothing of value to our understanding of independents in general and of swing voters in particular.” For that, Teixeira recommends William G. Mayer’s anthology, “The Swing Voter in American Politics.”
No doubt the Independent voter zombie will rise again to annoy serious political scientists. But no politician who wants to win should pay it much attention. As Teixeira advises “Do not cower behind chimerical third-party movements that aspire to lead an army that does not exist.”

TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira has an article at Foreign Policy arguing that, regardless of the Super Tuesday outcome, “the Republican Party will have a huge problem expanding beyond its base and forging a winning coalition. Teixeira sees the GOP brand, as exemplified in the person of front-runner Mitt Romney, tanking with four key constituencies. First, Latinos:

Start with Hispanics — who accounted for 55 percent of population growth in the last decade — and the immigration issue. Romney, who is typically viewed as the “moderate” in the race, has been aggressively conservative in this area in an effort to outflank his more ideological opponents. He has promised to veto the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal aliens who came to the United States as minors with their parents, opposes in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, and raised a much-mocked scheme for their “self-deportation.” More generally, he has consistently sneered at any sign of softness among his primary opponents on these issues, raising the specter of an increasing flood of illegal immigrants coddled by the law and provided with benefits they don’t deserve.
No wonder Hispanics, despite the bad economy and concerns about the level of deportations on President Barack Obama’s watch, are supporting the president at levels above those he received in 2008, when 67 percent voted for him…Indeed, a just-released Fox News poll — not usually considered a Democrat-friendly source — has Obama garnering 70 percent of the Latino vote, compared with just 14 percent for his closest Republican opponent, an incredible 5-1 ratio.

Rergarding African American voters, Teixeira notes, “The president could certainly match his 80 percent overall support from minority voters in 2008. If that comes true, he has huge leeway to lose white votes. Amazingly, he could approach the levels at which congressional Democrats lost the white working class (30 points) and white college graduates (19 points) in the wipe-out 2010 midterm election and still win the popular vote.”
With respect to white, college-educated voters, Teixeira cited Rush Limbaugh’s misogynist meltdown as the latest debacle for conservatives, and adds:

And it may be one reason that Romney’s appeal among these voters — despite his so-called moderate views — may be evaporating. Recent polls show him running at about where McCain did with this group in the 2008 presidential election (a modest 4-point margin) and sometimes worse.

Lastly, there is Romney’s deteriorating image among working-class voters, exacerbated by his long string of tone-deaf “Richie Rich” gaffes. Teixeira explains:

…Romney appears incapable of capturing the large margins among white working-class voters that Republican candidates need in order to win a general election. In a just-released NBC poll, Romney’s margin among these voters was a mere 5 points, far less than McCain’s 18-point margin in 2008 and less still than the 25 points or more Romney probably would need in order to win, given the United States’ shifting demographics.

Teixeira notes that it’s not only Romney: “The Republican candidates, however, also all subscribe to a range of positions — opposition to the auto-industry bailout, opposition to raising taxes on the rich, support for Rep. Paul Ryan’s unpopular Medicare “reform” plan, and support for attacks on collective bargaining — that do not endear them to these voters.”
Teixeira cautions that the Republicans’ troubles don’t guarantee that their nominee is “doomed to lose.” We can be sure, however, says Teixeira, that the GOP nominee “is likely to pay a significant price for the Republican Party’s refusal to compromise its ideology in the face of a changing electorate.”

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” is cross-posted from HuffPo.
Eight months before the fall elections, Republican strategists are in a dour mood.

The economy has begun to gain traction.
Their leading candidate for president, Mitt Romney, is universally viewed as an uninspiring poster child for the one percent, with no core values anyone can point to except his own desire to be elected.
Every time Romney tries to “identify” with ordinary people he says something entirely inappropriate about his wife’s “two Cadillacs,” how much he likes to fire people who provide him services, or how he is a buddy with the people who own NASCAR teams rather than the people who watch them.
The polls show that the more people learn about Romney, the less they like him.
The Republican primary road show doesn’t appear to be coming to a close any time soon.
Together, Bob Kerrey’s announcement that he will get into the Senate contest in Nebraska and the news that Olympia Snowe is retiring from the Senate in Maine, massively increase Democratic odds of holding onto the control of the Senate.
The Congress is viewed positively by fewer voters than at any time in modern history — and two-thirds think the Republicans are completely in charge.
Worse yet, the polling in most presidential battleground states currently gives President Obama leads over Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

The one thing Republican political pros are cheering right now is the rapidly increasing price of gas at the pump and the underlying cost of oil.
The conventional wisdom holds that if gas prices increase, it will inevitably chip away at support for President Obama — and there is a good case to be made. After all, increased gas prices could siphon billions out of the pockets of consumers that they would otherwise spend on the goods and services that could help continue the economic recovery — which is critical to the president’s re-election.
But Republicans shouldn’t be so quick to lick their chops at the prospect of rising gas prices.
Here’s why:
1). What you see, everybody sees. The sight of Republicans rooting against America and hoping that rising gas prices will derail the economic recovery is not pretty.
The fact is that Republicans have done everything in their power to block President Obama’s job-creating proposals in Congress, and they were dragged kicking and screaming to support the extension of the president’s payroll tax holiday that was critical to continuing economic momentum.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell actually announced that his caucus’ number one priority this term was the defeat of President Obama. The sight of Republicans salivating at the prospect of $4-plus per gallon gasoline will not sit well with ordinary voters.
2). Democrats have shown that they are more than willing to make the case about who is actually responsible for rising gas prices — and the culprits’ footprints lead right back to the GOP’s front door.
Who is really to blame for higher gas prices?

The big oil companies that are doing everything they can to keep oil scarce and the price high;
Speculators that drive up the price in the short run;
Foreign conflicts, dictators and cartels — that have been important in driving up prices particularly in the last two months;
The Republicans who prevent the development of the clean, domestic sources of energy that are necessary to allow America to free itself from the stranglehold of foreign oil — all in order to benefit speculators and oil companies.

The fact is that the world will inevitably experience increasing oil prices over the long run because this finite, non-renewable resource is getting scarcer and scarcer at the same time that demand for energy from the emerging economies like China and India is sky rocketing.
Every voter with a modicum of experience in real-world economics gets that central economic fact.
That would make Republican opposition to the development of renewable energy sources bad enough. But over the last few months the factor chiefly responsible for short-term oil price hikes have been the Arab Spring and Israel’s growing tensions with Iran — all of which are well beyond direct American control.

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