Public opinion about important issues like the START Treaty, DADT repeal, the Dream Act are being overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the tax cut deal. That’s probably fortunate for conservatives, because opinion data indicates quite clearly that their positions on these key issues is way out of line with the public’s views, as TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira reports in his current ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages:

Consider these results from a new Gallup poll where the public was asked how they would vote on various issues if these issues as well as the candidates were on the ballot on Election Day. The public “voted” by 67-28 in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
And 54 percent of the public said they were in favor of allowing the illegal immigrants who came to this country as children to become legal if they attend college or join the military, compared to 42 percent who were opposed.
Finally, the public said they would vote to ratify the New START treaty with Russia by 21 points, 51-30.

In keeping with the holiday season, no doubt conservatives will be talking up the virtues of peace and brotherhood. Just don’t expect them to do anything to make it a reality when the opportunity is presented.

This post by Democratic strategist and TDS advisory board member and contributor Mike Lux, author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, is cross posted from Open Left.
Rather than writing just another blog post today, I am feeling the need to write an open letter to the President.
Dear Mr. President,
I think I speak for a lot of folks in writing this letter, although I readily admit that some of my progressive friends have given up on you and are talking about a primary challenge, and others still support you strongly no matter what. But there are a lot of us who find ourselves genuinely conflicted about your Presidency and your relationship with the progressive community.
Like millions of other Democrats, I went all out for you in the campaign, giving money, knocking on doors, making phone calls, being involved in groups who were helping you, helping out in every other way I could think of to help. Like hundreds of thousands of other progressive activists, I have spent many hours and given much money over the last two years working on behalf of your stimulus package, your health care reform bill, and your financial reform bill. Having lived through the Jimmy Carter years, when Carter governed as a moderate and was challenged in many different ways by progressives yet was still successfully labeled a liberal by Republicans, I have written time and time and again that progressives’ fate is inextricably linked to your fate whether either of us wants it to be, and that progressives should do whatever we can to make you a successful President. And I still believe that. No one wants you to succeed more than I do.
So here I am, along with so many others, out here fighting- really fighting- for everything you say you believe in. On health care, you said you were for a public option, for negotiating drug prices on Medicare, against taxing workers’ health care benefits, and that is what I and so many others who are your supporters fought for. On taxes, you said you were against the wealthiest of Americans having their Bush tax cuts extended, and that is what your supporters fought against. On these and so many other issues, we have fought by your side for what you said you were for.

Read more…

The following post, by TDS contributor Robert Creamer, a democratic political strategist/organizer and author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Behind any big historic political bargain there are usually big, bottom-line self interests. The case of the tax deal negotiated by the Democratic White House and Republican Leadership is no exception.
The president woke up the day after the fall election facing a serious political and economic dilemma. Back in 2008 Democrats won voters who reported that their personal economic situation was worse by a margin of 40 percent. In 2010 Democrats lost that same cohort of voters by 29 percent. From the standpoint of swing voters, the election was all about one thing: the voter’s feelings that their own personal economic outlook was bleak.
To win reelection in 2012, the president had to do something to substantially improve economic growth in general and job creation in particular. That translated into the need for more economic stimulus to jump start sustained economic growth.
But the outcome of the election had also made the prospects that the new Congress would pass new economic stimulus remote. The Republicans who would control the House had no interest whatsoever in providing more economic stimulus. That’s not mainly because they have a different economic philosophy. It’s primarily because they have no political interest in near term economic recovery. It’s just fine with them if the economy continues a slow slog, and the jobless rate is 8 percent or 9 percent in November 2012. After all, no president has been reelected in the last century when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent. Reagan was reelected in 1984 with a 7.2 percent unemployment rate, but at the time of the election, unemployment appeared to be — and was — in sharp decline.
And the smartest among the Republicans realize that left to itself, the economy will not reignite without additional stimulus. In fact, around the world over the last century — after the five major recessions or depressions caused by the collapse of financial markets — the jobless rates of the economies involved have never returned to pre-crash levels for at least five years.
Without a major infusion of more stimulus, the Obama administration saw very little to convince it that the U.S. economy would defy that history. The president’s major bottom-line self interest: more stimulus to spur economic growth and job creation.
The Republican bottom-line self interest is very different. While the president’s self interests align directly with those of the vast majority of the American people, the Republicans’ self interests do not. Not only do they have a short term political interest in low levels of job creation. Their core constituency — the tiny sliver of super-wealthy Americans — has been completely insulated from the effects of the long term effects of the Great Recession. Corporate profits and Wall Street bonuses have now exceeded pre-recession levels. The stock market is back. And the fact that there are five job seekers for every available job drives down wages. In fact, it’s all a “robber barron’s dream.”
Over the long run, a low wage economy with high unemployment is not sustainable and will do enormous damage even to the biggest corporations. But short term, greed tends to block out long term concerns, so the wealthy — and their Republican Party — aren’t so much concerned about long term economic growth.
But they are very concerned about an immediate threat to their fortunes — the prospect that the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of this year, and they will be subject to the tax rates of the Clinton era. Let’s recall that for the entire economy, the Clinton era — when the rich paid those Clinton era tax rates — was the most prosperous period in human history. But that doesn’t matter to the Republicans and their wealthy backers. They want more — now.
Not only are they worried that the Bush tax cuts will expire. The wealthiest families are also gravely concerned that if nothing is done, the inheritance tax is scheduled to return to its 2001 level. The consensus position among Democrats is that the inheritance tax — which by definition impacts only the sons and daughters of multimillionaires — should exclude estates worth up to $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples. But that the remainder should be taxed at 45 percent. Republican Senator Kyl wants the threshold raised to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples. More importantly from the standpoint of the very rich, he wants the rate lowered to 35 percent.
To gauge the importance of this proposal for the very rich consider the situation of a one of the rare families with an estate of a billion dollars. To them this change would be worth $100 million dollars that either does or does not flow into the pockets of the silver spoon crowd. That will give you a sense of why what happens to the inheritance tax really matters for the super-wealthy core constituency of the Republican Party.
So the core interest of the Republicans is: tax breaks for the very rich.
The tax deal addresses each of these two core interests. It gives the Republicans tax breaks for the rich. And It gives the president and Democrats a major shot of economic stimulus that they — and average Americans really need. All told the package costs $900 billion over two years. About 60 percent to 75 percent of that could be considered real stimulus, since the balance goes to the rich and has very little stimulative effect. But the money for $70 billion or so of unemployment compensation, the $120 billion for a payroll tax holiday, and the extension of middle class tax cuts — including the refundable tax cuts from in the original Obama stimulus program — actually do have increase aggregate economic demand.
Now with the exception of unemployment compensation — which most economists think generates two dollars of GDP growth for every dollar of spending — many of the other provisions are not as stimulative as infrastructure construction, a direct federal jobs program, etc. But they definitely increase growth. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the package may generate or save up to 2.2 million jobs. And most importantly, these measures are far better than no stimulus at all.
The Republicans have basically held the rest of the country — and economic growth — hostage to their demand for two years worth of tax breaks for the super-rich, it’s that simple. That has infuriated progressives — and it should.
But that is the basis for the tax deal. It meets to the core, overriding self interests of each of the two protagonists.
Hopefully, the House, and progressives in the Senate, may be successful at demanding improvements in the package — reducing for instance the outrageous giveaways to the super rich in the two year estate tax provision. The House Democratic Caucus has voted not to consider the tax deal in its current form, but to continue to negotiate to “improve the proposal that comes to the House floor for a vote”. House leaders are taking a firm stand for progressive values.
At the same time, many progressives realize that in the end it is certainly in the interests of progressives, who want to succeed over the next two years, to pass some package that allows a significant economic stimulus before Republicans take control of the House and make it ever so much more difficult.
Without new stimulus to the economy, the odds are very high that we will face defeat in November 2012, it’s that simple.

Senate Republicans probably have the leverage (via filibuster) to kill the House passed bill exempting those earning over $250K from tax cuts. But conservatives are “utterly uninterested” in the public’s public’s views concerning their key tax and budget proposals, explains TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages:

…Poll after poll shows that only a small minority–about a third–want to keep the tax cuts for the rich while everybody else wants to let them expire. The latest evidence comes from a Roper/AP-CNBC poll. Thirty-four percent in that poll wanted to keep the tax cuts for everyone including the rich, while 64 percent wanted either to just keep the tax cuts with incomes less than $250,000 (50 percent) or end them for everyone (14 percent).
Conservatives’ devotion to tax cuts for the rich also shows their lack of seriousness about tackling the deficit problem. Ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich would save $700 billion over 10 years but those savings are obviously far less important to them than their ideological antitax, pro-wealthy agenda.

Teixeira adds that conservatives are loving the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission’s proposals to gut social programs, especially Social Security — contrary to the strongly-held views of the public:

…In the same poll the public vigorously opposed the proposal to raise the Social Security retirement age to 69. Just 28 percent favored this idea while 64 percent opposed it.

As Teixeira concludes of conservatives in congress, “…Their real commitment is to their ideology–an ideology of cutting social programs, opposing taxes, and rewarding the rich. It’s certainly not to reducing the deficit and even less to the wishes of the American public.”

Writing in HuffPo, TDS contributor and Board of Advisors member Alan Abramowitz has a compelling rebuttal to the GOP meme that their midterm victories signal a massive rejection of progressive principles and policies. Abramowitz, author of The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy, crunches data from the Gallup News Service Governance Poll, conducted 9/13-16, and explains:

…While Americans often support conservative principles in the abstract, large majorities of Americans continue to support an active role for government in addressing a wide variety of societal needs and problems.
…On matters of principle, Americans in 2010 leaned strongly to the conservative side. For one thing, self-identified conservatives greatly outnumbered self-identified liberals: 43 percent of Gallup’s respondents described themselves as conservatives compared with 37 percent who described themselves as moderates and only 20 percent who described themselves as liberals. In addition, when asked about the role of the federal government in dealing with the nation’s problems, fully 58 percent of Gallup respondents felt that the government was “trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses” while only 37 percent felt that the government “should do more to solve our country’s problems.” Similarly, those who felt that there was too much government regulation of business and industry outnumbered those who felt that there was not enough government regulation by a 50 percent to 28 percent margin. Finally, 59 percent of Gallup’s respondents felt that the federal government had too much power compared with only 33 percent who felt that the federal government had the right amount of power and a miniscule 8 percent who felt that the federal government had too little power.

Then Abramowitz addresses the respondents’ views on “specific societal needs and problems,” and finds,

…94 percent of the public felt that government should have major or total responsibility (4 or 5 on the scale) for “protecting Americans from foreign threats.” National security is one of the few areas of government responsibility that typically receives overwhelming support from Americans of all partisan and ideological stripes.
It is perhaps more surprising, given Americans’ endorsement of broad conservative principles, that 76 percent of Gallup’s respondents felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “protecting consumers from unsafe products” or that 66 percent felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “protecting the environment from human actions that can harm it.” And it is perhaps even more surprising that 67 percent felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “preventing discrimination,” that 57 percent felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “making sure all Americans have adequate healthcare,” that 52 percent felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “making sure all who want jobs have them,” or that 45 percent felt that government should have major or total responsibility for “providing a minimum standard of living for all Americans” (versus only 33 percent who felt that government should have little or no responsibility in this area).
Even a policy as radical by contemporary standards as “reducing income differences between rich and poor” drew the support of 35 percent of Americans (versus 45 percent who did not see this as an appropriate responsibility of government). The only area where the large majority of Americans rejected a substantial role for government was “protecting major U.S. corporations in danger of going out of business” which drew the support of only 19 percent of the public.

All in all, hardly the slam dunk preference for conservative polices McConnell, Boehner and other Republican leaders say most Americans embrace. Further,

It wasn’t just liberals who supported governmental activism. Even self-identified conservatives frequently endorsed governmental activism on specific issues. For example, 63 percent of conservatives, along with 84 percent of moderates and 87 percent of liberals, supported a substantial role for government in the area of consumer protection. And despite strong opposition to recent healthcare reform legislation by conservative pundits and politicians, 33 percent of conservatives, along with 71 percent of moderates and 81 percent of liberals, supported a substantial role for government in ensuring access to healthcare.

Abramowitz devises an interesting scale depicting support for government activism among various demographic groups as indicated by the poll, and concludes,

Despite the dramatic gains made by the Republican Party in the 2010 midterm elections, support for activist government remains very strong in the American public. Evidence from the recent Gallup News Service Governance Poll shows that today, just as in the 1960s, Americans tend to be ideological conservatives but operational liberals. They endorse conservative principles in the abstract, but support efforts by government to address specific societal needs and problems. These findings suggest that attempts by congressional Republicans to weaken or eliminate government programs in areas such as consumer rights, health care, income security, and environmental protection would be politically risky. While such policies might appeal to the conservative base of the Republican Party, they would almost certainly be unpopular with a majority of the American public.

Abramowitz makes the point that Ideological Conservative Operational Liberal (ICOLs?) voters have been a significant segment of the electorate for decades — which, come to think of it, may help explain why Republicans seem to prefer broad brush liberal-bashing to analyzing opinion data issue by issue.

An important TDS Strategy Memo by Ed Kilgore, James Vega and J.P. Green
In a recent Washington Monthly commentary titled “None Dare Call it Sabotage,” Steve Benen gave voice to a growing and profoundly disturbing concern among Democrats – that Republicans may actually plan to embrace policies designed to deny Obama not only political victories but also the maximum possible economic growth during his term in order weaken Democratic prospects in the 2012 elections.
The debate quickly devolved into an argument over the inflammatory word “sabotage” and the extent to which the clearly and passionately expressed Republican desire to see Obama “fail” will actually lead them to deliberately choose economic and other policies that are most conducive to achieving that result.
But, among Democrats themselves, this particular question is actually just one particular component of a much broader and deeper concern — a very real and authentic sense of alarm that there is something both genuinely unprecedented and also profoundly dangerous in the intense “take no prisoners” political extremism of the current Republican Party. There is a deep apprehension that fundamental American standards of proper political conduct and ethical political behavior are increasingly being violated.
The key feature that distinguishes the increasingly extremist perspective of today’s Republican Party from the standards of political behavior we have traditionally considered proper in America is the view that politics is — quite literally, and not metaphorically – a kind of warfare and political opponents are literally “enemies”
This “politics as warfare” perspective has historically been the hallmark of many extremist political parties of both the ideological left and ideological right – parties ranging from the American Communist Party to the French National Front.
Historically, these political parties display a series of common features – features that follow logically and inescapably from the basic premise of politics as warfare:
I. Strategy:

• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party’s objective is defined as the conquest and seizure of power and not sincere participation in democratic governance. The party is viewed as a combat organization whose goal is to defeat an enemy, not an organization whose job is to faithfully represent the people who voted for it.
• In the politics as warfare perspective extralegal measures, up to and including violence, are tacitly endorsed as a legitimate means to achieve a party’s political aims if democratic means are insufficient to obtain its objectives. To obscure the profoundly undemocratic nature of this view, the “enemy” government–even when it is freely elected — is described as actually being illegitimate and dictatorial, thus justifying the use of violence as a necessary response to “tyranny”.
• In the politics as warfare perspective all major social problems are caused by the deliberate, malevolent acts of powerful elites with nefarious motives. An evil “them” is the cause of all society’s ills.
• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party’s philosophy and basic strategy is inerrant – it cannot be wrong. The result is the creation of a closed system of ideologically controlled “news” that creates an alternative reality.

II. Tactics:

• In the politics as warfare perspective standard norms of honesty are irrelevant. Lying and the use of false propaganda are considered necessary and acceptable. The “truth” is what serves to advance the party’s objectives.
• In the politics as warfare perspective the political party accepts no responsibility for stability – engineering the fall of the existing government is absolutely paramount and any negative consequences that may occur in the process represent a kind of “collateral damage” that is inevitable in warfare
• In the politics as warfare perspective the creation of contrived “incidents” or deliberate provocations are acceptable. Because the adherent of this view “knows” that his or her opponents are fundamentally evil, even concocted or staged incidents are still morally and ethically “true.” The distinction between facts and distortions disappears.
• In the politics as warfare perspective compromise represents both betrayal and capitulation. Destruction of the enemy is the only acceptable objective. People who advocate compromise are themselves enemies.

These various components all form part of an integrated whole. Seen as a coherent package they make it clear that politics as warfare is simply not an acceptable philosophy for an American political party. It is profoundly and unambiguously wrong.
It is easy to see examples of the various politics as warfare– based views and tactics listed above directly reflected in the statements and actions of the extreme wing of Republican coalition – they range from Michelle Bachmann and Sharon Angle’s winking at violence with references to “second amendment remedies” to Andrew Breitbart’s deliberate editing of a video to smear Shirley Sherrod, Glen Beck’s suggesting that George Soros was a Nazi collaborator, Fox News’ tolerating attacks on Obama as equivalent to Hitler and airing repeated suggestions that the miniscule New Black Panthers present a real and genuine national threat of stolen elections and Grover Norquist’s endorsement of a government shutdown over extending the debt limit, despite the genuine dangers this poses to international financial stability.
The list can be continued with many other examples from Eric Erickson’s RedState, Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and organizations like Freedomworks. An entire book has been written containing nothing but examples of recognized right-wing spokesmen subtly and not so subtly endorsing and encouraging the use of violence against liberals and Democrats.
And this politics as warfare perspective is not confined to the “fringes” of the Republican Party.

Read more…

Democracy Corps has a new research and strategy memo, “What Next for President Obama and Democrats?,” which delineates a clear path to victory in coming elections. The DCorps analysis, based on three post-election national surveys by by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, Resurgent Republic, Campaign for America’s Future, and Women’s Voices. Women Vote, finds that,

2010 was a voter revolt against Democratic governance during an economic and jobs crisis. Above all, voters were frustrated with the lack of progress on unemployment, the seeming ineffectiveness of the president’s policies, a shortage of sustained focus on economic issues, and the absence of a vision or message showing voters where the president and the Democrats wanted to take the country. They were angry about the bailouts, spending, and deficits that seemed only to put the country at more risk. Despite hopes for change, they could not see anybody battling for the middle class and American jobs during this crisis, yet politics as usual carried on – Wall Street and lobbyists continued to win out and the parties continued to bicker.
Health care reform was symptomatic of Washington not focusing on jobs and the president being inattentive. The new law was attacked as out-of-control spending. And a lot of seniors came to the polls to prevent the so-called Medicare cuts.

However, the analysis also notes,

For all that, there is no evidence that this was an affirmative vote for Republicans. Their standing is no higher in this year’s post-election polls than it was in 2008 and 2006. There is a lot of evidence that voters do not share Republicans’ priorities, particularly on Social Security and Medicare, and voters did not mandate a consuming focus on spending cuts and deficit reduction. That voters decided to hammer Democrats for spending does not translate into a mandate for Republicans to slash spending and squander the next two years trying to repeal health care…
Voters also do not share the Republicans’ determination to limit President Obama to one term and stop his agenda. A large majority remains hopeful that President Obama can succeed, and above all, they want the president and the leaders of both parties to work together to get things done. Voters are hungry for a different tone during this crisis and are looking for evidence that they have been heard.

The memo adds:

There is opportunity for the president to reach out on budget reform, energy, comprehensive immigration reform, and job creation – such as an infrastructure bank leveraging private capital…The more the president reaches out on these issues, the more opportunity he has to draw firm lines on central aspects of his agenda, including letting the top-end Bush tax cuts expire, pressing for infrastructure and energy investments, and protecting health care reform. Even in this difficult post-election environment, we battle to a draw on the toughest issues and prevail as the agenda shifts to growth.
Voters want leaders to focus on both growth and deficit reduction; indeed, they are looking for leaders to offer a vision for a successful America with a rising middle class.

The DCorps memo concedes that moderate economic growth and the likelihood of only small declines in unemployment make the Democratic path to recovery a rocky road. Rather than focus on the political center and Independents, DCorps urges Dems to put more effort in engaging minorities and young voters, both of which are essential for good results in 2012. More specifically,

The starting point is the new Democratic base and the areas where Democrats have been making steady gains since 2000. This is not a narrow slice of the electorate or an ideologically straightforward target. It includes the rising proportion of young people (up to one-fifth of the presidential electorate in 2012); the growing Latino bloc (at least 10 percent) that joins African-Americans and other racial minorities (to form at least a quarter); single women (more than one-fifth) who have emerged central to the new progressive base; and union households (more than 15 percent of the electorate). They have been joined by the more diverse, professional, and affluent suburbs – identified by Ruy Teixeira and John Judis[2] – that have moved steadily Democratic over more than a decade, account for the Democrats’ congressional gains over that period and gave Obama big victories.
The reason why Democrats won the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008 is that their base is a majority of the country.

The DCorps memo provides much more detail concerning performance and prospects regarding key demographic groups, including single women, young people, union households and the suburbs. It includes recommendation for targeting swing voter demographics, including white non-college, white non-south rural and industrial midwest voters.
The “getting-the-car-out-of-the-ditch” metaphor ended up resonating poorly with pivotal constituencies, according to DCorps data. Rather, the message that 2010 voters wholeheartedly endorsed in the DCorps study, was:

…America has been falling behind, while countries like China have a vision to succeed. We need our own vision for American success. Our economic problems have been building for years — with good jobs outsourced and wages and benefits falling behind rising costs. Schools, sewers, and roads are in disrepair. We need a clear strategy to make things in America, make our economy competitive, and revive America’s middle class.

Further, DCorps found that the GOP’s most treasured priority “to focus above all on cutting spending, reducing deficits and keeping taxes low” performed poorly, and warns “…Do not assume that the clubs used to punish Democrats this year translate into the preferred policies for the future.” The Republicans’ mono-maniacal obsession with defeating Obama did not resonate well either, especially among swing voters who want to see an end to partisan bickering and some effort towards bipartisan cooperation.
Dems can benefit by hanging tough with protecting Social Security and Medicare from GOP cuts, while not waivering from calling for letting tax cuts for top earners expire. The analysis concludes by noting a two-thirds favorable response to President Obama’s following statement:

The economy isn’t creating enough jobs but we can’t go back to rising debt and dangerous bubbles. My commitment is to build a new foundation for jobs and growth that begins with making things in America again. Yes, we have to reduce our deficits, but it is not enough. We have to make investments in education, in research and innovation, in a competitive 21st century infrastructure. We have to lead in the new energy, Green industrial revolution sweeping the world. This has to be affordable, but my priority is working together to rebuild a successful America with a rising middle class.

This is the vision that Dems can carry forward for optimal results in 2012 and beyond.

Two excellent posts provide a devastating take-down of WaPo columnist and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson’s dismissal of the notion that Republicans would sabotage needed economic reforms to gain political advantage. Political Animal Steve Benen, who launched the controversy with his post on GOP sabotage, responds to Gerson’s critique with a couple of compelling observations, which may make Gerson sorry he brought it up:

He suggests at the outset that my argument is somehow an attempt to avoid dealing with the “inadequacies” and “failure” of “liberalism.” It’s an odd line of reasoning — Gerson’s former boss bequeathed an economic catastrophe, a jobs crisis, a massive deficit, and a housing crisis, among other calamities. Democratic policymakers, scrambling to address the catastrophic failures of Bush-brand conservatism, have managed to create an economy that’s growing, creating jobs, and generating private-sector profits, while stabilizing a financial system that teetered on collapse. (What’s more, if Gerson believes the size and scope of the Obama administration’s economic agenda are consistent with what “liberalism” has in mind, he knows far less about the ideology than he should.)
…It’s also worth emphasizing that my point about “uncertainty” was meant as a form of mockery. The right is obsessed with the debunked notion that “economic uncertainty” is responsible for the lack of robust growth, so in raising my observation, I noted that it’s the Republican agenda that seems focused on adding to this uncertainty — vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing to re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibility of sending the United States into default.
What’s more, I’m fascinated by the notion that I’m describing a “conspiracy” — a word Gerson uses four times in his column. I made no such argument. There’s no need for secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms; there’s no reason to imagine a powerful cabal pulling strings behind the scenes. The proposition need not be fanciful at all — a stronger economy would improve President Obama’s re-election chances, so Republicans are resisting policies and ideas that would lead to this result.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasn’t especially cagey about his intentions: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president…. Our single biggest political goal is to give [the Republican] nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful.”
Given this, is it really that extraordinary to wonder if this might include rejecting proposals that would make President Obama look more successful on economic policy — especially given the fact that McConnell’s approach to the economy appears to be carefully crafted to do the opposite of what’s needed? After Gerson’s West Wing colleagues effectively accused Democrats of treason in 2005, is it beyond the pale to have a conversation about Republicans’ inexplicable motivations?

In his Plum Line column, Greg Sargent acknowledges that the “charge that Republicans are planning to actively sabotage the economy” may be overstated/unproductive, but notes, in addition to the McConnell quote cited by Benen, Sen Jim Demint’s call to arms: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Sargent continues:

…There’s no denying that some Republicans did, in fact, make the clear calculation that denying Obama successes at all costs, regardless of the substance of specific initiatives or any willingness on his part to make concessions, was the best way to accomplish this overarching political goal. They said so themselves! It would be interesting to hear Gerson directly engage these McConnell and DeMint quotes and explain why they don’t directly support this general interpretation of what happened in the last two years.

We’ll file that one under “not gonna happen.”

Three conservative memes are unraveling in the wake of the midterms – the notion that the public supports their rigid positions on the deficit, Bush’s tax cuts and DADT. As Ruy Teixeira explains in his November 22 ‘Public Opinion Snapshot‘:

On the deficit, conservatives are promoting the idea that immediate drastic action must be taken to shrink government spending and reduce the deficit despite the current economic situation. They are aided and abetted by a chorus from the mainstream media and professional budget scolds. Indeed, to listen to the rising tide of deficit mania you’d think nothing was more important than rapid action on this front.
But that’s not how the public sees it. Fifty-six percent of respondents in a recent CBS News poll said they wanted the new Congress to concentrate first on jobs and the economy. Fourteen percent said health care, and a whopping 4 percent said the budget deficit or the national debt.

On W’s tax cuts:

On the Bush tax cuts, conservatives claim that preserving the tax cuts for the rich is a matter of grave national importance that must not be separated from preserving the middle-class tax cuts. Once again, the public’s view is far from that of conservatives. Sixty-four percent of respondents in a recent CNN poll either want to keep only the tax cuts that apply to families earning under $250,000 a year (49 percent) or think all the tax cuts should be eliminated. Just 35 percent endorse the idea that all the tax cuts should continue regardless of how wealthy families are.

Regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:”

Finally, conservatives are putting up a last-ditch effort to stop the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which currently prevents gays from serving openly in the armed forces. They may be worried about this change, but the public isn’t. In the same CNN poll just referenced an overwhelming 72 percent favored permitting gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military compared to only 23 percent who were opposed.

So much for the GOP’s midterm mandate regarding three major issues of 2010. Less than a month after the Republicans’ midterm victory, their triumphalist masquerade looks a lot like a farce. As Teixeira puts it to the conservatives: “…You say you want to represent the will of the American people with your newly won power in Congress. Why don’t you start by actually listening to them?”

There are no major surprises in a new study of the midterm elections by Project Vote. Much of the analysis published elsewhere is confirmed in the study, but some interesting trends are highlighted in comparison to the 2006 midterms. Among the findings, which are based on exit poll data and estimates from the U.S. Elections Project and reported here by Steven Thomma and William Douglas of McClatchey News Service:

Senior citizens turned out in force — their turnout was 16 percent higher than in the last midterm election of 2006, and 59 percent of them voted Republican, up 10 percentage points from 2006. While voters 65 and older are 13 percent of the U.S. population, they made up 21 percent of this year’s electorate.[compared to 19 percent in the 2006 midterms] The wealthy voted heavily too. Total ballots cast by people making $200,000 a year or more expanded by 68 percent over 2006, the study found. Those making from $100,000 to $200,000 cast 11 percent more ballots than they did in 2006.

Dems also lost their edge with women voters in 2010, according to the study:

Women voters’ turnout surged significantly over 2006 as well — and the traditional gender gap vanished. In 2006, women voted Democratic by 55 percent to 43 percent for Republicans. This year, women voted 49 percent for Republicans and 48 percent for Democrats.

On a more positive note, the study also confirmed the influence of Latino vote in Democratic victories: “…One striking development helped Democrats in a few races: Hispanic voting surged in several states, helping Democrats win hotly contested Senate races in California, Colorado and Nevada.”