TDS co-editor Ruy Teixeira has a new post up at the Center for American Progress website, “Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Strongly Supports Economic Recovery Plan.” Teixeira’s analysis of data from a Diageo/Hotline poll conducted 1/21-24 debunks the GOP myth that voters prefer tax cuts to government spending as a strategy for addressing the current economic crisis:

Conservatives showed remarkable unanimity this week in opposing President Obama’s stimulus plan. Their reasons? Too much spending, too few tax cuts, too big an effect on the deficit. In taking this position, they’re trying to pose as the true friends of U.S. taxpayers.
There’s only one problem: The taxpayers themselves actually support the plan and seem unfazed by the very things the conservatives are complaining so loudly about.
A recent Diageo/Hotline poll asked half of the sample whether they supported an $825 billion plan “even if it means increasing the federal budget deficit in order to do so.” That query elicited a 20-point margin (54-34) in favor
This shows that the public favors the recovery and reinvestment plan even with the price tag and even when it is stipulated that the plan will increase the deficit…

Even better, Teixeira adds:

But what about the thing that really gets conservatives upset—the fact that there’s twice as much new spending as tax cuts? Well, the Diageo/Hotline poll asked the other half of the sample the same question as above, but specified how the money was divided between spending and tax cuts. The result? Support for the stimulus ballooned to a roughly 40-point margin (66-27).
The conservatives aren’t just reading from a different page of the book than the public—they appear to be reading from a completely different book. Some things evidently haven’t changed since George W. Bush left town.

Clearly, conservative members of congress, and even some moderates who want more tax cuts and less spending, should no longer entertain the delusion that they are guided by public support.

Print Version
Editor’s Note by Ed Kilgore: This analysis, written by Andrew Levison, is one of a series of TDS Strategy Memos and TDS Strategy White Papers that The Democratic Strategist will be publishing on a regular basis in the future. As our Editors have said: “ For some time we have felt that the Democratic community has needed an additional format for the discussion of political strategy, one that is longer than standard newspaper and magazine political commentary, is based on empirical data and is directly focused on the analysis of political strategy. We see TDS Strategy memos and Strategy White Papers as filling that role.”
Since Obama took office, two basic notions about his political philosophy have become instant clichés – that he is a “pragmatist” and also an advocate of “bipartisanship.” An extraordinary number of articles and debates have appeared applying these two characterizations to his actions.
Within this broad discussion, Ed Kilgore has made a convincing argument that in Obama’s specific formulation, neither of these two concepts necessarily implies an abandonment of the liberal-progressive goals Obama expressed during the campaign. Kilgore notes that, while Franklin Roosevelt ultimately achieved very profound progressive reforms, he was actually much more accurately described as a “pragmatist” than an “ideologue.” Equally, Kilgore argues that Obama’s bipartisanship is more accurately understood as a “grassroots” bipartisanship he seeks to generate among ordinary Americans rather than the traditional and elite “behind closed doors” deal-making bipartisanship of the senate cloakroom and corridors of power.
But, at this very broad level, political strategy becomes difficult to distinguish from political philosophy. There is also a more concrete and specific level of political strategy that also has to be considered – the level where a president’s specific politico-legislative strategy is designed. On this middle level it can be argued that Obama actually has a more coherent and well thought out approach than either his critics or other interpreters recognize.
To see this, it is necessary to identify a particular blind spot in the perspective of most American political commentators. Modern political science (exemplified in the leading American academic journals) and modern political campaign management (exemplified in “professional” political publications like National Journal, Congressional Quarterly and Campaigns and Elections magazine) actually present a very simplified model of the world, one in which politics is discussed as if it were a separate and isolated realm of life with its own unique rules. In this simplified world, most discussions of politics are based on two seemingly self-evident statements:

1. American elections are won with 50.1 percent of the vote.
2. All votes, regardless of their origin, are, in political terms, equal.

On the surface, these two ideas appear to be not only true but almost tautological. In a great deal of American political commentary, however, they are subtly inflated into two much broader premises that are most emphatically not tautological — and that are, in fact, arguably wrong.

1. That winning support above 50.1 percent is of relatively small or even negligible marginal benefit or importance. Put differently, it is essentially icing on a cake.
2. That any particular political coalition that can be assembled to provide an electoral majority of 50.1% is of exactly equal value and utility to any alternative political coalition that can also produce an electoral majority of 50.1%. No particular majority coalition is inherently any “better” than any other.

These assumptions are rarely stated explicitly, but they are implicit in much of the progressive concern about Obama’s political strategy – the widely expressed fear that he is essentially “leaving achievable progressive victories on the table” because of his commitment to pragmatism and bipartisanship. Having won 53% of the vote and with 59 Democratic senators, it is often argued that he is clearly in a position to seek more progressive, radical or dramatic changes than those which he is actually seeking. To many liberal and progressive commentators, it seems almost self-evident that Obama could demand and get “more” of a progressive agenda enacted if he behaved in a more aggressively hyper-partisan fashion as George Bush did after the 2004 election. Thomas Frank clearly expressed this liberal-progressive view — and frustration — by saying that “Obama should act as if he won.”
But there is good evidence (which we shall see below) that Obama’s political strategy is actually based on an essentially sociological rather than political science perspective. It rests specifically on one key sociological insight — that the political strategy required to enact significant progressive social reforms is substantially more complex and difficult than is the strategy required to simply resist social change.
When significant social reforms threaten to directly affect major social institutions, enacting such reforms requires two things beyond simply wining an electoral victory:

1. The opposition of the key social institution or institutions affected –which in most cases include either the armed forces, big business or the church – must be neutralized or at least very significantly muted.
2. A certain baseline level of sociological support (or at least relative neutrality) must be obtained among a series of pivotal social groups. Sociologically and demographically speaking these groups – religious voters, military voters or business voters — are often predominantly working class, red state voters.

As a result, the coalition necessary to achieve major social reforms will require more than a knife-edge 50.1% majority. Translated into national levels of public support or approval, a commanding majority of as much as 60% may actually be necessary.

Read more…

TDS Co-Editor William Galston has a post up on The New Republic’s The Plank, “Making the Most of Crisis,” calling attention to missed oportunities for needed reforms in the spending proposals of the stimulus package.
Roland S. Martin explains why “Focus on first 100 days is absurd” in his CNNPolitics commentary. Dissent magazine, on the other hand, has a septet of progressive academic writers offering their advice in a “The First 100 Days” round-up.
In the ‘know thy adversary’ department, Sam Stein has a juicy HuffPo expose (via Truthout) of an anti-EFCA conference call organized by Bank of America and lead by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, who reportedly likens EFCA to “the demise of a civilization” and uses some pretty extreme language in urging action against EFCA and even corporate leaders who don’t make it’s defeat a top priority.
Andy Sulllivan has a Reuters UK update on how “Obama Hopes to Keep Campaign Supporters Involved,” through a new organization “Organizing for America,” which will make use of the Obama campaign’s 13 million email adresses list to help enact needed reforms.
Poll analysts and armchair poll-watchers will get some chuckles from David Moore’s Pollster.com wrap up “George Bishop’s and David Moore’s Top 10 ‘Dubious Polling’ Awards.”
Brendan Nyhan takes issue with Nate Silver’s recent post on Obama’s political capital, discussed in J.P. Green’s Tuesday TDS post; Nyhan makes the case that “Obama may have a honeymoon in presidential approval, but he doesn’t have a mandate.”

Take a quick peek at this “YouthMap2008” at Flckr.com. It’s a sort of “Wild in the Streets” vision of the future for Republicans, given the Dems’ bright prospects for retaining young voters, especially considering our edge in leveraging the latest tools for political organizing of youth. What is particularly interesting here, however, is the morph to blue of southern red states, SC, TN, AL, MS and even, gasp, TX.

Here’s the just-released report, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan” by Christina Romer, Obama’s nominee-designate for chair of the Council of Economic Advisors and economist Jared Bernstein, office of the Vice President-elect.
The American Prospect‘s Tim Fernholz has some insightful comments in his Tapped post on the Romer-Bernstein report.
The New Republic‘s Jonathan Cohn posts on the concerns of Paul Krugman , James K. Galbraith and Lawrence Summers that the package is too small, while John B. Judis calls for more investment in high-speed rail and international monetary system reform, also in TNR.
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com mulls over the multiplier effect of 1 percent permanent hikes in tax cuts vs. government spending in Obama’s stimulus package, and makes the case for “maximizing the $500b number as opposed to minimizing the $300b number; the scent of $300b is something that seems to have thrown both sides off the trail.”
The Boston Globe‘s Scott Lehigh argues against the provision for permanent tax cuts in the Obama plan, and The Grey Lady has an editorial making the same point.
Hotline‘s Matthew Gottlieb comments on the differing results in the AllState/Politico poll and the latest Gallup poll regarding public opinion toward Obama’s stimulus plan.
For a perceptive look at the Republican propaganda campaign against the Obama stimulus package, read Sara Robinson’s Alternet (via Campaign for America’s Future) post “10 Absurd Conservative Myths About Obama’s Recovery Plan.”
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich weighs in in his blog on the importance of job training to insure an adequate base of skilled workers to make the Obama stimulus package succeed, while Thomas L. Friedman worries in his New York Times column that, while Obama understands the pivotal importance of education, Congress may not yet get it that education is the key to the plan’s long-range success.

Apparently the “liberals feel betrayed” meme being parroted about the mainstream media and even the blogosphere, has been somewhat overhyped, according to a new Gallup report. As Jeffrey M. Jones Gallup wrap-up, “Liberals’ Confidence in Obama Rermains High,” explains:

Gallup Poll Daily tracking finds support for Barack Obama among liberal Democrats holding steady at 93% despite news reports that his core supporters are disappointed with some of his cabinet appointments and other decisions
..Obama’s recent decision to have conservative preacher Rick Warren deliver the invocation at the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration and his choices of Republicans Robert Gates and Ray LaHood for cabinet positions have been controversial among members of the political left. Additionally, women’s groups have been reported as expressing disappointment that Obama has not selected more women for cabinet-level positions in his administration. But these decisions apparently have not shaken liberal Democrats’ confidence in Obama to any perceptible degree, according to aggregated data of thousands of Gallup Poll daily interviews from the immediate post-election period (Nov. 5-30), early December (Dec. 1-17) after he announced many of his cabinet choices, and in recent days (Dec. 18-28) after announcing Warren’s role in the inauguration, arguably his most controversial action to date.

Jones notes “a slight drop in confidence in Obama among liberals” just after Obama announced his security team. But liberals now support Obama “at the same levels seen right after his election” (89 percent), as do moderate and conservative Dems. Jones also cites an uptick in Republicans confidence in Obama and a “a slight increase in confidence” among all Americans, from 65 to 67 percent, during the last two weeks. Jones concludes that “liberal Democrats nationwide continue to express strongly positive opinions of the president-elect,” but cautions that

This does not rule out the possibility that liberal Democrats still rate Obama positively on balance but have become less enthusiastic about him in ways that would not be picked up by the basic confidence and favorability measures reported here. These measures only offer respondents a positive or negative response, so any drop in the degree of positive (or negative) feeling would not be apparent.

Overall, it appears that Obama still has substantial political capital with Democrats across the political spectrum, while gaining some ground with moderate Republicans, which gives him a solid position in terms of building public support for his reform agenda.

Closing out a year in which Democratic party loyalty and unity became elevated concerns, in large part because of Senator Lieberman’s doings, CQPolitics has come out with its annual survey”CQ Vote Studies for the 110th Congress.” The study provides percentage ratings for every member of congress for “Presidential Support,” “Party Unity” and “Participation,” with interesting implications for Dems regarding party-building and future cloture votes.
A couple of highlights — while four Republican U.S. Senators (Allard, DeMint, Ensign and Kyl) scored a perfect 100 rating in terms of “Party Unity” — defined as “the frequency with which they vote with their party on occasions when a majority of Republicans oppose a majority of Democrats,” no Dems scored 100. Akaka, Bingaman, Boxer, Clinton, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Murray and Reed lead the Dems with a 99 score, and many others were in the mid/high nineties.
Dems scoring lower than Lieberman’s 81 included: Bayh (65), Carper (80), Johnson (80), Landrieu (69), Nelson-NE (72) and Pryor (79), though none of them endorsed McCain, as did Lieberman. Lincoln and McCaskill tied Lieberman at 81. President-elect Obama scored a 95 (albeit with a low ‘participation’ rate), Veep-elect Biden achieved 97 and Majority Leader Harry Reid got 84.
The U.S. Senator with the lowest party unity score is Republican Olympia Snowe at 39, with no one else of either party very close (Collins 46). Come on over, Olympia. It’s time to come home.
Eight House Dems scored a perfect 100.

Micheal Teitelbaum of CQPolitics reports on a new study by Election Data Services indicating an uptick in population trends favoring southern and western states in congressional reapportionment. As Teitelbaum explains:

Based on its analysis, EDS says Texas would be the big winner among the six states that would gain House seats, with three added to its current 32. If that occurs, Texas — already the nation’s second most-populous state behind only California — would gain multiple House seats for the fourth consecutive decade.
The era of huge population growth for California appears to have peaked, with the EDS projections showing the state holding at 53 House seats. California, which first surpassed long-time population leader New York in the 1970 census, enjoyed a one-seat gain as a result of the 2000 census after taking a huge seven-seat gain in the 1990s. If the projection holds, the 2010 census will be the first that doesn’t produce a House seat gain for California since it achieved statehood in 1850.
The other projected gainers, though, are from among those states that have expanded their congressional rosters in recent years. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah would each gain one seat according to EDS’ reapportionment projections.
Of those eight seats that would shift south and west, seven would come from states in the North where thriving industries diminished long before the nation’s economic downturn: Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania would each lose one seat.

Teitelbaum notes that the trend seems to have accelerated from last year, when the EDS study projected Texas picking up only 2 seats and Michigan and New Jersey would hold their current delegation numbers.
Teitelbam’s article didn’t say whether the expected gains in the south and west were being driven more by birth rates or migration patterns. But the Election Data Services study notes that a new report by the Pew Research Center, “American Mobility: Who Moves? Who Stays Put? Where’s Home?,” indicated that “only 13% of Americans changed residences between 2006 and 2007, the smallest share since the government began tracking this trend in the late 1940s.”