The June 6th issue of The Nation, now online, has a pair of articles of interest to Dems seeking a winning strategy in the ’06 and ’08 elections.
Eric Alterman’s “Cowboys and Eggheads” succinctly lays bare the Dems’ “conundrum” in formulating a foreign policy that resonates in a positive light to average Americans. Drawing from recent articles in The American Prospect, the Wall St. Journal and think tanks, Alterman ventures a disturbing thought:

Liberal Democrats today are faced with an unhappy paradox. The most significant factor in John Kerry’s defeat was that, according to exit polls, 79 percent of voters who said terrorism or national security determined their vote chose the chickenhawk over the war hero. Though they agreed with the Democrats on most issues–and agreed, by a 49 to 45 percent margin, according to election day exit polls, that the Iraq War had made us less, not more, secure–a majority of voters still felt safer with the idea of George W. Bush minding the store. Based on the evidence, it is almost a perfectly irrational reaction to reality….making sense on foreign policy is not enough. It may actually be a net negative. As Bill Clinton famously explained, Americans prefer a President who appears “strong and wrong” to one who seems right but looks weak.

Not a lot for Dems to be optimistic about there, but Alterman, a media critic and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, does note growing discontent about U.S. policy towards Iraq, and the Administration’s inability to formulate a credible policy towards Iran and North Korea as trends that may help Dems in the future.
On a more upbeat note, Greg Sargent’s “Brand Hillary” provides an engaging portrait of a Democratic politician (and ’08 front-runner in recent polls), who is expanding her credibility with constituencies Dems lost in ’04. Sargent, a contributing editor to New York Magazine, sources her upward arc in opinion polls:

Clinton’s evolving approach–call it Brand Hillary–is sincerely rooted in her not-easily-categorized worldview, but it’s also a calculated response to today’s political realities. In effect, she’s taking her husband’s small-issue centrism–its trademark combination of big but often hollow gestures toward the center, pragmatic economic populism and incremental liberal policy gains–and remaking it in her own image, updating it for post-9/11 America with an intense interest in military issues…For all the consternation on the left about Clinton, her approach depends less than her husband’s did on using the left as a foil. Instead it relies on two fundamental ingredients: She projects pragmatism on economic issues, and she signals ideological flexibility on social issues. This latter tactic is not, as is often argued, about appeasing the cultural right. It’s about appealing to moderates in both parties.

What makes Hillary Clinton’s “centrist” approach interesting is that it is tempered by her 95 percent ADA rating (By comparison, Sargent notes that John Edwards scored a 60 in his last ADA rating). Sargent wonders if the Dems “real problem” on national security “is not just the quality of their ideas, but that moderates simply won’t listen to them.” Senator Clinton, as Sargent makes clear, is determined to be heard.

The Campaign for America’s Future is sponsoring a major conference, “Take Back America 2005,” June 1-3 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. The Conference will feature a dazzling line-up of many of the nation’s prominent progressive leaders, activists and spokespersons, including: Senator Dick Durbin; Senator John Edwards; Howard Dean; Arianna Huffington; Robert Borosage; Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa; Celinda Lake; Robert Kuttner; Thomas Frank; Jesse Jackson; George Lakoff; Katrina vanden Heuval; Jim Wallis; Kim Gandy; Tom Hayden; Donna Brazile; Wade Henderson; and many others.
The purpose, according to organizers:

The Take Back America Conference brings thousands of progressive activists, thinkers and leaders together to discuss our vision, unite our groups and train our campaign organizers. By building relationships and creating strategy, the Take Back America Conference is a catalyst for building the infrastructure we need to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard.

The Conference will feature segments on:

STRATEGIES for building a progressive majority to make America better
Critical ISSUE CAMPAIGNS that will drive America’s political debate
NEW IDEAS and winning message with leading progressive public scholars, political leaders and organizers
TRAINING in media, organizing and campaigning, organized by Progressive Majority
New BATTLES. New STAKES. New STRATEGIES. New ENERGY.

‘Take Back America 2005’ provides a unique opportunity to access the wisdom of some of America’s best progressive thinkers and strategists. For more information click on the link above or, for all questions regarding the Take Back America Conference, including Conference registration, payment and accomodations, please contact:

Natalie P. Shear Associates, Inc.
1730 M Street NW, Suite 801
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 833-4456, ext. 104
Toll-Free: 1 (800) 833-1354 (for callers outside the D.C. area)
Email: takebackamerica@ourfuture.org

As GOP Senate leaders prepare to deploy their “nuclear option,” a new Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll indicates that discontent with congress is approaching stratospheric proportions. The poll, conducted May 12-16, indicates that 65 percent of respondents agree that congress does not share their priorities, while only 17 percent of those polled say it does. As WSJ reporter John Harwood, puts it in his wrap-up of the poll’s results:

While the survey contains warning signs for members of both parties, it is especially problematic for Republicans as the party in power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The poll of 1,005 adults, conducted May 12-16, shows that the greatest erosion in congressional approval has occurred among self-described Republicans.

Harwood points out that, when asked “which party they want to control Congress after the 2006 elections, Democrats hold a 47%-40% edge — the party’s best showing since the Journal/NBC survey began asking that question in 1994.”
There’s much more in this poll that bodes ill for the white house and the GOP, especially with respect to the growing discontent of senior citizens, a key constituency, which Republican pollster Bill McInturff says “disproportionately turns out to vote in mid-term elections.”
With a little luck — and a lot of hard work — 2006 could be the year of the donkey.

It’s a long way to November ’06, and a lot can happen between now and then to make predictions look silly. But if Democrats are serious about regaining control of congress, it’s time to focus energies on the strategy that can win and the work that needs to be done to make it happen.
For an expert analysis of the struggle to win control of the House of Representatives, no better place to begin than Alan Abramowitz’s EDM post “Seven Potentially Vulnerable GOP Incumbents.” WaPo columnist Terry Neal has a pretty good wrap-up of the challenges Dems face in winning back congress in “Political Horse Race Season Opens.” Neal transposed his numbers in counting the respective Senate seats defended by the Dems and Republicans. The correct figures are 17 Senate seats being defended by Democrats and 15 being defended by the GOP, according to the Senate’s webpage list. As a practical matter, Dems also must defend the Senate seat of retiring Independent Jim Jeffords, who votes with Dems.
An 18-15 Democratic disadvantage in seats to defend could spread Dem resources a little thin, and regaining control of the Senate will be a tough challenge. Yet historically, the party of the sitting President has lost an average of 6 Senate seats in off-year elections, and Dems have increasing grounds for optimism. As Neal quotes Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Phil Singer:

“I’m not going to say we’re going to win back the Senate but we feel pretty confident about picking up seats,” Singer said. “With [House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay’s issues, and [lobbyist Jack] Abramoff, and Social Security, there’s a general discontent about the way Republicans are running Congress, and we’re waiting for a wave to emerge.”

Republicans, who enjoy a 55-44-1 majority, are already talking up their prospects for a net gain in the ’06 Senate races. For a look at the conservative take on the ’06 Senate races, read John J. Miller’s round-up “Springtime for Senators” in the National Review. Miller’s article has some interesting inside details about 25 of the 33 Senate races. As might be expected, however, Miller is a smidge over-optimistic about GOP prospects, particularly in Rhode Island, Maryland and Ohio, where Dems will run strong.
There’s no denying the GOP has a formidable advantage in 3 fewer seats to defend in ’06, and a net gain of 7 seats to regain control of the Senate is an ambitious goal for Dems. But polls are tilting nicely in the Dems’ favor, issues are breaking our way and the downside of one-party rule is becomming more painfully obvious every day.

Daily Kos has an encouraging wrap-up of poll results evaluating the performance of Democratic Governors, vs. their GOP counterparts. Kos bases his wrap-up on SurveyUSA’s just-posted list of recent approval ratings for Governors of the 50 states. Kos quotes Chris Bowers of MyDD on the Govs’ respective approval/disapproval ratings:

The 22 Democratic Governors have a slightly higher approval rating than the 28 Republican Governors. The average Democratic approval rating is 49, with 39.5 disapproval. The average Republican rating is 47.9 approval, and 41.4 disapproval.

Even better, Bowers says:

Most potential Republican Presidential candidates look terrible. Bush (FL) is at 49/46, Romney (MA) is at 41/51, Barbour (MS) is at 37/55, and Pataki (NY) is at 36/56. Barbour is particularly toxic, considering how conservative Mississippi is… Even Schwarzenegger is at 40/56, and looking very vulnerable.

Bowers points out that, with the exceptions of Christine Gregoire of Washington and Oregon’s Ted Kulongoski, whose approval numbers are way down, western Democratic Governors are doing particularly well, with a 59/30 average:

Freudenthal (WY) is at 67/20, Napolitano (AZ) is at 59/32, Henry (OK) is at 59/30, Schweitzer (MT) is at 58/27, Sebelius (KS) is at 54/34, and Richardson (NM) is at 54/39.

Considering that Governors have historically been the more successful presidential candidates, the polls come as especially good news as Dems look to 2008.

A recently-released Washington Post/ABC News Poll reveals overwhelming public opposition to the GOP ‘Nuclear Option’ for confirming federal judicial nominees. The Poll, conducted on 4/24, indicated that 66 percent of respondents oppose “changing senate rules to make it easier” for Republicans to confirm Bush’s judicial nominees, while only 26 percent said they supported the proposal.
Informed that the Senate confirmed 35 of President Bush’s federal appeals court nominees, while Senate Democrats blocked 10 of them, 48 percent of the poll’s respondents said that Democrats were right to block the nominations, while 36 percent said they were wrong.

It appears that Democratic Party campaign strategists can now add Tom DeLay’s District to the list of possible wins in ’06. In his article “DeLay of the Land: Home Invasion,” in The New Republic, senior editor John Judis argues that changing demographics and a growing number of Republicans disenchanted with DeLay’s ethics problems and his pandering to religious extremists give Democrats a solid shot at winning DeLay’s house seat in ’06. Judis, co-author with Ruy Teixeira of The Emerging Democratic Majority, describes the dynamics of DeLay’s district:

DeLay’s 22nd district, which he designed in a 2003 redistricting effort that aimed to net seven more Republican seats in Texas, has also begun to change in ways that will not benefit an outspoken Christian conservative like himself. When DeLay first won office, the district was predominately white, with a few pockets of black voters. Because the area’s population has ballooned 18 percent since the 2000 census, there are no dependable figures about the district’s overall composition, but both Republican and Democratic leaders agree that, without losing its high levels of wealth and education, it is becoming a “majority-minority” district, in which whites are outnumbered by other ethnic groups. Latinos and blacks moved into the district in the late ’80s. And, in the ’90s, middle-class Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, and Chinese immigrants began to pour in. Two Hindu temples now vie for attention with the Baptist megachurches.
Extrapolating from the census would put the African American population at about 10 percent, Latinos at over 20 percent, and the Asian population at close to 15 percent. The results in Fort Bend County are even more dramatic. In 1980, the area’s public schools, which attract all the area’s children, were 64 percent white, 16 percent black, 17 percent Latino, and 3 percent Asian. Today, they are 29 percent white, 31 percent black, 21 percent Latino, and 19 percent Asian.

Judis notes that DeLay received only 55 percent of the vote in his district in 2004 after outspending his relatively unknown Democratic opponent 5-1. The politics of demographic reallighnment in the 22nd offer hope that Delay’s excesses will translate into a Democratic 22nd district: As Judis points out:

Most of the black and Latino voters are Democrats…But the Asian vote is more complex. The Indians are the most Democratic. The Pakistanis used to be Republican, but, along with other American Muslims, turned to the Democrats in the face of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment after September 11. The Vietnamese and Chinese were also initially Republicans, but have become increasingly receptive to Democratic support for civil rights.
If you put the district’s disillusioned white professionals together with a majority of the Asians and large majorities of blacks and Latinos, you get a coalition that could unseat DeLay and, over the long run, perhaps, lay the basis for a Democratic resurgence in the area. This potential was evident in two races last year. In a state representative’s district adjoining Fort Bend County and somewhat similar to it in ethnic composition, Vietnamese businessman Hubert Vo, running as a Democrat with the help of Tameez, pulled off an astonishing upset over eleven-term conservative Republican Talmadge Heflin, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Vo won because he mobilized the district’s Asian vote, which is about one-fifth of the electorate. Says Texas Monthly executive editor Paul Burka, “That demographic tidal wave is headed Tom DeLay’s way.”

Nor will DeLay, who made himself poster-boy for political meddling in private family matters during the Terry Schiavo tragedy, find much encouragement in recent polls. As Judis reports:

A poll conducted this month by SurveyUSA found that 51 percent of the district’s residents disapproved of the job DeLay was doing in Washington…A Houston Chronicle poll this spring revealed that 68 percent of the 22nd district’s voters disapproved of government intervention in the Schiavo case.

Winning DeLay’s seat will not be easy, concedes Judis. And it will require some astute politicking to win the support of non-white voters, who are rapidly becomming a majority in the 22nd and Republicans concerned about DeLay’s ethics and financial shenanigans:

Whether Democrats can defeat DeLay will depend partly on their funding a credible candidate to run against him–one who will not scare away the district’s registered Republican majority. Says Leonard Scarcella, a conservative Democrat who has been mayor of Stafford since 1969: “Someone needs to park himself to the right, and take everything to the left of that. You don’t have to convince anyone on the left. You have to convince voters that you can represent conservative values on religion and fiscal stability.”

Political commentator and former Clinton advisor Paul Begala, who grew up in what is now DeLay’s district says the slogan of DeLay’s opponent should be “I’m a conservative, not a crook.”
Regardless of the outcome of the race for DeLay’s seat next year, the 22nd’s political and demographic dynamics are emblematic of what is happening in many districts across the nation, particularly in the south and west. If Democrats will pay attention and target their investments and resources carefully, they can end GOP domination of Congress sooner, rather than later.

Steven Hill’s TomPaine.com article “10 Steps to Better Elections: Our electoral system is in tatters. Here’s what we can do to fix it,” offers a 10-point agenda for electoral reform that would not only make America’s elections more fair and just, but also produce more Democratic victories. Most of Hill’s proposals have been suggested before, such as automatic registration, free air time for candidates, weekend voting and abolishing the electoral college. Hill, author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of America’s Winner-Take-All Politics, also calls for nonpartisan administration of elections, a verified paper trail behind every ballot and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing full voting rights to every citizen (including prisoners and residents of the District of Columbia). Hill’s more controversial reforms include having voters rank their choices, instead of picking one and creating multi-member districts, both of which have been successful in some localities.
It looks doubtful that any reforms requiring action by Congress could be passed before ’06, given the reluctance of the Republican majorities to do anything to expand voting rights. However, some of Hill’s proposals could be enacted at the state and local level, in places where where Republicans don’t have the strength to stop needed reforms. For example, reforms to enfranchise felons, or at least those who have served their time and/or those who have only one felony conviction, have recently attracted some bipartisan support and could possibly be passed in some states before ’06. Had such a law been in place in Florida in 2000, for example, America would have almost certainly been spared the current Bush presidency.

“How Low Can He Go?”, our post asked about President Bush’s poll numbers on April 21st. Lower and lower, apparently, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll on Bush’s Iraq policy, conducted April 29th-May 1st. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of “the way George Bush is handling the situation in Iraq” increased one point over the previous CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll to 55. Those who think “it was not worth going to war in Iraq”? Now 57 percent, up 4 percent from the previous poll. How about those who think the war in Iraq is going “moderately badly or very badly”? Now 56 percent, up a whopping 11 percent over the 45 percent who chose these two options in the previous poll.

…Hope for Democrats, that is, according to an editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times, “A Blue Tinge in the West“. Adding to reports that Democrats are surging in western states (see our recent posts “How the Wast Was Won” and “Go West Young Dem” below), the Times notes that:

The social conservatism that keeps the South red may not be enough for the West. Old-fashioned individual liberty and Democratic populism are getting a hearing. The national Democratic Party seems interested, but unsure how to get to the new rodeo…
The West, once ignored for its paltry populations, has bulked up as the blue states of the Northeast and Midwest lose residents. Latinos with potential Democratic loyalties are moving in. So are retirees from Democratic states, especially California.
The political factors are many. Nevada is at war with the federal government over the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. Environmentalism, once sneered at in the spacious, resource-rich West, is gaining a foothold as tourism and adventure sports gain economic importance. Winning candidates have brought fiscal conservatism, pragmatism and workable ideas to the job, generally leaving ideological baggage behind.

The Times editorial offers further clues about the kinds of policies that Dems have ridden to success:

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a native farm boy and former U.S. attorney who took office in 2003, persuaded an initially balky Republican Legislature to spend some of this year’s $1-billion budget surplus from mineral and energy industry tax revenues instead of socking it all away. The state boosted spending on highways, a wildlife habitat trust fund, bonuses for teachers and community college scholarships.
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has won tax cuts, incentives for new jobs and rapport with business interests. Richardson, whose mother is Mexican, appointed two Republicans to his Cabinet along with Indians and Latinos. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is strong enough that top Republicans are declining to run against her next year.

The editorial suggests that Dems can build on their beachhead in the west by protecting civil liberties and emphasizing privacy issues, such as the GOP’s disastrous handling of Terri Schiavo’s ordeal, that will “resonate with the hands-off individualism of the mountains and deserts.”