In case you missed it, the competition for Republican National Committee chair just got very weird. Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman distributed a CD to RNC members that included a “parody” song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro,” sung to the tune of the old Peter, Paul & Mary classic “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Adam Serwer at TAPPED has everything you need to know about the song itself, which started out as an African-American “inside joke” that uncomprehending conservatives found hilarious. Rush Limbaugh, natch, played the song on his show on several occasions, and Saltsman saw nothing wrong with sending it around.
Initial reaction to the brouhaha in Republican circles was of the “Keep it at home!” variety, which isn’t surprising given the GOP’s already unsavory reputation among minority citizens. But now, mirabile dictu, there are reports that Saltsman may be benefitting from it, as GOPers angrily react to the reaction by “the media” and other candidates. Specifically, incumbent chairman Mike Duncan and MI GOP chairman Saul Anuzis are said to have hurt themselves by suggesting that Saltsman’s stunt was a bit out of line:

Those are two guys who just eliminated themselves from this race for jumping all over Chip on this,” one committee member told Politico. “Mike Duncan is a nice guy, but he screwed up big time by pandering to the national press on this.”

Interesting, eh? Worrying about the Republican Party’s image as being a little soft on racism is defined by some RNC members as “pandering to the national press.” Who knows: maybe Saltsman deliberately cooked up this whole incident to get a sympathy vote from Republicans who feel persecuted by any and all criticism. But in any event, it’s another example of Republicans occupying a very different mental space than the voters they need to return to power.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

One of the distinguishing characteristics of modern American conservatism is that it believes in a curious concept of “color blindness.” In this view, racism is bad. But absent truly egregious behavior, it’s not something you’d really get all that upset about nor is it something you should be really attuned do. But so-called “political correctness” — meaning something like anti-racism that’s gone too far — is a really serious problem. Any hint of political correctness is worth getting upset about. And the views of actual members of racial minorities as to what is and isn’t racist should be completely discounted.

Exactly. Conservatives who are forever whining about “political correctness” don’t seem to understand that there really are utterances that are really and truly “incorrect.”

At the Washington Note today, Steve Clemons offers a way out of the strangely high-profile dispute over Caroline Kennedy’s aspiration to become the junior United States Senator from New York: Barack Obama should appoint her ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Steve doesn’t offer a whole lot of specific reasons for Kennedy’s suitability for this position. Indeed, he doesn’t even mention the fact that it was held by her grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., under the president so often being compared to Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Maybe he doesn’t want to supplant one dynastic rationale with another.
But the idea does raise the broader issue of the series of appointments that Obama has yet to make: a vast number of ambassadorships. Given his huge low-dollar donor base, and his antipathy towards influence-peddlers, you have to figure that Obama is unlikely to follow the ancient pattern of handing over ambassadorial appointments to his most prominent campaign contributors. If that’s right, he will have a good opportunity to fill diplomatic posts with talented people who will do better overseas than in Washington, and even with career foreign service officers.
Maybe Caroline Kennedy meets the definition of “talented people who will do better overseas than in Washington.” Lord knows the British tabloids would focus on her incessantly, in a neat inversion of the U.S. fascination with the British royals. And there is obviously a bit of poetic justice in the idea of a U.S. president re-exporting “Camelot” to England, particularly in the person of an Irish-American.

At Politico, Alexander Burns has a good basic rundown of the contest for Republican National Committee chairmanship, which will culminate next month.
Current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan is considered the front-runner, partly because of his fundraising ability, and partly because none of the other five candidates has a whole lot of momentum. Burns rates Michigan GOP chief Saul Anuzis, who’s sort of the symbol of blue-state Republicans, and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, as running neck-and-neck in second place. But he agrees with Ed Kilgore’s recent assessment that the entry into the campaign of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has destabilized the contest–particularly now that Blackwell has formed a “ticket” with another hero of the Cultural Right, national co-chairwoman aspirant Tina Benkiser of Texas.
Ideology isn’t much of a factor in this competition, beyond the suggestions of Steele’s rivals that his (largely repudiated) relationship with the puny but totemic Republican Leadership Council makes him suspect. All the candidates are running as hard-core pro-life conservatives.
As Burns’ account suggests, inside-baseball factors like the relationship of candidates to actual RNC members will likely determine the outcome. Democrats should probably welcome a win by Duncan, which would nicely symbolize the conservative conviction that nothing’s really wrong with the GOP, or by Blackwell, who was famously described by George W. Bush as “a nut.”

Some of you may remember the skirmishing over the language about abortion in the Democratic platform earlier this year. A straightforward endorsement of abortion rights was combined with a commitment to help reduce the need for abortion. The latter material was widely hailed as a victory by those Democrats–many of them supporters of abortion restrictions–who consider “abortion reduction” the common ground on which pro-choice and pro-life Americans can cooperate.
While it’s always an accomplishment when platform drafters can make everybody happy, the concept of “abortion reduction” by means other than direct restrictions on the legality of abortion is not a universal crowdpleaser, particularly among reproductive rights advocates who view this approach as an unacceptable concession to the assumption that abortion is inherently immoral.
At The American Prospect, Sarah Posner has a solid write-up today on how the platform skirmishing might play itself out during the first year of the Obama administration, with “abortion reduction” legislation sponsored by Democratic Reps. Tim Ryan of OH and Rosa DeLauro of CT being the lightning rod:

Passing a comprehensive bill like Ryan-DeLauro could be complicated not only by the reluctance of reproductive-rights advocates to get behind it but also by the refusal of some Catholic groups, under pressure from church hierarchy, to endorse a bill that includes contraception. Many evangelicals are similarly loathe to endorse contraception, as evidenced by the forced resignation of Richard Cizik, the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, after he told National Public Radio’s Fresh Air host Terri Gross that he favored government supplying contraception [note: Cizik also signaled he was becoming more open to gay marriage, which may have been an even bigger deal].

Overshadowing this debate are doubts about the exact position of Barack Obama, who has an impeccable pro-choice voting record but who has also done a lot to encourage “abortion reduction” supporters.

As the New York Times reports today, the states have virtually all certified their November 4 presidential voting totals, and we can begin to make some judgments about turnout.
Overall, 131 million votes were cast, up from 122 million in 2004. As a percentage of eligible voters, turnout was 61.6%, not that much above 2004’s 60.1%, but still the highest turnout percentage since 1968.
It appears that the lack of doubt about the winner of the election, and lack of Republican enthusiasm for John McCain, combined to lower turnout a bit. The turnout-increase champ was NC, where the percentage of eligible voters particupating jumped from 57.8% to 65.8%. Aside from winning the state in the presidential election for the first time since 1976, Democrats also won close senatorial and gubernatorial races in the state, and picked up a House seat.
Early voting rose sharply around the country, with 31% of the electorate casting early or absentee ballots (up from 22% in 2004). Election Day truly ain’t what it used to be.

As you probably know, Senate Republicans blocked action on legislation providing a “bridge loan”–or a bailout, if you prefer that term–to the Big Three automakers. Some GOPers claimed to favor an alternative approach; some seemed to welcome the idea of a collapse of the U.S. auto industry; and still others simply cited public opposition to any further bailouts. In reaction, stock markets registered losses worldwide.
It’s unclear at this juncture whether the Bush administration will find a way–perhaps using the earlier bailout funds–to keep the Big Three automakers alive until the next Congress is sworn in. Either way, it’s beginning to become obvious that all the let’s-tough-it-out, anti-bailout, anti-stimulus talk in conservative circles since Election Day could have real consequences, for the GOP and for the country. According to Politico, Vice President Dick Cheney told Senate Republicans at a luncheon meeting yesterday that if the auto plan were rejected, it would be “Herbert Hoover time” in America. We’ll soon know if Republicans are willing to live with the responsibility for making that happen.
For an angry assessment of the Senate GOP’s actions, see John Judis’ piece from The New Republic yesterday.

It would be wrong to assume that the Governor of Illinois, arrested today for allegedly seeking to personally profit from the appointment of a successor to the president-elect, is guilty. But there appears to be no doubt about the quotes attributed to him today by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
And so, on the theory that at least this sad saga should produce some humor, check out a Benjamin Sarlin post at The Daily Beast today, which lets readers guess whether Rod Blagojevich or Tony Soprana dished out ten earthy quotes. It’s not a particularly easy quiz.
Who knows: if Blago avoids the hoosegow, he might well be in line for his own television reality show, which should help with the legal bills.

Those who think Barack Obama–who lest we forget, hasn’t taken office yet–is moving too slowly to deal with the economic crisis should look at Germany and count their blessings. As Clay Risen explains at The New Republic, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel seems to have been paralyzed by recent events:

Of all Europe’s leaders, no one has suffered from the economic crisis quite as much as Merkel, because no one has mishandled the crisis quite as badly as Merkel. Germany is facing its biggest economic challenge since World War II–the Bundesbank is predicting GDP to shrink by at least, 0.8 percent in 2009; many think that’s overly optimistic–and economists, politicians, media and the public across the spectrum are calling for tax cuts and stimulus spending of the sort being rolled out in France and other EU states.
But Merkel prefers to play the Dutch uncle–er, aunt–in this situation, telling a recent party congress that the crisis called not for government action but personal belt-tightening. Doing her best Jimmy Carter impression, she told the German parliament that her goal “is not to overcome the crisis” but “to build a bridge so that we at least can start recovering in 2010.”

She’s also, in a stand that will certainly separate her from every other leader in the industrialized world, determined to balance Germany’s budget within the next four years.
No wonder Risen says of Merkel:

When she came into office, fans said she would be Germany’s Margaret Thatcher. Now she’s looking more and more like Germany’s Herbert Hoover.

Democracy Corps is out with a new survey of what Americans think about the incoming Obama administration, with interesting comparisons to how people felt in 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton took office with a “change” mandate.
The good news is that Obama’s getting strong positive reviews as president-elect, with especially strong and deep support for his agenda:

[T]wo-thirds say they support Obama’s policies and goals for the country, with a near majority supporting them strongly. Meanwhile, just about a quarter of the electorate opposes Obama’s goals and policies. In early 1993, with the transition and cabinet further advanced, a slightly larger majority (72 percent) supported Clinton’s goals and policies, but he did not enjoy nearly the same intensity of support, with just 17 percent strongly supportive.
The prospect for greater breadth of support is evident in the 85 percent of moderates, two-thirds of independents (67 percent) and nearly one-third of McCain voters (30 percent) who support Obama’s goals and policies. Notably, Obama’s support is strong among women (75 percent), union households (76 percent), unmarried women (84 percent) and Catholics (68 percent); also, at 69 percent, support for the president-elect’s policies is even stronger among older voters (those 50 and over) than it is among younger voters.

The not-so-good news is that Americans seem to want Congress to exert an “independent” role with respect to Obama’s agenda, and are less worried about congressional “obstruction” than they were in 1993:

A plurality of voters (49 to 42 percent) are more concerned that the Democratic Congress will be too much of a rubber stamp than they are that Congress will prevent Obama from enacting the changes he thinks are needed; these results are reversed from early 1993. We observed similar results (48 to 43 percent) when we asked this question a different way, adding partisanship into the mix by asking if voters were more worried about the Democratic Congress being a rubber stamp or the Republicans in Congress obstructing Obama.

This is the story-line that Republicans are already pushing in a vast overinterpretation of Saxby Chambliss’ runoff win in Georgia yesterday: voters want them to restrain, not support, Obama. This is not a course of action in which they will need a whole lot of encouragement from polls or anywhere else.

Editor’s Note: We are very pleased to publish this constructive critique of field strategies for the unsuccessful effort to defeat the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 initiative in California. Its author is Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a student at Harvard Divinity School and the director of The Progressive Project (TPP). During the 2008 election season, TPP worked in six cities across the nation to engage communities in actions to elect Barack Obama and to defeat Proposition 8 on the California ballot. This article is based upon her work on the No on 8 campaign, and on other campaigns to defeat similar ballot measures.
On November 4, Proposition 8 passed in California, enshrining in the state constitution a ban on same sex marriage. Similar amendments also passed in Florida and Arizona. We have now lost campaigns like this in 29 states; we have won only once – in Arizona in 2006. On a human level, these defeats are a blow to people across the nation who care about civil rights and equality. On a strategic level, they are explicable; after all, we continue to rely on the same strategies despite mounting evidence that they do not work.
What is required as the LGBT movement goes forward is a commitment to permanent political engagement and a national grassroots strategy and infrastructure that complement our national legal strategy. We must also finally do what our opponents have long been doing: treating each statewide ballot measure as a national campaign.
The loss in California is a particularly apt case study because it took place in our nation’s largest state and because the opposition made it a national campaign from the start. A full analysis of this loss falls into three overlapping categories:
–An aerial view of the infrastructure, strategies and mindset of the national LGBT movement;
–A “zoom-in” view of the specific field, messaging, and funding strategies used by the No on 8 campaign; and
–a similar “zoom-in” view of the strategies used by two concurrent, successful national campaigns: “Yes on 8” and the Obama campaign.
In this article, I will focus on an analysis of the field strategies used by the “No on 8” campaign
Proposition 8 passed by 510,591 votes. We don’t know if that gap could have been closed. But we do know that the “No on 8” campaign could have run a more visionary, nimble and aggressive field strategy. Ultimately the field strategy came up short in two critical, related areas:
First, the “No on 8” campaign did not become national until October, limiting both the volunteers and donors it could engage.
Second, the campaign’s field strategy failed to effectively reach enough swing voters enough times to turn them out as “no” voters.

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