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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Editor’s Corner

Needed: Project to Increase Democratic Turnout in 2014 Midterm Election

This item by J.P. Green was originally published on November 10, 2012.
We know you’re sick of politics and you would like to give it a rest for a while. But Michael Tomasky’s post, “The Obama Coalition in the Off Years” at The Daily Beast has one of the best ideas yet for the mid-term elections, and you should check it out before it fades off the political radar screen. Noting that 2012 voter turnout was near 60 percent, Tomasky explains:

Some rich liberals need to fund a public-education group that will work full-time to make sure the liberal blocs and constituencies come out and vote in off-year elections…And off-year turnout is down around 40 percent. The 20 percent who leave the system are almost entirely Democrats. This has been true all my life. It’s basically because old people always vote, and I guess old white people vote more than other old people, and old white people tend to be Republican. So even when white American isn’t enraged as it was in 2010, midterms often benefit Republicans.

Conceding the exceptions of ’98 and ’06, Tomasky continues,

As long as this is true, the country’s progressive coalition will spend forever taking one step forward in presidential years, and one step back in off years. But imagine if the Obama coalition had voted, even in decent numbers, in 2010. The Democrats might still well have the House.
If liberal blocs can be conditioned in a generation’s time to vote in every federal election, well, combine that with what we know to be the coming demographic changes, and the electoral pressure on Republicans would be constant and enormous. The Republican white voting pool has limits, so the GOP would have to compete even harder for brown and black votes, which would pull our politics even more to the left.
A long-term project along these lines would be $20 million (or whatever) very well spent for some rich liberal who cares about changing the country.

Tomasky’s idea has added appeal, considering that in 2014 an unusually high number of Democratic senators will be up for re-election in red and swing states (6 for each). As for the House, Cameron Joseph notes at The Hill:

On the House side, while Democrats will have some opportunities at districts they missed out on in California and elsewhere, heavily gerrymandered GOP maps in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina will continue to limit their opportunities.
Democrats tend to live in more urban areas, concentrating their votes into fewer congressional districts, and legally required “majority-minority” districts further pack Democrats into a few districts and make nearby districts more safely Republican.
According to a recent study by the Center for Voting and Democracy, Democrats start off with 166 safe districts while Republicans start off with 195. There are only 74 true swing districts where the presidential candidates won between 46 and 54 percent of the popular vote, down from 89 before redistricting.
That means the GOP needs to win less than one-third of competitive House seats to stay in control — something that shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish, barring a huge Democratic wave. In a politically neutral year Democrats are likely to have around 203 seats, a number that’s only slightly higher than the number they’ll have once the remaining 2012 races are called.

In addition, it’s just possible that some of the creative GOTV techniques Dems deployed so successfully this year could be transferable to the 2014 mid-terms. In any case, meeting the challenge of making the next mid-term electorate resemble this year’s general election demographics could help insure that progressive change replaces continued gridlock and stagnation.


Brownstein: Credit Obama’s Innovative Coalition With Historic Win

This staff post was first published on November 7, 2012.
For insightful analysis of elections, it’s always good to check in with the National Journal‘s ace Ronald Brownstein, who observes today:

President Obama won a second term by marrying the new Democratic coalition with just enough of the old to overcome enduring economic disenchantment and a cavernous racial divide.
In many places, particularly across the Sun Belt, Obama mobilized the Democrats’ new “coalition of the ascendant,” winning enough support among young people, minorities and college-educated whites, especially women, to overcome very weak numbers among blue-collar whites and college-educated men. But in the upper Midwest, where there are not enough of those voters to win, Obama attracted just enough working-class whites to hold the critical battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Iowa, and above all Ohio against Mitt Romney’s forceful challenge.

Brownstein notes that with Obama’s victory, Democrats have matched the GOP record of winning the popular vote in 4 of 5 elections. he adds that “Obama also held all 18 “blue wall” states that have voted Democratic in each election since 1992. By doing so he set a new milestone: that is the most states Democrats have won that often since the formation of the modern party system in 1828.”
Brownstein explains that Obama adroitly rode the “tailwind” of demographic transformation, as people of color now cast 28 percent of the ballots in a presidential election, and Obama received 80 percent of their votes, “including not only more than nine in 10 African-Americans, but also about seven in 10 Hispanics, and about three in four Asians.”
“In the key Midwestern battlegrounds with much smaller minority populations,” adds Brownstein, “the president engineered a different formula for victory…Obama exceeded his national performance among white voters by just enough to repel Romney’s challenge” by successfully characterizing Romney as “an insensitive plutocrat.” yet, nationwide, “Obama captured a smaller share of the white vote than John Kerry did when he lost in 2004.”
In that way, the election offered warning signs to each party.
It’s a warning sign for Democrats, says Brownstein, but a disaster for Republicans: “By winning nearly three-fifths of whites, Romney matched the best performance among white voters ever for a Republican challenger–and yet he lost decisively in the Electoral College.” Brownstein adds,

…By failing to compete more effectively for the growing minority population, Republicans have lowered their ceiling in presidential politics, and left their nominees trying to thread a needle to reach a majority either in the popular or Electoral College vote.

Brownstein concludes of Obama’s re-election,

…His victory underscored the enduring polarization along ideological, regional, and racial lines: For instance, while about three-fifths of Hispanics and three-fourths of African-Americans who voted said they wanted his health care law maintained or even expanded, nearly three-fifths of whites said they wanted it repealed…How Washington makes progress on the biggest challenges we face while the nation is both deeply and closely divided is the largest question looming after Obama’s historic victory.

There is no question that President Obama and the Democrats have won an impressive mandate. The challenge ahead is to increase the comfort level of white working class voters as a permanent constituency in the new Democratic coalition.


Romney’s Waffling on FEMA Won’t Win Many Votes

This item by J.P. Green was originally published on October 30, 2012.
In his Washington Post article, “Hurricane Sandy highlights how Obama and Romney respond to disasters,” Ed O’Keefe describes the President’s course of action addressing frankenstorm Sandy:

…Obama has signed at least nine federal emergency disaster declarations in the past 24 hours at the request of state governors, directing FEMA to deploy more resources in anticipation of significant recovery efforts. He canceled campaign stops for Monday and Tuesday to return to the White House to oversee the federal government’s evolving storm response.
…Obama campaigned four years ago on a promise to revamp the federal government’s disaster-response functions and has embraced changes long sought by state governors and professional emergency managers. Since becoming president, he has led the federal response to multiple natural disasters, including tornadoes, flooding and major hurricanes, learning from government stumbles during the presidency of George W. Bush — most notably in the case of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Obama’s posture has been to order federal agencies to aggressively prepare for and respond to major storms and other disasters.

It’s a portrait of a president leaving no task unmet. O’Keefe sees “a moment of sharp contrast between President Obama and Mitt Romney and how their different ideas of governing apply to the federal response to large-scale disasters.” O’Keefe adds that “Obama has been aggressive about bolstering the federal government’s capability to respond to disasters, while his Republican challenger believes that states should be the primary responders in such situations and has suggested that disaster response could be privatized.” Further,

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney requested federal disaster assistance for storm cleanup, and he has toured storm-ravaged communities as a presidential candidate, but he has agreed with some who suggest that the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be dissolved as part of budget cuts.
When moderator John King suggested during a June 2011 CNN debate that federal disaster response could be curtailed to save federal dollars, Romney said: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”

At the time, Romney didn’t have much to say about, ahem, how states should work together when a natural disaster overlaps state borders, as they most always do. But in the Romney campaign’s partial walkback statement, we get this:

“Governor Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”

Which is pretty much how the system works, as O’Keefe points out. He adds that the Romney campaign is also collecting supplies for the storm’s victims, which FEMA says is not such a good idea in the earliest part of the relief effort, because cash and blood donations are more urgently needed and donated supplies can cause logistical bottlenecks too early on.
After President Bush botched the Hurricane Katrina relief effort the agency has undergone major restructuring and reorganization under the leadership of President Obama and FEMA administrator Carl Fugate, as O’Keefe explains:

Fugate and Obama have earned praise for restoring the agency’s reputation in the years since Katrina. Despite working for then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as head of the state’s emergency agency, Fugate said he rebuffed overtures from George W. Bush to lead FEMA after Katrina, saying that the GOP administration did not want to rebuild the agency in the fashion since embraced by Obama.

O’Keefe adds that “Fugate has batted away questions before about possible privatization of his agency: “I’m too busy working on other stuff. Ask that to somebody who would give you the time and day to answer that,” he said in a 2011 interview. O’Keefe notes that Obama’s FEMA reforms have “earned plaudits from then-Gov. Haley Barbour (R) of Mississippi and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) of Louisiana — usually tough Obama critics — and professional emergency managers who had sought the changes for years.” O’Keefe concludes with a quote recalling Bush’s ‘Heckuvajob Brownie” mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina relief:

Obama’s changes at FEMA “have been night and day” compared with those under previous administrations, according to one veteran emergency manager who was not authorized to speak publicly for fear of jeopardizing federal disaster grant requests. “I don’t know who will be the next president, but they can’t put a political hack in the job of leading FEMA ever again.”

Some may protest that it’s unseemly to call attention to the differing approaches of the candidates in a time of national emergency, when Americans should be pulling together. But lives are at stake and it’s important that voters pay attention to the management philosophies and track records of the two candidates in addressing major disasters. This is a matter of national security as much as any foreign policy issue.
What voters are left with is an image of Romney posturing his ideologically-extravagant privatization schema and federal government-bashing, and a more grounded and experienced President Obama taking care of business. My hunch is that the clear distinction will not be lost on observant swing voters.


Stalking the Elusive White Male Voter

This staff post was originally published on October 26, 2012.
For those Democrats who have been puzzling over the inability of the Obama campaign to get more traction with white male voters, Brian Montopoli has an excellent post up at CBS News Politics, with the somewhat misleading title, “Will White Men Sink Obama?”
The title is misleading because Montopoli makes it clear that Obama can win; it’s more about the reasons behind the segmentation of the white male vote at this political moment. Montopoli sheds light on the challenge facing Democrats with this still-influential constituency and provides some insightful observations, including:

…While women outvoted men by about 10 million votes in the 2008 presidential election, men still made up 48 percent of the electorate. And white men alone made up more than one third of the electorate – 36 percent – according to national exit polls.
It’s true that whites are slowly shrinking as a portion of the electorate as blacks, Hispanics and Asians grow in influence, which is why you don’t see many news stories about them as a voting bloc. But they still pack a powerful electoral punch. White men, in fact, are providing the biggest drag on the president of any voting bloc as he tries to win another four years in the Oval Office. Even if the president gets his expected 80 percent support from minority voters, he is unlikely to win the election if he can’t win more than one in three white men. And he might not.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll released this week found that white men support Romney over Mr. Obama 65 percent to 32 percent – a 2-to-1 margin. That suggests the president is doing worse among white men then he did in 2008, when exit polls showed he lost white men by a 57 percent to 41 percent margin. The poll also found white men moving away from the president: Romney’s 19-point mid-October lead on handling the economy among the group has risen to 35 points today.

Montopoli quotes Progressive Policy Institute President Will Marshall on the problem:

Many white men, and many, in particular, non-college white men, have not seen that the Democratic economic agenda is in their interest…There’s an account from the left that says these voters have been estranged from Democrats on social issues. And there’s some truth to that. But I also think these voters believe the economic policies of Democrats have benefitted somebody else – not them…

But, as Montopoli points out, there is a strong regional influence on the way the white male vote breaks down:

…A survey released last month by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that Romney led 48 to 35 percent among whites lacking four-year college degrees who are paid by the hour or the job. Yet while Romney led by 40 points among southern working-class whites, the president actually led by eight points among Midwestern working-class whites. The president’s relative strength among whites in the Midwest is the reason a state like Pennsylvania appears likely to remain blue despite a relatively large white population.

As Marshall puts it in Montopoli’s post, “The sense that he’s doing better with white voters in the Midwest is the firewall for Barack Obama…It’s what’s giving him hope that he can win in the Electoral College even if he potentially loses the popular vote.”
Montopoli adds that Romney is weaker in the more unionized midwest, despite his Michigan roots, as a result of his opposition to the auto bailout and Obama’s relative popularity in the region. With white working-class women, however, the situation is a little more complicated. Moreover, adds Monopoli:

…The PRRI study found that while Romney holds a 2-1 advantage among white working class men, the two candidates were tied among white-working class women. David Paul Kuhn, author of “The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma,” reported that Democrats have seen a 25 percent decline in white working-class male support between 1948 and 2004, even as white working-class women held steady.

But the Bush meltdown may have exacerbated the insecurity of white men in particular. “The effect of the 2008 economic collapse has been dubbed a “he-cession” because it disproportionately left men out of work,” adds Montopoli.
Romney, for his part, has been struggling to make inroads with white male working-class voters in the region with repeated references to “the war on coal” and the like. But his campaign seems to be stuck in neutral at the moment.
It does appear that 2012 may be the last election in which the white male vote is a decisive force. As Montopoli concludes, “The silver lining in all this for Democrats: The impact of their disadvantage among white men looks likely to diminish as time goes on.”


Lux: It’s All About GOTV Now

This item, by Democratic strategist Mike Lux, author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, is cross-posted from HuffPo, where it originally appeared on October 23, 2012. :
We are now officially at the end game. What this election boils down to now is simple as can be: pumping up and getting out the Democratic base vote.
It really helps that Obama so dominated last night’s debate. He was steady and authoritative, putting Romney on the defensive early and keeping him there all night. The horses and bayonets line, unanswered by a stunned Romney, is the keeper debate line of the 2012 cycle, destined to join “there you go again, Mr. President” from Reagan in 1980, and the “you are no Jack Kennedy” line from Bentsen in ’88, as one of the most repeated debate lines in American history.
What was most fascinating about last night’s debate happened in the first minute, though. When moderator Bob Schieffer opened the debate by asking Romney the Benghazi question, I think everyone watching assumed that this would be the biggest flashpoint and battle of the debate, that this would be the fireworks and the news coming out of the night. When Romney chose instead to immediately punt on first down and turn the very specific and pointed Benghazi question into a rambling generic answer about foreign policy in general, he stunned everyone — and he took the biggest potential weakness for Obama on foreign policy off the table for not only the rest of the night but the rest of the campaign. If Romney didn’t have the guts to challenge the president on it when the question got teed up so directly for him, how is the Romney campaign going to make a credible case against Obama on it for the next two weeks? They aren’t. I don’t know whether there was some kind of big campaign decision that, having swung and missed in the last debate, he just wouldn’t go there, or whether Romney just flat out choked (I strongly suspect the latter) but, either way, having buried it in the debate, that issue will be very hard for the Romney campaign to resurrect.
The president fired up the Democratic troops last night. Now it is up to the troops to deliver. In the battleground states, we have to not only do the crucial mechanics of turning out the vote — door to door, calls, early voting, visibility, friend to friend and neighbor to neighbor — we have to fire our people up and get them motivated to vote. I have a great deal of confidence in the Obama ground game, but it won’t be easy.
Poll after poll has shown that some of the most important Democratic base groups are less engaged in this campaign and less fired up about voting than they were in 2008. In fact, it is young people, unmarried women, Latinos and African Americans that have been hardest hit by economic hard times, and when you are struggling economically it is a lot harder to get excited about voting. Because of those hard times, more of the voters in these demographic groups have also been wavering in terms of the president, as well. In 2008, Obama won 69 percent of the voters in those demographic groups, but according to the new Democracy Corps poll just out yesterday, Obama is only winning 62 percent right now. In the last two weeks of this campaign, our highest strategic priority should be to focus on these voters, remind them of how terrible Romney’s policies would be for them and do everything in our power to pump them up about voting and voting for Democrats.
The good news is that despite those lower numbers from our base, the DCorps poll showed Obama going into the final two weeks ahead by three, 49-46. I put a lot of trust into DCorps’ numbers, as Stan Greenberg has an extraordinary amount of experience polling in presidential politics and they have the best predictive record of any poll out there. Especially given Obama’s decisive victory last night and the small but steady edge in most of the key swing states, DCorps’ numbers make me think we are going to win this race. But absolutely key to the endgame is appealing to and firing up Democratic base voters. Our success with those voters will determine this election.


Seifert: To Regain The Lead, Obama Must Listen To These Swing Voters

The following article, by Erica Seifert, is cross-posted from The Carville-Greenberg Memo:
When Barack Obama and Mitt Romney met for their first debate one week ago, we were there — in the swing-voting state of Colorado — to track voters’ opinions during the debate.
Based on dials that voters used to register their real-time reactions and post-debate interviews, the results of our research were lackluster, at least for the president. During the debate, the dial lines fell flat when the president emphasized the progress his administration had made over the last four years.
By contrast, Romney performed well among independents when he talked about his plans for the future and the middle class. In our post-debate focus groups, voters told us they were “surprised” by Mitt Romney and “confused” by the president.
This was a different Barack Obama (and definitely a different Mitt Romney) than we had observed in September. Following the party conventions, our tracking showed stronger margins for President Obama, although the race remained close. And then Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” video suddenly appeared on the Mother Jones website. For many voters, this footage really changed the choice and the stakes. We saw the poll numbers move decisively in Obama’s direction and against Romney.
On the eve of the first debate, half of all voters (50 percent) gave Mitt Romney a negative rating and the president took a commanding lead on the ballot–leading by 7 points nationally and 6 points in the battleground states. More voters said they trusted Obama on key attributes that predict their choices–focusing on issues important to ordinary people and making the right decisions to address big national problems–and he had pulled even with Romney on issues where he had previously trailed, including the economy.
But the trend in the polls has changed course in the week since the debate. What happened? In the first debate, the president touched on none of the themes that had fortified his lead in the post-convention period–focusing on the future, emphasizing economic policies that build the middle class, and clarifying the choice over the “47 percent,” which Bill Clinton had summed up at the convention: Democrats believe “we’re in this together”; Republicans say, “you are on your own.” In many ways, Obama let Romney own the future and the middle class in the first debate.
We saw the results on the dial lines in Denver. And we have begun to see the impact in the polls. To win over swing voters and energize his base to turn out, the president needs to speak to these themes clearly, meaningfully, and emphatically. He needs to stand up for, and advocate policies to advance, the so-called “47 percent.”
The “47 percent” theme works because voters believe that if it was more than a simple gaffe, it revealed something important about Romney. It also works because Democrats can offer a powerful contrast: Medicare, Social Security, taxes, and a political outlook that rejects the “you’re on your own” economics advanced by Romney, Paul Ryan, and the Congressional Republicans.
Barack Obama has the chance to make this election about a country and an economy that works for all Americans. If he does that, Mitt Romney will not win.
Why is the “47 percent” so powerful? Our extensive research shows that voters–the elderly on Social Security, unmarried women, young people, veterans, the working poor, and even those in the middle class–strongly identify with the “47 percent.”
During focus groups in both Columbus, Ohio and Fairfax, Virginia, participants instantly identified with the “47 percent.” When asked about Mitt Romney’s comment on the “47 percent,” participants quickly responded with disgust and then explained, “he’s talking about me.”

It’s hurtful. I am probably one of them 47 percent. By speaking of that 47 percent, he’s probably never been in that 47 percent… I work and pay my taxes. I wake up at 4:30 every morning, feed my kids and go to work. (Swing voter, Columbus, OH)
He’s putting me down. (Swing voter, Columbus, OH)
[He’s talking about] us. Probably everyone in this room. (Columbus, OH)
I’ve worked and I paid into that Social Security. I started working at 15. I paid into that. (Columbus, OH)
[The 47 percent is] us. Normal people. Who may have jobs, who need some assistance. (Columbus, OH)
There are a lot of people out of work who can’t find jobs. I spent 8 to 10 hours a day looking, and the state of Virginia doesn’t really provide a huge amount of unemployment insurance. And hearing from some people in the media and politicians saying they are lazy, it’s not true. (Fairfax, VA)

And these same voters expressed disgust at Romney’s inability to understand middle class and working people’s everyday realities.

The tone is so accusatory and so demeaning. Rather than talking about helping people. It’s not about lifting them up, it’s about dropping them down. (Columbus, OH)
Where’s the compassion? (Columbus, OH)
He doesn’t know who those 47 percent are. Most of them are working people, the working poor, they get up and go to work every day. (Columbus, OH)
Using the word ‘entitled.’ I hate that word. He makes 47 percent sound like spoiled brats who sit at home and do nothing. It shouldn’t be a dirty word but it is. That word really got to me. Like these people are so entitled. (Columbus, OH)
My mom was embarrassed to use food stamps. If she wouldn’t have had them, she wouldn’t have eaten. The woman couldn’t help it. It just bothered me that yes, it was a safety net, but she had enough going on that she didn’t need more problems. She was never comfortable with it, ever. (Columbus, OH)
These people feel they are entitled to food?! To housing?! These stupid stupid poor people feel they are entitled to food! Shame on them! (Fairfax, VA)
He is saying he doesn’t care. It makes you take a step further–does he care about anyone at all? (Unmarried woman, Fairfax, VA)

And these voters were especially upset when they thought about it in terms of their elderly parents and relatives on Medicare and Social Security, or students who need loans to pay for education, or those who are disabled and require some assistance just to get by.

A lot of them are retired. After my dad died, we had to get my mom food stamps. That’s 20% of the 47. (Columbus, OH)
Who are the people who pay no income tax? You could be a student and pay none. Or an elderly person on Social Security. (Fairfax, VA)
They aren’t all people in poverty. There’s middle class people. People on disability. Veterans. It’s not a lot of people cheating off the system. It’s a lot of people. (Columbus, OH)

To come back strong, the president must address future policy choices in a much bolder way–and he must make this election about choosing a country that stands up for and elevates the 47 percent versus a country that tells its seniors, veterans, the working poor, the disabled, and, yes, the struggling middle class: “You are on your own.”


Get Ready Dems: If Obama wins conservatives will try to de-legitimize his victory with hysterical, phony claims of “massive election fraud.” There are four important ways Dems can plan now to fight back

This item by Ed Kilgore, James Vega, and J.P. Green was first published on September 28, 2012.

Every Democrat is painfully aware of the widespread GOP/conservative efforts to suppress the Democratic vote in the coming elections. An extensive and detailed report by Demos and Common Cause has carefully delineated the major problems that exist and searing indictments of the voter suppression strategy have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and a wide range of other national periodicals.
Elizabeth Drew summarized the situation nicely in a recent New Yorker commentary:

…The current voting rights issue is even more serious [than Watergate]: it’s a coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the result of a presidential election by restricting the opportunities of members of the opposition party’s constituency–most notably blacks–to exercise a Constitutional right. This is the worst thing that has happened to our democratic election system since the late nineteenth century, when legislatures in southern states systematically negated the voting rights blacks had won in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

But while the possibility of Romney and other Republican candidates actually winning elections by disenfranchising Democratic voters is the most grotesque threat on the horizon it is also important for Democrats to be aware of a second major danger that springs directly from the first: even if Obama not only wins the election but does so by a sufficient margin to avoid a contested result, the claim that massive voter fraud occurred can and will be used to de-legitimize his victory to millions of Americans and to provide a bogus justification for continued GOP intransigence and political sabotage during his second term.
Unfortunately, both the Republican Party and movement conservatives have the strongest possible incentives to follow this path if Obama is indeed re-elected.
For the GOP, an Obama victory will generate tremendous pressure on the party to moderate their extremist strategy of complete noncooperation and refusal to compromise with the new administration. The claim that Obama was only elected because of massive voting fraud will provide an easy and hypocritically “altruistic” rationalization for them to continue employing their extremist political strategy.
For movement conservatives, an Obama victory will generate tremendous demoralization among “the troops” and even the most ferocious denunciations of Romney’s ideological weakness and personal ineptitude will not be sufficient to restore their former fighting spirit. The claim that Obama was elected by massive voting fraud, on the other hand, will not only provide an explanation for the conservative defeat but also serve as a rallying cry for continued mobilization and a justification for continued belief that conservatives are still the “real” majority.
It is, of course, completely inevitable that the conservative grass-roots voter fraud groups that have been organized to monitor polling places on Election Day will loudly allege “massive voter fraud” and a stolen election regardless of what actually occurs on November 6th. But for this accusation to gain any significant credibility beyond the circle of already convinced conservatives, an absolutely key requirement will be some kind of dramatic visual evidence of problems or disruptions occurring at polling places. After all, by themselves on-camera interviews with the leaders of the voter fraud monitoring groups — interviews in which these grass-roots “voter vigilantes” will breathlessly allege the existence of busloads of swarthy immigrants and shiftless minorities having been herded from precinct to precinct to vote multiple times — will not be sufficient to convince anyone outside the circle of true believers.
The impact of such charges will be vastly amplified and reinforced, however, if video images of even the smallest and most unrepresentative handful of disruptions at polling places can be obtained and then presented as evidence that something suspicious was actually going on. It is only necessary to remember how Fox News’ relentless repetition of the footage of two motley and rather forlorn “Black Panthers” standing for several minutes in front of a single African-American precinct in 2008 elevated the notion of “thuggish intimidation” of McCain voters into a major national story and an unquestioned truth for millions of Fox viewers.
Most disturbingly, even incidents that are directly and entirely provoked by the actions of the new voter vigilantes themselves will actually serve to bolster and reinforce the bogus accusations of voter fraud. The simple fact is that, from a distance, images of angry people shouting at each other do not reveal what their dispute is about or which side is actually at fault. Any dramatic video images of angry confrontations or disruptions on Election Day, regardless of their actual cause, will powerfully reinforce the false perception that “something fishy” was really going on.
Unfortunately the danger that disruptions will be provoked by the voter vigilantes themselves is extremely high.
In the first place, the grass-roots voter vigilantes are already deeply and passionately convinced that massive voting theft is an established fact. An article in The Atlantic described one grass roots leader in the following way:

Speaking at one Texas Tea Party gathering, Alan Vera, the Army ranger turned volunteer-trainer, cautioned that “evil” forces were about to launch “the greatest attack ever on election integrity,” and implored the crowd to prepare for a “ground war”: “In 2012, we need a patriot army to stand shoulder to shoulder on the wall of freedom and shout defiantly to those dark powers and principalities, ‘If you want to steal this election, you have to get past us. We will not yield another inch to your demonic deception … If you won’t enforce our laws, we’ll do it ourselves, so help us God.’ ” Shaking his fist in the air, he cried, “Patriots, let’s roll!” The crowd cheered wildly.

(Other activists, of course, are far more cynical. A board member of the Racine county Wisconsin GOP who supervised the county’s major voter fraud group in 2010 noted that some precincts might be targeted “just because it’s a heavily skewed Democratic ward.”)
But, for the most part, the conservative ground troops will be utterly committed true believers who are completely convinced that massive voting fraud is occurring and that they are heroic patriots defending the nation from a sinister coup-de-tat.
This problem is then compounded by the fact that the tactics of the voter vigilantes are inherently provocative and extremely likely to provoke conflict.
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Brownstein: Obama on Track to Meet ’80-40 Target’

This Staff item was originally published on September 21, 2012.
In his National Journal column, “Heartland Monitor Poll: Obama Leads 50 Percent to 43 Percent,” Ronald Brownstein reports on the new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll, and sees President Obama holding a “tangible advantage” over Romney. In addition to his overall edge in the poll, Brownstein adds”

Race remains a jagged dividing line in attitudes about Obama’s performance. Just 40 percent of white likely voters give him positive job-approval marks, unchanged since May. But fully 77 percent of nonwhites say they approve of Obama’s work, up sharply from 64 percent in May.
The same stark racial divide runs through preferences in the November election. For Obama, the formula for success in 2012 can be reduced to a single equation: 80-40. If he can hold the combined 80 percent he won among all minorities in 2008, and they represent at least the 26 percent of ballots they cast last time, then he can assemble a national majority with support from merely about 40 percent of whites.
On both fronts, the survey shows the president almost exactly hitting that mark. He leads Romney among all nonwhite voters by 78 percent to 18 percent, drawing over nine in 10 African-Americans and slightly more than the two-thirds of Hispanics he carried last time.
Among whites, Obama wins 41 percent compared to Romney’s 51 percent. Obama’s showing is down slightly from the 43 percent among whites he attracted in 2008 but still enough for the president to prevail in both sides’ calculations. With more whites than non-whites either undecided or saying they intend to support another candidate, Romney is not nearly approaching the roughly three-in-five support among them he’ll likely need to win.

In terms of the white working-class demographic, Brownstein notes,

In the new survey, Romney leads Obama among non-college whites by 54 percent to 37 percent, almost exactly the same margin as McCain’s 18-percentage-point advantage over the president with those voters in 2008 (when they backed the Republican by 58 percent to 40 percent). The new poll shows Obama winning only 39 percent of non-college white men and 35 percent of non-college white women; but to overcome Obama’s other strengths, Romney will need to generate even larger margins with those voters. In fact, Obama’s performance with those working-class whites has slightly improved since the May survey.

Brownstein adds that Romney still leads with seniors, holding close to 60 percent of them — about the same as McCain’s tally, and Obama is nearly matching his ’08 support among college-educated white and “millennial generation” (ages 18-29) LVs. Brownstein concludes, “Taken together, all of these small movements toward Obama have produced, at least for now, a tangible advantage for the president over Romney as the race hurtles toward its final weeks.” Not a bad position for the President less than 7 weeks from E-Day.


Artur Davis and Other Democratic Apostates: A Brief Taxonomy

This item by Ed Kilgore is crossposted from The New Republic, where it was originally published on August 17, 2012.
For the third consecutive time, Republicans are planning to feature an aggrieved Democrat (or ex-Democrat) at their national Convention to personalize claims that the latest Democratic presidential nominee has abandoned the true legacy of his party and left moderate-to-conservative donkeys no option but to vote for the GOP.
As it happens, I know the most recent trio of apostates pretty well. 2004’s Zell Miller, who was enlisted to savage John Kerry’s national security credentials, was my boss in Georgia back in the early 1990s. And I worked with Joe Lieberman (2008’s cross-endorser) and Artur Davis (the latest model) when both men were active in the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council, where I was policy director for a good while. So what if anything do they have in common? Is there a template for party-switchers?
If there is, it might well be a combination of these three men’s qualities. Miller is the full convert, who changed his positions on a host of issues to reflect conservative ideology even before endorsing George W. Bush (and subsequently, a long line of other Republican candidates in Georgia and elsewhere). Miller is also, as anyone who knows him will agree, one of the least neutral people in American politics, a true Appalachian character in the mold of Andrew Johnson who is capable of rolling around in an eye-gouging fight in one ditch and then the other with equal passion.
Lieberman, like his predecessor the neocon “Reagan Democrat” Jeane Kilpatrick (the star of the 1984 Republican Convention) is someone who strayed far outside the boundaries of his party on one set of issues–national security. After being denied renomination to the Senate as a Democrat in 2006, he had few qualms about endorsing his old friend and comrade-in-arms John McCain, even though McCain had by 2008 been forced to renounce most of the domestic policy projects on which he and Lieberman had worked together. In effect, Lieberman was endorsing the man who was briefly discussed as a cross-party running-mate for John Kerry–and getting revenge on his many Democratic enemies.
Davis is a different matter. A very early supporter and personal friend of Barack Obama, and once (despite a pro-business and socially conservative record that discomfited some national Democrats) a passionate advocate of universal health coverage and stronger federal support for public education, Davis set his sites on the audacious goal of becoming governor of Alabama (as he told me years earlier, just after giving an inspiring speech on how conservatives were starving the public schools and the economic opportunities of his very poor majority-black district). Having done so, he systematically began adjusting his ideology to the views of his state’s conservative general electorate, to the point of becoming a national spokesman against the Affordable Care Act and a voice of open contempt towards Alabama’s embattled pro-Democratic interest groups, presumably believing his race and the radicalism of Alabama’s GOP would maintain his base of support.
His extreme “triangulation” didn’t work, and he was absolutely trounced in the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial primary by an underfunded white candidate who swept Davis’ own majority-black congressional district. Practically from the moment of his concession speech, he left his party and his state behind, and soon surfaced as a columnist for National Review and then a transplanted Virginian expressing interest in a future congressional race as a Republican. The one-time champion of better-funded public education recently emerged as a vocal defender of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s radical Christian-Right-based school voucher program in Louisiana.
Davis has none of Miller’s fire, and little of Lieberman’s desire to maintain an independent position outside both parties. His current posture has all the trappings of a professional “reboot,” and his invitation to go to Tampa and shiv his old friend the President of the United States must look to him like a heaven-sent opportunity to become a national celebrity and leapfrog the many prospective congressional candidates in his new digs who never had a “D” next to their names on any ballot.
I say this not to accuse Artur Davis of insincerity. He took on a nearly impossible task in running for governor in the most pro-Republican year in the state’s history, and he did have the decency to get out of Alabama before switching parties, lest he give aid and comfort to the neo-confederates who dominate the GOP in the Heart of Dixie. But his claim that it’s Obama, not himself, who changed since 2008 is disingenuous, and he will obviously be used by his new friends to provide cover for the Romney/Ryan ticket’s heavily race-inflected attacks on the president on the entirely phony grounds that he’s gutting welfare work requirements and “raiding” Medicare to redistribute tax dollars to poor and minority people–you know, Artur Davis’ former constituents.
It’s interesting that Democrats don’t seem to feel the same need to recruit a high-profile apostate from the GOP ranks every four years. But whether it’s giving Zell Miller a chance to vent his perpetually swollen spleen, or offering Joe Lieberman the consolation prize of a convention speech after party conservative vetoed him as a running-mate for McCain, or giving Artur Davis a new political lease on life after he fell between two stools in Alabama–Republicans always keep the door open to anyone who can reinforce their deeply discredited reputation as a “centrist” party that’s a reasonable choice for disgruntled Democrats. If Bill Clinton were willing to play the role assigned to him in Romney attack ads as the champion of a “New Democrat” tradition Obama has abandoned, they’d give the Big Dog a Convention role as well. But that obviously ain’t happening, so they’ll take what they can get.


Ryan’s Phony Working-Class Persona a Tough Sell

This item by J.P. Green was originally published on August 14, 2012.
So, here we go again with the bogus “working class hero” b.s. Mentions of Ryan’s “working class” appeal/background are starting to appear in reports by the more gullible MSM press. Romney and Ryan are even conspicuously shedding their neckties in joint appearances. “Aristocrats? Who Us?,” sort of like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor doing the “That’s right. We bad” prison perp walk in ‘Stir Crazy.”
Yes, Like a lot of upper-middle class kids, Paul Ryan had summer jobs as a teenager. But his father was a lawyer, he grew up in an affluent neighborhood and his family were owners of a multi-state construction company doing projects worth as much as 50 million dollars. It is doubtful that he ever worked a day on a construction site in his life.
Joan Walsh says it well in her Salon post, “Paul Ryan: Randian poseur “:

The other component of GOP fakery Ryan exemplifies is the notion that a pampered scion of a construction empire who has spent his life supported by government somehow represents the “white working class,” by virtue of the demographics of his gradually gerrymandered blue collar district. I write about this in my book: guys like Ryan (and his Irish Catholic GOP confrere Pat Buchanan) somehow become the political face of the white working class when they never spent a day in that class in their life. Their only tether to it is their remarkable ability to tap into the economic anxiety of working class whites and steer it toward paranoia that their troubles are the fault of “other” people – the slackers and the moochers, Ayn Rand’s famous “parasites.” Since the ’60s, those parasites are most frequently understood to be African American or Latino – but they’re always understood to be the “lesser-than” folks, morally, intellectually and genetically weaker than the rest of us.

Reactionary that he was, Buchanan at least embraced protectionist trade policies popular with unions, an option not open to Ryan, who has cast his lot with the globalist out-sourcers Romney so ably personifies. Don’t bet that this ticket will get much traction in blue collar America.