In the wake of Paul Hackett’s near upset in the Ohio 2nd district congressional race, Ron Brownstein’s latest LA Times column, “Campaign Battlefield May Grow,” features an interesting discusssion about Democratic strategy in upcoming congressional campaigns. Brownstein’s column centers on the debate between internet activists and Democratic Party leaders over how much money should be invested in races in GOP stronghold districts, which Hackett’s campaign suggests may not be so far out of reach for aggressive Dem candidates.
Both sides offer compelling arguments, which are well-presented by Brownstein. But Hackett’s near win does indicate that the “55 percent rule,” in which the Democratic Party withholds significant cash from races for districts the GOP won in the previous election with 55 percent of the vote, should be modified. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) seems to be open to a compromise. As Brownstein notes:

He said he had rejected the traditional milepost of only contesting seats where the GOP incumbent polled 55% of the vote or less. He said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would try to recruit and fund challengers in “every open seat, every seat where an individual Republican incumbent has an [ethics] issue,” and in districts where Bush’s performance fell short of expectations in 2004.
“We’ve got to get to 50 [challengers],” Emanuel said. “That’s my magic number. But I can’t say, ‘Go to Texas and take on a guy who has 80% [support] in a district where Bush got 78%.’ I am only going to have ‘X’ dollars.”

Meanwhile, The internet activists, led by Swing State and Kos won’t be sitting around waiting for the Party to embrace their broader vision of electoral victory. Instead, they will be raising serious dough for more dark horse candidates in the months ahead — one more reason why 2006 is shaping up as one of the more interesting congressional campaigns in a long time.

Texas reached an historical milestone yesterday, when the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it has become the fourth state in the nation with a majority of its residents in non-white racial categories. Some conclusions, noted by the AP’s Alicia A. Caldwell notes in her L.A. Times article, “Texas Now a Majority-Minority State” (no link):

According to the population estimates based on the 2000 Census, about 50.2 percent of Texans are now minorities. In the 2000 Census, minorities made up about 47 percent of the population in the second-largest state.
Texas joins California, New Mexico and Hawaii as states with majority-minority populations — with Hispanics the largest group in every state but Hawaii, where it is Asian-Americans.
Five other states — Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona — aren’t far behind, with about 40 percent minorities.

We might also add that North Carolina has the fastest-growing Hispanic population of any state.
The political implications of this pivotal demographic trend are thoroughly discussed in The Emerging Democratic Majority. Although growth in Texas and other states has been led by Latinos, large percentages of whom are not yet citizens, they will soon be voting in ever-increasing numbers.
Republicans are already reaching out to Hispanics with a range of initiatives, but it is likely that GOP success in winning their electoral support will be limited as long as their major policies are anchored in, well, Republican priorities. Dems are in a good position to benefit — especially if we develop more credible policies that address Latino concerns, recruit more Hispanic leadership in decision-making positions within the Democratic Party and campaigns and make political education in Hispanic communities more of a priority.

A new Gallup/CNN/USA Today Poll conducted 8/5-7 has President Bush’s job approval rating at 45 percent, just a point better than his all-time Gallup low of 44 percent recorded two weeks ago. Bush’s approval rating tied an all-time low of 42 percent in the new Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates 8/2-4.
Bush hit historic lows in public approval of his Iraq policies. In the Gallup Poll, an all-time high of 54 percent of Americans agreed that sending troops to Iraq was a “mistake” and an all-time high of 57 percent of respondents said America was “less safe” from terrorism as a result of the war. In the Newsweek Poll, an all-time high of 61 percent disapproved of Bush’s “handling of the situation in Iraq” and 64 percent believed the war has not made the U.S. safer from terrorism. The Newsweek Poll also found that 38 percent of Americans support keeping “large numbers of US military personnel in Iraq less than one year,” with 12 percent wanting to bring the troops home now.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, and the kickoff of a new movement to secure the renewal of key provisions of this historic legislation. This is a concern of significance for the Democratic Party, which is weakened by the suppression of minority votes. Writing in today’s New York Times (“Keeping the Polls Open“), U.S. Rep. John Lewis, one of the heroes of the Voting Rights struggle, underscores the critical importance of renewing the law:

Several sections of the act are set to expire in 2007, however. One of the most important is Section 5, which requires that states and localities with a history of voting discrimination submit any changes in their voting systems for review, called “preclearance,” by the Justice Department or a federal court. If those changes are found to violate the act, they must be reformulated.
There are some in Congress who suggest that Section 5 is now irrelevant, a relic of an unjust past. Yet there is plenty of convincing recent evidence of insidious attempts to deny some Americans equal access to the voting booth.
For example, the Georgia Legislature passed a law this spring requiring voters to present a government-issued photo identification before voting. This is a significant departure from the state’s current law, which allows 17 other forms of identification, including birth certificates and bank statements. This change would have a discriminatory effect on African-Americans, who are far less likely than whites to have a driver’s license. To make matters worse, there are only 53 motor-vehicle offices to serve the state’s 159 counties. For now, this law cannot take effect without federal approval, but should Section 5 lapse, Georgia voters would lose an important line of defense.

But, as Rep. Lewis points out, the Voting Rights Act protects other minorities outside the South from disenfranchisement schemes:

Some states have blatantly disregarded the law. In 1975 Congress added two counties in South Dakota with long histories of discrimination against Americans Indians to the list of those requiring preclearance of voting laws. Nonetheless, state officials decided not to recognize the federal mandate; over the next two decades, they passed 800 regulations and statutes without submitting them for federal review. As recently as 2002, officials in Buffalo County packed nearly all the county’s American Indian majority into a single voting district to ensure that they could control only one seat on the three-member county commission. Relief came in lawsuits filed under the act. As part of a settlement, Buffalo County was forced to admit its rules were discriminatory and to allow federal oversight of future plans.
The Voting Rights Act has also aided “language minorities” in New York City. As a result of lawsuits brought by Puerto Ricans in the 1970’s arguing that New York’s English-only ballots discriminated against Spanish-speaking voters, three counties – New York, Bronx and Kings – are now covered under Section 5’s federal review regulations.
Another section of the act, the “language assistance” provision, is also set to expire in 2007. Litigation based on the provision led to mandated Chinese-language ballots in New York, helping more than 100,000 Asian-Americans not fluent in English to vote. In 2001, John Liu was elected to the City Council, becoming the first Asian-American elected to a major legislative position in the city with the nation’s largest Asian-American population.
These are just a few of the hundreds of contemporary challenges to the right to vote that need our attention (without even mentioning recent judicial decisions intended to weaken the power of the Voting Rights Act). Unless we re-authorize and strengthen every vital provision of the act, we risk the advances we have achieved.

The WaPo wrap-up on the Voting Rights Act anniversary adds:

…efforts to dilute the minority vote by redrawing districts in South Carolina and Texas are a real-life example of why the pre-clearance of rules is still needed. Also, they say, black voters complained of being wrongly identified as felons and crossed off the voting rolls in the 2000 presidential election.

As a matter of simple justice, renewal of these provisions of the Voting Rights Act are needed to insure continued protection of the rights of minority voters. And because people of color more often vote Democratic, it should be a special priority for Dems.

A new AP/Ipsos Poll, conducted 8/1-3 indicates that President Bush has hit historic lows in approval of his handling of Iraq and the percentage of Americans who agree that he is “honest.”
President Bush is perceived as “honest” by 48 percent of respondents — the first time his honesty rating has fallen below 50 percent. 50 percent now say he is not honest. A total of 59 percent now say they disapprove of his “handling of the situation in Iraq,” with 38 percent approving. The percentage of Americans who now view his confidence as “arrogance” has risen dramatically, from 49 percent in January to 56 percent now.
His overall job approval continues to hover at 42 percent, with 55 percent of respondents disapproving. His handling of Social Security is also down, with only 33 percent of Americans approving and 63 percent disapproving.

GOP spin doctors are scrambling to put a happy face on Paul Hackett’s near-upset of Jean Schmidt in Tuesday’s congressional election in Ohio’s most conservative congressional district. “Special elections are unique, they don’t always reflect the district’s usual results,” explained National Republican Congressional Committee spokessman Carl Forti, quoted in today’s New York Times.
The GOP post-mortems argue correctly that, after all, Schmidt won by a margin of 51.7 – 48.3 percent. True enough, but if Hackett received another 1787 votes of the total cast, he would have been elected.
They point out that it was a low turnout –about 25 percent of eligible voters, or 112,375 total votes. But this argument underscores the GOP’s weakness in delivering a low turnout in one of their strongholds.
But not all Republicans were in denial. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a candid warning to the GOP, as quoted in today’s WaPo:

“It should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans, and I certainly take it very seriously in analyzing how the public mood evidences itself,” Gingrich said. “Who is willing to show up and vote is different than who answers a public opinion poll. Clearly, there’s a pretty strong signal for Republicans thinking about 2006 that they need to do some very serious planning and not just assume that everything is going to be automatically okay.”

Ohio GOP political director Jason Mauk put it this way:

To the extent that voters in that district were sending a message to the Republican Party at the state or national level, we have heard that message and we will continue to listen to their concerns.

One of the key lessons of Hackett’s near-win is the power of the liberal blogosphere in raising needed funds for individual campaigns. Lead by The Swing State Project, liberal bloggers raised an estimated $500,000 for Hackett, two-thirds of his campaign budget of $750,000, according to the WaPo article.
Another lesson for Dems is that Hackett’s impressive tally was boosted by his refusal to water down his criticism of the Administration’s Iraq policy or tone down his anti-corruption message. Hackett also used some strong rhetoric during the campaign, reportedly calling President Bush an “s.o.b.” and a “chicken-hawk.” An interesting question is whether the name-calling helped or hurt him. When asked if his rhetoric helped his campaign, Hackett, who clearly appreciates the importance of consistency, was quoted in a Cincinnatti Post article as saying “Meant it, said it, stand by it…I’d say it again. For every vote I may have lost because of it, I probably picked up one or two.” There should be no doubt, however, that his tough stands on Bush’s Iraq policy and GOP corruption in Ohio resonated with many of the 2nd district’s swing voters.

The results of the OH-02 congressional race are in, and Paul Hackett’s showing, while 2+ points short of an upset victory, strengthens Dem hopes for ’06. As Charlie Cook noted before the vote:

If Schmidt’s victory margin is in double digits, this tells us that there is not much of an anti-GOP wind in Ohio right now. If the margin is say six to nine points for Schmidt, then there is a wind, but certainly no hurricane. A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong, while a Hackett victory would be a devastating blow to the Ohio GOP.

Kos does a nice job of putting the vote in perspective:

this is probably the only district in Ohio in which Paul would’ve lost…So the state GOP avoids a “devastating blow”, but only by the hair on their chinny chin chin. OH-02 saw the resurgance of the Democratic Party, the GOP had to spend $500K they hadn’t otherwise planned on spending, and a Democratic star is born (next stop for Hackett — statewide elected office). So much for “burying” Hackett…It’s a new day for the Democratic Party, one in which no Republican district is safe.

And DavidNYC adds this at the same Kos link:

tonight’s results represent a tidal wave in Ohio (and perhaps national) politics. In 2004, the Democrat running in OH-02 lost by 44 points. Tonight, the Democrat, Paul Hackett, lost by a mere 4 points – just 4,000 votes out of over 114,000 cast. That’s one-eleventh the prior margin, and that’s fighting against one of the most corrupt state Republican parties in the land.

Dems should take note that Hackett is a fiercely outspoken critic of the President’s leadership of the War in Iraq. As CNN reports:

Hackett, a lawyer and Marine reservist who recently completed a seven-month tour in Iraq, drew national attention to the race with his flame-throwing assaults on Bush. He was especially harsh of the president for his July 2003 “bring ’em on” comment about Iraqi insurgents, saying such talk merely “cheered on the enemy.”
“That’s the most incredibly stupid comment I’ve ever heard a president of the United States make,” Hackett told USA Today.

There’s more at Kos, and there are other interesting posts about the OH-02 results at the Swing State Project, MyDD, The Left Coaster and Whiskey Bar.

In the wake of the caving of the Dems’ CAFTA defectors, David Sirota has cranked up the case for stronger Democratic Party discipline. In his Working Assets post “Why Dems Should Value — not Shun — Accountability,” Sirota argues that it is a major blunder not to invoke some punishment on Dems who caved on CAFTA, the bankruptsy bill and other defining issues. Says Sirota:

…it never ceases to amaze me how Washington, D.C. Democrats – unlike Republicans – have no understanding of why accountability will actually help them get back into the majority.
You’ve heard it before: Democrats don’t like to talk about who is loyal to the party and who isn’t. They would prefer that everyone just be quiet about divisions, even if those divisions undermine the party’s ability to deliver a serious message. It’s the big tent for big tent’s sake – even if it means losing into perpetuity.
…Whining Democrats, I ask you: do you think Newt Gingrich was nice to people within his party who undermined him in his quest to take back the majority? Do you think the current Republican leadership dislikes Grover Norquist’s efforts to keep GOPers in line today? Do you think Karl Rove keeps winning elections by letting turncoats within his own party undermine the GOP?
…Republicans understand the value of having an infrastructure that helps keep their troops in line – an infrastructure that makes it clear there are actual consequences for selling out. To most people in the real world, this kind of thing is really very elementary…consequences are the only thing that makes sure someone who has undermine the team doesn’t undermine the team again in the future.
…the majority of Democrats in Congress are courageous and honest people. The problem is, they are being undermined on a daily basis. It is the loyal foot soldiers that a strengthened accountability infrastructure will help, because without consequences for turncoats, the party will be undermined forever.
This is the way back to the majority for the Democratic Party – not rolling over and dying when turncoats within the party’s ranks repeatedly undermine the party’s effectiveness. Helping create accountability for those who sell out is not disloyal. On the contrary, it is the ultimate act of loyalty if you are seriously interested in seeing Democrats regain the majority. The people who are disloyal are those Democrats who pay lip service to the goal of winning back Congress, but in reality have become so comfortable in the minority they’d rather just sweep even the most self-destructive problems under the rug.

Ouch, but well-said. And in his Sirotablog article “Grover Norquist, Turncoats & the Embrace of Movement Politics,” he argues further that invoking discipline on wayward Republicans is the ultimate source of Norquist’s increasing influence. Of course, the Big Tent Dems would hasten to point out that heavy-handed discipline caused the GOP to lose their Senate majority when Jim Jeffords quit the Republicans. Yet it does seem crazy to just shrugg off betrayals of Democratic principles for the sake of an ineffectual party ‘unity.’ This issue is important for the future of the Democratic Party, and Sirota’s post deserves serious consideration.

Democratic strategists and campaigners should take note of Jeanne Cummings’ article “Unions Recast Their Political Role: Fracturing of AFL-CIO Could Boost Labor’s Influence Over Election Campaigns in Long Run” in today’s Wall St. Journal. Cummings discusses some of the ramifications of the widening divisions within organized labor on the Democratic Party. As Cummings points out:

The departure from the AFL-CIO of Mr. Stern’s Service Employees International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters raises the likelihood of more split union loyalties in primary contests. It might even open a crack for some labor-friendly Republicans.
…To be sure, intralabor competition could end up wasting resources through duplication…they could dilute resources in a way that results in fewer victories.
One Democratic Party segment that may need to brace for fallout is moderate elected officials, many of whom joined President Clinton in the 1990s in backing free-trade deals. The Change to Win Coalition — which, like other labor officials, lambastes those deals as harmful to workers — pledges to take a tougher line toward defectors.
Just yesterday, labor presidents issued a warning to Democrats that supporting the Central American Free Trade Agreement now pending on Capitol Hill could cost them at re-election time.

Cummings also quotes labor insiders who believe the split could lead to an increase in union investments in political campaigns. The Democrats’ share of labor PAC contributions decreased slightly from 2000 to 2004, while the Dems’ share of the union vote remained constant, according to charts featured in her article. The voter turnout of union workers has increased in percentage terms in recent years, even as the number of union members has fallen.
Cummings and her sources agree that unions will continue to play a significant role in Democratic Party politics. But if the split in the ranks of organized labor produces an energized workers’ movement over the longer haul, unions will have enhanced influence in electing Democrats.

Pundits like to point out how dependent the Democrats are on the minority vote and, therefore, how vulnerable the Democrats would be to any weakening in that support. True enough. But it’s also true–perhaps even more so–that the GOP is utterly dependent on high levels of support among whites and, therefore quite vulnerable to any weakening of support among these voters.
And weakening of white support for the GOP appears to be precisely what’s happening–though you’d never guess it from the deafening silence among the very pundits who like to tut-tut about the Democrats’ dependence on the minority vote. Here are some very interesting figures from a recently-released Gallup report, “Black Support for Bush, GOP, Remains Low“, based on results of their 2005 and earlier Minority Relations polls.
1. In June of 2004, Bush’s approval rating among non-Hispanic whites was 61 percent. This June, it’s down to 47 percent, with 48 percent disapproval. In contrast, Bush’s approval ratings among blacks is flat-lined at 16 percent in the two polls, while Hispanics haven’t really budged either, giving Bush a 40 percent rating in 2004 and a 41 percent rating in 2005.
2. In June of 2004, the GOP enjoyed a 19 point lead in party ID (including leaners) over the Democrats among whites. This June, the Democrats actually have a small 2 point lead in party ID among whites. That’s a huge shift. Combined with the Democrats’ current 60 point lead in party ID among blacks and 19 point lead among Hispanics, that makes the GOP look quite vulnerable indeed.
After all, without white voters in essentially landslide proportions, the GOP political coalition, as we know it, could not exist. In fact, it wouldn’t even be particularly competitive.
Something more for Karl Rove to worry about! And for pundits to opine about, if they can tear themselves away from telling the Democrats to panic about their dependence on the minority vote.