It’s a familiar story by now that a lot of the Republican Senators who led the charge to kill the Big Three Automaker loan package last week happen to represent states with large, non-unionized, foreign-owned auto plants.
But there’s another aspect to this story that’s not very well known outside the South: these foreign-owned auto plants have vastly benefitted from public subsidies as states have competed fiercely to make headlines by landing them.
Mike Lillis provides the pertinent facts in a very useful Washington Independent piece today:

Shelby’s Alabama, for example, secured construction of a Mercedes-Benz plant in 1993 by offering $253 million in state and local tax breaks, worker training and land improvement. For Honda, the state’s sweetener surrounding a 1999 deal to build a mini-van plant was $158 million in similar perks, adding $90 million in enticements when the company expanded the plant three years later. A 2001 deal with Toyota left the company with $29 million in taxpayer gifts.
Alabama is hardly alone. Corker’s Tennessee recently lured Volkswagen to build a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, offering the German automaker tax breaks, training and land preparation that could total $577 million. In 2005, the state inspired Nissan to relocate its headquarters from southern California by offering $197 million in incentives, including $20 million in utility savings.
In 1992, South Carolina snagged a BMW plant for $150 million in giveaways. In Mississippi in 2003, Nissan was lured with $363 million. In Georgia, a still-under-construction Kia plant received breaks estimated to be $415 million. The list goes on.

If you will allow me a brief tirade based on my own experience in community and economic development work in Georgia back in the 1980s and early 1990s, this is an old, sad story in the South. In dealing with chronic pockets of poverty and unemployment, southern political leaders have eternally faced a choice between long-range efforts to improve educational levels and “quality of life” measurements to attract high-end jobs and stimulate home-grown entrepreneurship, OR short-term efforts to market the region’s weaknesses (cheap labor, exploitable natural resources, hostility to unions and regulation) to individual investors while offering them subsidies that further weaken the public sector. The battle over these two basic strategies has raged across the region for decades, and I’m unhappy to report that the moolight-and-magnolias, come-exploit-us point of view has largely prevailed, particularly, though not exclusively, in states dominated by Republicans.
There’s always been a beggar-thy-neighbor aspect to the corporate welfare game in auto plants, as wily owners up the ante for each plant location or relocation decision. But it’s become acutely evident in the debate over federal subsidies for the Big Three.
But the real outrage for me isn’t so much the hypocrisy of southern Republicans who lead cheers for the despoilation of state treasuries and the abandonment of public priorities in the pursuit of foreign auto plants, even as they self-righteously oppose emergency aid for Detroit. It’s the damage the South has done to itself by choosing the low and fundamentally self-loathing road to economic development.

Jonathan Chait’s “Minnesota Recount Update” in yesterday’s edition of TNR‘s The Plank takes an optimistic view of Al Franken’s prospects. Chait’s analysis concludes “All in all, Franken seems like a pretty strong bet to win.” Chait can get some encouragement from Pat Doyle’s article in today’s Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, which reports,

The Star Tribune has performed its own analysis of the challenged ballots by relying on a virtual “canvassing board” of more than 26,000 readers who examined at least some of them. There appeared to be widespread consensus that Franken won slightly more disputes than Coleman, enough to theoretically erase the incumbent’s narrow lead by late Monday….According to the analysis, if all of the ballots on which challenges have been withdrawn were awarded to candidates as Ballot Challenge readers awarded them, Franken would hold a 246-vote lead heading into today’s Canvassing Board meeting. The Board will begin resolving some 2,260 remaining challenges at noon, with Franken’s challenges outnumbering Coleman’s by 224. The conclusion is consistent with an analysis done by the Associated Press, which showed that Franken netted enough votes from several thousand easily resolved disputes to erase Coleman’s lead.

It’s still a roller-coaster of a recount, but a little optimism seems justified going into the final phase.

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.

Dear Fellow Democrats;
Greetings from The Democratic Strategist.
We are pleased to present the two TDS Strategy White Papers below. It is our hope that they spark some useful and energetic discussion among Democrats.

1. “Planning Ahead for Democratic Victory in 2010 – Setting Initial Goals and Objectives.”
2. “How Democrats Can Keep and Expand the Support of the Younger White Working-Class Voters who Voted for Obama in 2008.“

For some time we have felt that the Democratic community has needed an additional format for the discussion of political strategy, one that is longer than standard newspaper and magazine political commentary, makes direct use of empirical data and proposes specific strategies to accomplish some defined objective.
We see TDS Strategy White Papers as filling that role.
As a result, we are now making a call for proposals for Strategy White Papers. We are looking for Strategy Papers that address the following subjects:

1) Specific political strategies for 2010 and 2012
2) Strategies for strengthening and building upon the new geographic and demographic patterns of support that have emerged from the 2006 and 2008 earthquakes.
3) Analyses of key strategic choices facing the Dems and how they will impact our success in 2010 and 2012.

More detailed editorial requirements are spelled out in the “Write for us” section of the TDS website. Accepted submissions will receive appropriate compensation and substantial electronic distribution.
Please send letters describing proposed strategy papers to editors@thedemocraticstrategist.org, and be sure to include your full contact information.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Bill Galston, Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira

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.

Media Matters’ Jamison Foser’s has a extremely important piece on the outrageous way in which the media commentary and coverage of the Blagojevich scandal tends to imply – without any evidence – that Barack Obama may have done something wrong. As he says:

“Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, “I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct.”
…Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald’s exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:
“On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama’s now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it’s never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.”
“Got that? Fitzgerald said there’s no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama!

Foser then continues:

“…Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media’s attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative — and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don’t even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future …“Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an “analysis” piece declaring that “President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him.” In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that “Obama isn’t accused of anything” — but that didn’t stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know … isn’t.”

The major problem is not that the reporters are deliberately promoting Republican talking points. Rather it is that skilled (and, in fact, even utterly mediocre) PR operatives can almost effortlessly manipulate the coverage of a “scandal” by understanding the medias’ three-step process.

1. During the first 24-72 hours of a breaking story reporters and analysts are in a desperate life or death competition to inflate the importance of a “scandal” and make it as big as story as possible. (After all, nobody gets a Pulitzer or a raise for a story titled “XYZ scandal of limited importance”). Conversely, there is no penalty or downside cost to reporters and analysts for engaging in baseless speculation (In fact, if salaries were actually reduced based on the number of a reporter or analysts’ idle speculations that turned out to be groundless, the practice would quickly disappear).
2. Once the “story” is established as “news”, dramatic statements by leading Republicans or simply growing media or internet discussion of the “story” become themselves officially more “News” – justifying another set of headlines and TV teasers saying “back in a moment with new information on this breaking story.”
3. After the “big news” phase has passed, there is no tradition in American journalism or other effective pressure on journalists that will lead them to produce follow-up stories that correct the false impressions generated during the initial frenzy. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a follow-up news story – in the same front page position and the same headline size as the original stories that says, for example, “Obama emerges unscathed from Blagojevich affair – no evidence of personal involvement found”. The media simply do not consider themselves obligated or responsible for producing news stories like this in the aftermath of a media feeding frenzy. Correcting a false impression is not a “big news” story like the original misleading version.

The result of these three factors is a systematic, inherent bias that even the most clumsy partisan PR operatives can manipulate to their advantage.

Read more…

In the wake of the narrow passage of the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 in California, there was a lot of unhappy talk about African-American Obama voters making the difference. But a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California looks at the results from various optics, and concludes that educational and income levels, and age, were the most important variables in determining the vote.
Indeed, there’s an extraordinarily strong correlation on these factors. Those with a high school education or less favored Prop 8 by a 69-31 margin; those with a college degree opposed it 57-43; and those with some college but no degree supported it 57-43. It’s the same story on income: those earning under $40,000 supported Prop 8 by a 63-37 margin; those earning over $80,000 opposed it 55-45; and those in the middle supported it by the same 52-48 margin as the electorate as a whole. Least surprisingly, voters under the age of 35 opposed Prop 8 by a 57-43 margin; those 55 and older backed it 56-44; and those in-between split evenly.
For some reason, the PPIC report doesn’t provide a breakout for African-Americans (though a variety of experts have disputed the 70% “yes” findings of the exit polls), but it does show Latinos supporting Prop 8 by a 61-39 margin. Evangelical Christians backed the initiative by an astounding 85-15 margin, while Catholics supported it by a less-overwhelming 60-40 margin. The ideological polarization was typical: 17% of self-described liberals voted for Prop 8, while 17% of self-described conservatives voted against it, and moderates split evenly.
One way of interpreting these results is to suggest that “low-information voters” swung the results in response to superior (and also factually misleading) pro-8 ads, or perhaps superior GOTV operations. But in any event, making it all about race, or about the betrayal of one element of the progressive coalition by another, would not appear to be warranted by the facts.

Even as Americans have focused on the transition to the Obama administration, our friends Up North in Canada have been undergoing a political drama with more twists and turns than a fictional potboiler.
When we last looked in on the Canadians in this space ten days ago, a grouping that included the centrist Liberals, the social-democratic New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Quebecois was poised to topple the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper and form a virtually unprecedented coalition government. But Harper played the one card he had, and convinced Governor General Michaelle Jean to grant an adjournment of Parliament until January 26, forestalling a no-confidence vote that would have brought down his government. There’s a wonderfully detailed blow-by-blow account of events up to that point now available at Macleans.
As polls showed a backlash against the coalition maneuver, Liberals decided to accelerate their election (originally scheduled for May) to replace Stephane Dion as party parliamentary leader and putative Prime Minister of the coalition government. Former Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff–reportedly not a huge fan of the coalition–won with relative ease.
It remains anyone’s guess what will happen next month. If the coalition hangs together and forces a no-confidence vote, Jean could let them set up a government, or could order new elections (given the passage of a few more weeks since the last election in October), in which the Conservatives might have a significant advantage. Alternatively, the Liberals, with arguably the most to lose in new elections, could blow up the coalition and bide their time. It will be very interesting in Ottawa on January 26.
The one sure thing is that events have forced the Conservatives to backtrack on many elements of the neo-Hooverist and blatantly partisan economic package that precipitated the whole crisis. They’ve abandoned plans to end public financing of the political parties, and to temporarily ban public sector strikes. And they’re now talking about stimulating the Canadian economy, and maybe even helping the auto industry, instead of digging in their heels and welcoming a deep recession as a healthy opportunity to discipline the private and public sectors.
Perhaps the Tories’ counterparts in the U.S. should pay heed to this rethinking of neo-Hooverism, which may ultimately prove to have saved the day for Harper and his party.

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.

Nate Silver has an eyebrow-raiser, which makes for an interesting follow-up to J.P.Green’s post yesterday on appointing Republicans to the cabinet so their seats can be filled by Democrats. As Silver explains in his fivethirtyeight.com post, “Appointed Senators Rarely Win Re-Election“:

Over the past 25 Congresses, there have been, by my count, 49 senators who selected by gubernatorial appointment in midterm (this excludes cases where a senator-elect acceded to office a few days early to gain seniority on his colleagues, a once-common courtesy that is becoming less so.) Of those 49 senators, only 19 — fewer than 40 percent — won their subsequent special election. Meanwhile:
* 13 of the 49 (27%) ran for office, but were defeated in the general election;
* 7 of the 49 (14%) ran for office, but were defeated in the primary;
* 10 of the 49 (20%) chose not to seek a permanent term (including one who was prohibited by state law from doing so).
These numbers are far below the usual benchmarks for incumbent senators. Since 1990, about 81% of incumbent senators have sought re-election, and among those have sought it, 88% have won it. By contrast, among the 80% of gubernatorial appointees since 1956 who chose to seek re-election, only 49% survived both the primary and the general election.

Silver provides a well-researched chart covering the 49 appointees, their backgrounds and fate. He also provides some interesting analysis, noting the poor track record of appointments that could be characterized as based more on nepotism and cronyism, than merit and,

By contrast, appointees who had significant recent experience as legislators performed fairly well. In 7 of the 49 cases, the appointee was a sitting member of the House of Representatives; 6 of the 7 won re-election. Seven others were sitting members of their State Legislatures at the time of their appointment; 5 of those 7 won re-election.

He discusses possible reforms, such as a constitutional amendment and some state-enacted reforms you probably didn’t know about, unless you live there:

Alternatively, states can move to solve the problem themselves by passing a “fast” special elections law, as states like Oregon, Wisconsin and Massachusetts now have (and Illinois soon will). Other states have evolved other checks and balances; Utah and Wyoming require that the candidate be selected from among a list prepared by the state party apparatus, while Alaska, Hawaii and Arizona require appointees to be from the same party as the departing senator. Arkansas provides for gubernatorial appointments, but does not allow the appointee to run for re-election.

As Silver concludes, “…More states ought to consider reforms like these. A Senate seat is a [bleeping] valuable thing — too valuable to allow a governor to bypass the voters.”