It’s officially “Veep Week” over at The New Republic, and today Michael Crowley offers arguments in favor of former GA Sen. Sam Nunn as Obama’s running-mate.
As I’ve noted before, I worked in the Senate for Sam Nunn back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and did some speechwriting for him after that. I truly revere the man, as much for what he has done after leaving the Senate (his often-lonely crusade to deal with nuclear proliferation and everything related to the threat of nuclear terrorism or accidental nuclear war) as for what he did in the Senate for 24 years. But having been out of touch with him for some time, I also have no idea if Nunn is interested in running for vice president (he’s been in a grand total of one competitive political race, and that was in 1972), and have a healthy appreciation for the reasons other Democrats don’t like the idea.
Crowley’s argument for Nunn stresses his national security street cred (made more acceptable to many antiwar Dems because of Nunn’s outspoken opposition to the First Gulf War and his statements deploring the current Iraq war as a strategic disaster); his ability to reinforce Obama’s recently vulnerable claims to bipartianship; and his reassuring, “fatherly” personal image. He also acknowledges that strong antipathy to Nunn among gays and lesbians, thanks to his leading role in the 1993 Gays In the Military saga, could all but disqualify him from the ticket. (Nunn has recently indicated that it’s time to reconsider “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I have reason to believe from watching him deal respectfully and supportively with gay staffers that he’s not a homophobe, but what’s done is done).
I actually think Crowley may have understated Nunn’s potential value to Obama, either as a running-mate or as a prominent surrogote, on national security. Think about this: underlying all of the Bush-Cheney administration’s arguments for its version of the War on Terror, including the Iraq War, the sweeping rejection of civil liberties, and the imperial view of presidential powers, has been the claim that the threat of nuclear terrorism makes this a unique period of U.S. history. Dick Cheney can hardly utter three sentences without mentioning the subject.
Sam Nunn has the unique credibility to demonstrate the fraudulent nature of these arguments, which conceal a dreadful negligence towards the actual threat of nuclear terrorism. Before and even after 9/11, the administration sought to dramatically reduce funding for the Nunn-Lugar initiative aimed at dealing with nuclear security in the former Soviet Bloc (forcing Nunn, eventually, to seek private funding to deal with the subject himself), and it took years for Bush to make nuclear security an issue in bilateral talks with Russia.
Moreover, and for the same reason, Nunn would be very useful in getting under John McCain’s thin skin on the security implications of the GOP candidate’s apparent determination to launch a new Cold War with Russia. And best I can tell, Nunn is in general accord with Barack Obama’s overall national security vision, which has gotten scarce attention in the news media. That’s probably why Nunn, surprising a lot of people, endorsed Obama for president back in April, a highly unusual step for a cautious politician who had last made political news at the beginning of the year by backing the idea of a third-party “Unity” ticket.
Crowley goes on to make an effort to turn one of Nunn’s supposed handicaps–he’s boring–into a strength, as a “fatherly” counterpoint to the youthful excitement generated by Obama. While I agree Nunn would be reassuring, particularly to older voters, to what’s left of conservative Democrats, and most of all to the Senior Punditocracy, whose members typically think Nunn walks on water–I actually don’t buy the premise. Nunn’s reputation as “boring” is largely the product of the fact that he’s gotten virtually no attention for anything he’s said and done on subjects other than the inherently “boring” if essential nuts and bolts of defense policy. He and I once conspired to conduct a test case, by crafting a speech to the Atlanta Press Club that said not a word about defense issues. He even told the room full of reporters what he was doing, and challenged them to write about his views on non-defense issues. Not a single story was filed. He was supposed to stay “boring.”
Sam Nunn actually has a wicked sense of humor. He once observed, in one of those back-handed compliments we all learned to expect, that “it takes a lot of boring staff to make a boring Senator.” On another occasion, in 1990, he introduced Bill Clinton at an event as “the first politician in history to become a bright, young rising star in three different decades.” (Clinton responded by saying: “Next time you hear Sam Nunn described as a dour, humorless man, tell them you heard him eat my lunch here today.”). And even though he never had a serious political challenge in Georgia, he was always just as comfortable working the room at a Shoney’s or a Waffle House as he was operating in the Senate cloakroom.
Crowley doesn’t much mine Nunn’s background as a very successful politician, but he does plausibly suggest that Nunn could help Obama put Georgia’s 15 electoral votes in play, in part because the McCain-sapping ballot presence of former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, supplemented by the anticipated high African-American turnout rates, will make the state much closer than in the recent past. And although few Americans under the age of 45 would know Sam Nunn from a lamp-post, that’s not true in Georgia, where he’s perceived, if somewhat dimly these days, as some sort of political deity.
Having said all this about Nunn “shortcomings” that may well be smaller than people think, the real question is whether he wants the gig, and whether Barack Obama thinks his value is enough to offset the very genuine anger at Nunn among gays and lesbians–similar, in many respects, to the feminist hostility to Jim Webb–and the other “base” concerns that would emerge after a close scrutiny of his Senate voting record on a number of domestic issues.
But if nothing else, the serious discussion of Sam Nunn As Veep may illustrate the extent to which he could serve as a significant campaign surrogate, and next year, perhaps as a key member of the Obama administration, where being effective but boring won’t be much of a handicap.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist
UPDATE 2: Another source of affinity, given Obama’s highly communitarian rhetoric and ethic of service, is Nunn’s history as perhaps his generation’s most avid congressional supporter of voluntary national service. Back in the Bush 41 administration, Nunn represented the radical wing of congressional sentiment on the scope of a national service inititative (radical in the sense of scale, not meaning support for mandatory service), contributing a great deal to the eventual Clinton AmeriCorps initiative. It’s really personal with Nunn: his wonderful daughter, Michelle Nunn (who mulled over a 2004 Senate race in Georgia before withdrawing, mainly because she had a very young child) is a long-time service professional who is currently CEO of the Points of Light Foundation.

In some Democratic circles the notion is quickly dismissed. But Obama’s expected nomination opens up the possibility that ’08 could be the year that Democrats secure some beachheads in the south, the region most African Americans call home. For an update on Democratic prospects in the south, check out Louis Jacobson’s largely skeptical Stateline.org post “Will Obama have coattails in the South?” (flagged by Facing South‘s Chris Kromm). Among Jacobson’s more encouraging observations:

On a statewide level, the biggest down-ballot impact for Democrats will likely come in the close race for North Carolina open-seat governorship, which pits Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (R). Even before the presidential primaries began, incumbent Democrats seemed to be well-positioned to retain several other statewide posts in the Tarheel State, including attorney general and secretary of state.
…When North Carolina Democratic chairman Jerry Meek endorsed Sen. Obama the day after the North Carolina primary, he said, “I cited my belief that he would have a substantial down-ballot effect. It will be strongest in statewide races, and all of those are intensely competitive.”
Only three of every four people who voted for president in North Carolina’s Democratic primary also voted in lower contests, such as the labor commissioner race. Still, the total Democratic turnout was three times as high as the Republican turnout, so one can expect that many of the new voters will have an impact in the fall as well, said John Davis, president of the North Carolina Forum for Research and Economic Education, a business and political research group. “Obama’s impact down-ballot will be huge for Democrats, if he is able to sustain his momentum,” Davis said.

On the Senate:

Two U.S. Senate seats — those held by Republicans Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina — are far more threatened by former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) and North Carolina state Sen. Kay Hagan (D) than had been predicted just a few months ago. And endangered U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) may find an energized black base her only way to win a third term given the state’s population loss following Hurricane Katrina.

Jacobson has a lot to say about possible conservative backlash, that Obama will actually increase the GOP vote. That’s a question mark, based on the debatable assumption that previously apolitical reactionaries will turn out to vote against Obama. What appears to be a sure bet, on the other hand, is a record-level Black turnout in the South — a major asset for down ballot Dems.

There’s been so much going on during the last week on the presidential election front that it’s obscured some good news on the congressional front.
The latest Democracy Corps “battleground survey” of congressional districts focuses strictly on 45 Republican-held House seats. It showed that Democrats continue to have, and have actually expanded, their advantage in these districts where “Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006.” This leads the DCorps team to suggest that 2008 could represent rare back-to-back “wave elections” wherein Democrats significantly expand the House majority they won in 2006.
Meanwhile, the nonpartisan and very cautious Cook Political Report, which has been predicting Democratic House gains of 10-20 seats for a while, has just changed its authoritative House ratings to move ten Republican-held districts into more vulnerable categories.
Paul Rosenberg at OpenLeft has a very detailed summary of all the recent polling evidence on the congressional races, but the trends are pretty clear.
It’s looking good, and any lingering idea that down-ballot Democrats have to distance themselves from the national ticket to survive should be forgotten. This is a year when being a loud, proud Democrat is definitely a positive.

Last night I listened with dismay to a panel of TV pundits as they pummeled Barack Obama for “letting himself” get drawn into a debate with John McCain over Iraq policy. “It’s the economy, stupid!” they chortled, as though the phrase represented some sort an enduring truth rather than an ephemeral (and actually misleading) bit of Carvellian legend from the 1992 Clinton campaign. One pundit seemed beside herself with frustration that Obama didn’t just “wrap himself around a gas pump” and make gas prices the centerpiece of his general election campaign.
To the extent that John McCain is trying to make the general election almost excusively “about” national security, for Obama to take this sage advice essentially would mean conceding that cluster of issues to the Republican. It would also mean discounting Obama’s advantage on Iraq policy, and reduce his credibility as a potential president ready to grapple with all the country’s challenges.
That’s why I was happy to read E.J. Dionne’s column this morning, which reminded Democrats of the electoral consequences of succumbing to their ancient habit of changing the subject from national security to domestic issues. He did so in the context of an argument for Joe Biden as Veep (another thing entirely), but the bigger issue is how Obama himself frames his campaign message and agenda, with or without help from any particular running-mate.
The idea that Clinton’s 1992 campaign provides the template for 2008 doesn’t make a lot of sense to begin with. The 1990s were a historical anomaly in that international issues in general were virtually occluded, thanks to the end of the Cold War and a brief period of unquestioned U.S. global hegemony. And besides, if there is any one crucial lesson of the Clinton 1992 and 1996 victories, it’s that Democrats need not concede large areas of public policy (e.g., crime, welfare, fiscal discipline, government reform) to the opposition. There are distinctly progressive approaches to “Republic issues” that can blunt or even reverse long-standing GOP advantages and make “Democratic issues” even more salient. That’s true of national security as well (cf. James Vega’s TDS series on progressive messaging and military strategy).
There’s no significant risk that Barack Obama will fail to spend a lot of time talking about the economy in the general election campaign. But he also has a compelling case to make for a progressive foreign policy and national security posture, beyond opposition to the war in Iraq, and if only because voters continue to exhibit doubts about the Democratic Party on these issues, he needs to make it.
A word to political pundits: It really is time, folks, to retire the “It’s the Economy, Stupid!” line. It wasn’t entirely true even in 1992, and endlessly intoning it with dripping contempt for a more comprehensive message is, well, kind of stupid.

One of the hoary talking points Republicans will pull out in the general election campaign is that Democrats are for larger government, and the GOP is for smaller government. This won’t be as easy a sell as in past elections, given the massive expansion of federal spending during the Bush-Cheney administration, not to mention Republican support for highly instrusive government limitations on civil liberties.
But Democrats will need to make the case that stronger government is truly necessary if we are to reverse the extraordinary income inequality of recent years, and the rapid erosion of the middle class, and of economic security for all but a fortunate few. That’s the argument made in detail by TDS Co-Editor Bill Galston in the latest issue of The American Prospect.
Galston’s determination to champion a stronger public sector role in national economic life should draw some attention, given his important role as a domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton at the time when Clinton was claiming that “the era of big government is over.” This is, he argues, a very different era:

From today’s vantage point…the 1990s appear to have been the proverbial calm before the storm. Although the Bush administration’s misguided fiscal and foreign policies have worsened our plight, our problems are structural and long-term, and no simple return to the status-quo ante will resolve them. Most analysts and policy-makers underestimated the impact of huge numbers of new workers in China, India, and the former Soviet Union entering the global market system. International economic forces are limiting wages for most U.S. workers, increasing income inequality, and heightening pressure on the World War II–era system of benefits provided through the private sector. In these circumstances, average families have resorted to record levels of borrowing to maintain purchasing power, driving the savings rate into negative territory for the first time on record and raising personal consumption to an unsustainable 70 percent of GDP. The Bush administration has squandered the resources it could have used to ease the reform of the large entitlement programs. And the back-loaded costs of deregulation are now clear: among them, an epidemic of corporate misconduct and crisis in credit markets, here and abroad.

Galston examines a variety of negative trends for middle-class families, but simple compensation provides the most alarming picture:

Recent work by MIT economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin shows that a wedge has been driven between productivity gains and compensation (wages plus health care and fringe benefits) for full-time workers at peak earning age. Since 1980, productivity has increased by 71 percent while median compensation rose by only 19 percent, and 82 percent of personal income gains went to the top 1 percent of the population.

Stronger government efforts to create a “21st century social contract” will inevitably require an expansion of the public sector, and perhaps, given the fiscal climate and the need to sustain economic growth. That’s why Galston continues to believe that government policies must be reformed, including, perhaps, limitations on publicly financed health care benefits, if costs cannot be contained otherwise. But the alternative to stronger government is a big government that doesn’t accomplish much of anything in terms of providing equal opportunity or economic security. And that’s the path we are on under Republican governance.

At The Huffington Post, veteran political reporter Tom Edsall has an interesting take on the early general election positioning of the two candidates for president. Sure, it looks like a close race at this point, but John McCain has another problem beyond the strongly pro-Democratic political landscape: his candidacy, so far, appears based on raising doubts about Barack Obama rather than touting his own credentials.
Edsall quotes a number of observers who see the same problem:

Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution argues that “McCain continues to embrace Bush policies on the most important issues, relying on a reputation for independence and moderation that could be lost in the heat of battle with Obama and the Democrats…. At the end of this long interlude, the only rationale for his election that has emerged is that Obama cannot be trusted to lead the country at a time of great danger because he is too inexperienced, naïve, liberal, elitist, and out of touch with American values. ‘Elect me because the other guy is worse.’ Not much of an argument in the face of gale-force winds blowing against the Republican Party.”
Along similar lines, Norman Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, questioned whether McCain and his aides have “spent enough time and effort developing themes for why he should be president, not just why Obama should not– especially themes that address the deep-seated anxiety voters feel that goes beyond current economic conditions.”
Arch-conservative Bay Buchanan suggested that it may not matter what McCain does. Writing in Human Events on June 4, she declared:
“In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps.”

It’s not unheard of for candidates to win on purely negative characterizations of their opponents, but it doesn’t happen that often, particularly in the kind of political environment we are in at present. More importantly, if these analysts are right, the election is literally Barack Obama’s to win or lose.

Bad news for the GOP seems to be the common denominator as the one-on-one race for the white house opens today. Some examples:
Apparently John McCain hasn’t made much headway since he clinched the GOP nomination, at least in the Buckeye state. L.A. Times reporter Peter Walsten writes on the inept McCain campaign in Ohio.
Ditto in S.C., says MyDD‘s Jonathan Singer.
Jim Turner of TCPalm reports voters are bailing from the GOP on FL’s ‘Treasure Coast.’
The Southern Political Report‘s Hastings Wyman’s “The rise and fall of the Virginia GOP” reports on the “precipitous decline” of the “once-GOP stronghold into the Democratic column.”
Paul Rosenberg’s Open Left post “The Making of A Landslide–A Progress Report” sees huge Dem gains in party i.d., based on the latest Rasmussen polling data.
And Rosenberg flags a DCORPS study indicating significant Democratic inroads in 45 GOP-held districts.
Obama is taking his campaign into the belly of the GOP beast, report Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny in The New York Times.
GOP luminary Bill Kristol, says the McCain campaign “dog-paddles along.”.
Evangelicals are also unimpressed by the McCain campaign, reports Robert Novak.
And The Politico‘s Jonathan Martin catches “straight-talk express” McCain on a whopper.

In case you missed it live, here’s the transcript for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech in Washington today suspending her campaign and endorsing Barack Obama for president. You couldn’t ask for a more thorouhgoing commitment to support the ticket, and the speech will be well-received in all sectors of the Democratic Party.
It’s been five months since the nominating process formallly began, and the general election is still five months away. We’re halfway home.

My contribution to the aforementioned New Republic colloquoy on Obama’s general election strategy is now up on their site, along with Bill Galston’s, and another by Jon Chait. (Others will eventually be published as well).
Aside from agreeing with Galston’s assessment, my piece focuses on three issues: (1) how Obama can win the war of “meta-message” with McCain; (2) what Obama needs to do to beef up his credibility on national security; and (3) why Obama should ignore the occasional mockery of bored and cynical pundits and make full, abundant use of his rhetorical skills, especially during his crucial convention acceptance speech.

The New Republic has organized a colloquoy beginning today involving “friends of the magazine” who have been asked to offer succinct advice to Barack Obama and his campaign on how best to win the general election. First out of the box is TDS Co-Editor Bill Galston, who with his characteristic analytical precision, makes seven specific suggestions to Team Obama:
(1) Introduce yourself to the American people on your terms.
(2) Establish clear priorities for what you will do as president.
(3) Focus more specifically on what you’d do for the economy.
(4) Cross the threshold of credibility as commander-in-chief.
(5) Reach out to Catholics.
(6) Empasize moderation and open-mindedness on social issues.
(7) Make the electorate understand that on the issues they care about the most, John McCain is no moderate.
Bill provides detailed advice on all seven of these topics, and also emphasizes the fundamental advantages Obama will enjoy in the general election, and the terrible consequences of losing. You should read it all.
As it happens, I’ve also been asked to participate in this TNR colloquoy, and while I agree with virtually everything Bill has said, will try to offer some supplementary thoughts in short order.