So, yesterday Republicans took the lead in my national House ballot, giving them a better than 50% chance to retake the House. Today, they are once again forecasted to pick up five seats in the Senate, with even more pickups quite possible. So, things suck electorally for Democrats. No news there.
Let's try a different question today--who is to blame for the sucky electoral situation Democrats face? In the extended entry, I list my top four candidates.
In no particular order, here are some people to blame for the looming Democratic electoral disaster:
Max Baucus, for delaying health care. People in the blogosphere don't want to hear this, but the health care bill was going to be unpopular no matter what was included in the bill. Right now, most Americans don't know what is in the health care bill. Making it stronger or weaker would not have improved that level of knowledge, and thus changed its level of popularity. If anything, late changes to the bill would have decreased the level of knowledge about the contents of the bill.
Historically speaking, the health care bill is highly unpopular compared to other legislation at this point in the sausage-making process. Given that changing the contents of the health care bill would likely make no difference on its level of popularity, the best solution was to get it out of the news cycle as quickly as possible. This means either scrapping it (which would actually make Democrats look feckless and, according to PPP, reduce their standing in national polls), or just signing it into law ASAP.
So, if the best path for health care was to pass it as quickly as possible, then whoever delayed it is at least partially to blame for the current Democratic electoral difficulties. On that front, no one delayed the bill longer than Max Baucus. During his absurd quest to find bipartisan support for the bill, Baucus delayed passing a bill out of the Finance Committee on July 31st (like all other Congressional committees), and instead passed a bill on October 13th.
Baucus thus kept the bill in the headlines for 74 days longer than it needed to be. As such, instead of President Obama signing the bill into law sometime in early of mid-December, it hasn't passed at all. This kept an unpopular bill in the headlines for ten weeks longer than it needed to be, and now makes Dems look even worse for their inability to pass legislation.
The Gang of 18 Senators who cut $100 billion from the stimulus. A gang of eighteen Senators cut $100 billion, or over 12%, from the stimulus package in order to look "moderate." And yet, outside of political circles, no one remembers the gang, who they are, or what they did. Instead, hundreds of thousands of people remember themselves, their friends and their family members losing their jobs.
By cutting the stimulus, this gang made the current economic situation somewhat worse than it had to be. As such, they are at least partially to blame for current Democratic electoral troubles. Democratic members of this gang include: Bayh (IN), Bennett (CO), Conrad (ND), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), McCaskill (MO), Nelson (NE), Shaheen (NH), Specter (PA), Warner (VA), Webb (VA) and Udall (CO).
The 12 Democrats who helped defeat cramdown. On April 30th, the Senate defeated a mortgage bankruptcy reform provision known as "cramdown." This provision would have allowed hundreds of thousands of people facing foreclosure to get better mortgage terms in bankruptcy court, and thus stay in their homes. Helping hundreds of thousands of Americans stay in their homes would have helped the economy in the abstract, and lots of real people in the specific. Democrats would have reaped the electoral reward.
Among the many legislative provisions that passed the House in 2009, but were defeated in the Senate, there were few, if any, measures that would have helped as many people as cramdown. However, twelve Democrats voted against the measure anyway, thus helping to dig their party's electoral grave. Those eleven Senators were Baucus (MT), Bennett (CO), Byrd (WV), Carper (DE), Dorgan (ND), Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Specter (PA), and Tester (MT). Note how Max Baucus, Michael Bennett, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Arlen Specter have already appeared twice on the "blame list."
The Obama administration, for not taking on banks early enough or hard enough. My final "who is to blame" award goes to the Obama administration, for not taking on the banks who caused the economic crisis hard enough or fast enough. Given both the unpopularity of the bailout and that Democrats would face electoral problems for a flagging economy under their watch, the Obama administration needs a villain for the nation's problems other than themselves. On this count, the banks both were and are the obvious candidate.
Sure, the Obama administration has lately proposed some good things when it comes to taking on the banks: small business lending with TARP money, limits on executive compensation for banks receiving TARP money (see here), new jobs bill with TARP money, tax to recoup TARP money, etc. However, the Obama administration needed to take all of these measures early last year--plus a strong financial regulation bill--when the AIG banking scandal broke in March of 2009.
Passing all of those measures would have been easier back then, both because Congress was on the defensive and President Obama's approval ratings were still skyhigh. Instead, we were left with a lingering the sense of fecklessness brought on by messaging like "we can't govern out of anger." Much worse was the sense of collusion between the D.C. and the financial industry, which was brought on by the bank recovery taking place during the continued economic slide and Tim Geithner bowing to the financial industry's every whim.
March was the moment to pivot to everything financial. Had the Obama administration taken all of the steps then that it is taking now, it could have passed a lot of good legislation and it would have looked like a hero fighting against destructive banks. With a year to develop, a narrative of the Obama administration vs. the banks could have formed, and boy oh boy would that narrative be useful right now. Instead, now there is a widespread perception that there is collusion between the federal government and large financial institutions to screw everyone else. Democrats are paying the electoral price for that perception.
Getting health care out of the way fast, passing a larger stimulus, passing cramdown, and taking a harder, faster, populist line against the banking industry would have resulted in a superior electoral position for Democrats than the one they currently face. How much better is difficult to determine, but it would have been better. An improvement of 6% nationally would mean another 4 seats in the Senate (for a total of 58 after 2010), and still being in a position to retain control of the House. That would be a entirely tolerable--and achievable--position.
What counterfactuals do you have for 2009 that could have improved the Democratic electoral position? Try to keep your answers focused on events that took place in 2009 (rather than, say, not helping Republicans destroy the filibuster five years ago), and on moves that would have helped Democrats electorally (rather than on stuff that would have just been good policy, but had minimal electoral impact).
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