One of the few Republican ideas brought up at Thursday's Health Care Reform summit that seemed to be really popular with both parties was suggested by Senator Tom Coburn. The idea basically is to have people go and visit doctors, and try to get them to break Medicare rules. I presume that if they created such a program for Medicare they would try to see to it that it was applied to Medicaid as well. It has been compared to the practice that many fast food restaurants and retail clothing stores have been employing for a while now, commonly known as "Mystery Shopping". This is a horrible idea for several reasons, and the comparison to the Mystery Shopper, is frankly weak and ultimately inaccurate. More importantly I have a suggestion that contains none of the yuck factor of Under Cover Patients, and could potentially play a significant role in changing the way that doctors and patients relate to one another.
I've been thinking about the bipartisan health care summit, and I go back to what Mike Lux said early in Obama's administration, which is that if Obama wants to do these "symbolic" outreach gestures to Republicans- along the lines of going to the Inauguration dinner honoring John McCain, meeting with Republican leadership, etc.- go ahead. With the bipartisan health care summit, the point seems twofold. The first part is that kind of bipartisan outreach to demonstrate that the President is indeed listening to Republicans and their ideas, like he said at the House Republican retreat.
The second part is unclear to me. A friend of mine involved with health care reform commented that it's either a great way to help the push to reconciliation, or it's the start of a campaign blame the Republicans for the failure of health care reform. To me, it could be two birds with one stone- emphasize how the Republicans are obstructing progress while using the summit to beat back the misinformation and strengthen public support. The important part, for those interested in finishing health care reform, is to emphasize the former, and treat it the way campaigns do debates- in the post-summit efforts, spin the results, use polling, and so forth.
Aside from intent here, the other aspect is performance. If Obama "brings it" like he did in Baltimore and during the Presidential debates last year, and demonstrates before a national audience that (a) the health care bill is better than it's made out to be, and (b) the Republicans are wrong on the facts, then the results could drive up support for the plan and strengthen the backbone of Democrats who are wavering on supporting a bill. If not, then health care reform could be in even deeper trouble. I see this summit as high risk and high reward, and it depends on what each side brings to the debate.
The one other thing I want to note is some of Obama's rhetoric on bipartisanship at his press conference yesterday (excerpts):
Now, bipartisanship depends on a willingness among both Democrats and Republicans to put aside matters of party for the good of the country. I won't hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won't hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that's rooted not in substantive disagreements but in political expedience. We talked about this as well, particularly when it comes to the confirmation process. I respect the Senate's role to advise and consent, but for months, qualified, non- controversial nominees for critical positions in government, often positions related to our national security, have been held up despite having overwhelming support. My nominee for one important job, the head of General Services Administration, which helps run the government, was denied a vote for nine months. When she finally got a vote on her nomination, she was confirmed 96 to nothing. That's not advise and consent; that's delay and obstruct...
But here's the point that I made to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell: Bipartisanship can't be that I agree to all the things that they believe in or want, and they agree to none of the things I believe in and want, and that's the price of bipartisanship, right? But that's sometimes the way it gets presented...
Bipartisanship cannot mean simply that Democrats give up everything that they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship. That's not how it works in any other realm of life.
Well done, Mr. President. The key thing, as Jason Rosenbaum notes, is to point out that Republicans have had more than ample opportunities to contribute to the debate- both in terms of rhetoric and in terms of legislation. Republicans offered a substitute bill in the House. Baucus spent a great deal of time negotiating with Grassley, Enzi and Snowe. That's important to keep noting, and the President should point that out at the summit.
Congratulations to Scott Brown in his history making upset victory in Massachusetts, it surely shows that no seat is safe or certain in the age of the independent voter or amid the shifting tides of anti-incumbent sentiments. The one thing that is abundantly clear is that Brown rode to victory on a wave of independent voter support and not because large numbers of Massachusetts voters have suddenly embraced the principles of the G.O.P. and switched their party affiliation. In his acceptance speech Brown acknowledged: "Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken." Also, let us take a moment to thank Mr. Brown for putting the Republican Party back in the game of creating meaningful legislation for now they will no longer have the political cover of hiding behind the excuse that the Democrats control everything due to their filibuster proof supermajority. The arrival of Scott Brown in Washington means that the G.O.P. will now be held accountable for actually producing some sort of legislative product. The days of just saying "no" to every proposal put forth by the Obama Administration are over.
The degree to which the Massachusetts election is a repudiation of the Obama Administration is less than perfectly clear. A post election poll by Peter Hart, Election Night Survey Of Massachusetts Senate Voters, produced findings that reveal evidence of a working class revolt arising from unaddressed economic concerns; a continued desire to fix health care with no support for an abandonment of reform efforts; the sense that Obama has done too little rather than too much; that local issues trump the issue of Obama's overall approval and; that there is no evidence of any endorsement of the Republican agenda on the economy or otherwise. According to Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, Obama's approval rating in Massachusetts was 60 percent before the election as well as thereafter. In contrast a poll by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University's School of Public Health found, as per the Post's Dan Balz: "Dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, antipathy toward federal-government activism and opposition to the Democrats' health-care proposals drove the upset election of Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts." Interestingly, 52 percent of Brown's supporters said that Obama was not a factor in their decision to vote. Balz points out another noteworthy finding from this poll: "Among Brown's supporters who say the health-care reform effort in Washington played an important role in their vote, the most frequently cited reasons were concerns about the process, including closed-door dealing and a lack of bipartisanship. Three in 10 highlighted these political maneuverings as the motivating factor; 22 percent expressed general opposition to reform or the current bill." There is also an element of misconception in Scott Brown's opposition to Obama's health care initiatives. In an article detailing Brown's involvement in Massachusetts's health care reform, David M. Herszenhorn points out: "Mr. Brown, as a state senator, voted in favor of the Massachusetts universal health care law in 2006, when the state became the first in the nation to pass a far-reaching overhaul guaranteeing coverage for nearly every state resident and requiring everyone in Massachusetts to obtain insurance. Mr. Brown, in campaigning against the health care legislation emerging in Washington, has sought to portray it as fundamentally different from the Massachusetts plan. But Massachusetts was actually an important model for what Congress has developed, arguably the model for what Congress envisions." It is hard to make the argument that the Massachusetts voters are against health care reform when 68 percent of the voters in Tuesday's election say they support the existing state plan. Slightly more than half of those who voted for Brown also favor that plan. Even Jennifer Nassour, the Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said on the New Hour (1/20/10): "We have health care in Massachusetts and we do want quality health care for everyone, like we have it here in Massachusetts." Beyond Massachusetts there is new evidence in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that reveals that while Americans are evenly divided over the health reform proposals being debated in Congress, they are actually more supportive of reform generally, when specifics are examined.
Like the Hart poll above, the Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard polling shows, according to Balz: "GOP policies prove even less popular, with 58 percent of Massachusetts voters saying they are dissatisfied or angry about what Republicans in Congress are offering. Among those voting for Brown, 60 percent give positive marks to the policies of congressional Republicans, but a sizable number, 37 percent, offer a negative appraisal." To date, the Republican Party on Capitol Hill continues to trail the Democrats on the issue of overall approval ratings. Likewise, the numbers of Americans who identify as Republicans is at historically low levels. The latest political identification polling results available on Pollster.com reveals that just 22.5 percent of those polled identify as Republicans. What does this all mean for Scott Brown? I think the simple answer is that if he wants to get re-elected in 2012 he will act more like Olympia Snowe of Maine than South Carolina's Jim DeMint. In fact Snowe has indicated a renewed interest in a health care compromise and Scott Brown my very well be the ally she has been looking for on her side of the aisle. Deep in their hearts, Republicans know that the health care system is broken and unsustainable in its current form and ultimately they don't want to be the ones associated with continued failure.
No analysis of the 2010 Massachusetts election can be complete without acknowledging that the Tea Party Movement has moved, at least for the time being, from the fringe into the mainstream of American politics. When you sift out the gun toting crackpots living out their "Minuteman" fantasies and the ideologically challenged that sport placards about Fascism, Socialism and Marxism thereby revealing their utter lack of understanding of these ideologies or there applicability to the present, there are actually people within the movement who know how to make a difference. In Massachusetts they did. But the real question for the G.O.P. is has it made a deal with the Devil in jumping onboard the Tea Party tiger? It is one thing to embrace the Tea Party Movement when the opposition is a Democrat, but what about the prospect of intra-party challenges during the upcoming 2010 Republican primary process. The Tea Party crowd has been up front about its wanting to "purify" the G.O.P. of those who don't hew to a far right agenda. Even Republican heavyweights like John Cornyn R-TX are in their cross hairs. Likewise, for Scott Brown, getting too close to the Tea Party Movement may result in a one-way ticket back to Massachusetts in 2012. A new group within the Tea Party Movement called "The National Precinct Alliance" aims to take over the G.O.P. from the bottom up by capturing local committee leadership positions which will allow the movement to endorse candidates, formulate policy platforms and control asset allocation. The net result may be either an all out civil war within the G.O.P. or a restructured party far to the right of center. As conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer recently pointed out in one of his editorials, politics in America is played within the 40-yard line, on either side of midfield. When either party tries to push past that 40-yard line there is push back within the electorate. That said, it is hard to imagine a G.O.P. reformed by the Tea Party Movement as occupying any turf around midfield which would have a net affect of alienating independents and pushing the G.O.P.'s favorability ratings even lower than they are today. When you combine the Tea Party Movement's penchant for ideological purity with the likes of it's leading personalities: Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint, you have a formula for driving independent voters into the hills and thereby affecting a drain off of support for any type of centrist Republican agenda. Mark my words, the G.O.P. may be celebrating the election of Scott Brown now but they will soon rue the day that they got onto the Tea Party tiger, especially when they see where the ride is taking the G.O.P.
Beyond the challenges facing the G.O.P. the other relevant question is: Can Barack Obama's new found populist campaign drain some of the steam out of the collective Tea Party kettles? Political commentator Sam Tanenhaus recently opined that the Tea Party surge in Massachusetts was a combination of two forces, anger over deficits and a drive for ideological purity. As I already said, the ideological purity issue is a poison pill for the G.O.P. and a subject beyond the control of the Obama administration as it is an internal G.O.P. issue. If Democrats can regain the initiative in crafting health care reform that truly reduces the deficit and successfully combines that with some degree of positive results stemming from the new populist push, then a large part of the Tea Party message will begin to dissipate.
One thing that the election of Scott Brown does not change is the embedded problems that beset health care and thereby deficit growth in America. Again, David Herszenhorn lays out the predicament: "Here's what has not changed about the health care system in America. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, by 2019 there will be 54 million people in the United States without health insurance. The chief actuary of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it will be even worse: 57 million people without insurance. In 2017, just seven years from now, the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund will be exhausted. Empty. Dried up. Done. Total national expenditures on health care will continue to soar, according to the chief actuary, to $4.7 trillion in 2019 from $2.6 trillion today. The average cost of an employer-sponsored family health insurance policy will rise to $20,300 in 2019, or about $10,000 more than today, consuming an ever growing portion of family income and continuing to put downward pressure on wages." The average American would do him/herself a favor in asking their employer a simple question: How much does my health care cost and how much has its cost increased over the last ten years? Then they might ask: If not for the cost of health care, how much would my income derived from my employment with this company gone up and with it my standard of living? Thereafter, they might just want to go over the fine print in their coverage to see what kind of health care they actually have and to what degree it protects them and their family assets from insurance coverage shortfalls.
When the dust clears and the supporters of Scott Brown emerge from their celebratory hangovers and head out onto the street to again address the issue of deficits and health care reform etc., they will see, sitting there on the horizon the same broken health care system with its runaway costs feed by a failure to address what are now the inherent inadequacies of the "free market" to provide affordable coverage to all. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same and so we are back to where we were a year ago, we have gone back to the future.
In a recent Washington Post article titled "A Good Time to be a Conservative"; Mr. Kristol made a bold assumption, claiming the "center of gravity" within the Republican Party would shift farther to the right, propelled in that direction by a collection of conservative personalities from beyond the Beltway. Indicating a lack of faith in the G.O.P.'s elected leadership, Kristol says: "Even if Republicans pick up the House in 2010, the party's big ideas and themes for the 2012 presidential race will probably not emanate from Capitol Hill. The center of gravity, I suspect, will instead lie with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties. Some will lament this -- but over the past year, as those voices have dominated, conservatism has done pretty well in the body politic, and Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in test ballots." Kristol's logic is derived from two polls. First, the Gallup Poll of October 26, 2009 that puts the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as conservatives at 40 percent, and an earlier Rasmussen Poll indicating that the only 2012 Republican presidential prospects polling double digits are Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. When one looks inside the numbers, it would appear that there are more than a few flaws in Mr. Kristol's math and intuitive reasoning.
The Gallup results show that the net increase in the percentage of people identifying as conservatives had taken place within that subset of the electorate classified as independents. Quoting Gallup: "Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008. By contrast, among Republicans and Democrats, the percentage who are "conservative" has increased by one point each." In spite of the shift in independents identifying as conservatives, the actual percentage of voters who identify with the G.O.P., which is the defacto conservative party, has fallen to historical lows. The latest political identification polling results available on Pollster.com reveals that just 25 percent of those polled identify themselves as Republicans. That percentage improves when registered and likely voters are polled, but the G.O.P. still trails the Democrats here as well. To date, had independents firmly embraced the principles of the conservative movement generally or the G.O.P. in particular, the percentage of voters identifying as Republicans would show a marked increase and so far that is not the case. I would argue that the shift to the right among independent voters is far from solid and is conditional, being subject to a set of factors that will likely change by the time of the 2012 election. In fact an even newer Gallup Poll reveals just how transient independent political attitudes actually are. That poll: "Race for 2010 Remains Close; Democrats Recover Slight Lead", which came out on December 14 states: "The current generic-ballot results are similar to those Gallup found in July and October of this year, and indicate that the Republican gain observed just after the Nov. 3 elections was not sustained. Shifts in candidate preference for Congress typically occur primarily among independents, whose "unanchored" status makes them much more vulnerable to short-term events in the political environment than are those who claim allegiance to either major party." I would go beyond the latest Gallup findings to suggest that the number of independents identifying as conservatives will decrease proportionately to the degree to which the G.O.P. moves to the right, especially if the Republican Party finds its public image welded to the personalities of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin or the Tea Party crowd.
In his reliance on the results of the above cited Rasmussen Poll, Mr. Kristol is in effect betting the house on a collection of would be candidates that, in spite of polling in the double digits, leave much to be desired when it actually comes to getting elected. Kristol is one of Sarah Palin's most passionate cheerleaders, but in suggesting that the future of the conservative movement might lie in the fortunes of Ms. Palin, he seems to be gambling on a horse not worth the wager. Mid-December poll results from both Pollster.com and Polling Report.com show Palin registering an unfavorable rating of 48 percent. An ABC poll of November 15th showed that 53 percent of respondents would not vote for Palin with 60 percent saying she was not qualified to be president. More damaging still is a CBS poll of November 15, which revealed that 62 percent of those Republicans polled felt that Palin lacked the ability to be an effective president. At the time of Palin's resignation from elected office, Republican strategist Mike Murphy opined: "If the Sarah Palin we perceive today wins the nomination in 2012, the G.O.P. will lose. Most Americans don't think Palin is ready to be President. The base loving you is not enough to get you elected." Conservative columnist Michael Gerson, reflecting on Palin's resignation said: "She really alienated women and the college educated on both coasts and that is not how you rebuild the Republican Party." The reality is that the Republican Party cannot hope to win without the support of independent voters, whom Palin clearly alienates and whose ranks are, according to Pew Research, now at a seventy-year high. Recently, two Republican heavyweights: Haley Barbour, former Chairman of the RNC, and Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) both declined to endorse a 2012 Palin presidential bid when they appeared on MSNBC and Fox News.
In spite of the fact that Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have double-digit support among Republicans, none of them breaks a 40 percent favorability rating among voters generally, except Huckabee. However, Huckabee's 40 percent approval rating was registered before Maurice Clemmons, an inmate pardoned by Huckabee, gunned down four police officers in late November. That said, we might see a decline in Huckabee's overall standing in the polls. Poll numbers aside, in the 2008 Republican primaries, Huckabee was only able to win in the south and thus his viability as a national candidate is questionable. Furthermore, Huckabee's past equivocation on the topic of evolution works to his detriment when it comes to appealing to that large segment of the population that believes in science as well as religion. Mitt Romney, as a result of his Mormon faith, had problems with the evangelical base of the G.O.P., which plays a crucial role in the early primary states of Iowa and South Carolina. Moreover, Romney may well run into formidable headwinds from the far right as a result of his relatively moderate approach to politics and policy positions. Newt Gingrich, who's favorable ratings are the lowest, at 14 percent, has a closet full of skeletons of his own which led in 1998 to his stepping down as the Speaker of the House and his departure from Congress altogether. Needless to say these issues will surely be resurrected and they will be in the forefront of the debate in the event that Gingrich becomes a serious presidential contender.
It is in his rather absurd suggestion that the G.O.P.'s center of gravity might travel further to the right as a function of the influence of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or the Tea Party Movement, that Kristol, having slipped his moorings to reality, has embarked on what can only be considered a voyage of political fantasy. Neither Limbaugh nor Beck are particularly compelling personalities beyond the realm of their audience. Both traffic in the sensational, often blurring the lines between fact and fiction with their primary purpose being incendiary commentary rather than legitimate hard news analysis. The media watchdog, Media Matters for America has compiled fifty-three pages of citations detailing Limbaugh's distortion of facts or their deliberate misrepresentation for political purposes. For Glenn Beck there are forty-two pages. The latest NBC/WSJ poll (June 2009), which I was able to find on Limbaugh's popularity, showed that 50 percent of those responding viewed him in a negative light. A similar poll in September showed Glenn Beck registering a positive rating of just 25 percent. In spite of the fact that both Limbaugh and Beck have a committed following, accurately measuring the true size and composition of their respective audiences and the extent to which they actually reflect more than a thin slice of this country's political spectrum is almost impossible. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post attempted to plumb the length and breadth of Limbaugh's audience and therefore his influence, in a March 2009 article: "Limbaugh's Audience Size? It's Largely Up in the Air." Relying on interviews with media industry sources, Farhi claims that Limbaugh's audience fluctuates between 14 to 30 million, depending on the issues of the day. Quoting Michael Harrison of "Talkers Magazine", Farhi puts Limbaugh's average audience at 14.25 million listeners per week, which is just under 5 percent of the population. Glenn Beck's audience is far smaller and his largest audience to date was roughly 3.4 million viewers on September 15, 2009, which amounts to just 1.1 percent of the population.
When it comes to the Tea Party Movement, it is equally difficult in coming to an agreement as to just how many people are involved here and to what extent they really reflect more than a microcosm of American political life. According to the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, a pro-Tea Party group, just 578,000 people participated in the 2009 April Tax Day Protests. Their website does not display figures for the July 4th protests nor does FreedomWorks.com or any other pro-Tea Party website that I came across. The largest number I remember seeing is in the neighborhood of 215,000 protestors. Regarding the September 12th Washington D.C. protest rally, Talking Points Memo described the turnout as follows: "FreedomWorks, the main organizers of the Tea Party event in Washington this past weekend, has dramatically lowered its estimate for the size of the crowd at the event from 1.5 million, a number the group now concedes was a mistake, to between 600,000 and 800,000 people -- though this is still substantially more than the tens of thousands that most mainstream media outlets have estimated, and which FreedomWorks wholeheartedly rejects." Thus if we add up the total attendence at all three Tea Parties, using the higher estimates, we come up with a gross attendence of roughly 1.6 million or just one half of one percent of the population.
What the math reveals is that the actual number of people who either participate in Tea Parties or who listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, presumably many do both, is a rather small percentage of the overall population, even considering that portion that would identify as conservative. That said, its a bit of a strectch to assume that such a statistically insignificant number of people is either enough to move the Republican Party further to the right or that it is likely to do so.
There is one final flaw in Kristol's analysis and that is his ignoring the rising tide of moderates within the party that are opposing any suggestion that the G.O.P. needs to be purified of any moderate tendencies via litmus tests that even Ronald Reagan would fail, that political orthodoxy should be the face of the G.O.P. or that Republicans can only win elections when they embrace ultra conservative ideas. The now formidable array of moderates seeking to stem any drift to the far right encompasses a spectrum of Republican notables from sitting Senators to strategists and political commentators including: Olympia Snowe, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Bob Inglis, Mickey Edwards, Christie Todd Whitman, Newt Gingrich, Tom Ridge, Colin Powell, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Kathleen Parker and a host of Republican strategists. Gingrich, appearing on Meet the Press (5/24/09) stated that the G.O.P. has to be "broad enough to incorporate divergent views and can't be purged to the smallest conservative base." Tom Ridge stated that the G.O.P. "needs to be less shrill and less condeming of those who don't hew to a far right view." Following the departure of Arlen Specter from the Republican Party, Olympia Snowe, in a New York Times editorial opined: "There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and contiuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities." At an April debate over the future of the G.O.P. Lindsey Graham made the following observation: "We are not losing blue states and shrinking as a party because we are not conservative enough. If we pursue a party that has no place for someone who agrees with me 70 percent of the time, that is based on an ideological purity test rather than a coalition test, then we are going to keep losing." I could go on, but anyone who has been paying any attention to the civil war within the Republican Party knows that there are more than enough voices and intelligent arguments being made to more than call into question the logic and wisdom of people like Bill Kristol and their fanciful notions that the redemption of the G.O.P. lies in the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or the rank and file Tea Party participant. All one has to do is examine the results of the 2009 off-year elections and what is evident is that where Republicans won elections, in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, they did so by running moderate campaigns that played to the centrist voter. In contrast, the great and financially costly effort by the far right in trying to influence the congressional election in New York's 23rd Electoral District resulted in a conservative failure with a Democrat capturing a seat held by the G.O.P. since as far back as the Civil War.
Over the course of his career, William Kristol is a man who has backed more political losers and also-rans than winners and it would be nothing less than disastrous for the Republican Party to heed his advice or put any stock in his predictions. Kristol worked for former Secretary of Education William Bennet, the voice of personal responsibility during the Reagan Administration, who subsequently lost much of his credibility when he admitted to losing over a million dollars in Las Vegas slot machines. He was Vice President Qualye's Chief of Staff. Kristol managed the failed Senatorial campaign of Alan Keyes in 1988 and Keyes would go on to fail twice more in seeking a seat in the Senate and then two more times when running for president. Kristol championed the pardon of Scooter Libby and the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, a decision that McCain's staffers would later admit to be his single biggest mistake. But it is in an examination of Kristol's unabashed cheerleading for the War in Iraq that his predictive abilities are revealed to be so totally lacking. It was Kristol who predicted that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power would unleash a chain reaction of democratic reform across the Middle East that to date has failed to materialize.
Bill Kristol represents that desperate sort of conservative that can't abide the dynamics of political change wrought by the election of Barack Obama. Likewise, the relatively rapid decline in the influence of Neoconservatives since the 2004 election can't bring him much joy either. To my mind, Bill Kristol falls into that category within the Conservative Movement that is firmly wedded to the notion that their orthodox ideology is the only one acceptable for America and that anything else is either politically irrelevant or treasonous. Kristol's faulty logic gives rise to the notion that he is engaged more in wishful thinking than objective political analysis. His prediction as to future direction of the G.O.P. amounts to nothing more than a political "Hail Mary pass" in hoping beyond hope, that somehow or other the Republican Party can be moved to embrace the orthodoxy of the far right. In my opinion, having watched him over the past decade and read his articles, he seems to be increasingly assuming the role of a shill for ultra conservative ideas, becoming as a result less objective in his political analysis. Republicans would be well advised to part company with Mr. Kristol, least they find themselves facing a future of continued electoral defeat and a decline in the party's appeal among that now indispensable factor in American politics, the unaligned independent voter.
Forbes Magazine, which has never been called a liberal rag by the Right, recently published a 2009 national survey by the United Health Foundation entitled: "The Healthiest And Unhealthiest States". The funder for this foundation is none other than insurer UnitedHealth Group. In their most recent quarterly earnings report (October 2009) UnitedHealth Group cited revenues of $21.7 Billion, an 8% Year-Over-Year increase, and healthy profits. So no one can rationally accuse this health survey of being a hit job on the insurance industry. In truth it is chock full of interesting and useful health data, and worthy of close study, but what jumped out for me immediately are some bold political implications that it also documents. They are far from friendly to opponents of health care legislation currently before Congress.
Dede Scozzafava droping out of the NY-23 race caught me by surprise. I was getting set to write a diary tomorrow about how the third-party conservative challenge of Doug Hoffman was inspiring other Tea Bagger types, and how this dynamic might portend a fragmentation of the GOP that could cause me to re-evaluate my sense of how party dynamics might unfold, and what this might mean for progressive organizing. The candidates mentioned so far--David Ryon in OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy) and Bradley Rees in VA-5 (Tom Perriello), for example--may not be very serious threats. But things are extremely fluid right now, in case you haven't noticed. To I was all set to talk about possibly revising my earlier views. But then Scozzafava suspended her campaign. And suddenly Hoffman wasn't third party anymore. He's the new GOP candidate. And so the big question of the moment right now is this, IMHO: does this mean an intensification of the GOP civil war, or a turning point toward a swift consolidaiton?
Either way, I'd argue, progressives should not be basing our strategy on what happens on the other side of the aisle. But we should keep an eye out for strategic shocks and the opportunities they portend. One thing is certain, though: Hoffman's success is a sure message for progressives in one respect, one we never should have needed: if you don't fight, you can't win. We need to be looking at primaries all around the country in 2010. And in some places, we need to thinking about independent general election runs. Not just for Congress, but for Senate.
Rather than pontificate at length, I'm setting my initial tentative analysis I had planned on doing aside. I want to hear what others think in response to this development. I have a plenty long, plenty wonky diary to come 2 hours hence. For now, it's your turn.
Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America. While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."
A fun new poll shows 48% of Republicans think President Obama does not love America, according to TPM.
This follows the July 31st report that over a quarter of Republicans believed Obama was not born in the United States, and nearly a third weren't sure.
Besides the fun factor of seeing these polls, and the scary factor of seeing how many of our fellow residents actually believe this stuff, I think polls like this scare a lot of independents and non-hard-core, tacit Republicans. It makes the Republican Party look absolutely crazy.
To that end, I wonder if there are other interesting polling questions that can be used to marginalize Republicans as largely a wacky party out of touch with America. These two questions address Obama-related issues, but there might be some good public policy questions, or cultural orientation questions, too. It should be something that comes as surprising, not previously polled upon, and the results of which can spread virally through the traditional media.
What do you think would be other good polling questions to marginalize conservative Republicans?
With all of this hateful and violent rhetoric going on, I haven't seen one Republican leader asking for people to cool their rhetoric, or heard them condemn any of these tactics. My question for Republican party, and their allies at conservative media companies that employ the kind of people making these remarks: what exactly would have to be said for you to distance yourself from these people? How far would someone have to go before you got uncomfortable with it? What would have to said before Fox News considered firing someone?
If Glenn Beck actually directly called for the assassination of someone, would it bother you guys? If Rush Limbaugh just screamed a racial insult referring to the President of the United States into his microphone, would it make you pause at all? If Lou Dobbs went so far as to call for the murder of random Hispanics in the street, would CNN consider firing him? If Michael Savage actually encouraged a caller to his show to go blow up a federal building like Timothy McVeigh did, would any republicans suggest he pull his rhetoric back a bit?
The scary thing to me about what's going on right now in this country is not the violence, because this country has always had violent extremists, and we've survived as a country and democracy. What concerns me, though, is that the Republicans seem to have crossed some kind of line to where they actually tolerate and even defend all this violence. They have stopped doing that now, and are even egging the violence on now in some cases. I fear the answer to my question- what would it take for you to condemn the hatefulness- because the answer seems to be that there is nothing that could happen that would make them say "Stop!" And that's a very scary thing for a democracy.
Democrats are still quite popular in the Northeast and unpopular in the South, but they've lost significant ground in the West and Midwest since late February, four months ago, even though Republicans, who are far less popular, continue losing popularity as well. If the GOP's intention is to disgust people with politics, in direct opposition with Obama's attempt to bring sweetness and light, the GOP seems to be succeeding--and Democrats in general are paying the price, both in party popularity, and in the popularity of congresional Democrats.
The last DKos weekly poll in July shows more of the same. Here are the latest figures, showing Congressional Democrats barely hanging on to a net favorability of +3 outside the South, with the party itself at -3 favorability naitonwide. Nobody likes the GOP outside the South--12% favorable is the best they can do regionally, but now the Dems have lost almost all their regional net favorability:
And here are the changes from late June, which show both parties losing support almost equally:
Sarah Palin's departure from the forefront of American politics is just part and parcel of the continuing kaleidoscope of chaos on the right. In my opinion, her selection as a Vice Presidential candidate was nothing more than a political stunt aimed at capturing the disappointed female supporters of Hilary Clinton. As the current article in Vanity Fair reveals, prominent McCain staffers say that her being picked as a running mate was the single biggest mistake that McCain made in his bid for the presidency. Her selection may have actually led her to think that she had the heft and substance to be a major player on the national scene, but her comments and analytical viewpoints show that she was clearly out of her league and well off of the mark in possessing what it takes to be Vice President of the United States, or Chief Executive. During the 2008 race, Fred Thompson lauded Palin for her prowess as a hunter, saying that: "She could field dress a moose". That would be a great leadership credential if we were living in the Stone Age, but it is nothing more than an interesting personal anecdote in the twenty first century.
Sarah Palin may well rile up the base of the Republican Party. That could be a liability as the base can actually derail the G.O.P. in upcoming elections. Republican strategist Mike Murphy recently said: "If the Sarah Palin we perceive today wins the nomination in 2012, the G.O.P. will lose. Most Americans don't think Palin is ready to be President. The base loving you is not enough to get you elected." Conservative columnist Michael Gerson, speaking on the News Hour said of Palin: " She was not ready in 2008" and that," She really alienated women and the college educated on both coasts and that is not how you rebuild the Republican Party." The cold, hard reality is that the Republican Party cannot hope to win without the support of independent voters, whom Palin clearly alienates and whose ranks are now at a seventy-year high as a proportion of the electorate. Based on her chronic foot-in-mouth problems, it is not all that far fetched to say that Palin would be more likely to gain votes among independents by posing naked in Playboy than by taking the stage to promulgate her political views.
The real question is if Governor Palin has not just committed political suicide by leaving the political stage at a time when most political observers have suggested that her political future hinged on saying less and studying more so as to get up to speed with regard to the issues and substance that the top job in this country requires. After eight years of George Bush that" aw shucks" approach just doesn't cut it anymore, unless your only goal is to appeal to the base of the Republican Party.
After reading through a number of diaries complaining about Democrats, I felt compelled to write this. Most of us - the sane, honest ones anyway - seem to agree that the problem now isn't the far-right Republican Party, but the equally far-right Democratic Party.* What we don't seem to agree on is what to do about it.
The general point of argument amongst progressives and liberals is whether to leave the Democrats to organize around a third (or fourth or fifth) political party, or to stay the course and try to reform the party from within. I hold that after roughly three decades watching Republicans so put off by their party's ideological excesses join and usurp the Democratic Party for their own warped interests, with cycle after cycle further weakening what passes for the progressive movement in America, we have to accept that we cannot continue trying the one-pronged approach of working from within the belly of the beast. We're being digested, and after that there really is only one outcome.
It is long past time for us to organize around a truly progressive political party. Understand that this is not something we should do lightly. Those of us who make the split do so knowing full well how difficult it will be to form a viable third political party, and the level of venom and hate we'll receive from Democrats in retaliation, but it's got to be done.
The reason for this is that without the very real threat of electoral defeat, no politician is going to take the concerns of his constituents seriously. Look at how H. Ross Perot's candidacies for president affected the Republicans. They did not spend their time trying to suppress third party turnout directly, rather, they actively worked to (in addition to vote fraud and other voter suppression tactics) bring the wayward conservatives back into the fold. They did this by pandering to the entirety of their party, both the lunatic religious bloc and the big business folk. In short, after getting their asses handed to them in two consecutive presidential elections, the GOP got the message: don't ignore your base. Embrace it.
Beginning in 1992, Republicans began the process of winning back disaffected Republicans by focusing on local, state, and finally, national elections. They had the resources to make a huge coordinated effort, and within just two short years managed to win control of the U.S. House of representatives. As they built their power base, Republicans united the disparate factions of their party by unifying their positions on everything from religion in government to tax breaks for the wealthy, and from dismantling the New Deal and progressive Era reforms of the 20th Century to expanding imperialist policies through military supremacy.
While the enemy was doing this, the left collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and inability to come together. Divisions between the progressive wing that ushered in the Civil Rights era and the recently-formed and empowered DLC - which represents right-wing, corporate interests - combined with voter backlash to remove Democrats from power. By the time Bush and Cheney stole the 2000 election from Al Gore (with absolutely NO help from Ralph Nader, whether haters want to admit it or not), the party was really nothing more than an extension of the Republicans.
If we can all agree on the fundamentals of this brief and admittedly incomplete history of the last seventeen years, then it's pretty clear that we on the left have our work cut out for us. Given the level to which the Democratic Party has sunk in its shift to the far right, we must honestly evaluate our chances of reforming it from within. According to sources such as OpenSecrets.org, large corporations and their bundlers gave far more money to Democrats last year than they did to Republicans, correctly betting that they could buy out the supposed opposition so as to maintain the status quo. We on the left simply do not have the resources to combat that kind of money-gaming politics.
Another thing we lack is the will to embrace new methods for change. If we can't get past the barriers to shift Democrats back to the left, we have to find ways around it. That's obvious, but too many of us don't seem to want to acknowledge that our options for working from within are now zero. At this point, we can only hope to change things by leaving the right-wing Democratic party and organizing around a new one. This does not mean we should completely abandon it, giving up on any and all attempts to shift its ideology leftward. It simply means we must find an effective way to do it. We have to build a viable third party.
History has shown this method to work. During the 1912 presidential election, progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt broke away from his party to form the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party). In so doing, Roosevelt took most of the progressive wing with him, permanently shifting the ideological makeup of the GOP to the right. After causing incumbent William Howard Taft to place last in a three-way race between Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, many Progressives switched over to the latter candidate's party, paving the way for FDR and the New Dealers to come to power just twenty years later. That this led to a long-lasting era of relative prosperity for Americans and the eventual drive to bring civil rights to everyone cannot be in doubt, but it is significant in another way. It drastically altered the existing political structure; Democrats were more left-wing, and the formerly progressive Republicans became solidly right-wing, big business representatives. This can be done again, but not as long as we refuse to do it.
We need to form a third party, maybe a fourth as well, in order to recreate this ideological change. Currently the Progressive Party exists primarily in Vermont and Washington, possibly a few more, and from my research I have seen that it has gotten solid results at the local and state levels. Members have implemented working electoral strategies to win races Democrats no longer try to run in, gaining seats in the state legislatures. There's no reason to pass up the opportunity to rebuild the namesake political party of progressives throughout the country. We can re-open organizations and cooperate with existing ones to craft a solidly progressive, uncompromising platform, and run on it. We would have the advantage of starting from the ground up, taking and keeping control of the process and preventing the corruption that brought down the Democrats. We can also use a viable Progressive Party to build bridges with other independents to bring them on board. While we do this, we can hone our positions so that they, as Bill Maher said, are properly argued and defended.
We should be realistic in our expectations and our goals. We won't get results overnight, and a Progressive Party may or may not become a large enough political bloc to gain appreciable numbers in Congress. We should remember that our primary mission is to swing Democrats back to the left, and if it does generate an enduring presence in the halls of power where we can do the most good, that's a bonus. What we must not allow is for our principles or our determination to be compromised. That way has led to the current disasters we now find ourselves in. Let the cowards and capitulators "compromise" (read: surrender). Let the power-hungry and ambitious join up with the Republicans; it's not as though they don't already side with them on virtually every issue anyway. Let us stop making excuses for not doing what's necessary.
I'd like to hear some ideas for how we can do this. If we're all agreed that this may be our last, best strategy for taking back our government from the wealthy, there are no more excuses.
Democrats are still quite popular in the Northeast and unpopular in the South, but they've lost significant ground in the West and Midwest since late February, four months ago, even though Republicans, who are far less popular, continue losing popularity as well. If the GOP's intention is to disgust people with politics, in direct opposition with Obama's attempt to bring sweetness and light, the GOP seems to be succeeding--and Democrats in general are paying the price, both in party popularity, and in the popularity of congresional Democrats. The figures derived from the latest week of DKos polling are below, figures for late February, and the differences between then and now will be found on the flip.
Congressional Dems are up by 20 in the Northeast, and down by almost double that in the South, while dead even in the West, and just above even in the Midwest. In late February, they were up by 10 in the Midwest, 12 in the West, and up almost as much in the Northeast (22%) as they were down in the South (29%). Their total non-South edge has eroded from 14 points to 8.
Figures for party popularity, while more favorable, show a similar pattern of erosion. While the GOP remains vastly more unpopular, these trends should be worrying to Democratic Party leaders, while reinforcing the view of critical supporters that the party is risking its newly-won position of dominance by failing to deliver, both in terms of legislation and message.
The McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) spent the better part of the fall screaming about alleged "voter registration fraud," and to this day the GOP and the right-wing media machine continue to raise the specter of voter registration shenanigans that are somehow undermining the integrity of American elections. Now, after months of reckless invective and fruitless investigations, incontrovertible facts have been admitted in court, and someone has finally been convicted of voter registration fraud.
Fraud did take place in the 2008 election-conducted for, and paid for by, the Republican Party.
The Republican Party reached its highpoint this decade probably on September 12, 2001 or shortly thereafter. They managed to hang onto that mood (i.e. fear) through the 2004 elections and have been in freefall ever since. Here are some prominent GOP departures:
Fall, 2003: Blogger Andrew Sullivan. "I am not a Republican." Coming from Britain he may never have technically been. But prior to this he was a Bush supporter and Iraq war advocate. Endorsed Kerry in 04, Democrats generally in 06 and Obama in 08.
February, 2006: Jim Webb announces Senate candidacy as Democrat.
December, 2006: Bob Barr, former Congressman: "It's something that's been bothering me for quite some time, the direction in which the party has been going more and more toward big government and disregard toward privacy and civil liberties."
October, 2007: Blogger John Cole. "Not any more, bitches. I repudiate you, your party, and whatever the fuck it is you are currently pretending is “conservatism.” It isn’t. Now send me my check from Soros and the 40 virgins."
August, 2008: Susan Eisenhower. "And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks."
In 2007, right-wing political operatives tried to place a measure on the June 2008 ballot that - if successful - would have awarded California's electoral votes by Congressional District. Democrats and progressives strongly opposed it, because everyone assumed it would give the G.O.P. presidential nominee an extra 19 votes. California is a deep blue state, but parts of Orange County and the Central Valley are still reliably Republican. New data from last November's election, however, suggests that "Red California" is becoming less and less relevant. Barack Obama carried eight Congressional Districts that had long voted for Republican presidential candidates, and John McCain came close to losing three more. All these districts are currently represented in Congress by Republicans, but a few incumbents came close last year to losing to Democratic challengers. It's only a matter of time before some of these districts will eventually flip. None of this is a surprise, however, because the state's Republican base is older, whiter and shrinking in size. But the rate of this change is quite staggering, which explains why Republicans in the state legislature have clung to the "two-thirds rule" for passing a budget. After all, it's the only reason they have any power left in the state.
The fight for 2012 is here. Beltway media insiders rejoice!
Who's it going to be? Spunky Sarah? Moneyed Mitt? Holy Huckabee? Some dark-horse candidate flying under the radar? One thing is for sure: While the media clamors for every tiny detail in the looming battle for the Republican presidential nomination, the real fight for 2012 is taking place right before their very eyes.
"Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said on Saturday, in response to a constituent's question at a public event. "You have to be born in America to be president."
Oh, wait! It's a joke, son!
Late Update: Shelby's spokesman has responded to the story, telling Ben Smith that it's a "distortion." The spokesman says Shelby mentioned the birth certificate as a "throwaway line" in explaining the qualifications for office, and that Shelby "doesn't have any doubt" of Obama's eligibility.
Saying that it could lead to a tax increase on state businesses, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that the state plans to reject as much as $98 million in federal unemployment assistance in the economic stimulus package.... The part that Jindal rejected would require permanent changes in state law that the governor said makes it unacceptable....
But U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., disputed the governor's interpretation and said the new unemployment benefits are designed to be temporary.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who co-wrote an op-ed piece with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford about all the things that were wrong with the bill, has now informed the White House that he'll accept the money. (By the way, Sanford is taking some of the money, too.)
Sen: Mike Crapo (R-ID); Kit Bond (R-MO); Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Bob Bennett (R-UT)
Rep: Frank Lucas (R-OK); Greg Walden (R-OR); Glenn Thompson (R-PA); Leonard Lance (R-NJ); John Mica (R-FL); Don Young (R-AK) Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO); Ken Calvert (R-CA); Pete Hoekstra (R-MI); Adam Putnam (R-FL); Cliff Stearns (R-FL); Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL); Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL); Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL); Tom Rooney (R-FL); Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL); Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Honorary Republican: Heath Shuler (D-NC)
When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, I was 6 years old, so his election didn't mean as much to me as it did for my parents. For them, JFK's election legitimized Irish Catholics in American society, more than a century after our ancestors had immigrated to the United States.
Before JFK, many Catholics felt they had something to prove, particularly in Northwest Iowa, where Irish Catholic was about as "ethnic" as you got in the 1950s and '60s. Since JFK, we haven't sent any more Catholics to the White House, but that's because we have better things to do (mainly fighting amongst ourselves).
Now, whatever else happens, a clear majority of voters in the United States have put their trust in a black man to lead us into what appears to be the roughest economic patch since the Great Depression. It isn't the end of racism, as some Republicans have suggested, but from here on African-American parents won't be jiving their kids when they tell them they can grow up to be president. Regardless of whatever else Barack Obama accomplishes in the next four years, he has raised aspirations.
I am concerned about your viability as a national party. A healthy Republic needs a loyal and vibrant opposition and you don't appear to be that. Here are some suggestions to strengthen your position:
1. Focus your attention on white people. Caucasians comprise at least 66% of the population. Forget about those other people, not enough votes there.
In 2007, right-wing political operatives tried to place a measure on the June 2008 ballot that - if successful - would have awarded California's electoral votes by Congressional District. Democrats and progressives strongly opposed it, because 