This is the sixteenth article in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country.
Andrew Jackson's homeland, upstate South Carolina, is today's topic. The 5th Congressional District includes all or parts of 14 counties extending from the Charlotte, NC suburbs down to the central part of the state. The 5th district has not elected a Republican since Reconstruction, and since 1983 has been represented in the U.S. House by Democrat John Spratt. The senior member of the state's Congressional delegation, Spratt chairs the House Budget Committee and is the 2nd ranking member on the Armed Services Committees. In more than two decades in Congress, Spratt has typically won re-election by wide margins. This fall, Republican challenger Mick Mulvaney will try to buck that trend.
During his tenure in Congress, Spratt has been a consistent vote for clean energy and the environment, earning a perfect, 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) last year. Most importantly, he voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), an extraordinarily important piece of environmental legislation which the New York Times described as "the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change." On his website, Spratt discusses the negotiation process on ACES and refutes misconceptions about the bill. He says that while he initially had concerns about the bill, along with other members of the South Carolina delegation, he was able to advance changes "lowering costs to consumers and protecting trade-affected and energy-intensive industries." Spratt also takes on "unfounded" cost estimates of the bill, noting that according to "the neutral, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ... the average increase per household would be approximately $175 per year. However, this estimate does not include consumer savings from tax credits and grants for efficiency and weatherization."
Mick Mulvaney, on the other hand, thinks that global warming is "based on questionable science," and that the answer to our energy challenges should be, in large part, "making it easier to drill for and use domestic resources." He has signed the radical Americans for Prosperity's No Climate Tax Pledge. This front group is funded by oil industry magnate David Koch. David Koch and his brother Charles, as you may know, are the nefarious billionaires who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to undermine environmental regulations and to push other right-wing causes. In fact, as Greenpeace reports the Koch's have funneled nearly $50 million to climate-denial front groups, earning the title of the "kingpin[s] of climate science denial."
Mulvaney also calls solar power "wildly inefficient and outrageously expensive" and disparages other forms of renewable energy - wind, geothermal - as well. In contrast, Mulvaney praises coal-fired power plants as "more efficient producers of energy" than renewables, arguing that "building new, clean, coal-fired plants are the most economical, and most environmentally responsible, way to generate the energy we need." Of course as NRDC makes clear, there's no such thing as clean, environmentally responsible coal. From mountaintop removal mining to smokestack emissions, which are responsible for 24,000 deaths a year, every step of the coal power cycle is dirty. Coal is cheap and abundant, and with carbon capture and storage technology its can be part of a low-carbon energy mix, but it will never be clean.
Furthermore, Mulvaney has attacked Rep. Spratt for supporting the House's Gulf response bill, the CLEAR Act (HR 3534), claiming that it's a tax that will result in higher gas prices. In actuality, as NRDC explains, "the CLEAR Act is a comprehensive reform bill and an important step forward in improving our nation's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills," including "provisions to increase safety, help restore the Gulf Coast, crackdown on ethical lapses, require businesses to be responsible for their actions, and close royalty loopholes to ensure the American people receive their fair share for the extraction of public resources." The bill simply requires oil companies to obey the rules set by Congress to reduce the risks of drilling, and to cover the costs of spills they're responsible for. Calling it a tax is disingenuous, and plain wrong.
To sum up, Mick Mulvaney opposes holding polluters accountable for global warming and holding BP responsible for the disaster in Gulf.
The NRDC Action Fund believes that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Although the 2008 presidential election showed unprecedented increases in turnout from underrepresented citizens, their rates of voter registration and participation were still well behind the electorate in general. As we approach election season, this pattern may only continue. Instead of taking steps to improve the administration of elections to encourage and facilitate voter participation from eligible citizens, lawmakers and elected officials are back to raising barriers to voting by implementing strict voter ID laws, as illustrated through high profile court battles, ballot initiatives, and fast-moving legislation
An appeal to an Indiana's court's decision to shut down the state's notorious voter ID law as unconstitutional was heard last week in the state Supreme Court.
After the state Supreme Court shut down Indiana's contentious photo voter ID law as unconstitutional last September for unfairly exempting absentee voters, this year's crop of voter ID bills appeared to be tweaked just enough to avoid major public scrutiny. This month, however, policymakers have returned to debating over traditional photo ID bills that pertain to voters who cast a ballot in person, and unfortunately, they are picking up in several states.
It is a popular today to say that the South has switched from voting Democratic to Republican. Many people are fond of looking at previous electoral maps. Hey, isn't that funny - the states have completely switched parties. It's like the Republicans have recreated the Solid South.
That statement is unequivocally false. Most people have no idea how unbelievably Democratic the Solid South was. For half a century, Democrats in the Deep South did about as well as the Communist Party did in Soviet Union elections.
Here is a map of a typical Solid South state, filled with blue counties. It is the 1940 presidential election. I invite you to guess - what do these blue counties represent? Counties in which Roosevelt won over 70% of the vote? 80%? 90%? Remember, Roosevelt was quite a popular guy. He must have done pretty well in Alabama, part of the Solid South.
As several states enter critical phases in their legislative sessions, the debate for one of the most controversial election reforms continues to dominate headlines and legislative hearings. This year, more than 26 states introduced legislation to go above and beyond federal election law relating to voter ID, despite near consensus among voting rights advocates that it hurts the process far more than it helps. Last week, the hysteria around voter ID reached an all time high in six states, evoking public concern from advocates and citizens alike.
After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld one of the country's strictest voter ID laws in April, several states rushed to pass similar bills before the year's end. By December, more than 25 states introduced legislation to require voter ID at the polls. Though none of these bills were successful this year, lawmakers in several states are hoping to revive such restrictive requirements in 2009.
Since July of this year, at least seven states have pre-filed or carried over voter ID legislation for the 2009-2010 sessions, including Nevada, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
If reporters had nabbed former presidential candidate John Edwards lying about his extramarital affair, Hillary Clinton would have captured the Democratic presidential nomination, her former communications director said.
"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com in an interview released Monday, because internal campaign polling showed "our voters and Edwards voters were the same people. They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."
I used to argue that Obama benefited from having Edwards in the campaign. However, the evidence, as I discuss in the extended entry, not only goes against Howard Wolfson here, but also proved me wrong.
(I've written about the need to unstack the deck, but don't forget that Republicans are working even harder to stack it even further. See the list below of vote suppression legislation - every single bill sponsored by a Republican. - promoted by Daniel De Groot)
Requiring proof-of-citizenship in order to register to vote is the latest addition to voter suppression arsenal. Spurred by Arizona's 2004 implementation of proof of citizenship requirements and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana's strict voter ID law, proof of citizenship bills - often coupled with voter ID - are gaining traction across the country. With more than 13 million Americans lacking ready access to citizenship documentation and scant evidence of voter registration fraud by non-citizens (or any voter for that matter) leading to illegal votes, proof of citizenship requirements could have a significant impact on the electorate. Wasting no time after the high court's decision, the neighboring states of Kansas and Missouri have swiftly moved forward with efforts to pass such legislation that could take effect in the November election.
In an attempt to measure Obama’s momentum since South Carolina, the following chart compares January polling in Super Tuesday states before and after January 26th: (Pollster.com is the source for all polls):
Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted Tuesday night shows the gap between the two candidates is within a few points. Obama's position has been strengthening on a day-by-day basis. As recently as Jan. 18-20, Clinton led Obama by 20 points. Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking is based on interviews conducted Jan. 27-29, all after Obama's overwhelming victory in South Carolina on Saturday. Two out of the three nights interviewing were conducted after the high-visibility endorsement of Obama by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy.
Clinton's lead in the three-day average is now 42% to Obama's 36%. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after Gallup conducted these interviews, ended his quest for the presidency with 12% support. Wednesday night's interviewing will reflect the distribution of the vote choice of former Edwards' supporters as well as the impact, if any, of Hillary Clinton's popular vote win in Florida on Tuesday.
The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Connecticut's Democratic Presidential Primary shows the race couldn't possibly get any closer. New York Senator Hillary Clinton attracts 40% of the vote and so does Illinois Senator Barack Obama. John Edwards is a very distant third at 11% while 3% say they'd vote for some other candidate and 6% are not sure.
On the Democratic side, the combined results of three nightly samplings of 400 different voters - for Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday - found Hillary Rodham Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 31 percent and John Edwards at 12 percent.
But when taken alone, Sunday's tracking - just a day after Obama's big win in the South Carolina primary - had Obama leading Clinton, 35 percent to 32 percent, with Edwards' share growing to 16 percent. And pretty much the same numbers came up Monday.
Survey USA, the other organization to poll California after South Carolina, shows Clinton ahead by 8% among likely voters, but with a gaping 24% advantage among those who has already voted.
Overall, there does seem to be movement toward Obama, which is good news for his campaign when it comes to securing Edwards supporters. However, the evidence is both a little spotty and a little thin. Further, Clinton can still rely on a large advantage among early voters, and bounces almost always fade. Tomorrow's polling, which will be the first after Florida, and after Edwards has dropped out, will provide significant insight.
I'm sort of leaning towards Obama at this point, considering that Clinton actually applauded at Bush's discussion of the surge in Iraq. Bleh. It's as if the last candidate who opens their mouth sends me running towards their opponent (way to go John Edwards media strategy!). I'm thoroughly aggravated by the village's embrace of Obama, or more accurately the savaging of the Clinton's for both gender and class reasons, but this can no longer overcome her positioning on Iraq and it does overcome his slightly more conservative positioning on health care and the economy.
That said, some ominous trends for the Obama campaign reasserted themselves in Florida. First, the good news for Obama. One, Edwards is keeping Obama in this race, splitting the white male vote again with Clinton. He may yet play kingmaker. Two, Obama won among people who decided in the last day, a reversal from Nevada. He clearly won the last week. [UPDATE: He didn't win people who decided in the last day, but he won people who decided in the last three days and in the last week.]
Here are the trends that are resurfacing.
Swing Liberals
Obama lost them again, clearly an ideological split.
Iraq
Clinton is more trusted by withdrawal Democrats.
'Older' Young Voters
Much younger voters love Obama, but 'older' younger voters who remember a more partisan time went for Clinton. I first noticed this after New Hampshire, and it appears as if Obama's South Carolina dynamic did not change the overall messaging frame. What's with the affinity between Gen X and the millenials, and the older gap millenials and the boomers? South Carolina might have just be a field operation victory, though Obama is winning voters who are deciding at the last minute, and that is an improvement.
While most expected that Barack Obama would win South Carolina's primary, nobody said he would crush Hillary Clinton by a 28-point lead (a more than 2:1 margin.) The polls were even less accurate than in New Hampshire, where Clinton eked out a surprise 3-point victory on January 8th. Bill Clinton's attempt to marginalize Obama as a "black candidate" failed - as the Illinois Senator did far better than expected among whites, and tied Clinton among white men. In part because black women strongly supported Obama, there was no real gender gap - which raises the question: if Democrats want to win this year, why nominate a candidate whose primary base is old white women and few others?
As the race moves to Super Duper Tuesday on Steroids, Obama has a shot because Bill Clinton has returned to dominate his wife's campaign. Voters want "change" over "experience," and while they liked the 1990's do not want a Clinton dynasty. But Obama must target Latinos to win - especially in California - and his latest endorsements could make the job slightly easier. While South Carolina gave Obama a landslide victory, exit polls showed that voters there did not place a premium on Iraq. If the War becomes an issue on February 5th, Obama's chances in California will be strongly enhanced.
99% Reporting (projected pledged delegates in parenthesis)
Obama: 55%, 295,091, (25)
Clinton 27%, 141,128, (12)
Edwrds: 18%, 93,552, (8)
Update 13: Pledged delegate totals are now final. This brings the overall pledged delegate totals to Obama 63, Clinton 48, Edwards 26. That is only about 9% of the pledged delegates that will be given out on Super Tuesday.
Update 12: I'm looking at Google News headlines on the primary to try and see what sort of narrative comes out of South Carolina. There appear to be three types of headlines right now. First, the most common is the bland, "Obama wins South Carolina," that won't help him much. Second, there is the "Obama wins racially charged primary," that probably won't help him at all (and may hurt him). Third, there is the "Obama wins huge" headline, which he really needs and will help him. Since he needs a bounce, he also needs a lot of "Obama wins big" type headlines.
Update 11: Obama remains undefeated on delegate counts from states so far. He will also pass Huckabee and McCain combined in votes. Clinton will pass Huckabee, and may yet pass McCain. Edwards has already moved well past Romney and Thompson.
Update 10: In 2004, about 295,000 Democrats voted in the South Carolina primary. This year, about 445,000 Republicans in South Carolina primary. Both of those numbers are going down--a testament to the hufe Democratic excitement this year. Clinton might still beat McCain's vote totals!
Update 8: While Obama and Edwards are in SC tonight with supporters, Clinton is travelling to Tennessee tonight, to give the perception that she is focusing on February 5th instead of South Carolina. Truth be told, both she and Bill should have abandoned South Carolina altogether. She would have lost big anyway, but at least then she would not have appeared to care.
Update 7: Can Obama get more South Carolina votes than McCain and Huckabee combined? Right now, he is on pace for about 275,000 votes, while the two Republican frontrunners in South Carolina combined for about 280,000 votes.
Update 6: Among white voters, Obama won those under 30, Edwards won those from 30-59, and Clinton won those aged 60 and up. That is a repetition of the age gap we have seen elsewhere, such as in Iowa..
Update 5: It appears that Democratic turnout for the South Carolina primary will be higher than Republican turnout was last week. That is pretty impressive, and a good sign for Democrats.
Update 4: All news outlets are now projecting that Clinton will take second place over Edwards. However, the overwhelming size of the victory, combined with Edwards winning the white vote, will make this a problematic post-election narrative for Clinton. It would appear that the Clintons have lost African-Americans in this primary season, big-time.
Update 3: According to the exit poll, Obama won 81% of the African-American vote, and Edwards narrowly won the white vote over Clinton, 39%-36%. That translates into a huge margin, something like Obama 51%, Clinton 27%, Edwards 21%.. Goodness gracious!
Update 2: All news outlets have called South Carolina for Obama. That was fast. Could be the blowout he needs.
Update: In some good news for Clinton, the exit poll also indicates that 61% of the electorate is female, and 67% of it is 45 or older.
Early word from the exit poll is that "interviews with voters as they left their polling places indicated about half the electorate was black." The pre-primary polls that showed Obama with a large advantage included an average sample of 49% African-Americans. So, it looks like Obama will win.
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