DNC Chair Tim Kaine held a press conference today for progressive new media types. The subject of the call was the DNC's 2010 election strategy.
After Governor Kaine went over the basic strategy that President Obama presented on Monday--increasing turnout among first-time voters in 2008--I asked the Governor a theoretical question about politics that has been occupying me ever since Democrats took control in early 2009. What plays a bigger role in electoral outcomes for a governing party, as Democrats are now: real improvements in people's lives, or the proper application of resources and strategy?
Kaine's response was very much in line with my own thinking. He stated the improving people's lives was the most important, "the key." However personalizing those improvements to people, and making the stakes of the election clear to them, can make enough of a difference in turnout to swing several marginal campaigns.
It was heartening to hear the head of one of the three Democratic political committees admit that the important important factor in electoral outcomes for a governing party is to actually improve people's lives. There is, in the end, a limit to what campaign strategy can achieve. Even if it is of course necessary to sell your governing accomplishments to voters, that is a lot easier when you actually have real governing accomplishments. Whether Democrats have done enough by Novemmber 2, 2010, will be the main determining factor in the 2010 elections.
Update (Adam): I was also on the call, and there has been a lot of hay made of President Obama not mentioning LGBT voters in his call to action video (see Pam for more). On the call, Kaine reiterated that focus will be on "15 million surge voters who registered and voted for the first time in 2008... over half of which are African-American, Latino or young people." He did go on to say the DNC will be working with "regular, reliable midterm voters, including working families, AAPI, LGBT, women, Native Americans. We'll be working with these constituencies just as we always do."
There's been a lot of analysis about why Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate race, because it was so obvious. Failing to accomplish what you campaigned on depresses your base, emboldens the enemy and convinces independents that you're a loser. The lesson is not that Democrats went "too far" - but that they didn't go far enough. If I had faith in President Obama and the Democratic Party, I would be hopeful that they learned that lesson. But only one person seems to get it - former DNC Chair Howard Dean - who was unceremoniously kicked to the curb last January. It was Dean who gave Democrats a backbone in the run-up to the Iraq War. It was Howard Dean's "Fifty State Strategy" (as opposed to Rahm Emanuel's recruitment of Blue Dogs) that won Congress in 2006. And it was Dean's playbook that Barack Obama used to beat Hillary Clinton in an historic campaign. Beltway Democrats resent Dean, because he cares more about helping progressives win than stroking their ego. And - what's most unforgivable - he's been proven right.
Tuesday was a good day for voting rights when a New Jersey federal judge ruled to extend restrictions against partisan voter suppression efforts that primarily target minority voters, effectively rejecting the Republican National Committee's claim that such protections are no longer needed.
(Gotta hand it to the former Republicans, they deliver some zingers - promoted by Adam Bink)
Got home at 8 p.m. from the errands. First reaction was that moving to Invesco was a great idea for the final night. The crowds looks fantastic in the sunlight, and in their massive size. Very good idea.
Mark Udall was boring. I was actually worried the sound system wasn't working while he was speaking, because his words seemed to float into the ether. Tim Kaine was a good speaker and got the crowd going. Still, I personally didn't like what he said very much. Much happier with Biden (although Kaine's Spanish was impressive-not typical candidate Spanish, but the real deal.) Speaking of which, Bill Richardson was actually quite good. Not quite as good as Kerry last night, but still loaded with great attacks. This line was hilarious (going from memory):
John McCain may pay hundreds of dollars for his shoes, but we are the ones who will pay for his flip-flips.
At the end of Richardson's speech, he said "are we going to win this election?" I actually shouted back to the television "yes!" I'll take that as a good sign that my feelings on the efficacy of the convention have changed.
This is an open thread. I will update after Obama speaks.
Right now, the weight of circumstantial evidence and anonymous scoops indicates that either Joe Biden or Tim Kaine will be selected as Obama's running mate within the next 48 hours. Here is why, starting with a story from today's New York Times (more in the extended entry):
After Kaine and Bayh, the new buzz de jure for Vice-President is Joe Biden. While I strongly opposed the first two options, I won't be screaming about Biden. Here is the latest buzz, from CNN (more in the extended entry):
The selection of ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention comes on the heels of a secret, last-minute effort to convince Warner to submit his name and record for vice presidential vetting.
Sources close to Warner say that the Virginia Senate candidate was subject to fairly intense pressure by Obama advisers to allow the team of Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy to open an account and begin their work.
However, let's assume for a moment that it is all true, and that the Obama campaign asked Warner, Webb, and Kaine to submit vetting papers for the short-list portion of the search. That would mean that three of the seven people who were asked to submit short-list vetting papers were from Virginia. The other four confirmed have been Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Kathleen Sebelius.
Kaine is a very bad choice for VP. He's done nothing as Governor except turn a functional state government into a partisan cesspool of giveaways to the rich and anger everyone in the process. And on national positions, the only thing he brings to the table is that he can play the Lieberman as VP role again. And sequels usually suck, especially if the original was bad.
So, despite rumors, there was no announcement of Evan Bayh as Obama's Vice-President today. Mark this down right along with rumors that Tim Kaine was about to be announced as Obama's Vice-President. Here is a tip for people trying to make such predictions in the future: in all likelihood, within either twenty-four or forty-eight hours of the actual announcement, the campaign will announce that it is about to announce Obama's pick. I am pretty sure that every campaign in recent memory has done this. The date and time of the announcement won't be a surprise, even if the actual person selected still might be.
Then again, it won't be that much of a surprise, since the same five names keep getting re-circulated: Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius. There are still occasional mentions of Hillary Clinton and Sam Nunn, but they seem highly unlikely. There seems to be a five-person short list, and the names are Biden, Bayh, Dodd, Kaine, and Sebelius.
In the extended entry, I take a look at the various statements Obama would be making with each of these five picks.
It's remarkable Tim Kaine is even being considered. Check out this catch from Jonathan Tasini:
Just this week the Virgina House rejected his nominee to be Secretary of the Commonwealth (Virginia's past head of the AFL-CIO Danny LeBlanc) and here's what Kaine said:
"I am saddened that the House leadership has chosen the Washington style path of partisanship by rejecting a good and capable man...The Secretary of the Commonwealth has no - I repeat, no - role in the enforcement of Virginia's right-to-work law, a law I strongly support."
I added the emphasis. I could see a guy making a statement--though I still think it would be a sad comment--that he would enforce the laws of Virginia, which includes right-to-work. But to say publicly he STRONGLY SUPPORTS anti-union laws is unacceptable.
via Kathy G is my source for anti-Kaine discussion, but I wanted to point this out because it really is egregious. I know that Democrats in conservative areas have to speak in certain ways to communicate and work with their constituencies and the various elites in their areas, and that this leads to some inevitable friction. But there are certain principles you don't compromise or else getting Democrats in office becomes irrelevant. Supporting Right to Work laws which make it impossible to organize a union is one of them. It's just not ok for workers to have no opportunity to stand up for themselves against abusive labor practices; someone like Kaine shouldn't just be off the table, he should be toxic.
And as KathyG notes, Kathleen Sebelius is in a more conservative state than Kaine, and she has a pretty progressive record on these same issues.
Speaking of Tim Kaine, it seems VA Republicans are setting the stage to cry foul if McCain loses Virginia in November:
Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff Frederick said Monday that incidents in Hampton and Richmond led the party to fear "coordinated and widespread" statewide voter registration fraud.
He is calling on the Governor and Attorney General to start a state-wide investigation on voter fraud. Kaine, to his credit, fires back:
"I think that is slandering the reputation of hardworking Virginians who care about elections and who want people to care about this process," Kaine said. "You know, I don't like to see folks doing things in the heat of a tough election to suggest they are trying to winnow down turnout and that is what I view (Frederick's) effort as."
Matthew Yglesias thinks we're overreaching by imputing intentions to Obama based on his VP pick.
The best guide to how Obama intends to govern isn't who he picks as VP, it's the stuff he's said about how he intends to govern and what he hopes to accomplish. That'd put him to the left of the Clinton-Gore era of the Democratic Party but to the right of the Open Left vision of where the party ought to be, and that'll still be the case no matter who Obama picks.
I don't think that's true for three reasons. One, Obama has consistently said he's picking a VP candidate based on how that candidate will help him govern. Two, we have no reason to trust that what Obama says in this campaign is what he intends to do as President. The FISA example, which I'll go into below, shows that Obama thinks nothing of breaking promises to liberals. Three, even if he follows through on the promises he hasn't broken, I don't see how his overall policy platform is substantially to the left of the Clinton/Gore administration. As a brief but significant example, in place of Clinton/Gore's 'peace dividend', or a cut in military spending, Obama has promised to grow the size of the military.
During the primary, to attract liberal support, Obama said that he would filibuster any bill with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies in it. He then voted for a bill with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies in it. When doing so, he pronounced it a 'good compromise', even though he had earlier run a primary campaign criticizing the false choice between security and liberty.
The truth is we have no idea whether Obama will do anything he has promised policy-wise, but we do know that if he picks Tim Kaine as VP that Tim Kaine will be the Vice President. Given that the last two Vice Presidents have been very powerful, and that Obama is saying he wants a partner-in-governance, it seems likely that his VP pick is a strong signal of what kind of administration he intends to run. And given that he lied to liberal activists and then pretended that he didn't on a policy promise, it's probably a safe bet to consider that Obama is going to repeat the pattern.
Update: Some people are saying that I'm contradicting myself by suggesting that we believe Obama when he says that he's picking a VP based on who will help him govern, but disbelieve when he puts out various policy ideas. Actually, what I'm saying is that if you accept that his word is good on his policy ideas, then you must also accept that his word is good on why he's choosing his VP. If you think his word is not good on his policy ideas, then we don't really know why he's choosing his VP, all we know is that this person is actually going to be in the White House as his VP. And who is in the White House matters.
One of the best local blogospheres in the country - Virginia's - emerged in 2005 out of the draft Clark campaign. Lowell Feld started the site Raising Kaine to support Tim Kaine for Governor, since Kaine was seen as a successor to Mark Warner, a Democrat who had governed effectively and progressively in the state. Kaine eventually won the race, and then the Virginia netroots and Feld went on to help Jim Webb defeat George Allen. This group has been part of turning that entire state blue, and they are quite tolerant of conservative Democrats.
So it's worth noting that the blog refers to itself as RK at this point, and has firmly turned against Kaine.
Obama visited his campaign's vice-presidential selection offices today. And, in case you hadn't heard, Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia, is being seriously vetted:
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has told close associates that he has had "very serious" conversations with Sen. Barack Obama about joining the Democratic presidential ticket and has provided documents to the campaign as it combs through his background, according to several sources close to Kaine.
So, Dodd, Kaine, Sebelius, and maybe Bayh are the probable real short list. I would definitely prefer Dodd and Sebelius over Kaine, given that the former two have a more progressive record on virtually everything. About the only value I can see to picking Bayh and Kaine is that they would probably help Obama in their home states, Indiana and Virginia respectively. If Obama were to win the Kerry states (where seems like a virtual lock), plus Iowa (where he seems a virtual lock), plus either Indiana or Virginia, then he would reach 270 and 272 electoral votes, respectively. So, I suppose there is an electoral math argument to be held in their favor, even though Obama just said he wouldn't use that as a criteria in his selection.
Of these four choices, I simply have to conclude that Kaine must be the Obama campaign's top choice right now. The reason is that the Obama campaign also put Jim Webb on the short list, except that Webb refused to submit vetting papers and took his name off the list. If they put two people from Virginia on the list, two people who have a combined eight years in statewide elected office (1.5 and 6.5, as Kaine was the Lt. Gov before he was Governor), then they are really, really, really looking for someone from Virginia. Given that Obama is already narrowly ahead in Virginia, given that Obama has never trailed in Iowa since he announced his campaign, and has led in every single poll of every single Kerry state for two months, it is possible that selecting Kaine would serve as electoral checkmate on McCain.
It would also signal that Obama has no intention to govern as a progressive. As such, it would be difficult to muster up enthusiasm to work for the ticket. By contrast, Obama / Sebelius would be fine, and Obama / Dodd would be exciting. If these are the final three choices, and I think there are good indications that they are the final three choices, I really hope that Obama doesn't go with Kaine. Unfortunately, right now, it looks like he probably will.
Update: The Washington Post claims that Bayh and Biden are being vetted, which contradicts Biden's statement on the matter two and a half weeks ago. I won't go into detail, but I would prefer Biden to Bayh and Kaine. But it isn't an appealing set of choices.
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