The Aftermath of the Healthcare Summit

Summary: What the summit means for a healthcare reform bill and the 2010 midterm elections.

As promised yesterday, we need to give our wrap-up opinions on yesterday’s healthcare summit in Washington, DC.


First of all, the media have not been impressed by what was accomplished yesterday. I’m not quite sure what they were expecting, but evidently they seemed to assume that the bill would have been ready to go after the summit.

In fact, the new deadline for passing a bill is before Easter. That gives Congress over a month to continue hashing out the details - and even that’s under the unlikely scenario that they’ll meet the deadline - before there’s a final vote.

In part, it’s because the GOP still seems unwilling to cooperate.

From Politico:

Heading into the summit, Democrats were preparing to start the steps to get the bill through the Senate with reconciliation — needing only 51 votes to pass a bill — as early as next week. They didn’t expect Republican cooperation Thursday and they didn’t get any. Republicans walked out of the session saying the same thing they said going in — unless you start over, we can’t get on board.

Yet watching the summit, they seemed to be a lot more engaged in reaching a pragmatic compromise than usual. With the exception of John Boehner - who gave a speech loaded with conservative rhetoric about killing the bill - most Republicans (even the super-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn) appeared more focused on working with Democrats than we’ve seen so far.

This is in no small part thanks to President Obama, who took a very serious tone yesterday about bipartisan efforts, which I feel encouraged some Republicans to drop the talking points - especially because the one who did were called out on it.

So we come to two questions. 1) Will this lead to a bill being passed? 2) What implications will it have for the 2010 elections?

It seems to me like a bill was going to be passed regardless of the summit, but I feel that this helped the GOP get over their minority-complex. The attention President Obama showed them (and has been showing them) contrasts - in their minds - with the way the Democratic Congressional leadership has treated them.

And some bridges were built yesterday. Senators Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) made some progress together regarding prescription drug coordination, while Democrats and Republicans in general came to some broad agreements regarding the healthcare-deficit connection.

Of course, there will be plenty of time for Tea Party special interest groups to disrupt this progress, but I feel that the summit probably did help bringing Republicans to the table, making it a little less likely that the inevitable filibuster efforts will succeed.

But in order for a bill to pass by Easter, it is entirely clear that President Obama and the Democratic leadership will have to continue to engage Republicans.

In the 2010 midterms, Democrats will be between a rock and a hard place, but there is a growing agreement among pundits that passing a bill will be more beneficial to them than failing on a key issue they were elected to address. This is something we’ve been saying for months.

Yet if a bill doesn’t pass, pointing to the summit will be a good way for Democrats to defend themselves. “Hey, we had a summit,” they can say, “the Republicans still refused to work with us. They care more about these elections than about the American families who are struggling with healthcare costs.” It’s not a great defense, but it helps solidify the idea that the GOP is nothing more than a “Party of No” these days.

Anyone who watched the summit - there weren’t many who did, albeit, though web traffic for it tripled that of the State of the Union Address - could see how Democrats were more willing to work with Republicans on the bill than vice versa.

Yet even a lot of Republicans were less aggressive than normal yesterday.

Ultimately, a lot of people may be disappointed with the outcomes of the healthcare summit. I, for one, think it could prove to be rather successful.

New Data and Analysis for the 2010 Elections

Summary: WAYLA looks through the recent trends and makes a few 2010 predictions.

Like everyone else has been doing, I thought I’d use today to review the updates from the Cook Political Report and the recent Gallup poll that find Republicans gaining popularity.

First, the Gallup findings…



And it shouldn’t be any real surprise that much of the GOP gains are due to increasing support among independents.


Still, Gallup seems to suggest that a generic ballot is more telling than it really is. Voters don’t select the party they want to see in power, they choose individual candidates. So let’s take a look at the Cook Political Report.

As far as House seats go, I don’t think the Democrats have much to worry about at this point. CPR indicates that 15 seats are toss-ups, 12 of which are held by Democrats. Furthermore, 21 seats are labeled “leaning Democratic” - usually because they’re currently held by a Democrat, but nonetheless it’s a moderately conservative seat. Still, even if the Democratic candidate was to lose all of these seats, the party would still control the House during the 112th Congress.

Even that’s unlikely. In fact, Democrats will probably pick up a few seats, particularly from Democratic-leaning districts currently held by Republicans that plan to move up the political ladder - such as the seats held by Congressmen Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mike Castle (R-DE) and Jim Gerlach (R-PA).

Some Democrats - such as Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) - have already decided not to pursue higher office, in part no doubt, because the district would likely turn red otherwise. All in all, there are only 3 competitive open-seat races in districts held by Democrats.

For more analysis on this, check out the two posts by FiveThirtyEight.com’s Tom Schaller here and here.

At this point, I think it’s doubtful that Democrats will lose more than 10 to 15 net seats in the House next year.

The Senate is another story.

While only 10 are open seats and - of those - only 6 are toss-ups, there are a lot of states where incumbent senators are vulnerable.

We all know that Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Michael Bennett (D-CO) are at risk - but two names we haven’t mentioned are Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) who are both in the “lean Dem” category.


Seeing as next year will be a better year for Republicans, I can’t see the GOP candidate losing in a few open seat races like those in Missouri, Texas, and Kentucky - but I do think the Democrats have a shot at picking up the seats in Louisiana (thanks to many missteps from Sen. Vitter), Ohio, and New Hampshire.

It’s tough to say what will happen in Delaware and Florida will probably come down to who wins the GOP primary. Pennsylvania will be another interesting race to watch, which is something we’ve known since Sen. Specter switched parties earlier this year.

All in all, I doubt that the Democrats will lose more than 6 net seats in the Senate - leaving them enough to still control the chamber.

For more analysis, see Politico’s 10 Senate Districts Most Likely to Flip.

Finally, gubernatorial races will be another area to watch, in part because there are 21 open seats (see the map below).


Currently Democrats control 19 of the 37 gubernatorial seats on the ballot next year - the other 18 held by the GOP. A few of those Democratic seats - Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Colorado - are likely to be extremely competitive, and could go red.


However, the same is true for a handful of GOP seats - including Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii - which could easily go blue.

It’s impossible to make any solid conclusions at this point, but I would doubt the Democrats lose more than 5 net Governor Mansions.

If you do want to know what to watch for going into next year, check out this video from Politico:


For more analysis on all of these 2010 elections, make sure to check out the articles and op-eds on Politico’s new 2010 page.

I’ll continue more on some of these ideas tomorrow as I explain what both Democrats and Republicans will want to do in order to win the most support.

Republicans Drafting a New Contract with America

Summary: Will history repeat itself? With the GOP drafting the Ten for '10, we look to 2006 and 1994 for signs of what the midterm 2010 elections will bring.

In an ideas piece today, former Congressman Martin Frost (D-TX) took issue with the growing intrigue over whether the midterm elections in 2010 will resemble the Republican Revolution of 1994.

From the piece:

On the surface, a comparison might seem to make sense. After all, in 1994, newly elected Democratic President Bill Clinton was serving his first two years, and there were Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate. And we all know what happened: Republicans won control of both chambers in a historic rout.

However, that is all that these two very different political years have in common.

First and foremost among the differences was that House Democrats in 1994 were a tired, old majority that had run out of steam after being in control for 40 years. The most recent Republican majority in the House had occurred during the opening two years, 1953 and 1954, of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first term. Democrats in 1994 were complacent, assuming they were a permanent House majority. Also, they were short on new ideas and did not have strong leadership. Democrats today have policy ideas and clearly have energetic leadership.

Also, there were a number of factors at play in 1994 that are not present in 2010. Leading the list was the fact that Democrats had to defend a large number of open seats because of retirements and members running for other offices. A total of 18 such open seats were lost by the Democrats. So far, Democratic retirements have been held to a minimum…

…Some other seats were lost in the South as a delayed result of the 1991 redistricting, in which Republicans made gains but vulnerable incumbents were able to hold on for one more term in 1992. Redistricting also may have played a role in the decision by some of the 18 Democrats mentioned above who retired.

Also, because the Republican tide broke late in the 1994 election cycle, some Democrats never saw it coming. Classic examples were Reps. Dan Glickman in Kansas and David Price in North Carolina. Price won his seat back after a two-year absence, but Glickman never returned to Congress. And some Democrats were swept from power because of a specific scandal (Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois) and the gun control issue (biggest example being Rep. Jack Brooks of Texas)…

…Also, Democrats fell victim to an easily understood scandal: the continuing controversy over bounced checks at the House bank. The current flap over New York Rep. Charles Rangel’s alleged ethical issues has nowhere near the impact of the House bank scandal.

So why do the media continue to make comparisons between 1994 and 2010? The main reason is that the party of the president almost always loses some congressional seats in the first election following a presidential victory, and the problems that Congress faces right now are monumental in scope. The only recent exceptions to this were 1934 (President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term) and 2002 (President George W. Bush’s first term).

None of this adds up to a landslide for Republicans. The only thing that could result in a major realignment would be high unemployment in fall 2010. Democrats know that and will do everything in their power to stabilize the economic situation.

There was, however, one paragraph where he might have been wrong:

Another difference between the two election years is that Republicans in 1994 actually stood for something. They weren’t just the “party of no.” Then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Texas Rep. Dick Armey put together their Contract With America, which gave Republican House candidates across the country a unified platform.

But the GOP knows they have a “party of no” image, and they are trying to shed it from their candidates.

Before the Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006, they carried their own “party of no” image (although those weren’t exactly the words used). Conservatives often pointed towards the minority leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid along with their party as the “whiney liberals” in Congress.

In 2006, of course, Pelosi, Reid, and other Democratic leaders put together the “Six for ‘06” plan - not too unlike the Contract with America - and came back to power.

Among the platform proposals of that plan: implementing all recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, raising the minimum wage and negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare recipients.

Now, according to CQ Politics, Republicans are putting together another such platform which is informally being called “Ten for ‘10”

From the article:

[Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)], chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, said members of the conference are coming up with recommended policy planks that would provide voters “a commitment to accomplish certain ends.”

Among proposals floated so far by members: a ban on spending unused funds from this year’s economic stimulus law (PL 111-5), tougher earmark disclosure requirements and an “all of the above” climate change plan that would expand offshore oil drilling.

Whether proposals like these resonate with Americans on a values level - like many of the “Six for ‘06” ones did - is a little difficult to imagine. It’s hard to boast a plan for earmark disclosure when Americans are worried about losing their jobs.

As we said in a post after the general election last year:

On the issues, the Republican Party is having difficulty framing winning arguments on trickle-down economics, climate change, and health care reform. The key issues that Lee Atwater used to bolt the Republicans for over twenty years were welfare and crime, but today they have little resonance.

Being the “party of no” is not all the GOP has to worry about - Republican leaders must not let it become the “party of ‘who cares’” too.

Republicans Dominating on Twitter?

Summary: What the GOP lacks in Twitter message discipline, they make up for in followers.

The traditional stereotype of the GOP in Congress is a group of old conservative white men who probably aren’t too savvy with the modern world.

Except the Congressional Research Service recently released a study which finds Republicans in Congress are almost twice as likely to use Twitter, and they tweet almost four times as often.



From the Politico article:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had the most subscribers to his tweets, but two Democrats — Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Claire McCaskill of Missouri — did make it into the top five list maintained by the website TweetCongress, which describes itself as “a grass-roots effort to get our men and women in Congress to open up and have a real conversation with us.” It lists Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in the top five, as well, and puts the current total of congressional Twitterers to 190. The CRS report, meanwhile, found that 4,186 people subscribed to — or followed — the median Republican senator, versus 2,874 for the median Democratic senator. The median Republican congressman had 1,615 followers, compared with 969 for Democratic colleagues.

Still, TechPresident.com’s Micah Sifry tells Politico “few members of Congress are really using Twitter very effectively. Most aren’t engaging a community all that well and, instead, use the tool primarily to broadcast a PR-style message that isn’t likely to get spread around much by others.”

Sound familiar?

Still, GOP consultants love Twitter anyway:

David All, a Republican Internet strategist hired recently to help bolster [Rep. Joe] Wilson’s presence online — including on Twitter — said the site “is not the end-all, be-all, but it has proven to be a good tool to help public officials, trade associations, major brands and media achieve their online goals.”

He asserted that “every effective communications professional or major association needs a real strategy for utilizing Twitter at all times — especially during key events where real-time response is crucial.”

But that still isn’t stopping Republicans from posting stupid tweets, which is something we’ve covered a lot here before. The article relays some new ones:

A handful of House members were called out for tweeting during President Barack Obama’s February address to a joint session of Congress, including Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), whose account tweeted, “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” That was followed quickly by another message reading: “Disregard that last tweet from a staffer.”

In July, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a member of the Navy Reserve, was criticized for disclosing his location while on duty, which risked running afoul of military rules.

Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) raised eyebrows when he used his very active Twitter account to compare the Iranian protests over their disputed election to House Republicans’ efforts to “expose repression” such as a House Democratic “clampdown” on Republican amendments.

It’s been interesting to watch the growth of Twitter in the past year in the political world, especially among Republicans, because it brings a lot of implications with it. Unfortunately for the naïve GOP consultant quoted earlier, few of those implications are positive unless you have the sort of message discipline that Republicans clearly don’t have right now.

Top Stories: 9/10/09

Nobody can stop talking about President Obama's speech last night. Here it is in case you missed it:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Politico has a humorous take on "what he meant" at certain points in the speech.

The Huffington Post looks at all the outbursts during the speech - it wasn't just Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) that made a scene.

And FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver and Tom Schaller live-blogged the address. You can read their final thoughts here.

To read the full transcript of the speech, click here.

Healthcare, Congress, and the Midterm Elections

Early last month, we asked “Will Healthcare Reform Survive the Tea-Baggers in August?” Well, now it appears that it all depends on your definition of “reform”.


For many progressives, reform is dependent on the creation of a public option as an absolute minimum. Ideally, many of them would prefer a single-payer system or even a national healthcare service. For others, reform is possible without a public option - even if they do agree with a public option, they still see the value in other reform measures, such as an end to pre-existing conditions.

In fact, Marc Ambinder recently wrote a very interesting piece in the Atlantic that Democrats have actually held together and healthcare reform will survive - even if it’s without the public option.

"After August, under the worst case scenario, there is majority support for the following major changes to health care: real (albeit limited) competition in the insurance industry (even absent a public plan). A cap on what a person pays for catastrophic illnesses. An end to insurance company recision policies. Guaranteed issue. A basic benefit package. Significant subsidies to help people who earn as much as $64,000 a year pay for health insurance. Better cost and coverage incentives. And lots more. Say what you will about these reforms -- maybe they're incremental -- but they're a foundation for center-left policy in the future."

But now some are wondering if the rowdy August recess and the Town Hall protesters have had some other meaningful impact: namely, putting members of Congress at risk in next year’s midterm elections.

From Gallup:



But will the healthcare debate sink Congress?

First, let’s take a look at Gallup’s most recent Congressional approval polls. While still low at 31%, it’s a bit of a boost since last year, when Congressional approval was at just 19%.


And most of that boost has come from Democrats (and a plurality of Americans identify as Democrats).


So while approval is still low, it does appear to be considerably better than it used to be for members of Congress.

Next we turn to our friends at FiveThirtyEight.com where Joshua Grossman points to recent special elections in California and Iowa as evidence that Democrats - who control both chambers in Congress - are still “alive and kicking”.

"It’s certainly possible that Obama will antagonize the Democratic base by not advocating strongly enough for a public option in his health care proposals. It’s also possible that the drum beat of Republican attacks on everything associated with Obama and the Democrats will continue to drive down Democratic support among Independents. The pendulum tends to swing over time. But for now – looking at actual elections, not polls which can be spun any which way – there’s no hard empirical evidence of significant changes in the electorate’s behavior since November of 2008."

538’s chief blogger, Nate Silver, would likely agree. As we posted earlier, he recently used a model to find that a majority of Congressional districts probably approve of healthcare reform - and healthcare reform with a public option!


He even lists each member of Congress and how much their district probably supports or opposes the public option.

Yet Tom Schaller would probably disagree. He relays an analysis from the Cook Political Report which compares the 2010 midterms to the 1994 Republican Revolution. While most of the Cook report has to do with ethnic makeup of the electorate (white voters make up a considerably higher percentage of the turnout in midterms) there is some evidence that particular issues will play a significant role.

From the report:

"In 1994, it wasn't easy to be a Bush-district Democrat who voted for both the Clinton budget and the Brady handgun bill. In fact, out of the 12 Democrats who fit this description and ran for reelection, two thirds lost. So far this year, 20 of the 49 McCain-district Democrats have already voted for the "cap and trade" bill. If the House Democratic leadership insists on putting a health care bill with a public option to a vote, how many of these 20 can be relied upon to take on more political risk?

On the other hand, the lessons of 1994 might serve as a reality check for GOP challengers to Democrats who plan to vote against their party's leadership on both of this year's dominant agenda items, such as Reps. Bobby Bright (AL-02), Parker Griffith (AL-05), and Chet Edwards (TX-17). In districts with challenging numbers, the strategy of voting (and running) against party leadership has persisted for generations, if sometimes for only one reason. It works."

Schaller even points out that this may be why the Blue Dogs have been so reluctant to support a public option - despite Silver’s claims that it might actually help many of them.

Ultimately, though, it seems far fetched to say that healthcare reform will be the single biggest issue in next year’s elections. Most Congressional elections come down to the on-the-ground circumstances of competitive (typically open-seat) races and rather than a particular national issue. Voters might say that healthcare reform will be a major issue in their decision now - after all, now is the time that healthcare is a big issue - but voters tend to forget a lot in 14 months.

Furthermore, Congressional approval is usually pretty low, but incumbent members of Congress never seem to lose their seats. Americans hate Congress, but love their Congressmen.

Still, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the 2010 midterms have been compared to 1994. In the end, there’s probably no good way to say - at this point - what impact the healthcare debate will have on the voters in November next year.

Where the 2008 and 2010 Elections Overlap

It’s Thursday, April 2, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

After his defeat in court on Tuesday, former Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) appears to be finished, despite his motion for appeal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has taken up the issue of seating Democrat Al Franken once again.

In New York’s 20th Congressional District, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by only 25 votes. With the race to be decided by absentee ballots, Michael Barone of the Thomas Jefferson Street blog analyzes what we can expect.

Meanwhile, the 2010 elections have just begun. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) - who is currently the most vulnerable incumbent according to FiveThirtyEight.com - has already released this ad criticizing his likely primary opponent, former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA).



And with the troubles in the financial industry, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee - Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) - is at risk of losing his seat. A new Quinnipiac poll shows him 16 points behind former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT).

New Gallup Polls - Congress and Climate Change

It’s Friday, March 13, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

Two new polls released by Gallup lately give interesting signs about the American electorate.

The first is Congressional approval ratings. This month, Americans gave Congress a four-year high mark. 39% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.


Republicans were quick to point out that is was Democrats that were particularly supportive of the 111th Congress. One GOP aide told Politico

"It seems to show a widening of a partisan divide, not the post-partisan Nirvana we were promised. The increase is all from Democrats,” the aide said. “Gallup has another poll out today that shows eight out of 10 Democrats trust government more than they trust the private sector. So it’s little wonder that Democrats like this Congress — they’re making government bigger each and every day."

It is partially true. Democratic approval of Congress has surged from 17% in the beginning of the year to 57% in March. Independents, however, are also giving Congress higher marks - up from 17% in January to 34% in March.


Even Republican approval hasn’t dropped too much - down just 1% from the beginning of the year.

Pleased with these numbers, the DNC launched a new "Party of No" clock on their website. It features a picture of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Mitch McConnell wearing “no” buttons. The goal is to pressure the Republicans into offering an alternative to President Obama’s proposed budget, or to get in line and support it.

The second Gallup poll released Wednesday found that Americans are becoming more skeptical towards the severity of global warming. 41% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated by the news media.



Republicans and older Americans are among the most skeptical.





There is also a significant drop in the number of people who believe the effects of global warming have already began.



The “Bottom Line” according to Gallup:

Americans generally believe global warming is real. That sets the U.S. public apart from the global-warming skeptics who assembled this week in New York City to try to debunk the science behind climate change. At the same time, with only 34% of Americans saying they worry "a great deal" about the problem, most Americans do not view the issue in the same dire terms as the many prominent leaders advancing global warming as an issue.

Importantly, Gallup's annual March update on the environment shows a drop in public concern about global warming across several different measures, suggesting that the global warming message may have lost some footing with Americans over the past year.

This may have interesting implications to Government action on green technology and climate change legislation over the next year.