Obama in Cairo: A New Beginning

It's Friday, June 5, 2009. Here's what we're looking at:

Because there was so much talk about Obama's speech in Cairo, we decided to post the full video of his address. You can also read the full text by clicking here.



Rather than an entire new post on the subject, we suggest you read an earlier post we made when Obama addressed the Turkish Parliament: Obama, America, and Islam.

And despite attacks on Obama from Osama bin Laden, Obama has been careful not to mention him as a way of isolating him, according to an article in Politico.

Back home, a recent Pollster.com graph shows just how big of a shift has come in the Virginia Democratic Primary for Governor. With only a few days before the election, Deeds has made huge strides on both candidates - but particularly McAullife.



And we'll have more on that topic Monday.

Operatives to Orphans: The Lives of Political Campaign Workers

It’s not everyday that a really well-written article is done about campaign people. Usually the press ignores us because people don’t want to read about our lives - they don’t like the dirty work we do. But an insightful article in Good Magazine gives a wonderful exploration into the lives of former Obama campaign staff.

Overall, the article is a bit critical of the Obama campaign, perhaps not understanding the nature of the game.

"They had quit jobs, left colleges and grad schools, and ended relationships for something larger than themselves. At its peak, the campaign employed roughly 6,000 full-time workers. It seduced them with its patriotic promise, and the innocent were drawn out of the usual apathy and into what seemed an absolute purpose. With the movement now behind them, with sleeping bags and laptops and a decent shirt and pair of shoes, they drove to Washington, D.C., hopeful that Barack Obama might again give them something to do…

…Joshua was hired as a field officer for the campaign. Now, after happy hour, he walks to his car, a 1999 Toyota that he had driven from Ohio and which, for the past two months, has been his home."

Actually, it’s quite a phenomenon how so many Obama campaign workers are stuck in Washington, trying to get jobs specifically connected with the new president. In January the Obama transition team received over 350,000 applications for about 4,000 available slots in the upcoming administration.

And although their passion for Obama specifically is a new story, the general sense of the article is one that any campaign person can attest to personally.

Obama Staff on Election Night

"The days immediately following Barack Obama’s victory were intensely strange for these people. After the steady crescendo of anxiety and passion that climaxed on election night in a sort of national orgasm, the full-staff was left particularly limp. Returning to society was, after the manic frenzy that defined their campaign lives, a steep downer. And since the economic crisis, the financial meltdown, the Great Recession or whatever we eventually term the winter’s bad news, it became clear to them that life’s simple solutions, as they were, had run dry."

Although it is hard and exhausting work, it is something of a high. Be warned - prospective campaign people - about the crash that comes later.

We highly suggest reading this article.

Will Republicans Start a Comeback in New Jersey?

Today WAYLA reports on local politics from New Jersey.

Last night, moderate GOP candidate, former U.S. attorney Chris Christie, defeated the conservative small town Mayor Steve Lonegan for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey.

Now Christie will take on entrenched Democratic Governor Jon Corzine for the November 2009 General Election.

Currently Christie has a good lead Corzine in the polls. According to a Quinnipiac poll released May 20, Christie’s leads Corzine 45% - 38%, with independents supporting Christie 52% - 25%, and Republicans much more supportive of their nominee than Democrats are of Corzine.

A Rasmussen poll confirms this trend, with Corzine trailing Christie 47% - 38%. A Research 2000/DailyKos poll also finds Corzine behind 46% - 39%.

Much of this is due to the budget shortfalls that New Jersey - like so many other states - is facing in light of the recession. Recently, the governor suggested the state’s popular property tax rebate be cancelled to make up this shortfall.

Yet Democrats outnumber Republicans considerably in the Garden State, where a Republican has not won a state-wide race in 12 years.

Can the GOP really pull it off?

Winning a campaign comes down to three factors - time, people, and money. The most important of the three is time.

With 152 days until the General Election, Corzine will have plenty of time to mount a decent campaign if he can put it together properly. But if those who think they know who they support don’t change their minds, Corzine will have to win over the undecided voters at - at least - a 2 to 1 basis. That is easier said than done.

It’s hard to gauge the second factor - people (volunteers) - because there is really no scientific way of observing who will have the most ground support. At least not at this point. But although New Jersey is a remarkably Democratic state, Corzine is not the most popular politician within the party. 23% of Democratic primary voters opposed him yesterday - a big number for an incumbent. It seems unlikely he will bring in the number of volunteers that his campaign would like to recruit.

Of course, this won’t be an easily won factor for Christie either, as he was certainly the moderate of the two Republican candidates. Typically volunteers are activists who are very ideologically aligned to the right or left - not the middle.

In terms of money, Corzine has the advantage. The governor has raised $3.2 million to Christie’s $2.2 million. Furthermore, Corzine is wealthy. As a former Goldman Sachs CEO he has been able to put $2.3 million of his own money into the race. His net worth may be as high as $40 million. In order to match that, Christie will need a miracle.

But despite a fundraising advantage, Corzine’s future does not look so bright. Nothing is certain, but it will take a lot of effort on the part of his campaign - and perhaps a few slip-ups from Christie’s - to retain his office.

And a victory in New Jersey would be a big win for the GOP as America heads into the 2010 midterm elections.

Are Americans Looking for More Unorthodox Candidates?

Politico has an interesting article today about some of the confusing names on Capital Hill. Many of the freshmen class members of Congress have been put in Congressional Quarterly’s pronunciation guide for Hill clerks.



And, of course, the most obvious uncommon name in Washington is Barack Obama.

From the story:

…expert Grant Smith says voters often look to make meaningful connections with politicians’ names based on the phonetic sounds they make.

According to his research, candidates with the most pleasant-sounding names have won 84 percent of all presidential elections, based on a 20-part rating system that judges names by rhythm and sounds.

“It’s important to look at the relative comfort level of the names,” he said. “Voters like clear, distinctive rhythms.”

For instance, two-syllable names that alternate stronger and softer sounds, like Crapo and Clinton, score high, while choppier names like Dukakis score lower.

At least this is the way of thinking among campaign workers and election experts, because traditionally these are the trends that voters have made. This is why one of Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-VA) campaign staffers became so upset when people mispronounced her boss’s name.

The last straw came during a campaign visit to Crystal Cathedral. Pastor Maurice Carter introduced the candidate to the congregation as “Mr. Tom Perry Ellis” and continued to refer to him as “Mr. Ellis” — as if he were the namesake for the clothing line.

The congressman politely let it pass.

“I was cringing,” said press secretary Jessica Barba. “We’d heard a lot of variations on the trail, but that was a little painful.”

Some campaigns find clever ways to use the confusion to their advantage. Perriello, for example, told voters in a TV ad “How you pronounce my name isn’t what’s important; knowing what it stands for is.”


Others find clever ways to make voters remember the correct pronunciation. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, WI - who is simply known to his constituents as “Mayor Dave” since few can remember the surname - tried to familiarize voters with his last name with the button to the right.

Yet, with the election of Obama and several members of Congress with funny last names, the traditional trends don’t seem to hold.

[Now] election records suggest out of the ordinary increasingly appeals to voters. The names of incoming freshmen have grown more unusual over the years, thanks in part to a combination of the nation’s increasing diversity and, in the age of Barack Obama, a rising generation of voters with a greater appetite for unique names.

Only three of 65 freshmen elected to the 111th Congress have surnames that are included in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 100 most common last names.

And over the past four Congresses, common names in the freshman class have been decreasing, from 25.8 percent in the 108th Congress to just 4.6 percent in the current class.

Perhaps it is a new trend that Americans don’t expect to be able to pronounce every surname correctly these days, or maybe it’s because they’re looking for refreshing candidates that don’t resemble the archetype Washington politician.

Either way, it appears that Americans just aren’t looking for an orthodox name in their candidates anymore.

New Ads, New Media, and an Old President

It’s Friday, May 29, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

Two new ads are out today. The first is a radio ad for Virginia’s leading Democratic candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe. It features President Bill Clinton speaking highly of his old friend and is going to be played on black-oriented radio stations. Of course, President Clinton didn’t keep very strong ties to the black community during his attacks on Obama in the South Carolina primary last year - but perhaps by now they’ve forgiven him.

Meanwhile, one of McAuliffe’s primary opponents, Brian Moran, has posted one of McAuliffe’s new mail pieces on his website, evidently to show McAuliffe being a dirty campaigner. The piece lists four unnamed candidates for governor and lists their opinions. Then the recipient scratches off to see the candidates’ names - like a lottery ticket. Frankly, it’s a pretty innovative mail piece.

The second ad is a TV spot for at-risk Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), trying to convince voters that his work as Senate Finance Committee Chairman wasn’t all about bailouts.



Next up, the Obama Administration has been using New Media as an integral part of their transparency efforts. The Open Government Dialogue website functions as a suggestion box for citizens to brainstorm ideas to improve policy. The most supported suggestion: it comes from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). He says the White House should give Congress a mandatory 72-hour review period before approving any spending bills - a coy protest of how Congressional Democrats pushed through the stimulus bill.

Other top suggestions include encouraging local governments to adapt such transparency efforts, prosecuting Bush-Era officials, and - you guessed it - legalizing marijuana.

Finally, the Torture Debate takes a new turn today in Michigan where President George W. Bush finally defended the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques himself at a rare public appearance. Speaking to the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan, he also noted that our national security is at risk when “Ideologues…recruit when they find hopeless people. If you’re hungry, diseased, impoverished, you’re more easy to recruit.”

How Are Democrats Losing Colorado?

Today WAYLA reports on local politics from Colorado.


In 2008, Colorado proved to be a good state for Democrats. President Obama won the state with a 54% - 45% margin, while Senator Mark Udall won his first state-wide election by a 53% - 43% margin.


Additionally, both houses of the State Legislature as well as the Governor’s office are controlled by Democrats.

But all that appears to be changing. In recent months, Democrats have lost considerable support from residents of the Centennial State. A Public Policy Polling survey from last month finds President Obama with a 49% approval rating - far below the national average - with 45% disapproval in the state of Colorado.

Udall, meanwhile, suffers 41% approval and 46% disapproval ratings.

And this means trouble for the 2010 elections. According to another April poll, Democratic Governor Bill Ritter’s approval rating is 41% while his disapproval rating is 49%. Furthermore, a plurality of respondents said they would back Republican Scott McInnis over Ritter. Other state-wide offices appear to be slipping away as well.

The one saving grace for Democrats is that virtually no one in Colorado knows much about Democratic Senator Michael Bennet - so few that a quarter of voters say they know too little to have an opinion about him. Bennet was selected by Ritter to replace Ken Salazar, who was appointed by Obama to head the Interior Department.

Bennet’s race looks particularly interesting. He’s an east-coaster who moved to Colorado twelve years ago, eventually became Superintendent of Denver Public Schools, and was never really involved in politics. But he’s somehow raised $1.4 million already for his 2010 campaign, and his top Republican opponent is a District Attorney that has cost his constituency $100,000 in court fees for raiding a tax service company without properly following the Fourth Amendment. Nonetheless, Bennet has a greater disapproval rating than his approval rating and he is slightly behind one of his speculated GOP opponents.

As one Denver Post columnist put it recently, “what a bummer it can be to be a Democrat in Colorado.”

Why are the Democrats slipping?

There are only a few ways to try to explain this trend.

First, Democrats have been fortunate in Colorado recently with the help of Hispanic voters. Census Bureau estimates for 2008 say that 20% of the population in Colorado is Latino. Yet only 14% of respondents to the Obama/Udall poll identified as Hispanic.

Since the recession began, Colorado has been the state with the largest decline in immigrant employment, thus many are leaving. Of course, non-citizens cannot vote, but it is possible that Hispanic citizens are leaving the state as well. A recent study found that the “immigrant unemployment rate is now 5.6 percentage points higher than in the third quarter of 2007, before the recession began. Native unemployment has increased 3.8 percentage points over the same period.”

If immigrant unemployment is rising faster than native unemployment, it suggests that employers are waning from hiring immigrants at the moment - either because of a sense of nationalism sparked by the recession, or because of a crackdown on employment of illegal immigrants - and by extension waning from hiring Hispanics in general.

It’s a pretty loose theory.

Second, particular Democrats are lagging, not necessarily the entire party. For example, liberal blog ColoradoPols.com currently has Sen. Bennet listed as “down” because he’s “not a natural campaigner by any means [and] has been sloppy.”

But Bennet is not that far behind other Democrats in his approval rating. In fact, none of his GOP opponents - whether or not they have announced - is viewed more favorably than unfavorably by the voters. So this explanation does not work too well.

Third, all politics is local, and state-level Democrats have been making the party unpopular. This is probably the best theory.

From a conservative columnist’s recent Op-Ed in the Denver Post:

“We're now slogging through a recession that Ritter recklessly failed to prepare for, his legislative allies are split and ineffectual…Democrats this session failed on a number of cherished goals, including a tuition break for illegal immigrants, easing sentences and ending the death penalty, quitting the Electoral College, and nanny-state rules for cellphones and seatbelts.”

These have been some big issues in Colorado’s State House. Thanks to TABOR, Colorado has difficulty producing surpluses in good economic times and the budget gets punished for it during bad economic times. It’s similar to the fiscal mess in California that has persisted since the passage of Proposition 13. Since a Democrat is in the Governor’s office, he is going to get the blame.

Other issues mentioned above are going to be equally unpopular. The Electoral College issue, for example, is one that probably doesn’t sit well with voters. The state Senate approved a bill to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in which a state’s electoral votes would go to the overall national winner of a presidential race. Once enough states join the compact to reach 270 votes, the compact would go into effect. Because Colorado is a smaller state, they would effectively get less say in a presidential contest. Besides, a good communications director can easily argue that the bill is taking the vote away from Coloradans, and make a GOP political gain.

Voters do not necessarily separate the actions of national party leaders from the state party leaders. Hence, these local issues may very well be influencing Obama’s approval rating in Colorado.

Of course, even that theory is not concrete. As more stories and research on this issue develop, we will keep you informed as to why Democrats are letting Colorado slip away from them.


UPDATE: One explanation that hadn't been discussed is the possibility that Coloradans simply have an unusually low opinion of politicians in general (at least at the present time). For one thing it almost seems unreal that support for the Democrats would diminish so quickly in just six or seven months. Additionally, the favorability ratings of Republican challengers aren't too high either - which we mentioned before.

If this is the case the Democrats would not have to worry too much. As Kelly Fero told us in January, "In the end, every election is about accomplishing two goals: taking away the voters' permission to vote for your opponent and granting them permission to vote for you as an acceptable alternative." If all it takes is demonstrating oneself as the lesser of two evils, the Democrats will still have an even playing field come 2010.

New Anti-Reid Ad

The NRSC has released a bizarre new ad attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for a fundraiser for him in Las Vegas on Tuesday.



We thought you might enjoy that - although it still might not compare to some of these.

All Things Sotomayor

We usually don’t do posts about the same topic two days in a row, but there is a terrific string of stories on Politico today about President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The first story is an excellent overview of the political implications behind the Sotomayor pick. Obviously the nomination of a Hispanic woman brings with it the furthering divide between the GOP and the Latino community, but there are less obvious implications on the local level with midterm elections next year.

Second is the “How and Why” behind Obama’s selection. For example, Politico writes that with the nomination coming during the current Congressional recess “Obama caught the Republican minority off-guard, with critics not equipped to respond with the force they would during the session.”

The last story from Politico is about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and his opposition to Sotomayor. Like Rush Limbaugh did yesterday, Gingrich accuses her of being a “racist” for a comment she made in 2002. And although RNC Chairman Michael Steele has been warning Republicans not to say things like that, RNC New Media Director Todd Herman - the man in charge of the social networking message - went dramatically off-message when he posted “new racism = no better than old” today on Twitter.

Finally, the New York Times had an interesting story today about the upcoming confirmation battle. Of course, they forgot to mention the ad that’s ready to hit the airwaves.



Additionally, five of the past eight posts on FiveThirtyEight.com have been about Sotomayor - most of which use Silver’s skills in research and mathematics to defend the nominee from her opponents.

Will the Senate Confirm Sotomayor?

President Obama nominated Second District Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter to the U.S. Supreme Court this morning.

Here is the full video of the announcement. Watch it until the end for some insightful analysis from the NBC correspondents.

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There is already a great deal of criticism coming from the right. Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) today called the appointment “the clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric.”

Meanwhile, Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, said Sotomayor was “a radical pick that divides America…This appointment would provide a pedestal for an avowed judicial activist to impose her personal policy and beliefs onto others from the bench at a time when the Courts are at a crossroads.”

Here they are referring to the now widely circulated video of Sotomayor sitting on a panel at Duke University in 2005.



But this was undoubtedly already seen by the President’s staff during the vetting process, and a little more footage indicates that she was talking about precedent and not actually policy - making it a perfectly reasonable statement.



However, the criticisms won’t end there. In a 2002 speech at Berkeley she said that a judge’s personal background “affect the facts that judges choose to see” and “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”

At face value, that already is enough to fuel the fire against Sotomayor in the confirmation process, where Republicans will accuse her of judicial activism. But these remarks will be complemented by her recent ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she sided with the city of New Haven, Connecticut over a group of white firefighters after the city threw out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough.

This explains why Huckabee said “If she is confirmed, then we need to take the blindfold off Lady Justice.”

Nonetheless, Republican leaders have already said they will reserve judgment on Sotomayor until they have more information.

From Politico:

“Senate Republicans will treat Judge Sotomayor fairly,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. “But we will thoroughly examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law even-handedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele released a restrained statement, declaring: “Republicans will reserve judgment on Sonia Sotomayor until there has been a thorough and thoughtful examination of her legal views.”

But it already looks like she may have obstacles to overcome. In 1998, Senate Republicans held up the confirmation to her current bench for a year. When she was finally confirmed, it was with the approval of only seven of the current forty Republican Senators. Some, specifically Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), have begun to sound skeptical of whether they will support her again.

Among the Republicans who voted against her were current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Minority Whip John Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), and a particularly important one, ranking Judiciary Committee member Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Each of them will be instrumental going in to the fight against her confirmation.

It will be an ugly battle, but will she still be confirmed?

As the media digs through her life and career, we will learn more about Sotomayor and more about what could prevent her from being confirmed.

As of now, she should have no problem getting through the Judiciary Committee, although she may not have the luxury of any GOP votes there.

The only way for Republicans to defeat her confirmation then is a filibuster. This action would have several backlashes for the GOP

First, each of the Republicans that fight for a filibuster will be subject to the political pressure of looking like a hypocrite. When several Democrats tried to filibuster Justice Samuel Alito the Senate Republicans had a fit over what they perceived as a misuse of filibusters.

Second, they would fail. It is unlikely that every single Republican will vote against cloture. The GOP Senators from Maine, in particular, will likely support her confirmation. It is also probable that Senators such as Judd Gregg (R-NH) will support cloture (even if he opposes her confirmation) in order to appease their liberal constituents. Gregg, Snowe, and Collins all approved her confirmation to her current bench.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, many Republicans will not want to oppose the first Hispanic nominee for the High Court. As blogger Glenn Thrush wrote this morning, “every GOP leader with a pulse knows that opposing her could accelerate the stampede of Latinos out of the GOP in the southwest, west and Texas.”

As of now, we can expect Sotomayor to be confirmed.

Polls for Senators and Dick Cheney

It’s Friday, May 22, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

Public Policy Polling has released approval ratings for several senators, most of whom have an election coming up in 2010. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) leads the pack with 62% approval and 25% disapproval. On the bottom is Roland Burris (D-IL) with 17% approval, 62% disapproval.

As America gets ready for the upcoming health care debate, BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina is putting the finishing touches on a PR campaign against President Obama’s plan for a public plan. A detailed outline of their upcoming ads can be found here. Paul Krugman sounds off against them and encourages the administration to stay strong.

Everyone knows that former VP Dick Cheney has been in the news a lot lately, but what do Americans think about it? Actually, a new CNN poll finds that his favorability rating is on the rise: up from 29% to 37% since he left office. Granted, 55% still have an unfavorable view of him. The poll also tracks Bush’s new favorability rating.

But despite this growing support, Republican politicians are trying to distance themselves from Cheney.

Finally, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has introduced the most blogged-about piece of legislation in the 111th Congress: a resolution to get 2010 declared the “Year of the Bible”.

Our favorite take on it comes from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): “Does that mean 2009 is not the year of the Bible? What is 2012 the year of? The Quran?”

Obama and Cheney: Dueling Speeches Today in Washington

We have full videos of the Obama and Cheney speeches today on the torture debate.

For a transcript of the President’s speech, click here.

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For a transcript of the former Vice President’s speech, click here.

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

Looking Forward to Redistricting

After the 2010 Census, State Legislatures across the country will begin remapping the U.S. Congressional districts for the next ten years. Under typical political practice, the party in power will draw the district lines so it is the most advantageous to them.

Currently the Democrats control 27 State Legislatures, while the Republicans control just 14. Nebraska has a non-partisan State Legislature and the other 8 are split between their two houses.


In 2008, New York, Wisconsin, Delaware, and Nevada went from split control to Democratic dominated while Oklahoma and Tennessee went from split control to Republican dominated. Ohio and Alaska both went from Republican controlled to split control - although it doesn’t matter in Alaska, where only one Representative is elected for a statewide seat.

It’s certainly a better picture for Democrats than it was in 2000, when Republicans controlled 18 State Legislatures to the Democrats’ 16.


How does it look for the two parties in 2010?

If the Democrats can hold their gains and even pick up a few more states (such as Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan) there is a good outlook for them.

However, population is growing quicker in western states such as Arizona and Utah, which will probably be allocated a few more seats after the Census. This will give the GOP a few more seats, though probably a relatively small number.

All in all, it looks a lot better for Democrats.

So what can the Democrats do to take advantage of the situation?

Tom Schaller, a new blogger at FiveThirtyEight.com, points out that Democrats have been burdened by the creation of majority-minority districts.

“…Democrats have their core supporters over-packed into too few districts. In the final chapter of my book, Whistling Past Dixie, I demonstrated that the latter was a key factor, in part because race-minded redistricting produces certain districts with overwhelming Democratic majorities, inefficiently so for Democrats.”

The intent of these race-minded redistricting practices is to make Congress more racially representative of America - a admirable goal, but one that appears to set back the Democratic Party. In fact, State Legislatures have gone to great lengths to gerrymander districts to accomplish this goal.

Take the 4th Congressional District in Illinois, which follows the patterns of Hispanic residency around Chicago in order to send a Hispanic representative to Congress.


Schaller also points out a recent study that attributes growing partisan polarization to “the increasing sophistication of redistricting software”.

“‘The trend has also been fueled by a resurgence in straight-ticket voting as each party's electoral coalition has grown more ideologically homogeneous since the 1960s.’ (Translation: Republicans cleared out many moderate House Democrats from the South and Plains states while Democrats this decade finally got around to returning the favor, so to speak, by clearing out House Republicans in the Northeast and Midwest.)”

The Democratic State Legislatures could do themselves a big favor towards creating a super-majority in the House of Representatives if they remap district lines to create more politically-diverse districts that will still be easy to win for Democratic candidates.


UPDATE: Ed Kilgore at 538 has a good post that expands on this topic.

Can Michael Steele’s "New GOP" Really Succeed?

RNC Chairman Michael Steele addressed his committee today, in the wake of a vote to rebrand the Democrats as the “Socialist Democrat Party”.

The speech fell along the lines of an ideas piece he submitted for Politico today - creating a New GOP. He said there would be three important ways for the Republicans to turn the corner.

1) The GOP must be forward-looking

From his speech:

The Republican Party is again going to emerge as the party of new ideas. It will take some time, for sure, but it is beginning now. Our governors are emerging with fresh answers to old problems. Some of our brightest stars in Congress are emerging with new approaches. New groups and new entities are being formed. Republicans are rising once again with the energy, the focus, and the determination to turn our timeless principles into new solutions for the future. The introspection is now over. The corner has been turned.

Simple enough, but as his speech demonstrates later on, a lot of the new ideas sound like more of the same.

2) The GOP must not shy away from opposing Obama policies

The guy who campaigned in favor of bottom-up style of governing is presiding over the most massive top down expansion of government bureaucracy and spending our country has ever seen or even contemplated.

Candidate Obama was very moderate in his views, but President Obama could not possibly be further to the far left. Candidate Obama talked about fiscal responsibility, about government living within its means. But President Obama is saddling our unborn grandchildren with mountains of debt. Candidate Obama boasted about cutting taxes, but President Obama will have to raise taxes to pay for his massive top-down government explosion.

Steele has done his homework. Recent polls show that Americans are very concerned about the size of the deficit this year, and that concern can easily play into the hands of the “tax-and-spend liberal” message of the GOP with some clever maneuvering.

He went on to say that they should not wage personal attacks on Obama. From his piece in Politico:

Let me make one point clear – Republicans will not make our opposition to the president personal. Republicans will challenge policies of the president that we believe are wrong, but our opposition will be done in very sharp contrast to the classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of President Bush.

Not only is it admirable strategy, but should be an effective one. The reason is simple: Americans will see it as an admirable strategy.

But it may be easier said than done. The far-right (that is essentially the remains) of the Republican Party hate Obama and do not fear demeaning him in “classless” ways. Take some of the demonstrators from the Tea Party protests for example.


But let’s assume that Steele has more influence as RNC Chair than he actually does, and the GOP only uses constructive arguments against Obama’s policies. The GOP will still be short of improvement. The simple reason is that while messaging may be improving within Republican ranks, and economic ideas are brewing, they are still the “Party of No” on issues like health care, the environment, and labor reform.

In his speech, Steele could only address these issues as such:

President Obama now wants to cap and tax every single American into paying higher utility rates. President Obama and his allies in Congress have now put their taxing eyes on soft drinks. President Obama and Democrat leaders want a brand new tax on our health care benefits and are devising a plan to give federal government bureaucrats control of our health care system. President Obama is backing a plan to take away the basic right of every American worker to cast a private ballot.

No real solutions found there.

Yet in his tirade against Obama, Steele did bring up some things that will sound like a reasonable argument - at least in a way that would presumably lead up to the GOP telling America about solutions of their own.

President Obama has for the first time in our history politicized the US Census process by putting political appointees in his White House in charge of it and wanting a corrupt, fraudulent organization to run it. President Obama and his far left allies are flirting with an attempt to squelch the basic freedom of speech of our nation's airwaves. President Obama's Attorney General is trying to use Mexican drug gang wars as a reason to advocate a new gun ban in America.

President Obama's Administration has disparaged our war heroes and veterans by suggesting that they are a threat to our safety, when the truth is they are the cause of our safety. The president, who thinks that every student should be able to go to college, is cutting much needed funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The president, who pledged that he would create millions of jobs through federal public works projects, now requires project labor agreements on such projects which effectively denies small and minority owned businesses access to those jobs because they are not unionized.

And the one the galls me the most: While the president sends his kids to a private school, he is at the very same time taking away opportunity scholarships from poor Hispanic and African-American kids right here in our nation's capital. Those are the facts of the president's first 100 days.

Harsh? Maybe - but if the GOP adopts these points in a standard message it could prove effective.

3) The GOP must seize on the momentum already building up nationally from the grassroots

Is there really such momentum? It’s possible - Steele seems pretty confident that it’s there.

Too bad the chattering classes inside the Beltway are too busy fretting over phony disputes and intra-party intrigue to notice that a change has indeed come to America. But it's not the one the Obama Administration wants aired on the nightly news.

Those of you who live outside of Washington know what I'm talking about. Those of you who actually attend Lincoln Day dinners, and county party events, those of you who toil in the vineyards, spending time in communities, in diners, in barber shops, and in coffee shops where real, every day people can be found. You know it is real. You can see it and feel it.

This change comes in a tea bag!

Of course, this momentum has hardly been seen. Thousands of conservatives protested against Obama’s fiscal policies on Tax Day, but thousands of liberals protested against the Iraq War (on a pretty consistent basis) before the 2004 elections as well.

But as we mentioned last month, it may still be cause for concern if you’re a Democrat.

So will Steele’s “New GOP” succeed?

Steele is beginning to mount an effective message against the Democrats and he properly recognizes the value of conservative grassroots activists to the GOP.

But it is only the beginning of a winning strategy, and he has many kinks to work out.

For example, he complains that Obama is moving the country to the far-left. Yet, polls show that American opinion is largely shifting left. Flat(ter) tax philosophy and individual responsibility are ideas that don’t resonate with Americans as well as they used to. Americans are more concerned with health care and global warming than welfare or crime. The GOP has not been able to produce a cohesive vision on these fronts.

Take the issue of gay marriage. It’s becoming legal in more and more states and could be legalized nationally within the next ten years. Polls find that more and more Americans are supporting this non-traditional arrangement. The shift has left the GOP scrambling to redefine their opposition to it.

Recently, Steele tried to recast this issue as a business issue rather than a values issue.

This is what he said on Saturday, in the shoes of a small-business owner:

Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for…So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.

The obvious flaw in the argument is that straight couples that get married would be bad for business too, and thus bad for America - a big contradiction to Republican ideology. As columnist Matt Bandyk said of the Steele statement, “if this is actually what he meant to argue, the party's leadership is in bigger trouble than has been thought.”

The point is that America is progressing and the Republican Party is finding it difficult to adapt. Despite his pleas for Republicans to stop looking back, Steele invoked the name of Ronald Reagan a countless number of times today.

But that’s just the thing - the GOP needs a new Reagan and they know it. He not only saved them after Watergate, but reinvented conservatism to make it popular. In the aftermath of the Bush Era, they need such a messianic figure again.

Otherwise, the New GOP that Steele envisions will have a lot of trouble in the months and years ahead.

The Return of the Abortion Debate

In recent days, there has been a flurry of stories surrounding the issue of abortion.

Two recent polls find the United States to be moving in a “pro-life” direction and yesterday President Obama gave the commencement address to the new graduates of Notre Dame - a catholic university - which sparked criticism from the pro-life community.

The first poll - released April 30th by the Pew Research Center - found that support for abortion in most or all cases has dropped to 46% while opposition to abortion in most or all cases has gone up to 44% of Americans.


The poll found that support for abortion rights decreased significantly among Republicans - but this may be more attributable to moderates leaving the GOP than changes in their views on abortion. But support for abortion decreased even more so among independents.

In terms of religion, Evangelicals continue to be the most opposed to abortion (with only 23% of them supporting it) while a majority of mainline Protestants were in favor. Yet support for abortion decreased 15% among mainline Protestants since August last year.


A second poll - released on Friday by Gallup - found that for the first time in the history of the poll, a majority of Americans (51%) describe themselves as “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice”.


Furthermore, the Gallup poll confirms the Pew poll’s findings on the trend in terms of political ideology.


Is America really more Pro-Life?

Nate Silver and Ed Kilgore at FiveThirtyEight.com were quick to point out that the findings of these polls might be dubious.

Silver combined the two questions (“legal or illegal?” and “pro-life or pro-choice?”) into one graph and found that the general trend in such surveys is that America is simply becoming more opinionated about abortion - not necessarily more opposed to it.


Kilgore, meanwhile, argued that the Gallup poll failed to accurately account for the fact that the GOP is growing smaller and produced an outlier survey - one that is terribly misleading about the actual circumstances of the national opinion.

He also pointed out that most pro-life Americans are not hardliners - they will make exceptions in certain circumstances, such as a risk to the mother’s health.

In particular, GSS shows an exceptionally durable 80%-plus level of support for a "health exception," which happens to be the actual flash-point separating pro-life activists from the rest of the population. In other words, lots of "pro-life" Americans consistently, and over decades, favor an exception that pro-life activists adamantly consider a complete repudiation of the pro-life point of view.

Of course, a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Ross Douthat also points out that many pro-choice Americans are not hardliners either - in fact, two out of three Americans support restrictions on second and third trimester abortions.

Douthat also points out another interesting bit from the Pew poll - “Americans under 35, while more sympathetic to gay marriage than their parents, also tend to be slightly more anti-abortion”.

And he’s right. With the exception of senior citizens, the Millennials are the least supportive generation of abortion, as the Pew table above indicates. As Silver wrote in his post, “There are evidently an increasing number of pro-life, pro-gay marriage Americans…a position it would have been very unusual to encounter just a few years ago.”

In fact, it certainly appears that the entire abortion debate is very different than just a few years ago based on the evidence we’ve seen. The specific views vary widely from individual to individual, often for very different reasons.

But what is the impact of this in Washington?

We’ll definitely see this issue come up again as Obama finds his nominee to replace Justice Souter for the Supreme Court - but there are already palpable changes taking place in the political (rather than policy) sphere.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and RNC Chairman Michael Steele faced off on the controversy surrounding Obama’s visit to Notre Dame.

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No surprises there. The Democratic leader toted the party line of keeping abortions rare, safe, and legal, while the Republican leader toted the party line of the sacredness of life.

Except the interesting thing is that Kaine is pro-life, while Steele (although he describes himself as “pro-life”) said earlier this year that abortion is a woman’s personal choice.

Thus the traditional political lines are being blurred.

And that’s where Obama’s speech at Notre Dame comes in. Speaking to a full auditorium, he said

…when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women."

Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

And there in lies some of the President’s greatest attributes - inclusiveness and pragmatism. Since taking office Obama has lived by a creed to make the middle ground the higher ground.

In a complex debate with a diverse range of opinions on a sensitive issue - and arguably more complex, diverse, and sensitive than ever - Obama has touched on the essential principles of a common ground by which all Americans can agree and work together.

Perhaps it is because of a deep-founded conviction, or perhaps it is simply the shifting lines on the issue, but Obama has taken yet another controversy as an opportunity and hit a political home run.

You can watch the full commencement address here.

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Back on the Bush Years

It’s Friday, May 15, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

After suspending them early in his term, President Obama today decided to resume military tribunals of terror detainees - although no decision has been made as to when they would proceed. Although they will include some sweeping reforms (such as banning hearsay evidence) that contrast with how they operated during the Bush Administration, liberal groups like the ACLU still are not satisfied.

Obama isn’t the only one stuck between a rock and a hard place (or “hawks and a liberal base”) - Attorney General Eric Holder received a major grilling yesterday, defending the Administration from both conservatives and liberals on the House Judiciary Committee over the detainees issue.

As we’ve said before, the smartest move - in political terms - would be to appease the base on these issues.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing her own controversy on the issue of detainees. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) even went so far as to call for her removal today.

Finally, the architect of the Bush years himself - Karl Rove - is being interviewed by special prosecutors who are investigating the firing of nine U.S. attorneys during Bush’s time in office.

GOP Obstructionism in the Senate

Today Senate Republicans blocked their first Obama Administration nominee. David Hayes, the nominee for Interior deputy secretary, would have been easily confirmed had it not been for a failed cloture vote.

The vote for cloture was 57-39 - just three votes short.

It all began when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar put an oil-and-lease sale in Utah on hold. That sparked Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) to call for an opposition to incoming Interior Department nominees.

It seems like a strange move for all but two GOP Senators - John Kyle and Olympia Snowe - to rally behind Bennett for his local constituency in a partisan effort to filibuster a non-political civil servant such as Hayes. Especially for the Interior Department. But that’s exactly what they did.

What’s really incredible is that Bennett said that Hayes was qualified for the position and "I want to do everything I can to get Hayes confirmed as rapidly as possible."

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he’ll wait until Al Franken is seated - if he needs to - in order to confirm Hayes. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin pledged to bring the Hayes confirmation back to a vote on Monday.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) told reporters today "What we have today is a classic hostage-taking," while Salazar said in a press statement:

"This was a tired vote of bitter obstructionism … It may be uncomfortable for some to watch us have to clean up mess after mess -- from corruption to lawbreaking -- that is the previous administration's legacy at Interior, but to cast a vote against such a qualified and fine person is the height of cynicism."

While Salazar stood by the decision to hold-up the lease, he told Bennett in a letter yesterday that he would instruct Hayes (once nominated) to go to Utah and review the situation.

Beyond this, the confirmation process of Obama nominees has been the slowest for any President in ages. The last time it was comparatively slow was in 1981, where (by this point in the year) Democrats in the Senate had confirmed 125 Reagan nominees. This year the GOP has only confirmed 104 of Obama’s.

But why are Senate Republicans doing this?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joined the opposition to Hayes because of her disagreements with the Obama Administration on enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

But that only accounts for one GOP Senator, and it really isn’t a good answer.

The truth is that this could serve as a huge setback to the GOP. If this story gets the attention it deserves it would make the Republican Party seem as hyper-partisan as ever.

If we were Senate Republicans, we would use the upcoming Supreme Court nomination to replace Justice David Souter as an opportunity to save what grace the GOP has left with the voters.

Will Specter Survive While Opposing EFCA?

The Number One piece of progressive legislation that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) has refused to support since switching parties is the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill - which would make it easier for workers to organize for collective bargaining - has been mentioned several times by Specter since he became a Democrat.


Before the party-switch, he told Republican constituents "the 41st Republican, whose name is Arlen Specter, is vital to stopping…passage of card check".

In his campaign statement following the switch, he told voters

"My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change."

Of course, during the 110th Congress, Specter supported EFCA as a co-sponsor and said he was "delighted" to let it get past the cloture vote. Since then he changed his stance - probably to satisfy Republican donors for his upcoming battle with former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) - and kept his position consistent through the party-switch so as not to appear to be a flip-flopper. But this campaign pragmatism has put him in a bit of a predicament.

As we mentioned before, the most significant reason that Specter changed parties was to avoid a Republican Primary with Toomey. But without supporting EFCA, Specter will be at a serious disadvantage in a possible Democratic Primary.

State Rep. Bill Kortz (D-Dravosburg) and Joseph Torsella (a former aide to Gov. Ed Rendell) are already running against Specter in the Primary, and many expect Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to jump in as well.

The unions may be inclined to support any of these challengers so long as Specter opposes EFCA - a major problem for him in a Democratic Primary. As some of the most efficient progressive organizing associations, labor unions are particularly important for Democrats to win the support of going into an election.

And in Pennsylvania they’re especially important. With more than 800,000 union members statewide - and the home to the very politically active United Steelworkers - the Keystone State will be a tough place for any Democrat that opposes such a key labor law while going into a Primary.

So far the unions have made the importance of this bill clear. Last month, more than 300 union members marched in Pittsburg in an effort to reverse Specter’s position.

Yet Specter claims his newfound concerns with EFCA are not entirely about an anti-labor principle. Earlier this month he said “I’m opposed to giving up the secret ballot or mandatory arbitration as they are set forth in the bill, but I do believe that labor law reform is past overdue”. So a compromise to the Card Check Clause may be enough to bring him on board.

Sen. Diane Feinstein has such a compromise.

From the National Journal:

[Diane Feinstein's] proposal would replace the card-check provision, which would allow workers to unionize if a majority signed authorization cards and strip a company's ability to demand a secret ballot election. "It's a secret ballot that would be mailed in ... just like an absentee ballot. The individual could take it home and mail it in," Feinstein said. If a majority mailed the ballots to the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB would recognize the union.

It may not be what the unions had in mind, but many union organizers say the proposal sounds alright.

Specter, meanwhile, has suggested the Arbitration Clause could be amended to make "last best offer" arbitration (or Baseball Arbitration) into law. And Bill Samuel of the AFL-CIO says "we're open to that."

As far as passing the legislation goes, Specter may not be the only one to change positions with the compromise. It could satisfy the concerns of other moderate senators such as Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Udall (D-CO), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

Ultimately, the unions may be disappointed with the concessions, but pleased that such reform would actually pass.

Specter will have his own reasons to support such a compromise bill. His future may depend on it.

Obama's First White House Correspondents' Dinner

It’s Monday, May 11, 2009. Here’s what we’re looking at:

President Obama made the crowd laugh Saturday night at his first White House Correspondents’ Dinner. See the full video here.



Following him was actual comedian Wanda Sykes.

The Republicans Are Recruiting RINOs - But Why?

Politico has a good article today on the NRSC’s latest candidate recruitment. The committee - which is run by conservative Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) - has been recruiting moderate Republicans to run for Senate in 2010.

The party’s top choice for Florida’s open Senate seat is popular Gov. Charlie Crist, who raised eyebrows earlier this year with his vigorous advocacy of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package — he even went so far as to appear with Obama at a Florida rally in February. In Connecticut, the national GOP has lobbied former Rep. Rob Simmons — who holds a higher lifetime rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action group than Specter does — to challenge Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

In Delaware, where there is widespread consensus that just one Republican — Rep. Michael Castle, the co-founder of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership — can win Joe Biden’s former seat, the push is on to get him to announce for the Senate.

In the Midwest, there’s Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk, another leading centrist viewed as the GOP’s best hope of capturing a blue-state Senate seat — the one Obama vacated after he was elected president.

On the West Coast, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas is hoping to land self-proclaimed moderate businesswoman Carly Fiorina to run against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in a state that gave Obama 61 percent of the vote.

It is a quiet and pragmatic move on the part of the GOP. They are looking for candidates that represent the state’s local values over party ideologues and they’re specifically targeting states in which the Democratic senators have "screwed up".

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) - the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee which oversaw the bailout - is a good example of a Senator who fell from popularity in his home state. Senator Roland Burris (D-IL), on the other hand, was never popular to begin with due to his ties to former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL).

But the party is moving further to the right and many right-wing activists have already been trying to purge moderate members that are currently in office. Similarly, they are trying to ensure their party doesn’t move any further left with the new challengers.

"Sen. Cornyn has done a great job with recruitment," said Carl Forti, a Republican consultant who headed the National Republican Congressional Committee’s independent expenditure effort in 2006. "The ironic thing in the House and Senate is you need moderate candidates to win if you want to be successful. That’s why you currently see Pennsylvania Republicans looking for a moderate to take on Toomey, because of the belief that while Toomey is fine in a primary, he can’t win the general election because he’s too conservative. This will be an ongoing problem for the party"…

…Still, despite the focus on a moderate-rich recruiting class, it’s not a foregone conclusion that all of them will be on the ballot in November 2010. In Connecticut, Florida and Pennsylvania, viable conservative candidates are already running against the national party’s darlings.

In Connecticut, state Sen. Sam Caligiuri is running against Simmons and is expected to attack his moderate voting record in Congress. If Crist runs, he’ll have to defend his support of the stimulus against a more conservative opponent, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. And any Republican who jumps into the Pennsylvania race will have to get past Toomey, whom conservatives laud for forcing Specter out of the party.

"It’s ironic but not surprising that the Senate Republicans would see a path that would be blazed by moderates," said Republican pollster Adam Geller. "There’s a chunk of GOP voters that won’t make the political calculation and rather would stand with their principles, even if it means they lose."

One could see the recruitment of these "RINOs" (or Republicans-In-Name-Only) as an experiment. If some can get past the primary it will demonstrate where the GOP base is most ideological and where it is more pragmatic. If some of these moderate Republicans can win their General Elections, this may prove to be an important strategy that could dramatically shift GOP campaign operations in the years to come.

But for 2010, the best that Republicans like Cornyn can hope for is gaining more insight as to how to retake power.

Getting Inside the Heads of the GOP

Since the November elections we have been looking at the discord and confusion within the Republican Party. With the 2010 elections coming to the forefronts of our minds, the GOP doesn’t seem to have made much ground.

So what are they thinking?

Following his departure from the GOP last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) made his points about the direction of his old party.

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Immediately following him was an interesting conversation between host David Gregory, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, and former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie. It was a good chance to hear the thoughts from within the Republican Party.

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And an online follow-up.

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Obviously there is a lot of confusion, but despite a scrambling opposition, Democrats should be worried about one particular message the GOP has discovered - "checks and balances".

It seems that some new push-poll data conducted by Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies has found it to be an effective argument for GOP campaigns. “Our latest national survey provides strong evidence that voters are concerned that they have given too much power to one political party and that Republicans can provide a check and balance,” said pollster Glen Bolger.

They may not have it all figured out, but the GOP is coming closer to a cohesive message for the 2010 elections. Democrats should make a note of it.