Posts Tagged ‘ Congress ’

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It’s About (the) Time: Ending the Nonstop Campaign

Monday, October 31st, 2011
Lindsay Mark Lewis


Lindsay Mark Lewis is Executive Director of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Lindsay Mark Lewis

Somewhere in the last two decades, politicians began to believe that the way to win an electoral majority is not to prove that you can govern well, but to prove that you can campaign.

Today, politicians are caught in an ever-escalating, never-ending, 24-hour, 365-day campaign cycle dominated by the burden of raising enough money to wage a campaign creditably. For incumbents, the heft of a candidate’s war chest is what keeps potential challengers at bay—which means that even the safest members need the insurance of a sizeable sum of cash on hand. And for every candidate, last quarter’s results are just about the only proxy by which a candidate’s viability is judged.

The constant horserace over money (not ideas) has taken its toll on the quality of governance. For example, the Rasmussen report released a poll in July finding that 85 percent of Americans view members of Congress as “just out for their own careers.” Almost every poll finds Congress’s approval rating in the single digits.

Second, serious debate about any issue—e.g., the federal budget or taxes—is virtually impossible because there is no “safe period” in which an issue can’t be turned into a political football. Moreover, politicians simply have no time to devote to learning the arcana of policy. They are too busy attending fundraisers.  As Republican freshman Richard Nugent said, “As soon as I got to Congress, people started asking me if I had started fund-raising,” Nugent said. “I was amazed at that. It seems to me that a person ought to get some results first before you start getting too focused on re-election. Otherwise, what on earth are the voters sending you to Washington to do?”

Read the entire policy brief.

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Six Reasons the Supercommittee Will Succeed

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
The Progressive Policy Institute




by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI Senior Fellow Paul Weinstein finds six reasons to believe the Congressional Supercommittee will succeed:

Whatever you think of Standard and Poor’s decision to downgrade America’s credit, their justification was fairly plain. Political gridlock has managed to scuttle several successive efforts to get a handle on the federal debt. And few, if anyone, is sanguine that the new “supercommittee” in Congress will have any better luck.

But a closer look reveals that, despite the nation’s pessimism, there are several reasons to believe that the 12-member supercommittee may be able to implement a plan that sets the nation back on track. The setup has been rigged to force a deal. So, in an age where “shorting” the market has become a sort of dirty word, the smart money may be in betting that Washington will enact a responsible comprehensive budget framework by the end of the year.

First, the dynamics of the committee itself suggest that that building sufficient support in the room will be that much more palatable. Negotiators need only corral seven of the twelve members (50 percent plus one) to send any deal straight to the floor of both houses of Congress. By comparison, the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission was required to receive a full 77 percent, and managed only 61. In essence, the fact that a decision by any single member could boost any proposal past the required threshold will compel every member of the commission to negotiate in a serious manner. That diminishes the likelihood that political shenanigans will scuttle this deal like they have undermined previous negotiations.

Read the other five by clicking here.

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Posted in A New Framework for Growth and Equity, Daily Fix, Fiscal Responsibility, Fixing Our Broken Politics | No Comments »

A Republic, If We Can Keep It

Friday, June 24th, 2011
Tom Eland


Tom Eland is a researcher with Americans for Campaign Reform, a bipartisan group chaired by former Senators Bill Bradley, Bob Kerrey, Warren Rudman, and Al Simpson. He is a 2010 graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Worcester College, Oxford.

by Tom Eland

While ordinary Americans celebrate the start of summer warm weather and bemoan the lack of progress on a deficit reduction deal in Congress, members of Congress themselves have been gearing up for the July 4th recess by engaging in a different sort of Washington pastime–by raising money.

The week before the July 4th recess has seen a flurry of congressional fundraising ahead of the upcoming June 30th quarterly deadline.

The National Republican Congressional Committee reports that GOP House members are scheduled to hold one hundred fundraisers before then with over 50 alone scheduled for this week.  House Democrats are not far behind.

Republican fundraisers are bullish about the potential of their party to bring in the money principally because their party is now in the majority in the House.  Roll Call cites one GOP fundraiser as saying that he expects incumbents to increase their fundraising by 40% this cycle.

Being out of power in the House has hindered Democratic fundraising.  Democratic fundraiser Michael Fraioli told Roll Call, “Things have gotten harder, there is no question about it”.  But Fraioli also maintained that fundraising possibilities are rising as expectations of the 2012 electoral prospects of House Democrat improve.

Data on campaign contributions from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics backs up the anecdotal evidence of the advantage that power gives in terms of fundraising.

The graph below shows total contributions to federal elections campaigns for each electoral cycle since 2000.

In each cycle the party that controlled the House raised the most in campaign contributions.  The effect was reinforced when that party held other branches of government – for the Republicans during in the 2002, 2004 and 2006 cycles and for the Democrats in 2010.

What’s interesting about this fact is that the extended periods where a party has dominated fundraising coincide with times when the base of the opposition party seems to be most fired up.  For example, the Republicans effortlessly out raised Democrats in election cycles when liberals were furious at George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.  And in the 2010 cycle – with an ascendant Tea Party scornful of Barack Obama, healthcare reform, and economic stimulus dominating the headlines – Democrats raised $3 for every $2 raised by Republicans.

A logical explanation for this phenomenon can be found when we consider the source of money that actually funds campaigns.  In 2008, less than half of one percent of Americans gave donations larger than $200 to federal candidates, yet these larger donations counted for over 80% of the total amount given.  Over half of the money contributed came from individuals and PACs operating in just five industries: finance, lawyers and lobbyists, healthcare, communications, and energy and transport.

As the data and anecdotal evidence from fundraisers demonstrates, this giving particularly favors the party in power because it is they who make decisions which directly affect the interests of the groups that dominate giving to political campaigns.  What’s more, analysis of the patterns of giving by individual industries and firms finds that most heavy hitters willingly give to both parties with little apparent regard for ideological bent – so long as the candidate and party is in power.

As members of Congress scramble around Washington this week to raise money, before returning to the voters that elected them; let’s mark the birth of American democracy on July 4th, by taking a good hard look at just who it is they’re representing.

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Will Congress Regret Banning Earmarks?

Monday, February 28th, 2011
Lee Drutman


Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Lee Drutman

Over in the New York Times, Carl Hulse writes notes that one of the many unique aspects of this year’s unfolding budget clash is that this will be first budget battle without earmarks.

Generally, the disappearance of earmarks been seen as positive development, since everybody loves to hate earmarks. But say all you want about earmarks being wasteful or corrupt (even though that’s a debatable claim), they helped broker compromise. By giving enough members a stake in an omnibus appropriation bill, earmarks were mechanism whereby leaders could assemble a winning coalition to pass a budget bill, a powerful tool to avoid a government shutdown.

Here’s Diana Evans, a professor of political science at Trinity College, from a book about earmarks called Greasing the Wheels:

Pork barrel benefits, the most reviled of Congress’s legislative products, are used by policy coalition leaders to produce the type of policy that is most admired: general interest legislation. This book makes the case that buying votes with pork is an important way in which Congress solves its well-known collective action problem.

And here’s Scott A. Frisch and Sean Q. Kelly, writing in the National Journal last November:

The reality, as we see it, is that without earmarks it will be much more difficult to get moderate and liberal members to go along with spending cuts that may be necessary to reduce the deficit – one of the major goals of the tea party movement.  By eliminating earmarks, tea party supporters may have lost one of their most effective tools for building coalitions to make painful cuts in spending. Earmarks can be viewed as the spoonful of sugar that makes the bitter medicine of deficit reduction go down; without earmarked projects, enacting tough legislation will be even more difficult.

(Frisch and Kelly are the authors of a book called Cheese Factories on the Moon: Why Earmarks are Good for Democracy.)

Remember, even at their height, earmarks accounted for roughly two percent of all appropriations expenditures. And that two percent hasn’t necessarily been cut out of the budget – it’s just been transferred the executive branch for allocation instead of being Congressionally-directed.

Now, I understand that there were some lobbying abuses in the world of earmarks, but my sense is that most offices were actually remarkably transparent about their earmarks (and indeed happy to brag about their projects). I never saw any reason for banning them and thought it was all silly red-herring type politics that distracted us from more difficult but far more consequential fights over entitlements.

Maybe the folks in Congress will figure out how to come to some sort of eventual budget agreement without a bunch of earmarks to grease the wheels, and we’ll all be better off because of it. But I’m beginning to wonder if, when budget negotiations grind to a standstill, the good folks running Congress might wish that they hadn’t prevented themselves from sweetening the pot with a few special district spending programs.

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What’s Next For Climate Change Policy?

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
Jason Scorse


Jason Scorse received his Ph.D. in Agricultural & Resource Economics from UC-Berkeley in 2005. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the International Environmental Policy (IEP) Program at the Monterey Institute (A graduate school of Middlebury College). Dr. Scorse has consulted for numerous environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, and he is currently the Lead Non-Market Economist for the National Ocean Economics Program. He has published articles in American Economic Review, California Management Review, and has books published by the Brookings Institution and Routledge Press. His book, What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics, was released in 2010. Dr. Scorse also sits on the board of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Research Activities Panel and The Otter Project.

by Jason Scorse

The new Congress is now in session, with a large GOP majority in the House and a much diminished Democratic majority in the Senate; the prospects for serious climate change legislation in the U.S. are dimmer than ever. The Republican Party has largely turned its back on science and its own conservative ideas (remember, McCain was a champion of cap and trade back in 2008), and because of the profound climate denialism of the Tea Party movement even once reasonable Republicans are now turning their backs on the overwhelming scientific evidence, and the many ways comprehensive climate policy is good for the overall economic and security interests of the nation. (To be fair, there are a few Democrats in fossil-fuel dependent states that are also opposing new climate measures, such as Senators Rockefeller and Manchin of West Virginia.)

But not all is bleak; there are still a number of reasons to be mildly optimistic that significant progress can still be made in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

  1. The EPA is set to roll out new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, which have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by a few percentage points over the next few years. The rules will make coal generation less economically viable, and likely spur new development in less greenhouse gas-intensive sources, such as natural gas, in addition to renewable sources. I highly recommend the work by David Roberts at Grist for details on the EPA’s actions and their consequences. On January 13th the EPA revoked the permit for a massive mountain-top removal coal plant (which had been approved by the Bush Administration in 2007), signaling that the agency is prepared to put an end to the industry’s controversial practice.
  2. The Obama Administration has given the okay for a host of huge new solar plants on federal lands and gone a long way to streamlining the process by which such plants can be built. By reducing bureaucratic hurdles and red tape for large solar installations, we are likely to witness a large increase in mega-solar plants. Aside from the higher cost of solar (relative to fossil fuel), the biggest hurdle to widespread adoption has been the huge time lags and transaction costs in the permitting process; the Administration’s moves go a long way towards decreasing these barriers. The economies of scale of these plants will likely lead to significant cost reductions, making solar much more competitive in the near future. It’s important to note that these solar plants mostly rely on solar thermal technology―an 18th century technology using mirrors to heat water and produce steam, which powers a turbine―that is fast-becoming the low-cost solar alternative.
  3. The announcement by Google that it will invest $5 billion in a massive electricity transmission line in the Atlantic will help spur the development of massive wind farms off the Eastern seaboard. These hold tremendous potential and could one day provide most or all of the power for many of the East Coast’s major cities.
  4. The G-20 is moving forward with its plan to eliminate or severely reduce fossil fuel subsidies in the “medium” term. This is extremely difficult to accomplish politically, given both the entrenched interests who will lose billions and the effect on consumer prices, but even a slow and steady removal of these subsidies will help to tilt the energy mix towards less greenhouse gas-intensive forms of energy and decrease overall emissions.
  5. California is finally moving forward with its climate legislation AB32, as the final challenges to the law have been defeated. While the legislation doesn’t go into effect until 2012, it is the most progressive and far-reaching climate change policy in the world and the results are likely to be extremely consequential for the nation, and ultimately any future international climate change regime. California is the world’s 8th biggest economy so if comprehensive climate change legislation can work here it will prove a global model; according to UC-Berkeley Professor Peter Berck AB32 is likely to lead to a net increase in jobs in California because of the major energy efficiency improvements that the legislation will force into action. We will soon see if these optimistic predictions are borne out by the reality on the ground.
  6. In 2010 private investment in green energy soared to a record high, and with the global economic recovery gaining momentum oil prices are likely to keep rising, providing additional economic incentives for alternatives. To date, much of this green investment has been outside the U.S. because of the failure to pass comprehensive national policy, but there is still time for the U.S. to catch up if we can get serious.
  7. Significant progress was made in the recent COP16 meetings in Cancun, with the major developing country emitters agreeing to verification of their emissions reductions in the future. Steps were also made to begin the implementation of the major forest carbon program, REDD, which has the potential to provide a cheap path to effective carbon emissions, while also preserving much of the world’s remaining forests.

As I detail in my new book, What Environmentalists Need To Know About Economics, the theory, facts, and ingredients for good policy, are on the side of those who want to take an aggressive and forward-looking approach to global climate change (and other critical environmental issues); hopefully, the intellectually honest and serious Republicans and conservatives will pressure the GOP to return to its pro-environmental roots and become constructive players in the national conversation. More on this soon.

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This Week in the New Congress

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

Political and legislative activity in Washington was largely suspended in the immediate wake of the shootings in Tucson. As anyone who’s been sampling the news media since the weekend is aware, there’s been a discussion about whether there ought to be a debate over possible connections between the tragedy in Tucson and the type of overheated anti-government and even insurrectionary political rhetoric we’ve heard of late from conservatives, some of it aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords herself. The “let’s don’t debate” side appears to be winning. Indeed, conservative outrage at the alleged “politicalization” of the shootings has rivaled outrage over the shootings themselves.

Not surprisingly, scattered calls for a fresh look at the ready availability of the kind of weapons and ammunition deployed in Tucson haven’t gotten much traction. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has reintroduced her bill to ban certain high capacity ammunition magazines, which is a way to reduce the lethal effect of firearms without banning the weapons themselves. But it’s not likely to see the light of day in the Republican-controlled House. A more likely avenue of response to the shootings is via interest in care (voluntary or involuntary) for the violence-prone mentally ill. Still, the very eve of perhaps the most intensive effort ever to reduce discretionary social spending isn’t the best possible time to call for a boost in mental health services.

With or without any formal sanction, beefed-up security for Members of Congress and other elected officials is almost certain to emerge, along with significantly greater caution about public events and casual contact between elected officials and constituents. (Typically, conservative blogger Ben Domenech suggested arming congressional staff). Again, the timing isn’t great, given existing levels of public unhappiness with government and politicians, much of it motivated by the sense that officeholders have “lost touch” with the citizenry.

The hiatus on activity in Washington has not extended to state and local governments (other than in Arizona), where a difficult new year is unfolding under the shadow of one of the worst fiscal crises since the Great Depression. A new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that in December alone, state and local governments laid off 20,000 employees. Overall, state and local payrolls have dropped by 397,000 since August 2008, with just over half the reductions attributable to local school districts, even though national public school enrollment levels have risen by 741,000 since the beginning of the recession. with revenues still bottoming out and stimulus funds scheduled to run out soon, state and local employment is likely to drop even further in 2011. This even without taking into account many new Republican officeholders determination to public employees for cutbacks while cutting taxes for corporations and high-income individuals.

Just last week there was a development within the conservative movement that may pour cold water on Republican “tax reform” efforts at the state level, which were aimed at paying for income tax cuts with increases in sales taxes. Conservative policy commissar Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform condemned a Republican-sponsored proposal in Georgia to boost net revenues through a broadening of the sales tax base accompanied by income tax cuts. Any “reform” plan, said Norquist, would violate the no-tax-increase pledge his group has secured from a vast number of GOP pols unless it reduces the overall tax burden, not just the portion borne by corporations or the wealthy. This ukase has obvious implications for similar talk of a more-revenues-through-base-broadening-and-lower-rates deal in Washington. And aside from the impact on tax progressivity, an abandonment by conservatives of schemes to raise more revenues via more regressive taxes will increase the pressure on public spending, as Norquist made plain by calling for major reductions in the “size and scope of government.”

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The Democrats’ Challenge to Winning Back the House, Pt. 1: Manufacturing, Race, and Education

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Lee Drutman


Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Lee Drutman

As Democrats shift from licking their wounds to figuring out how to win back the House in 2012, the obvious question is: what will it take? Or at least, what will it take besides the obvious triumvirate of a solidly recovering economy, a healthy dose of Republican overreach, and a bit of luck?

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to be taking a closer look at the 66 seats (net 63) that Democrats lost, asking some questions about the character of these lost districts with the goal of putting a finer point on what Democrats need to pay attention to in order to get those seats back. In this post, I’m going to focus on the role of manufacturing, race, and education.

But first a quick look at the map: Democrats lost seats all over the country: 23 in the South, 20 in the Midwest, 15 in the Northeast, and eight in the West.

Seats Democrats Lost, 2010

The bulk of post-election commentary has blamed the losses on the fact that the incumbent party almost always loses seats in a mid-term election and the fact that Democrats were being blamed for a bad economy.

But yet California, where unemployment is 12.4 percent, did not yield a single Republican pick-up (though California is famous for having very safe districts, so this may not be a fair test.). In Oregon, where unemployment is 10.5 percent, Democrats held the five (out of six) seats they maintain.

MANUFACTURING

One industry that has been hit particularly hard in the recession is manufacturing. Of course, the decline in manufacturing has been going on for a long time. In 1950, roughly three in ten U.S. employees worked in manufacturing. Today manufacturing jobs account for just 8.9 percent of U.S. nonfarm jobs. In the 2000s, manufacturing lost roughly one-third of its jobs, falling from 17.3 million people to 11.6 million people.

In most cases, these are jobs that are not coming back, leaving communities that depended on them demoralized and angry. How much of a factor was this in the 2010 elections?

Across the 66 Republican pick-up districts, manufacturing accounts for, on average, 11.9 percent of the jobs. That’s three full percentage points higher than the national average of 8.9 percent. In roughly three quarters (73 percent) of the districts Democrats lost, manufacturing accounted for more than the national average of 8.9 percent of the jobs.

Not surprisingly, this was most pronounced in the Midwest, where the 21 districts Republicans picked up averaged 14.4 percent of manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm employment. But it was also pronounced in the Northeast and the South. In both regions, manufacturing accounted for 11 percent of the jobs in the districts Democrats lost, two points above the national average. Only in the West did the districts the Democrats lost have less manufacturing than the national average, averaging only 6.9 percent of the economy. This was the region in which Democrats lost fewest seats – only nine.

Manufacturing Jobs as Share of Total Jobs
Entire U.S. 8.9%
ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 11.9%
Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 14.4%
South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 11.0%
Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 11.0%
West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 6.9%

To understand the potential importance of declining manufacturing as a key to the Democrats’ losses, consider Pennsylvania’s 11th District, which includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Democrat Paul Kanjorski had held the seat since 1985, but was ousted by Lou Barletta by a 55-to-45 percent margin. The district gave Obama 57 percent of its vote, and was one of only nine Republican pick-up districts that voted for Kerry. Manufacturing accounts for 16.9 percent of jobs in the district.

Or Wisconsin’s 7th District (northwest and Central Wisconsin), where Republicans picked up a seat formerly held by long-time incumbent David Obey, and a district both Obama and Kerry carried as well. Manufacturing accounts for 17 percent of the jobs in the district.  Likewise with the 17st District of Illinois (northwest Illinois) – held by a Democrat since 1983, went for both Kerry and Obama, and 14.3 percent of its jobs come from manufacturing.

EDUCATION AND RACE

Democrats also have a problem with non-college educated whites. This has been a long-standing challenge for Democrats. Many of these voters feel frustrated and left behind by economic changes related to the loss of manufacturing jobs and global competition. They don’t see Democrats as helping them out. They wonder why they can’t seem to get ahead, and they want answers and somebody to blame.

Democrats have not enjoyed parity with Republicans among white voters in 20 years (since Bill Clinton), but 2010 was especially bad, with white voters breaking 62-to-38 for Republicans in the mid-term elections.

This shows up in the districts that Democrats lost. The U.S. population is 65.9 percent white. The average Republic pick-up district was 76.8 percent white. In the Northeast, the average Republican pick-up district was 86.5 percent white, and in the Midwest, the average Republican pick-up district was 81.5 percent white.  Overall, 82 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have white populations greater than the national average.

Pct. White
Entire U.S. 65.9%
ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 76.8%
Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 81.5%
South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 68.8%
Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 86.5%
West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 70.3%

A decent number of these whites are blue-collar workers, we should note that those without bachelors’ degrees who have been hit much harder in this recession (unemployment among those with college degrees is only 5.1 percent). In the 2010 elections, Republicans won among both voters with only a high school diploma (54-46 percent) and those with some college (56-41 percent) after Democrats won both categories in 2008.

In the United States, 27.4 percent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree. But the Republican pick-up districts are on average, less well-educated. Only 24.1 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree. The gap was greater in the districts Dems lost in the South, where only 20.8 percent were college-educated, and the Midwest, where only 23 percent were college-educated. Overall, 71 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have fewer adults with bachelors’ degrees than the national average

Pct. of Individuals With a Bachelor’s Degree
Entire U.S. 27.4%
ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 24.1%
Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 23.0%
South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 20.8%
Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 29.2%
West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) 26.0%

One of the most poorly educated districts is the 18th District of Ohio (Eastern Ohio), where only 12.5 percent of adults are college educated. It had been a solid Democratic seat for 46 years until Republican Bob Ney won it in 1994. Ney resigned in 2006 and shortly thereafter wound up in prison on conspiracy charges. Zachary Space won solidly in 2006 and 2008 with more than 60 percent of the votes, but dropped 20 points this time around. It is also a high manufacturing district (17.4 percent of jobs come from manufacturing), and very white (96.3 percent)

Another poorly educated district is the 1st (and only) District of South Dakota. Just 15.1 percent of South Dakotans have a bachelor’s degree. And despite one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (Just 4.5 percent), they voted out three-term incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who had won easily in the last two elections, garnering 68 and 69 percent of the vote. South Dakota is 88.7 percent white.

Obama’s problems among white, non college-educated voters are well-known, but these are both districts that Obama yet still went Democratic for the Congressional seat. That these voters have now lost faith in the ability of a Democrat to represent them in Congress, and in a rather remarkable way (both of these districts, for example, reduced their Democratic vote share by 20 percent in just two years) speaks volumes of the problems Democrats are having with non-college educated voters.

TAKEAWAYS

This analysis echoes others that point to the fact that Democrats are struggling among white working-class voters, many of whom had voted Democrat in the past, it adds a new way of parsing the data.

For all Democrats’ talk about helping working class folk, they have not done much for those who have lost blue collar jobs other than extend unemployment benefits. This does little to assure those upset by the pervasive sense of decline and who want somebody to blame for their increasing feelings of powerlessness.

As Steven Pearlstein wrote shortly after the election, “For the president and his party, regaining the confidence of the industrial Midwest is now a political imperative. For the U.S. economy, its no less an imperative to find a way to revive the Rust Belt.” Democrats have thus far only paid lip service to this with their “Make it in America” initiative, which appears to be mostly an apparently failed attempt at messaging as far as I can tell.

The problem for these districts is that the Democrats can’t rely solely on a generally improving economy to bring back manufacturing. These are places where there is a real sense of decline, and where voters are surely feeling incredibly frustrated that Democrats really haven’t done much to help them. If Obama and the Democrats want these beleaguered voters to give the Democrats another chance, they’re going to need to show them that they are serious about investing in America again.

Certainly, making inroads with the white working class voters is not the only way that Democrats can win back the House. There are other paths to 218. But without making at least a few inroads in key swing districts, the Democrats will have a lot less room for error in any other strategic approach.

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Why Progressives Should Cool to “Global Warming” Lawsuits

Friday, November 19th, 2010
Phil Goldberg


Phil Goldberg is an attorney at Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP in the firm’s Washington, D.C.-based Public Policy Group. From 1993 through 2000, he was a staff member to three Democratic Members of Congress, including Rep. Steve Rothman (NJ), when Mr. Rothman served on the House Judiciary Committee.

by Phil Goldberg

Read the entire memo

Environmental progressives have been urging the federal government to address climate change for more than 30 years. Many of these efforts have focused on setting limits on the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases collectively referred to as “greenhouse gases” or GHGs. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all negotiated international treaties on global emissions, and Congress has considered numerous climate-related bills. None of these efforts, however, has resulted in binding emission caps for U.S. operations, and Senate efforts to pass a “cap and trade” bill have been dropped. As a result, some progressives advocate a new arena for this battle: the courts, with lawsuits against a group of companies to directly force them to reduce emissions.

There are four lawsuits based on the premise that a handful of American companies, all associated with energy use and production, can be held legally responsible for “global warming.” The suits claim that the companies engaged in operations or made products that contributed to the buildup of GHGs in the atmosphere, causing the earth to warm. The cases seek either reductions in emissions or payment for injuries caused by specific weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding, allegedly caused or made worse by climate change. The liability threat for these defendants is massive: billions of dollars in the current suits, injunctions against their operations, and new filings for future weather-related injuries.

For environmental progressives, the real purpose of this litigation is to use the threat of massive liability to force the companies to accept concessions on climate change policy. These lawsuits, first filed in 2004, were born of frustration with the political process, particularly under President Bush, for failing to take steps to combat climate change. Given the seeming demise of climate change legislation in the current Congress, many progressives have found achieving the same – or perhaps more stringent – policies in the courts an increasingly appealing option.

Read the entire memo

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How To Understand the Independents (and How To Win Them Back)

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
Lee Drutman


Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Lee Drutman

For Obama and the Democrats to win in 2012, they will clearly need to win back the “Independent” voters who they lost in 2010. As we know, Independents broke hard for Republicans this time, after breaking hard for Democrats in two previous elections. Clearly they hold the balance of power in American politics.

Figure 1: Independent Voter Preferences, 1998-2010

Source: Resurgent Republic

So who are these Independents? What do they want? And how can the Democrats win them back?

According to Nov 4-7 Gallup Poll, 41 percent of voters now identify themselves as Independents, as compared to 26 percent who identify themselves as Republicans and 31 percent as Democrats. This 41 percent marks a high point in Gallup’s polling results for the last six years. However, since the mid-1970s, the number of self-identified “Independents” as a percent of voters has remained steadily in the 30s, occasionally flirting with the 40 percent mark.

It is obviously difficult to generalize about Independents, since it turns out they are actually quite a heterogenous group. About two-thirds  lean to one party or the other, consistently voting for that party about 80 percent of the time. However, they are less partisan than strong partisans, and there are at least a few true independents in the mix: about 10 to 15 percent of the electorate, according to political scientists.

WHO ARE THE INDEPENDENTS?

Pew probably has the best typology of Independents, breaking them up into five categories: “Shadow Republicans” (26 percent of Independents); “Disaffected Republicans” (16 percent); “Shadow Democrats” (21 percent); “Doubting Democrats” (20 percent); and “Disengaged” (17 percent).  As the names suggest, the shadow partisans vote somewhat predictably as partisans, while the Disaffected/Doubting class are slightly less reliably partisan, and the “Disengaged”, while most likely to be “true” Independents, are also the least likely to vote – only 21 percent told Pew they were planning to vote this November.

In 2010, independents broke down as 41 percent conservative, 39 percent moderate, and 20 percent liberal, at least among those who voted. In 2008, independents were 43 percent moderate, 35 percent conservative, and 18 percent liberal, a breakdown that has been roughly consistent for the last 10 years.

Though many Independents may vote like partisans, choosing to identify as Independents rather than partisans is a conscious choice. For some, it may just be because they prefer to think of themselves as “Independent” because it sounds better. It probably also reflects a certain disenchantment with either of the two parties. Accordingly, 64 percent of Independent voters say that “both parties care more about special interests than about average Americans” and 53 percent say that “I don’t trust either party.”

Independents are also more likely than not to be conflicted between the two parties: 58 percent say that ”I agree with Republicans on some issues and Democrats on others.”

Generally, Independents (particularly “true” Independents) are more likely to be younger, more male, less well educated, less well off financially, have less political information, and be less engaged politically. In the past election, Just 31 percent of Independents said that it makes “a great deal of difference which party controls Congress” – as compared to 63 percent for Republicans and 53 percent for Democrats; accordingly, 37 percent of Independents think it makes no difference at all – as compared to only 13 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats.

Finally, it is worth noting that according to Senate exit polls, the five states with the highest percentage of Independent voters are New Hampshire (44 percent); Washington (42 percent); Colorado (39 percent); Oregon (38 percent); and Hawaii (38 percent). Note that none of these are rust belt states, where party loyalty actually seems to run deeper.  Only 28 percent of Ohio voters were Independents and only 23 percent of Pennsylvania voters were Independents.

WHY DID INDEPENDENTS SHIFT TO THE REPUBLICAN COLUMN IN 2010?

There are probably four reasons why Republicans won Independents in 2010, two of which are structural, one of which is performance-based, and one of which is policy-based.

On the structural side, it is very likely the case that the Independents who turned out in 2010 were somewhat different than Independents who turned out in 2006 and 2008.  First, as compared to 2008, turnout in midterms is consistently about two-thirds lower than it is in presidential elections. This means that the mid-term election electorate (including Independents) look older and whiter, and thus typically more Republican (young people, who as noted above are more likely to be Independents, just don’t vote as often.)

Moreover, since Independents in general tend to be less politically engaged, the enthusiasm gap is going to be the most pronounced among Independents. It seems highly plausible, then, that a lot of Independent-leaning Republicans sat out the 2006 and 2008 elections while a lot of Independent-leaning Democrats sat out the 2010 elections, and for similar reasons: their preferred party didn’t seem worth turning out to support.

The second structural reason is that Independents as a category have probably become a little bit more Republican because more registered Republicans have become Independents. Consider Table 1, which takes Gallup data for the last four elections. Between 2004, Republicans fell from 38 percent to 26 percent of the electorate, while Democrats dropped only slightly.

Table 1: Changing Party Identifications

Rep Ind. Dem.
Nov 2010 26% 41% 31%
Nov 2008 28% 37% 33%
Nov 2006 31% 32% 35%
Nov 2004 38% 27% 35%
’04-’10 change -12% +14% -4%

What happened to that 12 percent of the electorate who had previously called themselves Republicans? There is good evidence they started calling themselves Independents, making Independents more conservative on the whole. Now, these were Republicans who obviously felt poorly enough about Republicans in 2006 and 2008 to no longer align themselves, and may have even voted Democrat (or more likely stayed home). But by 2010, they were back to voting Republican, even if they now thought of themselves as Independents.

Of course, this can’t and probably shouldn’t completely explain the shift. Part of it has to do with the economy. When unemployment is near 10 percent, the weakest partisans and the true Independents, who are the most sensitive to economic conditions in their voting (since they have no ideology to base their decisions), are going to punish the incumbent party.

Consider the following:  In 2006, when asked which party can better “improve the job situation,” 43 percent of Independents picked Democrats; just 24 picked Republicans. In 2010, they picked Republicans 40-35. Similar reversals have taken place on “reducing the budget deficit” (44-18 for Democrats in 2006; 44-29 for Republicans in 2010), and “managing the federal government” (38-26 for Democrats in 2006; 42-31 for Republicans in 2010).

In short, Independent voters are performance-based, and when the party in power is not producing jobs, cutting the budget, or generally running things in a commanding way, Independent voters are quicker to turn against the party in power and assume the other party deserves a chance

And finally, on the policy: since almost half of Independents call themselves moderate, a number of them were probably uncomfortable with the liberal direction unified Democratic control was taking government. There were probably some number of genuinely moderate voters who saw Republicans as a correction to Democratic extremism, just as they had recently seen Democrats as a correction to Republican extremism. They might also want divided government.

WHAT DO INDEPENDENTS WANT?

Having noted the heterogeneity of Independents as a category, it is obviously a challenge to make generalizations about what Independents want.

First of all, their top priority, like all voters polled, is “economy and jobs.” More than half (52 percent) of Independents believe that Congress should focus on economy on jobs. Though, interestingly, both Republicans (59 percent) and Democrats (57 percent) put even slightly more emphasis on jobs.

They also want both parties to moderate and compromise. By a 63-26 margin, Independents want Democrats to move to the center, and by a 50-40 margin, they want Republicans to move to the center. By a 61-32 margin, they agree that “Governing is about compromise” more than “leadership is about taking principled stands.” That puts them a little closer to Democrats (who lean towards compromise 73-21, than Republicans, who are split 46-46 on the question.)

The bad news for Democrats is that Independents are skeptical of government. More than four-fifths (82 percent) say they trust government only sometimes or never (up from 71 percent in 2006), 57 percent agree that “the federal government controls too much of our daily lives,” and 55 percent say “government regulation of business usually does more harm than good.”

However, these last two categories are not as overwhelming majorities as one might expect, given the anti-government rhetoric swirling around. And, interestingly, Independents are actually trending downward on both of these questions. In 1995, 70 percent of Independents thought that “the federal government controls too much of our daily lives.”

The good news for the Democrats is that by a 49-32 margin, Independents think that the Democratic Party: “Is more concerned with the needs of people like me.” Independents also are even more secular than Democrats, are tend to look like Democrats on the social issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) as well. Like Democrats, they also favor a more balanced approach to national security.

Figure 2: Issues Where Independents Look Like Democrats

source: Pew, “Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era”

Independents also look a little bit more like Democrats than Republicans on the environment (82 percent of Independents agree that “there needs to be stricter environmental laws and regulations to protect the environment” and 53 percent agree that “protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some job losses”) and immigration (61 percent say they “favor providing a way for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to gain legal citizenship.”)

Finally, by a 50-to-41 margin, Independents say they are “optimistic about the next two years with Barack Obama as president.” So they still haven’t written him off.

A CAVEAT ON “CONSERVATIVES”

Much has been made of the fact that there has been a shift towards conservatism in the electorate, and that the number of Independents identifying themselves as conservatives has ticked up a few points in the last few years. This may partially be an artifact of more Republicans moving into the Independent column, as described above. But it’s also useful to keep in mind that voters pick the conservative label for symbolic as well as substantive reasons.

According to research by Chris Ellis and James Stimson, some people genuinely know what it means to a conservative in the current political debate, and indeed express matching preferences across all issues. But these “constrained conservatives” (as Ellis and Stimson call them) account for only 26 percent of all self-identified conservatives.

More common are the “moral conservatives” (34 percent), who think of themselves as conservative in terms of their own personal values, be they social or religious. And they are indeed right leaning on social, cultural, and religious issues. But they also like government spending on a variety of programs and generally approve of government interventions in the marketplace, hardly making them true conservatives.

And still others, “conflicted conservatives”  (30 percent), are not conservative at all on the issues. But they like identifying themselves as conservatives. To them, it somehow sounds better. Or at least, they like it better then their other choices in the traditional self-identification questionnaire: moderate and liberal.

Finally, a smaller group of self-identified “conservatives” (10 percent) could be classified as libertarian – conservative on economic issues, liberal on social issues.

In other words, just because people identify as conservatives doesn’t mean that they are actually true conservatives. There are numerous reasons why they might identify so. It has long been the case that that the American public, on average, is operationally liberal and symbolically conservative. That is, that when asked about specific “liberal” government programs – be they spending on education, environmental protections, regulation of business – the majority of voters consistently say they approve. But when asked to self-identify themselves as liberals, moderates, or conservatives , many of the same voters say they are “conservative.”

LESSONS AND TAKEAWAYS

How can Obama and the Democrats win back the lost Independents? Since the Independent voters most likely to swing back into the Democratic column are also those who are the most performance-based and the least ideological, it makes sense for Obama to keep focused on economic recovery and let Republicans go pursue an extremist agenda. If Obama and the Democrats can pitch themselves as the hard-working, economy-focused force of moderation while Republicans engage in partisan bomb-throwing, many of the true swing voters who went Republican will surely have a bit of buyer’s remorse. Additionally, many younger Independents, who presumably stayed home in 2010, should come back out in 2012, helping Democrats again.

It is conventional wisdom by now that if the economy is recovering by 2012, Obama will benefit, and Democrats along with him, and this is surely true (assuming nothing else happens to overwhelm that effect). However, there is only so much the president can do to influence the economy, though he can certainly look like he is doing more.

Certainly, to the extent that Independents are distrustful of politics and parties and view both as too extreme, Obama and the Democrats will benefit by showing a willingness to compromise and moving to the political center, which Republicans are increasingly abandoning. A fundamentally moderate public will respond, especially if the economy is improving and it becomes less of an issue, meaning that something else will have to take its place in people’s minds.

If Democrats are willing to take a riskier strategy, they might goad Republicans into a few battles on issues like “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” or even immigration, battles that will draw out the crazy side of the Republican coalition while showing the public and generally socially-liberal Independents that Democrats are on the side of social progress.

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Does More Volatility Mean More Democratic Accountability?

Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Lee Drutman


Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Lee Drutman

The last three elections have been the most volatile three elections in a long time. One has to go back to 1942-1952 to find so much consistent turnover in the U.S. House – that was the last time when at least three consecutive elections resulted in pick-ups of 20 or more seats by one party or the other (then it was five consecutive elections). And no single party has picked up as many as the 65 seats the Republicans will probably gain (once all the dust settles on still disputed races) since the Democrats won 75 seats in 1948 – after losing 56 seats in the prior election.

This is a remarkable change from what had been the norm. For 20 years, between 1986 and 2006, there was only one election (1994) in which one party picked up more than 10 House seats from the prior election. Incumbents who ran for re-election were winning upwards of 98 percent of the time, a state of affairs that led many onlookers to worry about the fate of democratic accountability:  Was something fundamentally broken when incumbency meant near certainty of re-election?

Over at The New Republic, David Fontana argues the new volatility is likely an improvement over the old incumbency safety net:

Whatever the explanation, the reduction in the number of safe House seats is probably good for American democracy: If the parties have to defend nearly all their seats every cycle, instead of concentrating on overstimulated swing districts, they will deliver more political information to voters across the entire country. Both major party candidates in many districts will have to run advertisements, host town hall meetings, and participate in debates. In addition, a Congress that changes hands more often is less likely to become complacent, staid, and corrupt—and it may be more open to experimenting with new programs and acting on new ideas.

Having just witnessed the last election, I’m not so sure a competitive election meant particularly high-quality debates and information, and it’s going to be hard to convince me that more advertising of the kind we were seeing would be a good thing.

Moreover, contra the “complacent, staid, and corrupt” thesis, I think there is something to be said for members of Congress who have been around a little while.  It takes some time to understand how things work on Capitol Hill, to build relationships, and to learn some of the policy substance. I’ve never been a big fan of term limits because I think that what it essentially does is further empower permanent special interests, who welcome each class of fresh, green lawmakers with a lesson about “how things work around here.” Lacking their own independent expertise and often dependent on an equally inexperienced staff, the new lawmakers become even more dependent on lobbyists and special interests than their predecessors, who they spent all election blaming for being captive to special interests.

Moreover, if the new members have to worry about re-election from the day they get into office, that doesn’t leave much time for actual policymaking.

One reason for the increased volatility may be the fact that increasingly polarized parties are making it harder and harder for middle-of-the-road voters to get what they want, and so they keep switching back between Republicans who are too conservative and Democrats who are too liberal, each time trying to correct for their past choices. It’s a process that Dartmouth political scientists Joseph Bafumi and Michael C. Herron have labeled “leapfrog representation.”

I’m not sure what the solution is. Fewer safe seats has its obvious pluses for democratic accountability. But I’m not so sure it’s meant that the quality of representation is improving, nor that it is going to improve. Nor does it necessarily improve democratic accountability if the volatility is driven by some combination of middle-of-the-road voters never being happy with their elected officials (too liberal! No, too conservative! No, too liberal!) and a “throw-the-bums” out mentality if the economy is doing poorly.

But probably one reasonable conclusion is that electoral competition by itself is not a sufficient solution to our democratic deficit of hyper-polarized politics and substance-free, talking-past-each-other campaigning.

Photo credit: Shreyans Bhansali

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Obama’s Chance to Lead on Trade

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Will Marshall


Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Will Marshall

President Obama is in Seoul today for what promises to be a contentious meeting of the world’s leading economic powers. He probably won’t mollify China, Germany and other critics of the Federal Reserve’s plan to pump more money into the U.S. economy. But the President does have a chance to further his goal of doubling U.S. exports by bringing home an improved trade agreement with South Korea.

In addition to attending the G-20 summit, Obama is slated to meet with South Korean officials to finalize a bilateral free trade pact negotiated by President Bush. Congress has not ratified the treaty, which is snagged by concerns about U.S. auto exports to South Korea, as well as lawmakers’ eroding faith in the benefits of free trade.  The president said in June that he had instructed the U.S. Trade Representative to have all the outstanding issues “lined up properly” before he arrived for this week’s visit, so he could close the deal with Korea and present the agreement to Congress again in the coming months.

South Korea isn’t just a major trade partner, it’s also a key strategic ally and a counterweight to China’s growing heft in the Asia-Pacific. Since its tariffs traditionally have been much higher than ours, there’s little doubt that the agreement would spur U.S. exports and help offset weak economic demand at home. It requires South Korea to lower its high taxes on U.S. farm goods and open markets for insurance and other services to American firms.  As the treaty has languished in Congress, however, Seoul has been busy on other fronts, deepening economic ties with China and finalizing an important trade pact with the EU last month.

Although President Obama sounded an ambivalent note at best on trade during the 2008 presidential campaign, he understands that expanding U.S. exports is crucial both to creating jobs and shrinking America’s outsized trade deficits.  Now that he’s made the Korean deal a top priority, we’ll find out if the newly Tea Party-infused GOP will be more amenable to passing the treaty than Congressional Democrats were.

The agreement would lower tariffs on auto imports on both sides. South Korea’s are higher — 8 percent compared to 2.5 percent here. (The United States also would gradually lower a 25 percent tariff on imported pickup trucks.) Nonetheless, U.S. auto makers, especially Ford, have argued that the treaty would not bring down cultural and non-tariff barriers that have confined their sales to a sliver of South Korea’s lucrative auto market.

They have a point.  Seoul exports more than 400,000 vehicles (mostly Hyundais and Kias) to the United States each year, while manufacturing an additional 200,000 cars at U.S. plants. According the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. auto makers sent a paltry 5,878 vehicles to South Korea in 2009. Ford’s Stephen Biegun notes that more than 70 percent of the cars made in South Korea are exported, while imports account for less than 10 percent of sales, well below the average of 40 percent in other economically advanced countries.

As an auto industry representative explained in testimony before Congress, Korea has an extensive web of non-tariff barriers that make it harder for foreign car makers to penetrate the Korean market.  Some of these are technical regulations like emissions standards and even license plate size. Establishing a clear link between such policies and the small U.S. market share in Korea isn’t always easy. But there’s no doubt that some of Korea’s policies reflect a well-entrenched hostility toward imports. For example, until recently anyone in Korea who bought a foreign car would automatically have their income taxes audited—a policy that chilled demand even after it was officially ended.

Ford, America’s healthiest car maker, sees itself as the chief victim of South Korea’s import-unfriendly policies. That’s because General Motors, through its Daewoo subsidy, makes cars in South Korea, selling more than 100,000 locally and exporting hundreds of thousands more elsewhere (including to the United States).

What can President Obama do to resolve the impasse over autos and get the U.S.-South Korea agreement through the Senate? He can’t reopen negotiations, but he can use the presidential jawbone to win binding side agreements with Seoul to remove non-tariff barriers to U.S. auto exports.  He could, in short, bring pressure on South Korea to fully liberalize its auto markets and embrace the reciprocal obligations that come with free trade.  Much like his powerful message in New Delhi that “India has emerged,” the president needs to make the case that South Korea has also fully emerged as a mature economy, and it can no longer justify the kind of protectionist and mercantilist trade policies that are more typical of poorer developing countries.

A more aggressive stance would show that the President is serious about doubling U.S. exports. But there’s a complicating factor: the global spread of auto production, design and supply chains. That makes it hard to say just how “American” any given car really is, or how many U.S. jobs are engaged in making cars.

Nonetheless, as long as the answer is “greater than zero,” the President has an obligation to ensure that major U.S. trade partners offer as much access to their domestic markets as we do to ours. And the Korean pact presents him with an opportunity both to restore U.S. global leadership on trade liberalization and to integrate America more deeply into the world’s fastest-growing markets in East Asia.

Photo credit: South Korea

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Election Day is Here: What To Watch For Tonight

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

So Election Day 2010 has finally arrived, after what may have seemed to progressives like the longest midterm election cycle ever, dominated as it was (certainly in media coverage) by raging Tea Partiers determined to take America back to the prelapsarian paradise that was ruined by the New Deal.

Election Day itself isn’t quite what it used to be, thanks to the steady rise of early voting, especially in the West.  Michael McDonald of George Washington University estimates that nearly 29 percent of all ballots will have been cast early (in person or by mail), with particularly high rates in all-mail-ballot Washington and Oregon, but also in Colorado, Arizona and California.

Election Night won’t necessarily end tonight, either, since both Washington and Alaska—both of which have potentially crucial Senate races—allow mail ballots postmarked by today to be received and counted later—sometimes much later.  An additional issue is Lisa Murkowski’s viable write-in candidacy for the Senate in Alaska, since write-in votes are usually counted much later, and challenges to individual ballots are certain if it matters.

Since turnout is invariably important in midterm elections, it’s worth noting that the weather today is unusually good in most of the country, with the exception of heavy rain predicted in the lower Mississippi River Valley and parts of the Gulf Coast of Florida.

I’ve written a pretty elaborate Election Night Guide for The New Republic, which you can find here.  It begins with the restive period before polls close, and concludes with what late-night insomniacs can expect to see and hear.  But here’s a brief overview:

  • Ignore just about everything you hear during the day that purports to tell you what is happening.  The days of leaked “early exits” that were exchanged (and often distorted) ended with the new security measures enacted in 2008.  Now media outlets won’t get data from the exit poll consortium (which will cover statewide races only in 26 states) until 5:00 EDT, and won’t make any calls based on this data until the relevant polls are closed.  You may also hear or read anecdotal assessments of turnout, usually from local media or state election officials; they often turn out to be wrong.  Finally, given the Tea Party Movement’s paranoia about “voter fraud” (which has not, in reality, been a significant problem since the 1960s), there will undoubtedly be reports during the day of alleged pro-Democratic chicanery in heavily minority areas.  Conservative media will fan the flames, in part to counter or cloak the often very-real incidents of voter intimidation or polling-place chaos engineered by local GOP operatives in these same locales.  Be forewarned.
  • At roughly 5:30-5:45 EDT, turn on your television and watch as the networks begin carefully releasing exit poll “findings” that don’t related to specific contests; they are sometimes quite revealing, and the official network analysts often drop broad hints in reporting them.  One obvious number to pay attention to is the president’s job approval/disapproval ratio; if it’s negative by more than a few points, that’s not good news for Democrats.  Another key set of numbers involve the demographic breakdown of the electorate.  Democrats hope that the percentage of voters over age 50 does not exceed 60 percent, and non-Hispanic whites aren’t over 80 percent. If partisan-ideological self-identification numbers are released, note carefully whether independent “leaners” are assigned to each party.  If the percentage of conservatives significantly exceeds the percentage of moderates, that, too, is a bad sign for Democrats.
  • The first poll closings are at 6:00 EDT in the Eastern Time Zone portions of Indiana and Kentucky, where there’s a pretty good assortment of bellwether House races.  Even if there seems to be a clear trend (e.g., Baron Hill is winning, or Ben Chandler is losing), be aware that regional trends don’t always hold sway elsewhere.  The first inkling we will have about a highly competitive Senate race is at 7:30 EDT, when West Virginia closes its polls.
  • If you decide to watch the whole show on the tube, keep in mind that the networks are going to spend a lot of airtime reporting the results of non-competitive races (some of which, like the Senate races in Kentucky and Delaware, involve colorful personalities on which they probably have a lot of footage in the can), and letting their highly paid pundits and “guest commentators” have their say. This will be particularly true at 8:00 EDT, when nineteen states close their polls.  If you want to keep up with what’s happening in real time, go online, and consult a cheat-sheet of key races (if you don’t like mine, which I mentioned above, there are many others available, including Nate Silver’s very precise hour-by-hour analysis of House races).  Avoiding the tube will also enable you to postpone listening to massive quantities of spin until tomorrow.
  • Given the natural horse-race obsessions of the chattering classes, there will be a major emphasis in coverage on who “won” or “lost,” and in that connection, context is everything.  The conventional wisdom is that Republicans will narrowly win the House while Democrats narrowly hold the Senate.  But expectations are being distorted by the unusually broad range of final generic congressional ballot findings by major polling outlets, which has enabled spinmeisters in both parties to make a case that Republican gains will be larger or smaller than originally anticipated.  Keep in mind as well that raw Republican gains must be assessed in light of the large majorities Democrats currently hold in Congress (known as the “over-exposure” phenomenon); the near-universal history of the party controlling the White House losing seats in the first midterm after a new administration takes office (the only recent exception being the post-9/11 midterm of 2002); and the normal midterm turnout patterns that create an older and whiter electorate.  There will be plenty of time for analysis later, so take claims made tonight with a large grain of salt.

Happy (or as the case may be, unhappy) election watching.  This campaign cost a total of $4 billion, so let’s hope tonight is at least as entertaining as the alternative cable offerings.

photo credit: dailyinvention

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