Posts Tagged ‘
John McCain ’
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
Chip Lebovitz
Charles Lebovitz is a research assistant for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Chip Lebovitz
Both the House of Representatives and the president have shown that when it comes to Libya, NATO is not the only organization susceptible to bouts of friendly fire. A bipartisan group of ten congressmen sued the president last Wednesday for not getting Congressional approval of military action in Libya, thereby violating the War Powers Act of 1973. President Obama responded by stating that combat in Libya does not equate to the full-blown “hostilities” described in the Act, while simultaneously disregarding dissenting legal opinions from both the Pentagon and the Justice Department.
Amid this mess, there’s only one thing that’s clear: expending energy to politically posture over the War Powers Act has real costs. While both sides remained tied up in this debate, they remain distracted from our national objectives: ousting Qaddafi and, more broadly, keeping public discourse focused on the economy.
Three main issues undermine the Republican’s charge that the Obama administration has exceeded its brief vis-à-vis the War Powers Act: historical enforceability issues, potential political consequences, and questionable motives.
First, enforcement of the War Powers Act is difficult at best. While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan received congressional support, presidential indifference to the Act has been historically bipartisan. Reagan invaded Grenada in technical violation of the War Powers Act, while Clinton received no congressional backing for the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. Furthermore even legal precedent stands against enforcement: A District of Columbia appellate judge dismissed a similar War Powers Act suit over Clinton’s action in Kosovo, stating that the case was “nonjusticiable.”
Second, efforts like the one suggested by Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to defund military action in Libya are futile at best. Despite their desire to protect the sanctity of legislative branch, representatives are wary of pitting a stand against executive overreach against depictions of betraying American troops abroad mid-mission.
And third, even leader Boehner’s position on the issue has been tumultuous at best. In 1999, Boehner called the War Powers Act “constitutionally-suspect” during the U.S intervention in the Balkans, noting that its implementation was “likely to tie the hands of future presidents.” The Majority Leader’s tenuous position on the issue only gives the impression that the congressman is willing to weaken future presidents in order to maximize present political gains.
At the same time though, it’s not clear why the president doesn’t want to play War Powers ball on Libya. In an editorial Friday, the Washington Post echoed similar sentiments on the president’s stance, while declaring that the vague nature of the law did not excuse Obama from abiding by it.
It seems as if the president is calculating that the cost-benefit analysis the situation favors a patient approach. By waiting for political realities to douse the House’s passions, the president avoids entangling himself in jurisdictional politics. While it is wise that the president is conserving the power of the bully pulpit for economic issues, political realities make a quick solution to the War Powers controversy a presidential necessity. A protracted War Powers debate plays right into the desired Republican narrative: the administration is distracted from focusing on jobs and the economy.
Furthermore, such a swift conclusion would not even require a public retraction of the president’s position. A bipartisan group in the Senate led by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) is working on a non-binding resolution to validate the effort in Libya.
So as not to compromise his current position, the president should actively support the Senate resolution to ensure its passing. Even though the resolution would likely die on arrival in the House, and therefore not satisfy the legal requirements of the War Powers Act, it provides the president with the opportunity of congressional approval for military action in Libya. Senate approval gives Obama the platform to transcend bickering over constitutional authority and argue that America needs to focus on getting rid of our deficit and Qaddafi. The McCain-Kerry resolution provides the congressional support necessary to move beyond the War Powers Act spat and onto more pressing priorities.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Tags: John Boehner, John Kerry, John McCain, Libya, Mummar Qaddafi, President Obama, War Powers Act
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
There may be no method in North Korea’s madness, but the world’s response to its episodic outrages has settled into a familiar pattern. It’s a dangerous pattern, and one likely to recur as long as China keeps enabling Pyongyang’s belligerent behavior.
First comes an utterly unprovoked attack on South Korea. Seoul reacts angrily and threatens unspecified consequences. Washington firmly backs its ally, and solicits global censure of North Korean aggression. The Chinese, however, decline to assign blame and instead urge resumption of direct talks with Pyongyang. South Korea eventually backs away from confrontation, on the perfectly rational premise that living with the North’s occasional spasms of violence is preferable to an all-out war that would devastate both countries.
The latest crisis began last week when the North shelled a South Korean island. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the attack, which killed two civilians and wounded 16, a “crime against humanity” and warned that Seoul would not tolerate a direct attack on its soil. The United States dispatched an aircraft carrier, the George Washington, while China called, irrelevantly, for a resumption of the long defunct six-party talks aimed at dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program. And yesterday, Seoul moved to dampen war fever by canceling live-fire artillery drills on the stricken island.
Essentially the same cycle played out last spring, when North Korea sunk a South Korean patrol boat, the Cheonan, killing all 46 sailors aboard. Pyongyang paid no price for this act of war, either.
Pyongyang’s behavior may look like a classic case of winning through intimidation, except that it’s not clear what it gains from such brutal tactics. The North is as isolated and poverty-stricken as ever, and, with dictator Kim Jong il preparing to hand off power to his son, no relief is in sight for its thoroughly regimented society.
One explanation is that the regime from time to time must manufacture external threats to justify the extreme sacrifices it demands of its people. Another is that its assaults are part of an elaborate shake-down racket meant to get the world’s attention – along with bribes for good behavior. Except that it seems to be having the opposite effect. Last week’s shelling, along with the Cheonan incident, have driven the final nail in the coffin of the South’s “sunshine policy” of economic and humanitarian aid to the North. Nor is Washington eager to reward Pyongyang’s bellicose conduct by rushing back into the six-party talks.
This latest outrage throws a spotlight on China’s role as North Korea’s enabler. Not only does Beijing shield Pyongyang from the consequences of its disruptive behavior, it also helps to keep the regime afloat by supplying fuel and other economic assistance. Perhaps it’s too facile to assume – as Republicans like John McCain and Lindsay Graham do – that China can bring the mercurial Kim regime to heal just by threatening to shut down oil shipments or cross-border trade. But is it really too much to ask of China that it at least not cover up the North’s crimes and collude in its ludicrous lies?
Beijing wants very badly to be accorded the respect that its growing wealth and power implies. It wants a seat at the table where global decisions are made. Yet on issue after issue, China is proving to be a free rider. Beijing takes maximum advantage of an open world economy while contributing little to strengthening the system that has made it rich. Instead, it pursues a mercantilist policy that creates enormous imbalances in world trade and investment flows, while keeping its currency artificially high to make discourage imports from the U.S. and elsewhere. Instead of trying to tamp down tensions on the Korea peninsula, it feeds them by shielding its delinquent ward in Pyongyang from accountability. Instead of throwing its weight behind international efforts to restrain rogue regimes from Khartoum to Tehran, it seeks commercial advantage while hiding behind the supposedly sacrosanct principle of non-interference in other nation’s internal affairs.
China’s amoral and selfish behavior increasingly engenders doubt and fear, not respect. Its failure to accept the responsibilities that accompany its growing power undermines global cooperation and stability. It’s time for the Obama administration to move China’s free-riding to the center of its engagement with Beijing.
Photo credit: Kok Leng Yeo
Tags: Beijing, China, crime against humanity, cross-border trade, George Washington, John McCain, Khartoum, Kim Jong-Il, Lee Myung Bak, Lindsay Graham, non-interference, North Korea, North Korean aggression, nuclear weapons, oil shipments, Pyongyang, republicans, Seoul, six-party talks, South Korea, sunshine policy, Tehran, the Cheonan, United Sates
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Friday, November 5th, 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 is over (except, of course, in Alaska, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Illinois, which have statewide races in some doubt, and in eight states with a total of nine unresolved House races).
You probably know the basics. Democrats held onto control of the Senate, their margin reduced from 59-41 to 53-47, and Republicans won the House, having gained at this point 60 seats, 21 more than they needed for a majority. Governorships flipped from 26D/24R to 29R/20D/1Chafeecrat. Republicans took over control of 19 state legislative chambers, just in time for redistricting.
Republicans won the national House popular vote by a 52-45 margin, roughly the same margin by which Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2008. But it clearly was not the same electorate; exit polls reported that voters split evenly in their 2008 preferences. Many observers explain that by an “enthusiasm gap” between the two parties, but much of it is a matter of normal mid-term voting patterns, producing an older and whiter electorate that happens to favor Republicans at the present time.
House losses by Democrats were, to a remarkable extent, concentrated among districts that are either pro-Republican or highly marginal according to recent presidential elections. There were virtually no true upsets. A significant share of Tuesday’s casualties involved long-serving members from southern and border states who finally succumbed to ever-increasingly hostile territory (e.g., John Spratt of SC, Jim Marshall of GA, Gene Taylor of MS, Chet Edwards of TX, Ike Skelton of MO; two similar Members from TN retired). A much larger group, particularly from the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic states, were Class of 2006 and (especially) 2008 who got to Congress via close races and were extremely vulnerable to adverse trends in turnout and the overall political climate.
Trying to link these losses to any specific issues or controversies is probably futile, with the possible exception of climate change; support for legislation on this subject undoubtedly hurt Democrats in coal-producing states, most notably veteran VA Rep. Rick Boucher. But generally, the results reflected a general partisan shift, which in turn reflected a general (if predictable) change in turnout from a presidential to a mid-term profile.
The Senate results were not terribly surprising, either. What looked to some like a slight pro-Democratic trend in some of those races (notably PA and WI, where Democrats did better than expected, and in NV and CO, where Democrats won after Republicans led in late polls) were probably more the product of Republican bias in state-based polls, particularly those conducted by Rasmussen. The Alaska situation, obviously, is very unusual; Lisa Murkowski’s apparent lead guarantees a count of write-in votes, but though a loss for Joe Miller would be deeply embarrassing to Sarah Palin and to the Tea Party Movement, it would not change the partisan balance in the Senate.
The net-five-gain in governorships by Republicans disguises a much more complicated picture in which Republicans took control of eleven Democratic governorships (ME, PA, TN, OH, MI, WI, IA, KS, OK, NM,); Democrats took control of five Republican governorships (CT, VT, MN, CA and HI); and independent Linc Chafee won a formerly Republican governorship in RI. With all this churn, however, only two incumbent governors lost: Chet Culver of IA and Ted Strickland of OH.
The carnage created by Republican gains in state legislatures will take a while to sort out, but as Hotline noted:
The GOP holds the redistricting trifecta in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Ohio – plus, as noted earlier, Nebraska and North Carolina [where the Democratic governor cannot veto redistricting plans].
Florida voters did approve a constitutional amendment imposing fairly strict conditions on redistricting to prevent gerrymanders; the state was already operating under a heavily pro-GOP plan. California voters also approved an initiative placing congressional redistricting under a very independent commission composed partly of citizens chosen by lottery; this change could help Republicans or at least produce more competitive districts.
In other non-candidate ballot developments, California voters rejected two nationally significant initiatives, one (Prop 19) that would have legalized small-scale consumption and cultivation of marijuana, and another (Prop 23) that would have suspended the state’s unique carbon emissions control system. In news of equal importance to locals, voters did approve a constitutional amendment getting rid of the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget in the California legislature, which has all but paralyzed California government for years. In Iowa, voters rejected “retention” of three state Supreme Court justices who supported the unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage. This was major goal of that state’s powerful social conservative faction.
We’ll get more into post-election interpretations, along with prescriptions for what both parties should do now, next week.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, Alabama, Alaska, Barack Obama, CA, carbon emissions control system, Chet Edwards, Climate change, CO, coal-producing states, Connecticut, CT, cultivation of marijuana, Democrats, Election Day is over, enthusiasm gap, Florida, GA, Gene Taylor, Georgia, GOP, governorships, het Culver, HI, House, IA, Ike Skelton, Illinois, independent, Indiana, Jim Marshall, Joe Miller, John McCain, John Spratt, Kansas, KS, legalize same-sex marriage, Linc Chafee, Lisa Murkowski, ME, MI, Michigan, mid-Atlantic states, mid-term voting patterns, Midwest, Minnesota, MN, MO;, MS, Nebraska North Carolina, nine unresolved House races, NM, NV, OH, Ohio, OK, Oklahoma, older electorate, PA, Pennsylvania, Prop 19, Prop 23, Rasmussen, republicans, Results, Rick Boucher, Sarah Palin, SC, Senate, social conservative faction, South Carolina, statewide races, Supreme Court, Tea Party Movement, Ted Strickland, Tennessee, Texas, TN, Tuesday’s casualties, TX, Utah, VA, voters split, VT, whiter electorate, WI, Wisconsin
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Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Elbert Ventura
Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He formerly served as the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Elbert Ventura
The smoke has cleared; only the maimed and the dead remain on the battlefield. They are, for the most part, Democrats. The job of carting them off will take weeks; the post-mortems will take even longer. And yet progressives — we with our fetish for soul-searching — should reject a new, indulgent round of autocritique, or at least recognize that there is only so much to reflect on. The electorate’s rejection of Democrats is a lot of things, but a referendum on the quality of our ideas it isn’t.
How can that be? Isn’t a rebuke of this magnitude by definition a rejection of a party’s ideas? Well, it is if the ideas were carefully inspected and considered by an informed electorate. But sobriety has been hard to come by this election season. And what we tend to forget is that, before our discourse got sucked into the Fox-powered Tea Party vortex, our ideas were actually popular across the spectrum. Far from dogmatic and divisive, the policies that progressives have pushed in recent years have been sane, sensible fixes that have drawn support from left, right, and center.
Take cap-and-trade. Only the truly delusional still think that climate change and our voracious consumption of fossil-based fuels are nothing to worry about. Cap-and-trade was an innovative solution to the problem, harnessing the market — and eschewing command-and-control regulation — to bring about a reduction in carbon emissions.
Or take health care reform. Despite cries from left and right, the Obama administration got reform generally correct, setting us on a path to cutting costs and increasing access, all while leaving a system that Americans had grown accustomed to intact.
Or infrastructure. Economists of all stripes believe that we need more stimulus to spur economic activity. Every American who uses our roads, bridges, and water supply knows that our infrastructure is crumbling. In light of those needs, President Obama pushed through billions in infrastructure spending and just recently proposed a new $50 billion infrastructure bill.
All of these are good ideas that have achieved a certain degree of consensus, or at least support from moderates. An original version of cap-and-trade was co-sponsored by John McCain and was backed by moderate Republicans in the prelapsarian days before the Tea Party’s rousing. Health-care reform: As Jonathan Cohn noted, “Obama’s plan closely mirrors three proposals that have attracted the support of Republicans who reside within the party’s mainstream” — the most prominent of whom is Mitt Romney, whose health-care legislation in Massachusetts is a fairly close sibling of the national reform passed this year. As for infrastructure, money for more spending on the nation’s backbone was supported by Republican senators like Kit Bond and George Voinovich (both retiring – no coincidence) in an earlier jobs bill vote.
In all these cases, an urgent public problem was identified, and sensible, pragmatic solutions were proposed. But we no longer have politics that can accommodate the sensible and the pragmatic. The same John McCain who co-sponsored cap-and-trade now rails against it. Romney and Republicans who supported previous iterations of the Obama health plan have nothing but calumny for reform. Meanwhile, the only news of conservatives dealing with infrastructure is when they shrink from the challenge, like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey backing away from a proposed, and badly needed, tunnel to New York.
Over and over again, progressives have come up with solutions to our problems that can be embraced by the moderate middle. But in these last two years, we’ve seen that no matter how good and moderate the ideas are, it doesn’t seem to matter.
In this dilemma lies the priority for the pragmatic progressive in these next two years. The fact is our ideas are good. They are sound. Progressives of the Obama era have brought an innovative, reformist sensibility to government that prizes empiricism and problem-solving above all. Yet the party across the table has pulled back and shown little interest in engaging. They want us to keep coming to the table with more concessions — while hardly offering any concessions of their own. If we keep whittling down our ideas to meet their whims, our ideas will be hardly worth enacting at all.
We must, of course, never slow our indefatigable search for new ideas – it is what defines progressivism. But the paramount challenge, for these next two years at any rate, is finding a new politics. The calls for a new radical center are all well and good, but we need to remember that that’s where our ideas already are. It’s the right that has abandoned that center. The consensus ideas of yesterday have become the Marxist plots of their 2010 campaign. And sensible ideas have little chance of growing in political soil parched of sense. Will the part of the conservative movement that still cares about fiscal responsibility, fact-based argument, and good-faith dialogue resurface? Will they make their voices heard against the know-nothings and the ideologues who have taken over their party?
No doubt progressives should continue to be on the lookout for all who are sober and serious about solving our nation’s problems. Challenges must be issued and coalitions of the willing must be sought. But we shouldn’t allow the emergent faction of hysteria and irresponsibility to sway us from a core conviction: that when one already occupies the reasonable center, standing one’s ground is the reasonable thing to do.
Tags: Cap-and-tade, center, Chris Christie, Climate change, consensus, cutting costs, dogmatic, Environment, fossil-based fuels, Fox, George Voinovich, health care reform, independents, information, Infrastructure, John McCain, Jonathan Cohn, Kit Bond, know-nothings, left, Marxist plotsfiscal responsibility, Mitt Romney, moderates, New Jersey, New York, Post-Election, President Obama, progressives, radical center, right, Tea Party, Transportation
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Friday, October 15th, 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
Individual elections have consequences beyond their immediate results, mainly in terms of the strategic lessons that are drawn from them by leaders of the two major parties and the news media. This may be particularly true in this midterm election, given the certainty of Republican gains after two big Democratic cycles. But it is entirely possible to over-interpret elections as well, and I strongly suspect that will happen with this one.
Republicans and their media allies have a vested interest in exaggerating the “swing” that will have occurred from 2008, reinforcing their line that the 2006 and 2008 results were simply a referendum on the Bush administration’s policies—including their alleged heresies from “conservative principles”—and not an indictment of conservatism generally.
We will hear a lot on November 3 about the basic center-right nature of the country, and the punishment of Democrats for trying to implement their own platform without any sort of real mandate to do so. And without question, some Democrats will exaggerate the results as well in order to argue that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats either failed to pay attention to the concerns of swing voters, or (more often) failed to keep the Democratic base engaged by compromising too much with Republicans or worrying too much about Wall Street.
But it’s important to keep in mind two crucial points about the arithmetic of this and other elections: (1) relatively small swings in public opinion can produce pretty big changes in results, particularly in the U.S. House, and (2) there is, and has always been, a different electorate participating in midterm as opposed to presidential elections, with the particular composition of the Democratic base making it particularly vulnerable to a midterm turnout swoon, regardless of any other factor.
On the first point, the current Democratic margin of 39 seats in the House could all but vanish if Republicans simply break even in the national House popular vote, and an advantage of five percent could swing 50 seats. A variety of factors have vastly increased the number of competitive House seats this year (roughly doubling the number as compared to 2008), creating a larger “pool” of potential wins for Republicans.
But it’s the second point that matters most: turnout in midterm elections is inversely related to the age of voters, which is a big deal since the 2008 Obama vote varied very directly with age. The dependence of Democrats in 2008 on Hispanics, another demographic famous for poor midterm voting, is also a problem. But based on turnout patterns alone, it was a virtual certainty the very day after the 2008 elections—long before the Obama administration was in a position to do anything that offended a single voter–that Republicans would make significant midterm gains. This reality is reinforced by current “likely voter” polls showing an electorate that gave a majority of its 2008 votes to John McCain.
Why does this matter in terms of interpreting what happens on November 2? Well, aside from reducing the real “swing” among participating voters, the turnout factor will reverse its effect going into 2012, creating an electorate a lot closer to the one we saw in 2008, and considerably improving Democratic prospects then. Republicans who assume they can behave the same between 2010 and 2012 as they did between 2008 and 2010 may be in for a rude shock. Additionally, Democrats who assume their disadvantage in midterm turnout is attributable to the administration’s failure to “energize the base” with more progressive policies or aggressive political tactics are missing the point that key components of the current base never, ever turn out for midterm elections in numbers matching older white voters.
Another result that is likely to be over-interpreted is the swing in independent voters, which most Republicans and many media pundits will attribute to some sort of swing-to-the-right among Independents or “overreaching” by Democrats. Among the many problems in comparing the views and votes of self-identified independents over time is that this cohort is by definition a function of shifts in the number of people identifying as Democrats and Republicans.
Any “shift-to-the-right” among Independents is at least partially attributable to a profound reduction in the ranks of self-identified Republicans from 2006 on, which has only marginally reversed this year; this has the effect of making a lot of regular Republican voters of conservative outlook “Independents” by assertion. Naturally they are going to vote Republican this year, because they just about always do.
The final area ripe for over-interpretation will be the perceived ideology of the two major parties. Without question, hard-core conservatives will claim any GOP gains this year as final, definitive proof of their longstanding argument that only rigorous, consistent conservatism can create a Republican electoral majority.
There will be a less visible, but still distinct, argument by some progressives that Democrats need to move to the left (or at least move to a “populist” ideology and message) to win, emulating the Republican tactic. Such arguments from either direction almost certainly overestimate the extent to which voters pay close attention to the issue positions and ideological character of candidates, particularly in lower profile House races.
Yes, there will be a few races—notably the Senate races in Nevada and Kentucky—where the extremism of Republican candidates is so clear and notorious that ideology will be impossible to ignore in interpreting the results. But by and large, the main consequence of this year’s lurch to the right in the GOP will be to push the party towards policies in office that will indeed backfire disastrously, both politically and in terms of their real-life effects. That’s actually what happened to the GOP during the Bush years, even though conservatives want to believe it was insufficient conservatism that undid them.
And that gets back to my initial point: many people in politics use election results not to enlighten themselves and others, but to grind old axes. Separating real from disingenuous post-election arguments will be an essential task for the reality-minded in both parties.
Photo credit: randomcuriosity
Tags: 2010 midterm election, age of voters, aggressive political tactics, Bush administration, Campaigns and elections, center-right, conservative principles, Democratic cycles, GOP, hard-core conservatives, Hispanics, ideology, independent voters, issue positions, John McCain, Kentucky, media pundits, Nevada, November 2, November 3, Obama Administration, Obama vote, participating voters, populist, Post-Election, post-election arguments, presidential elections, progressive policies, Public opinion, reality-minded, swing, swing-to-the-right, turnout, turnout factor, U.S. House, Wall Street, “shift-to-the-right”
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Friday, October 1st, 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
Just a month out now from Election Day, national political crosswinds are beginning to yield in importance to the sometimes idiosyncratic dynamics of key individual campaigns. In the second of our series of regional takes on statewide and congressional races, we´ll take a quick look today at the South (using the Old Confederacy definition of the region).
This was, by any measurement, Barack Obama´s worst region in 2008, despite important victories in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He trailed John Kerry´s performance in Arkansas and Tennessee, and his percentage of the white vote was abysmal in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana as well. Negative attitudes towards him have clearly deepened throughout the region during 2009 and 2010.
The South also has the nation´s richest lode of Democratic House members in districts carried by John McCain in 2008—23 out of 49. Considering the pro-Republican shape of the midterm electorate, and the erosion of Obama support, all these Democrats, plus many others in districts narrowly carried by Obama, entered 2010 in some serious danger.
There is only one Senate Democrat from the South up for re-election this year, Arkansas´ Blanche Lincoln, whose campaign appears to have fallen hopelessly behind Republican John Boozman even before her close primary runoff victory over Bill Halter.
The two Republican Senate seats thought to be within reach of Democrats are in North Carolina, where Elaine Marshall has run a credible race against Sen. Richard Burr, but is running out of time and money needed to score an upset; and in Florida, where the steady decline of Charlie Crist´s vote seems to be giving Marco Rubio an insurmountable lead.
Gubernatorial races are a relative bright spot for southern Democrats. Tennessee looks very likely to flip from D to R, and Alabama´s a very long shot for Democrat Ronnie Sparks, but in FL, Alex Sink is in a dead heat with Republican Rick Scott; in Georgia, the ethical and financial problems of GOP nominee Nathan Deal are keeping Roy Barnes in close contention; and in Texas, Bill White is running a very competitive race against Rick Perry. In Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Mike Beebe so far looks immune to the tsunami that has engulfed Blance Lincoln.
House races, as always, are harder to assess. Louisiana features a rare Republican-held district that Democrats are favored to flip, though accidental congressman Joseph Cao can´t be counted out. Overall, Democratic retirements have created major problems: the Cook Political Report rates five open southern House seats as “likely Republican,” and another as “lean Republican.” And among incumbents, twelve southern House Democrats are in races rated as tossups by Cook, with another seven in the competitive “lean Democratic” category.
All in all, that means 24 Democratic House seats in the South—2 in AL, 3 in AR, 5 in FL, 2 in GA, 1 in LA, 1 in MS, 2 in NC, 3 in TN, 2 in TX, and 3 in VA—are vulnerable in November 2. One big question involves African-American turnout, which is sometimes relatively robust in midterm election. Another is whether Republicans can count on a late surge in a region where anti-Obama and anti-Democratic leanings have been solidified for quite some time.
Photo credit: cfarivar
Tags: African-American, AL, Alabama, Alex Sink, anti-Democratic, anti-Obama, AR, Arkansas, Barack Obama, Bill Halter, Bill White, Blance Lincoln, Blanche Lincoln, Campaigns and elections, Charlie Crist, Democratic House members, Democratic Party, Elaine Marshall, Election Day, FL, Florida, GA, Georgia, GOP, Gubernatorial races, John Boozman, John Kerry, John McCain, Joseph Cao, LA, lean Democratic, lean Republican, likely Republican, Louisiana, Marco Rubio, midterm electorate, Mike Beebe, Mississippi, MS, Nathan Deal, NC, North Carolina, November 2, Old Confederacy, political crosswinds, Richard Burr, Rick Perry, Rick Scott, ronnie sparks, Roy Barnes, Senate Democrat, South, Tennessee, Texas, TN, TX, VA, Virginia
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Tuesday, September 28th, 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
With five weeks to go until Election Day, the national political environment seems to have stabilized enough to conduct some regional analysis of what’s likely to happen on November 2. Let’s start today with the West, where highly competitive gubernatorial and Senate contests are occurring in at least seven states.
Much of the Pacific Coast seems relatively impervious to the Tea Party movement. In California, hard-core conservative activist Chuck DeVore finished a relatively poor third in the Republican Senate primary, and gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, who tried to run to the right of Meg Whitman, was beaten badly. Conservatives could not even mount a strong challenge to the much-derided RINO, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. In Washington state, another TP favorite, former pro football player Clint Didier, barely broke double figure percentages in a Senate Republican primary challenge to Dino Rossi. And in the same state, one of the more moderate new House candidates in the country, Jaime Herrera, won her primary easily. Alaska, of course, is the exception on the coast, since its long-powerful conservative movement knocked off Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a write-in candidate in the general election.
In any event, Republicans have at best mixed prospects for major gains on the Pacific coast. In CA, recent polls have given Barbara Boxer a significant lead over Carly Fiorina for the Senate seat, and despite Meg Whitman’s unprecedented spending, Jerry Brown is at worst tied with her as he begins his own media campaign in the governor’s race. Republicans have a realistic shot at just one Democratic House seat in California, and Democrats are sure to hang onto control of both chambers in the state legislature.
In Washington state, Patty Murray appears to be opening up a modest but consistent lead over Rossi, who led her in some early polls. While Herrera has a good shot at picking up an open Democratic House seat, only one incumbent Democrat, Rick Hansen, seems to be in jeopardy. In Oregon, former Gov. John Kitzhaber is in a close race with Republican Chris Dudley for the governorship.
In Hawaii, Democrats have a better than even chance of flipping control of the governorship, with former congressman Neil Abercrombie a solid favorite over Lt. Gov. Duke Aoina, and of retaking Abercrombie’s House seat, which was lost in a special election earlier this year thanks to multiple Democratic candidates.
In Alaska, Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams remains underfunded and little-known; his fate almost certainly depends on the viability of Murkowski’s write-in campaign down the stretch.
Moving eastward from the Pacific, Colorado is another hotly disputed state. Tea Party favorite Ken Buck has been leading Sen. Michael Bennet in early general election polls, but this race is likely to tighten up. John Hickenlooper is almost certain to hold the governorship for Democrats thanks to the conservative split between Republican nominee Don Maes and former congressman Tom Tancredo, who is running on the Constitution Party ballot. Republicans think they have a shot at taking two Democratic House seats, though their best chance is against freshman congresswoman Betsy Markey. Turning south to New Mexico, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez has recently taken a steady lead in the polls against Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who once looked invincible, and two Democratic House members, Harry Teague and Martin Heinrich, in some peril. In Arizona, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer look safe to hold onto their seats for the GOP, and though Republicans have visions of picking up as many as three House seats, all three Democrats—Gabby Giffords, Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell, are in reasonably strong condition.
Finally, in Nevada, one of the top national races looks almost certain to go right down to the wire, with Sen. Harry Reid and Tea Party champion Sharron Angle running neck and neck in virtually every post-primary poll. Reid would probably be doomed against any other Republican opponent, but Angle’s long history of eccentric issue positions has given him a new lease on life.
All in all, the West could prove to be a national bellwether. A true Republican tsunami in the region could produce a net gain of four Senate seats (Washington, California, Colorado and Nevada), two governorships (Oregon and New Mexico), and nine House seats. On the other hand, a stronger-than-expected Democratic performance could keep Republicans from gaining any net Senate seats, and could actually give Democrats a net gain of one gubernatorial seat (Wyoming looks to be a certain Republican gubernatorial pickup, but that could be offset by a Jerry Brown win in California and an Abercrombie win in Hawaii). None of the Western House races in which Republicans now look strong is a slam-dunk.
One regional factor that use to bedevil strategists is now of declining importance: the hope or fear that early returns from the eastern and central times zones could influence final turnout in very close races. That’s because voting by mail is increasingly important in the West, with all ballots in OR and WA; most in Colorado; and over half in California, now being cast by mail. The dominance of voting by mail will also significantly limit the impact of very late campaign activity in many states. If Meg Whitman’s going to hit her target of spending $150 million in personal funds in the CA gubernatorial race, she’ll probably hit it well before November 2.
Photo credit: Michael R. Swigart
Arizona
Tags: Abel Maldonado, Alaska, Anne Kirkpatrick, Arizona, Barbara Boxer, Betsy Markey, California, Campaigns and elections, Carly Fiorina, Chris Dudley, Chuck DeVore, Clint Didier, Colorado, conservatives, Constitution Party, Diane Denish, Dino Rossi, Don Maes, Duke Aoina, Election Day, Gabby Giffords, GOP, Harry Mitchell, Harry Reid, Harry Teague, Hawaii, Jaime Herrera, Jan Brewer, Jerry Brown, John Hickenlooper, John Kitzhaber, John McCain, Ken Buck, Lisa Murkowski, Martin Heinrich, Meg Whitman, Michael Bennet, Mid-Term Elections, moderate, Neil Abercrombie, Nevada, New Mexico, November 2, Oregon, Pacific Coast, Patty Murray, Republican Party, Republican Senate primary, Republican tsunami, Rick Hansen, RINO, Scott McAdams, Sharron Angle, Steve Poizner, Susana Martinez, Tea Party, Tom Tancredo, Washington state, Wyoming
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Friday, August 27th, 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
Tuesday’s five-state primary/runoff extravaganza produced plenty of drama, several close races, and a few surprises — especially in Alaska’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, where former judge Joe Miller, endorsed by Sarah Palin and fueled by the Tea Party Express, ran slightly ahead of incumbent Lisa Murkowski despite being heavily outspent.
With absentee and provisional ballots still pending, Miller leads by 1668 votes. His campaign appears to have benefitted a great deal from turnout patterns affected by an anti-abortion ballot initiative. If she ultimately loses the GOP nomination, Murkowski could possibly run as the candidate of the Libertarian Party, giving Democrat Scott McAdams a chance.
In a less dramatic outcome, in Arizona, John McCain easily brushed off J.D. Hayworth’s once-fearsome challenge, and Gov. Jan Brewer (R) won with little trouble. GOP House primaries in AZ were a bit more turbulent. In AZ-3, Ben Quayle, son of yes-that-Quayle, overcame involvement in an off-color internet site to win an open seat nomination over a crowded field. In AZ-8, represented by Democrat Gabby Giffords, the GOP primary was won by Tea Party favorite Jesse Kelly over front-runner Jonathan Paton in a mild upset.
In Oklahoma, two Republican congressional runoffs were held. In OK-2, veterinarian Charles Thompson won a low-profile primary to face Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren. The national GOP will now decide whether to give Thompson a lift by making this a targeted race. In OK-5, church camp director James Lankford won a surprisingly large win over Club for Growth candidate Kevin Calvey (who appears to have gone too negative) for an open Republican seat.
In Vermont, the Democratic gubernatorial contest seems to be ending as it began: close and civil. Final but unofficial returns showed state senate president pro tem Peter Shumlin edging former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine and Secretary of State Deb Markowitz for the right to take on Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (R). There’s a chance of a recount, but the candidates have already had a unity rally.
There wasn’t much civility down in Florida, however, where the Republican gubernatorial primary was won by wealthy “conservative outsider” Rick Scott, who will carry his extensive baggage into a three-way general election battle with Democrat Alex Sink and independent Bud Chiles.
Scott’s bitterly disappointed opponent, Attorney General Bill McCollum, has suggested he might endorse Sink. Meanwhile, Scott’s Democratic doppelganger, billionaire investor Jeff Greene, did not do so well in the Senate primary; congressman Kendrick Meek beat him easily. (Over at pollster.com, Mark Blumenthal has a good analysis of the challenges Meek will face in the general election).
In highly competitive FL House primaries, 2nd district Blue Dog Alan Boyd narrowly turned back a surprisingly strong challenge from state senate minority leader Al Lawson. 8th district Democrat Alan Grayson, who’s painted a bullseye on his own back with chronic conservative-baiting comments, will face former state senator majority leader Daniel Webster (R). And another vulnerable Democrat, 24th district congresswoman Susan Kosmas, will face state legislator Sandy Adams, who won a fractious primary dominated by fights between Karen Diebel and Craig Miller.
On Saturday, Louisiana will hold its congressional primary, with three Republicans battling for the 3rd district nomination, an open seat being vacated by Democrat Charlie Melancon, who is running for the Senate. In the 2nd district, four Democrats are fighting for the chance to take on one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the House, Joseph Cao.
Meanwhile, also on Saturday, West Virginia is holding its special Senate primary, with Gov. Joe Manchin sure to win the Democratic nod in this sleepy contest, and the late Robert Byrd’s 2008 opponent, John Raese, likely to win the Republican nomination.
We’ll then have a brief break in the primary calendar until September 14, when no less than seven states, plus the District of Columbia, hold their nominating contests.
Photo Credit: hlkljgk‘s Photostream
Tags: Al Lawson, Alan Boyd, Alan Grayson, Alex Sink, Ben Quayle, Bill McCollum, Brian Dubie, Bud Chiles, Charles Thompson, Charlie Melancon, Craig Miller, Dan Boren, Daniel Webster, Deb Markowitz, Doug Racine, Gabby Giffords, J.D. Hayworth, James Lankford, Jan Brewer, Jeff Greene, Jesse Kelly, Joe Manchin, John McCain, John Raese, Joseph Cao, Karen Diebel, Kendrick Meek, Kevin Calvey, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Blumenthal, Peter Shumlin, Rick Scott, Sandy Adams, Sarah Palin, Scott McAdams, Susan Kosmas
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Tuesday, August 24th, 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
Today’s primaries range from dogs that didn’t bark—AZ GOP Senate and gubernatorial primaries that turned into snoozers—to noisy kennels of nastiness in Florida.
Florida
Florida’s Democratic Senate and Republican gubernatorial primaries were originally supposed to be snoozers, with Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) expected to win the former and Attorney General (and former congressman) Bill McCollum (R) expected to win the latter without a whole lot of trouble. Then, near the end of the qualifying period, billionaire investor Jeff Greene jumped into the Democratic Senate primary while multi-millionaire (his net worth is estimated at $218 million) former hospital exec and anti-health-reform lobbyist Rick Scott (R) jumped into the gubernatorial primary. Nothing’s been the same since then.
In a remarkably short period of time, Scott has shattered every Florida political spending record, pouring $39 million of personal money and another $11 million of his wife’s money (channeled through an “independent” 527 group that’s been attacking McCollum) into the race. From the get-go, he identified himself as a Tea Party-friendly “outsider” taking on the corrupt status quo in Tallahassee, as symbolized by McCollum, who spent twenty years in Congress and lost two Senate races before becoming AG.
For a while, it looked like McCollum was toast, but he fought back with his own nasty-grams calling attention to the $1.7 billion fines for Medicare fraud paid out by the HCA-Columbia hospital chain for billings during Scott’s tenure as CEO. The party stalwart has been helped by endorsements from Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, not to mention a 527 group of his own that collected about $9 million from every conservative interest group in the state.
Several late polls have shown McCollum pulling ahead of Scott, even as both candidates’ rising negatives have enabled Democrat Alex Sink to pull ahead of both of them in a hypothetical three-way November race with independent Bud Chiles.
Meanwhile, a similar but even more dramatic dynamic has occurred in the Democratic Senate race. Greene (whose original strategist was none other than Joe Trippi, who left the campaign just a few weeks ago, to be replaced by another famous name, Tad Devine) sprinted into a quick lead over Meek after heavy advertising identifying himself as a can-do businessman “outsider.” But then details about how Greene got rich betting on a housing market collapse, and more luridly, about Greene’s alleged playboy antics, sometimes in the company of BFF Mike Tyson, started to come out, and Meek has retaken the lead rather decisively.
Greene fought back with attacks on Meek and his mother, former congresswoman Carrie Meek, for alleged corruption, and on Meek for supposedly not being sufficiently supportive of Israel, but other than contributing to the already low tone of the primary season, they haven’t had a major impact. Buttressed by endorsements from both President Obama and former president Bill Clinton, Meek has opened up sizable leads in all the late polls, and if this holds, he can move on to worrying about how to keep Democrats from supporting independent candidate Charlie Crist.
Vermont
There’s a different political atmosphere up in Vermont, where Democrats are holding a highly competitive but very civil five-way primary to choose a candidate for governor. The two early favorites were Secretary of State Deb Markowitz (a long-time self-identified New Democrat) and former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine (a favorite of unions and liberal activists), but once incumbent Republican governor Jim Douglas announced his retirement, other strong candidacies appeared, including state senator Peter Shulman, credited with a key role in passage of Vermont’s gay marriage statute; former state senator Matt Dunne, who’s run the national VISTA program and also served as a Google exec; and state senator Susan Bartlett, who’s challenging Markowitz for the votes of centrists.
Though there’s been no public polling in the race, it looks like a dead heat among Markowitz, Shulman, Racine and Dunne, with turnout (expected to be quite low thanks to the vacation season timing) a crucial factor. The winner will face Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (R), who has no primary opposition, and who has positioned himself somewhat to the right of the incumbent Douglas. Vermont represents a prime “takeback” state for Democrats, though Dubie led all the Democrats in a June Rasmussen poll.
Arizona
Over in Arizona, John McCain’s pulled far in front of once-feared challenger J.D. Hayworth, thanks to a combination of heavy spending, shifts to the right on policy issues, and Hayworth gaffes. Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, once considered a caretaker sure to lose a primary, has been turned into a national conservative celebrity by her signature on the state’s new immigration law, and will win easily.
Alaska
Up in Alaska, Sarah Palin’s risked her home-state reputation with a late effort on behalf of former judge Joe Miller, who is challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski. There’s no love lost between Palin and Murkowski, whose father Palin defeated in a primary to become governor in 2006. But Murkowski has a huge financial advantage, and despite occasional ideological heresies, should win.
Oklahoma
And down in Oklahoma, a low-turnout runoff will decide two Republican congressional nominations, including the challenge to Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren, who has tons of money but is theoretically vulnerable in a conservative district.
Tags: Alex Sink, Bill McCollum, Brian Dubie, Carrie Meek, Charlie Crist, Dan Boren, Deb Markowitz, Doug Racine, J.D. Hayworth, Jan Brewer, Jeff Greene, Jim Douglas, Joe Miller, John McCain, Kendrick Meek, Lisa Murkowski, Matt Dunne, Peter Shulman, Rick Scott, Susan Bartlett
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Friday, August 20th, 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
Tuesday’s primaries in Washington and Wyoming didn’t produce a lot of drama, other than a close three-way race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the Cowboy State. But political junkies have been staring at the results of Washington’s “Top 2 blanket primary” (in which all candidates appear on the same primary ballot, with the top two finishers, regardless of percentage, advancing to the general election) for auguries of what will happen in congressional races in November.
That’s particularly true of the U.S. Senate race, where a victory by Republican Dino Rossi over incumbent Patty Murray (D) is generally considered essential to the GOP’s chances of winning control of the upper chamber.
Washington
Thanks to Washington’s practice of accepting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day, the results still aren’t final. As of the moment, with about 86 percent of ballots counted, Murray has 46.41 percent of the vote, with another 2.3 percent being cast for an assortment of minor Democratic candidates. Rossi has 33.4 percent, while former Washington Redskins tight end and Tea Party zealot Clint Didier drew an underwhelming 12.5 percent. Another 3.8 percent went to minor Republicans, so the bottom line is very close to a tie between the two parties (and may get even closer as the final vote, which includes a lot of ballots from staunchly Democratic King County, come in). Since most of the campaign activity was on the GOP side, Murray may be in better shape than the numbers suggest, but this will definitely be one of the races to watch in November.
In House races in Washington, most of the national attention was focused on the open 3rd district seat of retiring Democrat Brian Baird. As generally expected, Democrat Denny Heck and Republican Jaime Herrera won the general election spots, but the combined Republican vote of 53 percent is a bit troubling for Democrats. The same is true in the competitive 8th district, where Republican incumbent Dave Riechert won 47 percent and the total GOP vote rose to 58 percent (Susan DelBene won a general election spot with 27 percent). On the other hand, in the 2nd district, Democrat Rick Larson won 43 percent and the combined Democratic vote reached 54 percent. In the 9th district, New Democrat Coalition co-chair Adam Smith pulled 52 percent, and with a Green Party candidate in the field, the combined Republican vote was only 45 percent.
Wyoming
In Wyoming, where Democrats are waging an uphill battle to hang onto the governorship (currently held by the very popular but term-limited Dave Freudenthal), state party chair Leslie Peterson eased past former Wyoming Cowboys football star Pete Gosar in a genial Democratic primary. But Wyoming voters were denied an all-female general election when former U.S. Attorney Matt Mead edged State Auditor Rita Meyer by 714 votes. Mead, whose grandfather was former Wyoming Sen. Cliff Hansen, heavily self-financed his campaign, and survived constant RINO accusations by “true conservative” candidate Ron Micheli, who finished a very strong third. Meyer was endorsed by Sarah Palin and boasted an extensive military record. Meanwhile, another Wyoming political scion, Colin Simpson (son of Alan), finished a relatively poor fourth.
Speaking of Sarah Palin, St. Joan of the Tundra had another not-so-great night, endorsing not only Meyer but Washington Senate candidate Clint Didier. She did get a win in WA-2 with Republican leader John Koster, but he was the prohibitive GOP favorite all along.
Next up
Next up on the primary calendar are Alaska, Arizona and Florida (and a runoff in Oklahoma) on August 24, and then Louisiana on August 28. With John McCain blowing away J.D. Hayworth in Arizona, most of the national attention next week will be on Florida, where the Democratic Senate primary and the Republican gubernatorial primary are hanging fire. Most polls indicate that the gazillionaires in those races, Democrat Jeff Greene and Republican Rick Scott, have been losing steam of late. The latest poll, by Quinnipiac, shows Kendrick Meek leading Greene in the Democratic Senate race 35 percent to 28 percent, but with a very large 32 percent of voters still undecided. Publicity surrounding Greene’s relationship with Mike Tyson and his drug habit have not helped the now-underdog. Meanwhile, the Q-poll shows McCollum leading Scott 44-35 in the exceptionally nasty GOP gubernatorial primary. It also confirms a variety of recent surveys giving Democrat Alex Sink a narrow lead in a three-way contest involving independent Bud Chiles and either Republican candidate.
Photo Credit: Auntie P’s photostream
Tags: Adam Smith, Brian Baird, Bud Chiles, Cliff Hansen, Clint Didier, Colin Simpson, Dave Freudenthal, Dave Riechert, Denny Heck, Dino Rossi, J.D. Hayworth, Jamie Herrera, Jeff Green, John McCain, Kendrick Meek, Leslie Peterson, Matt Mead, Mike Tyson, Patty Murray, Pete Gosar, Rick Larson, Rick Scott, Rita Meyer, Sarah Palin, Susan DelBene
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Tuesday, August 10th, 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
This is the busiest primary day since the June 8 blockbuster, with three states (CO, CT and MN) holding primaries and a fourth (GA) holding a runoff. So there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Colorado
A factor in all the Colorado races is that most counties in the state went to an all-mail-ballot system this year, which could boost overall turnout but will definitely affect the timing of votes (though Colorado’s had heavy early voting for a while now).
Colorado’s Senate races have become very competitive in both parties coming down the stretch. Appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D) got hit with a controversial (in its timing) New York Times piece about his involvement in an unsuccessful investment by the Denver public schools, which immediately generated an attack ad by his opponent, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D), who has been pounding Bennet for weeks as someone too close to Wall Street. Late polls show a very close race, with Survey USA indicating Romanoff has moved ahead while PPP shows Bennet hanging onto a small lead.
On the Republican side, polls also differ as to whether district attorney Ken Buck has maintained his lead over former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, despite his recent gaff-a-thon. Norton surprised a lot of observers by inviting John McCain into the state to campaign with her at the very end; we’ll see if she knew what she was doing. While both candidates are quite conservative, Buck’s the preferred candidate of the Tea Party folk and the national conservative chattering classes, so if he wins they will claim another Establishment scalp.
The ongoing meltdown known as the Colorado Republican gubernatorial contest is also ending with no clear leader; one poll has Tea Party activist Dan Maes narrowly leading; the other shows former congressman Scott McInnis narrowly regaining the lead. As you may have heard, McInnis’ campaign imploded in July when the Denver Post revealed that a wonky series of columns he “wrote” as part of a lucrative think tank contract were heavily plagiarized. But Maes has been hounded by campaign finance violations and poor fundraising, and also earned heavy derision by claiming a popular bike-sharing program in which Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper was involved is in fact part of a United Nations plot to take over Denver. You really can’t make this stuff up.
The “winner” of this primary will immediately be under heavy pressure to drop out and allow the state party to choose a more electable candidate, and also to beg former congressman Tom Tancredo to close down his campaign on the far-right, theocratic Constitution Party ticket, which polls indicate would split the GOP vote in half and guarantee a Hickenlooper victory.
Georgia
Rivaling Colorado in inter-Republican drama has been the gubernatorial runoff in Georgia, which polls show as coming down to a real nail-biter between primary first-place finisher Karen Handel and former congressman Nathan Deal. Continuing her effort to cast herself as a “conservative reformer” taking on the corrupt “good ol’ boys” of the Republican establishment, Handel has continued to attack Deal’s ethics record and Washington associations. Deal, probably hoping for a very low turnout dominated by ideologues, has pounded Handel for alleged “liberal” heresy on abortion and gay rights. Both campaigns are in danger of being overshadowed by their supporters, with Sarah Palin making a very conspicuous last-day appearance alongside Handel in Atlanta (Mitt Romney is also doing robocalls for Handel), while Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee have campaigned for Deal. Deal also has a massive endorsement list of Republican state legislators owing to Handel’s many attacks on their integrity as a group.
The runoff has become so nasty that Republicans are already planning “unity” events; Democrat Roy Barnes waits in the wings, raising money.
There are two Republican congressional runoffs that will affect turnout patterns; one is for Deal’s old seat in North Georgia, where special election runoff winner Tom Graves will face former state legislator Lee Hawkins for the fourth time in three months. The other is in Handel’s base area, in north metro Atlanta, where longtime conservative congressman John Linder (R) is retiring. His former chief of staff, Rob Woodall, is expected to defeat Jody Hice, a Southern Baptist minister and radio gabber whose billboards feature a reference to the president with a hammer-and-sickle replacing the “c” in the word “change.” Nice.
Connecticut
In Connecticut, both parties have competitive gubernatorial primaries involving self-funded candidates facing challengers who are receiving pretty generous public financing under the state’s Clean Elections system (which is under attack in the courts in the aftermath of the Citizens United decision). Among Democrats, wealthy cable station owner Ned Lamont, famous for his left-bent challenge to Joe Lieberman in 2006, has run a surprisingly “centrist” campaign focused on the state’s many fiscal and economic problems. His challenger, former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, who narrowly lost the gubernatorial nomination four years ago, has been pounding him in a populist vein, while fending off allegations that he helped give a company that did work on his home a no-bid contract as mayor (not something you’d want to do in this state, since that’s what brought down former Gov. John Rowland). Malloy has closed the gap with Lamont in the stretch run, and either candidate could win.
The Republican self-funder is former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, and the publicly-financed challenger is Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele. This race has also featured personal attacks, mainly involving Foley’s ownership interest in a Georgia textile plant that closed, throwing workers out of jobs. Late polls show exceptional instability in this race, but indicate that Fedele is rapidly gaining on Foley.
Meanwhile, former wrestling exec Linda McMahon, who beat former congressman Rob Simmons at the state GOP convention for the official party endorsement, will face Simmons (who reentered the race after dropping out for a while) and Tea Party activist Peter Schiff, but isn’t expected to have much trouble winning.
Minnesota
In Minnesota, the DFL (Minnesota’s unique version of the Democratic Party) gubernatorial primary features the official party candidate (as selected in a state convention that some candidates skipped), state House Speaker Mary Anderson Kelliher, and two wealthy self-funders, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton and former state legislator Matt Entenza, both of whom have put about $3 million into the race. Dayton has held a steady if not spectacular lead over Kelliher, who hopes to pull a ground-game-driven upset in what could be a very low turnout election. All three Democrats lead certain Republican nominee Tom Emmer in general election polls, partly because the likely candidate of the Independence Party (still around more than a decade after Jesse Ventura’s election), Tom Horner, is pulling a lot of Republican votes. The DFL hasn’t won a governor’s race since 1986, but this could be the year the drought ends.
If you want more details, I’ve done previews of Colorado, Georgia and Connecticut/Minnesota over at FiveThirtyEight.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: brettneilson’s Photostream
Tags: Andrew Romanoff, Dan Maes, Dan Malloy, Jane Norton, Jesse Ventura, Jody Hice, Joe Lieberman, John Hickenlooper, John Linder, John McCain, John Rowland, Karen Handel, Lee Hawkins, linda McMahon, Mark Dayton, Mary Anderson Kelliher, Matt Entenza, Michael Bennet, Michael Fedele, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Nathan Deal, Ned Lamont, Newt Gingrich, Peter Schiff, Primaries, Rob Simmons, Rob Woodall, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Scott McInnis, Tom Emmer, Tom Foley, Tom Graves, Tom Horner, Tom Tancredo
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Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
After much self-congratulation over passing a massive financial regulatory bill, the U.S. Senate has punted on pricing carbon. That decision is likely to have a bigger long-term impact on the U.S. economy, and not in a good way.
Senate leaders yesterday conceded they don’t have the votes to put a price on carbon. Instead, they’ll try to pass a pallid energy bill that raises liability caps on oil companies and makes modest gestures toward energy efficiency. Even the catastrophic BP oil spill, it seems, was not enough to overcome lawmakers’ fear of being accused of raising taxes on energy as the economy struggles, even though a carbon price wouldn’t have gone into effect for several years.
Well, there’s always next year — except that the midterm election will likely bring in more Republicans wedded to climate denial and cheap fossil fuels. So the Senate’s failure to act is a costly setback from an economic, security and environmental perspective. It will prolong America’s dependence on oil and fossil fuels, worsen our trade deficit, retard investment in clean technology and low-carbon fuels, and forfeit leadership in energy innovation to other countries. And it means the United States won’t do its part to lower carbon emissions and thereby stop overheating the planet.
All this suggests progressives will have to rethink their approach to achieving a low-carbon economy. Not only is “cap and trade” dead, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said those words are no longer in his vocabulary.
PPI has long considered pricing carbon the sine qua non of progressive energy policy, although we have been agnostic as to how. We helped to design the cap and trade architecture in several pathbreaking legislative proposals (the Lieberman-McCain and Lieberman-Warner bills, as well as Senator Tom Carper’s “4P” bill), and proposed a “tailpipe trading” system to cover auto emissions. We continue to believe that cap and trade offers the twin advantages of environmental certainty — a quantifiable limit on the amount of carbon Americans emit – and strong incentives for companies to invest in energy efficiency and innovation.
At the same time, however, we’ve endorsed a straight up carbon tax, as well as setting a “floor” under oil prices to prevent their volatility from inhibiting investments in clean fuels. The key is to price carbon realistically, by taking into account the “externalities” not included in the price of gas at the pump (or coal for that matter): the hundreds of billions we spend each year to assure access to fossil fuels, as well as the environmental damage done by concentrating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
To free market fundamentalists, ending such implicit subsidies to fossil fuels is tantamount to raising taxes on energy. So be it. We need to raise the cost of burning fossil fuels and lower the cost of low-carbon alternative fuels. This is a matter of urgent national interest, and President Obama will need to propose a new clean energy strategy to the next Congress.
Photo Credit: Americaspower’s Photostream
Tags: Barack Obama, BP, cap-and-trade, carbon tax, energy policy, Harry Reid, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, John Warner
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