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Tuesday, June 29th, 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
A lot of the buzz about Republican prospects for retaking control of the U.S. House is based on fairly abstract factors, such as historical averages and national generic ballot polls. But in reality, of course, elections are individual contests, no matter how “nationalized” the cycle. And four months and change out from the November elections, it’s worth taking a somewhat more concrete look at the House landscape and where Democrats are vulnerable.
For purposes of this analysis, I’ll use the authoritative (if somewhat conservative, in the sense of caution about predicting incumbent losses) Cook Political Report ratings as of June 24 (no link, because it’s subscription-only). According to Cook’s highly astute David Wasserman, there are 66 seats currently held by Democrats that are involved in competitive races. Of those, nearly half (32) are actually rated as “lean D” at the moment. To win control of the House, Republicans need a net gain of 40 seats, and seven of their own seats are in competitive races, including three (DE-AL, HI-1 and LA-2) that most observers consider very likely to flip. So from the get-go, retaking the House will require a very high win rate for Republicans in competitive races, and/or continued improvement in their overall national standing—i.e., races now deemed “Likely D” slipping into the competitive range.
Looking at the 66 vulnerable Democratic seats, 15 are open. That’s a reasonably large number, but only half of the 30 open seats Democrats had in the last Republican “wave” election of 1994 (Republicans had 26 open seats in 2008, greatly helping the Democrats achieve a second straight big winning cycle). Twenty-five seats, however, are represented by freshmen, traditionally the most vulnerable incumbents. Most significantly, 51 of the 66 seats have a pro-Republican Partisan Voter Index (PVI), based on an average of party performance in the last two presidential elections. This indicates that most Republican gains in November will be a “correction” of recent overperformance by Democrats in House races rather than a true GOP “wave.” And it’s a reminder of the simple but often overlooked fact that because all members of the House face re-election every two years, a “landslide” is not defined by gains, but rather by overall performance. A GOP “landslide” in November would involve gains of closer to 100 seats than to the 40 necessary to eke out a small margin of control.
There are not any large regional disparities among the vulnerable Democratic seats: 18 are in the South, 18 in the Northeast, 18 in the Midwest and 12 in the West. Nor is it easy to typecast vulnerable Democrats by ideology: an analysis of the ideology of Democratic incumbents in competitive races published just yesterday by Swing State Project shows they span the intra-party ideological spectrum quite broadly.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has just released an update of his Senate race forecast, which now shows a slight improvement in Democratic prospects compared to his last forecast a couple of months ago. His model now predicts as a matter of probabilities that Democrats should get through November with 55 senators, with the Republicans holding 44 and, perhaps, one true independent (Charlie Crist). Silver gives Republicans a six percent chance of running the table and taking control of the Senate, a figure that improves to 12 percent if they can convince both Joe Lieberman and Charlie Crist (if he wins) to caucus with them.
Poll Watch
In polling news, two new surveys of the Massachusetts gubernatorial race by the University of New Hampshire and Rasmussen both show vulnerable incumbent Democrat Deval Patrick maintaining a seven-point lead over Republican Charlie Baker, with independent Tim Cahill losing steam. A rare poll of the Wyoming governor’s race (again by Rasmussen) shows the importance of term limits: four different Republicans have sizable leads over three different Democrats, while lame duck Democratic Gov. David Freudenthal enjoys an approval/disapproval ratio of 72/25 (a bit better than President Obama’s 30/70).
Yet another Rasmussen poll is the first post-primary survey of the South Carolina governor’s race, and given the positive hype surrounding Nikki Haley after her runoff win, Democrat Vincent Sheheen should be pleased to be trailing only 52-40 (his approval/disapproval ratio is 50/35, while Haley’s is predictably and perhaps temporarily in the stratosphere at 70/26). And while it’s hardly that significant at this early stage, it’s interesting that a PPP survey of Texas Republicans shows Newt Gingrich leading the 2012 presidential field, with or without Rick Perry listed as an option. Presumed front-runner Mitt Romney is in the middle of the pack.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo credit: Dbking’s Photosream
Tags: Barack Obama, Campaigns and elections, Charlie Baker, Charlie Crist, Cook Political Report, David Freudenthal, David Wasserman, Democratic Party, Deval PAtrick, FiveThirtyEight, Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, Nate Silver, Newt Gingrich, Nikki Haley, Politics and politicians, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Swing State Project, Tim Cahill, University of New Hampshire, Vincent Sheheen
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Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
Steven Chlapecka
Steven K. Chlapecka is the director of public affairs for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Steven Chlapecka
PPI President Will Marshall tells the National Journal’s Eliza Newlin Carney that labor’s aggressive fight to unseat incumbent Democrats has been destructive and a losing strategy for Democrats to maintain a congressional majority:
The unions’ Arkansas challenge angered Democrats, from the White House on down. Some argue that the tens of millions of dollars that labor threw into the race was a waste, especially given that Arkansas is not union-friendly. Demanding loyalty to base voters, as tea party activists have set out to do in several GOP primaries, is a losing strategy for Democrats, said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
“Trying to enforce litmus tests and punish Democrats for ideological heresy [is] divisive and does not reflect the reality that Democrats are inevitably a coalition party,” Marshall said. He called the labor movement’s anti-Lincoln campaign “extraordinarily destructive.”
“The sad truth is that labor has not found a way to arrest its decline in the private economy,” Marshall added. “And this year, for the first time, we see more labor union members in the public sector than in the private sector.”
Read the entire article.
Tags: Blanche Lincoln, Campaigns and elections, Democratic Party, Politics and politicians, progressives, Progressivism, Unions
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Monday, June 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
It’s been a tough year for the Democratic tradition in the U.S. Senate, with the loss of Edward Kennedy and the solidification of the Almighty Filibuster as the real power in the institution. But the death of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia really does turn a lot of pages, while denying the Senate its unrivalled historian and parliamentarian.
Byrd’s tenure alone makes him one of the titans of Senate history: more than a half-century, spanning the administrations of eleven presidents. He was, however, the junior senator from West Virginia until he was 68, and in another reflection of the Senate’s slow pace of change, his career overlapped with only five Democratic leaders — not counting Byrd himself.
When Byrd was first elected to the Senate in 1958, Democrats from his corner of the world were typically hard-core segregationists and equally hard-core New Deal economic progressives. He abandoned and apologized for the former habit, but never the latter. The persistent poverty of West Virginia — for much of career it included some of the very poorest areas of the country — made it one place where politicians never shrank from the full exercise of power on behalf of the home folks, or from celebration of the seniority system that gave Byrd and so many others the clout to serve as equalizers. Byrd became the embodiment of Senate traditions for good reason: they served his constituents well.
He survived wave after wave of efforts in both parties to change the Senate and make it more responsive to national political trends, and might well have survived one or two more had he been born 10 years later. He also survived wave after wave of efforts to bend Congress to the will of presidents of both parties, and in that respect was more consistent than most of his colleagues in both parties.
In this era of political turbulence and simmering resentment of professional politicians, it’s unlikely America will ever see another senator like him. And so in a very real sense a big part of national history will go to the grave with him. His distinctive and authoritative voice will be missed, and may he rest in peace.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Photo credit: cliff1066™’s Photostream
Tags: Congress, Democratic Party, Edward Kennedy, filibuster, New Deal, Politics and politicians, Race, Robert Byrd, Senate, West Virginia
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Friday, June 25th, 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
We’re entering a slow period in state primaries, with the only contests on tap for the next four weeks being a runoff in Alabama on July 13 and Georgia’s primary on July 20. The former event features a Republican gubernatorial runoff between long-time front-runner Bradley Byrne and surprise second-place finisher Robert Bentley, who had to get past an unsuccessful recount petition by Tim James. In Georgia, there are competitive gubernatorial primaries in both parties, though former Gov. Roy Barnes seems to have the Democratic race well in hand at this point; Republicans have a fractious multi-candidate field led for many months by state insurance commissioner John Oxendine (whose ethics record is so controversial that RedState blogger Erick Erickson’s said he’d vote for Barnes if Oxendine wins the nomination), with a runoff almost certain. I’ll have more about both states when we get closer to the balloting.
As expected, the landslide victories on Tuesday of Asian-American Nikki Haley and African-American Tim Scott in South Carolina has spurred a lot of commentary about the GOP’s new diversity. (It hasn’t got much attention, BTW, but Haley’s Democratic opponent, Vincent Sheheen, is of Arab descent, reflecting the long-time presence of Lebanese in the Deep South). But outside South Carolina, an equally remarkable aspect of those victories has gone largely unremarked: both candidates were protégés of disgraced Republican governor Mark Sanford, who has now achieved the political equivalent of eternal life in the success of his young associates. It will also be interesting to see how well Scott (assuming he wins his heavily Republican district in November), a hard-core conservative ideologue, fits in with the Congressional Black Caucus.
Utah Republicans are recovering from a nomination cycle that involved the rejection of a long-time incumbent Senator, Bob Bennett, and then a savage primary between two very conservative candidates, with the winner, Mike Lee, being very much the vehicle for national groups determined to move the GOP to the right. To understand that these Men of Principle haven’t gotten rid of the hypocrisy of traditional politics, check out the web site of the losing candidate, Tim Bridgewater. At the top is a pre-primary jeremiad that includes this line: “My opponent, D.C.-based attorney Mike Lee, is spending $200,000 on TV and radio, spreading lies and distortions about my business background.” A bit later he accuses Lee of “a desperate lie.” But over to the left on the page is a new bulletin that, predictably, endorses that desperate liar for the general election.
Moving along, you can expect some serious political fallout around the country from the U.S. Senate’s apparent defeat of what some have called a second stimulus bill. Most of the attention in national media has been paid to the impact on people whose unemployment insurance eligibility is running out. But the bill also included $16 billion in assistance to state and local government to help forestall layoffs of teachers and other public employees. Whatever you think of that as economic policy, it’s clear the withdrawn funds will wreak havoc in those states where governors and legislators had counted on the help, including those where Republicans are nervous about the public reaction to teacher layoffs and higher public university tuition. It’s another example of how tough-sounding rhetoric on fiscal austerity and small government is more popular than the practical steps needed to reduce spending, particularly in a recession, since there’s no state budget category called “waste, fraud and abuse” that can painlessly absorb cuts.
Poll Watch
In polling news, Rasmussen has a bunch of new take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt polls. In the Nevada Senate race, a post-primary survey has Republican Sharron Angle up over Harry Reid 48-41, though her favorable/unfavorable ratio is no better than the incumbent’s. In the first general-election poll of the Vermont governor’s race in a long while, Rasmussen shows Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie leading all the Democratic candidates, though Secretary of State Deb Markowitz holds him to a 47-40 lead. And in Washington, the new poll shows Sen. Patti Murray (D) and Republican Dino Rossi in a 47-47 dead heat.
A new Magellan poll in Arizona has John McCain with a comfortable 52-29 lead over conservative challenger, J.D. Hayworth, who’s having a tough week.
Tags: Alabama, Bob Bennett, Bradley Byrne, Brian Dubie, Campaigns and elections, Deb Markowitz, Dino Rossi, Erick Erickson, Georgia, Harry Reid, John McCain, John Oxendine, Mark Sanford, Mike Lee, Nevada, Nikki Haley, Patti Murray, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Robert Bentley, Roy Barnes, Sharron Angle, Tim Bridgewater, Tim James, Tim Scott, Utah, Vermont, Vincent Sheheen
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
Now that Gen. McChrystal is about to add “(ret.)” after his name, let’s examine the implications of the transition to Gen. Petraeus.
The Washington Post story quotes an unnamed White House official saying of the transition: “It’s as seamless as it could be, not only in terms of operations but also because you put someone in who’s widely respected. No one is going to doubt that he’s the right guy for the job.”
A relatively smooth transition, to be sure, but with an emphasis on the relatively. Here’s a look at five areas where the change in command might create a bit of unease.
Political expectations: Petraeus is God, at least if you ask most elected officials on the Hill. Yes, he was the architect of the “surge” in Iraq, and the “surge” was part of the reason that violence decreased in that country. The massive increase in troops helped, but the strategy change, the Sons of Iraq’s change of allegiance and a six-month cease-fire called by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were all critical.
If you’re really interested in learning the entire story of how Iraq’s civil war was tamed, read The Gamble by Tom Ricks. In it, Ricks quotes a Petraeus colleague (and I’m paraphrasing from memory) as saying, “David is the best general in the United States military. But he’s not as good as he thinks he is.” It’s like Favre to the Vikings. He’s still really, really good. But he’ll never be as good as in Green Bay.
Keep this in mind because, as Ricks says on his blog this morning, “Afghanistan 2010 may be an even tougher nut than Iraq 2007. … Our biggest problem in Afghanistan is the government we are supporting there, and it isn’t clear to me what Petraeus can do about that.”
Mission: Counterinsurgency theory and practice is Petraeus’ bag, so don’t expect that to change. Bear in mind that COIN is a strategy, not an outcome. It ends with some sort of negotiated peace, and it’s unclear if Petraeus has the same threshold for potential discussions with the Taliban as McChrystal. There has been American resistance to the idea (as there should be) of reconciling with any of the Taliban’s upper eschelon, but would Petraeus draw the line slightly differently than McChrystal?
Relations with Eikenberry: It became clear that the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, was playing second fiddle to McChrystal, who had established a clear working relationship with Karzai. During Petraeus’ time in Iraq, he may have held more sway than then-Ambassador Ryan Crocker, but they were an inseparable team that appeared together constantly. Petraeus, who is as much of a diplomat as a solider, will work to forge a better relationship with Eikenberry and turn this operation into a true civilian-military effort.
Relations with Karzai: Karzai very publicly lobbied for McChrystal to stay, and by many accounts, the two were on the same page (at least professionally). Is it possible that they were too close? Will Petraeus do a better job using America’s isolated points of leverage to extract more from the Afghan government?
Relations with Pakistan: This quote says it all:
McChrystal also played a key role in improving Kabul’s rocky relationship with Islamabad.
Yet Petraeus probably has as much, if not more, clout in Islamabad. He was an early proponent of a regional strategy that prioritized improving relations with Pakistan in hopes of persuading it to target the Afghan Taliban fighters who use Pakistani hideouts to plot attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Petraeus has visited Pakistan numerous times, delivering assurances that the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan would not spill over into Pakistan, visiting Pakistani paramilitary forces in the northwestern city of Peshawar and regularly praising Pakistan’s fight against its domestic Taliban.
“There’s a complete understanding of each other’s situation,” a senior Pakistani military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s not a stranger.”
Troops on the ground: There’s been no shortage of troops in Afghanistan who voiced their displeasure with McChrystal’s restrictions on the use of force. Think of it this way: you’re an 18-year-old Marine, –and you’ve become a trained killer and sent to a war zone. But your commanding general seems like he’s telling you not to do the job you’ve been trained for. Many of the troops’ quotes imply a certain amount of lost respect for McChrystal. Petraeus will have to work to explain the mission and win them over to a “mission first” mentality. Training stateside should also be adjusted accordingly.
Petraeus is the consummate pro, and he’ll no doubt do his best in an incredibly challenging environment with far-from-certain results. My take is that this transition will be as smooth as one could hope.
Photo credit: Jon-Phillip Sheridan’s Photostream
Tags: Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Hamid Karzai, Iraq, Islamabad, Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, Military, Moqtada al-Sadr, Politics and politicians, Ryan Crocker, Sons of Iraq, Taliban, Terrorism, The Gamble, Tom Ricks, Washington Post, White House
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Wednesday, June 23rd, 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
As I expected, the cluster of organizations and interests that represent the most conservative wing of the increasingly very conservative Republican Party had some real fun last night in South Carolina’s runoff elections.
Nikki Haley, the Mark Sanford protege who had staked out the “most conservative” territory in her gubernatorial race long before anything was said about her sex life or ethnicity, won the runoff over congressman Gresham Barrett by a two-to-one margin, essentially winning everywhere other than a few counties in Barrett’s upstate base. Similarly, another Sanford protege with a can’t-outconservative-me rep, state legislator Tim Scott, beat Charleston County Councilmember Paul Thurmond by better than two-to-one for an open congressional seat.
I’ve written enough about Haley over the past few weeks; suffice it to say that she won this race the moment her old staffer, blogger Will Folks, accused her of marital infidelity in a way that failed to convince much of anybody but made the entire campaign All About Nikki. And it was especially appropriate that Sarah Palin endorsed Haley just before the Folks furor began; the Haley saga was a pitch-perfect projection of Palin’s own persecution complex–you know, the Good Old Boys and the liberal lamestream media trying to smear a brave Mama Grizzly for telling the simple right-wing truth.
Scott’s victory was equally interesting, and perhaps an even bigger deal for the Republican Right, which will have an African-American spokesman in Congress for the first time since J.C. Watts retired. The symbolism of an African-American defeating the son of Strom Thurmond within shouting distance of Fort Sumter is obviously very striking. But it’s not as though Scott’s win repudiated any aspect of Thurmond’s legacy other than the blatant racism he abandoned by the 1970s; Scott was himself co-chairman of ol’ Strom’s last Senate campaign.
The third great event for South Carolina conservatives was the absolutely humiliating 71-29 defeat of U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis by Tea Party vehicle Trey Gowdy. This result will serve as an enduring reminder to GOP elected officials that The Movement will find someone to run against them if they stray from orthodoxy. Inglis’ fatal act of sacrilege was probably telling fist-shaking protestors at a town hall meeting to stop paying attention to Glenn Beck.
South Carolina has always been a special place for the more radical variety of conservatives. They certainly seemed to have the whole state wired last night.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Photo credit: maryaustinphoto
Tags: Bob Inglis, Campaigns and elections, conservatives, Gresham Barrett, Nikki Haley, Politics and politicians, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, South Carolina, Tea Party, Tim Scott, Trey Gowdy, Will Folks
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Tuesday, June 22nd, 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
It’s primary day in Utah, with statewide primary runoffs on tap in North and South Carolina.
Taking these states in reverse order: South Carolina is almost certain to produce the bulk of national political headlines tonight, with the made-for-TV saga of Republican gubernatorial candidate (and certain boffo winner tonight) Nikki Haley front-and-center. In case you have somehow missed it, Haley is the very, very conservative state legislator who began the campaign as the underfunded protégé of disgraced “conservative reformer” Mark Sanford, and then vaulted into contention just as one and then two South Carolina Republican political operatives went public with allegations that they’d had illicit sex with the candidate.
It’s sometimes difficult to separate cause and effect in political developments, but it’s reasonably clear that the poorly documented sexual allegations against Haley, compounded more recently by crude attacks on her ethnicity (she’s second-generation Indian-American) and religion (she’s an adult convert to evangelical Protestantism from her family’s Sikh tradition), have immeasurably helped her campaign while reducing her once-powerful gubernatorial rivals to bystanders if not presumed accomplices in smears against her. Haley nearly won the nomination without a runoff, and was also endorsed by third-place finisher Attorney General Henry McMaster. Her opponent, Rep. Gresham Barrett, won the dubious prize of an endorsement from last-place primary finisher Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, and also managed to outspend Haley in the brief runoff campaign. But that matters little in a race driven by scandal-fed free media, and the only question is how high her margin will rise, and how well she wears on voters in a long general election campaign against Democrat Vincent Sheheen.
Those who want to boost the GOP as a party that presents diverse candidates proclaiming a single rigid conservative message will be hoping against hope that another South Carolina runoff, in the Low Country 1st congressional district, produces a win for state representative Tim Scott. Scott, who like Haley claims the “true conservative” mantle (and has both a Sarah Palin endorsement and Club for Growth backing), is African-American, and in a coincidence that could have been made in Hollywood, his runoff opponent is none other than Strom Thurmond’s son, Paul (a Charleston County council member).
Meanwhile, in upstate South Carolina, Republican Rep. Bob Inglis is expected to lose his House seat to Tea Party favorite Trey Gowdy; Inglis only won 28 percent of the vote in the primary to Gowdy’s 39 percent. Inglis got into trouble for voting for TARP and daring to criticize Glenn Beck.
In North Carolina, it’s anybody’s guess as to whether Elaine Marshall or Cal Cunningham will win the Democratic nomination to face Sen. Richard Burr. Marshall led the primary 37-26, narrowly missing the 40 percent threshold for winning the nomination outright. She also got an endorsement from third-place primary finisher Ken Lewis, which added to her strength among African-American leaders. But Cunningham, who was recruited into the race by the DCCC, has been the aggressor in the runoff, touting his electability. The only public poll of the runoff, taken by PPP last month, showed the two dead even with a large undecided vote. I’d guess Marshall is still the favorite to win a very low-turnout runoff.
Aficionados of wild campaigns and wilder candidates may be disappointed tonight by the expected defeat of North Carolina Republican congressional candidate Tim D’Annunzio, who according to PPP is trailing Harold Johnson for the right to take on Democratic incumbent Larry Kissell.
With so much national attention on the Carolinas, the ideological drama going on in both parties in Utah may not receive due notice. As you may recall, Utah Republicans dumped Sen. Bob Bennett at a state convention last month as he trailed two challengers for the right to go to today’s primary. The survivors, entrepreneur Tim Bridgewater and former SCOTUS clerk Mike Lee, are both hard-core conservatives by most national standards. But Lee’s national supporters (including Jim DeMint and RedState’s Erick Erickson) are going after Bridgewater hammer-and-tong as little other than the ideological heir to Bennett (who, along with another defeated candidate, Eagle Forum activist Cherilyn Eagar, has endorsed Bridgewater). The one independent poll shows Bridgewater up by nine points, but Lee has released his own poll showing him up nine points.
Meanwhile, Utah’s sole Democratic congressman, Tim Matheson, is facing a serious primary challenge from the left, from retired teacher Claudia Wright. Wright has made Matheson’s opposition to health reform a major theme, and there’s also been talk of Republicans crossing over into the open Democratic primary to “take out” the incumbent (though as always, tactical voting is actually a pretty rare phenomenon). In a late poll, Matheson led Wright 52-33, but whatever vote Wright receives will be closely watched for national implications, given progressive grumbling about Blue Dogs like Matheson.
Photo credit: maryaustinphoto
Tags: Andre Bauer, Bob Bennett, Bob Inglis, Cal Cunningham, Campaigns and elections, Cherilyn Eagar, Claudia Wright, Conservatism, conservatives, Democratic Party, Elaine Marshall, Erick Erickson, Glenn Beck, Gresham Barrett, Henry McMaster, Jim DeMint, Ken Lewis, Larry Kissell, Mark Stanford, Mike Lee, Nikki Haley, Paul Thurmond, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Republican Party, Richard Burr, Sarah Palin, South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, Tim Bridgewater, Tim D'Annuzio, Tim Matheson, Tim Scott, Trey Gowdy, Utah, Vincent Sheheen
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Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Mike Signer
Mike Signer is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Mike Signer
In meetings I’ve had recently with folks representing industries from automobiles to energy to private equity, I’ve heard it over and over again. They want a price on carbon.
They want it because they want to make money through alternative energy. For that, they need predictability in supporting the companies that take risks and need capital to design and develop alternative fuel technologies.
They want it because they, their children, their grandchildren, their employees and their shareholders, like everyone on the planet, will suffer the externalities of a carbon-dependent economy.
And they want it because they’re good corporate citizens, and they want to do their part in easing the nation toward a lower-carbon future.
The question is whether carbon pricing will get any traction in the coming weeks from a White House that seems more intent on political calibration than on shaping the landscape itself.
Given the dynamism of the carbon-pricing movement, the twin mysteries today are, first, why the president didn’t press harder for what seems to be the consensus, industry-friendly position on carbon — a simple pricing mechanism — in his Oval Office speech last week, and second, whether he will do so in the coming weeks.
The politics of carbon have changed dramatically in recent weeks, as the nation continues to watch the spill billow in the Gulf. (If you haven’t yet done it yourself on your computer, click here for BP’s own mesmerizing and terrifying live feed). A recent, post-BP poll found that 63 percent of Americans support a bill with a carbon price, while only 29 percent oppose it. The environment has also improved for proposals like the “cap-and-dividend” bill recently offered by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (and explained here on P-Fix by Danny Morris), which would price carbon with a net-neutral return to the taxpayers in the form of checks.
Meanwhile, the nation’s leading corporations continue to support a price on carbon. In April, before the spill, three of the nation’s largest oil companies — Shell, ConocoPhillips, and BP (this is even pre-oil spill) — as well as the Edison Electric Institute, a consortium of utilities whose members provide the bulk of the nation’s electricity, all announced their support for the Kerry-Lieberman legislation with a “hard price collar” for the price of carbon (including both a floor and a ceiling).
The fact is that many private corporations want a price on carbon. They want it because they believe the future is headed in a direction where carbon-producing technologies will simply have to be reduced, and they’d rather build their businesses around that future quickly rather than slowly.
However, there was no such leadership last week from the Oval Office. Of the transition from carbon, the president said:
There are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy — because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security and our environment are far greater. So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party — as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.
This clinical framing scarcely captures the urgency of the task. There is a golden opportunity now finally to get business and clean energy on the same page. The question is whether it will billow by and disperse, like the oil we’re all watching in the Gulf.
Photo credit: Michael Caven’s Photostream
Tags: Barack Obama, BP, cap-and-dividend, Carbon price, Clean energy and technology, ConocoPhillips, Danny Morris, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Edison Electric Institute, Environment, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Maria Cantwell, Politics and politicians, Shell, Susan Collins, White House
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Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Elbert Ventura
Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Elbert Ventura
Today’s big personnel news is Peter Orszag’s decision to leave the White House budget office sometime in the next few weeks. The departure, which has already sparked speculation on possible replacements, will be the Obama administration’s first major exit. Whoever the White House picks to replace him will have big shoes to fill.
As the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Orszag played a key role in two of the biggest pieces of progressive legislation we’ll see in our lifetime: the economic stimulus package and the health care reform bill. On the latter, in particular, Orszag’s acumen and advocacy were key assets, his forceful case for the bill’s cost-cutting properties no doubt crucial in bolstering support for a gigantic piece of social legislation. It’s worth noting that his contributions to passing health reform began well before his stint at OMB. As the director of the Congressional Budget Office in 2007-2008, Orszag repeatedly sounded the alarm on rising health costs as the biggest threat to our fiscal future, warnings that undoubtedly helped set the stage for reform’s passage.
For an administration numbers-cruncher, he was unusually visible, which was a good thing. With a reputation for impartiality and brilliance, Orszag gave the administration’s agenda analytical ballast. There will no doubt be efforts on the right to brush Orszag with the red ink that the administration finds itself swimming in, but that’s politics as usual. Inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s, Orszag presided over the Herculean task of preventing a complete meltdown and setting the foundation for a recovery. In many ways, he’s a reflection of the administration at its best: a rigorous, pragmatic empiricist.
Photo credit: Center for American Progress’ Photostream
Tags: Barack Obama, Congressional Budget Office, conservatives, Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, Politics and politicians, progressives, Republican Party, White House
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Saturday, June 19th, 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
If you want a pretty good indication of the power of ideology in today’s Republican Party, check out the latest endorsement of front-runner Nikki Haley for the Republican gubernatorial nomination just before next Tuesday’s runoff:
So let’s get this straight … we know for a fact that S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley is lying through her teeth every time she denies our founding editor’s claim that she had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with him in the Spring of 2007. On top of that, we also know for a fact that her political career could very well go down in flames if (and more likely “when”) this ticking time bomb goes off …
And yet we’re endorsing her for the 2010 S.C. Republican gubernatorial nomination anyway?
Correct….
[T]he bottom line for S.C. taxpayers is that Haley would vote the right way on the S.C. Budget and Control Board, use her veto pen to reduce the size and scope of government and sign a universal parental choice bill which would (at long last) provide parents with real options and our flawed system with real, market-based accountability.
Yes, Haley has been endorsed by the web page of South Carolina blogger Will Folks, whose allegation of an affair with Haley turned the gubernatorial race upside down. Unless you buy the theory that Folks and Haley actually cooked up the whole J’accuse to preempt rumors about her sex life and make her a martyr, Folks’ endorsement looks like a powerful validator of the notion that being Right is more important than being right to today’s conservative activists.
There haven’t been any public polls on this race released since the June 8 primary, but a pre-primary poll by PPP that asked about a hypothetical Haley-Gresham Barrett runoff showed her up 51-35. This was before third-place finisher Henry McMaster endorsed Haley.
In North Carolina, where Democrats are having a Senate runoff on Tuesday, the only post-primary poll (again, by PPP) showed first-place primary finisher Elaine Marshall and DSCC favorite Cal Cunningham even at 36 percent with a large undecided vote. But that was more than a month ago, and given the likelihood of very low turnout, anything could happen. Marshall was endorsed by third-place finisher Ken Lewis, buttressing her advantage among African-Americans, and also by MoveOn.
And in Utah, whose primary is also on Tuesday, a poll taken for Mike Lee’s campaign showed him leading Tim Bridgewater in the Republican Senate race 39-30. Bridgewater, a hard-core conservative but in better standing than Lee with the GOP establishment, has been endorsed by defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett and also by fourth-place finisher Cherilyn Eager.
Poll Watch
In polling news, it’s a sign of the trouble that the long-time front-runner in the Florida Republican gubernatorial race, Bill McCollum, is experiencing with free-spending late-entering candidate Rick Scott that McCollum has released a poll showing them running dead even.
A new Sooner Poll of the Oklahoma Democratic gubernatorial race (the primary is on July 27) shows Attorney General Drew Edmondson holding just a one-point lead over Lt. Gov. Jari Askins.
Rasmussen has three new general-election gubernatorial polls out. In Texas, they show Rick Perry with a 48-40 lead over Bill White, although White has a somewhat better approval-disapproval ratio than the incumbent. In Tennessee, they show all three major Republican gubernatorial candidates with double-digit leads over Democrat Mike McWherter. And in Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Mike Beebe enjoys a 57-33 lead over Republican nominee Jim Keet, a slightly higher margin than he had in May.
Tags: Arkansas, Bill McCollum, Bill White, Bob Bennett, Cal Cunningham, Campaigns and elections, Cherilyn Eager, Conservatism, Democratic Party, Drew Edmondson, Elaine Marshall, Florida, Gresham Barrett, Henry McMaster, Jari Askins, Jim Keet, Ken Lewis, Mike Beebe, Mike Lee, Mike McWherter, Nikki Haley, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Rasmussen, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Rick Scott, South Carolina, Texas, Tim Bridgewater, Utah, Will Folks
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Friday, June 18th, 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
A debate among Republican gubernatorial candidates in Georgia this week illustrated just how far the GOP (particularly in the South) has drifted from the impulse that led George W. Bush and John McCain to support comprehensive immigration reform back in the day. Now it’s all about deporting the undocumented pronto, and the only difference of opinion is over how many public employees need to spend their time in the dragnet for illegals.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway, candidate Eric Johnson, who’s struggling to land a runoff spot, came out for requring both teachers and hospital employees to verify the citizenship status of their patrons. Candidate Nathal Deal professed frustration that few cops in Georgia viewed themselves as immigration enforcement officers, but did draw the line at teachers being enrolled in the chore.
All the GOP candidates, of course, supported the idea of Georgia enacting a law like Arizona’s; this is a position that’s becoming as much a litmus test for southern Republicans as attacking unions. That will become significant nationally in 2012 when the Republican presidential nomination contest moves south.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Tags: Campaigns and elections, Eric Johnson, Georgia, Immigration, Jim Galloway, Nathan Deal, Politics and politicians, Republican Party
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Thursday, June 17th, 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
As President Obama struggles though a host of problems, from the Gulf oil spill to the refusal of the Senate to support a new jobs bill or a cap-and-trade system, you can hear Republicans repeating a strange refrain that first became prominent in their rhetoric during the health reform fight: this president is arrogant and perhaps even tyrannical for trying to enact the policy agenda that he campaigned on in 2008 in the teeth of Republican and (in some cases) popular opposition.
Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics has been particularly insistent on this line of argument, with “bully” being the latest unlikely epithet employed to attack this embattled president:
For somebody who seems detached from the details of policy and largely uninterested in legislative wrangling, Barack Obama sure does come across sometimes like a political bully. But this is not bullying some obstinate backbench legislator. Instead, this is bullying the American people. With health care reform, he basically told the country that he didn’t care what it thought. The fact that people opposed the bill was proof they didn’t know what they were talking about. Now, apparently, the evolving strategy on energy is the same. Don’t like cap-and-trade? That’s your problem, not his. Plan to vote out Democrats in favor of the idea? Like he cares. He’ll pass it anyway….
Instead of passing unpopular bills through questionable methods over the opposition of the people, maybe the President should get behind proposals that can actually sustain popular support.
Okay, fine, let’s say that Obama should ignore the fact that he was elected on a platform to do all these outrageous things that Jay Cost objects to, and go with the polls which make 2010 “likely voters” the arbiters of what he should do right now. What are those “proposals” the president should “get behind” that “can actually sustain popular support?”
Should he, as he has often been urged by Republicans, forget about “irrelevant” issues like health care costs or climate change and focus strictly on the economy? Let’s say he should; what, specifically, can he do that Republicans in Congress won’t fight tooth and nail? Best I can tell, the GOP’s “strategy” for improving the economy is to slash upper-end taxes while eliminating deficits and debts. This cannot, unfortunately, be done without radical reductions in defense spending, which Republicans do not, by and large, support, or alternatively, big changes in Social Security and Medicare that the public is certain to reject by much bigger margins than health reform or cap-and-trade.
The dirty little secret of Washington right now is that the policies Republicans would follow if they were running things are considerably less popular than those being promoted by Democrats, and as the events of the last year have graphically demonstrated, there is no “half-loaf” compromise approach on major issues that Obama can take that Republicans will accept. So Obama can do what he’s doing, or do nothing. If he’s a “bully” for rejecting complete inaction, then bully for him.
Photo credit: Jurvetson’s Photostream
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Tags: Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, Democratic Party, Economy, Environment, Gulf oil spill, health reform, Jay Cost, Politics and politicians, RealClearPolitics, Republican Party
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