Posts Tagged ‘
Sarah Palin ’
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
In the traditionally sluggish Dog Days of late August (interrupted, of course, on the East Coast by the occasional earthquake or hurricane), wingnuts, like other Americans, have been a bit distracted from politics. But those answering the phone calls of ever-vigilant pollsters are building a wave of buzz for new presidential candidate Rick Perry for which there is little recent precedent. Perhaps it is just a reflection of long-simmering unhappiness with the candidate field, but in survey after survey, national and local, Perry is quickly moving ahead of not only the Star of Ames Michele Bachmann, but also long-time front-runner Mitt Romney. Five national polls taken since August 15 show Perry up over Romney by margins ranging from six to thirteen points. Two polls of Iowa Republicans taken during the same period show Perry edging out Bachmann, even though the Texan skipped the Iowa GOP Straw Poll and has appeared in the state exactly once. Two new polls in South Carolina show Perry trouncing the field; one has Perry up 23 points over Romney and 29 points over Bachmann. Even in Mitt Romney’s stronghold of New Hampshire, Perry is rapidly moving into serious contention. Where available, poll internals typically show Perry racing past Bachmann among Tea Party conservatives, and holding his own against Romney with more conventional conservatives and moderates alike.
It’s unclear at this point whether the various controversies already surrounding Perry—from his published views on the New Deal and the Great Society to questions about his intelligence—are being brushed off by Republican voters or simply haven’t sunk in. But the reining question in the conservative chattering classes is whether his rivals—and particularly Mitt Romney—should be panicking or beginning to go negative on him, or at least reconsidering their strategies.
The thinking in RomneyLand, it is being reported, is that Perry’s surge in the polls is likely to abate somewhat on its own, and that MSM scrutiny of the Texan will also take a toll. Perry is also gaffe-prone, and doesn’t have a reputation as a particularly good debater (there will be three televised candidate debates in September alone). The main trouble for Team Romney, however, is strategic timing. One nightmare scenario is that Perry will trounce the field in Iowa, giving him enough of a bounce to run a strong second in New Hampshire and then build up an invincible head of steam going into South Carolina and then other southern states. Uncertainty over the primary calendar is a big issue as well. If a Romney-friendly state like Michigan manages to move up to the early stages of the contest as it did in 2008, he can perhaps stick to his original game-plan. But if, say, Georgia and Florida wind up holding primaries the week after South Carolina, then the risk of a Perry sweep would go up considerably. In theory, the Perry-Bachmann competition over the hard-core conservative vote in Iowa could create an opening for Romney in that state; a Romney victory upset there followed by a win in New Hampshire could leave him in a very good position. But this “quick kill” approach is obviously the strategy that blew up on Romney—and for that matter, Hillary Clinton—in 2008.
Romney has a number of more immediate trials to overcome during the Labor Day weekend. He’s the featured speaker at a Tea Party Express event in New Hampshire, a development that has spurred a formal protest by the rival tea party group FreedomWorks, which has long harbored an animus towards Romney.
The same weekend all the major candidates will face an early and potentially difficult test: a command-performance inquisition in South Carolina by a conservative group that has joined forces with ideological commissar Jim DeMint to quiz the hopefuls on various matters of conservative orthodoxy. Most of the media attention on the event has focused on Romney’s initial refusal to participate on specious-sounding scheduling grounds, followed by his sudden decision yesterday that he would, after all, come to Columbia to pay homage to DeMint. But there is another subplot to the story that could become important: one of DeMint’s co-inquisitors will be Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has yet to make a presidential endorsement despite his close relationship with Michele Bachmann. King rivals Tom Tancredo as a right-wing firebrand on the immigration issue, where Rick Perry’s record is significantly out of line with prevailing conservative views. It wouldn’t be that surprising to see King hold the Texan’s feet to the fire on this issue and then sadly decide he has to back someone else back home in Iowa.
Speaking of Labor Day weekend, and of Iowa, there’s all sorts of confusion surrounding the long-anticipated appearance of Sarah Palin at a big Tea Party gathering just outside of Des Moines on Saturday. This event was where a lot of Palin-watchers originally thought she might either launch or definitively foreswear a presidential campaign. Team Palin has thrown cold water on that assumption (saying the deadline for an announcement of her plans is the end of September, not Labor Day), and now, her appearance is “on hold” due to conflicts with local Tea Party planners. One report is that Palin and her staff are fed up with the vacillation of event organizers over a speaking role—offered, withdrawn, and then reoffered—for former Delaware Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, who is fresh from one of the more disastrous book launch tours in recent memory. In any event, Palin will do at least one public event in Iowa this weekend, followed quickly by another in New Hampshire. But the ranks of those expecting her to run for president in 2012 are thinning rapidly.
Photo credit: Aaron Webb
Tags: Iowa, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, South Carolina
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
With the end of the brief, Weekly Standard-driven boomlet for a Paul Ryan presidential candidacy, it’s increasingly certain that the 2012 GOP presidential field is set. Yes, there are still some observers who believe (with hope or fear) that Sarah Palin is going to announce a 2012 bid in Iowa at a big Tea Party rally over the Labor Day weekend. But Team Palin’s abrasive push back against a Karl Rove prediction that this would happen is a pretty clear indicator that it won’t, unless St. Joan of the Tundra really enjoys misdirection.
So there are by most accounts three viable candidates—Perry, Romney and Bachmann—with Ron Paul formidable enough to wreak some occasional havoc, and perhaps someone else—most likely Rick Santorum, possibly Herman Cain—having enough juice in Iowa to affect other candidates’ performances at the margins. Perry is the “it” candidate of the moment, and fans of Bachmann are praying that her candidacy can survive his current surge in the national and early-state polls.
Meanwhile, Perry himself is negotiating a pretty interesting tightrope that shows both the power and perils of wingnuttery. On the one hand, it’s important that he provide a credible challenge to Bachmann for the support of serious Tea Party and Christian Right activists; perhaps his camp even thinks they can drive her from the race before voting begins by pushing down her poll numbers and drying up her money sources. This would explain the savagely carnivorous nature of his early speeches, and certain other maneuvers like his decision to sign onto the Susan B. Anthony List’s highly prescriptive anti-abortion pledge, which Mitt Romney declined to do. That pledge, it should be noted, would prohibit Perry from appointing his 2008 presidential favorite, Rudy Giuliani, to any cabinet post with an influence on abortion policy.
But at the same time, Perry is having some problems generated by wingnut-pleasing passages in his 2010 book, Fed Up, most notably an expression of interest in repealing the Sixteenth Amendment (which made possible the establishment of a federal income tax), and exceedingly hostile remarks about the constitutionality and morality of Social Security. Indeed, he’s already back-peddling pretty fast on Social Security, as reported by the Wall Street Journal:
His communications director, Ray Sullivan, said [last] Thursday that he had “never heard” the governor suggest the program was unconstitutional. Not only that, Mr. Sullivan said, but “Fed Up!” is not meant to reflect the governor’s current views on how to fix the program.
Perry is also drawing unfriendly mainstream media attention for more conventional (among today’s conservatives, at least) sentiments denying man-made global climate change and treating evolution as a mere egghead theory. But one Perry controversy also shows how thoroughly previously unconventional views have become common among GOP elites. His attack on Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernancke made some Republican opinion-leaders nervous on grounds that a potential POTUS should not be assaulting the independence of the Fed. Hardly anyone questioned the underlying policy stance Perry embraced, suggesting a Ron-Paul-style deflationary monetary policy in the midst of a deep recession.
As Perry’s audition as a possible chief executive continues, the broader question is whether the specific views of Republicans matter a whole lot to anyone outside the hothouse atmosphere of conservative activists. A new Gallup survey testing the incumbent against Romney, Perry, Paul and Bachmann among registered voters showed remarkably little variation. Romney, predictably, did best, edging Obama 48-46. But Gallup also showed Perry tied with Obama at 47-47, with Paul only trailing by two points (47-45) and Bachmann only trailing by four (48-44).
Those who wonder why the Obama re-election team is reportedly planning a scorched-earth campaign criticizing the eventual Republican nominee should stare at those numbers a while. A “comparative” campaign is not simply essential in order to prevent the election from becoming a referendum on life in the Obama Era at a time when “wrong-track” sentiments are extraordinarily high. Perry, Paul and Bachmann, at least, offer a treasure trove of oppo research opportunities that any Democratic candidate would be foolish not to exploit.
But it’s equally interesting to wonder if findings like Gallup’s will convince conservative activists there is no electoral risk attached to their own choice of a candidate. If so—if, in other words, “electability” is not really a factor in so polarized an electorate–you can expect them to indulge themselves ideologically without much in the way of inhibition.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
Tags: Ed Kilgore, Michele Bachmann, republicans, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, wingnut watch
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Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
If Newt Gingrich’s self-destructive criticism of Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposals pushed Republicans more firmly into Ryan’s corner (e.g., Tim Pawlenty’s forced statement that he would sign a bill implementing
Ryan’s budget as president, even though he intends to present his own “ideas”), you might think the results of last Tuesday’s special congressional election in New York would then exert counter-pressure against Ryan’s plan. After all, it’s pretty clear that Republican candidate Jane Corwin’s support for Ryan’s budget was the central issue in the campaign, and contributed to her loss in a strong GOP district. But for the most part, conservative opinion-leaders are resisting the pressure, either rationalizing Corwin’s loss as attributable to other factors (mainly through an unconvincing claim she would have won without the presence of self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate Jack Davis splitting the GOP vote), or simply arguing that Republicans need to do a better job of explaining Ryan’s proposal.
In any event, last week’s results guarantee that Democrats will keep relentlessly tarring the entire GOP with the unpopularity of Ryan’s specific take on Medicare. Whatever individual Republicans actually think, they probably calculate they’d rather take their chances on a general election loss over Medicare than invite a primary challenge by dissing Ryan. Many also undoubtedly hope the president will eventually give them “cover” by supporting a budget deal including enough changes to Medicare and Medicaid that makes it describable, accurately or not, as Ryan Lite.
Elsewhere, it’s been another wild week on the Republican presidential campaign trail, particularly on the Wingnut Right. Three national polls of Republicans have shown Georgia-based radio talk host Herman Cain leaping past more highly-regarded competitors to a high-single or low-double digit position of support, despite low name ID and meager (up until now) media coverage. The Hermanator (as he likes to call himself) has already been regularly winning straw polls after candidate speaking engagements, and is at this point the unquestioned favorite of Tea Party activists around the country. He’s been wowing audiences in Iowa in particular, and a Public Policy Institute poll of likely Caucus-goers in the Hawkeye state to be released later today will reportedly show him running second.
The media attention Cain has now earned will be a mixed blessing, making him more of a national conservative celebrity, but also inviting the kind of negative scrutiny he has avoided as a fringe candidate. It could well produce both effects, as illustrated by the mockery he’s already getting for conflating the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution in his announcement speech. In Wingnut World, it’s gospel that the latter document incorporates the former, which is how both Christian Right and Tea Party folk import God, natural law, and an implicit right of resistance against Big Government into the Constitution. Odds are Cain wasn’t being ignorant, but was simply blowing a dog whistle to conservative activists. His insouciance about foreign affairs could be a bigger problem, as could publicity about his past support for TARP and his service on the Federal Reserve Board back in the 1990s. Above all, Cain’s new prominence will bring race back into the national political discussion with a vengeance, even though many of his supporters seem to feel he represents sort of definitive rebuttal against charges that anti-Obama sentiments reflect racial undertones.
Even as polls have been raising Cain, however, an even bigger phenomenon could be unfolding as Sarah Palin—assumed to have been driven away from a 2012 run by poor poll numbers, savage Republican Elite criticism, and her highly remunerative day jobs—is suddenly behaving very much like a proto-candidate. First up, it came out that she had commissioned a full-length feature film centering on her persecution by the forces of Establishment Evil, to be released next month in Iowa, followed by other early primary states. Then she sprang into action by becoming the chief Celebrity Guest at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally in Washington, and is on the verge of launching a bus tour that will eventually make its way to Iowa. By all accounts, she’s viewing this re-emergence on the national scene as a test of whether she could launch a viable candidacy while pursuing an “unconventional campaign” that apparently would involve low-substance “patriotic” appearances with her large and famous family in tow.
The impact of all this turbulence on the rest of the field is an interesting sub-plot. As someone whose candidacy would be mortally endangered by a Christian Right/Tea Party coalescence around Cain, or a campaign by her doppelganger Palin, Michele Bachmann had quite the nerve-wracking week, including a damaging and clumsily handled no-show at an important Iowa Republican fundraiser she was supposed to headline. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, considered the likely beneficiary of any surge of support for a presumably unelectable right-wing candidate like Cain or Palin, made his first appearance in Iowa in many months. As he sought to maintain a delicate balance between dissing Iowa and committing to the kind of full-tilt campaign in the state that undid him in 2008, Romney delivered a shirt-sleeve speech to an audience at a state facility in Des Moines. But before he could get into his altar call, fire alarms went off and Romney had to cut short his remarks and urge the crowd to calmly head to the exits. Ever snake-bit in Iowa, the Mittster was foiled on this occasion by someone overcooking a bag of microwave popcorn.
Picture Credit: DonkeyHotey
Tags: GOP, herman cain, Iowa, Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Tim Pawlenty, wingnut watch
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Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
It’s officially Repeal ObamaCare Week in the U.S. House, and the air will be filled with the noise of a renewed battle over the alleged benefits and demerits of that landmark legislation. Once the repeal bill has formally passed the House and formally died in the Senate, Republicans will move on to their real agenda of disabling health reform indirectly.
It’s not clear at this point which provisions will be targeted most aggressively: the individual mandate that makes coverage of the less healthy uninsured possible; the Medicaid mandates on the states (many of which are itching to cut Medicaid); the long-term care insurance program; the funds made available to set up health insurance exchanges—these are all possibilities. And while House Republicans are instructing their committee to begin drafting “replacement” legislation for the 2010 Act, there’s no real indication they are serious about their own “ideas” for health reform, other than as a way to deny association with the health care status quo.
As the health reform repeal saga plays itself out, pressure is steadily mounting to find some way to avoid defeat of a debt limit increase, which will probably be necessary by March. And while the growing number of Republicans (including three proto-presidential candidates) demanding a defeat of this measure all say they are holding it hostage to a major deficit reduction package, there’s no consensus on how much in the way of spending cuts will serve as an adequate ransom.
On the 2012 front, Democratic prospects for hanging onto the Senate took a hit as Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota announced he would not run for another term that year. ND Democrats lost their other senator, Byron Dorgan, to retirement last year, while veteran at-large House member Earl Pomeroy was defeated.
Meanwhile, a Republican senator thought to be vulnerable to a 2012 conservative primary challenge, Richard Lugar of Indiana, took his political life in his hands by calling for a return to the federal assault gun ban of the Clinton years, which expired in 2004. Another step like that will probably feed rumors that Lugar’s privately decided to retire, though he’s shown no sign of it publicly.
In other 2012 news, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced he was not interested in running for president this cycle. Christie had become a very hot property of late among Republicans looking for an alternative to what is shaping up as a dangerously weak field, though the logistics of a first-term governor running for president were probably prohibitive. An effort to draft Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana (currently mulling over a 2012 gubernatorial candidacy) to run for president was publicly launched, with influential RedState blogger Erick Erickson cheerleading from the sidelines. And Sarah Palin’s interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity last night might well be interpreted as her effort to rally conservative base support as assessments of her potential presidential strength go south. Speaking of Palin, Nate Silver took issue with the common meme (most recently articulated by Ross Douthat) that her notoriety is a pure media construction, noting that polls show her to be the most galvanizing figure in American politics.
The Democratic candidate for president in 2012, Barack Obama, got some good news as his job approval rating moved over 50 percent for the first time in months in two major polls, from CNN and ABC-Washington Post. And as you have probably heard, the White House staff got a familiar addition this last week, as former DLC president and Clinton staffer (and most recently, staff director for the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission) Bruce Reed became vice-president Joe Biden’s chief of staff, joining his close friend and Clinton-era colleague Gene Sperling (the new chairman of the National Economic Council) as major new administration hires.
Tags: Barack Obama, House Republicans, Obamacare, Political Memo, Politics, Sarah Palin
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Tuesday, December 14th, 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
The Obama-McConnell tax deal is expected to head from the Senate to the House today, with the big question being whether House Democrats have the temerity to amend the bill and risk a wholesale Republican abandonment of the process.
Senate defections on the key cloture vote were pretty limited: Ten Democrats (Bingaman, Brown, Feingold, Gillibrand, Hagan, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Sanders, Udall) and five Republicans (Coburn, DeMint, Ensign, Sessions and Voinovich). Steny Hoyer is hinting that House Democrats will be given an opportunity to support an amendment making the package more acceptable to progressives, but that a majority will be there for the original deal.
The estate tax provisions seem to be the real flashpoint for opposition from both sides, with Republicans objecting to the return of the “death tax” (even though under current law it’s due to resurrect itself at 2001 levels) and Democrats objecting to a relaxation in rates and exemptions benefitting a handful of the very rich without generating any positive impact for the economy. This is the sort of very basic difference of perspective on which compromise is probably impossible.
Meanwhile, two new public opinion surveys indicate pretty strong support for the deal across party lines.
According to Pew, 60 percent of Americans support the tax deal, while 22 percent disapprove. More interesting, an above-average 64 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans and 65 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats support the deal. A WaPo/ABC survey shows respondents favoring the package by a 69-29 margin, with support rising to 75 percent among self-identified Republicans and 68 percent among both self-identified Democrats and indies.
Interestingly, this survey shows narrow majority popular support for three enumerated parts of the deal—the UI extension, the two-year extension of the Bush income tax rates, and the new estate tax rates and exemptions—but 57 percent opposing the payroll tax holiday, generally considered the provision most likely to stimulate the economy. Breaking down these elements by party ID, the UI extension is the only provision gaining majority support among Democrats, Republicans, and indies, though the increase in the estate tax exemption comes close (with support from 52 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of indies). The whole package is generally more popular than its parts, which might indicate some support for bipartisan action as an end in itself.
Elite opinion is clearly on a track of its own. Aside from the strong opposition to the deal among many progressive opinion-leaders, which has resonated with House Democrats, conservative opinion is split, especially in the ranks of potential 2012 presidential candidates. Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich—two candidates who have most emphasized cultural as opposed to economic issues—have endorsed the deal. Mitt Romney, who has been burnishing his credibility with conservatives by taking a strong stand against ratification of the new START Treaty, came out against the tax deal today, arguing that temporary tax cut extensions would not reduce investor “uncertainty” and also calling for an overhaul of the entire UI system. Sarah Palin also expressed opposition to the tax deal, but without elaboration other than an attaboy for Jim DeMint, whose own opposition was motivate by the “unpaid-for” UI extension and the very existence of the “death tax.” Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, and RedState’s Erick Erickson have also been outspoken opponents of the deal, mostly on grounds that this is not time for cooperation with Obama and Democrats. It’s probable that some conservatives privately oppose a deal on the additional grounds that the deadlock prevents congressional action on DADT and START until the new Congress takes office.
Right in the midst of this saga, conservatives have been significantly distracted by a federal district court ruling in Virginia that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Two other federal district judges have ruled otherwise in parallel suits, and it’s obvious the whole issue will have to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. But conservatives are greeting the decision with high hosannas, presumably wanting to burnish the credibility of their arguments for a radically scaled-back interpretation of federal powers under the Commerce Clause. If the High Court does indeed embrace this interpretation, progressives will have a broader set of problems than the demise of ACA’s individual mandate; the constitutionality of a whole range of existing federal programs could be called into question.
Photo credit: Phillip Ingham
Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Bingaman, Brown, Bush income tax rates, Charles Krauthammer, Coburn, Commerce Clause, conservative opinion, DADT, death tax, DeMint, Elite opinion, Ensign, Erick Erickson, Feingold, Gillibrand, Hagan, Jim DeMint, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, new estate tax rates and exemptions, Newt Gingrich, Obama-McConnell, payroll tax holiday, Pew, Rush Limbaugh, Sanders, Sarah Palin, Sessions, START, Steny Hoyer, Tax Cut Deal, U.S. Supreme Court, Udall, UI extension, Virginia, Voinovich, WaPo/ABC
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Tuesday, November 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 we head into the Thanksgiving weekend, the preeminent public concern with government appears to be TSA airport screening, with polls showing a majority of Americans supporting new and more intrusive security measures, but with a very unhappy minority, including more frequent travelers making a lot of noise (Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight has a very detailed breakdown on polling data, trends, and past experience with tightened airport security). Opponents of full-body screening are probably not going to help the popularity of their cause by slowing down TSA operations during tomorrow’s so-called Opt-Out Day.
Meanwhile, prospects for a harmonious lame-duck session seem as remote as ever. While some observers perceive an increased possibility of a consensus proposal by the Deficit Reduction Commission, acceptance of any such proposal by Congress still remains extremely unlikely. The one bipartisan deficit-reduction idea that is gaining steam at the moment is an effort led by Tea Party favorites Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, in conjunction with environmentalists, to block extension of tax subsidies for ethanol production, a proposition that will create problems for Republican presidential wannabees who will soon be spending a lot of time in Iowa. Meanwhile, more and more conservatives appear to be eager to sign onto a “no” vote on increasing the public debt limit, which could force an government shutdown early next year.
Another contentious issue hanging fire is the pledge by Republicans in both chambers of Congress to pursue a repeal of health reform legislation. Ezra Klein has a succinct summary of the political and substantive problems this effort will run into:
For now, Republicans have been talking about which policies to repeal. They want the 1099 tax gone, or the individual mandate reversed. But when they actually have to repeal anything, they’re going to have to talk about what functions they want repealed. Repeal the individual mandate, for instance, and you make it possible for the irresponsible to freeload on the system, and impossible for the responsible to get insurance at low rates. You also make it impossible to end discrimination based on preexisting conditions. And do Americans really want that repealed?
The answer lies somewhere between “no” and “hell, no.” And as Klein notes, Republican claims that they have other ways to protect the uninsurable (mostly involving the old chestnut of state-run high-risk pools, which typically offer bad policies at very high premiums) may not look too good when fully explained. Meanwhile, absent some national policy on pre-existing condition exclusions, another Republican hobby-horse, allowing interstate sales of insurance products, could actually erode existing state protections by creating a “race to the bottom” of insurers to low-regulation states.
Indeed, whatever else happens, the repeal effort could produce the sort of public awareness of the realities of health reform that pro-reform education efforts have so far failed to generate.
Three weeks after Election Day, the 2010 cycle refuses to end. Joe Miller continues to seek a way to block a formal declaration of victory for Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska Senate race, even as Republicans begin to pull the rug from beneath him. Tom Emmers lost a key court battle in his fight to prevent final certification of Democrat Mark Dayton as winner of the Minnesota gubernatorial race. And the number of unresolved House races is now down to four (two in CA and two in NY); if the current leaders win those races, the final count of House GOP gains will be 63.
Turning to the 2012 cycle, the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics web page has unveiled a study demonstrating that party control of governorships has (at least since 1968) had virtually no impact on which party wins a given state in presidential elections. The write-up of this study is amusingly sprinkled with election-night quotes from media pundits claiming that Republican gubernatorial wins would have a massive impact on the outcome in key states in 2012.
And for those who can’t wait for the presidential election to get fully underway, I’ve done a fairly elaborate piece for TNR on the GOP presidential landscape coming out of the midterms. Long story short, no prospective candidates did that much good for themselves during the midterms, with the main impact being the erosion of conservative activist willingness to accept candidates they don’t like on electability grounds. This could be bad news for Mitt Romney, or for any establishment cabal determined to pre-select a nominee or veto someone like Sarah Palin.
Speaking of Palin, tonight we will learn if her daughter, Bristol, will win the annual competition on the top-rated network TV show Dancing With the Stars, despite relatively low marks from the show’s professional judges, thus creating a brouhaha over Republican ballot-box-stuffing and probable cries of persecution from both Palins and their fans.
Tags: Alaska, bipartisan deficit-reduction idea, Bristol, CA, consensus proposal, Corn, Dancing With the Stars, Deficit Reduction Commission, Election Day, environmentalists, Ezra Klein, FiveThirtyEight, Health insurance, individual mandate, Iowa, Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, lame-duck session, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Dayton, Minnesota, Mitt Romney, Nate Silver, NY, Opt-Out Day, Politics of Travel, Sarah Palin, security measures, smart politics, Tea Party, Thanksgiving, TNR, Tom Emmers, TSA airport screening
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Tuesday, November 16th, 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 the congressional lame duck session underway, ruminations on the midterm elections will yield to real-life events, but the furious partisan spin will if anything intensify. Republicans will seek to stall action on major legislative items until they swear in their new members in January, but must take some sort of position on the public debt limit, overdue appropriations, expiring tax cuts, unemployment benefits, the START treaty, and other items Democrat will bring to the House and Senate floors. Recently most of the intra-Republican maneuvering has involved conservative efforts to force the GOP Senate leadership to embrace a ban on so-called “earmarks,” which appears to have succeeded.
It’s the tax cut issue that could be the most complicated and contentious. The White House’s position (shared by progressive Democrats) has long been that expiring Bush income tax cuts should only be made permanent for middle-class taxpayers (defined, actually, as 98 percent of taxpayers), while Republicans are holding out for a straight and permanent extension. Polling backs the Democratic position, but the business community is poised to shriek about the negative economic impact of hiking taxes on anyone in a recession, and the small business lobby will claim any personal income tax hike for the top bracket will hurt its constituency badly. Blue Dog opposition to a partial extension helped delay resolution of the matter until after the midterms, and now Republicans are pressing for a temporary if not permanent extension of all the tax cuts. The impact on the deficit of any extension is another factor in the debate, though most Republican self-described deficit hawks have long internalized the conservative argument that failure to extend a tax cut is a tax increase and thus should be off the table.
An unwelcome distraction for Democrats is the ethics committee proceedings involving Rep. Charles Rangel of NY, who was found guilty by the panel today of 11 rules violations.
Outside Washington, there is continuing drama in a few unresolved 2010 races. The main event is in Minnesota, where Republicans appear to be digging in for a long legal battle to prevent the inauguration of apparent gubernatorial winner Mark Dayton. What they hope to produce is a situation where the newly elected legislature (both chambers were won by the GOP) takes office and works with holdover Gov. Tim Pawlenty (who under state law remains in office until a successor is sworn in) to rapidly enact conservative legislation. This patent offense to fair play and voter intent is rationalized by Republicans through the inevitable claim that Dayton benefitted from vote fraud, and Pawlenty, who is almost certainly running for president, will undoubtedly welcome the national attention he’d get for thumbing his nose at Democrats. GOPers also think of this scenario as payback for the 2009 legal battle by Democrats on behalf of Sen. Al Franken.
Aside from Pawlenty’s maneuvers, 2012 speculation has been fed by a batch of twelve Public Policy Polling surveys of 2010 Republican voters (in AK, FL, KY, ME, MN, NV, NC, OH, TX, WA, WV, WI) measuring their early presidential preferences among Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence Mitt Romney. In all twelve, Romney, Huckabee, Palin and Gingrich are in double digits; Pawlenty breaks double digits in his home state of MN (with 19 percent). Palin leads in ME, OH, TX, WA, WV, and WI; Huckabee leads in AK and KY; Romney in FL and NV; Gingrich in NC; and TimPaw in MN.
Nate Silver of 538 posted an argument that dark horse candidates are very unlikely to break through against the Big Four of Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin and Romney, while Jonathan Bernstein responded: “Early good polling based on name recognition for weak candidates really is meaningless — see Rudy Giuliani ’08, among many others.”
Photo credit : Thomas Hawk
Tags: 2012 Horserace, AK, Al Franken, Big Four of Gingrich, Blue Dog, business community, Charles Rangel, conservative legislation, Deficits and debt, earmarks, ethics committee, expiring tax cuts, FL, GOP, income tax hike, Jonathan Bernstein, KY, Lame Ducks, Mark Dayton, ME, middle-class taxpayers, midterm elections, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pence Mitt Romney, Minnesota, Mitch Daniels, MN, Nate Silver, NC, Newt Gingrich, NV, NY, OH, overdue appropriations, partisan spin, Pawlenty, public debt limit, Public Policy Polling, republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, small business lobby, START treaty, Tim Pawlenty, TX, unemployment benefits, unresolved 2010 races, WA, WI, WV
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Friday, November 12th, 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
The post-election interpretive wars have continued and even intensified, but with current and future events very much in everyone’s mind.
Voices of self-restraint among Republicans are very rare. Highly typical is this take from University of Virginia professor of politics James Ceaser:
Of all the recent mid-term elections, 2010 is the closest the nation has ever come to a national referendum on overall policy direction or “ideology.” Obama, who ran in 2008 by subordinating ideology to his vague themes of hope and change, has governed as one of the most ideological and partisan of presidents. Some of his supporters like to argue in one breath that he is a pragmatist and centrist only to insist in the next that he has inaugurated the most historic transformation of American politics since the New Deal. The two claims are incompatible. Going back to the major political contests of 2009, beginning with the Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey and to the Senate race in Massachusetts, the electorate has been asked the same question about Obama’s agenda and has given the same response. The election of 2010 is the third or fourth reiteration of this judgment, only this time delivered more decisively. There is one label and one label only that can describe the result: the Great Repudiation.
Ceaser goes on to attack any Republicans who would urge a future course that eschews the sacking and burning of Obamaism in all its aspects.
So the triumphalist strain of conservative post-election interpretation is closely linked to a maximalist prescription for Republican behavior now. That helps explain why Republicans have been generally negative about the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction proposal that was released earlier this week, even though it was clearly tailored (with its heavy emphasis on spending reductions and its crafting of revenue-raising measures in the context of rate-reducing “tax reform”) to appeal to them.
One conservative reaction was especially revealing: that of James Capretta in National Review, which trashed the Bowles-Simpson report for failing to embrace the repeal of health care reform, and indeed, for building on some of the health care cost containment measures in that legislation. The short-term goal of repealing “ObamaCare,” it seems, is more important to conservatives than the long-term goal of reducing deficits and debt.
But Capretta’s reaction illustrates another problem that will bedevil any bipartisan effort on spending and taxes: the Republican rejection, which began during the Bush administration but became endemic during the health reform debate, of neutral “scorekeepers” like the Congressional Budget Office, which enraged conservatives by accepting some of the cost containment claims of “ObamaCare.”
Among Democrats, as noted in the last political memo, those deducing major lessons from the midterms agree that the Obama administration should change its strategy and its public message, but sharply diverge along the usual ideological lines about which direction Democrats should take. There is genuine alarm on the Left, on both substantive and political grounds, about the White House’s apparent decision to reach an accommodation with Republicans on an extension of the Bush tax cuts, and strong hostility to the Bowles-Simpson recommendations (for which the President is held accountable, even though he has not embraced the proposals). For the first time, there is talk, though not that serious yet, of a protest candidate running against the President in the 2012 primaries.
Centrist Democrats seem divided between those who favor a decisive “move to the center” and support the Bowles-Simpson proposals pretty much as drafted, and those with more modest suggestions for changes in Obama’s approach to the opposition and to the major issues.
Aside from impending debates on taxes, health care, and the budget, the 2012 election cycle is already getting underway. It is beginning to sink in for Democrats that there are structural aspects to the congressional landscape in 2012 that limit possibilities for a “rebound,” even if the economy improves and the expected change in turnout patterns occurs. Two-thirds (23) of the 33 senators facing re-election that year are Democrats (by contrast, half (19) of the 37 Senate races in 2010 involved Democrat-held seats). Large Republican gains in control of state legislative chambers means that the House landscape will be significantly tilted in the GOP’s election through redistricting; some estimates of the impact are as high as 25 seats.
The presidential landscape, however, is another matter entirely. The ultramontanist mood among conservatives right now is not conducive to any trimming of ideological sails in the pursuit of a White House victory in 2012. There is considerable talk of an Establishment conspiracy to block any nomination for Sarah Palin, which indicates how seriously Republicans take her prospects if she decides to run. Another antagonist of said Establishment, Mike Huckabee, is in excellent position to once again win the Iowa Caucuses if Palin does not take the plunge. Mitt Romney remains haunted by his Massachusetts health reform effort, a problem that will grow worse during the upcoming conservative drive to repeal “ObamaCare.” And time is not on the side of the various dark horse possibilities (Daniels, Pence, Barbour) who may be famous in Washington but not so much in Des Moines or Manchester.
All in all, the impact of the midterms may fade faster than anyone expected as the future needs of the two parties, and of the country, take hold.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, 2012 Campaign, 2012 presidential election, Barbour, bipartisan, Bowles-Simpson, Bush tax cuts, Campaigns and elections, centrist, Congressional Budget Office, Daniels, Deficits and debt, Democrats, Des Moines, Establishment conspiracy, Great Repudiation, health care reform, ideology, Iowa Caucuses, James Capretta, James Ceaser, left, Manchester, Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, national referendum, National Review, New Deal, New Jersey, Obama, Obamacare, Obamaism, Pence, pragmatist, Republican, Sarah Palin, scorekeepers, tax reform, ultramontanist, University of Virginia, Virginia, White House victory
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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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Monday, November 1st, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
Political handicappers are so intent on trying to quantify Democratic losses in the midterm elections that they are missing the bigger picture: America’s radical center seems to be in a permanent state of revolt.
Democrats are going to get thrashed tomorrow, just as Republicans incurred huge losses in 2006 and 2008. The 2010 midterm will likely be the third successive election in which voters – or, more precisely, independent voters – rejected the ruling party. Grasping the significance of this meta-trend is more important that toting up the partisan body count.
Volatility across the broad center of the U.S. electorate has made this the age of the fleeting governing majority. Bill Clinton and the Democrats had one briefly from 1992-1994. Then George W. Bush and the Republicans held undivided power for six years before losing it in 2006.
“That’s never happened before in back-to-back administrations,” notes pollster Scott Rasmussen. The likely return to divided government signals, as Sarah Palin might put it, public “refudiation” of both political parties.
It’s no accident that this trend coincides with the “great sorting out,” the tendency of both parties to gravitate toward their respective ideological poles. This has left a large, discontented body of voters that increasingly feels disenfranchised by the two-party system. More Americans (37 percent) now identify as independents than as Democrats or Republicans.
Of course, independents are a diverse lot. The Pew Research Center, for example, breaks them down into categories (“shadow Republicans” and “doubting Democrats”) that suggest that a significant portion of them have residual partisan leanings. They’ve also grown more conservative since 2006, perhaps owing to GOP defections, and more skeptical of government’s ability to solve big problems.
Compared to core conservatives and liberals, however, independents are generally pragmatic and moderate in outlook, and almost by definition are alienated from the hyper-partisan, zero-sum game of politics as played in Washington. Above all, says Andy Kohut of the Pew Center, they put performance before ideology. They will vote against incumbents not out of a basic philosophical affinity with the Republicans, but because they believe Democratic policies have failed to spur jobs and economic growth.
In 2006, independents gave Democrats a 17-point margin, and control of Congress. Obama carried independents by 8 points in 2008, enough to give him the biggest majority won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson. Their defection from the progressive coalition over the past two years is the main reason Democrats are facing a beat-down tomorrow.
The silver lining for progressives in the midterm is that these swing voters could swing back their way over the next two years. According to a recent National Journal poll, independents still harbor reasonably warm feelings about President Obama. The key to winning them back is not to be more liberal or more moderate, it’s to govern effectively from the pragmatic center. That means building bipartisan support for tackling the nation’s most urgent problems: stalled job growth, eroding competitiveness, a massive overhang of debt, not to mention a careful winding down our overseas military engagements.
But if Obama and House Republicans can’t find a way to make forward progress on these fronts, the radical center will only become more disenchanted with the two-party duopoly. In that case, watch for a serious push to weld non-aligned and moderate voters into a “third force” in U.S. politics.
Photo credit: Chris
Tags: a massive overhang of debt, America’s radical center, Andy Kohut, Bill Clinton, bipartisan, core conservatives, core liberals, Democratic losses, doubting Democrats, eroding competitiveness, fleeting governing majority, George W. Bush, GOP, House Republicans, hyper-partisan, ideological poles, independent voters, Mid-Term Elections, National Journal poll, overseas military engagements., Pew Research Center, pragmatic and moderate, pragmatic center., President Obama, Progressivism, radical center, republicans, ruling party, Sarah Palin, Scott Rasmussen, shadow Republicans, stalled job growth, third force, two-party system, Washington, zero-sum game of politics
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Tuesday, September 14th, 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 marks the last big primary day of the midterm cycle. Following these eight contests, only Hawaii, this Saturday, and a runoff in Louisiana on October 2, remain on the calendar.
Most of the national attention during the week prior to these primaries has been focused on the two states with competitive Republican Senate primaries, Delaware and New Hampshire. In both states, late surges by conservative candidates threaten not only to upset establishment-backed front-runners, but also to make these seats far more difficult for Republicans to win in November.
Delaware
The Delaware race has been particularly characterized by late dramatics. From the day he announced for this contest, congressman Mike Castle has been the prohibitive front-runner, not only for the nomination but for the general election as well. Castle has won a remarkable twelve statewide elections in Delaware and has never lost. He has the solid support of both the state and national GOP. His challenger, religious conservative activist Christine O’Donnell, is a relative newcomer to the state (though she did win the sacrificial-lamb Senate nomination against Joe Biden two years ago) and is mainly known for extremist positions on sexual ethics. She also has a history of serious personal financial problems, and in fact, has no visible means of support at present. On top of everything else, she’s run a campaign against Castle heavily laden with homophobic innuendoes about her opponent’s masculinity.
Yet according to the one recent poll, released by PPP late Sunday night, O’Donnell is actually leading Castle 47-44. She’s received late endorsements from the NRA, Sarah Palin, and Jim DeMint, but only one endorsement, from the Tea Party Express, arrived early enough to give her any kind of material assistance. She’s benefitting, it appears, from long-simmering conservative resentment of Castle’s voting record: he’s pro-choice; he’s regularly bucked the gun lobby; he voted for TARP; and he was one of a handful of Republican House members who voted for climate change legislation in 2009. There may be a geographical factor as well; O’Donnell seems to be doing especially well in the southern portions of the state said to be fed up with the domination of Delaware politics by populous New Castle County (Wilmington).
O’Donnell’s late endorsements and particularly the PPP poll seem to have lit a fire underneath the Castle campaign, and his supporters have been pounding O’Donnell very aggressively as voters prepared to make their choice. One piece of raw material they’ve used is a Weekly Standard article about O’Donnell’s gender discrimination lawsuit against a Delaware-based conservative campus organization. “O’Donnell’s finances, honesty, and stability have been called into question in light of her false and strange claims,” the article suggests.
If she survives, O’Donnell will be the instant underdog against Democrat Chris Coons, the New Castle County Executive, who’s been running a stronger race than expected against Castle. But even if Castle pulls it out, the bad feelings from the primary could help Coons make the race competitive.
New Hampshire
Meanwhile, a more conventional if equally close Senate primary is unfolding in New Hampshire, where another originally prohibitive front-runner, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, is now hanging onto a small lead over “true conservative” activist Ovide Lamontagne, who was the GOP gubernatorial nominee back in 1996. Ayotte does not have Castle’s kind of voting record to defend, and she’s been endorsed by Sarah Palin and some anti-abortion groups. But she’s been caught in sort of a pincers movement. During the summer months, a self-funding businessman, Bill Binnie, spent millions attacking Ayotte’s competence and integrity, and lured her into a back-and-forth that boosted both candidates’ negatives. Just as Binnie (who took the unconventional route of boasting about his pro-choice convictions) began to fade, Lamontagne took flight, particularly at the end of August when he secured the aggressive backing of that hardy conservative monolith, the New Hampshire Union-Leader. The paper has focused particularly on undermining Ayotte’s conservative support, pounding her daily for agreeing to a financial settlement with Planned Parenthood over a lawsuit against the state’s parental notification law.
PPP’s last poll showed Lamontagne within seven points of Ayotte over the weekend, while another late poll, by Magellan Strategies, pegged her lead at only four points. Jim DeMint offered Lamontagne a last-minute endorsement, and Sarah Palin’s done some robocalls for Ayotte, but the battle is pretty much between Ayotte and the Union-Leader. As in Delaware, national party figures are unhappy with the prospects of an upset; Lamotagne is the one Republican candidate who’s trailed Democratic congressman Paul Hodes in general election polls.
Wisconsin
The other statewide contest of note is in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is in a heated battle with former congressman (and heavy self-funder) Mark Neumann for the Republican gubernatorial nomination to face Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D). This race has mainly revolved around each candidate’s efforts to challenge the conservative credentials of the other, with Walker running last-minute ads attacking Neumann for voting for a large transportation bill in Congress back in 1998. Walker’s been the front-runner all along, but Neumann’s money has made it competitive.
Washington, DC
DC Democratic voters will determine the fate of Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, who’s gotten high marks from wonks for his efforts to deal with DC’s dreadful public schools, but has actually been trailing DC Council Chairman Vincent Gray in recent polls. This contest has exposed long-standing racial rifts; while both candidates are African-American, Fenty’s strongest base of support is among the white gentrifiers whom some African-American voters blame for pricing black folks out of traditional neighborhoods; Gray has also unsurprisingly won backing from those who oppose Fenty’s controversial school reforms. The outcome will probably depend on turnout patterns in DC’s very diverse electorate.
Photo credit: Kevin Dooley
Tags: Adrian Fenty, African-American, anti-abortion groups, Bill Binnie, Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, climate change legislation, Conservative Activists, DC Council Chairman, Delaware, extremist positions, gender discrimination, gentrifiers, GOP, gun lobby, homophobic innuendoes, Jim DeMint, Joe Biden, Kelly Ayotte, Magellan Strategies, Mark Neumann, midterm cycle, Mike Castle, Milwaukee, New Castle County Executive, New Hampshire, NRA, Ovide Lamontagne, Paul Hodes, Planned Parenthood, PPP, Primaries, primary day, pro-choice, public schools, racial rifts, religious conservative activist, Republican House, Republican Senate primaries, sacrificial-lamb, Sarah Palin, school reforms, Scott Walker, sexual ethics, TARP, Tea Party Express, Tom Barrett, Union-Leader, Vincent Gray, Weekly Standard article, Wisconsin
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Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
I am about to 
make a circular argument, one that will eventually prove why I shouldn’t be writing this post in the first place. But bear with me — to explain why shouldn’t apply fingers to keyboard, I must.
Today, we’ve learned that Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen have both come out strongly against the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn Korans to commemorate 9/11. You might remember this Center from such books as “Islam is of the Devil” (seriously) and such blog postings as “Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran” (for a hilarious read, check out author “Fran’s” assault on apostrophes).
Both Petraeus and Rasmussen have correctly surmised that burning a Koran would “inflame public opinion and incite violence… [and] put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan” (Petraeus), and stand “strong in contradiction with all of the values we… fight for” (Rasmussen). Indeed, the damage may have already been done, as ABCNews reports the “Death to America” chants are echoing in Kabul. (The latest indications are that the church is “praying” about this Koran burning business, and appeals to a Deity might provide sufficient political cover to back off. UPDATE: Whoops, maybe not. Looks like they’re going to burn away.)
Amidst all this, a deeper question remains: Why is General David Petraeus spending time commenting on the actions of a tiny, extremist church in the first place?
Could it possibly be because during the slow August news cycle, cable news wrapped the country in the “debate” about Park51, the “controversial” mosque located somewhere in the vicinity of 9/11’s Ground Zero? And we’re looking for the next headline-grabbing story on controversial Islam?
Ratings might sky-rocket, but America suffers. Despite victims’ families’ legitimate discomfort, it somehow seemed obvious that two centuries of protected speech and open practice religion in America should make this a no brainer.
Extensive coverage of Americans’ discomfort with Islam only serves to promote division and delegitimize America’s core values. Consider this New York Times article, which explains polling numbers behind New Yorkers’ suspicion of Park51. It includes this gem:
“My granddaughter and I were having this conversation and she said stopping them from building is going against the freedom of religion guaranteed by our Constitution,” said Marilyn Fisher, 71, who lives in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I absolutely agree with her except in this case.”
Nevermind that freedoms of speech and worship exist precisely for these hard cases.
But sadly, as the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world exploit division for their own gain, Islam is continually projected in a negative light. This narrative becomes a perpetual motion machine that promotes (and implicitly endorses) extremist views amongst an increasing percentage of Americans.
The only answer, of course, is to ignore non-issues and deny the whack jobs of Dove World Outreach Center their fifteen minutes of ill-gotten fame. David Petraeus could stop wasting time on otherwise unnecessary press releases, and I could stop typing.
Tags: 9/11, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, David Petraeus, Death to America, Dove World Outreach Center, extremist views, Fran’s, Glenn Beck, Ground Zero, Islam, mosque, Park51, Sarah Palin, “Islam is of the Devil”, “Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran”
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