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Wednesday, September 21st, 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 February, the “invisible primary” for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was kicked off in Washington by the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. On Friday, a second CPAC event will be held in Orlando in deliberate proximity to tomorrow’s Fox/Google candidates’ debate and Saturday’s Florida GOP presidential straw poll (CPAC will not feature its own straw poll). As in Washington in February, the event will revolve around a cattle call of speeches by presidential candidates and conservative celebrities. The smell of red meat will hang heavy in the air, and speakers can and will be expected to forswear all ideological heresy and smite both Democrat Socialists and RINOs.
But it’s instructive to note how the presidential contest has changed in those seven months between CPAC-DC and CPAC-FL. In February, the intrepid conservative-watcher Dave Weigel of Slate ranked in order of general impressiveness the CPAC appearances of no less than twelve candidates, quasi-candidates, and possible candidates: (1) Ron Paul (who won, for the second straight year, the annual straw poll); (2) Gary Johnson; (3) Mitch Daniels; (4) Haley Barbour; (5) John Bolton; (6) Donald Trump; (7) Mitt Romney; (8) Newt Gingrich; (9) Herman Cain; (10) Tim Pawlenty; (11) Rick Santorum; (12) John Thune. You will note that five of these worthies wound up never running president. A sixth, T-Paw, has dropped out. A seventh, Gingrich, is no longer being taken seriously as a candidate, while an eighth (Cain) and ninth (Santorum) are barely clinging to relevance, and a tenth (Johnson) can’t get an invitation to a debate. Meanwhile, Weigel did not even mention Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann, both of whom actually did speak at CPAC, or Jon Huntsman, who at this point was still Barack Obama’s ambassador to China. Interesting, eh?
With four or five months (depending on decisions pending in the states on the date of the starting gun in Iowa) still to go before actual voters begin to participate in the nomination process, how much more is likely to change? A lot could depend on what happens in Florida late this week, particularly to insta-front-runner Rick Perry.
The Texan’s somewhat shaky performance in the CNN-Tea Party Express debate on September 12 (also in Florida) may embolden his rivals to go after him again tomorrow night in Orlando. His areas of vulnerability could again include immigration policy (Cuban-Americans–the Hispanic voting group most active in Florida Republican politics–are not terribly sympathetic to undocumented workers from Mexico). It’s unlikely Michele Bachmann will again bring up Perry’s unsuccessful efforts to immunize Texas schoolgirls against the HPV virus, since her handling of the issue backfired on her in the intervening days. But if she wants to pursue the “crony capitalism” rap on Perry in a way that undermines his Tea Party support, there’s rich ground available in his futile and unpopular campaign to build a giant system of privately operated toll roads—the Trans-Texas Corridor—that might have enriched some of Perry’s friends and supporters at the expense of local landowners, and that reminded some hard-core conservatives of shadowy rumors about a “NAFTA Superhighway” designed to encourage illegal immigration and threaten U.S. sovereignty. The whole issue looks tailor-made for Bachmann.
Perry’s apparently dovish feelings about overseas troop deployments could be another target, given the very hawkish tendencies of Florida Republicans (and especially Cuban-Americans, who went heavily for John McCain, then campaigning mainly on the Iraq “surge,” in the 2008 Republican primary).
But without question, Romney, Bachmann, and perhaps others will keep up the pressure on Perry about Social Security in a state where about one-third of Republican primary participants are over the age of 65. The most recent polling in Florida, by Insider Advantage, showed Romney with a healthy lead over Perry among likely primary voters 65 and older, despite Perry’s overall nine-point lead. Since Social Security is also central to Team Romney’s “electability” argument against Perry, alarming Florida seniors generally about the Texan’s expressed disdain for the New Deal program as an unconstitutional “failure” will be a priority. Republicans have reason to be anxious about the Sunshine State: the last Republican to win the White House without winning Florida was Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
Regardless of exactly how he does in the debate, or in his CPAC-FL speech, Perry has long planned to cap the week with a smashing victory in the Saturday state party straw poll (which goes by the rather self-important name of “P5” to indicate that it is the fifth such event in Florida). But Romney and Bachmann have undermined the significance of the event by declining to appear in the pre-straw-poll cattle call, or actively compete in the straw poll. The pre-ordained nature of the Perry victory, and thus its relative lack of newsworthiness, is reinforced by this straw poll’s unusual nature: voting participants were selected months ago by county GOP organizations. So Ron Paul won’t be able to win this one by any last-minute packing of the room with his youthful supporters.
P5 might, on the other hand, draw attention to Perry’s support among Florida GOP power-brokers, including several key legislative leaders, and reportedly (though he remain officially neutral), the controversial right-wing Gov. Rick Scott. But the even bigger dogs in Florida Republican politics are another matter. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is the presumptive favorite for the second spot on the ticket no matter who wins the first spot, has little reason to endorse anybody. And his political patron, former Gov. Jeb Bush, is assumed to share his clan’s general antipathy towards Perry. If Romney can build doubts about Perry’s electability and specifically his appeal to seniors, and also secure open or covert backing from Jeb Bush, this difficult week in Florida could be just the beginning of the front-running Texan’s troubles in the Sunshine State.
Tags: CPAC, dave weigel, donald trum, Florida, herman cain, Michelle Bachmann, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, NAFTA, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Tea Party, Texas, Tim Pawlenty
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Monday, June 6th, 2011
Matthew Dahl
Matt Dahl is a judicial clerk in Virginia and writes about national security law on his
blog. The views expressed here are his own.
by Matthew Dahl
Last week reports emerged about attempted cyber attacks against the internal networks of three major U.S. defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman. All of the attempted hacks tried to access the companies’ internal networks using compromised remote-access security tokens, which are believed to be linked to yet another hack that occurred at a different government contractor, RSA, in March.
Amidst news of last week’s attacks, DoD is preparing a formal cyber strategy and a list of deployable cyber weapons. The strategy is not in response to the incursions, but as the first formal cyber strategy written by the Pentagon, it obviously has bearing on USG’s response to them, as well as future assaults.
The strategy is not yet public, but two important provisions are known: First, that the Pentagon may use conventional force to respond to a cyber attack against the U.S.; second, that the strategy explicitly contains an authorization framework, reportedly requiring the military to obtain presidential approval before deploying cyber weapons.
While it’s time that the U.S. government assembled clear policies to respond to cyber attacks, it is important to recognize the unique challenges contained therein. Two of the most important are 1) assigning responsibility for an attack and 2) assuring that any retaliation avoids excessive collateral damage.
First, unlike attacks with conventional weapons, an attacker has more opportunities to hide his origin in cyberspace. For example, state actors can create plausible deniability behind contracted criminal groups, a tactic likely used by Russia and China. It’s unclear how the new strategy will deal with this point.
Second, if the U.S. government is able to correctly attribute an attack, its response would have to comport with international law, specifically a statute known as the Law of Armed Conflict (LoAC). The United States is bound to the LoAC through multiple treaties such as the 1907 Hague Conventions and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, as well as through customary international law. Two elements of the LoAC pose particular challenges in the cyber realm: proportionality and distinction.
Proportionality may be a particularly tough nut to crack, as we know that the Pentagon’s policy will permit retaliating against a cyber attack with conventional weapons. It’s new ground, and the argument could be made that launching a missile in response to a computer-based attack is inherently disproportionate. However, we must recognize that a cyber attack has the ability to cause actual loss of life if, for example, it were aimed at air traffic control systems and caused planes to crash. Under the new policy, only an attack of this magnitude would allow a conventional response to a cyber attack, and it is imperative that such a response be proportionate.
Distinction is another problematic element of the LoAC because cyber weapons can have unintended consequences. The amount of damage that a conventional weapon does is known before it is used even though it may damage unintended targets. Not so in the cyber world: Vital military and civilian assets may reside on the same network, thus making it difficult to limit damage to the legitimate military target. Furthermore, cyber weapons are different because entities that reside in cyberspace are interconnected on a global scale: attacking a target on a server in China can also cause damage to another server in Canada. This actually happened in 2010 when the U.S. military took down a jihadist website hosted in Saudi Arabia that led to disruption to more than 300 servers in Saudi Arabia, Texas, and Germany.
These are only a couple of considerations that complicate the use of cyber weapons, and developing a strong cyber capabilities must occur within the context of these considerations. With so much of its vital national assets relying on the Internet, the U.S. must equip itself with both the strong defensive capabilities and project power in cyberspace, as well as with robust policies to regulate these capabilities.
Photo Credit: West Point Public Affairs.
Tags: China, cyber, cybersecurity, L3 Communications, law of armed conflict, lockheed martin, matt dahl, Northrup Grumman, Pentagon, RSA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Texas
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Tuesday, November 30th, 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 rash of party-switching by former Democratic state legislatures in the South has drawn attention to the parlous condition of the Donkey Party in that region following a terrible midterm election. Jonathan Martin of Politico captured the zeitgeist with a much-discussed piece entitled, “Democratic South Finally Falls,” a testament not only to Republican gains in the region but to the advent of such endlessly predicted but long-delayed developments as the GOP conquest of the Alabama state legislature.
How bad was election night 2010 for southern Democrats? Well, there were a total of 14 Senate and gubernatorial races in the eleven states of the Old Confederacy, and Republicans won all of them except for the Arkansas governor’s race. Exactly one-third of the 66 House pickups for the GOP occurred in the same eleven states (along with one-third of the three Democratic pickups). Republicans gained control of four state legislative chambers (the House and Senate in both Alabama and North Carolina), then picked up control of the Louisiana House due to a party switch. Today Democrats control the Arkansas and Mississippi House and Senate; the Senate in Louisiana and Virginia; and nothing else. And the Mississippi, Louisiana, and Virginia bastions will be at risk in 2011.
Were there regional bright spots for Democrats? Sure, in individual races. But it’s hard to call, say, North Carolina a bright spot because endangered House Democrats Larry Kissel and Mike McIntyre survived, since the state legislature was lost for the first time since Reconstruction. Similarly, two of three targeted House Democrats in Georgia won, but Republicans swept all the statewide races for the first time ever, and are approaching a veto-proof supermajority in both state legislative chambers.
Democrats had unusually strong gubernatorial candidates facing Republicans with problems in four southern states: South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. All these Democrats lost.
Now it’s important to understand that the demographic turnout patterns that made the midterms so hospitable to Republicans nationally were especially strong in parts of the South, where the pro-Republican trend among older white voters in 2008 was especially pronounced, and the predictable falloff in African-American voting after a historic cycle was especially damaging to Democrats. That means Democrats will likely rebound (relatively speaking) in 2012 in the South as elsewhere. Indeed, post-midterm PPP polls of Virginia and North Carolina, the two southern states carried by Obama in 2008, show the president in pretty good shape in both for 2012.
What really happened in 2010 of enduring significance is that the post-Civil Rights Act era of ticket-splitting in the South, which enabled Democrats to do much better in state and local election than at the presidential level, is finally drawing to a close, with one important qualifier: as Republicans become the natural governing party of the South, they will also be vulnerable to unhappiness with the status quo, which could produce Democratic victories, particularly in states with an irreducibly strong Democratic base. Generally, though, congressional districts with a long history of going GOP in presidential races and Democratic in House races, like South Carolina’s 5th district or Mississippi’s 4th, aren’t likely coming back to the Democratic column now that their long-time incumbents have lost. In addition, as the party-switching in state legislatures demonstrates, Democrats will no longer benefit from being perceived as the party of convenience for ambitious politicos with flexible ideological views.
The upside for southern Democrats is that the long-term demographic trends favoring them in the region—growing minority populations, continued in-migration of less conservative voters, and the increased importance of “knowledge jobs”—haven’t gone away. And without question, southern Democrats are continuing to converge with their national counterparts in ideology as conservative white rural voters complete their migration out of the Democratic coalition. Overall, southerners will still be more moderate than Democrats from areas with a strong labor movement or a tradition of cultural progressivism, but much of the argument that southern Blue Dogs are muddling the message or obstructing the legislation of the national party has become moot.
Tags: 2012 presidential election, African-American, Alabama, Arkansas, Blue Dogs, cultural progressivism, Democratic pickups, Democratic South Finally Falls, Democratic state legislatures, Democrats, demographic trends, Donkey Party, Florida, Georgia, GOP, GOP pickups, Jonathan Martin, Larry Kissel, Louisiana, Mid-Term Elections, Mike McIntyre., Mississippi, North Carolina, Obama, Old Confederacy, party-switching, Politico, post-Civil Rights Act, PPP polls, Reconstruction, South, state and local election, Texas, Virginia, zeitgeist
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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Joy Hakim
Joy Hakim, author of A History of US, published by Oxford University Press, and of The Story of Science, copublished by the Smithsonian and the National Science Teachers Association Press. Freedom: A History of US, a 16-part PBS special, was based on her writings.
by Joy Hakim
Until October, Texas owned the textbook debate. The Texas Board of Education, preparing last year for a book adoption, seemed determined to put a political spin into American history books Texas schoolchildren will be reading. That raised hackles and not just in Texas. A headline in England’s Guardian blared, “Texas school board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns.”
Time and cool heads prevailed and the new Texas standards, adopted in August, are not much different from those in other states. The textbook hoopla calmed down. And then, last month, a Williamsburg, Virginia mother (who happens to be a history professor) noticed that her son’s 4th grade schoolbook was—well, outrageous. It stated that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War, many led by Stonewall Jackson. This is not a view held by most historians.
The author of the book defended her work, claiming that she did her research on the Internet, where her source for information was the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This created a bit of brouhaha. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson of Princeton University commented, “These Confederate heritage groups have been making this claim for years as a way of purging their cause of its association with slavery.”
Virginia has what is supposed to be a rigorous adoption system, books with agendas aren’t supposed to get through the process. This book was called “accurate and unbiased” by a committee tasked to read it. Virginia school districts, having spent a lot of money on the book, are now pulling it from classrooms.
Textbook nightmares are nothing new in the school world, and they are not unique to Virginia and Texas. But purchasing policies there, and in 20 other “adoption” states, determine content in textbooks for schools throughout the nation. Those books, routinely dull, are often error-ridden and biased. Actually the adoption process began with bias as a goal. After the Civil War, southern leaders didn’t want their children reading a northern version of that conflict. They set up their own school standards and the publishing industry complied with different books for Southern and Northern markets.
Today, in school districts in all 50 states, adoptions are usually a winner-take-all affair that leads to giant sales and huge profits for a few publishers. Those publishers spend their efforts—not on creating good books—but on promotion, gifts, and fancy presentations. Think of the power of lobbyists; textbook salespeople perfect lobby-like outreach to teachers and administrators.
This is not a minor affair: books are the intellectual meat and potatoes we feed our children. Shabby textbooks make a difference. They don’t have to be. Here are some suggestions:
- Have closed adoptions. No salespeople allowed. Let books and other teaching materials speak for themselves to teachers and committees. Don’t limit choices to books from textbook houses. Have librarians share their expertise. Let a subcommittee of children read the choices and submit their thoughts. If a book doesn’t work for its potential readers, it shouldn’t be adopted. And call in experts: historians to comment on social studies texts, scientists on science texts.
- If possible, do away with whole city adoptions. The big bucks are just too tempting for those driven by bottom-line issues. Besides, given our diverse population, it doesn’t work for every fourth grade teacher in Los Angeles or Richmond to be forced to teach from the same history text. Have schools or even individual teachers pick books from a broad vetted list. Let some teachers, who can make a case for their decisions, pick volumes not on the list. Teaching U.S. history, or any subject, with good bookstore books, rather than texts, makes sense if a teacher wants to go that route. If we are to attract and hold sophisticated teachers we need to treat them as professionals rather than cogs in a bureaucratic wheel. Letting teachers choose their own books would not only support them and benefit kids, it might bring real competition to the schoolbook industry.
Some of our greatest thinkers have written books for children. Henry Steele Commager’s story of the Constitution is hard to top. Physicist Stephen Hawking is the author (along with his daughter Lucy) of a terrific physics adventure that is perfect for third graders. Why aren’t books like these read routinely in our schools?
Yes, the money-management folks will talk about the savings from mass purchases, an argument that doesn’t hold up. Most standard textbooks are outrageously overpriced. Today’s massive adoptions bring billions of dollars in annual income to a few big publishers whose goal, as with most businesses, is to make money. Educating children is a minor consideration. Trade (bookstore) books are generally inexpensive.
How about assessments? Can they deal with a variety of books rather than one text? No problem if we assess ideas and what is usually the small number of essential facts that support those ideas. Currently our tests are shallow, dull, limited, and limiting. Detach them from specific textbooks and canned lesson plans and they can begin to test critical thinking tied to broad knowledge.
Some current conventional wisdom says the textbook issue has been solved. Books are out; technology is in. But, so far, online texts are aimed at test preparation, not deep thinking. They promote skimming and browsing, not analytical reading. There’s a bigger issue here. We are giving up on whole book reading, which means losing our literary heritage as well as our national legacy. Right now, most schoolchildren have little access to what was once a shared body of heroes, villains, stories, and values.
As for our science scores, a recent study ranked us 48th internationally. “48th is not a good place,” said the New York Times. While hands on labs are exciting, without a story their concepts rarely stick. Only one state mandates science history. Ask your children: Who is Linus Pauling? How did we discover the atom? Chances are they won’t know.
Meanwhile, the current round of educational criticism is focusing on villainous unions and low performing teachers. Hardly anyone has looked in depth at factory-like education schools, administrator-heavy school systems, or the mental junk food we feed our children. All this is deeply discouraging to the good (and often great) teachers in our schools.
Photo credit: Judy Baxter
Tags: administrator-heavy school systems, African-Americans, American history books, analytical reading, assessments, big publishers, Civil War, closed adoptions, Constitution, Education, educational criticism, Guardian, Henry Steele Commager, Internet, James McPherson, Linus Pauling, Los Angeles, low performing teachers, mass purchases, New York Times, Princeton University, Pulitzer Prize, Richmond, schoolbook industry, science scores, slavery, Sons of Confederate Veterans, standard textbooks, Stephen Hawking, Stonewall Jackson, technology, Texas, Texas Board of Education, Textbook Adoptions, Trade books, US history, villainous unions, Virginia, Williamsburg
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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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Friday, November 5th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
To fully appreciate the scope of the Republicans’ midterm victory – and the nature of the Democrats’ political predicament – look at the map.
In Congressional contests, Democrats flipped just three House seats across the whole, wide country, and they were in the traditionally blue bastions of Delaware, Hawaii, and New Orleans. They won two open Senate seats (in Delaware and Connecticut) but those have been held by Democrats for decades.
Republicans advanced everywhere except the West Coast, where they picked up just one House seat in Washington state. Their gains were mostly concentrated in the Midwest rustbelt and the upper South. With the exception of black belt regions of the South, Latino-dominated south Texas, a smattering of blue in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and a few Rocky Mountain districts, America’s vast interior is solidly red.
The West Coast (including Hawaii) and New York/New England (excepting New Hampshire) are the only remaining Democratic strongholds. The geography of defeat lends credence to GOP claims to represent the American heartland against bicoastal elites.
Republicans also won a passel of governorships and state legislatures across the Midwest. Democrats, in short, got slaughtered in working class America.
Republicans won working-class whites by a crushing, 63 to 34 percent margin. “They have taken the brunt of this recession, particularly the men, but Obama looked as if he was not engaged with it,” pollster Stan Greenberg told the National Journal. “Health care created a sense that he was not focused on the jobs issues and economic issues, and they were very angry.”
The Journal’s Ron Brownstein notes that, “In all, 47 House Democratic losses so far have come in districts in which the level of white college attainment lags the national average; just 16 came in districts that exceed that average. Talk about blue-collar blues.”
But in fact Democrats badly underperformed with white voters in general. College-educated whites also backed GOP candidates, by 58 to 40 percent. Where Democrats held onto their seats, they ran closer to even among college-educated white women while rolling up huge margins among minorities.
Nonetheless, the political map sends Democrats an unmistakable message: you are not connecting with ordinary working Americans. This is only in part a reflection of the current economic crisis, and the evident failure of President Obama’s policies to spur recovery. After all, blue collar whites have been alienated from Democrats for a generation. That should be a source of constant embarrassment to the party of the people.
Many liberal commentators, echoing Thomas Frank, have argued that blue collar voters’ antipathy to Democrats reflects their cultural conservatism. GOP demagoguery on “values” has blinded these voters to the reality that Democrats are on their side on economic issues. But the conspicuous absence of “God, guns, and gays” from the 2010 elections actually make them a pretty good test of this proposition. This time, there’s no question that blue collar voters rejected Democrats on economics rather than values.
All this underscores President Obama’s core challenge: crafting a credible plan for rebuilding America’s productive base. This isn’t a cyclical challenge; it’s not a matter of more public spending to boost demand. It’s a structural challenge which requires modernizing U.S. infrastructure, removing obstacles to entrepreneurship and innovation, seizing leadership in clean energy, and revamping tax and regulatory policies to promote economic growth.
Incredibly, however, some liberals are contemplating a blizzard of new federal regulations with the purported aim of putting Democrats on the side of the middle class by demonizing Wall Street banks and big business. The last thing blue collar Americans need is an economic morality play in which they are cast as victims. What they need, and what progressives owe them, is not a condescending populism, but a practical plan for economic success.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, and gays, bicoastal elites, big business, black belt, blue-collar blues, college-educated white women, condescending populism, Congressional contests, Connecticut, cultural conservatism, current economic crisis, Delaware, Demography, economic growth, economic issues, entrepreneurship, federal regulations, Geography, God, GOP demagoguery, governorships, guns, Hawaii, House seats, Innovation, Iowa, job issues, Journal, liberal commentators, Midwest rustbelt, Minnesota, modernizing U.S. infrastructure, National Journal, New England, New Hampshire, New Orleans, New York, Obama, political map, President Obama, progressives, recession, recovery, regulatory policies, revamping tax, Rocky Mountain, Ron Brownstein, seizing leadership in clean energy, Stan Greenberg, structural challenge, Texas, the upper South., Thomas Frank, Wall Street banks, Washington, West Coast, Wisconsin, working class
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Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Lindsay Mark Lewis
Lindsay Mark Lewis is Executive Director of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lindsay Mark Lewis
All the screaming (and some stomping) is coming to an end. Pundit upon pundit has beaten the drum of defeat for the Democratic Party. John Boehner can measure the drapes, the Tea Party’s here to stay, blah blah blah.
Don’t go sulking just yet, and you heard it here first: Democrats will hold the House. Let’s take a step back and look at the facts and races that tell the hidden story of this election.
1. Ideas Matter
To state the obvious, the Republicans haven’t offered a single concrete idea, asking voters to forget years of ill-gotten tax cuts and an ill-advised war. Do they really believe voters are ready to turn over trust to them again so quickly? They have played it safe and will take the anger vote and hope it gives them a majority. The public isn’t buying it—the Republican brand stands at just 23 percent approval
Many swing voters focus on the election over the weekend and realize that Democrats told the country what they would do two years ago and then did it—healthcare, stimulus, and financial regulation reform.
Some of these ideas might be more long-ball (e.g., healthcare) but Democrats will get more credit than you’d think for ideas and leadership. That’s why I’m betting that late-deciding voters will either break slightly to the Democrats or just stay home.
2. Campaigns matter
It might seem like every Democrat in the country is down 50 percent in the polls. The truth is that most all of these races will come down to one-to-four percent and that in the end, the actual hard work of grassroots fighting for the last vote is very much in favor of Democrats.
When I was at the DCCC in 1994, I was all too aware that Democrats lost 52 House seats by a grand total of 18,000 votes (not the overall vote but the difference in seats lost). Those votes are turned by a campaign ground game, and the Republicans don’t have a good one, thanks to the incredibly poor leadership of Michael Steele at the RNC. The DNC is pouring its all into GOTV efforts of this final stretch. When you look at the latest polls and see 10-to-12 percent undecided vote, it is most likely those voters will never show up at this point.
3. Seat by Seat
The “Pundit Consensus” is a 55-seat gain by Republicans, which would give them a 16-seat majority in the House. But if we examine those races on a case-by-case basis, the details indicate Republicans only stand to gain 35 seats, or four shy of a majority.
The top list of Democratic holds that all show up as losses currently.
Let’s start with 55 seats and work our way backwards:
New York
Three candidates on top of the ticket running 20-30 percent ahead of flawed Republican Senate candidates. Are we going to see vote splitting at the 25 percent level? That just doesn’t add up. The Republican Party in New York is in complete disarray and that will affect turnout in the closing days.
Take away at least the following pickups:
Owens -3rd party candidate getting between 5-15 percent of the vote
Murphy
Hall
Pickup now stands at 52.
Pennsylvania
Democratic well-oiled turnout machine will be prepared to do battle and hold:
Murphy
Kanjorski
Carney
Pickups now stand at 49.
New Hampshire
It’s doubtful that voters will return Charlie Bass to Congress, and marginal plus to have Paul Hodes on top of the ticket in this seat, who will bring that 1-to-2 percent extra vote out for Annie Kuster.
Pickups now stand at 48.
Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina
Marshall – he has been written off before, likely to hold with the tightening of the Governors race doing nothing but help.
Kissel won his seat by imploring serious grassroots organizing, and that still holds true for him this year. He ticked off many with his no votes on health care, but they are coming home to help him.
Nye is a strong candidate that votes his district and attracts strong crossover support.
Perriello – a strong case for getting credit for doing what’s right and standing up for your votes. Obama is coming to rally for him tonight.
Pickups now stand at 44.
Texas
Rodriguez—the demographics strongly favor a win by Ciro.
Pickups now stand at 43.
The Dakotas
Pomerory—unemployment is only at 4 percent in North Dakota, and Pomerory has a strong record of constituent service—the independent minded democrat holds on again.
Hurseth-Sandlin has voted her state and is running against a republican with flaws.
Pickups now stand at 41.
Idaho
Minnick – the Democrat-endorsed by the Tea Party, voted his district…he will hold on.
Pickups now stand at 40.
Illinois
Phil Hare, conservative district that continues to vote 55-60 percent for the democrat candidate for the House, spending is even and outside groups are almost spending more to badger the Republican.
Pickups now stand at 39.
Nevada
Dina Titus, another Dem who will get credit for standing up for her votes and showing leadership—and she does not have the negatives of Harry Reid. In the end she will hold this swing seat.
Pickups now stand at 38.
Colorado
John Salazar is strong candidate against weak Republican who received 37 percent of the vote last time he ran.
Pickups now stand at 37.
Those are the seats that the Democrats won’t lose. Now for the few they’ll actually flip:
Minnesota
Michele Bachman—she has the money and the media attention, but her actions and personality don’t fit the Midwest common sense approach of Minnesota…first upset of the night. Tarryl Clark with the big upset.
Pickups now stand at 36.
Florida
Joe Garcia has run a strong campaign against a very weak flawed-almost off the ballot- republican. Second somewhat surprise of Tuesday.
Pickups now stand at 35.
I could include other possible upsets (WA-8, CA, FL etc)
From leading on ideas, being prepared for the fight and the other side not offering any new ideas, lacking a true grassroots campaign and the voter being a lot smarter then pundits and the chatting inside the beltway give them credit for, the Democrats hold the House with a five-to-nine seat majority. You heard it here first.
Tags: 3rd party, Annie Kuster, campaign ground game, Campaigns and elections, Carney, Charlie Bass, Ciro, Colorado, Dakota, DCCC, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dina Titus, DNC, financial regulation reform., Florida, Georgia, GOTV, Hall, Harry Reid, Healthcare, Hurseth-Sandlin, Idaho, Illinois, Joe Garcia, John Boehner, John Salazar, Kanjorski, Kissel, last vote, leadership, Michael Steele, Michele Bachman, Mid-Term Elections, Midwest, Minnesota, Minnick, Murphy, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nye, Obama, Owens, Paul Hodes, Pennsylvania, Perriello, Phil Hare, Pomerory, Pundit Consensus, Republican Senate, republicans, RNC, Rodriguez, stimulus, swing voters, Tarryl Clark, tax cuts, Tea Party, Texas, Virginia
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Friday, October 1st, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
Just a month out now from Election Day, national political crosswinds are beginning to yield in importance to the sometimes idiosyncratic dynamics of key individual campaigns. In the second of our series of regional takes on statewide and congressional races, we´ll take a quick look today at the South (using the Old Confederacy definition of the region).
This was, by any measurement, Barack Obama´s worst region in 2008, despite important victories in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He trailed John Kerry´s performance in Arkansas and Tennessee, and his percentage of the white vote was abysmal in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana as well. Negative attitudes towards him have clearly deepened throughout the region during 2009 and 2010.
The South also has the nation´s richest lode of Democratic House members in districts carried by John McCain in 2008—23 out of 49. Considering the pro-Republican shape of the midterm electorate, and the erosion of Obama support, all these Democrats, plus many others in districts narrowly carried by Obama, entered 2010 in some serious danger.
There is only one Senate Democrat from the South up for re-election this year, Arkansas´ Blanche Lincoln, whose campaign appears to have fallen hopelessly behind Republican John Boozman even before her close primary runoff victory over Bill Halter.
The two Republican Senate seats thought to be within reach of Democrats are in North Carolina, where Elaine Marshall has run a credible race against Sen. Richard Burr, but is running out of time and money needed to score an upset; and in Florida, where the steady decline of Charlie Crist´s vote seems to be giving Marco Rubio an insurmountable lead.
Gubernatorial races are a relative bright spot for southern Democrats. Tennessee looks very likely to flip from D to R, and Alabama´s a very long shot for Democrat Ronnie Sparks, but in FL, Alex Sink is in a dead heat with Republican Rick Scott; in Georgia, the ethical and financial problems of GOP nominee Nathan Deal are keeping Roy Barnes in close contention; and in Texas, Bill White is running a very competitive race against Rick Perry. In Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Mike Beebe so far looks immune to the tsunami that has engulfed Blance Lincoln.
House races, as always, are harder to assess. Louisiana features a rare Republican-held district that Democrats are favored to flip, though accidental congressman Joseph Cao can´t be counted out. Overall, Democratic retirements have created major problems: the Cook Political Report rates five open southern House seats as “likely Republican,” and another as “lean Republican.” And among incumbents, twelve southern House Democrats are in races rated as tossups by Cook, with another seven in the competitive “lean Democratic” category.
All in all, that means 24 Democratic House seats in the South—2 in AL, 3 in AR, 5 in FL, 2 in GA, 1 in LA, 1 in MS, 2 in NC, 3 in TN, 2 in TX, and 3 in VA—are vulnerable in November 2. One big question involves African-American turnout, which is sometimes relatively robust in midterm election. Another is whether Republicans can count on a late surge in a region where anti-Obama and anti-Democratic leanings have been solidified for quite some time.
Photo credit: cfarivar
Tags: African-American, AL, Alabama, Alex Sink, anti-Democratic, anti-Obama, AR, Arkansas, Barack Obama, Bill Halter, Bill White, Blance Lincoln, Blanche Lincoln, Campaigns and elections, Charlie Crist, Democratic House members, Democratic Party, Elaine Marshall, Election Day, FL, Florida, GA, Georgia, GOP, Gubernatorial races, John Boozman, John Kerry, John McCain, Joseph Cao, LA, lean Democratic, lean Republican, likely Republican, Louisiana, Marco Rubio, midterm electorate, Mike Beebe, Mississippi, MS, Nathan Deal, NC, North Carolina, November 2, Old Confederacy, political crosswinds, Richard Burr, Rick Perry, Rick Scott, ronnie sparks, Roy Barnes, Senate Democrat, South, Tennessee, Texas, TN, TX, VA, Virginia
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Thursday, September 30th, 2010
Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.
by Jim Arkedis
In late July, I was sitting in a Seattle restaurant with my uncle and his wife. Our conversation ebbed and flowed among the many problems our country faces –recidivism, poverty, Afghanistan, economic uncertainty – you name it, and I assure you it came up. Since I do the whole “progressive national security thing” for a living, we invariably circled back to those themes.
Though an oversimplification by any stretch, it’s probably safe to say my uncle and his wife classify themselves as “west coast liberals,” or a bit further left on than yours truly at least on military issues. They had, however, spent time in Italy in 2008 teaching English to military officers, and enjoyed the experience.
“You know,” Uncle Bill said, “The only other experience I’ve had with the military was when I was 17. I marched in to see your grandfather and told him that he had to sign these papers so I could join up and go to Vietnam. Of course, he didn’t even bother to drop his paper and said ‘no’. But it’s probably one of the most patriotic things I’ve done in my life.”
The American public’s lack of familiarity with the military, something we subsequently brought up, continues to be a huge problem. Because military recruiting is confined to a few areas of the country – notably poorer areas of the South and Midwest – most of the country has little “skin in the game” when it comes to major foreign policy decisions involving military deployments.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates feels just about the same. He spoke about the issue yesterday at Duke University:
“With each passing decade, fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or social circle…. There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend.”
For rational economic reasons, our forces are concentrated in several areas throughout the country – southern Virginia, San Diego, North Carolina, and Texas are amongst the largest – and DoD remains the bedrock of many of those communities.
While that may not change, the next Secretary of Defense should make it a priority to expand the recruiting base. This is a big argument that needs much more fleshing out, but it’s worth beginning to discuss now: Our military should draw from a more even cross-section of American society to inject a more diverse set of ideas into military culture and policy, which will further benefit the country by engaging those diverse recruits’ families and friends in pressing foreign and military policy debates. How many officers have Ivy League educations these days, anyway?
Photo credit: Ed Yourdon
Tags: Afghanistan, DoD, Duke University, economic uncertainty, foreign policy decisions, Homeland security, Ivy League, Midwest, Military, military culture, military deployments, military leaders, military recruiting, national security, North Carolina, patriotic, poorer areas, Poverty, recidivism, Robert Gates, rogressivism, San Diego, Seattle, Secretary of Defense, South, southern Virginia, Texas, Vietnam
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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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Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Michelle Kobler
Michelle Kobler is an immigration clinic student-attorney and a law student in her final year at The George Washington University Law School. Prior to attending law school, Kobler was the Washington Program outreach manager and special advisor to the president at Third Way.
by Michelle Kobler
Two weeks ago, the Texas School Board voted to ratify, 9-5, drastic textbook changes in their state primary education curriculum after a month of “open commentary” from the public. The changes revisit basic understandings of American history, social studies and economic thought in unprecedented ways.
In a purported attempt to neutralize the pervasive “liberal bias” supposedly present in public education, the Texas School Board approved the insertion and inflation of conservative ideals, values and historical icons (Jefferson Davis, Phyllis Schlafly, Joe McCarthy) in textbooks. The modifications also seek to downplay the intentional separation of church and state by emphasizing the Judeo-Christian faith of the nation’s founders.
At the time the changes were originally proposed, the 15-member Texas School Board boasted 10 Republicans, 7 of which were far-right conservatives. These conservatives undertook a concerted campaign to rewrite the textbook curriculum late last year. Ironically, as Jeremy Binckes notes, three board members who voted for the changes don’t even use the Texas public school system, opting instead for private or home schooling.
What’s most disconcerting about these alterations is the impact they may have on the national education system. As one of the nation’s largest purchasers of public textbooks, Texas’ revisions could alter the content of textbooks distributed nationwide.
What recourse do progressives have to beat back the encroaching, fanatic know-nothingism of the fringe right? Unfortunately, judicial mechanisms may prove unhelpful. Most courts have historically recognized the right of local education boards to create a standard curriculum of its own accord. These local boards are also granted broad discretion in adopting uniform textbooks for their respective public schools. Anyone seeking to judicially contest Texas’s revisions must make the case that the modifications infringe their constitutional rights. This isn’t an easy task.
In 1980, Indiana students brought a case in the 7th Circuit claiming that the removal of books from the school library and ensuing changes to the English curriculum violated their First Amendment protections of “freedom of speech” and the corresponding “freedom to hear.” The court dismissed these claims as failing to meet the constitutional threshold, and reminded the plaintiffs that the Constitution does not permit courts to interfere with the discretion of local authorities unless some really overt indoctrination is happening.
Two years later, the Supreme Court took up the issue of teachers banning books from school libraries. In a 5-4 vote, the majority concluded that banning of books did violate a student’s First Amendment rights. Justice Brennan warned school officials they could not remove books in an effort to restrict general access to political or social ideas that they disagreed with. However, in the same opinion, Justice Brennan also recognized that local boards have “absolute discretion in matters of curriculum.”
The Texas School Board’s amendments walk a fine line between these distinctions. Will their absolute authority over curriculum legally outweigh their obvious intent to revise history on the basis of their political views?
The jury’s still out. Consequently, states and progressives seeking to protect themselves from Texas’ influence will have to use other means. The New York Times reports that California legislators have drafted a bill requiring their state school boards ensure their own textbooks don’t show remnants of the Texas changes. In the same article, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous expressed an intention to fend off the Texas changes — although he doesn’t mention how.
As for Texas, the past month of public commentary has revealed the community’s outrage and concern. Despite their final ratification vote, there are early indications that progressives can take back the Texas School Board of Education from the hard right voting bloc. The former head of the textbook revision movement, Don McLeroy, lost his re-election bid to a more moderate Republican, and is no longer part of the school board. Fellow revisionist enthusiast, Cynthia Dunbar, is not seeking re-election. Absent any clear judicial recourse, Texan progressives will have to further capitalize on the backlash generated by the national spotlight and continue their efforts to overturn the instituted reforms.
Photo credit: Wohnai’s Photostream
Tags: Benjamin Jealous, conservatives, Cynthia Dunbar, Don McLEroy, Education, Indiana, NAACP, Supreme Court, Texas, textbooks, The New York Times
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 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
Texas governor Rick Perry is not what you’d call a statesman, but as the old saying goes, if you can’t be good, be lucky. Perry’s been a very lucky–and opportunistic–politician. He was first elected to the Texas legislature as a Democrat (hard to believe, given his current behavior), and switched parties just in time to take advantage of the rise of the GOP in Texas. In his first statewide race, in 1990, he squeaked by the famous left-populist Jim Hightower to become Agriculture Commissioner; Hightower had not exactly made life easier for himself in Texas by becoming deeply involved in Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign.
In 1998, Perry hitched a ride to the top of Texas politics as George W. Bush’s running-mate, again very narrowly winning the general election (this time over John Sharp) with a lot of help from Bush associates who were getting ready for W.’s presidential run and didn’t want a Democrat wreaking havoc in Austin when the candidate was out of state. Perry inherited the governorship two years later. His two re-elections haven’t been terribly impressive: in 2002, he beat Rick Sanchez, a political neophyte widely perceived as running a very bad campaign, and in 2006, survived with just 39 percent of the vote in a crazy four-candidate general election.
Perry’s great stroke of luck this year was to run against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a formidable politician in the past, in absolutely the worst climate imaginable for a United States senator. Hutchison also obliged Perry by running an unfocused campaign with virtually no message (she joined Sanchez on the Houston Chronicle’s list of the ten worst campaigns in Texas history). Moreover, a third candidate, Tea Party activist Debra Medina, self-destructed by going on Glenn Beck’s show and sounding like a 9/11 “truther.” Perry manged to win yesterday with few votes to spare, garnering 51 percent of the vote against Hutchison’s 30% and Medina’s 19%.
We’ll see if Perry’s luck holds one more time in November; his Democratic opponent, former Houston mayor Bill White, is a respected politician who will not roll over and play dead. It says a lot about the incumbent’s residual weakness that he’s not a prohibitive favorite in a state like Texas in a year like 2010.
Perry gets mentioned now and then as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. He would definitely be stretching his luck by taking his act the national level, but don’t rule it out for a guy who had the opportunity to watch George W. Bush up close and personal when he turned privilege and perfect timing into an unlikely rise to the presidency.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Tags: Bill White, Debra Medina, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck, Jim Hightower, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Rick Sanchez, Tea Party, Texas
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In February, the “invisible primary” for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was kicked off in Washington by the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. On Friday, a second CPAC event will be held in Orlando in deliberate proximity to tomorrow’s Fox/Google candidates’ debate and Saturday’s Florida GOP presidential straw poll (CPAC will not feature its own straw poll). As in Washington in February, the event will revolve around a cattle call of speeches by presidential candidates and conservative celebrities. The smell of red meat will hang heavy in the air, and speakers can and will be expected to forswear all ideological heresy and smite both Democrat Socialists and RINOs.
The Geography – and Demography – of Defeat
Friday, November 5th, 2010Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
In Congressional contests, Democrats flipped just three House seats across the whole, wide country, and they were in the traditionally blue bastions of Delaware, Hawaii, and New Orleans. They won two open Senate seats (in Delaware and Connecticut) but those have been held by Democrats for decades.
Republicans advanced everywhere except the West Coast, where they picked up just one House seat in Washington state. Their gains were mostly concentrated in the Midwest rustbelt and the upper South. With the exception of black belt regions of the South, Latino-dominated south Texas, a smattering of blue in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and a few Rocky Mountain districts, America’s vast interior is solidly red.
The West Coast (including Hawaii) and New York/New England (excepting New Hampshire) are the only remaining Democratic strongholds. The geography of defeat lends credence to GOP claims to represent the American heartland against bicoastal elites.
Republicans also won a passel of governorships and state legislatures across the Midwest. Democrats, in short, got slaughtered in working class America.
Republicans won working-class whites by a crushing, 63 to 34 percent margin. “They have taken the brunt of this recession, particularly the men, but Obama looked as if he was not engaged with it,” pollster Stan Greenberg told the National Journal. “Health care created a sense that he was not focused on the jobs issues and economic issues, and they were very angry.”
The Journal’s Ron Brownstein notes that, “In all, 47 House Democratic losses so far have come in districts in which the level of white college attainment lags the national average; just 16 came in districts that exceed that average. Talk about blue-collar blues.”
But in fact Democrats badly underperformed with white voters in general. College-educated whites also backed GOP candidates, by 58 to 40 percent. Where Democrats held onto their seats, they ran closer to even among college-educated white women while rolling up huge margins among minorities.
Nonetheless, the political map sends Democrats an unmistakable message: you are not connecting with ordinary working Americans. This is only in part a reflection of the current economic crisis, and the evident failure of President Obama’s policies to spur recovery. After all, blue collar whites have been alienated from Democrats for a generation. That should be a source of constant embarrassment to the party of the people.
Many liberal commentators, echoing Thomas Frank, have argued that blue collar voters’ antipathy to Democrats reflects their cultural conservatism. GOP demagoguery on “values” has blinded these voters to the reality that Democrats are on their side on economic issues. But the conspicuous absence of “God, guns, and gays” from the 2010 elections actually make them a pretty good test of this proposition. This time, there’s no question that blue collar voters rejected Democrats on economics rather than values.
All this underscores President Obama’s core challenge: crafting a credible plan for rebuilding America’s productive base. This isn’t a cyclical challenge; it’s not a matter of more public spending to boost demand. It’s a structural challenge which requires modernizing U.S. infrastructure, removing obstacles to entrepreneurship and innovation, seizing leadership in clean energy, and revamping tax and regulatory policies to promote economic growth.
Incredibly, however, some liberals are contemplating a blizzard of new federal regulations with the purported aim of putting Democrats on the side of the middle class by demonizing Wall Street banks and big business. The last thing blue collar Americans need is an economic morality play in which they are cast as victims. What they need, and what progressives owe them, is not a condescending populism, but a practical plan for economic success.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, and gays, bicoastal elites, big business, black belt, blue-collar blues, college-educated white women, condescending populism, Congressional contests, Connecticut, cultural conservatism, current economic crisis, Delaware, Demography, economic growth, economic issues, entrepreneurship, federal regulations, Geography, God, GOP demagoguery, governorships, guns, Hawaii, House seats, Innovation, Iowa, job issues, Journal, liberal commentators, Midwest rustbelt, Minnesota, modernizing U.S. infrastructure, National Journal, New England, New Hampshire, New Orleans, New York, Obama, political map, President Obama, progressives, recession, recovery, regulatory policies, revamping tax, Rocky Mountain, Ron Brownstein, seizing leadership in clean energy, Stan Greenberg, structural challenge, Texas, the upper South., Thomas Frank, Wall Street banks, Washington, West Coast, Wisconsin, working class
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