Same old, same old? A promising Republican politician, considered a darkhorse candidate for his party's Presidential nomination in 2012, appears to be leveraging the issue of gay rights for political gain. So report Marc Ambinder and Justin Miller at the Atlantic:
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. (R) stunned his state when his spokesperson announced the governor's support for civil unions. 70 percent of Utahns oppose civil unions, but their objections won't count against Huntsman who said he won't run for a third term as governor - but they could weigh heavily on a 2012 White House run.
Utahans are already chastising Hunstman for the move -- and accusing him of playing politics:
At the same time, [Hunstman] supported legislation to grant some partner benefits the next year. Legislators already think he's a communist. Now, with an 80-plus approval rating and re-election under his belt, he has nothing to lose.
Except Utah.
"It's clear that he is not running again in Utah," Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, told the Deseret News . "He's moving to a national agenda."
So much for speculation he wants to run for Senate.
Hold on a second. In case you missed the fine print, Hunstman, the governor of perhaps the most socially conservative state in the country, has just come out in favor of civil unions? And is being accused by his rivals of seeking to score political gain by doing so?
Back up a second. Is this, in fact, politically savvy for Hunstman? Civil unions are now supported by something like 60 percent of the country. It's doubtful that a plurality of Republicans support civil unions at this time. But in four years, it might be pretty close. Support for civil unions has increased at an extremely predictable rate, gaining a point or two every year. If the pattern holds, then by 2012 around two-thirds of voters will support civil unions nationwide. Even then, I doubt that you'll see a plurality of Republican primary voters in favor. But it might be not more than a small liability in the primaries, especially if it helps Hunstman appeal to independents (who will presumably not have competitive Democratic primaries to vote in come 2012.) And a position in favor of civil unions will probably be an asset -- perhaps a pretty significant one -- in the general election, a litmus test that independents and younger voters will use to determine whether a Republican opponent is reasonable or a Palinosaur.
Or perhaps Hunstman, who is not running for re-election and has plenty of popularity to spare anyway, is simply expressing his conscience.
Either way, this strikes me as a pretty significant moment -- and in its own quiet way, just as much as a cultural signifier as Proposition 8. The days in which bigotry can be exchanged for votes may be numbered.
Rasmussen has an interesting poll out on Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and the stimulus package. They report that by a 40-31 margin, Pennsylvanians are less likely to support Specter because of his support for the stimulus package rather than more so. This is in spite of the fact that a slight plurality of Pennsylvanians favor the recovery package -- 47 percent in favor against 41 percent opposed. This outcome emerges because Republicans, and to a lesser extent independent voters, are more willing to blame Specter for his vote on the stimulus than Democrats are willing to give him credit for it.
The thing about a situation like this, however, is that not all votes may be created equal. In particular, losing support among Republicans may be damaging to Specter -- in the Republican Primary, where he might or might not receive a serious challenge. But provided that he survives the primary, are Republicans -- and the Republicans that remain in Pennsylvania are a pretty hardened lot -- really going to vote against him in the general election?
Meanwhile, Specter is relatively dependent upon the votes of at least some Democrats. In 2004, when Specter was re-elected, about 26 percent of his support came from Democrats, and the Democratic advantage in registration has increased significantly since then.
The "tiebreaker" may be that independent voters also appear more likely to blame than to credit Specter for his vote on the stimulus. On the other hand, there aren't all that many independents in Pennsylvania, and Rasmussen has consistently shown less support for the stimulus than other firms, so there may be something of a "house effect" in play.
I don't think it's clear, in other words, whether voting for the stimulus was a net positive or a net negative for Specter in terms of his re-election chances in 2010. It is clear, however, that it must have been a tough decision for him.
Recently I had the opportunity to speak to the CEO of a large corporation based in the Western United States. The CEO's company is considering undertaking a major project in accordance with its normal line of business -- which, if executed, could result in employment (albeit temporary employment) for hundreds and perhaps more than a thousand individuals. The project would bring in substantial revenues to the company -- but would also entail substantial costs, substantial risks, and might or might not make a profit. Consumers are willing to pay for the company's product -- but they are not willing to pay what they were a year ago, and the company is having difficulty negotiating with its distributors on appropriate prices. Nevertheless the Company, which remains highly solvent, is willing to take the risk -- if it can contain its costs to what it perceives to be reasonable levels.
The rub is that the project depends on the participation of a Key Individual. Key Individual is himself quite wealthy, and has worked on many similar projects with the Company. But this time around, the Company and Key Individual cannot agree on a price for Key Individual's services. You see, Key Individual is simply not willing to accept compensation less than what he is used to for the project -- even though it is reasonably clear that the project is worth less than it might have been under better economic circumstances.
Each side is convinced that the other one will blink. The Company assumes that Key Individual will eventually look at the prevailing economic conditions and concede to a pay cut. In fact, because the Company is worried about deflation, it's a little bit worried that it's cutting Key Individual too good a deal. Key Individual, meanwhile, assumes that the Company will relent and determine to pay him what it once did for his services -- or that sooner or later the economy will improve, boosting demand for the Company's products and rendering the problem moot.
But so far, nobody has blinked -- and rather than steering toward a resolution, the Company and Key Individual seem to be drifting further apart. Therefore, the project probably will not be executed for several weeks or several months, if it is executed at all. In turn, the hundreds of people who might otherwise be employed by the project will sit idle. And as a result of that, the hundreds of idled workers will in turn have less money to spend on consumer products -- including products like the one that the Company produces.
All of this might not be so important if it were an isolated incident. But the CEO has heard of dozens of such stories in his industry. And he's pretty well convinced that if there are dozens of such stories in dozens of other industries. Business is not getting done.
Now imagine, for the moment, that the Company decided to pay Key Individual what he wants. From the Company's point of view, this would be a poor decision -- the project would probably lose money. But what if dozens of CEOs at dozens of companies, each of whom are locked in their own parallel universe negotiations with persons like Key Individual, all simultaneously decided to accede to his demands? Then economic activity would pick up significantly -- and ironically, Key Individual's services would no longer be overpriced, because the increase in activity would (theoretically) flow through to the consumer and increase demand for the Company's products.
This is not, technically speaking, a prisoner's dilemma. If other firms increase their production, than it will probably become in the Company's interest to increase theirs. It's more like a game of chicken. Uncertainty makes negotiations like the ones between the Company and Key Individual harder to complete; right now there's a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty combined with deflationary expectations makes negotiations especially hard to complete, and right now we have those too in a lot of industries.
The silver lining is that if business and consumer confidence increase, there is liable to be substantial backflow of projects which get undertaken in relatively short order. But right now nobody is blinking.
Reporters from the major papers, print wire sources -- and Politico -- were scheduled to sit down with Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel early this evening to discuss the stimulus bill. Instead, the announcement by Judd Gregg, 30 seconds before Barack Obama took the stage at a Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Illinois, that he was withdrawing from the Commerce Secretary nomination, threw the meeting into quick topical recalibration.
FiveThirtyEight was not in the room with Emanuel, but was at the White House at the time. Via piecing together reporting from those articles and other sources, we have a pretty good triangulated idea of what was said.
According to Emanuel, Gregg's decision was not unexpected -- Gregg had called Emanuel to express "second thoughts" about the post three days ago. "You could tell by Monday, it was the sense that, you know, he must've over the weekend been kind of noodling on something and he just kind of became uncomfortable with what this was." During the initial conversation with Emanuel, Gregg requested to speak to the President. Obama and Gregg met yesterday at the White House, but it was unclear whether that was where the final decision was made.
Gregg had wanted to wait on the announcement, until possibly after the stimulus bill had passed, but his withdrawal had leaked to a few of his Republican Senate colleagues this afternoon and he felt he couldn't wait.
When pressed about the seeming surprise in the White House press office about the timing of the announcement, Emanuel remained gracious, in contrast to the blunt release put out earlier. "I think you've got to take what (Gregg) said at his word."
"There's not hard feelings. I want to repeat it to you," said Emanuel.
Emanuel said the idea for Gregg as Commerce Secretary had come to the White House through Harry Reid, that it was not the White House's original idea.
Moreover, while Emanuel didn't want "to play psychologist, to get into (Gregg's) head," he insisted that the Census was not the root cause. "Trust me, the Census was not" the issue, he insisted.
Emanuel admitted the situation with the withdrawal of a second Commerce Secretary, sandwiched around Tom Daschle's aborted bid for HHS Secretary, was "unfortunate" and "disappointing" for the White House, but that was as far as he went, and continued to strike a gracious tone.
"I think (Gregg's) a very principled person. And he takes his role seriously. I believe he seriously wanted to do the Commerce job, he went into it eyes open, and realized after awhile it was just not going to be, as he said, the right fit. Full stop. I don’t think you can go back from that."
Beyond the discussion of Judd Gregg, Emanuel discussed the stimulus negotiations, defended the White House on criticism of its handling of Tuesday's Geithner announcement, and pointed to the upcoming agenda.
On the stimulus, Emanuel was questioned about the alternative minimum tax that many had argued was not stimulative, but was a key Obama concession. He admitted that while he might regret the statement, the $70 billion AMT piece of the bill was "the price for getting the deal done."
"In the end, what does it take to produce 3.5 million jobs and X amount of votes?"
He also explained that Obama's initial concessions on reducing the size of the "make work pay" program was a critical signal for fostering an attitude of compromise. "We thought that by putting some skin in the game first, it would get people off of positions that they were trying to hold. And at the end of the day when you look at it, that's exactly what happened."
Emanuel was asked the dreaded "some say" question frame -- as in, "What is your reaction to some who are saying it's 'amateur hour?'"
He scoffed at the premise. "We’ve passed some of the most major comprehensive sweeping legislation as it relates to economic activity. Ever. In a three week period of time."
Emanuel ticked off the list: 11 million more children with health care, Lily Ledbetter on gender pay equity, new policy on Guantanamo, torture, new car fuel efficiency standards, and a process begun for a national energy policy.
Pressed on lessons learned from the recent stimulus negotiations, Obama's Chief of Staff acknowledged that during the second week of the stimulus "where for about four days I don't think we were sharp" on messaging. "That's where we allowed, rather than jobs being the message, bipartisanship being the message."
"There's an insatiable appetite for the notion of bipartisanship" in Washington, he said.
Emanuel also disputed the accuracy of any public polling showing a drop in stimulus support: "It never dipped, unlike indicated, not in our stuff."
As for what's next on the agenda, Obama's top aide listed financial regulatory reform and a "major" housing initiative as other legs of the economic stool, as well as renewable portfolio standards on energy and stem cell legislation. Of course, Obama's first State of the Union and the budget bill presentation are also on the docket.
Here is the statement the White House just put out on kicking Judd Gregg to the curb, in full:
“Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.
Translation: Gregg asked us for the gig and lied to us, so eff him, this is his fault.
As one longtime White House correspondent just told me, "I have never seen a White House statement that kicks someone in the balls that hard before."
This marks the second strike on a Commerce appointment. Pending further comments from both sides, one assumes that control of the 2010 census, which in turn affects redistricting, was a major sticking point.
It also serves as a reminder that Republicans can serve in Obama's cabinet, but Obama sets the policy.
After this harsh statement, Gregg's in a tough spot. That he apparently asked for the job indicates he wasn't relishing a battle in 2010 for his seat. Publicly feuding with Obama in a state that Obama carried by 9 points is probably not good for Gregg's re-election prospects, unless Obama's popularity tanks in New Hampshire in the next two years, something that could happen if the economy fails to turn around. [UPDATE: Gregg says he would "probably not" run for re-election in 2010.]
Of course, Obama may lose a potential "moderate" Republican on future key votes.
This one's not over.
By the way, this marks the second time a woman will not get to replace an Obama Commerce nominee. The first time, New Mexico Lt. Governor Diane Denish would have replaced Bill Richardson as Governor. Bonnie Newman will now not become a United States Senator.
Since polling on the stimulus has been all over the board, we'll probably want to wait for confirmation from at least one other polling agency before we regard the trend as statistically significant. But it would be surprising if this were not true. Obama is a highly skilled and highly popular politician. He can package ideas in a way that a typical Democrat can't.
Obama can also command the media stage in a way that no other Democrat can -- and in ways that no Republican can. I don't particularly buy that the press, as a whole, has a pro-Republican bias (although certainly some individual outlets do). Rather, they have a pro-conflict bias -- conflict sells copy -- and for the most part conflict mean Republicans going after the Obama agenda. But if the White House calls a press conference, or organizes a field trip to Indiana, that story will lead the day in virtually all outlets.
Most of the increase in support has come from among Democrats rather than Republicans or independents. As I argued the other day, I don't think that Obama needs to be worried about maintaining an approval rating in the high 60s or low 70s. Instead, he can stay in the high 50s or low 60s by maintaining the support of: (i) Most -- ideally, almost all -- Democrats; (ii) A clear majority of Democrats; (iii) a handful of sympathetic Republicans. That's roughly how Gallup has support breaking down on the stimulus, with 82 percent of Dems, 56 percent of independents, and 28 percent of GOPers now approving.
Even as news broke mid-briefing that legislators reached their probable deal on the stimulus bill on Capitol Hill today, Robert Gibbs faced a grilling from reporters on the market reaction to the bank bailout plan announced Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
“Yesterday’s speech, and framework were not designed for a one-day market reaction,” Gibbs said, referring to yesterday’s 350-point drop by the Dow. Later, he suggested a reason for the drop beyond the lack of certainty offered to Wall Street in Geithner’s announcement. “There was also a psychology involved... about a hope and a wish that bad assets would be paid for in an unreasonable way. That may have also inflated some of those expectations.”
But he admitted that "a fair summation" would be "we may not entirely know all of the property lines of what we're dealing with" because banks may not trust each other for lending bank to bank, and because the government hasn't seen all of what is on the institutional books.
Although Gibbs repeatedly stressed the need for the second phase of TARP spending process to be "transparent," he ran into trouble over the same word later in the briefing. When asked why Obama's campaign pledge of reforming congressional rules to make committee hearings such as today's conference committee on the stimulus bill open to the public hadn't happened, Gibbs initially said he'd have to look at what Congress had done.
The Washington Times reporter then argued that Republicans were correct in their argument that the stimulus discussions had happened behind closed doors. Essentially, Gibbs replied that, sure, but there were a lot of Republicans in on those closed-door meetings. Lynn Sweet interjected from the back of the room that the point wasn't whether Republicans were involved, but whether the doors on such meetings were closed at all. As Gibbs defended that he'd been asked originally about Republicans, David Corn of Mother Jones backed Sweet up by asking if the President believed the conference should be open. Gibbs punted with a non-answer, saying he'd just like to see the deal that had been reached.
He also addressed the administration’s ordering of priorities, specifically why the housing crisis hasn’t been moved forward on the agenda.
“You know if somebody has a house but not a job, my guess is they’d say, ‘a job.’ If somebody has a job but not a house they might say ‘a home foreclosure.’ If somebody’s lost their job because, but can’t get a loan because of something that a CEO did in rigging the system, my sense is they might say, ‘regulation.’ Or, my guess is that millions... are struggling with a little bit of each one of these problems.”
Shorter White House stance: Look, we’re working on it.
“If we only had to do one thing, we’d probably have lighter circles under our eyes, and a little more of a spring in our step.”
I don't think he did well yesterday. I don't know that he's the right guy for the job. But what I do know is the following:
1. Nobody, absolutely nobody, has more incentive to get this right than the Obama Administration. If the economy collapses -- well, more than it already has collapsed -- then the Democrats get slaughtered in 2010, Obama is a one-termer, health care doesn't happen, the poverty rate increases by a couple orders of magnitude, and the imperative to fix the environment gets put on the backburner. To suggest that Obama or Geithner are tools of Wall Street and are looking out for something other than the country's best interest is freaking asinine. Maybe their ideas are wrong -- but their hearts are in the right place.
2. If the banks fail, then rich people lose a lot of money, and poor people lose a lot of jobs (and also much of what money they have). But I swear to God, there's a lunatic fringe out there that would take this trade and call it "progress".
2a. At the end of the day, a great deal of the debate between liberals and conservatives is about how to apportion wealth. It seems so banal to talk about it that way, and so we put all sorts of window dressing on it, but that's really what it's all about. But on this issue of the banking crisis -- and to a lesser extent this was true of the stimulus -- there is a much larger delta on the aggregate amount of wealth that the United States stands to gain (or lose) than on how that wealth is distributed. Over the next 6-18 months, the outcomes for everyone from the top of the economic ladder to the bottom rung are very strongly correlated.
3. I'm sorry, but somewhere between 99.9% and 99.999999% of us are severely underqualified to be making policy recommendations on this particular issue. And I'm certainly in the majority on this one. My anecdotal experience for the past several months has been that the more someone knows about the economy, the more they know (or at least are willing to admit to) what they don't know. Anyone who is professing with certainty that this or that will work -- nationalizing the banks, for instance -- is an idiot.
4. So if I'm telling you to lay off the ideological smelling salts (not that you will) and that your ideas on policy are probably not contributing very much to the discussion (don't worry -- neither are mine) then what, exactly, do I want you to do?
What I'm asking you to do is to clear the playing field. This is neither the time nor the place for mass movements -- this is the time for expert opinion. Once the experts (and I'm not one of them) have reached some kind of a consensus about what the best course of action is (and they haven't yet), then figure out who is impeding that action for political or other disingenuous reasons and tackle them -- do whatever you can to remove them from the playing field. But we're not at that stage yet.
In response to several FAQs, we're looking at about a three-month gig, during which time you'll be in an integral part of the reporting operation, and the experience you gain will be invaluable. It's probably best for a college student or recent grad or someone (unemployed ex-organizer?) expecting a hire in DC in June or later.
The state that once elected a man to governor who ran on the slogan "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard", selecting the unapologetically corrupt Edwin Edwards to a fourth term over former Klansman David Duke, may have another gem of a choice on its hands. Adult entertainer Porn star Stormy Daniels, a Baton Rouge native, is seriously considering a run against incumbent Republican and very bad boy David Vitter.
Does Stormy have a chance? She's certainly not without her, um, charms, apparently hoping to point out Vitter's hypocrisy while campaigning on a platform of female empowerment in the business world. In any other state, we'd say no, but in Louisiana, her candidacy is worth keeping an eye on.
At this point, however, it's not even clear what party Daniels would run from. Her best chance to defeat Vitter -- although probably not to win the seat for herself -- would be to turn the Republican primary into a circus and play the role of spoiler, perhaps peeling off voters from Vitter while a "serious" conservative candidate might swoop in to Vitter's right. That could improve the chances for a moderate Democrat like Charlie Melancon to prevail in the general election.
Ask yourself the following: is momentum a good thing or a bad thing?
One of the more persistent trends in the United States' postwar economic history is that the volatility in the performance of the economy has decreased over time. For example, from 1948 through 1969, the median change in the real GDP growth rate from one quarter to the next was 4.0 percent. Since 1987, however, it has been just 1.8 percent. A similar, although slightly less dramatic trend can be observed in the behavior of the unemployment rate. The economy, over time, has become increasingly sticky, stubborn, robust, stable, or whatever synonym you prefer. It has more inertial momentum than it once did.
Median Quarter-to-Quarter Fluctuations Period GDP Unemployment Martin Era 1948-1969 4.00% 0.23% Volcker Era 1970-1986 2.91% 0.18% Greenspan Era 1987-2009 1.81% 0.15%
Decreased volatility -- momentum -- is generally thought of as a Good Thing. And it is a Good Thing -- if the economy is expanding.
Right now, however, the economy is not expanding -- it is contracting. And when the economy is contracting, reduced volatility may be an altogether different thing. It may mean that contractions are longer as well. Take a look, for instance, at Justin Fox's graph at Time.com about the behavior of the unemployment rate over the past six recessions:
Lost jobs appear to be taking longer and longer to recover with each subsequent recession. In fact, if we look at all recessions since World War II, the three most recent recessions (prior to this one) are associated with the three longest time frames for employment to return to its pre-recession peaks. The 1991 and 2001 recessions in particular were associated with so-called jobless recoveries.
Months Required for Employment Rate to Return to Prior Peak
September 1948 20 July 1953 23 August 1957 20 April 1960 20 March 1970 18 July 1974 19 March 1980 10 July 1981 26 June 1990 31 February 2001 47 December 2007 ??
You don't particularly see this trend, by the way, if you look at other measures of economic performance, such as GDP growth. However, as we transition into a post-industrial economy, there is less relationship between employment and GDP than there used to be. (The intuition, I suppose, is that labor is relatively less important as a factor of production than it once was).
Now, this next part is going to be a bit more speculative. Suppose that we want to project the unemployment rate into the future (albeit rather crudely) based solely on previous unemployment rate data. This can be accomplished by running a regression analysis and using the unemployment rate at various past periods as the independent variables. For example, we can predict the unemployment rate in month M by looking at the unemployment rate in months M-1, M-2, M-3, M-6 and M-12. If we do this based on the entire post-World War II dataset of unemployment rates, we get the following:
This has the unemployment rate peaking over the summer at 8.1 percent before starting to decline; most economists would consider that to be a pretty decent result. (By the way, even though this is an extremely unsophisticated model, it is not necessarily out to lunch in thinking that the equilibrium unemployment rate will be in the high 5's rather than numbers like 4.0 that we are used to. The unemployment rate has never fallen below 5.0 in three of the last five economic expansions, and the average unemployment rate achieved during expansionary periods is generally quite a bit worse than the best (lowest) unemployment rate.
Now suppose instead that we perform the same process based solely on data from the Greenspan Era -- from August 1987 onward. This gives us a rather different result:
Here, the unemployment rate gets all the way up to 9.6 percent, and doesn't peak until May 2010 -- more than a year from now. If this projection is accurate, the economy might exit the recession somewhat sooner than that -- employment tends to be a lagging indicator -- but it won't be without a lot of suffering in the intervening months. The Greenspan Era data also seems to posit some periodicity in employment rates -- that is, the presence of business cycles -- but with superlong periods lasting for perhaps as long as 10 years. Perhaps the business cycle hasn't been eliminated so much as it has been extended. Momentum is a Good Thing if you're driving down the highway -- but a Bad Thing if you're driving off a cliff.
Now, there are much, much more sophisticated ways to do economic forecasting than this. My point is simply that some of the same things that might have been working in the economy's favor before could be working against it now. We have developed good tools for preventing recessions -- but this makes the fact that those tools are not working all that much more troublesome.
Over at Pollster.com, Mark Blumethal takes issue with my attempt to tie Obama's declining (although still very strong) approval ratings to the debate over the stimulus package, and particularly my assertion that Obama's attempt to frame the issue in bipartisan terms was not constructive. I'm not sure that Mark and I are actually disagreeing on all that much, but let's try and break this one down:
Are Obama's declining approval ratings in fact tied to the stimulus?
Mark's argument is that the reason Obama's approval ratings have declined is that we have moved out of the honeymoon period surrounding his inauguration, and the fawning press coverage that it inevitably entails. That is, some or all of the decline was inevitable as the inauguration afterglow wore off.
The critique I'd have of this is that the inauguration bounce typically tends to be somewhat long-lasting. Gallup, in fact, reports that "new presidents' approval ratings typically increase in the first few months of their presidencies" (emphasis mine).
This may, of course, be because new presidents typically choose to enact safe and popular policies at the very beginnings of their term. Obama, however, did not have the luxury of easing into his term. On the contrary, the stimulus -- one of the most controversial and complex pieces of legislation ever to come before the country -- was at the top of his docket from Day One.
So in a literal sense, the answer to my question is probably "yes". I don't think Obama's approval ratings would have declined to the same extent had the stimulus not been on the table. But really I'm not sure that Mark and I are disagreeing. Obama probably wasn't going to maintain an approval rating in the 70s forever; the stimulus may merely have accelerated the inevitable.
The real question, I think, is the following:
What would Obama's approval ratings look like right now if he had pursued a more combative, partisan approach to the stimulus? Would they be worse? Better? Or about the same?
This is probably unanswerable. But as Mark points out, most of the decline in Obama's approval ratings has come from Republicans, among whom he has lost a net of about 24 approval points (approval rating less disapproval rating) in two weeks. This is in spite of the fact that by roughly a 2:1 margin, Republicans think that Obama is in fact working in a bipartisan fashion, according to the latest CBS News poll.
In other words, there are quite a lot of Republicans who believe that (i) Obama is in fact governing in a bipartisan manner but (ii) disapprove of his performance anyway. Republicans can appreciate Obama's civility -- but still disagree with every piece of his agenda.
Does Obama need the support of Republican votersto pass his agenda?
While Obama certainly needs the support of a couple of Republican senators to pass his agenda, he doesn't necessarily need the support of Republican voters. If Obama maintains the support of about 95 percent of Democrats and two-thirds of independents, his approval rating would remain at about 60 percent even with no Republican support at all, and he'd be above 50 percent approval in 42 of the 50 states according to Gallup's recent party ID figures. The key Republican moderates in the Senate, moreover, can't afford to ignore their Obama-loving constituents. About 40 percent of Susan Collins' support in her successful re-election bid in Maine, for instance, came from people who also voted for Obama.
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Basically, I think Obama needn't spend a great deal of time worrying about his approval ratings among Republicans, and particularly among conservative Republicans. In the first place, it is probably inevitable that he will lose their support -- no matter how "bipartisan" his behavior. In the second, because there are so few Republican voters left, he doesn't really require the support of very many of them to maintain an impressive electoral coalition.
Now, that doesn't mean that Obama should poke needles in the Republicans' eyes at every opportunity -- and he certainly can't afford to lose the support of substantial numbers of independents and conservative Democrats. Nor should he assume -- as I think certain liberal blogs are making the mistake of assuming -- that there has been some sort of paradigm shift in the American electorate. We know that most Americans are sick and tired of Republican ideas and are eager to pursue some different ones. But we don't know whether this shift is permanent or temporary, nor how robust it will be in the face of the trials and tribulations that the new president will inevitably face.
But the value of maintaining the appearance of bipartisanship does not appear to be all that high if it gets in the way of persuasion. For a week or so there during the stimulus debate, we were getting a lot of the former from the White House, but not so much of the latter. Tonight's press conference marked a return to the persuasive Obama. His approval ratings, I'm guessing, will improve as a result -- and more importantly, so will his prospects for favorable legislative outcomes.
As expected, the Republican attempt to block a vote on the Collins-Nelson Amendment to the stimulus package has failed, with Republicans Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter joining the 58-member Democratic caucus to invoke cloture.
It's not surprising that Snowe, Collins and Specter were the three Republicans to support the measure, as they have voted with the President the most frequently of any Republican Senators to date. Collins, Snowe and Specter are also three of the four Republican Senators to come from states that Barack Obama won by at least 10 points (the other is Nevada's John Ensign).
Republican Senators from Obama States (Margin of Victory in Parenthesis)
Collins Maine 17.3 Snowe Maine 17.3 Ensign Nevada 12.5 Specter Pennsylvania 10.3 Gregg New Hampshire 9.6 Grassley Iowa 9.5 Voinovich Ohio 4.5 Martinez Florida 2.8 Lugar Indiana 1.0 Burr North Carolina 0.3
Final passage of both the Collins-Nelson amendment and the underlying bill are expected tomorrow.
It’s known as “OFA 2.0.” “Obama for America” was 1.0 – the vast grassroots-powered organization tasked with electing Barack Obama president. “Organizing for America” is the 2.0 version, and its primary goal is to harness energy and momentum built during the campaign and keep it active and engaged to promote Obama’s policy agenda during his presidency.
On a warm, blue-skied Saturday February afternoon, I gathered along with 35 other people at Yvette Lewis’ house in Bowie, Maryland for an incredibly well-structured “stimulus party.” Approximately 2/3 were women, the majority African-American, and nearly all over age 30.
(photo credit: Yvette Lewis) Over the weekend, mixed reports filtered in around the country about the success or failure of approximately 3,300 Organizing for America economic stimulus house parties. McClatchy apparently went to the OFA website, did some counting of signups, called a few hosts, and deemed the effort “not much of a draw.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted a canceled meeting, got a quote from OFA 2.0 Director Mitch Stewart and a political science professor, and dismissed the organization as “tapped out.”
Reports from San Jose, Austin, and Tampa, along with a Reuters article posted early this morning were better, painting a picture of local meetings that reporters there actually attended. The only downside I have to report is that not all meetings were equally receptive to press attention. The hostess of one well-attended party in Virginia on Sunday asked me not to come for fear that comments wouldn’t be “polished,” and over fears that some guests being quoted over others, or some saying the wrong things would foment problems within the group.
Economically, the Bowie house party took place in a well-off suburban setting, but there was a socioeconomic range among the attendees. Some, like Nannette Johnson, had recently lost jobs and spoke of children who had lost jobs. Most were Democrats, but a few were independents and “Obamacans.” Many knew each other, most were local and had volunteered out of the Largo, MD field office during the campaign, but one woman, Tricia Barnett, had driven nearly two hours from St. Mary’s County in southern Maryland “to be part of an active group.”
Yvette Lewis played host and ringleader, and right off the bat she announced that this wasn’t just a party, but “a working session.” Most importantly she explained, while Lewis would provide the space and the meeting structure, the concept wouldn't work unless all took ownership, and all took action. Working together and feeding off each other's energy, individuals would make choices and ultimately do the work themselves.
“We are here to leave with action items, with things to hit the ground running,” Lewis introduced. “We’ll have things to send to Majority Leader Hoyer’s office, things to send to Benjamin Cardin, to Barbara Mikulski. So we’re going to have documents when we leave here and everyone is going to have an assignment.”
The group was particularly unhappy with newly-elected Rep. Frank Kratovil, one of the tiny group of House Democrats to vote against the stimulus. Kratovil, one of the 2008 House Democratic pickups, had squeaked by in a race whose outcome was not officially confirmed until days after the election. Several of the attendees, who had pounded the pavement to help him get elected in a traditionally red Maryland district, gasped with shock when they learned of his vote.
“After all the work we did?” one frustratedly interjected. Lewis had called Kratovil’s office for an explanation of his stimulus bill vote and gotten an unsatisfyingly boilerplate reply. So now Kratovil was in the group’s sights as a lobbying target.
As for meeting structure, the group first spent around 30-40 minutes sharing their stories, a hallmark piece of the election campaign’s field program. “I just want to stay involved, I just want to get as much information as I can,” said Ophelia Vanderpool. “I just want to stay plugged in.”
Vanessa Davis, who Lewis described as critical to the Largo field office’s success during the campaign, echoed Vanderpool on staying plugged in her intention to “get good information, be an activist, continue to have Barack’s back.”
“I was fired up then and I’m fired up now,” Toni Byrd agreed. “My whole goal here is one of hope, and a trust that we can continue the momentum that we started.”
After attendees shared their stories, and the meeting’s organizers had distributed a barrage of information-packed handouts, the large group broke out by interest area into subgroups to brainstorm over line items in the economic recovery bill. The task was focusing on the items stripped by the Senate in Friday evening’s deal, discussing which items most deserved inclusion in the ultimate bill, and presenting their report to the at-large group, including specific action items.
Proposed subgroups included Energy, Science & Technology, Transportation, Education, Health Care, Jobs (retraining) and Public Sector Jobs (teachers, firefighters, etc.). In practice, the latter two were combined and Energy did not have a subgroup representation. I dipped in and out of several subgroups as they debated which bullet-points targeted for proposed stimulus spending had the most merit.
For example, the five subgroup members for “Science and Technology” pored over a handout listing 17 specific stimulus proposals in that area, and decided that the top two priorities were the $6 billion in broadband and wireless grants for underserved communities and $600 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites and sensors. Other options included monies for NSF, NIH biomed research, NIH university facilities, CDC facilities, NASA, the Dep’t of Energy, etc.
(photo credit: Yvette Lewis)
When they reported back to the group at-large, the subgroup’s chosen representative, Eugene Clair, explained their decision and reported the citizen lobbying they planned to ensure these items weren’t cut from the final bill. Not only letters targeted to Maryland legislators such as Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersberger, Kravotil, Cardin, and Mikulski, but letters to the editor (local and national papers) and media. (At the outset of the meeting, Lewis had instructed everyone to put listed numbers for CNN, MSNBC and Fox News into their speed dials.)
The Health Care subgroup – the largest subgroup with 11 members – decided that $3 billion in prevention and wellness fund dollars wasn’t as immediately stimulative as $1.5 billion in Community Health Centers would be, so they planned to make their legislative and media contacts focused on this specific item. The group noted the unfunded backlog 400 submitted applications for new and expanded sites, and observed that construction jobs would be a significant and stimulative ancillary benefit to this line item.
In terms of next steps, whenever an individual or subgroup had completed an action item, they were to email blast the rest of the group. When they got a response, they were to blast the group. The intention is to advocate for specific elements in the stimulus, generate further involvement from friends, co-workers and community members, and, over time, learn what works best until they develop strong efficiency.
Ironically, for the sake of time, the video presentation from Tim Kaine that headlined most media discussion of these stimulus house parties, was punted to the end of a gathering that truly lived up to its “working session” billing. As Kaine’s message played in the background, attendees mostly stretched and said goodbyes, full of mission and prepared to meet again in a month.
From the beginning, a close-to-the-vest gathering of several hundred elite Obama organizers and volunteers we shadowed at the O’Hare Westin December 5-7, 2008, OFA 2.0 has been a work in progress. Nobody’s tried anything like this before. Much as the campaign learned best practices during the many primary test cases and implemented what worked and ditched what didn’t, the post-election grassroots effort should be expected to have fits and starts, mirroring Obama’s frequent expectation-setting rhetoric on the difficulty of change.
There is much more to write about this process, which we'll develop in upcoming pieces. In particular, the upcoming rollout of field hires the DNC intends to place in all or nearly all 50 states, the way this structure is directed by Obama's agenda and enhanced by videos from Obama to the grassroots yet theoretically not under White House control but a special "project of the DNC," and how the organization grows and learns over time. And ultimately with this unprecedented project, will it be successful? The potential is huge, and is clearly flying under the radar and being taken lightly by too many.
Curtis Valentine, a regional field director during the campaign who also attended Saturday’s 2+ hour meeting, summarized the spirit behind OFA 2.0 that manifested throughout in Bowie:
“We’re vested in the campaign, it’s not just something where we’re just bystanders. We’ve put sweat equity in bringing this campaign to fruition. The real campaign started on November 4... A lot of us here have paid so much into it and we want to see the rewards are reaped.”
Last week, we tracked the increasing use of the word 'pork' in connection with the economic stimulus package. But what about another important word: one that tends to cast the stimulus in a more favorable light. That word is J-O-B-S, jobs, jobs, jobs:
The percentage of articles on Yahoo! News that contained the word "stimulus" and which also contained the word "jobs" had been holding very steady at about 40 percent for each day since Barack Obama's inauguration. But then, the figure shot up to 57 percent on Friday, and then 49 percent on Saturday -- the days on which the Obama administration appeared to salvage the stimulus package. Much of this, undoubtedly, was the result of the jobs report that came out on Friday, but the Obama administration was simultaneously trying to grease the wheels by putting out estimates of job creation in each individual state.
Without the fortuitous timing of that jobs report, I'm not sure that the center would have held.
If there's anything Democrats have learned during the stimulus debate, it's that a tremendous amount of power rests within the hands of a relatively few individuals. These individuals are a group of perhaps a dozen moderate Senators -- on the Republican side, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, George Voinovich of Ohio, Dick Lugar of Indiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Bonnie Newman of New Hampshire, and on the Democratic side, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. The success -- or failure -- of the Obama administration will probably be determined by these Senators and a few others like them.
Having just one more reliable Democratic vote -- instead of having to play Bipartisan Boggle with the group of moderates -- would make a tremendous difference to the Obama administration in areas like health care and energy security. Likewise, having one fewer would give Mitch McConnell much more leverage in blocking Obama's agenda.
And yet, the Obama Administration still seems to be considering cabinet appointees that would deplete their own ranks in the Senate. For instance, Ron Wyden of Oregon is reportedly under consideration to be Obama's Health and Human Services nominee. But if Wyden is appointed, the Democrats would be out a seat at least temporarily, since Oregon is one of those states that requires all Senators to be replaced by special election, and possibly permanently -- special elections are unpredictable things, and they may be especially so at a time when Republicans in Oregon might be more motivated to turn out than potentially complacent Democrats.
Likewise, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, also under consideration for HHS, might require the Democrats to pay quite a deep price in terms of future legislation. Sebelius is the favorite if she decides to run for Senate in Kansas in 2010, a possibility that is presumably mutually exclusive with her becoming head of HHS. Without Sebelius, however, the party has no chance to win the seat in Kansas.
This is not to say that Wyden or Sebelius wouldn't otherwise be strong choices to head HHS. Wyden's domain knowledge in the health care sector and Sebelius' ability to appeal to bipartisan constituencies would both be rather valuable assets. But I don't know if they're as valuable as the possibility of giving up a Senate seat -- particularly in the case of Wyden, whose loss would be felt by the Democrats immediately.
Nor is it as though there aren't other viable alternatives, most notably this guy, who combines domain knowledge and salesmanship ability, and -- by the way -- is out of a job for the time being.
I don't know what the administration's issues with Howard Dean are. But whatever they might be, it's hard to imagine that they're worth losing a Senate seat over.
The conventional wisdom on the left-hand side of the mediasphere seems to be that Barack Obama should have asked for a larger stimulus package in the first place. Specifically, the argument is that:
1) Republican/centrist opposition to the bill was inevitable; they never had any incentive to compromise, and
2) Republican/centrist opposition to the bill was liable to be somewhat unrelated to the magnitude of the package. That is, if Obama had asked for $1 trillion, Republicans would find a bunch of stuff to complain about, and use their filibuster power in the Senate to reduce the package to, say, $900 billion. Conversely, if Obama had asked for $600 billion, Republicans would complain, and use their filibuster power in the Senate to reduce the package to, say, $500 billion.
3) Therefore, Obama should have asked for the $1 trillion, or whatever the economically correct number is.
I'm sympathetic to this argument, versions of which I've made myself. But, I think it may be overly simplistic. Specifically, there are probably diminishing marginal returns to every additional dollar of stimulus. With each additional dollar that you spend, the more likely you are to spend a dollar that: (i) isn't spent particularly well, i.e. has a lower multiplier, or (ii) is spent well, but facilitates long-run rather than short-run growth, or (iii) is spent well, but is politically infeasible, thereby undermining the chances for the remainder of the bill to pass. Although clearly many of the Republican objections to the bill were frivolous, and although just as clearly money seems to have been left on the table that could have been wisely spent in areas like science funding, it's not self-evident that you could have added, say, another $400 billion to the package without encountering one or more of these problems.
Perhaps the administration should have sold the bill more literally as a recovery and reinvestment package. That is, there is a recovery component, presumably the majority of the bill, which is money that is necessarily spent quickly and with an eye toward job creation, and then there is also a reinvestment component, which is money that is not necessarily spent immediately but consists of "down payments" in areas like education, infrastructure and clean energy and seeks to bolster long-term economic growth. Perhaps the reinvestment component would have come under attack, but because things like education, infrastructure and clean energy happen to be quite popular, Obama would have been on relatively firm ground.
Races are ranked in order of their likelihood of changing parties in November 2010, accounting for all factors such as potential retirements, primary challenges, and so forth.
Likelihood of party switch has increased since last month's rankings. Likelihood of party switch has decreased since last month.
1. New Hampshire (R-Open) The Granite State vaults to the top of the list with Judd Gregg's move to Commerce. Gregg was a valuable player for the GOP: not only was he a Republican in what has increasingly become a Democratic state, but he was a fairly conservative Republican who was nevertheless fairly popular in a Democratic state. Gregg's designated successor, Bonnie Newman, is supposedly not going to run for re-election, and even if she does, she is not likely to be nearly as formidable an opponent as Gregg was. In an open seat race, Democrats are the favorites, especially with Paul Hodes already having declared his candidacy.
2. Missouri (R-Open) Kit Bond has announced his retirement since our last edition, and meanwhile, Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has stepped into the void and announced her candidacy. That's good news for Democrats as Carnahan has polled as a slight favorite against several potential Republican opponents. It's possible that Carnahan will lose ground if the political tectonics shift back toward the Republicans -- Missouri is one of those states that could be vulnerable to a populist Republican revolt. But this race is at least a toss-up, and probably leans Democratic if Republicans have trouble picking their opponent while the field clears for Carnahan.
3. Ohio (R-Open) Yet another Republican seat that has opened up since last month's rankings. The difference here is that the Republicans have a seemingly strong candidate in former Congressman and Bush cabinet official Rob Portman. Quinnipiac, however, has Portman trailing trailing a couple of prospective Democratic opponents. The good news for Republicans is that Portman has surprisingly low name recognition statewide, something he'll have no trouble fixing as he should raise plenty enough money to do some early advertising.
4. Kentucky (R-Bunning) Republicans are trying their darndeset to get Bunning to retire rather than run for re-election, but it doesn't seem to be working, and meanwhile Research 2000 shows several potential Democratic opponents polling within the margin of error against him. One caution for the Democrats: I'm not sure that Daniel Mongiardo, the Democrat who nearly upended Bunning in 2004 and who has announced his interest in the seat, is necessarily the strongest opponent, as his negatives are fairly high statewide. Still, Bunning is not a good campaigner at this stage of his career, and if he's getting little institutional support from John Cornyn and the GOP leadership, he could be in a lot of trouble.
5. Florida (R-Open) This is one place where Republicans seem to have a bit of momentum. State CFO Alex Sink, thought to be the strongest potential Democratic opponent, will not run for the seat. Instead, the Democratic hopefuls consist of Kendrick Meek and Dan Gelber, who may have limited appeal outside the Miami area. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist might enter on the Republican side. I don't necessarily see the political logic there, since Crist is entitled to another term as governor, but perhaps Crist is looking toward the very long term since when his second term expires in 2014 he is unlikely to have such a clear pathway into the Senate. If Crist enters the race for Senate, in other words, I see that as a sign that he's not interested in national office and instead wants to "retire" to a job where he'll never have to worry about term limits.
6. Nevada (D-Reid) The fundamentals of this race have not changed, although it's been lapped by several others. Reid remains a very attractive opponent, but the Republicans are hampered by not having a compelling alternative.
7. Pennsylvania (R-Specter) Specter will apparently not face a primary challenge from Club for Growther Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated him in 2004, removing one major barrier to his potential re-election (although, the National Review is not so sure about that). Still, between Specter's health and Pennsylvania's Democratic-leaning electorate, there are plenty of obstacles ahead.
8. North Carolina (R-Burr) Recentpolling shows Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper running about even with Burr, although Cooper has not announced his candidacy yet.
9. Colorado (D-Bennet) Public Policy Polling has newly-appointed senator Michael Bennet leading several Republican opponents, with the exception of former Governor Bill Owens who is not thought likely to enter the race. Meanwhile, Republican Attorney General John Suthers has said he won't run. This increases the chances that the Republicans will make the mistake of nominating Tom Tancredo, in which case Bennet should win by double digits. Against a more moderate Republican, Bennet is probably a slight favorite.
10. Kansas (R-Open) Good news for Democrats: governor Kathleen Sebelius, who will be term-limited in 2010, rates as a 10-point favorite against a couple of well-known Republican opponents. Bad news for Democrats: she may be Barack Obama's HHS nominee instead.
11. Illinois (D-Burris) The GOP's best hope here is 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk, but recent polling has Kirk with net-negative favorability rankings and in fact trailing Burris in a prospective matchup. And if another Democrat like Jan Schakowsky or Alexi Guannoulias upends Burris in the primary, as is somewhat likely, the GOP's path becomes very difficult.
12. Texas (R-Open?) There are essentially 11 top-tier races, with a pretty big breaking point after Illinois. In Texas, which is next on the list, we are pricing in a strong likelihood that Kay Bailey Hutchison will vacate her seat to run for governor, in which case a Democrat like Houston Mayor Bill White could sneak into the Senate with most of the attention focused on the gubernatorial side of things.
13. Iowa (R-Grassley) As before, Democratic hopes depend entirely on the possibility that Grassley will decide to retire, in which case the state leans blue.
14. Delaware (D-Open) Republicans would probably need Mike Castle to enter, which is unlikely.
15. Louisiana (R-Vitter) I continue to think that this seat remains overrated as a pickup opportunity, as Vitter's sex scandal is old news and as his approval ratings remain fairly high. However, Vitter seems to be terrified of a primary challenge, and could wind up repositioning himself too far to the right as a result.
16. Arizona (R-McCain) Some rumors that McCain will face a primary challenge, but it's unlikely to be an especially credible one. The Democrats' better opportunity comes if McCain decides that he wants to retire.
17. Arkansas (D-Lincoln) Republicans would probably need Mike Huckabee to enter, which is unlikely.
18. New York (Jr.) (D-Gillibrand) Gillibrand is liable to prove fairly popular across New York's political spectrum and should easily defeat declared Republican opponent Peter King, although polling shows that George Pataki or Rudy Giuliani might have a chance.
19. North Dakota (D-Dorgan) Republicans would probably need John Hoeven to enter, which is unlikely.
20. Connecticut (D-Dodd) Republicans would probably need Jodi Rell to enter, which is unlikely.
21. California (D-Boxer) Even if Arnold Schwarzenegger enters, which is unlikely, a Research 2000 poll has him trailing Boxer by 9 points.
22. Oklahoma (R-Coburn) Democrats would probably need Brad Henry to enter, which is unlikely.
23. Wisconsin (D-Feingold) Feingold is often on the Republican target list, but there's no particular evidence that he's vulnerable.
24. Alaska (R-Murkowski) Unlike Vitter, Murkowski seems to be positioning herself to the left in the face of a potential primary challenge, which might further decrease the Democrats' slim odds of upending her provided that she survives it.
25. Hawaii (D-Inoyue) 26. Georgia (R-Isakson) 27. Maryland (D-Mikulski) 28. South Carolina (R-DeMint) 29. Washington (D-Murray) 30. South Dakota (R-Thune) 31. Indiana (D-Bayh) 32. Vermont (D-Leahy) Democrats apparently don't need to be worried about GOP governor Jim Douglas.
Likelihood of party switch has increased since 
Likelihood of party switch has decreased since last month.