Here's the news. So much for a quiet Friday.
There is absolutely no upside here for Charlie Crist. When you're running for Senate, and you're protecting a huge lead, the last thing you need is a wild card like this that can cause people to grow upset with you. Odds are that Crist will take a look at what happened to David Paterson and at least make a decision quickly.
And/but -- Crist just doesn't have a lot of good choices. Since he wants the seat himself beginning in 2011, he can't appoint someone like Jeb Bush who has equally strong credentials, and he can't appoint any sitting Representatives and then come back 18 months later and hope to kill their careers. He also presumably won't want to appoint himself -- a moderate Republican senator is going to have two or three really tough votes over the next year and he would have to navigate carefully so as not to re-energize either the Marco Rubio campaign to his right or the Democrats to his left. If Crist does appoint himself, that would suggest to me that he's really looking more toward 2012 (or 2016) and is sort of going "all-in" on maximizing public exposure and may even try and be a "hero" on health care reform, etc. It would take someone pretty egomaniacal to think that way. Then again, it takes someone pretty egomaniacal to run for President.
In any event, the lack of alternatives is why former governor Bob Martinez (no relation), who has been out of public office for eighteen years, is getting so much buzz right now. He seems like the obvious choice -- then again, he's 74 years old, and was distinctly unpopular by the time he left office, losing his re-election bit to Lawton Chiles by 13 points.
The nearer-term question is whether the Democrats might wind up with someone who could be a potential yes vote on health care -- which Martinez almost certainly wouldn't have been, even though he'd been voting somewhat more moderately since announcing his retirement, including voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor yesterday. Democrats shouldn't get their hopes up -- Crist is arguably still more threatened by Rubio than by any of the Democratic general election candidates -- but they nevertheless have something of a freeroll here.
If Democrats really wanted to play hardball and squeeze Crist on this decision, then someone like Robert Wexler could take one for the team and announce he had decided to run for Senate. That's probably too much risk for too little reward. But don't be surprised if you see a few bluffs/trial balloons along these lines if Crist takes too long to make his pick.
8.07.2009
Economic Headlines You Won't See on The Drudge Report
@ 9:00 AM
-- Job losses slowed to 247,000, their lowest total since a year ago, beating expectations by roughly 100,000.
-- The unemployment rate actually *declined* to 9.4 percent from 9.5
percent.
-- May and June job loss estimates have been revised *downward*.
-- Hourly earnings improved.
-- The average workweek lengthened, particularly in manufacturing.
-- The manufacturing sector added jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
-- The NASDAQ will open today about 33 percent higher than when Obama took office.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
These numbers do not point toward a "good" economy. Some of them, like the decline in the unemployment rate, are even a bit misleading, since some of that has occurred because a lot of dispirited job seekers have given up on looking for work.
But they do speak unambiguously toward an economy which has almost certainly bottomed out and has probably begun to improve. It is more likely to be a slow recovery than a fast one, especially in employment, but this is arguably the best news that Obama has had since taking office.
I said two weeks ago that if the job loss number declined to 250,000 or so, it would be a game-changer. I was not making a prediction about what the employment numbers would look like. I was merely saying that if this occurred, it would probably be enough to change the tenor of the debate in Washington. Republicans have to be very careful now about not overplaying their hand on health care.
8.06.2009
The NRA's Pyrrhic "Victory" on Sotomayor
@ 10:51 PM
As a follow-up to my post from earlier this afternoon, I was able to track down NRA ratings for each of the 40 Republican Senators as of their most recent election (this is much harder to do than you might think). The ratings suggest that the NRA’s pledge to rate a ‘yea’ vote on Sonia Sotomayor as blemish on a Senator’s record may indeed have swayed a few votes.
Consider that six Republican senators – Jim Bunning, Saxby Chambliss, Orrin Hatch, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jim Inhofe, and Jeff Sessions -- have an NRA rating of A+. All six voted against Sotomayor.
Meanwhile, 28 Republican senators have an NRA grade of a straight ‘A’. Just four of the 28 – Lamar Alexander, Kit Bond (who is retiring), Mel Martinez (ditto) and Lindsay Graham -- voted for Sotomayor.
Lastly, the remaining six Republican senators have NRA grades of C+ or lower. Five of the six voted for Sotomayor, the lone exception being John McCain, whom the NRA (somewhat hesitantly) endorsed for President last year and who had received higher ratings from the group in the past.
Granted, the senators who receive high grades from the NRA tend to be conservative on other issues as well. But the NRA grades are a much stronger predictor of voting than overall ideological ratings, when we plop both into a regression model. Some senators who have a reputation for being moderates on judicial appointments, like Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley, but who have excellent NRA ratings, chose to vote against Sotomayor. So did Lisa Murkowski, who is one of the 3-5 most moderate Republican senators according to most rating systems but comes from a big gun-ownership state. Kay Bailey Hutchison, likewise, who has voted fairly moderately on some issues this year and comes from a state with a huge Hispanic population, was not about to jeopardize her A+ rating when going up against Rick Perry, who also has an A+.
The question is whether the NRA was really doing the Republicans any favors – particularly given that the outcome of the vote was not really in doubt. I don't hink that this vote will turn out to be a particularly big deal – but it’s going to turn off a few Hispanic voters for seemingly little upside, as there are rather few Americans who are strongly opposed to Sotomayor and as individual Supreme Court justices rarely make news once they join the bench. Overall, it speaks to a Republican Party that remains convinced that catering to its narrowing base – rather than hoping to expand it – is the way to win elections. That might not actually be a horrible strategy in 2010, when I expect the Republican base to be more enthusiastic than the Democratic one and for their higher turnout to swing a few -- or maybe more than a few -- elections. But I think it’s a mistake, in all likelihood, for 2012 and beyond.
Consider that six Republican senators – Jim Bunning, Saxby Chambliss, Orrin Hatch, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jim Inhofe, and Jeff Sessions -- have an NRA rating of A+. All six voted against Sotomayor.
Meanwhile, 28 Republican senators have an NRA grade of a straight ‘A’. Just four of the 28 – Lamar Alexander, Kit Bond (who is retiring), Mel Martinez (ditto) and Lindsay Graham -- voted for Sotomayor.
Lastly, the remaining six Republican senators have NRA grades of C+ or lower. Five of the six voted for Sotomayor, the lone exception being John McCain, whom the NRA (somewhat hesitantly) endorsed for President last year and who had received higher ratings from the group in the past.
Granted, the senators who receive high grades from the NRA tend to be conservative on other issues as well. But the NRA grades are a much stronger predictor of voting than overall ideological ratings, when we plop both into a regression model. Some senators who have a reputation for being moderates on judicial appointments, like Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley, but who have excellent NRA ratings, chose to vote against Sotomayor. So did Lisa Murkowski, who is one of the 3-5 most moderate Republican senators according to most rating systems but comes from a big gun-ownership state. Kay Bailey Hutchison, likewise, who has voted fairly moderately on some issues this year and comes from a state with a huge Hispanic population, was not about to jeopardize her A+ rating when going up against Rick Perry, who also has an A+.
The question is whether the NRA was really doing the Republicans any favors – particularly given that the outcome of the vote was not really in doubt. I don't hink that this vote will turn out to be a particularly big deal – but it’s going to turn off a few Hispanic voters for seemingly little upside, as there are rather few Americans who are strongly opposed to Sotomayor and as individual Supreme Court justices rarely make news once they join the bench. Overall, it speaks to a Republican Party that remains convinced that catering to its narrowing base – rather than hoping to expand it – is the way to win elections. That might not actually be a horrible strategy in 2010, when I expect the Republican base to be more enthusiastic than the Democratic one and for their higher turnout to swing a few -- or maybe more than a few -- elections. But I think it’s a mistake, in all likelihood, for 2012 and beyond.
Hispanic Votes Not Swaying GOP on Sotomayor
@ 2:56 PM
According to the website DemConWatch, which has been compiling public statements on the Supreme Court nomination pending before the Senate, nine Republican senators will vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, with the rest planning to vote against her. Eight of the nine anticipated yea votes come from states with tiny Hispanic populations: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine (which is 0.7 percent Hispanic), Judd Gregg of New Hampshire (1.7 percent), George Voinovich of Ohio (1.9), Kit Bond of Missouri (2.1), Lamar Alexander of Tennessee (2.2), Linsday Graham of South Carolina (2.4), and Dick Lugar of Indiana (3.5) percent. The other yea vote is expected to come from Mel Martinez of Florida, which is 16.8 percent Hispanic.
By contrast, the five Republican senators in states where roughly 20 percent or more of population is Hispanic -- these are John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Jon Kyl and John McCain of Arizona, and John Ensign of Nevada -- have all said they will vote against Sotomayor.
More sophisticated modelling techniques, like logisitic regression, do not reveal any connection between the Hispanic status of a state and the expected vote on Sotomayor. In some formulations, in fact -- for example, if a state's PVI is accounted for but not the ideology of the Senator -- a higher Hispanic population actually turns up as a statistically predicdtor of a vote against Sotomayor.
I suspect that is probably a fluke; among the five Republicans in the states with 20%+ Hispanic populations planning to vote against Sotomayor, Kyl and Ensign are very conservative, Cornyn is in a leadership position in his caucus, and Hutchison may have to bolster her conservative credentials in anticipation of her primary against Rick Perry. John McCain's nay vote is more surprising, and he seems to being a thorn in Obama's side.
Pressure from the NRA, which will "score" a yea vote on Sotomayor as being a vote against gun control, may also be a factor. With the exception of Florida, the states with large Hispanic populations are Western ones that tend to have large numbers of gun owners and where gun rights are certainly an issue with the GOP base. That seems to outweigh any concerns the Republicans might have about alienating Hispanics.
To be clear, I don't think anybody should vote for (or against) Sotomayor because she's Hispanic, nor do I think they should vote for her because their constitutents are. But given that Sotomayor is reasonably popular with the public -- most polls show about 50 percent wanting a vote in favor of confirmation, 30 percent against, and 20 percent indifferent -- I was expecting a few more 'yeas'.
By contrast, the five Republican senators in states where roughly 20 percent or more of population is Hispanic -- these are John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Jon Kyl and John McCain of Arizona, and John Ensign of Nevada -- have all said they will vote against Sotomayor.
More sophisticated modelling techniques, like logisitic regression, do not reveal any connection between the Hispanic status of a state and the expected vote on Sotomayor. In some formulations, in fact -- for example, if a state's PVI is accounted for but not the ideology of the Senator -- a higher Hispanic population actually turns up as a statistically predicdtor of a vote against Sotomayor.
I suspect that is probably a fluke; among the five Republicans in the states with 20%+ Hispanic populations planning to vote against Sotomayor, Kyl and Ensign are very conservative, Cornyn is in a leadership position in his caucus, and Hutchison may have to bolster her conservative credentials in anticipation of her primary against Rick Perry. John McCain's nay vote is more surprising, and he seems to being a thorn in Obama's side.
Pressure from the NRA, which will "score" a yea vote on Sotomayor as being a vote against gun control, may also be a factor. With the exception of Florida, the states with large Hispanic populations are Western ones that tend to have large numbers of gun owners and where gun rights are certainly an issue with the GOP base. That seems to outweigh any concerns the Republicans might have about alienating Hispanics.
To be clear, I don't think anybody should vote for (or against) Sotomayor because she's Hispanic, nor do I think they should vote for her because their constitutents are. But given that Sotomayor is reasonably popular with the public -- most polls show about 50 percent wanting a vote in favor of confirmation, 30 percent against, and 20 percent indifferent -- I was expecting a few more 'yeas'.
How Conservative are Michelle Malkin and Michael Moore?
@ 11:46 AM
Following Paul Krugman, John Sides considers how one might measure the ideological position of conservative political commentator Michelle Malkin. I'd heard the name but I don't have any TV reception and didn't really know what she stood for. Going to her webpage, I see she's written three books: "Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores," "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror," and "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." From her blog, she also appears to have conservative economic views, although it's hard to separate this from partisanship without going back to posts from previous years.
Krugman wants a "scale of positions on political matters ... we might find that only 19 percent of Americans are to the right of Michelle Malkin, while 23 percent are to the left of Michael Moore." I don't have enough of a sense about Malkin, but I'm pretty sure that much less than 23% of Americans are to the left of Michael Moore. In chapter 8 of Red State, Blue State is this graph from Joe Bafumi and Michael Herron estimating the ideological positions of congressmembers and voters:
From this graph, it appears that fewer than 20% of Americans are more liberal than the average Democratic congressmember (as of 2006). Accepting the indisputable claim that Michael Moore is quite a bit to the left of the average Democrat in Congress, we can conclude that only a tiny fraction of Americans is to the left of Moore. Maybe 1%.
Bafumi and Herron's analysis can be disputed on methodological grounds and put into context in different ways (here are graphs showing the breakdown in Republican, Democratic, and battleground states), but I think it's a good starting point.
Placing Malkin on the ideological scale could be trickier: she's certainly a partisan Republican and strongly identifies as a conservative, but her book topics on immigration and racial profiling only capture a small subset of the issues usually used to measure ideology. Being "left" or "right" on immigration doesn't necessarily correlate with positions on economic issues. In any case, if you believe that Malkin is well to the right of the average Republican congressmember, you'll find from Bafumi and Herron's graph that far fewer than 19% of Americans would be to her right.
A statistical measurement issue
Sides does a quick try at placing Malkin's ideology by adding the responses to three survey questions from the National Election Study, each on a 1-7 scale (from 1=most liberal to 7=most conservative), graphing where Americans stand on these issues (on this combined 3-21 scale), and the seeing how Malkin would compare to this distribution, if her responses were a 6 on each question. I have some problems with John's graph (the data are discrete and run from 3 to 21, yet his curve seems to have more than 19 different points on it; the y-axis doesn't go down all the way to zero, making the curve look like the distribution drops down to zero at the extremes when it doesn't really do so), but I think it's great that he brings data and specific issues into the picture. In support of his idea, I have a couple of comments. First, the particular method he uses--taking some questions and seeing how someone with an average response of 6 out of 7 would look in the distribution--will be highly sensitive to the number of questions used in the analysis. The more responses you add, the more the person-with-average-score-of-6 will be an extreme in the distribution. If you added the responses to 20 questions on a 1-7 scale, I expect you'd get almost nobody with an average score of 6 out of 7. People's responses to these different questions are not so highly correlated as we political junkies might expect.
One final point
Moore and Malkin may each be more ideologically extreme than 1% of Americans (or maybe 5% of watchers of the Stephanopolous show). But a lot more than 1% of Americans think Michael Moore has something important to say (and, I assume this is true of Malkin as well).
Krugman wants a "scale of positions on political matters ... we might find that only 19 percent of Americans are to the right of Michelle Malkin, while 23 percent are to the left of Michael Moore." I don't have enough of a sense about Malkin, but I'm pretty sure that much less than 23% of Americans are to the left of Michael Moore. In chapter 8 of Red State, Blue State is this graph from Joe Bafumi and Michael Herron estimating the ideological positions of congressmembers and voters:
From this graph, it appears that fewer than 20% of Americans are more liberal than the average Democratic congressmember (as of 2006). Accepting the indisputable claim that Michael Moore is quite a bit to the left of the average Democrat in Congress, we can conclude that only a tiny fraction of Americans is to the left of Moore. Maybe 1%.
Bafumi and Herron's analysis can be disputed on methodological grounds and put into context in different ways (here are graphs showing the breakdown in Republican, Democratic, and battleground states), but I think it's a good starting point.
Placing Malkin on the ideological scale could be trickier: she's certainly a partisan Republican and strongly identifies as a conservative, but her book topics on immigration and racial profiling only capture a small subset of the issues usually used to measure ideology. Being "left" or "right" on immigration doesn't necessarily correlate with positions on economic issues. In any case, if you believe that Malkin is well to the right of the average Republican congressmember, you'll find from Bafumi and Herron's graph that far fewer than 19% of Americans would be to her right.
A statistical measurement issue
Sides does a quick try at placing Malkin's ideology by adding the responses to three survey questions from the National Election Study, each on a 1-7 scale (from 1=most liberal to 7=most conservative), graphing where Americans stand on these issues (on this combined 3-21 scale), and the seeing how Malkin would compare to this distribution, if her responses were a 6 on each question. I have some problems with John's graph (the data are discrete and run from 3 to 21, yet his curve seems to have more than 19 different points on it; the y-axis doesn't go down all the way to zero, making the curve look like the distribution drops down to zero at the extremes when it doesn't really do so), but I think it's great that he brings data and specific issues into the picture. In support of his idea, I have a couple of comments. First, the particular method he uses--taking some questions and seeing how someone with an average response of 6 out of 7 would look in the distribution--will be highly sensitive to the number of questions used in the analysis. The more responses you add, the more the person-with-average-score-of-6 will be an extreme in the distribution. If you added the responses to 20 questions on a 1-7 scale, I expect you'd get almost nobody with an average score of 6 out of 7. People's responses to these different questions are not so highly correlated as we political junkies might expect.
One final point
Moore and Malkin may each be more ideologically extreme than 1% of Americans (or maybe 5% of watchers of the Stephanopolous show). But a lot more than 1% of Americans think Michael Moore has something important to say (and, I assume this is true of Malkin as well).
8.05.2009
If Republicans Were Serious About Deficits...
@ 11:08 AM
Over at Esquire, I contemplate the uncontemplatable. What if the Republicans ran on a platform of, if not actually raising taxes, at least curbing their resistance to them, thereby hoping to claim the moral highground on the issue of deficits? Granted, it will never happen -- especially when Republicans might be able to get Barack Obama to raise taxes for them. But the historical precedents are not as bad as you might think:
At the same time, pieces like this one -- The Washington Examiner's Byron York gleefully anticipating that Obama will have to raise taxes on the middle class -- seem a bit myopic. Obama certainly won't have to raise middle-class taxes. He'll only do so if he's concluded that doing so would be a lesser political burden than letting the deficit grow. But if the public is at a point where they see tax hikes as preferable to ballooning deficits, then Obama will have plenty of room to insist on "bipartisanship" -- that some prominent Republicans must get on board before he enables Congress to vote on a tax increase. The public is not going to forget that Obama inherited much of the national debt from Bush, and rhetoric about shared responsibility is liable to be fairly effective. Anyway, go read the rest of the article.
Although raising taxes — or at least not trying to cut them — has been anathema to Republicans since the Reagan era, it hasn't always been so. Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower both largely resisted calls to cut taxes (Eisenhower slashed the top tax bracket all the way from 92 percent to 91), choosing to focus on deficit reduction instead. Both were elected to second terms.Like I said: It. Will. Never. Happen. And right now, the Republicans are looking pretty good for 2010 (a bit better, frankly, than when I wrote this piece -- we're dealing with longish lead times in print). The deficit is quite an albatross that Obama is wearing around his neck.
In Britain, meanwhile, David Cameron, the Tory leader, recently told fellow Conservatives that tax cuts would have to take a backseat to deficit reduction, even pledging to stop high-income earners from receiving some tax credits. Perhaps partly in response, Cameron's Conservatives increased their margin by six seats over the Labor party in the recent European Parliament elections, and betting markets consider them 4 to 1 favorites to take over the British Parliament in the next elections.
A successful Republican message might mirror Cameron's: not wholesale tax increases, but selective and perhaps temporary ones for the wealthiest Americans — lifting the cap on Social Security taxes, say, for Americans making $250,000 or more, until such time as Social Security is projected to be revenue-neutral.
At the same time, pieces like this one -- The Washington Examiner's Byron York gleefully anticipating that Obama will have to raise taxes on the middle class -- seem a bit myopic. Obama certainly won't have to raise middle-class taxes. He'll only do so if he's concluded that doing so would be a lesser political burden than letting the deficit grow. But if the public is at a point where they see tax hikes as preferable to ballooning deficits, then Obama will have plenty of room to insist on "bipartisanship" -- that some prominent Republicans must get on board before he enables Congress to vote on a tax increase. The public is not going to forget that Obama inherited much of the national debt from Bush, and rhetoric about shared responsibility is liable to be fairly effective. Anyway, go read the rest of the article.
8.04.2009
Nothing Sucks Worse Than The Post Office -- Except for Kinko's
@ 7:31 PM
Paul Krguman compares his experience at the Post Office to that at FedEx and UPS:Art Laffer (why is he, of all people, on my TV?) asks what it will be like when the government runs Medicare and Medicaid.Maybe things are different in New Jersey, but my couple of experiences at the Post Office since moving to Brooklyn a few months ago have been really awful. The first time I went, to mail out my tax forms on April 15th, I had to stand in line for the better part of 20 minutes to buy a couple of stamps. The second time, when I had to mail out some forms for a passport renewal, the clerk "serving" me decided literally without warning or apology half-way through processing my forms that it was time for her break; it took a good 15 minutes, with most of my personal documents slid conspicuously under her window, before someone came to relieve her. The third time, when I had to send some corporate documents to Albany for my consulting business, things were going smoothly enough -- until I actually had to fill out the shipping receipt, and discovered that there were literally no working pens available in the entire building. I had to go across the street and buy one.
But I’d raise a further question: he warns that when the government takes over these, um, government programs, they’ll be like the Post Office and the DMV. Why, exactly, are these public functions unquestioned bywords for “something bad”?
Maybe I’m living a sheltered life here in central New Jersey, but I don’t find the Post Office a terrible experience — no worse than Fedex or UPS. (Full disclosure: I worked as a temp mailman when in college.) And nobody likes going to the DMV, but the one on Rt. 1 I go to always seems fairly well managed.
There's probably only one customer service experience that is routinely as bad as the Post Office: FedEx Kinko's.
The last time I went to FedEx Kinko's, the black & white printer was broken, the fax machine was broken, and the "high-speed" Internet connection -- which I was being charged for by the minute -- was about as fast as a dial-up line in Ulan Bator. And then I had to stand in line for 15 minutes to pay an arm and a leg for the privilege of having my time wasted. The clerks at the Court Street Kinko's are actually quite sweet -- but the location is chronically understaffed and undermaintained on one of the busier commercial thoroughfares in the Five Boroughs. There are also the simple things that FedEx Kinko's doesn't get right: why do I have to fill out shipping forms by hand -- invariably transposing the ZIP+4 or something and having to start over again -- instead of by computer, when the clerk has to key in everything I've written down anyway? This is the
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And apparently, I'm not alone in these experiences. Yelp.com has compiled 237 ratings for a total of 67 distinct USPS locations throughout the New York City area. The average rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, is a 2.29. As Yelp raters tend to be fairly generous with most things, this is really bad. But the ratings for FedEx Kinko's are even worse: an average rating of 2.07 (n=78). The UPS Store, at least, gets somewhat more decent marks (an avergae rating of 2.70), which matches my experiences, although UPS has a somewhat hipper brand and Yelp is notorious for having a pro-hipster bias.
All kidding aside, I do think the Post Office creates some small, residual level of disdain for the idea of government-run services. The level of funding seems manifestly suboptimal and probably ought to be increased. But if every private-sector business were run as badly as FedEx Kinko's, we'd all be frickin' Communists in no time.
Corzine Hearts Obama ... Does Deeds?
@ 10:30 AM
How valuable will the political capital of President Obama--and relatedly, if to a lesser degree, Vice President Joe Biden--be for fellow Democrats campaigning for office? We'll get a preliminary answer to this question this fall in the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races, and a fuller answer next autumn in the congressional and gubernatorial races of the midterm cycle.
On behalf of Jon Corzine, the Democratic National Committee has produced a new ad featuring the president, above. Corzine, who by dint of his poll numbers looks to be in serious trouble, appears on stage at a rally with Obama, whose comments touting Corzine's performance on the economy and education are sampled at some length. (We see but do not hear from Corzine.) Two Obama visuals and accompanying quotes also now scroll across the Corzine campaign homepage.
Turning southward to the Commonwealth, Obama will be in Virginia Thursday to stump for Creigh Deeds, something Biden has already done. Tellingly, however, the Obama event is planned for Northern Virginia, which makes me wonder about something that the Hotline's Jennifer Skalka is also pondering: Will Deeds want to be seen as closely allied with Obama, particularly in the non-NoVa sections of the state?
If the rest of the Deeds campaign's media approach is any indication, I'm guessing Obama is not going to venture too far from NoVa. The campaign has produced a fantastic, semi-biographical, two-minute ad called "Welcome to Deeds Country." The video works hard to establish Deeds' native cred, showing him and his attractive family in a variety of rural backdrops--all of this set to violin-heavy, bluegrassy music. The "Deeds Country" logo, depicted on the pin to the right, is visually appealing and affirms Deeds' homespun, pastoral themes. The branding here is highly localized.
Of course, in almost any governor's races the campaign wants make the case about its candidate, and how well s/he fits the needs and goals of the state, rather than turning the contest into some referendum on national politics or a fellow partisan president. But, so far as I can tell from perusing the Deeds' website, what's amazing is the complete avoidance of all things Obama. It's possible I missed some mention somewhere, but the "issues" page on the Deeds campaign website, including various links to the topical subpages, includes not even one reference to Obama. There may no mention of the Democratic president anywhere on the site. Meanwhile, at the equivalent issues mainpage on the Corzine site, we find this unapologetically partisan identification: "Governor Corzine’s partnership with President Obama, his cabinet, Democrats in the US Congress and here in New Jersey is well-known. As the country moves in a new, more progressive, direction that attempts to undo to the damage of the Bush years, it’s critical that New Jersey has a leader who is in sync with that vision and will not let New Jersey get left behind."
According to Pollster.com, both Democrats are trailing--though Corzine appears to be in greater danger of losing than Deeds. Aside from needing to pull out any and all stops, there are other reasons why Corzine would be inclined to appear closer and cozier with Obama than Deeds: Corzine is an incumbent a time of high voter frustration, and he represents a bluer state that Obama carried more comfortably last fall than his 6-point margin in Virginia, with its sea of mostly red counties beyond the Washington suburbs.
Perhaps the Deeds campaign is simply waiting for Thursday's Obama appearance to begin building some linked messaging and visuals. And you can be damn sure that Obama-themed literature and robo-calls will be going into African American neighborhoods in the final days of the campaign. Still, for now at least it looks like Deeds understands that the value of a president's political capital depends on the local currency--and is thus less interested in tapping Obama's reserves as is Corzine.
On behalf of Jon Corzine, the Democratic National Committee has produced a new ad featuring the president, above. Corzine, who by dint of his poll numbers looks to be in serious trouble, appears on stage at a rally with Obama, whose comments touting Corzine's performance on the economy and education are sampled at some length. (We see but do not hear from Corzine.) Two Obama visuals and accompanying quotes also now scroll across the Corzine campaign homepage.
Turning southward to the Commonwealth, Obama will be in Virginia Thursday to stump for Creigh Deeds, something Biden has already done. Tellingly, however, the Obama event is planned for Northern Virginia, which makes me wonder about something that the Hotline's Jennifer Skalka is also pondering: Will Deeds want to be seen as closely allied with Obama, particularly in the non-NoVa sections of the state?
If the rest of the Deeds campaign's media approach is any indication, I'm guessing Obama is not going to venture too far from NoVa. The campaign has produced a fantastic, semi-biographical, two-minute ad called "Welcome to Deeds Country." The video works hard to establish Deeds' native cred, showing him and his attractive family in a variety of rural backdrops--all of this set to violin-heavy, bluegrassy music. The "Deeds Country" logo, depicted on the pin to the right, is visually appealing and affirms Deeds' homespun, pastoral themes. The branding here is highly localized.Of course, in almost any governor's races the campaign wants make the case about its candidate, and how well s/he fits the needs and goals of the state, rather than turning the contest into some referendum on national politics or a fellow partisan president. But, so far as I can tell from perusing the Deeds' website, what's amazing is the complete avoidance of all things Obama. It's possible I missed some mention somewhere, but the "issues" page on the Deeds campaign website, including various links to the topical subpages, includes not even one reference to Obama. There may no mention of the Democratic president anywhere on the site. Meanwhile, at the equivalent issues mainpage on the Corzine site, we find this unapologetically partisan identification: "Governor Corzine’s partnership with President Obama, his cabinet, Democrats in the US Congress and here in New Jersey is well-known. As the country moves in a new, more progressive, direction that attempts to undo to the damage of the Bush years, it’s critical that New Jersey has a leader who is in sync with that vision and will not let New Jersey get left behind."
According to Pollster.com, both Democrats are trailing--though Corzine appears to be in greater danger of losing than Deeds. Aside from needing to pull out any and all stops, there are other reasons why Corzine would be inclined to appear closer and cozier with Obama than Deeds: Corzine is an incumbent a time of high voter frustration, and he represents a bluer state that Obama carried more comfortably last fall than his 6-point margin in Virginia, with its sea of mostly red counties beyond the Washington suburbs.
Perhaps the Deeds campaign is simply waiting for Thursday's Obama appearance to begin building some linked messaging and visuals. And you can be damn sure that Obama-themed literature and robo-calls will be going into African American neighborhoods in the final days of the campaign. Still, for now at least it looks like Deeds understands that the value of a president's political capital depends on the local currency--and is thus less interested in tapping Obama's reserves as is Corzine.
The Enthusiasm Gap, Revisited
@ 8:05 AM
It seems strange to talk about this just months after Barack Obama could seem to turn out 50,000 for a rally at the drop of a hat. But there are some worrying signs for Democrats that may be impacting the debate on health care and other issues. Take what Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling found in Virginia, for example:
All right, so that's a little imprecise by the standards of what we usually do around here. But for all sorts of tangible and intangible reasons -- probably none more profound than that Republicans have been losing every election for the past few years and nothing warms the spirit like revenge -- I suspect that something like this approximates the state of play in the country right now: the depth of Republican support is starting to rival the breadth of Democratic support. Sometimes, American politics resembles a screaming contest, and Republicans -- though fewer in number -- are screaming a little louder right now.
I certainly do think, by the way, that the semi-organized efforts to disrupt things like health-care town halls have some chance of backfiring. Americans are actually a relatively civil people, and all it might take is one idiot taking things too far for the "movement" to lose a news cycle or six. The whole point of these efforts, moreover, is to make a molehill of opposition look like a mounain.
Fake mountains (mass movemnts) don't generally beat real ones. But the Democrats don't have a mass movement right now. They have an electorate that's maybe 60 percent unaware of the threat that things like health care are under in Washington, 20 percent aware but burned out or ambivalent, and 10 percent both aware and engaged but busy fighting with one another. That doesn't leave very many Democrats left to stand up and shout back.
The Democratic Party's fundamentals, to paraprase John McCain, remain strong -- whereas these ebbs and flows of enthusiasm can be rather transient. But sometimes the short run matters, and on health care reform at least, this is one of those times. Unfortunately for Democrats, I don't think there are any easy answers. It's almost certainly not as simple as flipping a switch, or mobilizing OFA, and re-activating the enthusiasm we witnessed during the campaign. Which is not to say that Democrats shouldn't try. But their leadership ought to be prepared for the eventuality that they will lose the shouting match -- and will still need to find a way to win the war.
Last week I was skeptical of SurveyUSA's poll showing an electorate that voted for John McCain 52-43...but we actually found it at a 52-41 McCain advantage.Suppose that we take some liberties with Jensen's data and apply them not just to Virginia but to the rest of the country. Right now, the partisan ID split among adults in the country is about 34 percent Democrat, 24 percent Republican, and 36 percent independent (plus an additional 6 percent "other"). But suppose that, in accordance with PPP's Virginia poll, 42 percent of Democrats are highly engaged at the moment -- 42 percent of 34 percent is 14 percent. Now suppose that 60 percent of Republicans are highly engaged -- 60 percent of 24 percent is also 14 percent, the same total that we got for the Democrats.
What does that mean? Let's say that 2 million people vote this fall, a slight uptick from 2005. Using the data from the poll that would mean 1,040,000 McCain voters and 820,000 Obama voters.
Now let's compare that to last fall. McCain received 1,725,005 votes. If 1,040,000 of those turn out this year that's equal to 60% of his voters. Obama received 1,959,532 votes. If 820,000 of those turn out this fall that's equal to 42% of his voters.
All right, so that's a little imprecise by the standards of what we usually do around here. But for all sorts of tangible and intangible reasons -- probably none more profound than that Republicans have been losing every election for the past few years and nothing warms the spirit like revenge -- I suspect that something like this approximates the state of play in the country right now: the depth of Republican support is starting to rival the breadth of Democratic support. Sometimes, American politics resembles a screaming contest, and Republicans -- though fewer in number -- are screaming a little louder right now.
I certainly do think, by the way, that the semi-organized efforts to disrupt things like health-care town halls have some chance of backfiring. Americans are actually a relatively civil people, and all it might take is one idiot taking things too far for the "movement" to lose a news cycle or six. The whole point of these efforts, moreover, is to make a molehill of opposition look like a mounain.
Fake mountains (mass movemnts) don't generally beat real ones. But the Democrats don't have a mass movement right now. They have an electorate that's maybe 60 percent unaware of the threat that things like health care are under in Washington, 20 percent aware but burned out or ambivalent, and 10 percent both aware and engaged but busy fighting with one another. That doesn't leave very many Democrats left to stand up and shout back.
The Democratic Party's fundamentals, to paraprase John McCain, remain strong -- whereas these ebbs and flows of enthusiasm can be rather transient. But sometimes the short run matters, and on health care reform at least, this is one of those times. Unfortunately for Democrats, I don't think there are any easy answers. It's almost certainly not as simple as flipping a switch, or mobilizing OFA, and re-activating the enthusiasm we witnessed during the campaign. Which is not to say that Democrats shouldn't try. But their leadership ought to be prepared for the eventuality that they will lose the shouting match -- and will still need to find a way to win the war.
8.03.2009
The Difference Between Birthers and Truthers
@ 8:58 PM
Over at Real Clear Politics, David Paul Kuhn has a pretty good take on the recent Research 2000 / Daily Kos survey revealing that 58 percent of Repulicans either don't believe or aren't certain that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Kuhn points out that in a Rasmussen Reports poll in 2007, 61 percent of Democrats either believed that George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, or weren't certain that he didn't.
I agree with Kuhn that there are lowlifes and imbeceles of every political persuasion, and that they ought to be treated with equal scorn. I also agree that the Birther "movement" has gotten far more media attention than it deserves. That's one reason that I've shied away from talking about it. People like Orly Taitz, the Russian-born dentist/real-estate-agent/attorney who has become the birthers' unofficial spokeswoman, ought to be institutionalized somewhere rather than being given a platform on cable news.
However, I don't buy that the two phenomena are entirely equivalent. For one, there are some quantitative differences. In the Research 2000 poll, only 7 percent of Democrats have doubts about Barack Obama's origins. That compares, in the Rasmussen poll, to 26 percent of Republicans who had doubts about George Bush's role in 9/11, and 43 percent who had doubts about whether the CIA had advanced knowledge of the attacks. Trutherism is pathetically widespread -- somewhat more so than birtherism -- and is also somewhat more "bipartisan" than its counterpart. By the way, I'd expect that you'd find a pretty wide overlap between the two groups -- that controlling for party ID and other factors, truthers are much more likely to be birthers and vice versa.
The other difference is qualitative. I can't recall any sitting Congressmen raising doubts about 9/11 (if I've forgotten one or two instances, I'm sure someone will remind me in the comments). On the other hand, quite a few Republican Congressmen have mimicked the birthers' doubts about Obama's place of origin. So, indeed, let's not give Taitz any more facetime. Instead, let's give Senators Jim Inhofe and Richard Shelby, and Represenatives John Campbell, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Posey, Roy Blunt and Dan Burton the ridicule they deserve for enabling these unpatriotic and malicious conspiracy theories.
I agree with Kuhn that there are lowlifes and imbeceles of every political persuasion, and that they ought to be treated with equal scorn. I also agree that the Birther "movement" has gotten far more media attention than it deserves. That's one reason that I've shied away from talking about it. People like Orly Taitz, the Russian-born dentist/real-estate-agent/attorney who has become the birthers' unofficial spokeswoman, ought to be institutionalized somewhere rather than being given a platform on cable news.
However, I don't buy that the two phenomena are entirely equivalent. For one, there are some quantitative differences. In the Research 2000 poll, only 7 percent of Democrats have doubts about Barack Obama's origins. That compares, in the Rasmussen poll, to 26 percent of Republicans who had doubts about George Bush's role in 9/11, and 43 percent who had doubts about whether the CIA had advanced knowledge of the attacks. Trutherism is pathetically widespread -- somewhat more so than birtherism -- and is also somewhat more "bipartisan" than its counterpart. By the way, I'd expect that you'd find a pretty wide overlap between the two groups -- that controlling for party ID and other factors, truthers are much more likely to be birthers and vice versa.
The other difference is qualitative. I can't recall any sitting Congressmen raising doubts about 9/11 (if I've forgotten one or two instances, I'm sure someone will remind me in the comments). On the other hand, quite a few Republican Congressmen have mimicked the birthers' doubts about Obama's place of origin. So, indeed, let's not give Taitz any more facetime. Instead, let's give Senators Jim Inhofe and Richard Shelby, and Represenatives John Campbell, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Posey, Roy Blunt and Dan Burton the ridicule they deserve for enabling these unpatriotic and malicious conspiracy theories.
Obama States and Unemployment: Confusing Cause and Effect
@ 3:47 PM
I like Ross Douthat, the New York Times's newest regular columnist, but the case he presents today on economic conditions in blue states and red states is misleading. Typical of the piece are claims like these:
The problem is that Douthat is confusing cause and effect. Those states may very well have voted for Barack Obama because they had higher unemployment. Obama blew out McCain in high-unemployment states like Michigan, Oregon and Nevada -- states which are normally much more competitive. He won, to much surprise, Indiana and North Carolina, two states with unemployment rates well above the national norms. Indeed, although the Obama states have higher unemployment now, they also did so by a statistically significant margin in November, when Obama was elected.
The other, probably more obvious flaw with Douthat's logic is that Barack Obama has no more authority to govern Vermont than he does Wyoming. Instead, the voters in each state elect governors and legislatures to represent them. And sometimes, these decisions do not match their Presidential preferences: Vermont has a Republican governor, for instance, while Wyoming has a Democratic one.
If we look at who was in charge of each state as of Demcember, 2007, when the recession began, we see no difference in unemployment rates between states with Republican governors and states with Democratic ones.
We can also look at the composition of each state's legislature. States that had Democrats in charge of both chambers of their legislature as of December 2007 have somewhat higher unemployment rates than those with Republicans in charge. However, the difference is not statistically significant. States with mixed legislatures -- where the higher and lower chambers are split between the parties, or where one or both chambers is subject to a tie or coalation government -- have higher unemployment rates than either Democratic or Republican states, perhaps suggesting that the real enemy in tackling the unemployment crisis is not partisanship but gridlock.
Nor do states with Democratic governors have larger budget gaps, although states with Democratic legislatures do:
We're going to have something of a natural experiment taking place over next 12-18 months; the states have adopted a variety of strategies in response to the economic crisis, and we'll get to see which ones recover more quickly than others. But so far the evidence, contra Douthat, is rather mixed.
Meanwhile, California, long a paradise for regulators and public-sector unions, has become a fiscal disaster area. And it isn’t the only dark blue basket case. Eight states had unemployment over 11 percent in June; seven went for Barack Obama last November.This is true -- states which voted for Barack Obama have higher unemployment rates than those that don't. In fact, the difference is statistically significant: Obama states have an average of 9.3 percent of their population unemployed at the moment, versus 7.9 percent for McCain states.
The problem is that Douthat is confusing cause and effect. Those states may very well have voted for Barack Obama because they had higher unemployment. Obama blew out McCain in high-unemployment states like Michigan, Oregon and Nevada -- states which are normally much more competitive. He won, to much surprise, Indiana and North Carolina, two states with unemployment rates well above the national norms. Indeed, although the Obama states have higher unemployment now, they also did so by a statistically significant margin in November, when Obama was elected.
The other, probably more obvious flaw with Douthat's logic is that Barack Obama has no more authority to govern Vermont than he does Wyoming. Instead, the voters in each state elect governors and legislatures to represent them. And sometimes, these decisions do not match their Presidential preferences: Vermont has a Republican governor, for instance, while Wyoming has a Democratic one.
If we look at who was in charge of each state as of Demcember, 2007, when the recession began, we see no difference in unemployment rates between states with Republican governors and states with Democratic ones.
We can also look at the composition of each state's legislature. States that had Democrats in charge of both chambers of their legislature as of December 2007 have somewhat higher unemployment rates than those with Republicans in charge. However, the difference is not statistically significant. States with mixed legislatures -- where the higher and lower chambers are split between the parties, or where one or both chambers is subject to a tie or coalation government -- have higher unemployment rates than either Democratic or Republican states, perhaps suggesting that the real enemy in tackling the unemployment crisis is not partisanship but gridlock.
Nor do states with Democratic governors have larger budget gaps, although states with Democratic legislatures do:
We're going to have something of a natural experiment taking place over next 12-18 months; the states have adopted a variety of strategies in response to the economic crisis, and we'll get to see which ones recover more quickly than others. But so far the evidence, contra Douthat, is rather mixed.
The Real Problem with The Senate's Small-State Bias
@ 7:00 AM
As you all surely know, the Senate is not a terribly democratic institution. A voter in Wyoming -- population 533,000 -- has about 70 times more ability to influence the Senate's direction than one in California -- population 36.8 million. And the lack of representativeness can be particularly acute when the Senate is conducting business at the committee level. Max Baucus's Table for Six, for instance, which may very well determine the fate of efforts to reform health care, is made up of members who collectively represent about 6.5 million people, or around one-fiftieth of the country's population.
This in and of itself is problematic for Democrats, since there is a correlation between the size of a state and how Democratic it tends to vote in elections for national office, although the relationship is not as strong as you might posit (Rhode Island, Delaware and Hawaii are small states too). The bigger and more structural problem, however, may have to do with the ways that small-state senators raise funds, and in turn, whose interests they are beholden to.
The chart below details the 20 current senators who have received the highest percentage of their campaign contributions since 2003 from corporate PACs, based on data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. This data focuses on corporate PAC contributions and individual contributions only; other, usually minor sources of income (self-financing, transfers from other campaign committees, contributions from ideological and labor PACs) are treated as ambiguous and are ignored. Data should be current through roughly May of this year.
What do these senators have in common? All 20 come from states with below-median populations. In fact, you have to go to #26 (John McCain) to find a senator from a state with an above-median population, and #30 (Saxby Chambliss) to find one from a state with an above-average population.
The reason this occurs is because individual contributions are easier to obtain in states with larger populations. Although some people make campaign contributions to candidates from outside their states, most do not, and so a senator from Texas ought to have an easier time eliciting funds than one from Idaho. On the other hand, there is no relationship between the amount of PAC contributions and the population of a senator's state; PACs know that one senator's vote is just as good as another.
What this means is that senators from small states tend to be relatively more dependant on special-interest money -- it makes up a larger share of their overall take. Senators from the ten smallest states have received, on average, 28.4 percent of their campaign funds from corporate PACs, versus 13.7 for those in the ten largest. There is a tendency to think of senators from small states as being populists, and there are a few instances in which this is accurate -- Jon Tester of Montana and John Thune of South Dakota, for instance, are relatively non-dependant on PAC money. But for the most part, something the opposite is true, and senators from small states in fact have more incentive to placate special interests.
It is worth noting, by the way, that the six senators on Baucus's mini-committee are especially egregious in this regard. They rank #1 (Mike Enzi), #6 (Chuck Grassley), #11 (Kent Conrad), #13 (Baucus), #14 (Jeff Bingaman) and #20 (Olympia Snowe) in the share of contributions received from corporate PACs (an average of 47.5 percent of their funds overall).
One can think of several plausible reforms to redress this imbalance. For instance, corporations might be restricted from donating PAC money to a senator unless they do a material amount of business in her state. In addition, the proliferation of the Internet as a fundraising tool has probably leveled the playing field some, making it easier for populist-ish candidates like Tester or Jim Webb to receive contributions from activists all over the country.
This goes a long way toward explaining, however, why the Senate tends to be more protective than the House of corporate interests -- be they in the form of bank bailouts, tax breaks, or whatever else (consider, for instance, that H.R. 1424 -- the second take on the bank bailout -- was approved with the votes of 74 percent of the Senate but just 60 percent of the House). We don't need vague notions about the "cultural" differences between the two chambers to explain this -- they have mostly to do with where the money is flowing in from.
A complete list of the source of campaign funds for all 100 senators follows below.
This in and of itself is problematic for Democrats, since there is a correlation between the size of a state and how Democratic it tends to vote in elections for national office, although the relationship is not as strong as you might posit (Rhode Island, Delaware and Hawaii are small states too). The bigger and more structural problem, however, may have to do with the ways that small-state senators raise funds, and in turn, whose interests they are beholden to.
The chart below details the 20 current senators who have received the highest percentage of their campaign contributions since 2003 from corporate PACs, based on data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. This data focuses on corporate PAC contributions and individual contributions only; other, usually minor sources of income (self-financing, transfers from other campaign committees, contributions from ideological and labor PACs) are treated as ambiguous and are ignored. Data should be current through roughly May of this year.
What do these senators have in common? All 20 come from states with below-median populations. In fact, you have to go to #26 (John McCain) to find a senator from a state with an above-median population, and #30 (Saxby Chambliss) to find one from a state with an above-average population.
The reason this occurs is because individual contributions are easier to obtain in states with larger populations. Although some people make campaign contributions to candidates from outside their states, most do not, and so a senator from Texas ought to have an easier time eliciting funds than one from Idaho. On the other hand, there is no relationship between the amount of PAC contributions and the population of a senator's state; PACs know that one senator's vote is just as good as another.
What this means is that senators from small states tend to be relatively more dependant on special-interest money -- it makes up a larger share of their overall take. Senators from the ten smallest states have received, on average, 28.4 percent of their campaign funds from corporate PACs, versus 13.7 for those in the ten largest. There is a tendency to think of senators from small states as being populists, and there are a few instances in which this is accurate -- Jon Tester of Montana and John Thune of South Dakota, for instance, are relatively non-dependant on PAC money. But for the most part, something the opposite is true, and senators from small states in fact have more incentive to placate special interests.
It is worth noting, by the way, that the six senators on Baucus's mini-committee are especially egregious in this regard. They rank #1 (Mike Enzi), #6 (Chuck Grassley), #11 (Kent Conrad), #13 (Baucus), #14 (Jeff Bingaman) and #20 (Olympia Snowe) in the share of contributions received from corporate PACs (an average of 47.5 percent of their funds overall).
One can think of several plausible reforms to redress this imbalance. For instance, corporations might be restricted from donating PAC money to a senator unless they do a material amount of business in her state. In addition, the proliferation of the Internet as a fundraising tool has probably leveled the playing field some, making it easier for populist-ish candidates like Tester or Jim Webb to receive contributions from activists all over the country.
This goes a long way toward explaining, however, why the Senate tends to be more protective than the House of corporate interests -- be they in the form of bank bailouts, tax breaks, or whatever else (consider, for instance, that H.R. 1424 -- the second take on the bank bailout -- was approved with the votes of 74 percent of the Senate but just 60 percent of the House). We don't need vague notions about the "cultural" differences between the two chambers to explain this -- they have mostly to do with where the money is flowing in from.
A complete list of the source of campaign funds for all 100 senators follows below.
8.01.2009
Health Care Bill Has Little Margin for Error in House
@ 6:02 PM
Last night, the Energy and Commerce Committee voted 31-28 to approve a compromise version of the Democrats' health care reform bill. As the Energy and Commerce Committee happens to be quite representative of the House as a whole, this vote is useful in forecasting the bill's overall prospects. Specifically, as it did in the committee, the compromise appears to be favored to win the support of the full House, although probably by a very narrow margin.Memebership on the Energy and Commerce Committee consists of 8 Blue Dog Democrats (14%), 29 "regular" Democrats (47%), and 23 Republicans (39%). This is nearly identical to the overall House, which has 52 Blue Dogs (12%), 204 non-Blue Dog Democrats (47%) and 178 Republicans (41%). By contrast, the other two House Committees that had approved earlier versions of the Democrats' reform package -- Ways and Means and Education and Labor, underrepresent Blue Dogs, with just three and one Blue Dog members, respectively. Non-Blue Dog Democrats had majorities on these committees, which they do not on Energy and Commerce or in the overall House. (Note: the original version of this post incorrectly stated that there were seven, rather than eight, Blue Dogs in the Energy and Commerce Committee).
As suggested, then, that the bill received the approval of 52.5 percent of committee members (31 of 59) is probably a fairly good over-under for how the bill would fare when brought before the full House, which would translate to approval by a 228-206 margin.
It is worth, however, being a bit more exacting about this. To do so, I built a simple probit model that attempted to predict the outcome of votes on the Energy and Commerce Committee's markup based on two variables: a member's DW-NOMINATE score (these scores run from -1 for extremely liberal to +1 for extremely conservative; Freshman members have their scores extrapolated from Progressive Punch data) and whether or not they are listed as a supporter for the public option on Howard Dean's website. A variety of other variables that we tested were not statistically significant.
This model forecasts very narrow passage for the health care bill, with about 36 Democratic nay votes and 2 Republican yeas (most likely Joseph Cao of LA-2 and Frank LoBiondo of NJ-2), which would translate to approval by a 222-212 margin overall. Projections for individual members are contained at the end of this article.
There are relatively few swing votes on health care; 177 members (including 3 Democrats) are projected to have less than a 5 percent chance of voting yea, whereas 191 members (all Democrats) are projected to have greater than a 95 percent chance of doing so. Still, it's the 66 remaining Congressmen who will make the difference between passage and failure.
There is also the very real possibility that some liberal Democrats -- perhaps as many as 57 -- would vote against the Energy and Commerce Committee's markup if provisions on the public option are not strengthened. Because we did not see any liberal nay votes in the Commerce Committee -- Henry Waxman whipped them once it became clear that the overall margin would be close -- this possibility is not reflected in the numbers described here. While I won't editorialize on the progressives' strategy, what seems clear is that this bill probably cannot get substantially more liberal without risking failure on a floor vote in the House (indeed, even the current compromise is not assured of passing). If the progressives want a stronger public option than the one that the Commerce Committee passed, they should probably be prepared to make trade-offs in other areas, such as slightly weakening the employer mandate.
Projections for individual members are listed below. All Democrats not listed have greater than a 99.5% chance of voting for the Commerce Committee's markup; all Republicans not listed have less than a 0.5% chance of doing so. 'EC' indicates a member's vote on the Energy and Commerce Committee's markup; as you'll see, the model guessed wrong in a couple of cases, but the errors cancel out.
Chavismo, Obama and the Monroe Doctrine
@ 10:20 AM
In the last few weeks, a few events have highlighted instability and strained relations in Latin America. The overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has reopened discussions about the applicability of OECD-style democracy in the region, while the most recent spat between Colombia and Venezuela has re-illustrated the highly divergent foreign policies of the two countries.
Throughout the dialogue about legitimacy of government, economic policy, and foreign affairs, a constant storyline is with regard to the impact of U.S. influence (helpful assistance or dangerous meddling, depending on who you talk to) in the region. With a long history, inter-American relations between the United States and its southern neighbors has long been built on the Monroe Doctrine, a policy that regards "interference" from Europe or Asia in the hemisphere as an act against the US. Since its inception in the 1820s, however, critics have regarded this as a thinly veiled justification for a hegemonical attitude in Washington, a perception that the Clinton and Bush adminstrations were not able to shake.
Indeed, during his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama explicitly criticized the Bush adminstration's approach to relations with Central and South America -- not as being overly-interventionist, instead characterizing it as under-engaged.
After his election as President however, Obama taken a softer approach, while still maintaining that active engagement, including possible intervention, remains his goal.
Given the difficulties that have marked US foreign affairs over the last decade, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia, many international relations experts regard Latin America, including the Caribbean, as a region where progress could be less difficult to facilitate. Inextricably tied to the issues of illegal immigration and regional economic integration (e.g. NAFTA and CAFTA), the dividends of tackling pan-American issues could be quite significant, both in terms of international goodwill, domestic political capital, and economic revitalization.
Returning to the issues of the month that drew our attention, we can examine the links between Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela, and the larger issue of US relations with Central and South America.
First, let's have a look at the recent history in Latin America in terms of two key indicators of well-being, first life expectancy, then national income per capita.
From 1980 to 2005, a dramatic improvement in life expectany was realized across the region, with even conflict and disaster stricken Haiti now at 60 years. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has seen his country, Honduras, rocket from 58 to just under 70 years, though Honduras remains 5-10 years below most regional neighbors, including Venezuela and Colombia. Excluding Bolivia and Haiti, there has been a general convergence around the 70-78 range.
In economic terms, however, the past 25 years have seen a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of national income growth per capita. Mexico joined the OECD in 1994, a sign of its relative wealth, while Chile and Argentina have also seen significant income growth. Venezuela has long been near the top of income table in the region due to its oil wealth, but since the late 1990s, when Hugo Chavez became President, it has fallen to fourth overall. This has been due to a relative lack of diversification in the economy and the use of oil as a social rather than economic growth instrument. Honduras is again far at the bottom, a position it has maintained as instability and reliance on agricultural exports to North America have eroded growth opportunities. The chart tends to indicate two clusters, after a divergence in the late 1980s. Colombia sits in the middle, though more in line with the higher cluster than the lower.
Polling done by the market research and politics group CIMA have indicated that in 2009, two two areas dominate the region's thinking.
Like the rest of the world, economy is high on the list, with 27% of people in the region listing it as their top concern. However, though the global recession has acutely impacted the region, security concerns still top the list, with nearly 30% of respondents citing security or terrorism as the chief issue. With personal security a growing or continued problem in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Guatemala and others, the role for the US as a actor for stability is clear. In poorer, more secure countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic or Paraguay, however, the economic crisis has had a greater impact, and therefore yearn more for economic assistance.
How to deal with more antagonistic counterparts has yet to be seen, however. Hugo Chavez has built his governing persona and style around an approach to socialism that explicitly repudiates the US political, economic and social model. Surging after the coup attempt in 2002, which was allegedly linked to the US, namely Bush adviser Otto Reich, Chavez rebuilt his base of support around the ideas of anti-globalization and anti-Americanism. Chavismo has taken a hit in more recent years, as some former political allies have begun to reject Chavez' claim on leftist ideas.
At the same time, Colombian President Uribe has maintained extremely close relations with US, working intimately to oppose the FARC rebels and associated weapons and narcotics -- exactly the issue that again wedged between Venezuela and Colombia. Nonetheless, both leaders maintain positive approval ratings, with Uribe outstripping his regional neighbors by around 10 points. Even Zelaya managed to rebound in early 2009, before his ill-fated attempt to change the electoral rules.
In the end, the "Obama approach" might work better in Latin America than elsewhere, in that results may be forthcoming in a way that they will likely not in other areas of interest, such as Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. However, if the current focus on dialogue and the rhetoric of cooperation continues in lieu of concrete actions on security and economic development in the region and immigration reform at home, the actual influence of the US may be eroded. In the case of a continued poor US reputation, countries like Nicaragua and Paraguay (and of course Venezuela) will likely continue to turn to other partners, like China, India, Russia, along with regional powers like Brazil and Mexico for key relationships -- the ultimate demise of the Monroe Doctrine thinking.
note: Full Barometro Iberoamerica by Consorcio Iberoamericano de Investigaciones de Mercados y Asesoramiento here
Throughout the dialogue about legitimacy of government, economic policy, and foreign affairs, a constant storyline is with regard to the impact of U.S. influence (helpful assistance or dangerous meddling, depending on who you talk to) in the region. With a long history, inter-American relations between the United States and its southern neighbors has long been built on the Monroe Doctrine, a policy that regards "interference" from Europe or Asia in the hemisphere as an act against the US. Since its inception in the 1820s, however, critics have regarded this as a thinly veiled justification for a hegemonical attitude in Washington, a perception that the Clinton and Bush adminstrations were not able to shake.
Indeed, during his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama explicitly criticized the Bush adminstration's approach to relations with Central and South America -- not as being overly-interventionist, instead characterizing it as under-engaged.
[Bush's] policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.
After his election as President however, Obama taken a softer approach, while still maintaining that active engagement, including possible intervention, remains his goal.
While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership.
Given the difficulties that have marked US foreign affairs over the last decade, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia, many international relations experts regard Latin America, including the Caribbean, as a region where progress could be less difficult to facilitate. Inextricably tied to the issues of illegal immigration and regional economic integration (e.g. NAFTA and CAFTA), the dividends of tackling pan-American issues could be quite significant, both in terms of international goodwill, domestic political capital, and economic revitalization.
Returning to the issues of the month that drew our attention, we can examine the links between Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela, and the larger issue of US relations with Central and South America.
First, let's have a look at the recent history in Latin America in terms of two key indicators of well-being, first life expectancy, then national income per capita.
From 1980 to 2005, a dramatic improvement in life expectany was realized across the region, with even conflict and disaster stricken Haiti now at 60 years. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has seen his country, Honduras, rocket from 58 to just under 70 years, though Honduras remains 5-10 years below most regional neighbors, including Venezuela and Colombia. Excluding Bolivia and Haiti, there has been a general convergence around the 70-78 range.
In economic terms, however, the past 25 years have seen a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of national income growth per capita. Mexico joined the OECD in 1994, a sign of its relative wealth, while Chile and Argentina have also seen significant income growth. Venezuela has long been near the top of income table in the region due to its oil wealth, but since the late 1990s, when Hugo Chavez became President, it has fallen to fourth overall. This has been due to a relative lack of diversification in the economy and the use of oil as a social rather than economic growth instrument. Honduras is again far at the bottom, a position it has maintained as instability and reliance on agricultural exports to North America have eroded growth opportunities. The chart tends to indicate two clusters, after a divergence in the late 1980s. Colombia sits in the middle, though more in line with the higher cluster than the lower.Polling done by the market research and politics group CIMA have indicated that in 2009, two two areas dominate the region's thinking.
Like the rest of the world, economy is high on the list, with 27% of people in the region listing it as their top concern. However, though the global recession has acutely impacted the region, security concerns still top the list, with nearly 30% of respondents citing security or terrorism as the chief issue. With personal security a growing or continued problem in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Guatemala and others, the role for the US as a actor for stability is clear. In poorer, more secure countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic or Paraguay, however, the economic crisis has had a greater impact, and therefore yearn more for economic assistance.Percent of respondents who have lost a job in their household as a result of the recession (CIMA 2009)
How to deal with more antagonistic counterparts has yet to be seen, however. Hugo Chavez has built his governing persona and style around an approach to socialism that explicitly repudiates the US political, economic and social model. Surging after the coup attempt in 2002, which was allegedly linked to the US, namely Bush adviser Otto Reich, Chavez rebuilt his base of support around the ideas of anti-globalization and anti-Americanism. Chavismo has taken a hit in more recent years, as some former political allies have begun to reject Chavez' claim on leftist ideas.
At the same time, Colombian President Uribe has maintained extremely close relations with US, working intimately to oppose the FARC rebels and associated weapons and narcotics -- exactly the issue that again wedged between Venezuela and Colombia. Nonetheless, both leaders maintain positive approval ratings, with Uribe outstripping his regional neighbors by around 10 points. Even Zelaya managed to rebound in early 2009, before his ill-fated attempt to change the electoral rules.
In the end, the "Obama approach" might work better in Latin America than elsewhere, in that results may be forthcoming in a way that they will likely not in other areas of interest, such as Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. However, if the current focus on dialogue and the rhetoric of cooperation continues in lieu of concrete actions on security and economic development in the region and immigration reform at home, the actual influence of the US may be eroded. In the case of a continued poor US reputation, countries like Nicaragua and Paraguay (and of course Venezuela) will likely continue to turn to other partners, like China, India, Russia, along with regional powers like Brazil and Mexico for key relationships -- the ultimate demise of the Monroe Doctrine thinking.
note: Full Barometro Iberoamerica by Consorcio Iberoamericano de Investigaciones de Mercados y Asesoramiento here
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