Key conceptual groundwork was laid by policy thinkers. And below the surface the main issue is that the SEIU was indicating that it wanted candidates with any shot at its endorsement to unveil plans for comprehensive coverage. Repeatedly throughout his campaign, Edwards served as a useful progressive foil. He was never really up there with Clinton and Obama, but he was always close enough that they couldn’t simply ignore the possibility that his efforts to appeal to the base would work. So when Edwards unveiled is four point plan for achieving universal coverage—a plan based on exactly the pillars of ObamaCare—it made a huge difference and swiftly became the benchmark by which Clinton and Obama were judged.

[...]

The see-saw of the political expectations game is such that by the Spring of 2010 many people had convinced themselves that this approach to health care was a disappointing sellout. But back in the Spring of 2007, it was considered radical—a left-wing idea by the standards of a Democratic presidential primary.

Now obviously winning a huge electoral landslide that leaves you in control of all three branches of the legislative process, including holding 59 seats (plus Arlen Specter’s switch) in the Senate is going to affect what people see as being within the realm of political possibility. But it’s still worth pointing out just how progressive this bill s relative to what the various major candidates’ healthcare plans were in 2008 and, especially, 2004. Basically, as Yglesias notes, it represents the far-left edge of what was being proposed at the time, and there’s no reason to imagine anything to the left of it could have been enacted, given that basically no major candidates have pushed anything to its left in the past 20 years or so. Progressive activists became enamored of the idea of creating a new public insurance plans in early 2009, but the bottom line is that there was no real movement base to make that a huge issue, in part because even the activists who made it central to their efforts on reform over the past year hadn’t even really been talking about it prior to 2009. And then at some point “The Public Option” morphed into less a serious policy proposal than a tribalistic identifer, especially after Blue Dogs killed the “strong” public option last summer. After that, the policy merits of the shell of the public option simply worth expending a lot of effort over, even though some of the activists had worked themselves into a lather over the idea. So when the public option was excised altogether, some of these people convinced themselves that the underlying bill was an un-progressive sellout, even though 2 years ago the same basic idea was being viewed as a solidly progressive idea. Indeed, if a candidate had proposed it in 2004, or 2000, whomever proposed t would have been looked at as though they were a slightly more serious Dennis Kucinich.

Technorati Tags: John Edwards, Progressive Ponies, public option

I had thought that Mark Krikorian was a shoe-in for the title of Most Absurd Thing Written About Sonia Sotomayor, but I must confess, this Daily Beast column from Elaine Lafferty, arguing that Republicans shouldn’t attack Sotomayor’s intelligence because that’s what sexist Democrats did to Sarah Palin, is going to be incredibly hard to top.

To wit, Democrats didn’t “attack” Palin’s intelligence because they think women are stupid, but because she herself proved, over the course of two months of national campaigning, that she wasn’t that smart. She gave answers like “what the bailout does is help those people who are concerned about the healthcare reform we need” and “in the great history of American rulings there have…of course…been rulings…” She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was, indeed, didn’t even seem to know that it related to foreign policy. She couldn’t name a single media source, not even a local one, she reads regularly. Perhaps unintelligent isn’t the right way to describe this, but at the very least she proved to be deeply ignorant about national issues. And, in any event, it certainly seems bizarre to say that Democrats made a mistake in attacking Palin since, obviously, Palin’s ticket lost, and exit polls suggest Palin lost McCain more voters than she gained him.

On the other hand, maybe Sotomayor really isn’t that intelligent. I don’t know her, I’ve never spoken to her, so I’m not really in a position to make broad conclusions regarding her intelligence. But what evidence I do have available to me suggests that she is, in fact, incredibly intelligent, and a very competent jurist. She has, after all, already been confirmed for a spot in the federal judiciary twice, both points involving Republicans in some way (she was appointed by George H.W. Bush to the District Court, and confirmed to the Circuit Court by a Republican Senate). If anyone has counter-evidence I’m open to evaluating it, but there really hasn’t been anything of this nature presented. And that’s the crucial difference between attacks on Palin and attacks on Sotomayor; Democrats were basing their critiques on Palin’s statements and actions, whereas conservatives are arguing that since she’s a woman and an ethnic minority, she must necessarily be less intelligent.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, Sonia Sotomayor

I generally try to avoid posts on two things, politicians I have some connection to and Emily’s List, and this post is going to violate the former somewhat, and the latter entirely. The reason for the former is, I think, pretty obvious, but I should probably elaborate on the latter some. Emily’s List is one of those things I have a weird, unexplainable, fascination with. On the one hand, they’re very good fundraisers who can deliver buckets of cash to their endorsed candidates. But, especially with that in mind, they have a very small footprint in Democratic political circles. No one sits around figuring out how to campaign for Emily’s List’s endorsement the way they might for, say, the SEIU or NARAL. And I think Howie Klein hints around at the reason for that here, discussing the special election in Illinois’ 5th district, and the rather impressive list of endorsements Tom Geoghegan has racked up:

[Harold] Meyerson follows endorsements in the last couple of days by three of Chicago’s legendary progressive reformer elders, Abner Mikva, Dr. Quentin Young, and Leon Despres, and from one of Tom’s former opponents, Marty Oberman. Many in the Inside the Beltway Establishment have other favorite candidates. Predictably Emily’s List endorsed a woman, basically their only criteria for endorsement these days. And some of the labor unions we’ve grown to trust came out for those who have scratched their backs in the grubby world of backroom politics. DFA, The Nation, Progressive Democrats of America, the American Nurses Association, the Greater Chicago Caucus, the Teamsters and Steelworkers unions and a long list of progressive writers from Katha Pollitt and David Sirota to Thomas Frank. Garry Wills, Don Rose and James Fallows have come out for Tom.

Emphasis added. Basically Emily’s List’s endorsement is irrelevant because it’s pre-determined. No one is surprised when Emily’s List endorses a candidate, because everyone knows who they’re going to endorse. This is a problem for the group because PAC’s trade in gratitude. Especially in a highly contested race with a crowded field, endorsements from high profile actors can really put a candidate over the top. In those circumstances, you’ve either banked a favor, or the politician in question is somewhat dependent upon your constituency for re-election, which is good for you. Moreover, once you’ve established a reputation, candidates will start campaigning for your endorsement, which is even better for you.

But Emily’s List unilaterally takes themselves out of the game altogether. There’s absolutely no reason for a male candidate, even a great progressive male candidate who would be terrific on the issues Emily’s List cares about like Geoghegan, to seek out Emily’s List or try to appeal for their endorsement, because Emily’s List is crystal clear that they don’t endorse male candidates. And I think their goal of increasing the number of women in elected office is a perfectly laudable goal. Women are the majority gender group in this country, and it’s an utter embarrassment how few elected offices in a country this size are held by women. But, personally, I don’t think that these tactics are actually beneficial to that goal. On the one hand, policy has to matter at some point. I’m perfectly ok with someone who looks at two candidates, one male and one female, and decides that they’re more or less the same substantively (at least to our hypothetical voter), and who decides to vote for the woman because we really do need more women in office. I think most people would agree that’s a legitimate decision making process. What strikes me as counter-productive is pre-emptively deciding you’re going to support a woman before you’ve even seen the list of candidates. And obvious Emily’s List has boundaries, they don’t endorse pro-life women, nor any Republicans that I’m aware of off the top of my head. But still, the key here is that not everything is always equal, and once it’s clear that Emily’s List is going to support even uniquely absurd candidates just because they’re women, especially against incumbents with records that are very favorable to their constituency, then I think you really marginalize yourself even within the Democratic Party.

So, again, while I agree with Emily’s List’s primary goal, I think that, if they really want to be an effective organization in their own right, they either need to be more judicious about candidates they support, or they need to start supporting some male candidates, at least in some circumstances. Otherwise they continue to be a perpetual “dog-bites-man” story.

Technorati Tags: Emily's List

Now I don’t know what exactly prompted some people to latch onto the idea that black voters were uniquely pro-Prop 8, but thus far I haven’t really seen much data to back that up. Using this set, black voters went for Prop 8 at a clip of 58%, while Lationo voters supported it at 59%. So if we account for margin of error and declare parity between black and lation support, what becomes important is that Latinos made up twice as much of the electorate than did black voters. Which isn’t in any way meant to impune Latinos, so much sa it is to point out that there’s not really much of a variable in support based on race. Asian-American, for example, supported the measure 48% of the time, while white voters, who made up 68% of the electorate, supported it at a clip of 49%. Obviously those are lower than the balck and latino communities, but all in all they’re still pretty close to 50%, and there’s a fairly small discrepancy of support based on race.

This is important, because as a political strategist/organizer you want to find the demographic characteristic that creates the most discrepancy, because that’s most likely to be your  driving factor in determining your vote. And in this case, the driving factor is clearly the intensity of your religious beliefs. Voters who self-identify as being “weekly” church goers make up 45% of the California electorate, and support Prop 8 at a staggering 70%. No other frequency-of-attendance group cracks 50%, and both “holidays and special occassions” and “hardly ever” come in below 45%.

People looking for a case to make, as well as your run of the mill make believe strategists in the media an blogosphere will inevitably seek out the most “interesting” numbers to play up for headlines, but the truth of the matter is that these things usually just aren’t that interesting. Saying that fairly religious voters passed Prop 8 isn’t particularly surprising, so it’s not really interesting and it doesn’t make for very good stories or blog posts. But the simple reality is that, if I’m a strategist trying to pass Prop 8 with a fairly typical budget, my main targets are white people who go to church regularly. Not a particularly unusual insight or strategy, but in the real world these things rarely are.

Technorati Tags: Prop 8

Democrats have lost the three federal elections since November 4th: Georgia Senate, and the run-offs in Louisiana 2nd and 4th congressional districts. It is pretty easy to explain all of these losses in local ways:

• Jim Martin trailed Saxby Chambliss on Election Day, despite a huge voter turnout effort from the Obama campaign. Lacking the same energy, the state reverted to its red-state form.
• LA-02: William Jefferson is a famously corrupt member of Congress. Despite the D +28 partisan voting index, what happened in this district is similar to what happened in Tom Delay’s old seat, TX-22, in 2006. It is possible for Republicans to win deep blue seats or Democrats to win deep red seats when the favored party is under a cloud of extreme corruption.
• LA-04 was a narrow loss, as predicted by non-partisan polls, in a fairly red district. No big deal, really, even if disappointing.

These localized explanations are satisfactory. However, it is also safe to say that the constant talk about the need for bi-partisanship and a “team of rivals” coming from Democrats isn’t exactly encouraging Democratic turnout these days.

All three of these elections, especially GA-Sen and LA-02, featured very low Democratic turnout. It probably didn’t help that national Democratic leaders, including Barack Obama, are telling everyone, Democrats included, how great it is for Republicans to be included in the federal government. When one of the major parties is telling everyone that it is great when the opposing party wins, then the opposing party is probably going to win.

This is just silly, and what makes it really silly is that Bowers actually seems to understand what really happened in all of these races. LA-04 is a very Republican district, as is the state of Georgia, and in LA-02 the Republican was running as a moderate against an incumbent who was not only under indictment, but on video accepting a bribe. Republicans should have won all of these races, and they did. Not exactly headline news. But Bowers’s attempt to turn this into some sort of indictment of the squishy national Democrats is akin to right wingers who are perpetually trying to explain away obvious reasons why Republicans lose in favor of “they weren’t conservative enough.” I mean, would you take someone seriously if they tried to tell you that Ted Stevens lost because the people of Alaska decided to revolt against pork barrel spending?

And as far as turnout goes, there’s pretty easy explanations for that too that have nothing to do with “bi-partisan talk.” In LA-02, Democrats didn’t turn out because the Democrat on the ballot was under indictment and on videotape accepting a bribe. Not exactly rocket science. And in Georgia, I’m hazarding a guess that people might have stayed home because it was well outside the realm of plausibility that Martin could win. Chambliss barely missed a majority on November 4th, when the Libertarian candidate carried 3% of the state. What that means is that Martin would have had to, effectively, win every vote that didn’t go to Chambliss the first time, or hope for a massive drop-off in Republican turnout, which would have been highly unlikely given that Republicans adopted a bunker mentality, and that the state is very, very, red.

In short, the “local explanations” are obviously the best explanations, and Bowers seems to know that. His attempt to turn Democratic losses in red areas (and with a soon-to-be-convicted felon on the ballot) is the sort of ideological hackery that would make any right-wing radio host proud.

Short of that though, you’ll often catch a second rate hack on a right-wing blog getting lazy with their formulations, and demonstrating just how silly these basic assumptions of wingnutdom really are. Take Jennifer Rubin, remarking on the Georgia Senate runoff:

So you can expect the MSM to crow wildly if Martin wins — and relegate the news to the back pages if Chambliss pulls it out.

Now, on the one hand, this is the sort of argument that would flunk any logic/rhetoric class, because it obviously can’t be demonstrated. It may be true, but since both Martin and Chambliss cannot win, there’s no way for us to tell if this really would happen, and so it can not be asserted as “proof” of any underlying premise.

But even if we allow that it would happen, that only serves to underscore the point liberals are finally making about right-wing accusations of media bias; it’s not that they want an unbiased media, they want a media that is favorable to Republicans. To be blunt, Saxby Chambliss winning the run-off is back page news, because he’s a Republican and a Republican winning in Georgia isn’t exactly breathtaking stuff. But even removing partisan identifiers, he’s an incumbent Senator who nearly captured a majority the first time around, and is very likely to win the run-off relatively easily. His re-election isn’t particularly newsworthy, but if he somehow loses, meaning that not only does a Democrat win a national race in Georgia but that Democrats may very well wind up with 60 Senate seats, that’s pretty obviously front page news. So any “discrepancy” isn’t evidence that the newsmedia has a partisan bias to it, but rather confirmation that the real world isn’t 50-50. But conservatives have rather conveniently flipped this into a victim mentality in which everyone is out to get them, and they’d win elections if only the media (or any of the other institutions with a “liberal bias”) would play fair.

What’s most striking about Obama’s approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country’s image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.

This sounds a lot like the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, and it makes perfect sense that Obama has had conversations with the senior Bush’s closest foreign policy adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Obama has drawn counsel from many in Scowcroft’s circle, and Gates himself was deputy national security adviser under Scowcroft.

What exactly is “striking” about this? I don’t really know, but that may be because I was paying attention to more than the horserace during the campaign:

Barack Obama promised that his foreign policy would be a return to what he says was the realist approach practiced by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

“My foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, of in some ways Ronald Reagan,” he said Friday.  A voter at the town hall in Greenburg had asked Obama to respond to charges that his foreign policy was naïveThat took about 5 seconds to find on Google. In fact, not counting two articles written today (including Dionne’s) it’s the very first hit when you search “Obama and Bush 41 and foreign policy.”

Striking!

What’s really bad about this, though, is that things like this should never happen in the age of Google. Obviously even the most attentive observer/commentator isn’t going to catch every single utterance made by a candidate during a campaign, but the internet lets you go back after the fact and do a bit of research before you write a WaPo Op-Ed. Indeed, if Dionne had Googled “Obama and Bush 41 and foreign policy,” the above is actually the very first result, not counting two articles published today (including Dionne’s).

On the one hand, I don’t want to be too harsh here, because Dionne s usually a pretty good writer, especially by the standards of major Op-Ed pages, but this sort of lax research before you go out and “analyze” the situation ought to just embarrass anyone, and Dionne’s next column ought to be an apology, or an explanation of why people who can’t use Google ought to be afforded column space in major newspapers.

Technorati Tags: E.J Dionne Jr.