Mumbai

Mumbai has been added to a long chain of evil, hatred and bloodshed. My thoughts are with the victims and survivors of this tragedy. My hope is that the light will one day shine in the dark corner of all peoples’ hearts so that terrorism becomes a sad, distant memory.

Cashing a Reality Check

"From what we could see from all the polling and everything else, it remains a conservative country."

- Brit Hume on Fox news election night 2006 when the Democrats took back the House and Senate.

From Brit Hume on election night 2006 to Fred Barnes in 2008, whenever the Republicans lose, their shills take to the airwaves to convince themselves and others that the US is a center-right country. They tell us any win by progressives is a fluke, brought on by the “gotcha media” snookering a gullible public.

Are they right?

A quick look at the presidential elections from 1992 – 2008 shows this is actually a center-left country and has been for a long time. During this time a conservative Presidential candidate won once – in 2004. Clinton won in 1992 beating the moderate conservative Bush ’41 and the ever entertaining Ross Perot. In 1996 Clinton ran and beat Bob Dole who ran on a classic conservative platform.

Then there is the 2000 election. Gore and his center-left platform won more votes than Bush ’43. Together with Nader the center-left/liberal agenda won solid support from the voters. In 2004 Bush ’43 won re-election by running a campaign of fear against an almost incoherent Kerry campaign. Polls showed that if Kerry had run on domestic issues, he would have won. In 2008 Obama won with over 50% of the vote. So again the center-left/liberal agenda won.

Surveys show that American disagree with much of basic Republican orthodoxy. (The poll numbers quoted below are compiled in a report published by Media Matters : The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth; found at http://mediamatters.org/progmaj/report.)

In a survey published National Election Studies (NES) in 2004, 59% of respondents said we need a bigger government to do bigger things. It is no surprise then that 42% of respondents said they wanted more programs even if it meant more spending. This is not exactly strong support for small government that Republicans advocate.

A survey by the LA Times in 2005 found that whereas most people felt taxes were too high it didn’t rate as a number one concern and it never had, (it still doesn’t). At the same time a Wall Street Journal poll showed the overwhelming majority felt spending was better than tax cuts at stimulating the economy.

Pew Research published data in 2007 that showed people who oppose making abortion difficult to obtain rose from 49% in 1985 to 56% in 2007. So from mid-Reagan to mid-Bush ’43 opposition to restrictions on abortion steadily increased. In a CNN poll taken in 2007, 62% of respondents opposed overturning Roe v Wade.

These are three key planks of the Republican platform. These are also planks with which the country strongly disagrees – and has done so over a long period of time. These examples are not outliers or exceptions. For example, in addition, Americans support increases in the minimum wage, and universal health insurance both of which Republicans have stridently opposed.

As Republicans try and work out why they lost in 2006 and 2008 and may lose again in 2010, they need to understand where the country actually is philosophically. Simply put the Republicans loose because they are out of step with the majority of Americans. Until they get back in stride with the average voter, Republicans will continue to go down in defeat.

Team of Rivals

“Hillary, I look forward to you advising me”
- Barack Obama in an early Democratic Presidential debate

When Obama made his comment on getting advice from Hillary everyone laughed, because no one thought he would win, and if he did, that he would offer anything to Clinton. Even more farfetched was the concept that she would accept. Lost in the laughter was his follow-up comment “I wanna gather up talent from everywhere.” This comment went almost unnoticed.

That was then, this is now.

Obama’s reported nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is an inspired choice of a confident President who places competence over political payoff and personal connection

Looking back, this statement says a lot about Obama. He told us he was going to gather up talent from all around and he has done just that. In addition to picking Clinton for State he is also getting advice from Brent Scowcroft, one of Bush 41’s major foreign policy advisors. It is a sign that he intends to follow through on his vision for what he wants to accomplish as President.

Choosing Clinton shows a man confident in his opinions and abilities, as well as one who understands his weaknesses. The world is a complex place and Clinton has “walk-in” rights and relationships with most of the major world leaders. Obama doesn’t and he understands that there is not enough time for him to establish those relationships. With Hillary at the State Department Obama can hit the diplomatic ground running.

Will she support him?

Of course she will. She understands that her future is linked to his success. If she is seen to cause Obama to fail or appears to undercut him for her own gain, her future in the party is done. However, if she is seen as a key to a successful Obama administration she still has a chance to run for President if she chooses. She will only be 69 in 2016. In the meantime she has an opportunity to operate on the world stage that she wouldn’t have if she stays in the Senate.

The 2016 Presidential race will be like 2008; neither the incumbent nor the Vice President will be running. Secretary of State is an excellent place for Clinton to position herself for that race if she chooses.

Road to Nowhere

“The party united around god, guns and gays is finished.”
- Jeffrey Hart, Professor Emeritus Dartmouth College

The Republican Party is off to wander in the same wilderness from which the Democrats have only recently emerged. There are a number of reasons the Republicans find themselves lost in the desert. These reasons are larger than the “MBA President” and his mishandling of the nation’s finances. The Republicans are lost because they are following a map drawn in 1992 through landscape that has changed. So, what on the map looks like a straight highway to an exciting city turns out to be dirt road off a cliff.

After George H. W. Bush lost to President Clinton in 1992, the religious conservative were the rising power in the Republican Party. Pat Robertson showed them how to organize, Jesse Helms showed them how to fund themselves and Lee Atwater showed them the political power of fear. Pat Buchanan’s “Cultural War” speech at the1992 Republican National convention provided a rally cry with broad appeal. Evangelical conservatives rebranded themselves Social Conservatives, started purging dissenters from the GOP, and were off and running.

The share of evangelical voters who voted Republican was its highest in 1996. The fact that Dole lost was not lost on the Republicans. They ran Bush as a “compassionate conservative” to attract a wider audience, but Bush lost the popular vote. Carl Rove attributed this to the drop in the evangelicals from 1996 levels and made every effort to get them to turn out in 2004.

September 11, 2001 gave Bush a potent political issue. His 2004 win was based more on national security and fear of terrorism than on Social Conservatism. The Republican share of the evangelical vote solidified – but the proportion of the evangelicals in the electorate dropped to 20% in 2004 from 23% in 2000. The fact that Republican won a larger portion of a smaller pie was masked by moderate suburbanite’s voting Republican out of fear of Jihad.

The Social Conservatives misinterpreted the 2004 election as a mandate for their views. In 2005 they went all in and pushed the House and Senate to intervene in the Terri Shiavo case. This alienated those suburbanites that Bush had won and could have easily been converted to the Republican Party. It also began the alienation of the Goldwater Republicans.

By 2006 former White House Counsel John Dean, a protégée and close friend of Goldwater, was regularly speaking out against the Party. He became the voice of the disenchanted Goldwater conservatives who had provided a lot of the conservative movement’s intellectual force.

Initially they stayed on board into 2008 because they had some faith in John McCain. But they lost that faith when the Social Conservatives bullied McCain into picking hardliner Sarah Palin. The Goldwater Republicans joined moderate and independent voters in turning away from the GOP. Even worse for the Republicans, evangelicals increased their proportion of the electorate to their 2000 level of 23% - but Obama significantly increased the proportion of evangelicals who voted Democratic.

The Republican Party is now just a stump. The Goldwater wing left, the moderates are crushed and only the hard line Social Conservatives are left. As one writer put it, you get rid of the Social Conservatives and the Republican Party ceases to exist. This has been a long road from 1992. Now the Republicans have to decide whether to put on brakes and turn around, or blow through the road closed sign.

Fear and Loathing on the California Ballot

"We need to show the world when one thing happens to one of us, it happens to all of us,"
- Seattle blogger Amy Balliett

Let's begin with an update on a previous post regarding Proposition 8, the amendment to the Californian Constitution repealing equal rights of marriage. Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com posted some analysis regarding the demographics of the Yes on 8 voters.

“…the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy"
- Nate Silver – www.fivethirtyeight.com

As Nate Silver points out the split on Proposition 8 was more generational than racial. he exit polling for Proposition 8 found at CNN.com bears this out. This poll shows white men voted for Prop 8; White women voted against it. So white women’s no vote is why Prop 8 did not pass among white voters.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

So it is both unfair and incorrect to single out any minority groups out for blame for the passage of Proposition 8.

Mea Culpa

A key turning point in the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties was when whites began to understand that their own fate was linked to the fate of their fellow black citizens. Whites initially learned this in stark local economic terms such as the bus boycott in Montgomery or the boycott of businesses in downtown Atlanta.

As time went on whites began to see the wider cost of segregation. They saw how difficult it was to attract business from out of state making it harder to diversify their economies, raise revenue and modernize.

Finally they learned what it was costing in moral and spiritual terms. The oppressor is harmed deeply and in different ways than the oppressed. The spiritual cost of bigotry and fear is high. If as the bible says Perfect love drives out fear, then when you hold on to fear you block off love and the spiritual growth it brings.

Marriage equality forces need to show those that don’t support them the costs they bear as a result of this discrimination. When you single out one group and say its members cannot enjoy the same rights and protections as the rest of us, we all are at risk for being singled out and stripped of our rights. Marriage advocates need to show those who oppose them there is nothing to fear and that the country is always stronger when the constitution is applied to all members of society.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Obama and Lieberman

"Senator Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead. But eloquence is no substitute for a record -- not in these tough times,"
- Senator Joe Lieberman at the 2008 Republican Convention


What should Obama do about Joe Lieberman? It looks like he will work to keep Lieberman in the Democratic caucus and hold his Chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. This is a low cost solution politically for Obama with a high return. If he remains, Lieberman would continue to vote with Democrats on key votes. Obama would show the world he is in control of his party. It also sends a strong message, that in sharp contrast to the Republicans of recent years and the purist wing of the Democrats, Obama puts country above settling scores. This will make it easier for the President-elect to gather a wide range of people to work with him to solve the nation’s problems.


Lieberman on the other hand, would be grateful that Obama would have spared him the difficult choice of jumping ship. If Lieberman leaves and joins the Republicans he would lose his Chairmanship and the trust of both parties. His vote won’t make a difference to the Republicans overall, so there is no reason for them to give him much. The one place where Lieberman could make a difference is in cloture votes. But these are about specific issue, and as close as the Democrats are to sixty votes, it would be easy for them to peel off the one or two Republican votes they would need. So without much to offer to the Republicans in way of being a swing vote, Lieberman would be neutered legislatively.

It is also doubtful that he would feel at home in the Republican Party or they would feel comfortable having him. His ADA rating for 2007 at 70% was higher than the three most liberal Senate Republicans; Susan Collins, (55%); Olympia Snowe, (60%); and Arlen Specter, (60%). (Interestingly enough, Obama’s ADA rating was 75% - far from being the “most liberal member of the Senate.”)

But if Obama supports Lieberman’s position in the Democratic caucus and his retention of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee chair, he would have in a grateful Lieberman the support of a Senator with experience in a key Senate post.


After all the forgiven are the most loyal.

Rudeness in North Carolina

“If you can’t say anything nice about anyone – you can come sit by me.”
- Cross-stitch Pillow at the home of Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Several election cycles ago a co-worker once asked me why on earth was Strom Thurmond still getting elected to the Senate. After all, my co-worker pointed out, Thurmond could barely walk, hear or even think. And yet South Carolinians kept sending him back to the Senate. My response was that South Carolinians were just being polite. Thurmond had nothing else in his life but the Senate, and it would be rude to vote him out when you pretty much knew he wasn’t going to be around long anyway.

That story goes to underscore there are rules and limits even in the hurley burley of a campaign. Some things about a candidate are fair game, others are off limits. Politics, like the Mafia has its rules and code, and you violate them at your own risk.

So it was no surprise to me that Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost her re-election bid. The race was close until she all but accused her opponent of being atheist. My first reaction when I saw the “Godless” commercial she ran against Kay Hagan was “How rude.”

You can call people out on a lot of things in politics but you don’t call them out on their religion. That is just rude. Anyone from North Carolina could have told Dole she was stepping over the line. North Carolinians take religion very seriously and would not dream of questioning someone’s faith. Unfortunately for Dole, she had been out of the state so long she didn’t understand that.

Obama just squeezed out a victory, Bev Perdue had a solid but not huge win, but Kay Hagan won by the largest margin of the three. The difference was the “Godless” advertisement. Hagan’s win proves that it doesn’t pay to be rude – even in politics.

McCain's Lead in the Polls

“When was the last time you went a week without a rationalization?”
- “The Big Chill.” the character Michael, played by Jeff Goldblum, describing why rationalization is more important than sex.

Since before Election day there was an ever increasing parade of McCain operatives and shills on the various news shows saying “McCain was ahead in the polls when the financial crisis hit in Sept. That was when things turned against us.”

So let’s take a quick trip through the polls shall we?

First let’s look at Pollster.com’s table of presidential election polls which may be found at
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php
The Republican National convention was held between 9/1 and 9/4. In the 25 polls taken between 9/5 and 9/15 McCain lead in 13 of them and were tied in six. Thus in the time McCain was “leading” the Democrats lead in nine polls. Even more interesting, out of those 13 polls the Republican lead was outside the margin of error only once. That was a 5% lead in a Gallop poll taken between 9/7 – 9/9/08. (Just to be fair there was a 10% lead in USA Today Poll taken between Sept 4, but this result is so far off from all the others that it is clearly statistical outlier.)

In June, July and August, McCain was consistently behind in the polls. The last poll before the Sept Gallop Poll where McCain was up greater than the margin of error was a poll taken by Rasmussen between 5/25 and 5/28 2008 where the Republicans had a lead of 5%. (Interestingly enough the Economist released a poll for the same time period that was clearly an outlier with McCain ahead by 10 %.)

The very last poll that had the Republicans up was a poll by Zogby Interactive between 9/25 and 9/28/2008 where McCain was up by 2%.

Even more dramatic is the Electoral vote graph found in Electoral-Vote.com at
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html.
There McCain cracks 270 one time between the end of May and Election Day.
All of this shows that the McCain campaign never had a solid lead after the end of May. They only had a brief time in Sept. where McCain and Obama were statistically even.

The real reasons McCain lost was not the financial collapse. He was well on his way to defeat before then. The reason he lost was running a poorly managed Rove-like campaign with no theme and no strategy.

Lost rights in California

“Keep your magic undies off my civil rights!”
- A sign at an anti-Prop 8 protest rally outside the LA Mormon Temple

Lost in all of the cheering, crying, celebration and happiness that Barack Obama put an end to the Bush era was the fact that California voted to repeal civil rights extended to group of citizens who were doing no harm to anyone. Proposition 8 outlaws marriage between two individual who are in love, committed to each other, but who happen to be of the same gender. Up until Tues two people in love could marry. Now a lack of physiological difference would disqualify two otherwise healthy happy loving people from getting married.

Even sadder is the fact that across the country, two other ballot propositions outlawing equality in marriage rights also passed.

What happened in California?

The “No On 8” campaign got complacent. They let the other guy frame the debate. The “Yes on 8” campaign (heavily funded by out of state money from the Mormon church) hit the airwaves first with an effective ad featuring a doe-eyed little moppet excitedly telling her mother that today in school she learned a “prince can grow up to marry a prince or a princess can marry a princess!” The look of concern on the mother’s face played over a doom laden male voice warning that Prop 8 would mandate gay marriage be taught in public schools.
The “No on 8” ran a very weak ad featuring the Secretary of CA Education saying that CA Ed code mandated no such thing. Unfortunately his own website showed that the CA Ed code did.

Ooops.

“No On 8” went down and went down big time.

The “No on 8” forces made several basic errors:

1) Never become complacent when it comes to people’s fear and ignorance – especially running against a group that has no qualms about stirring those fears up to win.

2) Get your facts straight. You would think watching Sarah Palin drive off the bridge to nowhere would have given “No On 8” the heads up to check their facts.

3) Don’t fight your battle on the other guy’s ground. Rather than running ads saying the “Yes on 8” ads were wrong they should have run adds that showed gay couples and PFLAG members talking about what marriage meant to them.

4) Know who is supporting the other guy and why. Blacks and Hispanics voted overwhelmingly in favor of 8.


The last point is where the “No On 8” forces really blew it. In 2004, Karl Rove made inroads into the black electorate by going to black churches and playing on the fear of gay marriage. Black churches are socially conservative on this topic as are Hispanics. That history was there for all to see. “No On 8” did not understand that the heavy black and Hispanic turnout for Obama would also be a heavy turnout of constituency that has historically been against marriage equality. So Californians were treated to the ironic sight of blacks using Scripture as the basis to discriminate against a class of citizens, just like whites used Scripture for so many years to justify slavery and segregation.
Now much ink is being spilled on how the marriage equality votes split along generational lines. In five years, the thinking goes, the majority of the electorate will be of the generation that overwhelmingly supports marriage equality, so just wait and things will change.

This sounds a lot like what black civil rights workers were told in the fifties and sixties – “Don’t be impatient given time we will give you your rights.”

Gavin Newsome tells the story of an elderly man coming up to him on the street in support of Newsome implementing equality of marriage rights in SF saying “Thank you for what you did for my daughter.”

Time to get impatient.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over

“Our long national nightmare is over”
- Gerald Ford


My feelings that Democrats are like Chicago Cubs fans. I was afraid to hope for a win because you never know when a fan will reach out and interfere with a foul ball costing you a sure out, the playoff game and the trip to world series.


Maybe I am still bruised from the disapointment of 2004. I am still processing Tues. night.

The sight that defined the meaning of Tuesday night was not just the 100,000 people in Grant park, but was of Jesse Jackson standing alone in the crowd weeping.

Jesse Jackson a close aide to Dr. King and former Presidential candidate himself gave a memorable speech to the Democratic convention. In 2004 he spoke of the moving promise of America. He recounted how his father on coming home from WWII, while in uniform, had to detrain in Washington DC in order to move to the “negro only” rail car for the rest of his ride home. Jackson went on to say that now, a few blocks away from where Jackson’s father had to change rail cars to comply with Jim Crow, his father’s grandson serves in the US House of Representatives.

…and now here is Rev. Jackson weeping watching a black man take the stage as President-elect.