May 17, 2011
Newt Gingrich’s Sin

No, no … today it’s not the infidelity, although that’s bad enough.

No, as my wife pointed out, today Newt Gingrich’s sin is?  Having an opinion that doesn’t square perfectly with tea party dogma.

Gingrich’s sinful opinion, of course, is his notion that the Ryan Plan to overhaul Medicare with a voucher plan, all while protecting benefits for people over 55 and further cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, is simply too radical. It is, as he put it on David Gregory’s Sunday morning show, right wing social engineering, and as such is no better than left wing social engineering. Ever the legislative incrementalist, Gingrich implied that there needs to be a middle way to deal with the United States’ looming budget and entitlements problems.

Notably, the Ryan plan was actually in political trouble before Gingrich made his comments. Whatever Ryan’s intentions were in exempting people over 55 from any pain and suffering in his “new Medicare,” senior citizens had largely turned against his proposal. Similarly, expanding budget deficits made Ryan’s claim that tax cuts would lead to economic growth suspect, especially given the vast amount of empirical data that demonstrates that after 30 years of such policies, lower taxes do not inevitably promote economic growth. There was, in other words, no political momentum behind Ryan’s plan.

From Gingrich’s point of view, then, the moment may well have seemed rife for an alternative. After all, the purpose of any primary campaign is to allow an array of candidates espousing a range of policy alternatives and employing a diversity of political styles to offer themselves to potential supporters for consideration. Voters choose candidates from this array (for a wide variety of reasons), and parties consequently end up with nominees.

Gingrich may well have expected this kind of politics as he made his point Sunday. After all, he is an experienced, established politician with a long history of deal making and an expansive, policy-oriented mind. He no doubt expected that moderates and political elites would rally to his position. He probably figured that he would emerge as a reasoned alternative to the tea party wing of the Republican Party. In one fell swoop, Newt Gingrich would be a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President.

Whatever his expectations, however, what Gingrich got in response to his comment was a lesson in the way the right wing ideological outrage machine works to shape contemporary Republican politics. Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street Journal, and FOX News attacked him as a traitor to Republican principles. A citizen in Iowa called Gingrich an embarrassment to the party—on video, which is all that matters. He was, in other words, pilloried for transgressing the dogma of the Ryan plan.

I’m not a Newt Gingrich fan. There are lots of reasons I would prefer he not be elected President of the United States. But if he is driven from the race because he opposes … opposed? … the Ryan plan, then he is as much a victim of the conservative outrage machine as Shirley Sherrod was. Mind you, Gingrich has benefited from this machine’s workings in ways that the entirely innocent Shirley Sherrod never did. But he may well be its next—although surely not its last—victim.

If the tea party way is the only way, the Republican primary is going to be brutal. As is the Republican Party’s loss in November 2012.

7:48pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPy5DKiiv
(Notes: 16)
  
Filed under: Newt Gingrich presidential election Primary Election Republican Party ideology and politics ideological purity Republican Primaries 
May 16, 2011
About all you need to know about the Republican caucuses and primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire summarized in a single graphic. Social conservatives do well in Iowa, but then have to hold on through New Hampshire to get to South Carolina. For business conservatives, they have to get through Iowa in position to emerge in New Hampshire, and then wait for the “mainstream” states later in the election cycle. From Nate Silver at 538.com, behind the NY Times’ pay wall.

About all you need to know about the Republican caucuses and primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire summarized in a single graphic. Social conservatives do well in Iowa, but then have to hold on through New Hampshire to get to South Carolina. For business conservatives, they have to get through Iowa in position to emerge in New Hampshire, and then wait for the “mainstream” states later in the election cycle.

From Nate Silver at 538.com, behind the NY Times’ pay wall.

1:06pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPy5Am3t_
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: elections and politics demographics Republican Party Republican primaries Primary Election 
April 23, 2011
A useful summary of possible Republican presidential candidates by popularity/poll. Notably, the Republican  leading in the polls in the Spring of the year before a presidential election tends to win the party’s nomination. I have a feeling that will not be true this time. From Charles Blow, The New York Times, April 23, 2011

A useful summary of possible Republican presidential candidates by popularity/poll. Notably, the Republican  leading in the polls in the Spring of the year before a presidential election tends to win the party’s nomination. I have a feeling that will not be true this time.

From Charles Blow, The New York Times, April 23, 2011

7:45am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPy4XwSWF
(Notes: 8)
  
Filed under: American national politics elections and politics presidential election Primary Election 
February 16, 2011
Are the Birthers Really in Charge of the GOP?

A story’s been running around the web that 51% of likely voters in the GOP primary next year are birthers, meaning that they do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States, and so is ineligible to be President.

This story is based on a poll done by a group called Public Policy Polling. You can find their summary, and a link to the full report here:

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/02/romney-and-birthers.html.

The paragraph that has drawn the most attention is:

“Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they’re likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don’t think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure. The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise.”

Additionally, the PPP analysis examined the question of what kind of voters—birther or not—were likely to support various potential candidates for the Republican nomination for President next year. They found:

“Well among the 49% of GOP primary voters who either think Obama was born in the United States or aren’t sure, Romney’s the first choice to be the 2012 nominee by a good amount, getting 23% to 16% for Mike Huckabee, 11% for Sarah Palin, and 10% for Newt Gingrich. But with the birther majority he’s in a distant fourth place at 11%, with Mike Huckabee at 24%, Sarah Palin at 19%, and Newt Gingrich at 14% all ahead of him.”

Overall, PPP found that when they re-aggregated the birther and non-birther parts of the GOP electorate, that Romney ended up in 2nd place, with 17% support, while Mike Huckabee led the field at 20%. Sarah Palin was third at 15%.

I actually don’t know enough about PPP as a polling organization to assess this. Their poll is of 400 people who they call “primary voters,” although they must mean likely voters since no one can possibly have voted in a presidential primary yet. They assert the +/- at 4.9%.

But man oh man, if this is accurate, we’re in for one long, strange 2012 … and presidential election years are ALWAYS long, strange trips through America’s image of itself. 

Of course, it does mean I’ll have plenty to occupy my time with, so that’s a bonus!

11:14am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPy36POPp
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Birthers Primary Election Republican Party public opinion poll 
August 25, 2010
Emerging questions for the fall elections

As the primary season winds down, some themes and questions and patterns seem to be emerging. The Fall elections have a chance to answer or resolve some of these questions—elections have a way of answering questions no one had really quite formed. That said, they have a way of confusing things, too. That’s what makes them interesting!

First, it does seem to be the year of the outsider. Outsider/insurgent candidates have done much better than is typical in elections. However, these insurgents have tended to be Republican tea partiers. Thus their success, such as it is, has been in knocking off mainstream, established conservatives. There are exceptions to this—Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania pops to mind. But much of the “rage against the machine” voters have allegedly been expressing in this electoral cycle has been aimed by Republicans and conservatives against Republicans and conservatives.

This fact leads to my second concern: how will this play in November? Conventional analyses of elections argue that primaries tend to bring out more ideological candidates and partisan voters (confirmed in this year’s electoral cycle), while general elections bring out more moderate voters—and thus require candidates to behave more moderately. If this pattern holds, it may well be that the Tea Party insurgents have crested in the primaries, while the natural moderateness of the American people will defeat them in the Fall. However, if the tea partiers actually have tapped into a deep sense of outrage in American life, their comparative extremism may mobilize supporters and win despite the usual pattern of American elections. This is the question that fascinates me the most.

Third, I am struck by how many of these “outsiders” are, in fact, independently wealthy. This is true for many of the female candidates as well as the males. (Obviously, not all are wealthy. But many are.) This seems to be an artifact of two things: 1) campaign finance law; and 2) the fact that their wealth, usually generated in business, has allowed them to skip the common steps in a political career—local, state, national—and jump straight to the major offices. Basically, because of the tortured nature of campaign finance law (something I’ll write about in time), it is easier to be wealthy and buy your way to political prominence through television ads than it is to raise money and work your way up through the political system. Moreover, in anti-incumbent and anti-authority times like these, the “I’m an outsider businessperson who isn’t beholden to special interest groups” meme is particularly attractive. It has certainly been quite successful this year.

The thing is, politics isn’t business. You can’t hire and fire Congress, or your fellow Senators. There is no common agreement on the goals of government the way there is in a business (profit). And, as a matter of historical experience, “businesspeople” politicians have not had particularly distinguished records. The skill sets are different.

This summary is, of course, limited, and I can easily identify exceptions to the patterns I have suggested here. But I think the broad swaths are there, and will be fascinated to see how they play out for the next few months. And beyond!

9:44am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPyy9Mww
Filed under: American national politics american political culture Primary Election general election ideology and politics business people in politics campaign finance law 
June 9, 2010
The revenge of the establishment … sort of

It was an election night of mixed messages last night .  .  . which I love.  Regular readers of this blog will note that every election I post comments roughly along the same theme: it is hard to intuit national trends out of primary elections.  This is certainly the case with last night’s votes.

First, to the victories of the establishment.  The most obvious one is Blanche Lincoln’s victory in the Arkansas Democratic runoff last night.  Her political obituary was sounded by many two weeks ago, after she won a bare plurality over two challengers in the primary, but did not win the majority necessary to avoid a runoff. First, I agree with many commentators who note that her facing a tough challenge is a sign of an anti-incumbent mood and voter frustration with the current state of political affairs.  But as I noted at the time, incumbents usually win runoffs.  The reason is simple: in this case, the three candidates split more or less conservative-moderate-liberal (in the context of Arkansas politics).  The moderate (Lincoln) and the liberal (Halter) emerged from the primary for the runoff.  So who are the conservatives’ voters likely to vote for in the runoff (if they vote)?  The moderate—Lincoln.  It is not necessarily the case that this had to happen, but it tends to, and it did last night.  Mainstream Democrats are happy with this outcome, too: Lincoln may well lose in the fall, but Halter, a liberal in a state where such creatures are barely imaginable, would have gone down in flames.

California provided two additional triumphs of the establishment.  For all the alleged hatred of big business and its practices out there, California Republicans chose two wealthy, self-funded former CEOs, Meg Whitman of eBay and Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, as their nominees for Governor and Senator, respectively. What is perhaps most interesting about these victories is that Fiorina was, apparently, a lousy CEO, and was forced out after a management scandal and bad earnings.  These malfeasances, however, did not derail her campaign. Also interesting is the degree to which Whitman was pushed to the right by her primary challenger, who came out in aggressive support for Arizona’s immigration law.  Whitman ended up adopting a similar position to strengthen her competitive position. Should be interesting to see how such a position plays in liberal, immigrant-rich California.

There were challenges to the establishment as well. California adopted a new system of non-partisan primaries. In the future, all candidates for offices other than US President will run on one ballot, and the top two vote getters, even if they are of the same party, will advance to the general election. This system is used in Washington state, and has been declared Constitutional by the Supreme Court. Advocates hope it will encourage moderation in campaigns, but in a state as big and complex as California, it may drown out marginal voices while emphasizing the candidacies of rich people willing to spend on themselves (like Fiorina and Whitman), or those who can raise staggering amounts of money. Should be interesting to monitor going forward.

Meanwhile, Nevada Republicans nominated a tea party favorite, Sharron Angle, to challenge Harry Reid for the Senate. Angle beat mainstream Republican Sue Lowden, whose campaign imploded after she suggested bartering chickens for medical services like in the old days as a solution to the rising cost of medical care.  Democrats are ecstatic that Angle won: she is stridently conservative, advocating the eventual elimination of social security and the education department, for example. As it happens, 2/3 of Nevada’s votes are in Clark County and Las Vegas, which is not particularly conservative, and so the Reid forces hope that Angle’s comparative extremism will work against her for the fall campaign.  Of course, many Nevada Democrats, much less other Nevadans, don’t like Harry Reid very much, so beating Angle may be harder than Democrats hope.  Another interesting one to watch.

Finally, South Carolina delivered.  Nikki Haley almost avoided a runoff, winning the most votes in the Republican primary.  She may or may not win the runoff, of course: the allegations of sexual improprieties that have been made against her may be proved, and the voters who supported “other than Haley” may rally to defeat her in the runoff (although this is not likely, given how close she came to getting 50% of the vote, and the fact that the race was among conservatives of various ilks rather than being ideologically disparate like Arkansas). 

Thus SC and NV have joined the ranks of states like Kentucky and offered tests of the power of the tea party movement.  If the tea party backed candidates win in all or several of these elections, the movement has the potential to have some real staying power.  If they mostly lose, then the old truism of American politics is confirmed: that one may run as an ideologue in the primary, but one has to run as a centrist in the general election.  (At least, as a centrist in local terms—a “centrist” in South Carolina is quite different than a “centrist” in Illinois.)

As always, a final caution as you read all the commentary about the election last night: elections are almost always won and lost for local reasons.  These various local choices aggregate up to collective effects, but in the American federal system the causality is bottom up, not top down. Most national political journalism ignores local factors in seeking “national” meanings for what has happened.  They are almost always wrong for one simple reason: voters make their own choices. That’s why elections are fun.

8:49am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPyeYiUE
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: Primary Election voter behavior Tea Party movement Nevada primary South Carolina primary California primary national effects of local elections 
May 19, 2010
Election day

Yesterday was an election day in America, meaning that today is the day for armchair quarterbacks to explain what it all means. The talking heads almost always get it wrong.  Here’s my take.

There were four races nationwide that drew the lion’s share of attention: the Pennsylvania Senate primary for the Democratic Party; the Arkansas Senate primary for the Democratic Party; the Kentucky Senate primary for the Republican Party, and the special election to fill John Murtha’s House seat in Pennsylvania’s 12th District.  The attention paid to these races makes sense: Senate primaries are always interesting when incumbents are struggling, and PA 12 was the only House district in the US to vote Kerry in 2004 and then McCain in 2008, suggesting it was a possible Republican “get.”  There were other interesting races out there, but these were certainly a reasonable set to focus on.

In at least two of the cases the outcomes of these races were interesting without being all that surprising.  They were a bit more interesting in two others.  The two interesting races that were not all that surprising were Arlen Specter losing in PA, and Blanche Lincoln being forced into a runoff in Arkansas.  Neither was particularly surprising for a simple reason: each state’s rules promote the outcomes that occurred.

The relationship between election rules and election outcomes is one of the least-appreciated aspects of American politics today.  The effects of rules on outcomes is profound, however.  For example, PA runs a closed primary system.  One has to preregister as a Democrat in order to vote in a Democratic primary.  And it turns out that people who register a party identification are almost always more ideologically committed to their party than are casual identifiers and independents.  In the context of US politics, registered Democrats are almost always more liberal than other Democrats who don’t register; Republican registrants are more conservative than non-registering Republicans.

Seen from this perspective, Specter’s loss is not particularly surprising.  A former Republican, he lost to a liberal Democrat in front of a liberal Democratic electorate.  His problems were intensified by the fact that this is a non-presidential election year—an off-year.  Off year elections tend to draw smaller voter turnout, and the voters who do show up are almost always more ideologically committed than are presidential election year voters.  Thus Specter was hit by the double whammy of a closed primary in an off-year election: not a good combination for a life long Republican.  His major hope of winning was in driving off credible Democratic challengers (by getting Obama’s endorsement, for example).  Once a credible liberal emerged (which was not inevitable), Specter was in trouble. 

Likewise, Arkansas, like many Southern states, requires that primary winners get 50% of the vote +1.  This rule is a holdover from Jim Crow, and was designed to prevent minorities—by which I mean racial and ethnic minorities—from pooling together a plurality of votes to win primaries if there were more than one white, protestant contender for a Democratic primary nomination. (Only Democratic primaries used to matter in the South, after all.)  While Arkansas does not use closed primaries, the off-year pattern of ideologically-driven voters going to the polls meant that once a credible liberal challenger emerged, Lincoln was unlikely to win a clear majority in a multi-person primary.  She may yet win the runoff, however: incumbents usually win runoffs.

The Kentucky race was more interesting, although perhaps less so than the media buzz would have it.  Again, off-year elections bring out the ideologues, and in the KY case you had the “establishment” conservative running against the “tea party” conservative.  It is not clear that Rand Paul actually ran as the kind of libertarian his father is, and that the tea party (sort of) embodies, but the interaction of the Paul name and associative marketing with the tea party brought lots of money and attention to Paul’s campaign.  What will be even more interesting to see, however, is if he wins in the fall.  After all, presenting yourself as an ideologue is a great way to win in an electorate of ideologues.  It may not work in front of a more general audience.  The Kentucky general election will be the first real test of the tea party movement in electoral terms.

PA 12 was perhaps the most interesting of all.  When the seat came open on Rep. Murtha’s death, the Republicans targeted it as a potential pickup.  It is mostly rural and in southwest PA coal country; it voted McCain in 2008.  However, in what was the only general election on yesterday’s ballot, meaning that voters of all stripes could show up and vote, the Democrat won.  Indeed, as the tea party movement has seemingly raged across America, the Democratic candidate has won every special election held since 2008. 

Notably, given that yesterday’s election was a primary day for the most part, voter turnout for the PA 12 special election was low. In the fall, when the seat has to be contested again, turnout will likely be higher, which will change the dynamics of the race.  However, low turnout races tend to favor ideologues because they are committed and engaged whereas non-ideologues tend to be less so.  In other words, if tea party and conservative passions are really quite as pervasive as all the media attention they get suggest they are, PA 12 should have been a likely candidate for a Republican, conservative victory.  That the Democrats kept the seat in such circumstances is more than a little interesting.

A final point (for those who have made it all the way through this long post): primary electorates are usually profoundly different from general election electorates.  The passions of primary electorates often produce candidates who make bad general election fits with their publics.  Joe Sestak in PA may turn out to be a bomb on a statewide stage.  So might Rand Paul.  View any claim that a certain primary outcome MEANS SOMETHING for national politics as a whole with great skepticism.  All the primary really decided is who will get to run in the general election.  (Unless, as seems to happen primary winners resign in scandal after winning.  Indiana, anyone?  Or, for that matter, Illinois?) It’s only after the general election that we can try to figure out where we are going from where we have been.

9:14am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPyaZKD-
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: elections and politics primary election 2010 primaries Pennsylvania primary Kentucky primary Arkansas primary ideological voters 
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