A Blue View

How The Recession Affected Rich And Poor

Jonathan Chait:

Michael Linden and Heather Boushey break down how the recession has hit different income groups:

The remedy, of course, is to cut tax rates for the highest-earning 2%.

Calling The GOP's "Pledge" To Reduce The Deficit A "Political Document" Just Acknowledges It's A Lie

I hope every deficit hawk Tea Partier reads this Davide Leonhart column ... if you know  any, pass it on:

In their Pledge to America, Congressional Republicans have used the old trick of promising specific tax cuts and vague spending cuts. It’s the politically easy approach, and it is likely to be as bad for the budget as when George W. Bush tried it.

The sad thing is, a truly conservative approach to the deficit does exist. You can find strands of it among Republican governors, some of the party’s current Congressional candidates and the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan.

The brief version might sound something like this: The federal government has outgrown its ability to pay for itself. Our economic future and even our national security depend on solving the problem. Yet President Obama has expanded health insurance, increased education spending and escalated a war of choice. Elect us, and fiscal responsibility won’t have to wait in line.

The detailed plan would start in the same place that Republican campaign rhetoric does, with rooting out waste and bloat. Some tasks, like mail delivery and air traffic control, could be privatized. The federal work force could be reduced, and pay for federal workers could be cut. Federal aid to states could be cut, too.

But then comes the crucial difference.

Actual fiscal conservatives acknowledge that these steps do not come anywhere close to solving the long-term deficit. By 2035, the deficit (even without counting interest payments on the federal debt) is on course to reach $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If you reduced domestic discretionary spending to its share of the economy under Ronald Reagan and then eviscerated it an additional 20 percent, you would shrink the deficit by all of $100 billion.

The bulk of the deficit problem instead comes from three popular programs, Medicare, Social Security and the military, and they happen to be the ones the Republican pledge exempts from cuts. But it’s impossible to fix the deficit without making cuts to these programs or raising taxes. To suggest otherwise is to claim that 10 minus 1 equals 5.

“We as Republicans need to realize that you can’t just cut off the welfare queen and balance the budget,” says Rand Paul, a Senate candidate in Kentucky, who has some extreme views on other issues but is evidently pro-arithmetic. “The only way you’ll ever get close to balancing the budget is if you look at the entire budget.”

When they’re not talking for quotation, some Republicans will explain that the pledge is, of course, a political document: although it may not spell out specific budget cuts, the party is willing to make them. But I think this view misreads recent history.

Republicans controlled the White House and Congress for much of 2001 to 2006, and they turned a big surplus into a big deficit. In the last two years, they have opposed several Obama administration plans for reducing the deficit, including cuts to Medicare, weapons programs and farm subsidies, as well as tax increases on the affluent. Given this history, my colleague Ross Douthat concluded that the pledge “might create a larger deficit than the Obama alternative.”

In short, the pledge imagines a world without tough choices, where we can have low taxes, big government and a balanced budget. And therein lies the path to ever larger deficits.

•

The essential question for any would-be budget balancer is how large the federal government should be.

For most of the last century, the government has been getting bigger. Its spending equaled about 2 percent of gross domestic product in 1900, 14 percent just after World War II and, after ballooning to almost 25 percent during the financial crisis, will fall to 23 percent in the next few years.

There is a good argument that the government should grow as societies become richer. Once people can afford the basics, they want services that the private sector often does not provide, like a strong military, good schools, generous medical care and a comfortable retirement, as Matt Miller, a McKinsey & Company consultant and former Clinton administration official, has pointed out.

To me, this pattern argues for making tax increases a big part of the deficit solution. Maybe taxes would eventually rise to 23 percent of G.D.P., rather than 19 percent, as under current policy. Spending could then be cut from the 26 percent it is scheduled to reach in 2035, yet still be high enough to afford the investments that lead to prosperity. After all, the Internet, the highway system and the biotechnology sector all began as government programs.

Conservatives counter that governments just as often allocate resources badly, and there is something to this. It’s the small-government case that Mr. Paul, Mr. Ryan and governors like Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey are making.

Mr. Paul emphasizes wasteful military spending that lines the pockets of military contractors rather than protecting the country. A bipartisan task force of military experts has identified cuts that would eventually equal almost 1 percent of G.D.P.

On Social Security, Marco Rubio, the Republican Senate candidate in Florida, has suggested raising the eligibility age. Two other Republican Senate candidates, Sharron Angle of Nevada and Joe Miller of Alaska, have gone further, suggesting a phaseout of Social Security. In the long run, changes to Social Security could save even more money than military cuts.

But the biggest cause of looming deficits is Medicare. Mr. Daniels, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, recently told Newsweek that he favored Medicare cuts. Mr. Ryan has been willing to get specific. For everyone now under 55, he wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program that’s much less generous than the program is scheduled to be.

Mr. Ryan’s budget blueprint offers an especially pointed contrast with the pledge. The Ryan plan calls for holding taxes at around 19 percent of G.D.P. and suggests specific cuts to bring spending in line. The pledge calls for even lower taxes — while offering almost no detail on spending cuts.

Which seems more credible?

Unfortunately, elected Republicans have often backed away from their own fiscally conservative ideas when pushed. Mr. Ryan says he supports the pledge. Ms. Angle has reversed herself on Social Security. Mr. Daniels has said tax increases should be an option, but that will be a tough position to keep in a presidential campaign.

And I get it. Voters don’t like having their taxes raised or their benefits cut. I don’t like it, either.

But, remember, when politicians tell you that they are opposed to tax increases, Medicare cuts, Social Security cuts and military cuts, they’re really saying that they are in favor of crippling deficits.

The Daily Show Nails The GOP For Their "New" Ideas

Not only is the GOP's Pledge hypocricital, but it's far from new:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Postcards From the Pledge
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

 

The GOP's Hypocrisy

Ezra Klein:  

"America is more than a country," begins the GOP's 'Pledge to America.' America, it turns out, is an "idea," an "inspiration," and a "belief." And the GOP wants to govern it.

Their policy agenda is detailed and specific -- a decision they will almost certainly come to regret. Because when you get past the adjectives and soaring language, the talk of inalienable rights and constitutional guarantees, you're left with a set of hard promises that will increase the deficit by trillions of dollars, take health-care insurance away from tens of millions of people, create a level of policy uncertainty businesses have never previously known, and suck demand out of an economy that's already got too little of it.

You're also left with a difficult question: What, exactly, does the Republican Party believe? The document speaks constantly and eloquently of the dangers of debt -- but offers a raft of proposals that would sharply increase it. It says, in one paragraph, that the Republican Party will commit itself to "greater liberty" and then, in the next, that it will protect "traditional marriage." It says that "small business must have certainty that the rules won't change every few months" and then promises to change all the rules that the Obama administration has passed in recent months. It is a document with a clear theory of what has gone wrong -- debt, policy uncertainty, and too much government -- and a solid promise to make most of it worse.

Take the deficit. Perhaps the two most consequential policies in the proposal are the full extension of the Bush tax cuts and the full repeal of the health-care law. The first would increase the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. The second would increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. Nothing in the document comes close to paying for these two proposals, and the authors know it: The document never says that the policy proposals it offers will ultimately reduces the deficit.

Then there's the question of policy uncertainty. The health-care law, which is now in the early stages of implementation, would be repealed. In its place, Republicans would write a new health-care bill. They offer some guidance as to what it would look like, but as every business knows, the congressional and regulatory processes are both long and uncertain. That's joined by three sentences on shrinking and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the policy's anticipated effects on the housing market, where the two mortgage giants are backing nine out of every 10 new loans, are not mentioned -- and a promise to force a separate congressional vote on every regulation with more than $100 million in economic impact, which would force businesses to figure out a new, dual-track regulatory process.

The agenda is least confused on the subject of reducing government. Though it says little about specific cuts it would make, the pledge includes a cap on non-security discretionary funding, the aforementioned congressional review process for big-ticket regulations, a hiring freeze on federal employees, and weekly votes on spending cuts. None of these policies is spelled out in any detail, but nor are they contradicted by other elements of the plan. If you believe, as the Republicans say they do, in the benefits of reducing the number of public jobs and the amount of public spending in an economy that has too few jobs and too little spending, then this makes some sense. Otherwise, it doesn't. And as Republicans have been hammering Democrats over recent jobs reports where public payrolls fall and private payrolls rise, it's not even clear that they believe this.

Of course, you could say that about most of the plan. It is hard to believe in both deficit reduction and policies that would add trillions to the deficit. It's also hard to warn of the dangers posed by regulatory uncertainty and then propose changing all the rules.

At the end of the day, America may be an idea -- but it is also a country. And it needs to be governed. This proposal avoids the hard choices of governance. It says what it thinks will be popular and then proposes what it thinks will be popular -- even when the two conflict. That, I fear, is a bad idea.

Why let facts get in the way of the CW on Obama?

Ezra Klein:

See if this structure seems familiar to you: Over the past two years, Barack Obama has done X. Now, his poll numbers have slipped to 44 percent. His party is slated to lose a lot of seats in the 2010 midterms. Obama's decision to do X is to blame.

"X" can be a lot of things. Maybe it's the decision to attempt health-care reform. Or his socialist tendencies. Or his cool, professorial demeanor. In Matt Bai's latest article, John Podesta says it's Obama's pursuit of an ambitious legislative agenda. If he'd spent less time passing legislation, he could've spent more time developing and selling popular themes. In John Judis's latest article, it's the absence of populism in Obama's speeches and policies.

The problem with the essays is that they don't consider the counterfactual. What if Obama had done not-X? Would things really be better for him? How do we know they wouldn't be worse?

Sadly, we can't hit rewind on the cosmic VCR and persuade Obama to do the other thing in the name of science. But we have had a number of presidents who did very different things, and that gives us some basis on which to make judgments. Let's start with approval ratings. Gallup's system will let me compare only four presidents at once, so I chose the last three presidents who entered office amid a recession and didn't have a country-unifying terrorist attack in their first year. That gives us Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. The dashed line is an average of all recent presidents. Click on the graph for a larger version.

Obama's current approval rating of 44 percent beats Clinton, Carter and Reagan. All of them were between 39 percent and 41 percent at this point in their presidencies. And all of them were former governors who accomplished less legislatively than Obama has at this point in his presidency. That seems like a problem for Bai's thesis. At least two of them are remembered as great communicators with a deft populist touch. That seems like a problem for Judis's thesis.

Now let's look at midterm results. The following graph shows the change in House seats for the president's party in every first-term midterm election since 1900.

The pattern here is obvious: Losses, and big ones. Except for FDR's first midterm and George W. Bush's post-9/11 victory, there've been no gains at all.

Now, this is a bit of an imperfect comparison. When the president's party controls more seats, it can lose more seats. In 1982, Republicans had 192 seats in the House, and they lost 26 of them. Democrats currently have 253 seats in the House, and Larry Sabato predicts they'll lose 32 of them. That's actually a smaller percentage than what the Republicans lost under Reagan.

There's plenty to criticize in Obama's policies and plenty to lament in his politics. But when it comes to grand theories explaining how his strategic decisions led him to this horrible -- but historically, slightly-better-than-average -- political position, I'm skeptical. There are enormously powerful structural forces in American politics that seem to drag down first-term presidents. There is the simple mathematical reality that large majorities are always likely to lose a lot of seats. There is a terrible and ongoing economic slump -- weekly jobless claims hit 500,000 today -- that is causing Americans immense pain and suffering. Any explanations for the current political mood that don't put those front and center is, at the least, not doing enough to challenge the counterfactual.

The Fanaticism Gap

It tuns out that Tom Toles, the Wash Post's excellent cartoonist, is as good with his words as his pen:

The great part about not remembering everything is that you can see the significance of the things you do remember. The Bush-Gore recount in Florida is one of those things. I remember thinking as the argument was raging that there was a certain asymmetry in the emotional approach the two sides brought to the controversy.

You might have expected that the Bush side, having demonstrably and unequivocally received fewer votes nationally than their opponents, might have approached their claims to a disputed, technical electoral college victory with just a tiny bit of trepidation and humility. But it was just the other way around. The Gore side gingerly focused on the undercounts, whereas, if memory serves, the overcount ballots would have given them Florida and the White House. But, regardless, they seemed almost apologetic in asking for anything at all.

The GOP, on the other hand, roared into action, demanding to be given the election forthwith, which the Supreme Court obligingly handed them, once again demonstrating that the court's lip service to constitutional rigor is really in the shape of a kiss to Republicans. In hindsight, the lesson is that conservatives act as though they feel on a gut level that any Democratic president is simply illegitimate, PER SE, and will do anything to stop or undermine one. This is currently known as the "enthusiasm gap," but I think it might be better called the "fanaticism gap." And what do you do about that? 

Democrats Maintain Advantage on Generic Ballot, 48% to 44%

Gallup:

Democrats have a 48% to 44% advantage for the week of July 19-25 in Gallup tracking of registered voters' preferences for the 2010 congressional elections. This marks the second straight week in which Democrats have held an edge of at least four percentage points.

Although Republicans have moved to a four-point or higher advantage on three separate occasions, this is the first time either party has held an advantage of that size for two consecutive weeks. Republicans and Democrats have been tied on average across the 21 weeks of Gallup's tracking.

Republicans' Enthusiasm Lead Persists

Republicans continue to be substantially more enthusiastic about voting, as they have been since March. Their current 18-point lead in voting enthusiasm is down slightly from last week's 23-point lead, but it remains slightly higher than the average 16-point lead they have enjoyed since tracking began in March.

Overall enthusiasm for voting was little changed last week. Thirty-four percent of registered voters say they are very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 36% a week prior and an average of 33% so far this year.

Bottom Line

This past week marks the second time since March that either party has held any type of edge on the generic ballot for three consecutive weeks. Exactly what is behind the uptick in support for Democrats is not clear, although last week's gains coincided with the passage of the financial reform bill. Independents continue to be more likely to say they will vote for the Republican rather than the Democratic candidate, while both Republicans and Democrats maintain more than 90% allegiance for their party's candidates.

Democrats' improved position on the generic ballot is counterbalanced by the continuing wide advantage Republicans have in voting enthusiasm. This GOP enthusiasm gap foreshadows a typical Republican turnout advantage in midterm election voting, meaning that Democrats need a substantial lead on the registered voter generic ballot to offset their turnout disadvantage. Still, the results show that expectations of an assured Republican landslide in the congressional elections this fall are not a foregone conclusion.

Gallup's final generic ballot measure, based on likely voters, has since 1950 closely matched the total percentage of votes cast nationally for Democratic and Republican candidates in all 435 U.S. House races -- a statistic that bears a predictable relationship to the number of House seats won by each party. Gallup does not screen for likely voters until closer to Election Day, but historically, Republicans' turnout advantage in midterm elections widens the Republican-Democrat gap in the GOP's favor. Thus, if these numbers held through Election Day, the two parties would likely be closely matched at the ballot box.

Post Poll: "Growing disapproval" of Tea Party; Obama's Approval "fairly steady"

Wash Post:

As voters head to the polls Tuesday for a crucial set of primary elections, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds antipathy toward their elected officials rising and anti-incumbent sentiment at an all-time high.

The national survey shows that 29 percent of Americans now say they are inclined to support their House representative in November, even lower than in 1994, when voters swept the Democrats out of power in the that chamber after 40 years in the majority.

The poll also finds growing disapproval of the "tea party" movement, with half the population now expressing an unfavorable impression of the loosely aligned protest campaign that has shaken up politics this year.

And at a time when Republicans anticipate significant gains in House and Senate elections, there is also fresh evidence of the challenges facing the GOP. Six in 10 poll respondents say they have a negative view of the policies put forward by the Republican minority in Congress, and about a third say they trust Republicans over Democrats to handle the nation's main problems ...

Elected officials nationwide are feeling their constituents' dissatisfaction. In the new Post-ABC poll, 69 percent of all Americans say they are either dissatisfied or angry with the government, and 60 percent say they are inclined to look for other candidates in November, the most ever in a Post-ABC poll.

Democrats are likely to suffer disproportionately from the tough climate: They are in the majority in both houses of Congress and are defending many more districts than Republicans. The public sees little improvement in the nation's direction or the state of the economy. Six in 10 say the country is on the wrong track and 88 percent rate the economy as not good or poor, with just 30 percent saying it is improving.

Yet Democrats maintain at least one advantage: They hold a double-digit edge over the GOP as the party that people trust to handle the country's main problems.

Another big element that may mute the threat to Democrats is that the GOP has not gained significant traction. Most Americans -- including nearly a third of self-identified Republicans -- say they are dissatisfied with or angry at the policies of congressional Republicans. These numbers have changed little since last November, despite the GOP's focus on offering a more concrete agenda rather than simply Democratic proposals.

Obama's overall approval ratings have remained fairly steady.

What Tuesday's Elections Really Foretell: The Death Of Bipartisanship

Republican pollster Glen Bolger's analysis rings very true to me:

Analysts are pointing toward last night’s primary results (the defeat of Arlen Specter, Trey Grayson, and the run-off for Blanche Lincoln) as – when combined with Bob Bennett and Alan Mollohan’s defeats – proof of anti-incumbency and anti-Washington establishment. The top story in the New York Times today is titled “Specter Defeat Signals a Wave Against Incumbents.”

And an anti-incumbent mood definitely exists. Voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Congress, and say all incumbents should be turned out.

However, with the exception of Mollohan, the nomination defeats (or major troubles at this point for Lincoln), are politicians who were punished for their votes and efforts that strayed from the party line. My polling for Republican incumbents who face challengers show that most are in strong shape to win renomination because they are generally perceived as fighting the Obama-Pelosi efforts to increase the size and scope of government, and to spend money in a way that makes previous administrations seem Scrooge-like.

Senator Specter’s loss was actually a double defeat. Because he voted for the stimulus package, he baited Pat Toomey into switching from the Governor’s race to the Senate race. Specter’s poll numbers in a GOP primary were far too weak to win a primary – he choose to switch parties rather than retire. However, his previous support for George W. Bush and other Republicans (and GOP policies) meant Democratic voters couldn’t trust him. Specter’s once legendary ability to both annoy and please conservatives, moderates, and liberals caught up to him in this time of hyper polarization.

Lincoln is facing the same traumas from the left – she is perceived by many unions and liberals as not supportive enough of their agenda, and thus not worthy of renomination.

An incumbent all but in name, Charlie Crist should be in that same body count of politicians who “lost” their party’s nomination for not being orthodox enough. His support for the stimulus package made him persona non grata among a GOP primary electorate looking for someone to fight against the framework of bigger government spending more money.

Not every incumbent is endangered for renomination. However, those who face anger from the grassroots, coupled with a challenger candidate with the resources to get their message out, have challenges.

This post is not to bemoan the choice of BOTH parties’ primary electorate to choose confrontation over compromise. It’s simply analyzing the results from a different angle. It’s not just anti-incumbency coursing through the veins of the primary electorates, but it is supercharged by a distrust of the other side. Like unicorns and rainbows, bipartisanship is going to be rarely spotted over the next few years.

Don't Believe The CW On Last Night's Elections

Nate Silver (make sure you read Nate's comments about the most important race of the night at the end, the one with truly November impacting implications):

There were five races that we were tracking closely over the course of the evening -- and I've already seen analysts drawing flimsy conclusions from each of them.

Pennsylvania -- Democratic Senate primary

The results: Joe Sestak defeats Arlen Specter, 54-46.

The conventional wisdom: This was a stunning repudiation of the Democratic establishment.

The reality: Certainly, Specter had the support of a lot of Very Important People, including the President, many unions, and the mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But in many cases, it seemed perfunctory. The White House elected not to send either Barack Obama or Joe Biden to the state in the closing days. The unions were nominally supporting Specter, but were concentrating their cash in Arkansas and elsewhere. As Sestak began to emerge as the superior general election candidate, their support grew even more tepid. This was an important win, and the netroots progressives who championed Sestak's campaign deserve all the credit in the world. But something can be dramatic without being especially surprising. Joe Sestak is a mainline, lunchpail Democrat who defeated a very unpopular Republican-turned-Democrat who ran an awful campaign and who Pennsylvania Democrats weren't used to punching their ticket for. No huge shock there.

Kentucky -- Republican Senate primary

The results: Rand Paul defeats Trey Grayson, 59-35.

The conventional wisdom: This was a stunning repudiation of the Republican establishment.

The reality: Because of Paul's impressive 24-point margin of victory, almost any explanation you might proffer probably contains some element of truth. But for all his libertarian and tea-party dressing, Paul in fact ran on a fairly conventional, conservative platform. He's pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration ... there are only the faintest hints of libertarianism here. This was probably a good thing for him because Kentucky, which has traditionally been socially conservative but economically moderate, is pretty much kitty-corner to the libertarian side of the political quadrant. This was actually very clever, in a lot of ways -- Paul's last name (and decision to affiliate himself with the tea party) gained him national attention and fundraising and earned media, but to people in Kentucky, he ought to have been a very comfortable choice who was somewhat more fresh-faced than his rival. The branded product beat the generic one.

Paul might have some trouble in general election, especially after somewhat underwhelming turnout in the primary (Democratic turnout was actually 60 percent higher, although Democrats enjoy a substantial registration advantage in Kentucky). But that's more because of his inexperience and standoffishness and less because of his platform ...

Arkansas -- Democratic Senate primary

Both Extremes Pursing Primary Challenges Of Their Parties' Annoited

The NY Times on a Progressives' challenge in Nebraska:

For all the talk of an angry conservative electorate this year, those on the left side of the spectrum are plenty angry, too, frustrated that President Obama and the majorities his party enjoys in Congress have not accomplished more to enact a liberal agenda. And the primary in Arkansas, one of the most conservative of Democratic bastions, has become a place for liberals to vent frustrations and invest millions for television ads to unseat an incumbent.

And the Times on Kentucky's Tea Party challenge to the GOP:

In Kentucky, the Tea Party movement, with the voter discontent it has captured, has found its purest standard bearer in Rand Paul, who is challenging Mr. Grayson for the Republican nomination. An ophthalmologist, Dr. Paul is the son of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate whose libertarian backers often take credit for being the germ of the Tea Party.

While there are candidates backed by the Tea Party in other states, none is so much a product of it, with the name recognition and the fund-raising prowess (through his father’s network). And the proportions of Kentucky’s voter registration make it impossible for any Republican to win a general election without Democratic support, so if Dr. Paul wins the primary on May 18, as polls suggest he will, the Tea Party will have to prove its appeal beyond the Republican right.

It's going to make for a very interesting Primary season.

"Now it's the Republicans who risk being seen as dwelling obsessively on health care"

Charlie Cook:

We are entering a new phase in the 2010 campaign: The center of attention over the spring and summer will be independent voters and party primaries, especially those on the Republican side.

President Obama and congressional Democrats have been so focused on issues other than job creation that many voters have come to think that they are not doing enough to turn the economy around. Independents, who tended to vote like Democrats in 2006 and 2008, have begun behaving more and more like Republicans, surveys show. But some Democratic pollsters say they were starting to see independents' movement toward the GOP beginning to slow even before the health care overhaul was enacted. A new Democracy Corps memo by Stan Greenberg and James Carville observed that in a national survey of likely voters, "independent voters who did not approve of Democratic governance over the past year seemed to be reassessing their feelings" toward the GOP. The memo stressed that "this pullback is very specific to the Republicans and does not represent any gain for Democrats."

It's not hard to see how Republicans could stall their progress toward winning back independents. Among GOP challengers in competitive primaries, pledges to repeal the new health care law are ubiquitous. After all, in this climate, could a Republican who refuses to take that stand hope to attract a GOP base that feels under siege? But as Republican primary fields tack far to the right, how will independent voters, who have grown impatient with Democrats' handling of the economy, react? The fact that the health care bill lost popularity as time ticked away last fall suggested that voters were not only skeptical about an overhaul but also upset that Democrats were spending so much time on it. And now, all of a sudden, it's the "repeal and replace" Republicans who risk being seen as the ones dwelling obsessively on health care.

To win races this fall, Republican hopefuls don't need to convince independents that Democrats are drunk on power or brazenly thwarting the will of the people. They only need to convince them that shared power and "checks and balances" are good things -- that Democrats have gotten some of what they wanted but that fresh GOP voices could hold the president's party accountable. In 2006, Democrats reversed their fortunes in part by learning to keep their message simple. That's something the GOP could profit from doing this time around.

Even if independents do pull back somewhat from Republicans, Democrats' problems won't disappear. Independents are just part of the equation. The GOP base is incredibly fired up. The Democratic base isn't as demoralized as it would have been if health care reform hadn't been enacted, but a stroke of Obama's bill-signing pen can't eliminate the yawning gap in partisan enthusiasm that is creating so many GOP pickup opportunities. For the time being, the health care bill's enactment is much more likely to slow Republicans' momentum than to reverse it. Will that change of pace be enough to enable House Democrats to hold on to their majority? Spring and summer will yield important clues.

New Dem Theme For November: "On health-care reform, on student loans and (soon) on financial regulations, Democrats fought off the moneyed interests in defense of the little guy"

Dana Millbank:

... it was a chance for the president, just back from the political dead, to test some themes for this fall's midterm campaigns.

"This day affirms our ability to overcome the challenges of our politics and meet the challenges of our time," Obama, in triumphant mode, told the NoVa audience. "When I took office, one of the questions we needed to answer was whether it was still possible to make government responsive to the needs of everyday people . . . or whether the special interests and their lobbyists would continue to hold sway." Obama, on the basis of "two major victories in one week," felt confident enough to claim success.

The president's celebration may be premature. A USA Today/Gallup poll out Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans think the health-care law costs too much and expands the government's role too much. Although other polls have shown a jump in Obama's popularity, Gallup found that Obama's disapproval rating climbed to 50 percent for the first time.

But there is no doubt that the conventional wisdom in the capital has done a 180 in recent days. Had Obama failed on health-care reform, the end of his presidency would have been proclaimed. Instead, he has been restored as ruler of all he surveys, and he's acting as such.

Over the weekend, he dashed off to Afghanistan for an unscheduled visit; on his return, he lectured Hamid Karzai, suggesting on the "Today" show that the Afghan president heed "the fierce urgency of now" -- a Martin Luther King Jr. phrase adopted by Obama's presidential campaign. At home, Obama has taken on an increasingly confident tone, telling those who would repeal the health-care law to "go for it," the way George W. Bush said of Iraqi insurgents: "Bring 'em on."

Obama's approval rating at NoVa on Tuesday was undoubtedly higher than it was in the Gallup poll. In the front row was his new ally Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), a far-left congressman who was posing for pictures with admirers. About two dozen lawmakers, including Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), filled the first two rows. The students, nearly equaled in number by congressional staffers and interest group activists, gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a thunderous ovation when she took the stage. The crowd even applauded the man who came out to make sure the teleprompter was working ...

The president spared few words for the health-care component of the bill, devoting more than 10 times as much to an add-on provision: the student loan change that is supposed to save billions by cutting out banks as the middlemen.

Obama portrayed the change as the culmination of an epic struggle, "for almost two decades" and against an "army" of lobbyists. "I didn't stand with the banks and the financial industries in this fight," he said, auditioning the populist message that he and Democrats hope to take to voters in November. "Neither did any of the members of Congress who are here today. We stood with you."

What emerged on Tuesday was a single, coherent theme: on health-care reform, on student loans and (soon) on financial regulations, Democrats fought off the moneyed interests in defense of the little guy.

"From the moment I was sworn into office, I've spoken about the urgent need for us to lay a new foundation for our economy and for our future," Obama said. Now, "we can rightly say the foundation on which America's future will be built is stronger than it was one year ago."

GOP Leaders Beginning To Lose Their Nerve (aka, come to their senses) About Health Repeal

Pity the poor GOP stuck between a rock and a hard place, both of their own making. From the Wash Post:

Top Republicans are increasingly worried that GOP candidates this fall might be burned by a fire that's roaring through the conservative base: demand for the repeal of President Barack Obama's new health care law.

It's fine to criticize the health law and the way Democrats pushed it through Congress without a single GOP vote, these party leaders say. But focusing on its outright repeal carries two big risks.

Repeal is politically and legally unlikely, and grass-roots activists may feel disillusioned by a failed crusade. More important, say strategists from both parties, a fiercely repeal-the-bill stance might prove far less popular in a general election than in a conservative-dominated GOP primary, especially in states such as Illinois and California.

Democrats are counting on that scenario. They say more Americans will learn of the new law's benefits over time and anger over its messy legislative pedigree will fade. For months, Democrats have eagerly catalogued Republican congressional candidates who pledge to repeal the health care law, vowing to make them pay in November.

Republican leaders are stepping cautiously, wary of angering staunchly conservative voters bent on repealing the new law. In recent public comments, they have quietly played down the notion of repealing the law while emphasizing claims that it will hurt jobs, the economy and the deficit ...

On Tuesday, Cornyn issued a 1,280-word campaign memo that mentioned "repeal" only once. It did not advocate repeal but noted that in a recent poll, "46 percent of respondents support a full repeal" of the health law.

Three weeks ago, Cornyn told reporters he thought GOP Senate candidates would and should run on a platform of repealing the legislation.

Cornyn and others increasingly are focused on several corporations' claims that a provision of the new law that cancels a tax benefit will hurt profits and hiring. This approach places a greater premium on pivoting to the economy instead of dwelling on the legalistic process of trying to repeal the complex law.

"The health care debate provides a natural segue into talking about the economy and jobs," said Nicklaus Simpson, spokesman for the Senate Republican Conference, a policy group ...

Obama said last week he would relish a Republican bid to repeal the new law.

"My attitude is, go for it," Obama said in Iowa on Friday. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an interview that his team began months ago pressing Republican candidates to state whether they support repeal of the health care legislation. Most of them have, and Democrats predict such support will prove unpopular this fall.

"We believe the issue of repeal is one that puts the Republicans in a pretty sticky place," Menendez said. "You never want to wage a campaign telling voters you want to take something away from them."

Voyeurgate

NY Times:

The Republican National Committee on Monday opened an investigation into why party money, which donors contributed to help win seats in the midterm elections, was used to pay a $2,000 tab at a risqué Hollywood club in late January.

The outing at Voyeur in West Hollywood, which features topless dancers and acts involving bondage, appeared on the Republicans’ monthly disclosure report to the Federal Election Commission, along with tens of thousands of dollars for private airplanes, limousines and luxury hotels.

“It was obviously improper — for more than one reason,” said Doug Heye, a party spokesman, who confirmed that officials had opened an inquiry into the club expenditure. “It was not a sanctioned R.N.C. activity. It was improper because of the venue.”

A Republican National Committee staff member, who was not identified, was dismissed for his role in the incident, Mr. Heye said Monday evening. He added that “accounting and reimbursement processes are being revised” to prevent similar episodes from occurring.

As Republicans try to win control of the House and Senate in this midterm election year, several party officials and contributors have privately raised concerns about the financial disparities with Democrats. The Republican Congressional re-election committees have fallen behind their Democratic rivals, a fund-raising gap that party leaders had hoped would be narrowed by the Republican National Committee.

Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., a Republican consultant and donor, submitted a reimbursement request for $1,946.25 from his club visit on Jan. 31. He listed the amount as a meal expense at the club, whose interior was inspired by an orgy scene in the movie “Eyes Wide Shut.” When the expenditure came to light on Monday, after it was reported by The Daily Caller, a conservative online publication, party officials said Mr. Brown would repay the money.

Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, has battled criticism for his spending habits. He has drawn consternation from party officials for delivering paid speeches across the country ...  Mr. Heye said Mr. Steele was aboard a flight from the party’s winter meeting at the time of the nightclub outing and was not involved. An interview request with Mr. Steele on Monday was declined ...

The February filings to the Federal Election Commission show that the Republican committee spent $17,500 on travel by private jet, in addition to about $15,000 on limousines. The report also listed several hotel charges ranging in the thousands of dollars, including the W Hotel in Washington ($15,000), the Beverly Hills Hotel ($9,000) and the Four Seasons in Philadelphia ($7,000).

Mr. Heye said the expenses were simply the cost of doing business and raising money. He said that Mr. Steele’s travel was “overwhelmingly on commercial airlines — that is the standard mode.” But he added, “There are times when there is a route that doesn’t exist.”

When Mr. Steele took over the committee last year, it had $22 million in cash on hand. This month, records show, that amount is $9.46 million.

In a radio interview earlier this year, Mr. Steele brushed aside criticism of the party’s spending, as well as assertions that some contributors had stopped donating or lowered their contributions.

Mr. Steele told KTRS radio in St. Louis: “I am in this chair. If they want it, take it from me. Until then, shut up, step back and get in the game and help us win.”

A New York Times review of the Democratic National Committee spending in the month of February found that the party spent about $11,000 on car services and limousines, with the largest expense being $9,800 for a private car service in Dallas. Other expenditures included a $32,000 bill at the Capital Skyline Hotel in Washington, for what party officials said was a weeklong staff retreat, and $256,000 on catering and equipment rental at the Washington Hilton for the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee.

The Democratic National Committee seized on the Republican financial report on Monday. A spokesman for the party, Brad Woodhouse, said: “If limos, chartered aircraft and sex clubs are where they think their donors’ money should be spent, who are we to judge?”

"Tea-Party Candidates Face Hard Reality of Campaigns"

Wall St Journal:

Jason Meade of New Franklin, Ohio, is among hundreds of political hopefuls looking to ride the "tea party" wave to Washington this year. Like most, he's finding it a tough go.

Mr. Meade is running in the Republican primary in Ohio's 13th Congressional District against five candidates while juggling a 50-hour workweek at a plastics plant. His headquarters "is in the second-floor living room in the corner where the computer is," he says. His campaign has $3,000 to its name.

Mr. Meade's experience goes to the heart of a debate roiling the nascent movement: Should it back fervent long shots who hew to its antigovernment views, or should it rally around more traditional candidates, even if they don't perfectly reflect the movement's distaste for incumbents, taxes and spending?

The question is being asked as homegrown candidates confront brute realities of politics: reluctant donors, limited party support, inexperienced staffers and the uphill fight against incumbents

Grassroots support remains vigorous, as evidenced by the thousands of tea-party activists who gathered Saturday in Searchlight, Nev., to protest the health-care law and urge the ouster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Yet despite thronging primary races across the U.S., true tea-party candidates have stumbled at the polls. In the March 2 Texas primary, 18 incumbent Republican House members faced multiple challengers, including a flock of tea-party faithful. The incumbents won handily, with only one garnering below 60% of the vote.

Nor has a surge in Republican candidates translated into higher contributions. On average, Republican primary challengers have raised 37% less than Democratic counterparts, Federal Election Commission records show. Republican candidates for Congress have raised $294 million through 2009, nearly $30 million less than the Democrats, even though twice as many Republicans are running.

"The problem with the tea-party movement is it has inspired too many candidates," says Patrick Hughes, a candidate with tea-party backing who was trounced by Rep. Mark Kirk in the crowded Illinois Republican Senate primary. "The movement will fail if it can't coalesce behind candidates who can win."

Organizers hope public anger over President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul will help tea-party candidates who fiercely opposed the plan. Many are now promising to help repeal the law if they win, and are using the bill to try to drum up support from donors ...

"This is great news for us," says Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC has launched a Web site to highlight divisions in the GOP primaries.

Poll: "Health-care overhaul leaves Democrats in stable condition"

Wash Post:

After steering the landmark health-care reform bill through Congress, the Democratic Party's leaders have emerged mostly unscathed, according to a new Washington Post poll (Health Reform Is Major Shift; Divide Remains Deep; Majority Of Dems Now 'Strongly Support' It), but they have not received a notable boost in approval ratings.

Shifts among core constituencies suggest that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) may have reaped some benefit from the legislation's passage, but the public's take on the Democratic Party has not budged, and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) appears to be losing popularity. None of the central players in passing health-care reform appears to be winning favor with the bill's opponents.

Views on Pelosi tilt negative but are closely divided, with 42 percent approving of the way she is handling her job as speaker, and 46 percent disapproving, in line with her ratings in a January Post-ABC News poll. Although her overall rating is stable, the survey finds the speaker gained in strong support among Democrats, liberals and those who support the reform package.

In a follow-up interview, poll respondent John Murtha, 52, of Orlando said: "I think she did good. I think she does what her job is, and that's to pull together her people, and get it passed. That would've been a hard job if she wasn't a good, effective speaker."

There has been no such bump for the Democrats' leader in the Senate. Reid's overall approval rating has ticked downward, from 35 percent in January to 29 percent now, and among Democrats, it has dipped from 57 percent to 45 percent. With Reid facing a stiff challenge in his reelection bid, approval in the Western states -- his home region -- has dropped to 23 percent. Not all of this decline corresponds with an increase in disapproval, however, as one-quarter of people express no opinion about the majority leader, up from 18 percent in January.

The poll shows that approval of Obama's handling of health-care reform climbed five percentage points, to 48 percent, after the bill's passage, boosted by a 10-point increase among those who support the changes. Overall, strong approval of Obama on the issue rose nine percentage points, to 33 percent, with strong disapproval remaining higher, at 43 percent.

The share of Americans who say Obama has brought needed change to Washington edged up in the poll, to 54 percent from 50 percent at the beginning of the year. The increase comes largely among Democrats and those who voted for Obama in 2008, perhaps signaling a retrenchment among his core supporters.

Barbara Cornell, 58, a poll respondent from Yukon, Okla., said she thinks Obama has followed through on his campaign promise of change. "He's stepped up, finally, and made a move," she said. "I feel like the Democrats are doing something very proactive, and it reinforces my view of that and unfortunately reinforces my negative view of Republicans and how they are really being stubborn."

The passage of the health-care legislation may be a pivotal point for those backers: Nine in 10 who support the reform package say Obama has brought needed change, up from 78 percent in January. Opponents of the bill see it differently, with nearly eight in 10 saying the president has failed to deliver change to Washington, and six in 10 among that group saying he is unwilling to listen to different points of view.

More broadly, Obama has not made gains outside of his core supporters in overall approval rating or on several central attributes. About two-thirds consider him a strong leader, and 56 percent say he "understands the problems of people like you," both about the same as in January. A broad majority (68 percent) say he is willing to listen to different points of view, though that has dropped more than 20 percentage points since the 100-day mark of his presidency.

The Next Big Democractic Push: Financial Reform

Noam Scheiber on the big next Democratic push Obama has planned and how it could play to their electoral advantage in November:

Pretty much no one who follows the regulatory reform issue can quite believe the sudden change. In the span of a few days, reform has evolved from one of those debates newspaper editorialists have among themselves to Washington’s NEXT BIG PUSH. Clearly much of this derives from the parties’ changing fortunes, as Democrats bask in the glory of their health care victory and Republicans suddenly lack self-esteem. Indeed, try to recall the last time a GOP senator lacerated his party for blowing a chance at bipartisanship, as Tennessee Senator Bob Corker did on reg reform this week, and you begin to understand how far we’ve come.

The key shift is arguably the one that’s taken place at the White House. Prior to late last week, it wasn’t entirely clear whether the White House actually wanted a bill this year, or whether it simply wanted to bloody Republicans over their opposition to reform. But, as health care began to look like a fait accompli, the White House seemed to subtly change its posture. One administration official says it wasn’t so much that the White House was ambivalent, as that it was massively preoccupied with health care--and that it wasn’t sure until recently that a solid bill was achievable. “We didn’t want to do the thing … where you cut a deal here and there with every special interest available,” says the official. Whatever the case, the shift was as palpable as it was significant: Another official was impressed that the president delivered a radio address about reforming Wall Street last Saturday, the day before the most historic health care vote in 45 years.

... on Wednesday, Obama told Dodd and his House counterpart, Barney Frank, that he could more or less live with either version, according to an official knowledgeable about the meeting. (Though he stressed that he’d like to combine the toughest elements of both, as with an exemption from derivatives regulation for non-financial companies, which is stricter in Dodd’s bill.) Mostly, he just encouraged them to press ahead, emphasizing the win-win dynamic at work. If Republicans dig in, the president argued, that’s a fight he’d welcome. (Administration officials have seen polling suggesting the public will assume Republicans are carrying Wall Street’s water, regardless of their arguments.) And if Republicans want to join in the effort to rein in Wall Street—well, no one at the White House would turn down a big, bipartisan victory. 

What's Next Politically?

NY Times:

The battle over health care is poised to move swiftly from Congress back to the country as Democrats, Republicans and a battery of interest groups race to define the legislation and dig in for long-term political and legal fights.

President Obama plans to open a new campaign this week to persuade skeptical Americans that the bill holds immediate benefits for them and addresses the nation’s shaky fiscal condition. Republicans said they would seek to repeal the measure, challenge its constitutionality and coordinate efforts in statehouses to block its implementation.

The politics of health care are fragile — and far from certain — in the eight-month midterm campaign that will determine which party will control Congress next year. But both sides steeled for a fight to extend well beyond November, involving state legislative battles, court challenges and, ultimately, the next presidential race.

Even before the final vote, Republicans began relentlessly assailing lawmakers who supported the legislation, suggesting Democrats are spendthrift and proponents of big government. Democrats said they would seek to capitalize on the momentum from their success and strive to move beyond the political arguments in hopes of demystifying the complicated legislation.

“We ought to focus on not the political stakes, but the stakes for the country,” David Plouffe, an adviser to Mr. Obama, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’re going to go out there and not just talk about what we’re for, but what the Republicans are voting against.”

The next chapter in the health care fight will play out not only in the midterm elections, but also in the courts. Attorneys general in three states — Virginia, Florida and South Carolina — have indicated they will file legal challenges to the measure, on the grounds that it violates the Constitution by requiring individuals to purchase insurance.

In an interview Sunday, the Virginia attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, said he intended to base his challenge on two grounds: that the federal bill conflicts with a newly passed state law that says no Virginian may be compelled to buy insurance and that Congress does not have authority to impose the mandate under its powers to regulate interstate commerce, as Democrats contend.

“This is such an incredible federal overreach,” Mr. Cuccinelli said, but added that he did not plan to ask the courts for an order that would prevent the bill from going into effect because the individual mandate does not take effect until 2013. “On our basis for a constitutional challenge, there’s no rush,” he said.

The White House and Democrats were preparing to counter the legal arguments and coordinate a state-by-state response to any prospective challenges. For his part, aides said, Mr. Obama will lead the effort to define the bill, but also will shift his focus to the economy and jobs. A campaign, featuring Mr. Obama and examples of people who benefited from health care, will take place in the coming months.

Democrats were also beginning to form a permanent campaign, of sorts, to follow the bill through its various stages. Party strategists studied the public’s reaction to Medicare — it was not immediately positive — and were trying to create a friendlier climate for Mr. Obama when he faces voters again.

House Also Passed Revolutionary Changes To Student Loan Program Last Night

Wash Post:

Legislation hailed by supporters as the most significant change to college student lending in a generation passed the House on Sunday night.

The student aid initiative, which House Democrats attached to their final amendments to the health-care bill, would overhaul the student loan industry, eliminating a $60 billion program that supports private student loans with federal subsidies and replacing it with government lending to students. The House amendments will now go to the Senate.

By ending the subsidies and effectively eliminating the middleman, the student loan bill would generate $61 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Most of those savings, $36 billion, would go to Pell grants, funding an era of steady and predictable increases in the massive but underfunded federal aid program for needy students. Smaller portions would go toward reducing the deficit and to various Democratic priorities, including community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and caps on loan payments.

The bill's greatest impact would fall on the more than 6 million students who rely on Pell grants to finance their education. Pell, launched in 1973, once covered more than two-thirds of total costs at a public university. It now covers about one-third.

The student aid measure was initially framed as a boost to the Pell program. Now it is seen as its salvation. Democratic leaders say that without a massive infusion of cash, the maximum grant could be scaled back by more than half to $2,150 and at least 500,000 students could be dropped from the program ...

Why Obama Believes "health care reform is a 2010 win for Democrats"

Time:

Barack Obama's top pollster, Joel Benenson ... Since August, he's had to deal with "death panels," the "cornhusker kickback" and daily proclamations of a "government takeover" of health care. He has watched Obama's approval rating fall from the high 60s to the high 40s, while opposition to Democratic health care reforms have inched above 50% in many polls. Recently, he's even had Republican leaders declare that Democratic hopes for the November elections will collapse if health care reform becomes law. "Do you really think the Republicans are out there trying to save Democrats from themselves?" he asks. 

Through the worst days, Benenson's message has remained the same. Push forward. Get it done. Three years ago, Benenson, a former New York Daily News reporter from Queens, went head to head with one of the best in the business, Hillary Clinton's pollster Mark Penn, challenging a candidate of "experience" with a candidate of "change." His team toppled conventional wisdom. Now he tells wavering Democrats in Congress to take their own leap of faith: Look past the numbers that show widespread dismay at the health care debate and a nation deeply divided over the Democratic bill. Believe that health care reform is a 2010 win for Democrats.

His argument flows in several directions at once. First of all, he says, the details of reform, as Democrats hope to frame it, are far more popular than the package as a whole. Americans overwhelmingly want to end the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. They want to be able to afford coverage when they are between jobs. They want seniors to have more help with prescription-drug costs.

Second, he says, the worst fears of Americans will never be realized. "Is somebody's elderly parent or relative going to be put to death by a death panel?" he asks. "No. It doesn't exist." Third, a sizable chunk of those who oppose the current bill — roughly 1 in 6 in a January CNN poll — want the bill to be even more liberal.

But perhaps most important of all, Benenson believes the current polls confuse a skepticism about health care reform with broad discontent over the political process in Washington. "This is what people don't understand," he says. "People are frustrated that Congress doesn't seem able to work together to do the job that people think they sent them there to do." A solution to this problem is action.

This view is widely held within Obama's inner circle, and it is the reason that the White House has done the unthinkable in the first three months of an election year. After extended agony in 2009, with the gritty legislative ticktock undercutting the new President's glistening promise of change, Obama decided to double down in February, forcing more weeks of painful process discussions and bewildering ruminations on parliamentary procedures like "reconciliation" and "self-executing" rules.

Poll: Passing Health Reform Key To Dems Chances In November

Wall St Journal (poll details):

The pending health-care overhaul remains unpopular with a broad swath of the public, but core Democrats the party needs to show up and vote in November are strong backers, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

The survey found that opinions have solidified around the health-care legislation, with 48% calling it a "bad idea" and 36% viewing it as a "good idea" when presented with a choice between those two. That gap is consistent with surveys dating to the fall.

At the same time, Democratic voters strongly favor the legislation being pushed by President Barack Obama, particularly constituencies such as blacks, Latinos and self-described liberals. Those groups mobilized in 2008 to help elect Mr. Obama, but are far less enthusiastic than core Republicans about voting in this year's midterm elections.

The survey found a 21-point enthusiasm gap between the parties, with 67% of Republicans saying they are very interested in the November elections, compared with 46% of Democrats. "If the Democrats are going to close that gap, they've got to get their people excited. And I don't see how you get those people if you vote no" on the party's health-care legislation, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

"I don't think it's about winning the middle. It's really about alienating the base," Mr. Hart said of Democratic lawmakers' calculations about the upcoming health-care vote.

The survey found that Mr. Obama's job-approval rating of 48%—as opposed to the 47% who disapprove—has remained steady since its precipitous drop last summer, which coincided with rising public opposition to the health-care initiative.

Where the health-care debate has been a drag for Mr. Obama's numbers, it also has been an anchor for Congress, which now has an anemic 17% approval rating. Half of Americans, if they had the choice, would vote to replace every member of Congress, including their own representative, the survey found.

On health care, the results underscore the argument from liberal activists that the bill's demise would dissuade the Democratic base from voting in November. The Journal/NBC survey shows that majorities of African-Americans and liberal Democrats, as well as a plurality of Latinos, would be less likely to vote for their representative in Congress if he or she voted against the health-care plan.

Further complicating the calculation for all lawmakers is that a clear plurality of Americans wants the issue addressed in some form. Forty-seven percent of poll respondents said they wanted Congress to consider significant health-care legislation "immediately" if the Obama plan fails, while another 23% wanted that done at least within the next couple of years ...

No matter what happens on the vote this week, the survey points to political challenges facing both parties as they weigh how to talk about health care on the campaign trail this fall.

Thirty-six percent of voters said they would be less likely to support their member of Congress if he or she voted for the bill, but 34% said they would be less likely to support their representative if he or she voted against it. While Republican leaders have said they would encourage GOP candidates to campaign for repeal of the legislation should it pass, the survey showed voters split on that possibility: 37% were more likely to back a candidate who embraced repeal and 33% less likely.

More broadly, the survey showed continued gloominess among all voters about the country's direction, with nearly six in 10 saying it is on the wrong track. Adding to Democrats' election-year concerns: Voters are souring on the party's ability to deal with the country's economic troubles.

As an issue, handling of the economy has favored the Democrats in the past four election cycles. But now, by a 10-point margin, registered voters with the highest interest in the November elections said they believe the GOP is better at dealing with the economy.

Some of Mr. Obama's highest ratings relate to his work on foreign policy, an area that had been a weakness when he was a presidential candidate. Clear majorities said they approve of Mr. Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan and the situation in Iraq. In both cases, 53% of respondents said they approved of his work.

The high numbers reflect the support by many Republicans and independents for the president's decision to boost troop levels in Afghanistan. Liberal activists have blamed that stance for adding to the decline in enthusiasm among core Democratic voters.

On another foreign-policy matter confronting the White House, a 51%-38% majority in the survey supported initiating military action to destroy Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons if Tehran continues its nuclear program and is close to developing a weapon. Thirty-nine percent said they strongly supported military action.

MoveOn Makes Fundraising Threat Against Anti-Health Reform Dems

Huffington Post:

In a warning shot to wavering Democrats, the progressive action group MoveOn.org is making a major push to raise money on behalf of primary challengers to those House lawmakers who vote against health care reform.

The group is set to blast out an email to its five million member list Monday asking recipients to pledge anywhere from $25 to $200 (or more) for the purposes of defeating conservative Democrats who help defeat the legislation.

"Health care reform is in serious danger in the House of Representatives: with a handful of conservative Democrats wavering, we don't yet have the votes to pass the final bill," reads the email, which was sent in advance to the Huffington Post. "So we're asking every MoveOn member: will you pledge to support progressive primary challengers to House Democrats who side with Republicans to kill health care reform?

"With the big vote happening as early as this Friday, conservative Democrats need to know the stakes if they choose to side with Big Insurance over the voters on health care reform," the email goes on. "Our pledge will send that message loud and clear. We'll publicize the amount pledged, and make sure the media and every wavering representative know about it."

The fundraising drive by MoveOn is one of the more direct and public efforts at political intimidation yet in what is now the crucial last stage of the health care debate. Similarly, affiliates of the SEIU have been telling fence-sitting lawmakers that they will either sit out their elections or actively campaign against them should they oppose the bill.

The campaign also is a reflection of the extent to which the formal progressive movement has rallied around the legislation -- despite the deep disappointments many still have with the actual policy. Eighty-three percent of MoveOn members support the bill, even without the public option.

The money pledged by MoveOn recipients won't actually be collected until the final vote on health care reform occurs (likely this week) and group decides which political races it wants to engage. An official with the organization tells the Huffington Post that they aren't hell-bent on sticking it to every conservative Democrat who sides against the party. The group feels that some votes are explainable, if not permissible. But they will look at those lawmakers who live in either traditionally Democratic districts -- or ones with an active MoveOn presence -- and still opposed reform. MoveOn already did a similar campaign with the Senate and has been buoyed by the entrance of Lt. Gov. Bill Halter into the Arkansas Democratic primary.

Dems Looking Better For 2010?

Ezra Klein:

I'm a bit annoyed that Josh Marshall wrote this post suggesting that Democrats are looking a bit better in advance of the 2012 election. Annoyed because I've been toying with becoming an optimist on the matter myself.

Josh focuses on the poll data, but I'd tell the story a bit differently, with a heavy reliance on the graph -- which Nancy Pelosi's office is touting -- above: It looks to me like Democrats are going to pass health-care reform, and the near-death experience has reminded the base that there's a lot to like about the bill. It also looks like the economy is recovering, and there's still a lot of stimulus money left to flood into the system. That's making Republicans nervous, and so they've been breaking ranks on the Senate's recent jobs bills, with a good number crossing the aisle to vote for them. That suggests that the Democrats have hit on a good legislative strategy to push through the rest of the year. Add in that Chris Dodd is moving forward on financial regulation, and now Democrats have a way to put themselves on the right side of anger at Wall Street.

Come November, you could imagine a Democratic Party that's passed health-care reform, can boast about a fragile economic recovery, and can put the Republicans on the defensive on at least one or two key issues. That lends itself to an argument of accomplishment, a warning that you don't want to switch horses midstream, and normal campaigning. Now, I don't want to go too far in this argument: Optimism here means something like Democrats will lose 20 or 30 seats in the House rather than 50 or 60. Losses are assured. But it's increasingly looking like catastrophic losses aren't.

In Logical Extension Of Supreme's Big Wallet Decision, Md Corporation Runs For Congress

Wash Post:

Murray Hill might be the perfect candidate for this political moment: young, bold, media-savvy, a Washington outsider eager to reshape the way things are done in the nation's capital. And if these are cynical times, well, then, it's safe to say Murray Hill is by far the most cynical.

That's because this little upstart is, in fact, a start-up. Murray Hill is actually Murray Hill Inc., a small, five-year-old Silver Spring public relations company that is seeking office to prove a point (and perhaps get a little attention).

After the Supreme Court declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns, the self-described progressive firm took what it considers the next logical step: declaring for office.

"Until now, corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence-peddling to achieve their goals in Washington," the candidate, who was unavailable for an interview, said in a statement. "But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves."

William Klein, a "hired gun" who has been enlisted as Murray Hill's campaign manager, said the firm appears to be the first "corporate person" to run for office and is promising a spirited campaign that "puts people second, or even third."

The corporate candidate already has its own Web site, a Facebook page with 2,600 fans and an online ad on YouTube that has drawn more than 172,000 hits.

The ad makes a particularly passionate case for why it's necessary to have more direct corporate representation in Congress.

In a soothing voice, a narrator bemoans that "as much as corporate interests gave to politicians, we could never be absolutely sure they would do our bidding." The ad includes images of gleaming office towers and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and promises Murray Hill will bring "enlightened self-interest and corporate accounting" to Congress.

It concludes with a rousing call to action: "Vote for Murray Hill Incorporated for Congress -- for the best democracy money can buy."

The firm, whose clients include labor unions and environmentalists, is seeking to enter the Republican primary for the 8th District seat held by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D).

The firm "wanted to run as a Republican because we feel the Republican Party is more receptive to our basic message that corporations are people, too," Klein said, adding that his client has no particular beef with Van Hollen.

Van Hollen welcomes the competition. "The majority on the Court has made a mockery of our campaign finance laws, and Murray Hill is just mocking the mockers," said Doug Thornell, a senior adviser to Van Hollen ...

Murray Hill does face a couple of tiny problems in its effort to get elected to Congress.

The Anger Is Not Just On The Right: The Left Targets Senator Lincoln

Wash Post:

Democratic activists flooding money into a primary challenge against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) say the race isn't simply about defeating the incumbent. It is also about rebuking a Democratic-controlled Congress that they say isn't pursuing an aggressive, populist agenda.

After Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced Monday that he would challenge Lincoln, liberal donors from groups such as MoveOn.org poured more than $1 million into his campaign, an unusually high sum for the first two days of campaigning. Liberals blasted Lincoln with anti-Washington rhetoric that sounded more like the conservative tea party movement. The groups are particularly critical of her opposition to the public option, as it is known, in the health-care bill and her support in 2008 for a Wall Street bailout.

The primary contest illustrates the challenge Democrats face in trying to please activists who worked hard to elect President Obama and congressional Democrats and now want to see results. They also want to lure independent voters who helped the party win the 2006 and 2008 elections but now express wariness about the Democratic agenda.

"As Bill Halter says, Washington is broken. It's really remarkable when you have a strong Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate and a Democratic president and still not get a lot of things passed," said Charles Chamberlain, political director for the activist group Democracy for America, which has encouraged its members to donate to Halter. "Some of that blame rests on Republicans, but the Democratic Party is not standing up to lead."

The White House and congressional Democratic leaders are lining up behind Lincoln, who they say has the strongest chance of winning in Arkansas. And Lincoln, who was first elected to the Senate in 1998, is trying to turn the fury among liberal activists into an asset.

In a commercial that began airing just after Halter announced his candidacy, Lincoln touts her opposition to the public option and the climate-change bill, issues popular among Democratic activists. "I don't answer to my party, I answer to Arkansas," she says.

"She's pretty much fighting for the freedom to be a moderate Democrat," said Steve Patterson, her campaign manager.

That strategy could be risky in the two-month blitz to the May 18 primary, for which more partisan Democratic activists are likely to turn out. Lincoln, who received 56 percent of the vote in 2004, has seen her approval ratings plunge in the past several months. Liberals attribute the decline to her changed position on the public option, which she supported last summer then distanced herself from a few months later. Conservatives say her numbers reflect dissatisfaction over her support for a health-care bill that is unpopular in the state.

Seeking to keep the buzz among online activists, Halter appealed to liberals after launching his candidacy and touted his support for the public option and other liberal causes.

At the same time, his campaign commercials sound the kind of anti-Washington themes that could unite liberal activists outside of Arkansas and voters in his state. He criticizes Lincoln for her bailout vote, saying, "Washington is not working for Arkansas families."

"He's not a liberal, he's not a conservative, he's an Arkansan," said Bud Jackson, an adviser to Halter, illustrating the campaign's attempt to make sure he is not simply cast as the spokesman of liberal groups and their causes.

RNC Director, Not A "low-level staffer," Behind Tea Party Style Fundraising Pitch

In case you missed the story about the RNC's repugnant, Tea Party style pitch, you can read about it here.

From the Wash Post:

In the three days since the leak of a confidential and crude Republican fundraising pitch, the party's leaders have scrambled to distance themselves from the 72-page PowerPoint depiction of President Obama as a socialist Joker -- and from the man behind it. Michael S. Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, declared the pitch inappropriate and said it was the work of a "staffer."

But Rob Bickhart, who presented the document during a retreat at a Florida resort, is no low-level staffer.

He's the RNC's finance director -- and a veteran operative in party politics at the national level. During a career that spans more than 30 years, he has served in senior jobs in the Reagan administration, the Senate and the regional transit authority in Philadelphia. In between, he has raised piles of cash for campaigns and earned lucrative fees as a hospital lobbyist.

When Steele hired Bickhart, 53, in May, he praised "his political savvy, extensive campaign experience and rock-solid reputation as a fundraiser" as "indispensable assets" for a party hungry to take back power in the Senate and the House.

Since then, the RNC has paid Bickhart and a consultancy he owns $370,000, according to Federal Election Committee records. At the RNC's winter retreat last month in Hawaii, Bickhart gave several presentations, including one to reporters on the impact of the Supreme Court decision overturning a key law that restricted corporate giving.

RNC Taken Over By "fear-mongering lunatic fringe"

Wash Post:

Democrats on Wednesday sharply criticized a Republican National Committee fundraising document that caricatured President Obama as the Joker, while Chairman Michael S. Steele sought to distance himself from it.

Also depicted were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), presented as Cruella de Vil and Scooby-Doo, respectively. The three Democratic leaders were gathered under the heading "The Evil Empire."

The cartoonish images were part of a 72-page PowerPoint presentation assembled for potential campaign donors and fundraisers. The document was obtained by Politico after being left at a Florida hotel where the Republicans had gathered Feb. 18.

The presentation also outlined how donors will be encouraged to give to Republicans at a time when the party holds neither the White House nor Congress: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!"

It cites "fear" and "extreme negative feelings toward existing administration" as reasons why donors might contribute to the GOP.

Said Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse: "If you had any doubt, any doubt whatsoever, that the Republican Party has been taken over by the fear-mongering lunatic fringe, those doubts were erased today." He added, "Republicans across the country have cheered on crowds where these very images appeared."

Steele did not attend the presentation in Boca Grande, Fla., and had not been aware of the document, spokesman Doug Heye said. "Fundraising documents are often controversial. Obviously, the chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable," Heye said in a statement. "It will not be used by the Republican National Committee -- in any capacity -- in the future."

Raynard Jackson, a GOP activist who has worked to attract blacks and other minority members to the party, was outraged by word of the presentation.

"This is just beyond the pale," he said. "And the best we can get is Michael Steele issuing a statement through a spokesman? And they wonder why they can't get minorities, especially black people, involved in the party?"

Jonathan Chait reacts:

The Republican National Committee drew up a memo advising its top-fundraisers how to appeal to potential donors. Unfortunately for them, one member left a copy laying around a bar where a Democratic found it and leaked it to Politico.

Apparently, the party is under no illusions about what motivates its base:

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”

Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

So, let's see, you've got your paranoids, your reactionaries, your corrupt greedheads, your spineless cowards, and your all-around arrogant jerks. What, no category for "racists," "repressed self-hating gays," "the terminally heartless" and "philandering televangelists"? I thought they were going to hit every single Republican stereotype.

MSM Gets It Wrong Again: 19th House Republicans Decide To Not Seek Relelection While 14 Dems Made Same Decision

Regardless of the MSM's spin that this is a GOP year, the Dems are in trouble, etc, etc, more Republicans than Dems are choosing to retire. Plus there was good news in the Indiana senate race ... the NY Times:

Another House Republican, Representative John Linder of Georgia, is stepping down at the end of this session, making him the 19th to do so. He announced his decision Saturday morning in his district outside Atlanta.

Mr. Linder, an ally of fellow Georgian Newt Gingrich, was a respected fund-raiser and a reliable Republican vote during his nine terms in the House. He headed the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 1998 cycle, when Republicans unexpectedly lost seats following the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. That change in the party’s fortunes quickly led to the downfall of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Linder was replaced at the campaign organization by Tom Davis of Virginia.

He has been a leading advocate of a national retail sales tax as a substitute for the current tax system and knocked off the conservative Republican Bob Barr in a 2002 primary caused by redistricting. His seat should easily remain in Republican hands.

“John Linder has been a leader in promoting conservative, reform-minded policies to protect American taxpayers,” Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, the chairman of the N.R.C.C., said in statement. Mr. Sessions said he was “confident that voters in this ruby-red district will elect another capable Republican to continue supporting the conservative principles that John so passionately promoted.”

Republicans continue to lead Democrats in the number of vacancies they will have to defend in November. Currently, Democrats have 14.

Democrats avoided another one Saturday when Representative Baron Hill of Indiana announced he would not seek the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Evan Bayh and would instead run for re-election.

“While I agree with him that the partisanship in Washington is alarming,” said Mr. Hill, a one-time state basketball star, about Mr. Bayh, “ to reference my athletic past – I opt to stay in the game and continue to serve as an independent voice for my Southern Indiana constituents.”

Mr. Hill immediately lent his support in the Senate contest to his Democratic colleague, Representative Brad Ellsworth.

"You're invited to Organizing for America's local 2010 Strategy Sessions"

From Organizing for America:

You're invited to Organizing for America's local 2010 Strategy Sessions!

We are pleased to invite you to an important and exciting series of meetings taking place across the country.

In 2008, we joined together and worked hard to elect a President who shared our vision of a stronger, fairer, more just, and more progressive America. In just 13 months, much has been accomplished and much has been learned. Now it is time for all of us to renew our commitment to change that moves America forward, and to plan our strategy for 2010.

Join Organizing for America (OFA) for your local 2010 Strategy Session. The purpose of this session is to clearly articulate our 2010 strategic framework in your state and to start creating local strategies to accomplish our goals.  This Strategy Session also is an opportunity to meet with OFA staff and other volunteers in our area. There are countless opportunities to create change this year, and we have an important role to play in moving our country forward. As a team, we will talk about how to be involved in creating change in our country, both legislatively and electorally. We will talk through OFA’s national strategy and discuss what that means in your local community.

You will leave this event informed, inspired, and in action – to ensure the success of President Obama’s agenda for change in 2010.

Please join us for an inspiring and informative evening!

Find your nearest OFA Strategy Session at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/strategysession/

McCain Ad Goes After Primary Challenger By Linking Him To Birthers

It is very interesting that McCain thinks this ad will discredit his opponent with a majority of Arizona's Republican primary voters. He at least thinks the birthers are a conspiracy theorist fringe within the GOP looked down upon by the rest. The partisan in me hopes he's wrong (since that'll hurt the GOP's general election viability) but the American in me hopes he's right (since the birthers are a nutty, fringe who need to be kept far, far from political power).

Charlie Cook: "Very hard" To See How Democrats Can Keep The House

Chris Cillizza:

Political handicapper Charlie Cook said that it was "very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House" in an interview with National Journal late last week.

Cook, who, in the interest of full disclosure, gave the Fix our first job in political Washington, went on to note that while House Republicans have their fair share of problems but "you could triple the Republican Party's problems and I'd still rather have their problems than the problems facing Democrats."

Cook has, of late, been extremely down on Democrats' chances -- an attitude born, he argued in the interview, of "fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning" by the White House about the direction to take the country. Cook added that the White House's miscalculations in terms of their agenda were "of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq."

Stu Rothenberg, another noted political handicapper in Washington, has pegged Democratic House losses as between 24 and 28 seats. He writes: "We currently expect Republicans to fall short of the 40 seats they would need."

"Republican leaders were the ones likely to have headaches on Sunday morning"

Dana Milbank's column on CPAC and the challenges the GOP faces managing the Fox News incited Tea Partiers:

After three days of liberal bashing, 10,000 right-wing activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference used their final night in town to give a sharp rebuke to . . . the Republicans?

First came the results of CPAC's presidential straw poll, in which the runaway winner was Ron Paul, the antiwar libertarian gadfly who is only nominally a Republican. At 31 percent, he polled far better than more conventional candidates such as Mitt Romney (22 percent), Sarah Palin (7 percent) and Tim Pawlenty (6 percent). A majority of voters said they wished the Republicans had a better field of potential candidates.

Then it was time for the keynote speaker, the wildly popular Fox News host Glenn Beck. "I voted Republican almost every time," he said, and "I don't even know what they stand for anymore. And they've got to realize that they have a problem: 'Hello, my name is the Republican Party, and I've got a problem. I'm addicted to spending and big government.'"

The audience in the Marriott Wardman Park gave a huge cheer.

"But as of yet I haven't heard anyone say that," Beck added. "All they're talking about is: 'We need a big tent. We need a big tent. Can we get a bigger tent? How can we get a big tent?' "

"What is this, a circus?" Beck asked.

For most of the three-day conference, the conservatives took aim at their favorite targets, President Obama, congressional Democrats, the media and Hollywood. By Saturday evening, the hot air and the overflow crowd had warmed the ballroom to an uncomfortable temperature. Coats came off and speakers perspired. Someone brought Beck a white towel midway through his address.

But there was something different about the message of the final session, as the activists sent an unmistakable message to the Republicans that they can't be taken for granted.

The Dems In Cartoons

"Movement Attracts First-Time Activists Mad About Debt, Expanding Government; Incumbents in Both Parties Face Risks"

Wall St Journal:

Interviews with more than a dozen newly minted tea-party volunteers suggest the movement is starting to resemble what Ross Perot harnessed in the early 1990s, and take on some characteristics of the effort that helped drive Democrats into office in recent elections: first-time activists mobilized by strong emotions. Both Mr. Perot and President Barack Obama, despite their very different political positions, tapped the enthusiasm of people previously not involved in politics.

The tea-party movement has a generally conservative orientation, but has manifested itself in a dislike of both establishment parties and a drive for members to get involved. Tea-party groups are using many of the same online and social-networking tools that Democrats successfully deployed during the 2008 presidential election.

Some activists say they became involved after feeling ignored by lawmakers when they tried to voice their opinions. Some say they began paying attention to how Congress functions and didn't like what they saw. Others say they watched friends and family struggle while institutions deemed "too big to fail" were rescued with taxpayer money and the deficit widened ...

The tea-party movement is less of an organized party and more of a loose coalition of local groups that has sprouted across the country under names such as the 9-12 Delaware Patriots and the Louisiana Tea Party Federation. The movement's name harkens to the Revolution-era Boston Tea Party and an on-air rant in February of last year by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli, who called for a "tea party" in Chicago to oppose the administration's housing rescue.

Unifying the activism are common themes such as a dislike of the federal government's increasing involvement in the economy—especially financial bailouts—and the U.S.'s ever-increasing debt. The anger likely spells trouble for both parties this election season, although for different reasons.

Democrats, as the ruling party in Washington, are worried about the possibility of heavy losses. Republican establishment candidates and incumbents are facing primary challenges, especially lawmakers not considered pure enough by tea-partiers on their hot-button issues. The GOP has been warily accommodating the movement, which is showing signs of resisting overtures.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly a third of voters want their own congressional incumbents to lose their next elections. That dissatisfaction is similar to surveys in 1994 and 2006, when control of Congress changed hands amid intense anti-incumbent feelings.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, such fervor could lead to a large turnout among conservatives, while their Democratic counterparts appear less motivated to go to the polls.

Partisanship In Washington Blocks Solutions To Long Term, "Hard" Problems. Exhibit A: The Debt.

NY Times:

After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs.

Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November’s elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy ...

“I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one,” said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. “These days I wonder if this country is even governable.”

Sensing political advantage, Republicans are resisting President Obama’s call for a bipartisan commission to cut the debt, although recent studies have implicated the tax cuts and spending policies of the years after 2000 when they controlled Congress and the White House. Even seven Republican senators who had co-sponsored a bill to create a commission nonetheless voted against it recently.

The president is not giving up. On Thursday, administration officials say, he will sign an executive order establishing the 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He also will name as co-chairmen Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican Senate leader from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a moderate Democrat from North Carolina who, as President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, brokered a 1997 balanced budget agreement with Congressional Republicans.

“There isn’t a single sitting member of Congress — not one — that doesn’t know exactly where we’re headed,” Mr. Simpson said in a telephone interview Tuesday just before word of his role got out. “And to use the politics of fear and division and hate on each other — we are at a point right now where it doesn’t make a damn whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican if you’ve forgotten you’re an American.”

While he criticized some liberal Democrats’ refusal to reduce entitlement benefits, Mr. Simpson also dismissed Republicans’ antitax arguments that deficits could be controlled with spending cuts alone. “But they don’t cut spending,” he said, referring to the years Republicans governed with President George W. Bush.

Elected Republicans, however, are under intense pressure from their party’s conservative base to oppose any tax increases — a line in the sand that dims any prospects for bipartisan cooperation. Yet economists, including veterans of past Republican administrations, are vocal in insisting that the debt problem is too great to be solved without increasing revenues somehow and perhaps moving to a new consumption tax system like Europe’s.

The same economists also say a significant deficit-reduction plan is not possible unless Mr. Obama breaks his campaign promise not to raise taxes for households making less than $250,000. Last week, Mr. Obama said he would not impose that condition or any other on a fiscal commission.

The situation is complicated by a debate over how quickly Washington should act even if it could. The Obama administration, Congressional Democratic leaders and many economists are pushing for additional government stimulus measures while the private sector remains weak. But anger about big deficits has stoked the populism roiling politics, and Republicans as well as some conservative Democrats want to cut spending right now as a way of addressing perceptions among voters that government has gotten too big, too intrusive and too profligate. Mr. Obama himself proposed a budget that would freeze spending on some categories of domestic spending for three years.

Many analysts say the president and Congress could send a strong signal to global markets by agreeing this year to a package of both long-term tax increases and spending reductions, especially in the popular entitlement programs, that would not take effect until 2012. That is the recommendation of two new studies, one from a diverse group sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and a separate joint project of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

As debt rises, so do interest costs; by 2014, at a projected $516 billion, they will exceed the budget for annual appropriations for domestic programs. The government will be competing with the private sector for credit, forcing interest rates higher and imperiling future prosperity.

Foreign investors now own more than half of the publicly held debt, and officials for the largest creditor, China, have fretted publicly about the fiscal course of the United States. While few expect foreigners to dump their assets, since the resulting plunge in values would hurt them as well as everyone else, the fear is that investors will demand higher interest payments and reduce or stop future debt purchases, threatening the government’s ability to finance its borrowing.

Lesser financial and fiscal crises have brought the two parties together to compromise on tough choices about taxes and spending.

Poll: 80% Of Americans Oppose The Supreme's Big Wallet Decision

Wash Post:

Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent "strongly" opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.

The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).

The results suggest a strong reservoir of bipartisan support on the issue for President Obama and congressional Democrats, who are in the midst of crafting legislation aimed at limiting the impact of the high court's decision. Likely proposals include banning participation in U.S. elections by government contractors, bank bailout recipients or companies with more than 20 percent foreign ownership.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other Republican lawmakers have praised the ruling as a victory for free speech and have signaled their intent to oppose any legislation intended to blunt the impact of the court's decision ...

Democrats have seized on the ruling as an example of judicial overreach and vowed to enact new limits on political spending by corporations, which have traditionally favored Republicans in their contribution patterns. Obama said in his State of the Union address that the ruling will "open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections."

Republicans and business groups have rallied around the ruling, arguing that the decision merely levels the playing field with free-spending unions and other liberal interest groups. The new poll, however, suggests there may be political risks for the GOP in opposing limits that appear to be favored by the party's base.

Nearly three-quarters of self-identified conservative Republicans say they oppose the Supreme Court ruling, with most of them strongly opposed. Some two-thirds of conservative Republicans favor congressional efforts to limit corporate and union spending, though with less enthusiasm than liberal Democrats.

Indeed, the poll shows remarkably strong agreement about the ruling across all demographic groups, and big majorities of those with household incomes above and below $50,000 alike oppose the decision. Age, race and education levels also appeared to have little relative bearing on the answers.

Tax On Cadillac Health Plans Appears Dead; Killed By Mass Voters

NY Times:

An agreement to tax high-cost, employer-sponsored health insurance plans, announced with fanfare by the White House and labor unions last month, is losing support from labor leaders, who say the proposal is too high a price to pay for the limited health care package they expect to emerge from Congress.

But the White House is still urging Congress to adopt the excise tax as a way to help pay for President Obama’s ambitious health care proposals.

With support for the tax eroding, Congressional leaders are searching for alternative sources of revenue.

The search has some urgency because Mr. Obama has said he hopes House and Senate Democrats can resolve their differences and come up with a final version of the legislation before he convenes a bipartisan meeting on the issue on Feb. 25.

When the tax agreement was announced on Jan. 14, White House officials described it as a breakthrough that would help clear the way for passage of sweeping health legislation.

Besides producing a substantial amount of revenue, they said, the excise tax on the most expensive insurance plans would slow the growth of health costs by giving consumers a powerful incentive to shop for cheaper policies.

Under the agreement, which builds on a provision in the larger health bill passed by the Senate on Dec. 24, the federal government would impose a 40 percent tax on the value of employer-sponsored health coverage exceeding certain thresholds. To win the endorsement of labor leaders, White House officials agreed to changes in the tax that would lessen its impact on workers, including union members with collectively bargained health benefits.

But labor leaders have backed away from the proposal in the wake of the special Senate election in Massachusetts.

“I do not believe there will be an excise tax enacted,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America. “It appears that the administration and Congress will be taking a much more modest approach to health care reform. The cost and value of such reform would not justify using an excise tax.”

A wide range of House Democrats continue to criticize the tax as bad policy, even with the changes negotiated by labor leaders and the White House.

Moreover, House Democrats said, the tax is bad politics because it would set the middle class against the poor — people struggling to keep health insurance against people struggling to get it.

Revenue raised by the tax would help finance coverage for people who are uninsured.

Reid H. Cherlin, a White House spokesman, said he was not aware of any erosion in support for the tax among administration officials.

“The president,” he said, “continues to believe that charging insurance companies a fee for their most expensive polices — an idea that has the support of experts from both parties — will help achieve the core goal of health insurance reform: putting downward pressure on long-term health costs while ensuring that we aren’t placing new burdens on hard-working middle-class families.”

But as a practical matter, labor leaders said, the excise tax was killed by the election in Massachusetts, where the Republican candidate, Scott Brown, won the Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy.

In opinion polls and in conversations with lawmakers, Massachusetts voters expressed deep hostility to the excise tax.

Members of union households voted for Mr. Brown over his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, according to a telephone poll conducted on election night for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. He won 49 percent of the vote from union households, while she got 46 percent, the survey found.

Michael A. Podhorzer, deputy political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said Massachusetts should be a warning to Democrats, like “a canary in a coal mine.”

“Fully 42 percent of voters believed the health care bill would tax employer health benefits, and these voters supported Brown by two to one,” Mr. Podhorzer said.

Texas & Arizona GOP Primaries Feature Far Right Candidates: The Flake & The Bully

The bully is challenging John McCain, according to this NY Times story:

Former congressman J.D. Hayworth is kicking off a campaign challenging John McCain for his Senate seat -- setting up a showdown between well-known Republicans that promises to be McCain's toughest re-election battle.

Hayworth, a conservative talk-radio host, is inaugurating his effort with a rally in Phoenix Monday morning followed by a three-day statewide tour. Conservatives in Arizona have long been skeptical of McCain, who carved out a niche as a maverick senator working with Democrats on key issues. But McCain has consistently evaded political threats from the right and lately has staked out solidly conservative positions ...

Hayworth is positioning himself as the race's reliable conservative in contrast to an erratic McCain who he says can't be trusted to support Republican values.

As evidence he points to a series of McCain flip-flops that Hayworth calls ''campaign-year conversions'' on issues including gays in the military, climate change, campaign finance and immigration.

He's lined up big-name conservative backers including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his tough policies targeting illegal immigration, and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.

McCain has aligned his own list of prominent conservative backers, including his former running mate Sarah Palin and recently elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, both of whom will campaign for McCain in Arizona next month. He also has the support of Arizona's GOP congressional delegation, including Rep. Trent Franks, who endorsed one of McCain's opponents in the 2008 presidential primary ...

McCain is the clear front-runner ... A former television sportscaster, Hayworth was among a wave of Republicans elected to the U.S. House in 1994. He spent the next 12 years representing his district covering part of the eastern suburbs of Phoenix and, for a time, American Indian reservations.

Democrat Harry Mitchell defeated Hayworth in 2006, winning the GOP-leaning district amid a rough national climate for Republicans and questions about Hayworth's dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hayworth ran a conservative campaign emphasizing his opposition to illegal immigration. But he was dogged by a reputation for being an angry and bombastic partisan, highlighted by a scathing editorial in the state's largest newspaper recommending voters choose ''Mitchell over the bully.''

While this Times story has someone who has to defend herself by saying "I am not a flake" is challenging Texas-should-succeed-Perry from his right:

From the obscurity of rural Wharton County, about 60 miles southwest of Houston, Ms. Medina, a former nurse who owns a medical billing business, has become a wild card in the race for the Republican nomination. She is a factor because the primary usually attracts a low turnout, and historically its outcome is decided by about 600,000 of the most conservative voters in the state.

Recent polls have shown that Ms. Medina’s support among likely primary voters is in the double digits, and some surveys have her close to edging out Ms. Hutchison for second place.

There is a growing belief among Republican strategists here that if Ms. Medina can control the damage from Thursday’s radio gaffe, she might force a runoff. Her opponents are finding it harder to ignore her. Even her detractors acknowledged that she performed well in two televised debates, mounting fierce attacks on Mr. Perry and staking out positions to his right — no easy feat, because he is widely considered to be among the nation’s most conservative governors.

“She has proven to be a more formidable candidate than many thought,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. “She showed well in the debates, because Perry and Hutchison were squabbling like schoolchildren.”

Ms. Medina comes across as an ideologue, not a political pragmatist. On the stump, she talks a lot about freedom, and she says that to her, freedom rests on private ownership of property and the right to bear arms.

“Are we going to elect people that understand freedom, or are they, in their zeal to protect us, going to destroy those very pillars of freedom?” she asks.

Today's Digest

The Rattled State of Democrats

It was a telling glimpse into the state of mind of rattled Senate Democrats.

Worried that they were going to be skewered for pushing a jobs bill that was stuffed with business tax breaks and pork, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, pulled the plug Thursday on a rare bipartisan proposal, gambling both with the party’s best chance of posting a needed legislative win as well as with President Obama’s new push for cross-party cooperation.

The surprise move by Mr. Reid, partly in response to fears from lawmakers that they were going to take a pummeling on cable news, has put the future of the jobs legislation in question and showed how the criticism heaped on their health care plan and the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat have put Democrats in a protective crouch.

At the same time, Mr. Reid’s gambit puts pressure on Republicans to back elements they had already endorsed as part of the broader package, rolled out by top Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee, a note the White House sounded Friday.

“I think the legislation that Senator Reid will move when the Senate comes back into town will garner bipartisan support,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

Yet if Mr. Reid cannot assemble 60 votes to advance a slimmed-down measure he is proposing when the Senate returns from a 10-day recess on Feb. 22, he could be accused of turning a potential bipartisan victory into a Democratic defeat. He seemed ready to try to turn the tables on Republicans, warning them that they would be guilty of opposing popular provisions they were already backing as part of the broader, more costly bill.

Obama's ratings are crucial to the midterm fortunes of congressional Democrats

The latest polls underscore the depth of dissatisfaction with Washington around the country in the opening weeks of this election year. For nervous Democrats on Capitol Hill, nothing will be more important to their reelection prospects than how President Obama responds to the anger that's out there.

The new polls found anti-Washington and anti-incumbent sentiment today as great as it has been in many years. The deep recession, continued high unemployment and political polarization in Washington have put the country in a sour mood toward politicians. Disapproval of Congress hit 71 percent in the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

This has sent political strategists scrambling for historical analogies. What they see are similarities to 2006 and 1994, two midterm election years in which control of Congress changed hands. Anger at Washington was also quite high during the standoffs in the mid-1990s between the Republican-controlled Congress led by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and then-President Bill Clinton.

No two elections are identical, however. The Pew Research Center, under the direction of Andrew Kohut, issued its latest national survey Friday. The report called the level of anti-incumbent sentiment "as extensive as it has been in 16 years of Pew Research surveys." But it went on to note two important differences between the political climate of today and that of 2006 and 1994.

First is the public perception of the two parties. Today, Democrats are seen more favorably than are Republicans, although that margin has narrowed considerably in recent months. Through most of the 2006 cycle, the opposition party (then the Democrats) was seen more favorably than the incumbent party (the Republicans). In 1994, both parties had much more positive images than they do today.

Can Sarah Palin translate celebrity into real political power?

Sarah Palin has proved that she can draw a crowd. What she has yet to demonstrate is that she can translate the appeal of a phenomenon into a political force that can attract or mobilize sizable numbers of voters.

The former Alaska governor is the Republican Party's biggest celebrity. She has given voice to a grass-roots movement grounded in anger with Washington and President Obama's policies. But her political future remains in question. Is she presidential timber? A force only within the Republican Party? A protest candidate like George Wallace (minus the racial divisiveness) or Ross Perot?

"Sarah Palin will have to choose to be either the leader of a movement or the leader of a nation. She can't be both," said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. "Right now, she is a figure like [George] McGovern or [Barry] Goldwater, two candidates who led the most intense movements in our country's political history, but who couldn't win the middle."

If Palin harbors presidential ambitions, she has a huge mountain to climb. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 71 percent of Americans do not think the politician who was Sen. John McCain's running mate in 2008 is qualified to be president.

Those numbers are so daunting that some Republicans who otherwise admire what she has accomplished doubt that she will run in 2012. Others say that unless she can transform attitudes dramatically, she cannot hope to win a general election. Still, GOP strategist Phil Musser said, "if she ran for president today, she would be the Republican nominee."

Musser's comments are notable because he is an adviser to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who is eyeing a 2012 candidacy of his own. Palin's political future remains "very much an open question," Musser said, "but the intensity that she brought to the ticket in 2008 hasn't faded, and one could argue that perhaps it's been enhanced."

Insurer Delays Increase for California Customers

Under intense pressure from Washington and Sacramento, California’s largest for-profit health insurer delayed a double-digit rate increase by two months on Saturday, but expressed confidence that its new premiums would pass state scrutiny.

The state insurance commissioner, Steve Poizner, requested the delay on Monday after an estimated 700,000 individual policy holders began receiving notices from the insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, of increases, some as high as 39 percent. The increases, originally scheduled to take effect March 1, were suspended until May 1.

Mr. Poizner said his department needed time to determine whether the increase would violate state regulations that require insurers to spend at least 70 percent of premiums on health claims, rather than on overhead and profit. Absent that, he said he had no authority to reduce Anthem’s rates.

The Obama administration criticized the company relentlessly, arguing that the increases demonstrated the need for the health care overhaul now stalled in Congress.

“While a two-month delay offers some temporary relief,” said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, “what California families need is long-term health insurance security. This rate increase underscores the urgency of passing real health insurance reform.”

Mr. Poizner, a Republican candidate for governor, said in a conference call Saturday that he had hired outside actuaries to review Anthem’s rate filing. If the company is found in violation of the 70 percent rule, he said he would withdraw its license to sell individual policies in California unless it reduced its rates.

Surprise: The WSJ Thinks Its Time To Move On From Bush Admin Mistakes

Today's Wall St Journal:

Blame-Bush Tack Is Wearing Thin

Democrats are working hard these days to tell voters that the nation's economic problems were created by President George W. Bush. But that line of attack—which has buoyed the party significantly over the past four years—may be losing its edge.

In a string of recent elections, Democrats have tried to paint Republicans as Bush acolytes ready to lead a revival of his policies ... The results suggest voters are beginning to worry less about what Mr. Bush did, and more about what President Barack Obama will do to dig the economy out.

Indeed, most polls suggest there is little debate about which president should be blamed. In the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, 65% of voters agreed Mr. Obama had inherited the nation's economic problems. But by a 49% to 43% margin, voters also said they disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, underscoring how they have shifted responsibility for the issue to the Democratic president.

The changing dynamics could deny Democrats a powerful message in this year's midterm elections and lighten a yoke that has weighed on Republicans since they lost control of Congress in 2006.

Some Democrats are beginning to acknowledge that invoking the Bush name might not be effective anymore. It has "lost any relevancy and therefore any potency," said Paul Begala, a longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton ...

Forgive me, but I fail to understand the logic the WSJ used when they state

65% of voters think Obama inherited the bad economy from Bush

+

49% think Obama hasn't done a good job fixing the economy (eg, fixing Bush's mistakes)

=

The Dems will be wasting their time by laying blame where blame is due: on Bush

Now compare the WSJ's slant with the polling facts presented in yesterday's The American Public Is NOT Falling For The GOP's Spin; Both Parties Will Have Trouble In Nov:

• 31% of Americans think the Bush admin is responsible for the current state of the economy, 23% think Wall St, 13% think Congress and only 7% think the Obama admin is responsible
• 41% blame the Bush admin for the deficit; 24% blame Congress; only 7% blame the Obama admin

With the poor state of the economy being issues #1, #2, #3 in voter's minds, nearly five times as many people blaming Bush as Obama and only 7% blaming Obama, then it's hard for me to believe that Dems will not get any political mileage out of blaming Bush. 

So what's the WSJ's motivation to write a whole story based on such flimsy evidence?  I think they actually answered that question, and revealed their partisan goal, when they stated in the story:

Republicans, for their part, are saying it is time to move on.

White House Strategy Is To "Force Progress" In Congress

Wash Post:

President Obama has reached out to Republicans in recent weeks, acknowledging that he needs bipartisan support to effectively govern the country. But the White House and congressional Democrats are also hedging their bets with a plan to make a campaign issue of what they say is Republican intransigence.

The emerging strategy seeks to take advantage of the partisan stalemate in Congress over Obama's nominees and major policy initiatives, and to turn the page on a year when the White House failed to secure passage of complicated health-care and energy legislation.

The idea is to make Republicans either vote for a series of more modest bills identified as popular with the public or explain to constituents this fall why they opposed them.

The decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to offer a pared-down jobs-creation bill and dare the GOP to oppose it is the most visible sign of the plan so far. White House officials and congressional staff members say it will be followed in coming weeks by a House vote to lift the antitrust exemption for insurance companies, measures to assist small businesses and extend unemployment benefits, and a proposal to levy fees on Wall Street banks that received bailout money.

One senior White House official called the strategy an attempt "to force progress," at a time when polls show that the public wants bipartisan cooperation.

"If they support the measures, great," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. "But if not, the votes will show their hypocrisy and obstruction, which will demonstrate something in itself."

But the strategy carries risks for Obama and congressional Democrats ... Some of the measures the White House plans to push this year are not popular with all congressional Democrats, including the proposal to impose fees on large banks that accepted federal bailout money. And Democrats have also used some of the same arcane delaying tactics that they now criticize Republicans for employing, including Obama himself when he served in the Senate.

"If your public position is bipartisanship and your legislative stance is division, I don't think that works politically," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Working with Democratic congressional leaders, a White House senior staff heavy with Hill veterans has helped design a legislative strategy to regain the political initiative early in the election season. Obama made bipartisanship a key element of his State of the Union address, and since then he has appeared at a Republican policy forum and invited GOP leaders to meet with him to discuss the economy and health care. He has paired the overtures with more explicit criticism of Republican lawmakers for what he has called politically motivated opposition.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week showed that a clear majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the federal government is functioning during economic uncertainty and an enduring threat of terrorism. Most Americans place the onus on Republicans, with nearly six in 10 saying the GOP is not doing enough on important issues to compromise with Obama. He remains more personally popular than Congress even though Republicans have gained significant ground as the party perceived to be better able to manage major issues.

Senior administration officials say Republicans are responding to Obama's public pressure. At a Tuesday news conference, Obama singled out Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) -- without naming the senator -- for holding up dozens of executive-branch nominations to secure funding for two projects in his state. Obama threatened to fill some jobs with recess appointments while the Senate is adjourned for a week for the Presidents' Day holiday.

Shelby had lifted most of those holds by then, and on Thursday night the Senate approved 27 Obama nominees. In a statement, Obama noted sharply that dozens of nominees remain unconfirmed, although he backed off his threat to use recess appointments.

Earlier that day, two key Republican senators, Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), agreed to help pass financial regulatory reform legislation and a jobs bill, respectively. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the senators were "responding to both the political pressure of the president" and "to the political pressure from the American people."

Republican cooperation on the revised jobs bill is uncertain, even though it continues to include hiring incentives sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). In proposing the new bill, Reid told reporters, "Republicans have to make a choice. I don't know in logic what they could say to oppose this."

Republican Members Of Congress Are NOT Falling For The GOP's Spin

Wash Post:

A trio of House Republican retirement announcements over the past 10 days have sparked a debate between the leaders of the two major parties over whether the GOP is losing momentum in its quest to score major gains at the ballot box this fall.

With the three latest lawmakers choosing not to seek reelection in November, Republicans will have to defend 18 open seats and Democrats 14. The raw numbers contradict the conventional wisdom that Democrats would head for the sidelines after GOP Sen. Scott Brown's special election victory Jan. 19 in Massachusetts.

GOP strategists are brushing aside the retirement gap, saying that many of their House members see an improving political environment and are jumping ship to run for statewide office, and that other retirements are occuring in mostly conservative terrain that will be easy to defend. Democrats counter that the GOP retirements are a sign that most rank-and-file Republicans do not believe they will recapture the majority anytime soon.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Tex.) said that "not all retirements are created equal," adding that Democratic retirements are coming in far less friendly territory for the majority. "The fact of the matter is Democrats in swing districts are retiring because they know what November has in store for them," Sessions said.

"The fact that you have 10 percent of House Republicans retiring suggests they don't believe their own hype about taking back the House," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "If that was a realistic prospect, people would be running for office, not from it."

Dems Try To Undo The Supreme's Big Wallet Decision

NY Times:

Congressional Democrats outlined legislation Thursday aimed at undoing a recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and interest groups to spend freely on political advertising.

To accomplish that goal, the legislation would impose a patchwork of spending restrictions and disclosure requirements — many based in current laws.

The measure would greatly expand the scope of an existing ban on political commercials paid for by foreign corporations, ban political commercials paid for by government contractors or recipients of bailout money, and force corporations and unions to make public details of what they spend directly or through advocacy groups.

The legislation’s sponsors, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, said they wanted the measure enacted in time to limit the impact of the court’s decision in the case, Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, before the fall campaigns. “Otherwise the court will have predetermined the winner of the midterm elections,” Mr. Schumer said. “It won’t be the Republicans or the Democrats. It will be corporate America.”

Many of the proposals, like restrictions on foreign companies or government contractors, have populist appeal, but passage would require the vote of at least one Republican senator. Five current Republican senators — led at the time by Senator John McCain of Arizona — voted for the spending rules that the court chipped away, but not one has yet embraced the Democrats’ proposals.

The sponsors said they had developed the legislation to comply with the court’s opinion in Citizens United.

Several legal scholars said that the many disclosure requirements in the measure appeared to stand on firmer constitutional ground than the full bans on political commercials by foreign companies or government contractors. The court has frowned on speech restrictions aimed at specific speakers and leaned toward disclosure as a constitutionally permissible response to fears of corruption or undo influence.

Still, Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a leading legal critic of campaign-finance rules, noted that the court had often disapproved of indirect efforts to accomplish objectives it has already found unconstitutional — such as, in this case, banning political commercials paid for by corporations. If he were arguing to overturn the proposed law, Mr. Smith said in an interview, he would quote the sponsors’ denunciations of such spending “over and over.”

Some of the rules would impose far stricter regulations than those applied before the ruling. Current laws, for example, already ban “foreign” corporations from buying political commercials. The court’s majority left those rules in place, while signaling it might review them later.

The proposals would expand that ban to apply to any domestic corporation with at least 20 percent foreign ownership, any corporation whose board included a majority of foreigners, or any corporation where ultimate control of political decision-making was exercised by a foreign company or government.

Some of the measure’s disclosure requirements could also deter corporations from political advertising. If a corporation paid for a political commercial, the company’s chief executive would be required to appear at the end taking responsibility, just as political candidates must now do. If an advocacy group or trade association paid for a commercial, the biggest donor would be required to appear and the five biggest corporate contributors would be listed by name.

The proposals also seek other novel ways to force more disclosure of corporate and interest-group contributions to advocacy groups that buy political commercials. It would force corporations and interest groups to set up political spending accounts and file reports of their activities.

Mr. McCain, who is facing a conservative challenge to his re-election, has not had time to review the proposals, said his spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan. “Senator McCain still believes that it is the people who should speak and not the corporations in choosing their leaders,” she said, “But the Supreme Court has spoken.”

Poll: GOP Gaining Ground On Obama & Dems

Wash Post:

Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country's problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama's main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey paints a portrait of a restless and dissatisfied electorate at the beginning of a critical election year. More than seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, and as many say they're inclined to look for new congressional representation as said so in 1994 and 2006, the last times that control of Congress shifted.

Asked how they would vote in the November House elections, Americans split evenly -- 46 percent siding with the Democrats, 46 percent with the Republicans. As recently as four months ago, Democrats held a 51 to 39 percent advantage on this question.

Obama's overall approval rating is holding steady, with 51 percent of respondents giving him positive marks and 46 percent rating him negatively. On the big domestic issues -- the economy, health care, jobs and the federal budget deficit -- bare majorities of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing.

Only on fighting terrorism does Obama receive majority support for his performance, with 56 percent saying they approve. But the poll shows majority opposition to the administration's plan to try terrorism suspects in federal courts.

Changes in public attitudes were most apparent when Americans were asked whether they trust Obama or congressional Republicans to handle these issues. Last summer, the president enjoyed advantages of more than 20 points over the GOP on the handling of health care, the economy, the deficit and the threat of terrorism. Those leads have all slipped, reflecting both the partisan polarization that has colored the political landscape for many months and the sharp erosion in support for Obama among independents.

But there is about as much time between now and November as has elapsed since Obama held his June advantages. The president and his allies have started a new political offensive, seeking to rebound from the Democrats' loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by the late Edward M. Kennedy and salvage their effort to enact comprehensive health-care reform.

Obama has begun to try to appeal to voters who see Washington as broken by stressing his commitment to bipartisanship, while aggressively trying to rebut GOP criticisms of his policies. At the same time, he has sought to refocus his energy on the economy and job creation, which remains the public's top priority.

When compared with the early months of Obama's presidency, the GOP's overall gains are striking. A year ago, Democrats held a 26-point advantage on dealing with the big issues; that lead is now six points. At the one-month mark, Obama's lead over the Republicans on dealing with the economy was 35 points; it's now five points.

These findings illustrate why the political landscape looks increasingly favorable for Republicans to pick up House and Senate seats in November, with some handicappers predicting major gains of 25 to 30 seats and Republican House leaders expressing confidence that they can win the 40 seats they need to take back the majority. The president's political advisers say privately that some losses are likely but that they are looking to keep them to a minimum.

The poll offers some cautionary notes for both parties. The GOP's image has improved since last year, but a majority of poll respondents still see the party in an unfavorable light (52 percent unfavorable, 44 percent favorable). Fifty percent view the Democratic Party favorably, and 46 percent unfavorably. That marks a new low point for the party in Post-ABC polling.

Slim majorities of independents rate each party negatively, and sizable percentages of that group express skeptical views of both parties. Nearly three in 10 volunteer that they trust "neither" party to handle major issues, and a similar proportion hold unfavorable views of both parties.

Almost half of all poll respondents characterize their mood as generally "anti-incumbent," with just over a third saying they are "pro-incumbent." Two-thirds of independents say they would like to look around, the most to say so in polls since October 1994.

The question asking Americans how they plan to vote in House races, known as the generic congressional vote, is an imperfect predictor of elections, but the GOP gains here amplify the extent of the Democrats' slide since they won the House in 2006. Four years ago, Democrats led Republicans on this question by a wide margin.

Among independents who are registered to vote, it's now a 51 to 35 percent GOP lead on this question, a mirror image of the Democrats' advantage among this group of voters on the eve of the 2006 midterms.

GOP In, Dems Out, Of Wall Street's $ Favor

If the Dems were politically astute, they'd make sure everyone disgusted with Wall Street's behavior or who believes the GOP's interest in the little guy is more than skin deep knew of this NY Times story. I'm not going to hold my breathe.

This year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.

The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry’s campaign to thwart Mr. Obama’s proposals for tighter financial regulations.

Just two years after Mr. Obama helped his party pull in record Wall Street contributions — $89 million from the securities and investment business, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics — some of his biggest supporters, like Mr. Dimon, have become the industry’s chief lobbyists against his regulatory agenda.

Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s “buyer’s remorse” with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street “fat cats,” they may fight back by withholding their cash.

“If the president doesn’t become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support,” said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T. Mr. King is a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the biggest banks, and last month he helped represent the industry at a private dinner at the Treasury Department.

“I understand the public outcry,” he continued. “We have a 17 percent real unemployment rate, people are hurting, and they want to see punishment. But the political rhetoric just incites more animosity and gets people riled up.”

[Kelly then went on to suggest that riled up people should eat cake.]

A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on its political action committee’s contributions or relations with the Democrats. But many Wall Street lobbyists and executives said they, too, were rethinking their giving.

“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’ ” said a top official at a major Wall Street firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House. “We are not going to play that game anymore.”

Tea Partiers Try To Control Themselves

NY Times:

At the inaugural National Tea Party Convention here this weekend, gone were the placards that protesters carried last year with Mr. Obama’s face wearing a Hitler mustache or superimposed on the Joker. Gone, really, were any placards, unless you count the poster of Sarah Palin in her signature red jacket that hung from one of the wrought-iron balconies of the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center.

Organizers said that anyone “looking too crazy” would have been tossed out. They had a goal that turned out to be shared by pretty much everyone here: to turn the Tea Party into a serious political force, rather than the angry fringe group they say it had been branded as.

“The movement is maturing,” said Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, the social networking site that sponsored the convention. “The rallies were good for last year, because that’s what we could do last year. This year we have to change things. We have got to win.”

The goal is a electing a conservative Congress in 2010 and a conservative president in 2012. To that end, organizers announced the formation of a political action committee that they say could steer $10 million to conservative challengers this year.

And the convention tried to channel anger into what Mr. Phillips called “Electioneering 101.” “What we want people to do is to leave here connected with other activists so they can recruit good candidates, get candidates exposed to the voters and get voters to the polls,” he said. “If we just go out and hold signs and protest, that’s not going to win the election.”

Despite the convention and its neat PowerPoint presentations, the movement that began a year ago to protest government bailouts and health care legislation showed signs this weekend that it is still inchoate, diverse and almost defiantly leaderless.

“This movement doesn’t need a leader,” said Anthony Shreeve of the Tennessee Tea Party Coalition, which did not take part this weekend but staged a counter news conference outside. “It’s a ‘We the People’ movement.”

How to Get Our Democracy Back: Change The 'Fundraising' Congress

From Lawrence Lessig's article in the Nation:

A year into the presidency of Barack Obama, it is already clear that this administration is an opportunity missed. Not because it is too conservative. Not because it is too liberal. But because it is too conventional. Obama has given up the rhetoric of his early campaign--a campaign that promised to "challenge the broken system in Washington" and to "fundamentally change the way Washington works." Indeed, "fundamental change" is no longer even a hint.

Instead, we are now seeing the consequences of a decision made at the most vulnerable point of Obama's campaign--just when it seemed that he might really have beaten the party's presumed nominee. For at that moment, Obama handed the architecture of his new administration over to a team that thought what America needed most was another Bill Clinton. A team chosen by the brother of one of DC's most powerful lobbyists, and a White House headed by the quintessential DC politician. A team that could envision nothing more than the ordinary politics of Washington--the kind of politics Obama had called "small." A team whose imagination--politically--is tiny.

These tiny minds--brilliant though they may be in the conventional game of DC--have given up what distinguished Obama's extraordinary campaign. Not the promise of healthcare reform or global warming legislation--Hillary Clinton had embraced both of those ideas, and every other substantive proposal that Obama advanced. Instead, the passion that Obama inspired grew from the recognition that something fundamental had gone wrong in the way our government functions, and his commitment to reform it.

For Obama once spoke for the anger that has now boiled over in even the blue state Massachusetts--that our government is corrupt; that fundamental change is needed. As he told us, both parties had allowed "lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the system." And "unless we're willing to challenge [that] broken system...nothing else is going to change." "The reason" Obama said he was "running for president [was] to challenge that system." For "if we're not willing to take up that fight, then real change--change that will make a lasting difference in the lives of ordinary Americans--will keep getting blocked by the defenders of the status quo."

This administration has not "taken up that fight." Instead, it has stepped down from the high ground the president occupied on January 20, 2009, and played a political game no different from the one George W. Bush played, or Bill Clinton before him. Obama has accepted the power of the "defenders of the status quo" and simply negotiated with them. "Audacity" fits nothing on the list of last year's activity, save the suggestion that this is the administration the candidate had promised.

Maybe this was his plan all along. It was not what he said. And by ignoring what he promised, and by doing what he attacked ("too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in"), Obama will leave the presidency, whether in 2013 or 2017, with Washington essentially intact and the movement he inspired betrayed.

That movement needs new leadership. On the right (the tea party) and the left (MoveOn and Bold Progressives), there is an unstoppable recognition that our government has failed. But both sides need to understand the source of its failure if either or, better, both together, are to respond.

At the center of our government lies a bankrupt institution: Congress. Not financially bankrupt, at least not yet, but politically bankrupt. Bush v. Gore notwithstanding, Americans' faith in the Supreme Court remains extraordinarily high--76 percent have a fair or great deal of "trust and confidence" in the Court. Their faith in the presidency is also high--61 percent.

But consistently and increasingly over the past decade, faith in Congress has collapsed--slowly, and then all at once. Today it is at a record low. Just 45 percent of Americans have "trust and confidence" in Congress; just 25 percent approve of how Congress is handling its job. A higher percentage of Americans likely supported the British Crown at the time of the Revolution than support our Congress today.<Continue reading.>

Are The Tea Partiers A Movement?

Wash Post:

The 600 delegates at the National Tea Party Convention feel taxed to death, ignored by their elected representatives and the media, and appalled at the federal government's spending -- and there are millions of Americans just like them. Their anger has helped claim some political scalps, and they vow to "take back America." What is unclear to them, and to the political establishment watching warily, is how they might do this.

It's a critical moment for a movement that is unmistakably people-powered, that has been deliberately left leaderless to give voice to all frustrations. And although the mood here has been festive, even giddy, the fluidity of the group has been on full display.

Here was a California woman counseling people on how to register new Republican voters in their communities, but there were others who criticize the Republican Party as fiercely as they do the Democratic Party. Here attendees lashed out against the practices of the Washington establishment, but there a man from Memphis announced the formation of a political action committee. Here a former congressman delivered a fiery defense of America's "Judeo-Christian values," but there delegates walked out of a prayer session they thought crossed a line.

The convention, which concludes Saturday night with a keynote address by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), in some respects has had the feel of a big blind date. The delegates chatted each other up for a year online, checking out each other's ideas and grievances, and they thought they might have something in common. Now they are spending a couple of days together, at a very nice resort, nibbling hibachi beef and browsing elegant "tea bag" jewelry, to see whether they like each other enough to be together.

Jeff Link, a luxury jewelry maker from New York, says that President George W. Bush started the fiscal policies that ruined the economy and that President Obama is making them worse, a belief shared by many here. But, he says, looking at the crowd, which is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged, "it saddens me not to see this gathering more diverse."

Jim Linn, an electrical engineer from San Diego, says that strict term limits must be imposed to "get control of Congress" and that the Constitution must be interpreted in ways that match his understanding of the Founders' intent. That would mean scrapping a lot of the amendments, he acknowledges, but not Nos. 2, 10, 16 and 17. He worries that a deeper depression is coming, and he tells his friends to store food, even though he knows it makes him sound like a crackpot.

Neither Can Put Out The Fire (cartoon)

Neither party can do it as shown in, A Peek Behind The Curtain At How Washington Really Works

;