A Blue View

Mitt Romney Hypocritically Touts His Health Plan While Dissing Obama's Nearly Identical Plan

Boston Globe:

Mitt Romney offered an enthusiastic defense last night of the comprehensive health care law he helped create four years ago in Massachusetts, even as he pointed to crucial distinctions between it and a similar national program enacted last week by Democrats.

"Overall, ours is a model that works,’’ Romney said in response to a question after a speech at Iowa State University. “We solved our problem at the state level. Like it or not, it was a state solution. Why is it that President Obama is stepping in and saying ‘one size fits all’ ’’?

Obama’s signing of a federal health care law has put Romney — a possible 2012 presidential candidate — again on the defensive over the most significant achievement in his brief career in public office. The former governor, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate again for president in 2012, had labeled Obama’s bill “unhealthy for America’’ and has called for its repeal, even as conservative critics say it was modeled on Romney’s policy.

Yesterday, Romney proudly acknowledged that his bill included a set of new insurance regulations that “President Obama always likes to talk about in his health care plan — the good stuff.’’ Romney trumpeted the achievement of near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, while declining to acknowledge that the mechanism he used to achieve that goal — a requirement that individuals buy private insurance — is the same as the much-criticized mandate of Obama’s plan.

The accounting of “some similarities’’ and “some differences’’ between the two systems was a more delicate comparison than Romney has offered recently, when he wholly rejected the idea that the two had anything significant in common.

“People often compare his plan to the Massachusetts plan,’’ Romney said in an interview last month. “They’re as different as night and day. There are some words that sound the same, but our plan is based on states solving our issues; his is based on a one-size-fits-all plan.’’

In the last week, many health care policy specialists, Democrats celebrating the bill’s passage, and Republicans condemning it have come to another conclusion. The difference between the two systems, they say, is slim.

“Basically, it’s the same thing,’’ said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney and Obama administrations on their health insurance programs. A national health overhaul would not have happened if Mitt Romney had not made “the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform.’’

After Congress last week passed the national plan, considered the most expansive social legislation to become law in nearly a half-century, Romney wrote it was an “unconscionable abuse of power’’ that “will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt.’’ Romney’s political action committee, a leading supporter of Republican candidates nationwide, has begun a campaign to support those who voted no as part of what it calls a “Prescription to Repeal.’’

The Hillary Barack Relationship Today

NY Times:

On a snowy Thursday shortly before her weekly meeting with President Obama last month, Hillary Rodham Clinton got a distressing phone call: her husband, Bill Clinton, was in a hospital with chest pains and needed an urgent heart procedure.

Mrs. Clinton kept her appointment with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office, taking her customary seat on the yellow sofa as the two talked about her coming trip to the Persian Gulf, where she planned to turn up the heat on Iran over its nuclear program.

“No one had any idea” that she might have had a personal worry, said a senior White House official who was present. Afterward, Mrs. Clinton raced for a shuttle flight to New York to see her husband.

But the fact that she first spent 45 minutes plotting Iran strategy with the man who beat her in a divisive primary campaign shows just how far Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have come since the bitter spring of 2008, when he sniped that her foreign-policy credentials consisted of sipping tea with world leaders, and she scoffed that his consisted of living in Indonesia when he was 10.

Sixteen months after Mr. Obama surprised nearly everyone by picking her as secretary of state, the two have again surprised nearly everyone by forging a credible partnership. Mrs. Clinton has proved to be an eager team player, a tireless defender of the administration, ever deferential to Mr. Obama and careful to ensure that her husband, the former president, does not upstage her boss.

Mr. Obama has been solicitous of Mrs. Clinton, yielding to her at times in internal debates, even showing signs of adopting some of her more hawkish world views.

They now joke about their “frenemies” status and have made gestures toward each other’s families. When Mr. Obama learned that Chelsea Clinton had become engaged, he turned to Mrs. Clinton and asked, “Does she want a White House wedding?” a senior official recalled. (Mrs. Clinton declined, saying the offer was “sweet” but would be “inappropriate.”) And when Mrs. Clinton traveled to Honolulu in January, she paid tribute to Mr. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in a speech she gave while looking over a garden dedicated to Ms. Dunham.

Still, there is none of the deep familiarity or the tight bonds — the round-the-clock, back-channel access — of their predecessors, Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush, or going further back, James A. Baker and the first President Bush or Henry A. Kissinger and Richard M. Nixon.

“Hillary Clinton is the secretary of state,” said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official who has written about the shaping of foreign policy. “The question now is whether she becomes a real adviser, and whether he trusts her.” <Continue reading.>

Romney As A Marker To Show How Far Right The GOP Has Shifted

Johnathan Chait:

James Pethokoukis has a column pointing out that Mitt Romney's support for TARP is going to cost him support in a contested Republican primary. Likewise, Tim Noah had a terrific piece in Slate pointing out that Romney's health care position in Massachusetts was nearly identical to President Obama's. (Noah has a fun quiz mixing and matching Obama health care quotes with Romney health care quotes, and challenging readers to identify who said what.)

Romney is a useful marker in the frightening right-wing turn of his party. The GOP has been moving rightward for the last thirty years, but that shift has dramatically accelerated just since the fall of 2008. After Obama won the presidency, Republican officeholders and conservative pundits decided almost-unanimously was that the party's failure had stemmed from being too moderate.

The sudden ideological isolation of Romney is a case in point. During the 2008 GOP primary battle, he took a lot of heat for his former socially liberal positions. But his health care plan in Massachusetts attracted very little controversy. It was a classic moderate Republican plan, and one could very easily imagine Romney implementing something like it -- which is to say, something resembling the Obama plan -- had he won the presidency. Now it's seen as socialism, if not the end of American freedom. Likewise, the Bush administration and most Republicans favored TARP, but it, too, is now widely seen among Republicans as some dystopian attack on free enterprise ripped straight out of an Ayn Rand novel.

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.

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.”

The Woman Who Doesn't Know What Her Priorities Would Be Is Running For President

Andrew Sullivan I:

Of Course She's Running For President

It's her divine mission, as she sees it. And it would be a function of "divine intervention" as she explicitly said last night.

Ambers, previously a skeptic, comes around. Given the complete lack of talent among GOP ranks and their universal fear of taking on Palin supporters, it seems obvious to me she will likely be the next GOP nominee. My hope, of course, is that this a) forces what was once a serious governing party to nominate a responsible fiscal conservative in the primaries and fight back against the madness; or b) drives every last sane conservative to realize they have no choice but to back Obama; or c) that Palin so alienates the GOP elites by primary challenges that they somehow manage to quash her and she runs as a "rogue" third party George Wallace style candidate, and helps re-elect Obama by an electoral college landslide.

This is so far into the future, of course, that it's pure speculation.

She may also implode as more scrutiny exposes who she  and her dangerous, radical and clearly controlling husband really are. But I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything in her past, any lie or scandal, that could at this point deter her supporters. If she were found guilty of a Watergate-level iniquity, they'd see it as a frame-up by the liberal elites (as many, remember, did Nixon). And those elites, out of cowardice and fear, never nipped this in the bud when they could have; and that bitter old cynic, McCain, gave her the platform she needed. 

So we have here a truly Coughlinite movement, headed by an Eva Peron figure, eager to use the Dolchstoss card to bring out the kind of voters Rove always believed could eventually crush even the most mobilized democratic GOTV operation.

Know fear.

Andrew Sullivan II:

Palin's Cheat Sheet

Having mocked president Obama for using a TelePrompter - not long after he made mincemeat of Republicans with no such TelePrompter at their retreat - she had to scribble down her priorities as president on her palm for the truly tough-as-nails Q and A she had to endure for ten minutes or so last night.

Written on her hand:

"Energy"

"Budget [crossed out] (Cuts)"

"Tax"

"Lift American spirits"

My favorite detail is "[Budget] Cuts". Which just about sums up the real Tea Party agenda on spending. But it also suggests that she was told in advance of the questions she would be asked, one of which was what would be you priorities if you were elected president? Now think about this: she had to write on her hand her priorities as president.

 

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.>

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

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Poll: 57% Think Corp Contributions Are Free Speech Yet 76% Want Limits Placed

Gallup:

Americans' broad views about corporate spending in elections generally accord with the Supreme Court's decision Thursday that abolished some decades-old restrictions on corporate political activity. Fifty-seven percent of Americans consider campaign donations to be a protected form of free speech, and 55% say corporate and union donations should be treated the same way under the law as donations from individuals are. At the same time, the majority think it is more important to limit campaign donations than to protect this free-speech right.

The free-speech question elicits uncommon agreement across party lines. More than 6 in 10 Republicans and Democrats believe campaign donations are a protected form of free speech, but fewer than half of independents (48%) agree.

Public attitudes about the issues involved in the court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision come from a nationwide Gallup survey sponsored by the nonpartisan First Amendment Center. The poll was conducted Oct. 1-2, 2009, shortly after the high court heard concluding arguments in the case.

Americans Favor Limits on Contributions

While corporations and unions are still barred under a 1907 law from making donations directly to federal candidates, the court's decision Thursday allows organizations to run ads in direct support of or opposition to specific candidates; it also overturns 2002 McCain-Feingold restrictions on how close to elections corporate-sponsored ads can run.

"More specifically, 61% of Americans think the government should be able to limit the amount of money individuals can contribute to candidates and 76% think it should be able to limit the amount corporations or unions can give."

The 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case underscores the tension between protecting free speech and giving certain groups or individuals undue influence over election campaigns. Another poll question asked Americans to weigh the two considerations and say which is the greater priority for them: placing limits on how much individuals, corporations, and unions can contribute to campaigns or protecting the rights of these groups to freely support political campaigns. By 52% to 41%, Americans say placing limits on contributions is paramount for them.

More specifically, 61% of Americans think the government should be able to limit the amount of money individuals can contribute to candidates and 76% think it should be able to limit the amount corporations or unions can give.

Thus, it would appear that, regardless of Americans' support for the principle that campaign donations are a form of political speech, and that corporations and unions should get the same treatment as individuals, they are likely to have significant concerns about the practical effect of the court's ruling, that is, more corporate and union money being poured into elections.

Bottom Line

Prior to now, while corporations and unions could run issue-based ads, they could not spend a penny on candidates, except through political action committees. Now that they can run such ads, the country could be in store for major changes in the way campaigns are conducted. Does the ruling square with Americans' views on campaign contribution limits? In some respects, yes. In others, it depends on whether Americans decide that independent expenditures are tantamount to political "contributions" or are merely free speech.

Activist Judges Reversing Of Decades Old Precedent On Campaign Finance Laws "leaves Democrats with few options"

The activist judges on John-I'm-just-an-umpire-Robert's court have reversed 83 years worth of precedent and impacted equally long standing laws in 24 different states yet it's not clear what Congress can do about it. From the  Wash Post:

Frustrated Democrats began laying plans Friday to chip away at a landmark Supreme Court decision unleashing corporate expenditures in political campaigns, but the ruling's broad sweep will make it difficult to stem a tidal wave of new spending in this year's pivotal midterm elections.

Major corporations and advocacy groups immediately began devising ways to take advantage of the 5 to 4 decision, which concluded that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals and, therefore, can spend as much company money as they wish to oppose or support individual political candidates.

The ruling, announced Thursday, opens a significant new channel of funding for major corporations and their lobbyists in political campaigns. It is seen as particularly helpful for Republicans because of their party's traditional bonds with industry groups and its strong opposition to financial regulations proposed by the Obama administration. Labor unions, which strongly support Democrats, are also likely to take advantage of the ruling.

The decision further weakens the power of the major political parties, which must adhere to campaign restrictions enforced by the Federal Election Commission. Trade organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, by contrast, are now free to use money from their members to pay for ads explicitly targeting lawmakers who vote for legislation the groups do not like.

Rob Jordan, vice president for federal and state campaigns at the conservative FreedomWorks, said his Washington-based group could reap particular benefits from a portion of the ruling that threw out restrictions on running political ads in the weeks leading up to an election.

"We expect to have upside potential in the multimillions, and we expect to be major players," Jordan said of his group's plans for the midterms. "This will probably put ads on our radar screen more than they would have been."

Democrats hurried Friday to lay out possible legislative responses to the ruling, even while acknowledging that only a constitutional amendment -- which is exceedingly unlikely -- could strike at the heart of the decision. Most campaign finance experts agreed.

"There is not much that Congress can do," said Robert K. Kelner, a Republican lawyer at Covington & Burling. "It's hard for me to see any obvious route for campaign finance reformers to take aside from tinkering around the edges."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), the former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee head, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, are working with the White House to craft a new campaign finance bill. They are almost certain to call for strengthened disclosure requirements for companies that directly sponsor ad campaigns, and they may push for requiring shareholders to approve political expenditures by publicly traded companies. They are also studying ways to prohibit campaign spending by corporations such as American International Group or General Motors that received federal bailout money, as well as companies that have federal contracts or registered lobbyists.

Democrats are also eyeing restrictions on U.S. companies that are subsidiaries of foreign-owned corporations; they believe the public will be outraged by the possibility of foreign influence in U.S. election campaigns. The high court's majority opinion avoided addressing possible implications for foreign-owned firms, which are barred from direct participation in U.S. elections but can use their American subsidiaries to form political action committees.

The subsidiaries now appear free to spend as much as they wish on ads targeting specific U.S. election candidates, and critics said the opinion could be applied even more broadly ...

Opposing the ruling fits neatly into the Democrats' recent embrace of populist themes, including efforts to crack down on corporate excesses. "The voices of average Americans could be drowned out by Wall Street banks, big oil, health insurance companies and other special interests," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement this week.

Rep. Dan Lungren (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House committee that oversees federal elections, said his party has little to fear from such a message. "Republicans are on the side of the First Amendment," he said ...

Executives could expose themselves to shareholder lawsuits if they spend money in ways unrelated to their core business. "I think corporations are going to be very careful in using this," said Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge and regulator who now advises corporations.

Schumer and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) eventually hope to persuade Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a past sponsor of campaign finance reform with Feingold, to join the Democrats' effort. McCain issued a statement Thursday saying he was "disappointed" by the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, but his office declined to comment Friday on whether he would seek legislative redress.

Opponents of the decision hope that a bipartisan consensus will materialize.

"It may just be that this decision is so outrageous that it will be the catalyst to get the kinds of reforms we needed," said Mark McKinnon, a former campaign adviser to President George W. Bush who supports new restrictions.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John B. Larson (Conn.) also has introduced a bill -- the Fair Elections Now Act -- that would set up a voluntary system in which congressional candidates would abide by certain restrictions in exchange for public financing of a portion of their campaigns. The measure has 126 House co-sponsors, and Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) has offered the same bill in his chamber.

Such a system would allow candidates to "run for office without any big money from Wall Street PACs or lobbyists," said David Donnelly, an official with the Public Campaign Action Fund.

Activist Supreme Court Decision: "Dramatic, sweeping, fundamental, seismic—all those adjectives apply to this alteration of the political landscape"

It's hard for me to believe that any news this week could be worse than what happened in Mass on Tuesday. Then the Supreme Court decided American democracy could be auctioned to the highest spender. At least the Mass setback will operate over a relatively short time frame, what the Supreme Court just did will impact us for decades, if not longer. What an unbelievably awful week.

From Katie Connelly:

It's hard to know just yet what the precise impact of the Supreme Court's landmark decision on campaign-finance reform this morning will be. But one thing is for sure: it will be huge. Dramatic, sweeping, fundamental, seismic—all those adjectives apply to this alteration of the political landscape. In all likelihood, Republicans will be the biggest beneficiaries. They've had a long history of taking care of their corporate buddies. And with the Administration today opening a new front in their battle on Wall Street, you can bet the financial industry will happily raid their bursting cash coffers to support Republicans in November.

The decision is a stunning display of judicial activism from a chief justice who promised to engage in anything but. Remember all his promises to respect precedent? Apparently he doesn't. As E.J. Dionne writes: "Remember Roberts saying judges were like umpires calling the balls and strikes? In this case, he and his colleagues canceled the game altogether and decided on their own what the final score would be." Roberts expanded the scope of the initial case before him, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to take on a century's worth of campaign-finance regulation. Dahlia Lithwick describes it perfectly: "The court had to reach out far beyond any place it needed to go....This started off as a case about a single movie. It morphed into John Roberts's Golden Globe night."

For their part Republicans are defending the ruling as rolling back infringements of free speech. They're wrong. The First Amendment protects an individual's right to free speech. Corporations are not individuals, although in this ruling, the Supreme Court equates the two.

Free Speech Now Auctioned To Highest Bidder (cartoons)

Steve Schmidt Reveals Just How Ill Prepared & "Mentally Limited" Palin Really Was

This 60 Minutes segment reveals how inappropriate a VP choice Sarah Palin really was:

Politico's coverage of the interview:

John McCain’s top campaign strategist said in an interview Sunday that Sarah Palin was dishonest as the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee and that her untruths have done long-term damage to her public image.

“There were numerous instances that she said things that were – that were not accurate that ultimately, the campaign had to deal with,” said Steve Schmidt in an interview broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “And that opened the door to criticism that she was being untruthful and inaccurate. And I think that is something that continues to this day.”

Schmidt cited an ethics report on the then-Alaska governor from her home state on an investigation into whether she had improperly used her government position.

“She went out and said, you know, ‘This report completely exonerates me,’” Schmidt said. “And in fact, it – it didn’t. You know it’s the equivalent of saying down is up and up is down. It was provably, demonstrably untrue.”

While the GOP strategist has previously criticized Palin, he has never before leveled such a sharp critique of her integrity – and certainly not on a national television ...

Her debut speech at the GOP’s convention won wide acclaim, but immediately afterward it was clear to McCain’s aides that she had significant deficiencies.

Heilemann said that even after crash-course tutorials by campaign aides following the convention, Palin was still woefully uninformed about basic policy issues.

“[S]he still didn’t really understand why there was a North Korea and a South Korea,” Heilemann told the program’s Anderson Cooper. “She was still regularly saying that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11.”

Schmidt said Palin was ignorant about many matters of national security policy, but allowed that any of the vice-presidential candidates tapped would have needed tutoring on such issues.

But he said she hurt herself in the now-infamous interview with CBS’s Katie Couric by not adequately preparing and letting herself be distracted by what the authors describe as an obsession about her political standing in Alaska.

This Web Extra clip highlights how inept the McCain campaign was about its "most important decision," the selection of the VP candidate:

And the most damning of all: this Web Extra clip reveals that some McCain staffers were considering an unheard of request if McCain was elected president: to have Palin step down if McCain won because they were "terrified" of this "mentally limited" person being a heartbeat away from the Presidency:

Dems Consider Downgrading Role Of Superdelegates In Primaries

The Caucus:

A group of Democratic leaders said Wednesday that it has recommended revamping the party’s presidential primary calendar and eliminating the much-talked-about superdelegates from the presidential nomination process.

The Democratic Change Commission — established in the wake of the grueling 2008 nomination battle between President Obama and his now secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton — has proposed that the elected officials and party higher-ups known as superdelegates cast their votes based on state primary or caucus results. In recent battles for the Democratic nomination, superdelegates, also called unpledged delegates, were not obligated to follow the primary or caucus result in their state.

“Openness, fairness, and accessibility are central to our ideals as Democrats, and the commission’s recommendations to reform the delegate selection process will ensure that voters’ voices and preferences are paramount to our process of nominating a Presidential candidate,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

The commission, a group of 36 headed by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, also recommended that voting not begin until at least Feb. 1 in future presidential election years. In 2008, Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3, while the New Hampshire primary was held on Jan. 8.

The commission’s recommendations now head to the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee

2012 Disaster Movie: President Sarah Palin

From SNL:

Conservatives Succeed! The GOP's Future Electoral Chances Are Permanently Reduced.

After publishing this cartoon (The Problem For The GOP In NY's 23rd) this morning, it seems the Conservatives have gotten their wish: Scozzafava drops out of NY-23 special election. And with the Right's vote no longer split between their candidate and the Republican, the Democrat is likely to lose in this historically Republican voting district.

I can see it now. Right wing bloggers and MSM blowhards are going to trumpet how their strategy of enforcing ideological purity has won, how the district will now be represented by a 'true' conservative and that this is the way to move forward.  And so the GOP will start nominating even more strident, ideologically rigid, out-of-the-American-mainstream candidates than before.

And they'll keep losing to the Democrats ... as they have since this idiocy started in 2006.

Cheney / Palin 2012 And The GOP's Emerging 'I Told You So' Strategy

Interesting Olbermann segment.  The 'I Told You So' discussion starts around 4:50:

Sunday Afternoon Relaxation

Though this was released on Nov 8, 2008 I just found out and thought it would be fun, and fitting in light of Teddie's death, to watch this feel good montage:

The Momentous Supreme Court Case That You've Probably Never Heard Of

From the NY Times:

The Supreme Court will cut short its summer break in early September to hear a new argument in a momentous case that could transform the way political campaigns are conducted.

The case, which arises from a minor political documentary called “Hillary: The Movie,” seemed an oddity when it was first argued in March. Just six months later, it has turned into a juggernaut with the potential to shatter a century-long understanding about the government’s ability to bar corporations from spending money to support political candidates.

The case has also deepened a profound split among liberals, dividing those who view government regulation of political speech as an affront to the First Amendment from those who believe that unlimited corporate campaign spending is a threat to democracy.

At issue is whether the court should overrule a 1990 decision, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates. Re-arguments in the Supreme Court are rare, and the justices’ decision to call for one here may have been prompted by lingering questions about just how far campaign finance laws, including McCain-Feingold, may go in regulating campaign spending by corporations.

The argument, scheduled for Sept. 9, comes at a crucial historical moment, as corporations today almost certainly have more to gain or fear from government action than at any time since the New Deal.

The court’s order calling for re-argument, issued in June, has generated more than 40 friend-of-the-court briefs. As a group, they depict an array of strange bedfellows and uneasy alliances as they debate whether corporations should be free to spend millions of dollars to support the candidates of their choice.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its usual allies are on opposite sides, with the civil rights group fighting shoulder to shoulder with the National Rifle Association to support the corporation that made the film.

To the dismay of many of his liberal friends and clients, Floyd Abrams, the celebrated First Amendment lawyer, is representing Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, a longtime foe of campaign finance laws.

“Criminalizing a movie about Hillary Clinton is a constitutional desecration,” Mr. Abrams said.

Most of the rest of the liberal establishment is on the other side, saying that allowing corporate money to flood the airwaves would pollute and corrupt political discourse.

“This is rough business,” said Fred Wertheimer, a veteran advocate of tighter campaign regulations. “We’re not dealing with campaign finance laws. We’re dealing with the essence of power in America.”

Is The GOP Climbing Up The Cliff? Challenges Are Plentiful

Are they climbing up the cliff they recently jumped off of? Maybe thinks the Wash Post:

After looking as if they would drift into irrelevance, Republicans are showing signs of being energized. The party's grass-roots activists, at times moribund during last year's presidential campaign, have mobilized against President Obama's agenda, vastly outnumbering Democrats at some of this month's health-care town hall meetings.

After badly trailing the campaign of then-Sen. Barack Obama in raising money last year, the Republican National Committee has raised more than the Democratic National Committee this year, figures released last week show. Ahead of next year's elections, several potentially strong GOP candidates, including popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, have decided to run for seats in the Senate. In this year's gubernatorial races, polls show the GOP candidates ahead in both New Jersey and Virginia.

What has emerged in the last few months is a more confident GOP. Republicans, who earlier this year thought they could not block a Democratic health-care reform bill and should focus on simply stopping one of its more liberal components -- a government-run insurance option -- have set their sights on forcing the president to dramatically scale back his proposal ...

"Republicans are digging out of a pretty big hole and we're not yet back to parity, but it's headed in the right direction," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a leading figure in the party who is considering a 2012 presidential run. "The mood of the grass roots has gone from one of discouragement and confusion in some cases after the last election cycle to one of concern about the direction of Obama to one of hope and optimism for a Republican comeback."...

Democrats are dismissive of any GOP gains.

Sarah Palin Butt Of Joke In New Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica Parker Trailer

Becoming the butt of jokes is not exactly good for one's political career. At about the 1:20 mark:

Successful Campaign Lessons Being Applied To Health Care Fight

From the Wash Post:

At this point in the debate, the president's team says several things are clear. One is that Obama has taken a hit this summer because of health care and other factors. Another is that he is not continuing to fall. "There's no doubt he took a dip, but things are stable," Axelrod said. Better news about the economy, he argued, has helped cushion the effects of the health-care debate. "There's been some stabilization."

A third thing White House officials say is clear is that they need to start winning the war of words in preparation for legislative bargaining this fall. The president has tried to regain the offensive with town-hall-style meetings in New Hampshire, Montana and, late Saturday, in Colorado. In sessions in New Hampshire and Montana, Obama faced few of the fireworks that some lawmakers have encountered, but those meetings provided helpful forums for refuting false claims about the legislation and for rebuilding public support for acting on health care this year.

In private, the president has been even more intensely focused on developing a strategy for winning the health-care debate once Congress returns next month. He held two lengthy meetings with top advisers last week -- one devoted to legislative strategy, the other for a detailed review of the policy options that could form the basis for a compromise bill.

Obama agreed to the request of Senate Finance Committee Chairman  Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to give the "Gang of Six" (three Democrats and three Republicans) until Sept. 15 to produce a bipartisan compromise. After that, Obama is prepared to move in other directions -- although not necessarily by abandoning some of the ideas the committee has been discussing. The committee's work will probably be central, whether or not Republicans are on board.

"The president's view is they wanted another month and a half. We gave them a month and a half," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said. "We had a final meeting with them. We hope that process will achieve something, but if it doesn't, that's not the end of getting health care done."

John Podesta, who heads the progressive think tank Center for American Progress, said Obama must be ready to move when that mid-September deadline arrives. "My view is either they have to have a deal or he has to say, 'This is what we're going to do,' " he told reporters Friday. "Whether that happens with Republican support or not, I think this thing can't drift all the way through September."

The president and his team are receiving lots of advice from allies frustrated that the White House has not been more aggressive in firing back at reform critics and in attacking a strategy they think is designed to bring down Obama's presidency. These allies fear he has lacked the passion necessary to rally public support and has been too passive in giving Republican congressional leaders a pass for some of the most outrageous attacks by opponents.

There are two moments from the presidential campaign that provide some insight into why Obama and his team are handling the debate as they are.

In fall 2007, Obama was under considerable pressure to attack Hillary Rodham Clinton. She had a substantial lead in the polls and his campaign was treading water. What was needed, some of his nervous allies argued, was a vigorous assault on Clinton.

In September 2008, Obama faced another round of criticism from his Democratic allies. This came after Republican  John McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate and the polls began to move in McCain's direction. Advice flooded into the Obama campaign, and the second-guessing from outside reached extraordinary levels.

In the first case, Obama resisted the harshest recommendations. He found a way to draw clear contrasts with Clinton without, as Robert Gibbs -- then his campaign communications director, now his White House press secretary -- said at the time, "kneecapping" his rival. Obama thought that a sharp turn into negative politics of the kind advocated by some allies would cost him more in the long run.

In the second instance, Obama's team made clear it wasn't ready to panic even if some allies were. Campaign manager David Plouffe said famously that it would not be influenced by "hand-wringing and bed-wetting" from inside the Democratic family. Privately, however, Obama ordered advisers to step up their games and he pledged to do the same.

Much the same appears to be happening now. Obama's team is resisting advice to take a harsh line against the angriest of the protesters and toward Republican leaders who appear to be encouraging those citizens. In large part, that's because Obama doesn't feel comfortable adopting that posture. But he is reportedly frustrated that his message hasn't broken through. He is using his August road show to recalibrate -- something he has often done in the past when struggling with his message.

"The passion in Washington for polling and this notion that every day is Election Day is not one we share," Axelrod said. "That is exactly the psychology that has made it impossible to deal with big challenges before. I guarantee you the president is not sitting in his office poring over polling data. . . . You asked what his state of mind is. His state of mind is, he was elected to try to solve big and stubborn issues and that's completely where his focus is."

That worked for Obama as a candidate. Will it work for him on an issue as complex, personal and politically charged as health care?

Palin's Death Panel?

What Ever Happened To Chuck Hagel?

Though he was a very active Obama supporter during the campaign (just enter his name in A Blue View's search box at the top left to see what I mean) he's been quiet since the election. The Wash Post provides an update:

Former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel (R), a senior administration official-in-waiting either later this term or in President Obama's second term (if there is one), is taking another step into Obama's national security team. We're hearing Hagel is in line to co-chair the important President's Intelligence Advisory Board (formerly known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board).

Hagel, who is a longtime pal of Vice President Biden and who toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during the campaign, already has been named to replace former House speaker Newt Gingrich on the Defense Policy Board, run by former deputy secretary of Defense John Hamre. The 16 members of the nonpartisan intelligence board, all unpaid, resigned during the transition so a new board could be appointed by Obama.

The board, which usually acts in secrecy, is given access to key intelligence information and is charged with giving the president an objective analysis of the quality of that information. Prior chairmen have been folks such as former Bush I national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, former New Hampshire senator Warren Rudman, former House speaker Tom Foley, Gen. Maxwell Taylor and former Johnson administration secretary of defense Clark Clifford.

The Score So Far: 38 To 4 (Democratic To Republican States). Texas & Mississippi Are Now Swing States!

From Gallup:

This map shows each state's relative party strength ... in the first half of 2009, which primarily covers the time since Barack Obama took office as president ...

The Democratic total represents the percentage of state residents who identify as Democratic, or who identify as independent but when asked a follow-up question say they lean to the Democratic Party. Likewise, the Republican total is the percentage of Republican identifiers and Republican-leaning independents in a state ...

States in which one of the parties enjoys a 10 or more percentage point advantage in leaned identification are considered solid supporters of that party. States with between a five- and nine-point advantage are considered leaning toward that party, and states with less than a five-point advantage for one of the parties are considered competitive.

As was the case in Gallup's analysis of 2008 yearly data, most states are currently Democratic in their party orientation, with the greatest number (30, including the District of Columbia) classified as solidly Democratic, with an additional 8 states leaning Democratic.

Meanwhile, only four states can be considered solidly Republican -- Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska, with Alabama falling into the leaning Republican category.

That leaves a total of eight states that are competitive in terms of party identification, with none showing a party advantage of greater than two points. These include Mississippi (+1 Republican), North Dakota and Nebraska (even), and Kansas, Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, and Montana (all +2 Democratic).

It is important to note that these categories only apply to a state population's party leanings and are not necessarily indicative of a party's electoral strength in that state. Election outcomes are decided on party support (which, as shown here, typically shows a Democratic advantage) but also turnout among party supporters (which typically works in the Republicans' favor).

The party strength totals for the first half of 2009 are similar to what Gallup reported earlier this year based on 2008 data. Compared to that report, there has been a net gain of two leaning Democratic states and a net loss of two competitive states, but no net change in the number of solidly Democratic, solidly Republican or leaning Republican states.

William Shatner Reads Sarah Palin

Americans' View Of Palin In New Poll: 53% Unfavorable, 40% Favorable

From the Wash Post (poll details):

As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares for the next stage of her political career, a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of her, and there is broad public doubt about her leadership skills and understanding of complex issues, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Last year's Republican vice presidential nominee remains a deeply polarizing figure, and there are warning signs for her as she emerges as a possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. While she is still widely popular among those in her party, she has lost ground among Republicans generally and among the white evangelicals who are so critical in the early presidential primaries.

Overall, the new poll found that 53 percent of Americans view Palin negatively and 40 percent see her in positive terms, her lowest level in Post-ABC polling since she first appeared on the national stage last summer as  Sen. John McCain's running mate.

The dip in Palin's favorability comes as she gets ready to leave office Sunday with about 18 months remaining in her term and plans to turn her attention to national politics. Palin, 45, has said she intends to campaign for other like-minded candidates, and speculation has been rampant that she may seek the GOP nomination to oppose President Obama.

She debuted at last year's Republican National Convention as a popular figure, with nearly six in 10 Americans holding a favorable opinion of her. But public confidence in her dropped as the November election neared, and it has slipped even further in the months since.

Republicans and GOP-leaning independents continue to rank Palin among the top three contenders in the run-up to 2012, however, with 70 percent of Republicans viewing her in a positive light in the new poll. But her support within the GOP has deteriorated from its pre-election levels, including a sharp drop in the number holding "strongly favorable" impressions of her.

And while Palin's most avid following is still among white evangelical Protestants, a core GOP constituency, and conservatives, far fewer in these groups have "strongly favorable" opinions of her than did so last fall.

Democrats, meanwhile, continue to express deeply negative opinions of Palin, with more than three-quarters expressing unfavorable views, including 56 percent who feel that way intensely. Among independents, 40 percent view her favorably and 51 percent unfavorably, the survey shows.

Perhaps more vexing for Palin's national political aspirations, however, is that 57 percent of Americans say she does not understand complex issues, while 37 percent think she does, a nine-percentage-point drop from a poll conducted in September just before her debate with now-Vice President Biden. The biggest decline on the question came among Republicans, nearly four in 10 of whom now say she does not understand complex issues. That figure is 70 percent among Democrats and 58 percent among independents ...

Palin By Comparison

Palin Recreates Rosie the Riverter & John Paul Johns

Dave's Top Ten Messages On Sarah Palin's Answering Machine

Watch it.

			"Hi, It's George W. Bush. Why didn't anyone tell me resigning was an option?"
			"It's John McCain -- why did I call?"
			"Mark Sanford here. Ever been to Argentina?"
			"I'm calling from Geico to see if you want to renew your dogsled insurance"
			"It's Letterman -- we still cool?"
			"McCain again. Still no idea why I called"
			"Hi, it's the dry cleaner. Having trouble getting caribou blood out of your Prada jacket"
			"Hi, it's Sarah...oops...dialed my own number"
			"Schwarzenegger here. If you want a job, California could use a new governor"
			"Hey, it's McCain. Who would've thought you'd retire before I did?"

Gallup Polls On Obama, Sarah's Future, & Americans Becoming (Sort Of) More Conservative

Before we get to the main poll, here's an interesting one released just today:

Obama Averages 61% Job Approval in June

U.S. President Barack Obama averaged a 61% job approval rating for the month of June, down from his 65% average in May, and one point below his previous monthly low of 62%, recorded in March ...

Republicans account for most of the change in Obama's approval ratings from January through June, with their approval shifting downward from 40% in January to 25% today. Most of the change among Republicans came between January and March; Republicans' assessments of Obama have stayed fairly stable since.

Then, this poll released yesterday tends to bolster the next poll below and shows once again how wrong the CW can be:

Many Americans Still See Political Future for Palin

Four in 10 U.S. voters say they would be very (19%) or somewhat likely (24%) to vote for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for president in 2012. After her resignation last week, 70% say their views of Palin have not changed and 53% describe media coverage of her as “unfairly negative.” ...

Palin's abrupt resignation with 18 months left in her first term as governor has probably raised more questions than answers about her political future. But the move has apparently not affected Americans' basic opinions of her to a large degree. As political observers eagerly await her next career move, roughly 19% of U.S. voters say they would be very likely to vote for her should she run for president in 2012, and another 24% say they would be somewhat likely to do so. While still the minority of all voters, it is perhaps not a bad start for an election still three years away, and arguably could put Palin in a better starting position than some of the lesser-known GOP candidates who may also seek the party's presidential nomination.

Finally, from the progressive perspective, a somewhat sobering poll released on July 6th (read the whole thing to get the complete, complicated picture):

Ideologically, Where Is the U.S. Moving?

Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say their views have grown more conservative

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.

These findings, from a June 14-17 Gallup Poll, somewhat conform to Gallup's annual trends on Americans' self-defined political ideology. Thus far in 2009 (from January through May), 40% of Americans call themselves conservative, up from 37% in 2007 and 2008, and the highest level since 2004.

However, the results are conspicuously incongruous with the results of the 2008 elections, in which the Democratic Party won the White House for the first time in eight years, and increased its majority control in the U.S. House and Senate. Rather than suggesting an upturn in conservatism, the elections, the tattered image of the GOP, depressed identification with the Republican Party, and President Obama's broad popularity have many in and outside of the Republican Party wondering whether the country has outgrown the GOP's largely conservative platform.

Conservatives currently outnumber liberals in the population, and thus, conservatism has a natural advantage on any question asking the public to choose between these standard ideological labels. So that's part of the explanation for the incongruity.

Indeed, in the latest survey, 38% of Americans describe their political views as conservative, and among this group 58% say their views have grown more conservative in recent years. Although a large segment of liberals (42%) say they have become more liberal, far fewer Americans in the poll (18%) describe themselves as liberal -- thus providing little counterweight to the rightward movement of conservatives. At the same time, political moderates are twice as likely to say they have grown more conservative as opposed to more liberal (33% vs. 18%), thus further tipping the scales in favor of conservatism.

Americans' Views, Now vs. 2004

While it is valuable to know how Americans perceive their own ideological development, another means for evaluating such change is to assess how public opinion may have shifted on specific issues over the years.

Sarah Palin Political Cartoons

As predicted earlier, there are lots of these out there ...

   

 

 

 

   

Palin Cartoons

The first of what I assume will be many cartoons:

 

Reactions To Palin's Resignation

Ed Rollins:

Daniel Larison:

The GOP really is in freefall. The governor most Republicans like and want to support is apparently dropping out of politics, and Mark Sanford remains in office despite scandal and disgrace. Though there is otherwise really nothing in common between them, Palin is every bit as finished politically on a national level as Sanford is ...

I keep seeing these odd Richard Nixon references in commentary on this resignation. As Alex Massie notes, Richard Nixon was already a fairly significant, well-established political figure by 1960. Just as important, he was the losing candidate in a close race in which he was the presidential candidate, and so far as I know Nixon never resigned from a major office before his term was up unless it was to take a more prestigious post. To make a Nixonian comeback, it might be helpful if Palin’s career were in any way comparable to Nixon’s.

The DNC:

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way - her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.

Stephen Stromberg:

Sarah Palin, as you may well have heard, is resigning as governor of Alaska later this month in order, reports The Post’s Chris Cillizza, to focus on a 2012 presidential bid. And, in one stroke, she reconfirms many of the reasons she will never be president.

First, the timing: It’s not just that there’s more time between now and the next presidential election than has yet elapsed since the last one. There’s more time between now and the next midterm election than has passed since last November. Perhaps never has a presidential hopeful so poorly disguised her overambition. Sure, it’s tough to campaign and govern a state so far away from Iowa. But she could have simply decided not to run for reelection next year. This makes her look incapable of juggling multiple tasks at once.

Which points to a larger problem: judgment skills, or, rather, her questionable possession of such. From her disastrous campaign interviews to her self-aggrandized insistence that she speak on election night to her inability to decide whether or not to speak at GOP functions to her incompetence at handling the press to her gratuitous spat with David Letterman, she has demonstrated a volatile temperament and an incapability to think strategically. As John Weaver, a long-time McCainite, told The Post this afternoon: “We've seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that.”

All together, the picture is of a politician with obvious abilities to connect to ordinary folks -- but one who is also arrogant, unstable and unwise. Her latest move makes the image even clearer.

Josh Marshall's Meditation for the day:

John McCain and his shrewd judge of character.

Andrew Sullivan:

I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two. The librul media will be blamed for everything on her inexorable path to becoming a Fox News celebrity. Maybe a reality show? Someone hire her for The View!

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

Palin Resigns

First watch her press conference yourself:

Then read the NY Times interestingly snarky account:

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska abruptly announced on Friday that she was quitting at the end of the month, shocking Republicans across the country and leaving both parties uncertain about whether she was leaving national politics or laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

Ms. Palin, 45, the Republican vice-presidential nominee last year, was supposed to serve through the end of 2010; she said she would cede control of the state to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell on July 26.

Speaking outside her home in Wasilla, Ms. Palin offered conflicting signals about her intentions and her motivation.

In her tone and some of her words in an often-rambling announcement, she sounded like someone who was making a permanent exit from politics after what her friends have called a rough and dispiriting year.

But her remarks, delivered in a voice that often seemed rushed and jittery, sounded at times like those of a candidate with continued national aspirations, as when she suggested she could “fight for all our children’s future from outside the governor’s office.”

Ms. Palin said that she had decided not to seek re-election when her term expires at the end of next year and that, given that, she did not think it was fair to her constituents to continue in office ...

The news conference came at the end of a week in which a Vanity Fair article about Ms. Palin brought renewed focus on many of the criticisms of her as a candidate for vice president under Senator John McCain of Arizona and set off a new round of recriminations among Mr. McCain’s advisers about her competence.

But while Ms. Palin has been derided by much of the Republican elite, she remains extremely popular with many grass-roots members, especially social and religious conservatives.

Ms. Palin’s announcement was another unusual marker in what has been a tumultuous year for this first-term governor since Mr. McCain turned her into a national figure overnight by surprising his own party and naming her his running mate. It also underscored the instability in the Republican Party as it tries to find a strategy and voice in the wake of losses in 2008.

Ms. Palin made the announcement standing with her family. At one point she described how her children had voted in favor of her doing this — “Four yeses and one ‘Hell, yeah!’ ” she said — suggesting that the family had had enough of the scrutiny that had made them tabloid staples.

But at another point she invoked a military quotation, misattributing it to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in what seemed to be an effort to wave aside any suggestion that she was abandoning the fight. “He said, ‘We’re not retreating; we are advancing in another direction,’ ” she said. (The remark was actually said by Maj. Gen. Oliver Prince Smith.)...

Quitting midterm, however, is highly unusual. It set off speculation about what led her to leave so abruptly. One interpretation among Republicans was that she had simply underscored how erratic she is as a politician.

“Good point guards don’t quit and walk off the floor if the going gets tough,” said John Weaver, a former senior strategist for Mr. McCain. “Today’s move falls further into the weirdness category; people don’t like a quitter.”

But some of her supporters argued that this could actually provide Ms. Palin an opportunity to recover from what has been a damaging year for her, and prepare herself for the 2012 race. She has been enmeshed in continuing battles with members of both parties in her Legislature.

The way Ms. Palin presented her decision seemed to leave open the possibility that she had been motivated by any one of a number of reasons, including being sick of politics and wanting to get out or taking pre-emptive action in anticipation of some embarrassing disclosure.

“It caught everybody by surprise,” said a former Alaska House majority leader, Ralph Samuels, a Republican who is contemplating a run for governor in 2010. “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies, and everyone is asking the same questions: Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it? Don’t have a clue.”

Sarah Palin Is Not Going Away

Three disparate snippets to whet your appetite for this long piece in Vanity Fair:

Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.

The pattern is inescapable: she takes disagreements personally, and swiftly deals vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.

Palin is at once the sexiest and the riskiest brand in the Republican Party. Her appeal to people in the party (and in the country) who share her convictions and resentments is profound. The fascination is viral, and global. Bill McAllister, until recently Palin’s statehouse spokesman, says that he has fielded (and declined) interview requests from France, England, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, Germany, Bulgaria, “and probably other countries I’ve forgotten about.” (Palin, keeping her distance from most domestic media as well, also declined to talk to V.F.). Whatever her political future, the emergence of Sarah Palin raises questions that will not soon go away. What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

New Hampshire Legalizes Marriage Equality - Implications For 2012 Race

First, the Wash Post report:

New Hampshire this afternoon became the sixth state to allow gay marriage, after Gov. John Lynch (D) signed a revised bill approved by both houses of the legislature.

The state senate passed the bill by a vote of 14 to 10, and the house followed later with a vote of 198 to 176. Lynch immediately signed the bill, which included revisions he had insisted upon. The changes give protections from lawsuits for organizations that refuse to participate in same-sex ceremonies on religious grounds.

The passage of the bill now leaves Rhode Island as the only New England state that does not allow same sex marriage. Iowa is the only other state with legal gay marriage, and moves toward same sex unions are advancing in New York and New Jersey.

Then, the AP discusses how this might play out in the next presidential election cycle given the importance of Iowa & New Hampshire in the selection process and the differences--particularly among Republicans--between the two states:

Iowa and New Hampshire traditionally offer presidential candidates vastly different political landscapes when they seek their party nominations. Yet legalizing gay marriage, as both states have now done, is unlikely to have much impact in 2012 because of party dynamics and the different emphasis voters place on social issues.

Gay marriage became legal in Iowa in April after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that denying gays the right to marry is discriminatory. In New Hampshire, the Legislature approved a gay marriage bill Wednesday that will take effect Jan. 1.

While some see opposition to gay marriage easing nationwide, that's not the case among Iowa Republicans -- especially the relatively small number who dominate the state's leadoff precinct caucuses. Social and religious conservatives dominate that group, and their opposition to gay marriage is solid.

To be competitive among Iowa Republicans, presidential candidates likely will have to toe that line, key strategists said.

"I'm guessing that most of the serious candidates will be for a constitutional amendment to define marriage," said David Roederer, a veteran activist who managed John McCain's campaign in the state. "I don't think there's going to be much of a difference" ...

That isn't the case in New Hampshire, where Republicans tend to be more fiscally conservative and socially moderate. New Hampshire has allowed civil unions since 2007; Iowa never allowed them.

Romney Begins His 2012 Campaign By Going After Obama

From the Wash Post:

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney roundly condemned the approach President Obama has taken to redefining the nation's relationship with the rest of the world, describing it as a "tour of apology" in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation yesterday.

In an address in which he sought to lay out his broad vision for national security -- a $50 billion annual increase in the defense modernization budget, "regime-crippling sanctions" against North Korea and full funding for a missile defense system -- the Republican saved his strongest criticism for the president.

"This is the time for strength and confidence, not for apologizing to America's critics," Romney said at one point, adding later that "arrogant, delusional tyrants cannot be stopped by earnest words and furrowed brows."

Romney's speech is part of a stepped-up effort by the 2008 contender for the GOP presidential nomination to draw contrasts with Obama ahead of what many expect will be another White House run, in 2012.

Less than 24 hours before hitting Obama on defense and national security, Romney was on "Fox News Sunday" taking issue with the administration's plan to put General Motors into bankruptcy to restructure the company ...

Although Romney is derided by many Democrats, he is one of the most popular figures among the Republican faithful, many of whom believe his work on behalf of  Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the GOP presidential nominee last year, proved his mettle.

Republicans also regard Romney as perhaps their most effective economic messenger, able to draw on his success in the private sector in combating Obama.

Cheney/Gingrich 2012

Could the GOP really be so astoundingly dumb? Luckily, the answer, for the time being, seems to be yes.

It's Time For The F.E.C. To Enfoce Campaign Finance Laws

A Blue View reader Peggy passed along a link to a new report on the "unprecedented campaign by the Republican Federal Election Commission members to shut down enforcement of the campaign finance laws." Its conclusion:

The FEC has been taken over by three Republican Commissioners who have established an overwhelming record of ideological opposition to enforcing the campaign finance laws.

It is making a mockery of the nation's campaign finance laws and setting the stage for participants in the 2010 congressional elections to ignore the laws as they so choose.

The first opportunity to address this problem now exists, with the expiration of Commissioner McGahn's term on the FEC. It is essential to replace McGahn with a Commissioner who believes in carrying out the FEC mandate to enforce the campaign finance laws.

Citizens are entitled to have the campaign finance laws enforced with the same kind of commitment and impartiality that apply in the case of laws applicable to them. Members of Congress and other federal candidates should not benefit from a double standard when it comes to enforcing the campaign finance laws.

President Obama should seize the moment and begin remaking the FEC to help ensure that we have fair and effective enforcement of the campaign finance laws in the future. 

The Obama Campaign, Updated

From the NY Times:

What would become of Barack Obama’s groundbreaking campaign organization, Obama for America, was one of the larger unanswered questions after the 2008 presidential election. The group has now become Organizing for America, but whether it will have anywhere close to the impact that it did during the campaign remains to be seen.

Watch their video report. Read the related, earlier post: Obama's Grass-Roots Campaign Has "Little" Impact On Budget Debate.

Iowa Decision Could Push Next GOP Presidential Nominee To The Right

The Iowa Supreme Court decision to overturn marriage discrimination laws could have some serious, and IMHO, fatal implications for the Republican Party's chances in 2012.  Here's Jeff Zeleny:

An Iowa Supreme Court decision on Friday to approve same-sex marriage could help influence the debate – and the tenor – of the Republican presidential primary in 2012.

Even though the next presidential race is more than three years away, prospective Republican presidential candidates have already passed through Iowa. If the state retains its traditional position as the first stop on the road to the White House, the legalization of gay marriage will almost certainly play a role in the Iowa caucuses.

Why? Critics of the Supreme Court’s decision are pushing for a constitutional amendment to be placed on the Iowa ballot, which would turn the issue over to the judgment of Iowa voters. But the earliest this would likely happen is November 2012, which is the date of the general election in the next presidential race.

The 2008 presidential campaign unfolded largely without much attention being paid to the social issues that have often caused internal and external divides among Republicans and Democrats. But is the Iowa court ruling going to push the next crop of Republican presidential candidates to the right, forcing them to run on social issues?

Red, Blue & Gray

There are many intentional links  between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln (kicking off in Springfield, using the same Bible, etc.) but here's a very sobering, unintentional one from the Wash Post:

Obama carried every state that Lincoln won 148 years earlier -- and the percentage of the white vote that he received, or didn't receive, in all the states that existed in Lincoln's day suggests that 144 years after Appomattox, the legacy of slavery and the Civil War continue to cast a heavy shadow over the South.

Hillary Clinton Roasts Bill At Her Swearing-In

Don Rickles watch out!

Rosa Sat, Martin Walked, Barack Ran, So All Our Children Could Fly

Thanks to Kathy for forwarding this along.  It was written a few days after November 4, 2008 and was inspired by this now popular quote:

Rosa sat, so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barack ran so all our children could fly

Those Jet Rides Are Going To Be Fun

From Newsday:

Samantha Power, who earned notoriety for calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster" while working to elect Barack Obama president, will take a senior foreign policy job at the White House, The Associated Press has learned.

Officials say Obama has tapped Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, a job that will require close contact and potential travel with Clinton, who is now secretary of state. White House officials wouldn't provide details of Power's new role. Power, a Harvard University professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has specialized in global humanitarian issues, made headlines last March when she told a Scottish newspaper that Clinton would stop at nothing to defeat Obama in the presidential primaries.

"She is a monster, too," Power said. "She is stooping to anything."

Obama Inauguration Front Pages From Around The World

Here are a few; many more can be seen here.

          

Peggy Noonan On The Inaugural

Writing in her WSJ column (hat tip to Kathy):

The whole experience the next few days was marked for me by a new or refreshed knowledge that those who had not felt included or invited in the past were now for the first time truly here, and part of it all, in great numbers. And I suppose the fact that this would never have come about without the support, the votes, of the traditionally invited and included gave a special air of inclusiveness to the event. There was great kindness between people and true friendliness. No one was different. Everyone, whatever their views or votes, was happy ...

The MSNBC booth was near the Mall, and all day and night hundreds of people gathered and cheered the anchors and guests, and jumped up and down when the cameras scanned the crowd. People were holding cell phones and shouting "Mom, that's me on TV, in my white jacket, I'm waving!" The audio of the shows was boomed out in big speakers, and whenever a guest said the word "Obama" or "America," the crowd cheered. It was nice. It wasn't just Mr. Obama they were cheering, it was America. There was a low-key patriotic fervor. Someone asked if it was like the Reagan inaugural in 1981, and I said yes, but as if the feeling of those days had spilled out of homes and parties and onto the streets, where all could see it. A friend said, Was it Jacksonian? Yes, but nothing got trashed. It was a very special thing, this inaugural. No one who made it to Washington this week, old hand or new, ever experienced anything quite like it, all the peace and warmth in the bitter cold.

Every time a nation does something big, the members of that nation who are 4 feet tall—the children who are 10 and 12—are looking up and absorbing. Forty years ago, in 1968, that grim and even-grimmer-in-retrospect year of war protests, race riots, taunts and assassinations, our 4-foot-tall citizens would have been justified in thinking that America is a scary place marked by considerable unhappiness and injustice. But the past week they could look up and see either harmony and happiness or peaceful acceptance and resolve. Washington was a town full of families and full of kids this week, and they must have picked up this: Anything is possible in America. We decide to go to the moon and soon it's "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." We decide to cure polio and soon it's a nation of Wilma Rudolphs, running. We struggle over civil rights and then the young black man raises his hand and says "I, Barack Hussein Obama . . ." We so rock. That's what 4-foot-tall Americans must have learned this week. A generation that will come to adulthood in 2020 and 2030 and has in their heads this sense of optimism and America-love will likely be stronger for it. It augurs well.

The Blue Tide: Only 5 Red States Left

From a fascinating new Gallup analysis of their 2008 tracking poll data:

An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from 2008 finds Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaii to be the most Democratic states in the nation, along with the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming are the most Republican states.

... In order to rank the states on partisanship, Gallup analyzes "leaned" party identification by state. This measure adds partisan-leaning independents to the percentage who identify with either of the parties. Thus, the Republican total includes Republican identifiers and independents who lean Republican, and the Democratic total likewise includes Democratic identifiers and independents who lean Democratic ...

The accompanying map shows party strength by state for 2008, ranging from states that can be considered solidly Democratic (a Democratic advantage in party identification of 10 percentage points or more) to those that can be considered solidly Republican (a Republican advantage in party identification of 10 percentage points or more). States in which the partisan advantage is less than 5 points in either direction are considered "competitive."

 

What is immediately clear from the map is that residents of the United States were very Democratic in their political orientation last year. In fact, Gallup has earlier reported that a majority of Americans nationwide said they identified with or leaned to the Democratic Party in 2008.

All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia had Democratic party affiliation advantages of 10 points or greater last year. This includes all of the states in the Northeast, and all but Indiana in the Great Lakes region. There are even several Southern states in this grouping, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky. An additional six states had Democratic advantages ranging between 5 and 9 points.

In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter.

The most balanced political states in 2008 were Texas (+2 Democratic), South Dakota (+1), Mississippi (+1), North Dakota (+1), South Carolina (even), Arizona (even), Alabama (+1 Republican), and Kansas (+2 Republican).

Nate Silver provides some commentary: