US Elections

Blogbook: May 9, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

9 May 2012

• The Senate has changed since the days of Lyndon Johnson, says Ezra Klein.
• Will Mitt Romney be hurt by the unpopularity of Congressional Republicans?
• You can't take the politics out of politics, says Jamelle Bouie.
• American food changes when it leaves America, Ted Burnham discovers.
• Charlotte has shown how sprawling cities can nurture thriving downtowns, says Tom Eitler.

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Interview: Nicole Hemmer on Dick Lugar's loss in Indiana

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

9 May 2012

Big news from the Hoosier State today: The longtime senator from Indiana, Dick Lugar, was defeated in the Republican primary by challenger Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer. It's a pretty big deal for an esteemed incumbent in a safe seat to be turfed out by his own party, so I turned to Centre post-doctoral fellow Dr Nicole Hemmer to explain what happened in the contest and what it means. Not only is Nicole an expert in conservative politics — she's at the Centre writing a book about the conservative media's role as a source of leadership for the conservative movement — she's also a native of Indiana. In our discussion, she tells me why Lugar lost, what it means for the Republican Party, and how it will affect the elections this November.

Jonathan Bradley: Senator Lugar has served in the Senate since 1977. What turned Indiana Republicans against him?

Nicole Hemmer: It’s a mistake to think Indiana Republicans as a whole have turned against Lugar. Primaries attract the most motivated part of the base, and as in 2010, it appears that base continues to be strongly anti-Obama and, just as importantly, strongly anti-incumbent. As we’ve seen this past week in Greece, Great Britain, and France, there is a “throw-the-bums-out” attitude permeating electorates in countries that continue to struggle economically and politically. Add in Lugar’s age (he’s approaching 80) and the staggering amount of outside money flowing into the Mourdock campaign from groups like FreedomWorks and other SuperPACs, and the defeat of the six-term senator becomes more understandable.

What are your impressions of the man who defeated him, Richard Mourdock? How would Mourdock differ from Lugar as a politician?

The press has tagged Mourdock a “Tea Party” candidate, and insofar as he is very conservative, that holds. But he’s not exactly an outsider. At 60, he’s spent twenty years toiling on behalf of the state GOP, earning a reputation for party loyalty. Like tea-party candidates, however, Mourdock is what columnist Michael Gerson calls a “Rejectionist Conservative.” He wants to go to Washington to block things, not put forward reforms. Mourdock looks at the current political stalemate in the nation’s capitol and sees compromise as a problem rather than a solution. He’ll fit right in with the Tea Party caucus, but as an obstructionist he’ll make it even more difficult to enact solutions to the nation’s problems.

Senator Lugar’s defeat follows other recent successful primary challenges of Republican incumbents, such as the 2010 defeat of Utah’s Bob Bennett. How is this tactic of “primarying” affecting the Republican Party?

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North Carolina bans gay marriage

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

9 May 2012

North Carolina already had a statutory ban on gay marriage, but voters have just added an amendment to the state constitution, I guess so that gay folks know for extra certain that they can't get married round those parts:

North Carolina voters have passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage today via a statewide ballot measure, according to the Associated Press.

... Amendment One declares that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state” — vague language that opponents say could threaten domestic partnership protections for all couples while closing the door to any sort of same-sex unions.

This is, I suppose, a reminder that the expansion of civil rights isn't an uninterrupted and automatic process. Things have been looking up for same sex marriage supporters of late: multiple states have passed laws permitting gay marriage, and still more recognising civil unions. Polls show a majority of Americans are in favour of marriage equality. Courts have shown themselves to be at least sympathetic to arguments that some prohibitions on gay marriage are unconstitutional. President Obama's "evolving" opposition to the issue has gone, in under four years, from a workable compromise to something that puts him to the right of his party.

In this climate, the North Carolina vote feels like a throwback to 2004, when a wave of states passed anti-marriage amendments to their constitutions and the religious right looked more powerful than it has at any time since. The passage of Amendment One is disappointing, just as the passage of California's Proposition 8 was in 2008. But by and large, America is rapidly accepting the legitmacy of same sex marriage, and today's news from North Carolina doesn't change that.

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Blogbook, May 8, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

8 May 2012

• Obama has no real advantage in the electoral college, says Steve Kornacki.
• Has Ben Bernanke run out of ways to help the economy?
• Why is the Obama administration cracking down on medical marijuana?
• The Pentagon stopped working on The Avengers because it was too unrealistic.
• Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party's strongest candididate yet, says Conor Friedersdorf.

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What's the wrong kind of campaign donation?

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

8 May 2012

Greg Sargent reports that some of President Obama's supporters are withholding donations from him because they're dissatisfied with his stance on certain gay rights issues:

Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over President Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser’s office tells me. In some cases, I’m told, big donations are being withheld.

[...]

Now these and other donors are beginning to withold money from Priorities USA, the main pro-Obama super PAC, out of dismay over the president’s decision. (Some of these donors have already maxed out to the Obama campaign, I’m told.) It’s the first indication that areas in which Obama is at odds with gay advocates — and in fairness, his record on gay rights has been very good — could dampen overall fundraising.

On one hand, this is democracy in action: a politician's base is refraining from offering him their support — in this case monetary — because they dislike his policies. And here, it's even for what i see to be a good cause: the federal government should not be contracting with businesses that discriminate against Americans on the basis of their sexuality. 

But isn't this also the exactly kind of seamy situation campaign finance reform is supposed to prevent? Some well-heeled activists are trying to influence a politician not with votes, but with dollars. Even though it's not bribery, these donors clearly think their money can buy favourable policies. (Or, more precisely, favourable policies can buy their money.)

Which is the problem with even worthy attempts to reduce money in politics. The Supreme Court has received much mockery for its overweening endorsement of money as equivalent to speech, in situations such as these the two are related, albeit not identical. That doesn't mean campaign finance reform shouldn't  be attempted. But it does mean that separating free speech from abuses of the democratic process isn't as straightforward as proponents of good government might hope.

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Does America want a CEO president?

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

8 May 2012

Kevin Drum:

As it happens, I'm not sure that Romney's business schtick is really such a good one for him. After all, when was the last time America elected a president whose background was primarily in business? That would be — never. I mean, sure, Bush Jr. rounded up investors for a baseball team and Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, experiences that they used as part of their resumes, but they basically ran as politicians. The last person to seriously run as a businessman was Ross Perot, and that didn't work out so well.

Good point, but just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean it can't happen in the future. Forget Perot; when was the last time a major party had a candidate with a solid business background run for president? Politicians — particularly high ranking ones like presidential candidates — tend to have political backgrounds for just the same reason university professors tend to have academic backgrounds.

That said, I'm more inclined to count George W. Bush's business background than Drum is. Sure, he got the nomination based on his record as Governor of Texas, but Bush was often referred to as the "first MBA president." And how did running America like a business work out? It resulted in eight years of deficit spending, lax regulation, tax cuts, and other business-friendly policies — and ended up in the worst recession since the 1930s.

EDIT: Of course, Mitt Romney isn't just a successful businessman. He's a former governor who spearheaded a successful health care program that became the basis for a national reform. That's not a record he wants to run on though.

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Blogbook: May 7, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

7 May 2012

• Ezra Klein predicts how a second Obama term might look. 
• Cutting taxes won't do anything to reduce unemployment, argues Bruce Bartlett.
• Was the backlash against Muslims after 9/11 exaggerated? Conor Friedersdorf says no.
• Hispanic turnout could be low in 2012, finds Ronald Brownstein.
• Jeff Weiss eulogises Adam Yauch.

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Blogbook: May 4, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

4 May 2012

• The Richard Grenell resignation says a lot about Mitt Romney, says Jonathan Cohn.
• Today's jobs report will probably be lousy, reports Brian Beutler.
• Al Qaeda: terrible at media.
• On Afghanistan, Obama has changed since 2008, but not too much.
• Matt Yglesias explains why everyone in politics thinks everyone else is extreme.

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"Maybe they'll send us to jail after all"

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

4 May 2012

Jeff Himmelman's New York story unearthing some possible misrepresentations in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's account of the Watergate scandal starts slow, but is well worth your time. Here's the money quote:

When I had a conference call with Carl and Bob last week to ask them to comment on Z’s identity, they conceded that she was a grand juror, but insisted that Carl hadn’t known it when he first went to visit her and said they’d disguised her only to protect their source. They said they’d long since forgotten the episode. “This is a footnote to a footnote,” Bob protested. But perhaps the most telling moment had occurred when I reached Carl on his own, earlier that day. Right before we hung up, he had said, wryly, “Maybe they’ll send us to jail after all.”

Z, it turns out, was a member of the grand jury investigating the break-in and it was illegal for her to speak with the reporters about the trial. Woodward and Bernstein, for their part, say Himmelman is wrong to think this is a significant revelation.

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That old "party of small government" canard

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

4 May 2012

Alfred Soto flags a curious result in a recent Pew survey, which purported to find that Republicans have higher levels of political knowledge. Pew:

Republicans fare substantially better than Democrats on several questions in the survey, as is typically the case in surveys about political knowledge. The largest gaps are in awareness of which party is more supportive of reducing the size and scope of the federal government (30 points) and which party is more conservative (28 points).

Soto:

The party of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush generally supports reducing the size of the federal government? I’m sorry: I fell asleep and forgot when Reagan reduced the deficit and eliminated the Department of Education; and when Bush stopped keeping the Iraq war off the books and said no to No Child Left Behind and tax cuts.

Alfred's right. This is one of my hobby horses, but it's worth repeating: Republicans repeatedly claim to be the party of small government, but there is simply no evidence to suggest that is what they are. Government spending grew under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, as did the federal deficit. When people tell Pew that the GOP is not more supportive of reducing the size and scope of the federal government, it's not because they're politically uninformed, it's because they're responding to the complete lack of evidence for the claim.

(As for the survey's larger finding that Republicans are better informed: probably true! Republicans tend to be wealthier and wealthier people tend to be better informed on civic issues.) 

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