Crack Brain Zealot For Democracy

Happy Health Care Day!

It's been nearly a month since I've posted an update here - blame my dissertation! blame Twitter! blame the slow pace of progress in the Senate! - so long that I've now got 100's of items saved in my Feed Reader for future comment. At this point, there's obviously no way I can get to all of them, but given that the end of the decade is fast approaching... and given the historic nature of today's vote in the Senate... I feel like I have no choice today but to try. So let's get to it!

On Health Insurance Reform:

We're nearly there people! The bill's not perfect, but no bill ever is. Social Security was far from perfect when it first passed. Medicare and Medicaid were far more modest than they are today. Civil Rights legislation was nowhere near perfect when it was first adopted. It took decades of fighting to create robust protections for our nation's parks and forests. Why? Because this is how democracy works. It is a method and a process, not an outcome. We fight. We argue. We talk. We convince. We stand up. We act. And then we do it all over again, each and every day, until it is time for the next generation to take the lead in the fight.

Is it messy? Yes. Is it contentious? Yes. Because it is supposed to be. Because it needs to be. If the fight was easy, it wouldn't be a fight. The status quo, no matter how wretched, never easily gives way. Creating change requires more energy than defending stasis. Know this. Understand it. Accept it. And never, ever let it prevent you from doing what needs to be done.

I understand why some people on the left are unhappy with this bill. But I cannot for the life of me figure out why they think its smart politics or policy to oppose it, or worse, to join with the most hideous elements on the right in an effort to see it killed. On that count, I'm with Nate: "Progressives Are Batshit Crazy To Oppose The Senate Bill." And with Josh: "In real politics, there are no opt-outs, only cop-outs." And with Max, with a nod to Matt, who wrote:

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth--that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of all!' has the calling for politics.

To repeat myself, this bill isn't perfect. But it is, as John Chait wrote today, "the most significant American legislative triumph in at least four decades." And, as KDrum wrote, "the biggest progressive advance in my adult life." And, as John Cohn wrote, "the most ambitious piece of domestic legislation in a generation." And, as Ezra wrote, "arguably the most important piece of legislation the body has passed since 1963." This is an enormous achievement. Do not let your quest for your idea of the perfect blind you to the immense good that is happening right in front of your face. We're winning one of the most important political fights in more than a generation.

And while we're on the subject of Ezra, Jon, John, Kevin, Nate, and the rest of the wonky progressive bloggers around the 'sphere, let's be sure to also acknowledge just how much these guys have done to enlighten our nation's political debate. A decade ago, citizens who wanted to follow the ins and outs of our nation's policy debates quite literally had nowhere to turn. TV and print media covered the people and the politics, but they never - and here I am using that word quite deliberately - dug into the details of policy in anything even remotely approaching the level of detail that these bloggers have. Once, maybe twice during a debate you'd get a giant, multi-thousand word piece that attempted to cover the subject, but that's about it. And god help you if you happened to miss that day's edition, because there were no archives for you to return to.Today? Today you can read thousands of words a day, all part of an ongoing conversation that this nation's citizens are having with themselves. Ezra and Jon and Nate and others are leading a national clinic, and in so doing, are helping to re-democratize our nation's public sphere.

Nothing like this has ever existed before. What we are doing, what we are creating together, is something entirely new. The consequences for our system of government are immense, even if they aren't yet clear. Don't believe me?

But back to health care before moving on.... Do not underestimate what an historic achievement this will be. Ignore the cable teevee pundits. This issue represents a HUGE win for the left and for the Democratic Party. Some parts of the party are unhappy right now, but this will pass. Remember how divided we supposedly were during the primary? Remember how everyone said the wounds would not heal in time for the fall campaign? Remember how wrong all of those people were?

I know its fashionable to claim that Democrats don't know what they are doing. Ignore this too. With the help of the people - both activists and average citizens alike - the party is finding its soul and its spine again. Its leadership is rising to the occasion. Health care reform will be a huge issue next fall, and again in 2012. And I promise you, it will be an issue we will win on, both because we have the people on our side and because our opponents are so far beyond lost I don't have the words to describe them....

On the Continuing Collapse of the GOP:

State Attorneys General from several Southern states are planning to mount legal challenges to the law - never mind that the clause of the constitution they are citing makes explicit reference to ports

Congressional Republicans plan on making their opposition to health care the centerpiece of the upcoming campaign - never mind that their opposition comes without any positive proposals of their own.

Republican pundits, the people opinion polls consistently ID as the real leaders of the Republican Party, continue to hyperventilate about how this bill will end civilization as we know it - never mind that this tactic utterly failed them in the fall of 2008.

And its newest leading light, a morning zoo DJ turned political movement leader, is set on leading the effort to remove all the "Marxist code words" from the Bible. Because God knows his Son wasn't in favor of helping the poor. Or the sick. Or the downtrodden. Or the outcast. Or the weak. Or minorities. Or anyone other than himself, right?

Mark my words: The Republican Party is collapsing. If it does not pull itself out of this tailspin soon, it may soon cease to exist as a truly national political power. No political party is forever. The Federalist Party collapsed in the early 1800s under the weight of its own contradictions. The Whigs followed suit in the decade before the Civil War. The Populists misjudged their era and disappeared at the turn of the 20th century.

And then... something changed, and the two "major" parties reached a form of stasis. What was that change? In large part, I believe it was the rise of top down, national broadcast networks, a new system of political communication that privileged those in power over those now forced to watch from the outside. And that system of communication is dying. As a vertical system of one-to-many communication gives way to a horizontal system that interconnects the many unto itself, the elites are losing control. The information infrastructure atop which the last great party system was built is disappearing. And as it goes, it is entirely conceivable that it will take one of our nation's parties with it. It has happened before. It will happen again. And yes, that's precisely what my dissertation seeks to show.

Like the Federalists before it, the modern Republican Party is on the wrong wide of every major issue facing this country. It is opposed to universal health care. It is opposed to climate change legislation, even if it helps create jobs. It is opposed to any and all forms of non-punitive Immigration reform. It is opposed to the use of science in the creation of public policy. But its for tax cuts! And wars! And white people! It stands, in short, for the past, no matter how obviously disastrous that past is.

Political parties do not live forever. Like all living things, they must evolve or they must die. Denying the power of evolution does not make it go away.

On Realignments:

Republicans are becoming Democrats, and Democrats are becoming Republicans. Will this help the GOP find its way? I doubt it. But only time, of course, will tell.

Meanwhile, OFA, the organization that we built for the Obama campaign, is still out there, alive and well. We made 1 million calls to Congress over the past few months. We held more than 25,000 events in congressional districts. And now, our opponents are beginning to copy us. The future? Why, I think its already here.

On Obama:

Not surprisingly, I cannot say it better than this: Meep Meep, mutha fucka....

On the Filibuster:

Its nice to see people across the political world finally turning their attention to just how absurd and undemocratic this rule really is. James Fallows, Matt Yglesias, Mark Schmitt, and eventually even Pres. Obama himself have commented at length recently.

For me, its simple. The Senate is already ridiculously undemocratic. Despite the fact that California's two senators represent more than 12% of the US population, their votes count for only 2% of the US Senate. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the smallest 20 states have a population roughly equal to that of California, they hold 40 of the chamber's votes. Add Connecticut, and you've got enough under current Senate rules and practices to block any and all legislation.

Let me repeat myself: The smallest 20 states + Connecticut = a filibuster.

I think I'll leave it there for now.

On Climate Change:

Im running out of time for this update, so let's go to the links:

Uncertain about uncertainty? Read this.

What the hacked ClimateGate emails do - and do not - show.

Scientific American offers Seven Answers To Climate Contrarian Nonsense

How Science is supposed to work.

A climate skeptic's conversion.

Bits and Bobs:

Zen and the Art of Politics

A solution to the black carbon problem?

The Bright Side Of $26 Drone Hacks? Makes me wonder if it wasn't intentional.

Michelle Bachmann is a welfare queen!

Teddy Roosevelt is still a badass.

RedState's Erick Erickson is still a moron.

Donald Duck loves taxes.

Even in Obama's socialist utopia, taxes are still at historic lows.

And Obama, no matter what pundits might say, is still, in the one way that matters most, like Reagan. Believe it.

I'm out. Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. Peace....

A Losing Strategy

For the past week or so, I've been unable to figure out what to write about the special election being held in NY-23. But the news that the Republican Party's candidate, Dede Scozzafava, has dropped out to make way for the Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, has fixed that.

The district should be a safe seat for the GOP. The party's nominee, Scozzafava, is actually to the right of the median member of her party in the NY State Assembly. Hoffman, meanwhile, doesn't even live in the district. And his party is mostly a joke. Here, for example, is the entirety of their position on NATO, one of the 20 major issues listed in their drop-down menu:

"NATO must redefine its mission or we should deem it an institution that outlived its usefulness."

But once a weird collection of national conservative activists got involved, Scozzafava's campaign tanked and Hoffman's took off. And the result? The GOP is now rallying behind the Conservative Party candidate.

Looking back over the entirely of American history, there are plenty of examples of a strong majority party co-opting the ideas, ideals, and language of a small third party that posed a threat to its coalition. But its hard to find an example where a party that had recently badly lost a series of national elections found their way back to the majority by embracing the candidates and ideologies of a fringe third party. In fact, so far as I know, there aren't any examples of that. And my guess is, this won't be the first.

The point of a political party is to build an organization that can bring together a diverse coalition of peoples and groups to win elections, at the state, local, and national levels. You don't do that by having out of state activists overrule the decisions of leaders at the local level. You can try it if you like, but in the end you'll discover I'm right. It won't work.

UPDATE: Well, okay then. Apparently Newt Gingrich agrees with everything I just said.

UPDATE II: And then Scozzafava endorsed the Democrat Bill Owens. Here's her statement:

"You know me, and throughout my career, I have been always been an independent voice for the people I represent. I have stood for our honest principles, and a truthful discussion of the issues, even when it cost me personally and politically. Since beginning my campaign, I have told you that this election is not about me; it's about the people of this District.

"It is in this spirit that I am writing to let you know I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same.

"It's not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh's lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress. John and I worked together on the expansion of Fort Drum and I know how important that base is to the economy of this region. I am confident that Bill will be able to provide the leadership and continuity of support to Drum Country just as John did during his tenure in Congress.

"In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He will be an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York. Bill understands this district and its people, and when he represents us in Congress he will put our interests first.

"Please join me in voting for Bill Owens on Tuesday. To address the tough challenges ahead, we must rise above partisanship and politics and work together. There's too much at stake in this election to do otherwise."

This is exactly, precisely why the party purification strategy that hard core conservatives are pursuing will drive their party further into the minority. You cannot grow if you insist on purging anyone at the margin of your party that's closest to the center.

And while I'm updating... several of you wrote me to ask how this is different from the strategy the Netroots pursued from 2004-2008. One or two even suggested that I'm being hypocritical. But no, I'm not.

The Netroots pursued a "more Democrats, better Democrats" strategy, which meant that you first expand the size of the party by welcoming in people at the rightward edge of the coalition, then you improve your candidates by nominating people who better represent the party's core values. Or in terms of voters, first you convince them to vote with your party, then you convince them to vote with you on the issues.

Conservatives have inverted this, and are instead pursuing a "better conservatives, more conservatives" strategy, and that won't grow their party back into the majority.

The Point of Bipartisanship

I've been hammering this point for nearly a year now, but after having spent the better part of the last month reading about the election of 1800 and its aftermath - I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea why Jefferson considered it to be the revolution that saved The Revolution - I think I have a new, much more concise way of getting to my point.

In times of intense partisanship, bipartisan outreach does two things. First, it clearly identifies which members of the other party you can work with by drawing them closer to you. Second, it clearly identifies which members of the other party are beyond your reach, pushing them further away from you. If done properly, these two outcomes are likely to realign the parties along new lines, increasing the size of your majority while driving your opponents further away from the political center.

Ezra Klein sees it:

...one or two crossover Republicans may not make a bill look bipartisan, but they probably make the rest of the Republicans look partisan. And for the purposes of congressional Democrats, that may be almost as good, or even better.The only thing worse for Democrats than Republican opposition is popular Republican opposition.

So does his friend Matt Yglesias:

You can think of the aftermath of the stimulus vote. Securing the votes of three moderate Republicans didn’t lead anyone to characterize the bill as a bipartisan endeavor. Instead, it simply served to delegitimize the “real Republican” credentials of the three Republicans who voted for it.

That is the point of bipartisanship. To simultaneously pull friendly politicians into your orbit while delegitimizing the rest. Jefferson did it in 1800, so much so that the Federalist Party had entirely disappeared within a decade or two. Whether Obama knows it or not, he's pursuing a strikingly similar strategy in 2008.

Will it work? We won't know until 2012. Until then, remember this: Ronald Reagan and his party were deeply unpopular heading into the 1982 midterms. And then, all of a sudden, it was morning again in America.

Ignore the polls. Ignore the chatter on cable TV. Focus on the work that needs to be done to make sure that dawn comes.

Clearing the Clippings Folder

Some things I saved over the past few months that would have, time permitting, inspired complete posts....

+ This analysis from George Mason Prof Michael McDonald confirms my previous suspicions: the behavior of those of you under 30 is driving a full-scale realignment of our political system. Also worth noting: Its not just the under-30s anymore.

+ This analysis from Gelman and Sides helps explain why more knowledge isn't always a good thing. But this shouldn't surprise people who have read John Zaller's classic work, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. The more you know about politics, the more you are able to absorb, understand, and repeat partisan frames around arguments. 

+ A former CIA official has described the process that led to the creation of a state-sanctioned torture program in the US as "a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm." Couldn't the same be said about virtually everything done by the Bush Administration?

+ Does how you vote depend on where you vote? Of course it does. If you believe in the whole "people are rational robots" thing, this might surprise. If you do not, it should be what you expect.

+ If I could only read one blogger every day, it would be Ta-Nehisi Coates. And posts like this and this are perfect examples of why.

+ Want to understand The Difference Between Socialized Medicine, Single-Payer Health Care, And What We'll Be Getting?  Read Ezra. Want to know what Obama is thinking about health care reform? Read Atul Gawande's article in the New Yorker. Obama liked it so much he called a staff meeting to discuss it.

+ Andrew Sullivan is impressed by Richard Posner's observation that "President Clinton in effect co-opted the conservative agenda." But he shouldn't be. Political Scientist Stephen Skowronek made that observation more than a decade ago in his now classic Politics Presidents Make. A point that allows me to repeat myself: if I had to recommend one book on American politics above all others, that would be it. Since I first picked it up back in 2004, it has shaped virtually everything I've written, both here and in my studies. 

On Realignments

As you read something like this, remember my theory on how realignments change voter behavior in the modern age: It isn't that voters directly switch from one party affiliation to the other in a single step, but that they switch from openly identifying with one party to self-identifying as Independents while voting for candidates from the other party. Or to put it in more concrete terms: Disaffected Republicans don't become Democrats in a single step. First they leave their old party, then they start voting for Democrats while claiming that they are Independents. Over time, some but not all of them will finish the conversion process. 

And yes, I know.... I need to develop this theory and publish it before someone rips me off....

The GOP Civil War Is On

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we can set down a marker by today's date as the day the GOP Civil War truly began.Santorum At CPAC: ‘Absolutely We Hope That’ Obama Fails, ‘I Believe His Policies Will Fail’

As I mentioned in my big weekend update, this past weekend was the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual gathering of movement conservatives in DC. The update chronicled all kinds of craziness at the event, but it was written before Rush Limbaugh delivered his closing speech to the group, so I knew that there was a better than even chance that things would get even crazier. But even I didn't expect this....

Limbaugh's speech was originally scheduled for 15 minutes, but in Chavez-like fashion he carried on for well over an hour, no doubt in part because both CNN and Fox covered it live and without commercial interruption. I couldn't make it through the entire thing, and frankly you shouldn't even try. A few excerpts are more than enough to highlight just how nuts this guy is, and more importantly, just how disastrous his influence is going to be on his party.

Here's the first one:

Everybody asks me — and I’m sure it’s been a focal point of your convention — well, what do we do, as conservatives? What do we do? How do we overcome this? … One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas. […]

Our own movement has members trying to throw Reagan out while the Democrats know they can’t accomplish what they want unless they appeal to Reagan voters. We have got to stamp this out within this movement because it will tear us apart. It will guarantee we lose elections.

The party of ideas? That's for losers! Under Limbaugh, the GOP will be the party of fighting and winning. It will  win because it fights, and it will fight because that is how you win. Ideas? Those are for librul girlie men. Or something.

And here's the second one:

Limbaugh warned that Republicans should not let concerns about racial insensitivities limit criticism of Obama's policies. "It doesn't matter to me what his race is. He's liberal, and that's what matters." 

"The racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year," Limbaugh said. "We didn't ask if he was authentically black. What we were asking, was, 'Was he wrong?' We concluded, 'Yes.' " 

"The racism, the sexism, the bigotry that we are all charged with ... doesn't exist on our side," he added. "We want everybody to succeed." 

That's so silly, I'm going to let Steve Benen's response stand in for mine.

Finally, the third and fourth excerpts come from the end of the speech, when the event organizers awarded Rush their Defender of the Constitution Award. Here's what the award presenter had to say:

The king of England sat with his advisers, and they read the writings of Ben Franklin. They said, “The colonists will never be successful if they read what he writes.” Just as the king’s successor, who is in the White House, said the other day, that conservatives will never be successful if they listen to Rush Limbaugh. The only way we will be successful is if we listen to Rush Limbaugh!

And what did the Constitution's Defender have to say in response? Among other things, he claimed that the Preamble to the Constitution included words from the Declaration of Independence, and in the process, he even managed to get the words wrong!

We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness.

 

Now on its own, none of this would be a sign of civil war within the party. But in context, I think the conclusions is absolutely unavoidable.

The first excerpt showed Limbaugh attacking the idea that the Republican Party should be the party of ideas. That was a direct attack on Newt Gingrich, who has recently been positioning himself for a 2012 run based almost entirely on his reputation as a "man of ideas." It was, as just one small example, the entire premise of his CPAC speech this weekend. For the record, here's Newt's 12 point plan:

1. Payroll Tax Stimulus
2. Real Middle-Income Tax Relief
3. Reduce the Business Tax Rate
4. Homeowner's Assistance
5. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget
6. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud
7. More American Energy Now (Energy exploration)
8. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains
9. Protect the Rights of American Workers (from ... Unions)
10. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley
11. Abolish the Death Tax
12. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure

Now sure, I agree completely with Steve Benen that Newt's "ideas" are anything but new, but given that I'm not the intended audience for his plan, that doesn't much matter. The people at CPAP, including Rush Limbaugh, are his intended audience, and it appears that they have rejected them outright.

But notice what is happening here. This isn't a rejection of Newt's ideas, or of Newt himself. This is a rejection of ideas in general. For reasons I cannot fathom, Rush is deliberately creating a cleavage within his party around the idea of ideas. On one side, you've got people like Newt who think the party needs to offer new solutions to the nation's new problems. On the other side, you've got people like Rush and the CPAC masses who think that ideas are irrelevant.

And now, thanks in part to efforts like Rahm's and in part to the way political media is naturally drawn to controversy, Republican officials are being forced to take sides. Are you with Rush or against him?

On Sunday, it was House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, who, like SC Gov. Mark Sanford just a few days before, was forced to distance himself from Rush's professed desire to see Obama fail:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So the Rush Limbaugh approach of hoping the President fails is not the Eric Cantor/House Republican approach?

CANTOR: George, absolutely not. I don’t think anyone wants anything to fail right now. We have such challenges. What we need to do is put forth solutions to the problems that real families are facing today.

Unfortunately for Cantor and his party, it isn't just Rush who is openly rooting for Obama to fail. Michelle Malkin, Rick Santorum, and Tom DeLay have all gone on record in just the past few days to loudly proclaim a similar position. 

Notice the dynamic here? On one side you have talk radio personalities and out of work politicians, each of whom have nothing to lose and much to gain by using bombastic rhetoric. On the other side, you have currently serving elected officials, each of whom has everything to lose and nothing to gain by rooting against a very popular president. That gives us both a deep ideological cleavage (ideas vs. no ideas) and two committed and well organized opponents (talkers vs. elected officials).

All that's missing is for the head of the GOP to weigh in, and well... Take a look at what ThinkProgress caught last night:

Last night, RNC Chairman Michael Steele appeared on D.L. Hughley’s show on CNN and disputed Hughley’s statement that Rush Limbaugh “is the de facto leader of the Republican Party.” “I’m the de facto leader of the Republican Party!” Steele insisted. Steele admitted that Limbaugh’s shtick is “incendiary” and “ugly”:

STEELE: So let’s put it into context here. Let’s put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.

And now put it together with this from CPAC:

And I’ve got to say a few words about the Right in this situation too because sometimes we get what we deserve on this issue because we are oftentimes a lot of cowards. We don’t stand up for our own, we don’t stand up for what we believe, we allow ourselves to be tortured in the news media and a lot of us end up selling out to the other side for a guest spot on Meet The Press or Larry King Live because they know that a conservative saying something bad about another conservative is automatically going to be newsworthy and get them a higher profile. Well, those people ought to be ostracized and punished.

And that, my friends, is what the beginning of a civil war looks like. If Rush wins, the party is doomed. If he does not, it will only be because Republican elites purged him from their party. Because as CPAC just finished demonstrating, Rush has the masses on his side, and the masses are apparently ready to rumble.

But don't take my word for it. Take a look at what no less than David Frum has to say today:

Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging: 

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership?

And the worst part for the GOP? This whole thing is going to take years to unfold. Years, not months. Years....

UPDATE: George Packer provides some context:

This clip from the weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference reminds me exactly of what meetings of the Democratic Socialists of America sounded like in the nineteen-eighties. Just substitute “free-market capitalism” for “big government,” “the New Deal” for “the era of Reagan,” and everything else—the defensive contempt toward popular rule, the retreat into the comfort of a purified “philosophy,” the denunciations of unnamed appeasers within the ranks, the call to “stamp out” middle-way weaklings—is the same. I attended some of those conferences. With each year they became more righteous and more insular, and I remember exactly what it felt like to know that my side was going to be the losing side for years to come. I remember looking around at my fellow democratic socialists and wondering whether I really even belonged there.

So if there were any quietly doubting conservatives at the CPAC conference, they have my sympathy, and a bit of unsolicited advice: the biggest obstacle to your eventual return to power is the kind of resistant and intolerant politics embodied so amply in the man at the podium.

My prediction is that, in the short term—between now and at least 2012—this spirit will dominate the Republican Party, until the doubters become numerous and brave enough to make trouble. The very seriousness of the stakes in Obama’s gamble will drive most conservatives into an increasingly fanatical and self-isolating opposition.

Tuesday's Bits + Bobs

I'm starting to get the feeling that most days are going to be posts like this. Even after the dissertation proposal defense on Monday, I'm going to have to stay supremely focused on work. That said, let's take a look at the last few days....

The crisis of credit With the possible exception of the two This America Life episodes on the subject, this may be the singe best thing I've ever seen on the credit crisis. But unlike those shows, this is only 11 minutes long. And its far more basic.

Trust me, even if you think you already know the details, you need to watch this. Not only will you learn something new - its that good! - but you'll get to see some amazing graphic design and data visualization, too.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Southern Republicans vs. The Era of Obama An interesting take from Matt Yglesias. While a handful of Republican governors from some of the poorest state's in the nation are threatening to turn down federal funds, their counterparts in more populous states like Florida and California understand that they need to put people ahead of politics and take the damn cash. 

Gov. Bobby Jindal is getting all of the focus right now, a trend that will no doubt continue after he gives his response to Obama's pseudo-SOTU tonight. But for my money SC Gov. Mark Sanord is the one to watch. Not only is Sanford clueless about history and economics, he's using projects like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam as examples of how government spending on infrastructure cannot stimulate the economy. Because yes, if there's one thing those two projects have been doing since they were built 80+ years ago it is sitting idly and contributing nothing of use to the SF Bay and Las Vegas metro areas. I mean, really....

I understand that Republicans thinks they are playing smart long-term politics here. I get that they think this will be 1992-4 all over again. But they are wrong. 1992 was still the era of Reagan. Clinton was the first Democrat elected President under Reagan's shadow, meaning that his actions were very tightly constrained by the narratives that Reagan had set forth. Remember, Clinton won by promising to be a "new Democrat" who understood that "the era of big government is over." Even before he was in office, he understood that Reagan had defined the rules of the game.

2009 is nothing whatsoever like that. The Era of Reagan is over, as is the Era of Bush. Obama's campaign, like Reagan's before him, was built upon a promise that we would enter a new political era. It was predicated on the idea that once in office, he would rewrite the rules of the game. Which, as I have argued over and over since the Inauguration, is precisely what he is doing.

So no, 2009 is not 1992. Obama is not Clinton. Cantor is not Gingrich. We are at the very beginning of a new political era, and its length will be determined in part by how long it takes the minority to understand that. If they keep this up, I promise you, the Era of Obama is going to be very, very long.

The Polling Data Backs Me Up This week saw the release of several polls that back up virtually everything I just wrote. According to Gallup Obama's popular support remains at record levels, with both Democrats and Independents rallying to his side. At the same time, the NYT , WaPo, and Fox all report that huge majorities of the public believe that Obama honestly tried bipartisanship, but that the effort failed thanks to the GOP. And dig into the NYT results and you'll find that as a result, they want Obama to ignore the Republicans in Congress and focus on his preferred policies.

In other words, not only did Obama win Round One, he did so in a way that actually increased his political capital. Add to that his performance yesterday at the end of his budget summit, during which he among other things, seized control of the political definition of "fiscal responsibility", used his political opponents as props in an elaborately staged photo op, and made his former political opponent look small and petty, and you'd be right to conclude that its been a very good month.

Not That They Have Noticed Not surprisingly, the people who live almost entirely within the conservative mediasphere haven't noticed. By their telling, Obama is apparently already a failed president. Go see for yourself if you don't believe me. 

But this make sense. Having rode the echo chamber of Fox News, Rush, Hannity, National Review and Weekly Standard to power, they are no doubt going to ride it right back out. Expect endless claims of media bias from these media titans, and watch as they build the walls around their echo chamber higher and higher in a fruitless attempt to keep the truth about the world out.

Speaking of Which... Watch as Alan Keyes goes mental:

New GOP Chair Michael "beyond the cutting edge in a hip hop style" Steele says it would be "crazy" for anyone in his party to even consider supporting civil unions for everyone. Even better, he says that he would consider withholding RNC funds from Senators who break ranks with their party to support Obama's plans. And before he could walk back those comments, he went on to suggest that the best way for the economy to recover would be for our political leaders to signal that "the state and the federal government will spend no more money," because the  "inflationary effect, the deflationary effect, all of those things are going to come to head at some point." 

Ah yes... the twin threat of inflation and deflation. It's a classic conundrum, isn't it? 

Tax Cuts 4evah! Great point by Bruce Bartlett. It was Republicans who wrote the sunset provisions into the Bush tax cuts, not Democrats. If anyone is responsible for their expiration, shouldn't it be the people who added that provision to the law in the first place?

Meanwhile, as I mentioned a few days back, one of the most bizarre outcomes of the stimulus debate was that the GOP voted en masse against the single largest tax cut in US history. I predicted at the time that this would emerge as a major talking point during the 2010 campaign, but it looks like we don't need to wait nearly that long.

Bizarrely, having opposed Obama's tax cuts as stimulus, Republican leaders are apparently now going to turn to tax cuts as their primary policy proposal to reduce the federal deficit. That's right - their proposal to close the gap between revenues and expenditures is to reduce tax revenues. Or to put it more bluntly: their proposal to close the gap is to increase it. Apparently they do honestly believe that the closer your tax rates get to 0, the closer your revenues get to infinity

Force the Filibuster? No. Because you can't

Habeas @ Bagram? I'm with Hilzoy on this and always have been. The Geneva Conventions apply in war zones. Habeas Corpus applies here at home. Gitmo is a special case, both because it sits on land that belongs to the US under an international treaty and because the prison there was set up deliberately to evade US laws.

Why AIG had to be nationalized Felix Salmon explains, you listen.

Why Citi and other big banks will be next Josh Marshall summarizes, you listen.

Why math is to blame for the meltdown Felix Salmon explains, you listen.

PoliSigh Here's a great example of everything that is wrong with my discipline of political science. As Henry Farrell notes, Jacob Hacker, a political scientist who also happens to be one of the lead architects behind the health care reform plan most likely to be adopted by this Congress, has a new piece on health care reform in the Journal of Politics and Society. Not only is the article an excellent summary of what went wrong with the Clinton reform efforts, it is also firmly grounded in the relevant political science literatures on institutions. Hacker's conclusion? That to get something complex like health care reform passed, you need to build both good policy and good politics. This conclusion, as Farrell notes, is somewhat pathbreaking for political science, which has seen an endless series of battles fought over which one of these two competing explanations is most correct.. 

The world is a complicated place, and people often act in ways that appear illogical. Until my discipline understands and accepts that, and by extension learns to accept that people do not behave in the ways the political scientists either wish or imagine that they do, it will continue to produce reams of unreadable and utterly irrelevant research.

More Jacob Hackers, please! Put down your formal models and walk away, people. The world isn't a rational place made up of rational people, OK?

And while I'm complaining about my discipline... can we please do something about bringing our journals into at leas the 20th century. Because they way things work now, its like we're still living in the 1800s. Surely there must be a way to bring the wiki and open source mentalities to scholarly journals, right?

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad? Apparently, they may be. There's even the suggestion that many forms of ADD are actually misdiagnosed sleep disorders.

Gallons per Mile I started with good information design, so I might as well end with it too. Very cool.

Last But Certainly Not Least.... As a reminder, Schweitzer in 2016!

Debating The Stimulus

I figured that after a day off, I'd have plenty more to say about the stimulus debate. But I don't. I stand by what I said previously. People need to calm down.

Has the debate over the stimulus been perfect? No, it has not. Not even nearly. Does this matter much? No, it does not. Here are some other voices that see this the same way.

Andrew Sullivan:

Obama still has majorities in both Houses. The GOP surely won't filibuster the bill in the Senate. What matters is the end-result, for which the president will ultimately be accountable. He should retain his focus on the substance, and keep bringing in as many Republicans as he can. He shouldn't support a bill he doesn't believe will work. But neither should he reprise the partisanship of the last twenty years. That's the strategy. The GOP only knows tactics.

Publius:

...if you still feel down on Obama at the moment, take a second to imagine what “stimulus” would look like under a McCain presidency.  Essentially, there would be a ton of corporate and rich-people tax cuts coupled with far smaller spending projects and far less aid for states, unemployment benefits, etc.  McCain would threaten to veto everything until he got pretty close to what he wanted – and Democrats would ultimately cave because (1) they’re chickens; and (2) their short-term media strategy (i.e., controlling news cycles on a dime) is terrible.

So let’s not get too frantic – even the hypothetical worst-case scenario isn’t terrible.  And it could have been much worse – we could have had a similarly bleak economy with a President whose policies aren't even designed to fix it.

Also, I don’t think recent events undermine Obama’s outreach strategy.  It's not really directed at Republican legislators anyway.  To be grossly cynical, its purpose is to keep his public approval numbers up.

And why might he want to keep his numbers up? Because the minute this fight is over, we'll move on to the budget, to green energy, and to health care. Do you want him to use all of his political capital here, up front? I didn't think so.

That said, Publius is right to point out that things have not been perfect up to this point. Let's take his critiques one at a time here.

First, the Obama camp underestimated how much daily effort would be needed to sell this thing.  The stimulus is a necessary and noble effort – but it won’t sell itself.  You have to go out and make the case for it aggressively each day -- each news cycle. 

Interestingly enough, this same problem – indifference to winning news cycles – popped up a lot during the campaign.  The Obama team preferred the long-term – organizing, plotting, etc.  But as for the day-to-day stuff, they never were, frankly, very good at it.  (In this respect, the financial meltdown spared them a fairly brutal October).

Although this is true, I think it is less an underestimation and more a deliberate attempt to see how this approach might work in a non-campaign setting. Throughout the campaign, Obama's patience with events often created a rope-a-dope effect. While he deliberated about how best to respond, his opponents would flail away, making mistakes that would expose their weaknesses, setting up an easy and effective counter. 

And that's why it doesn't surprise me one bit that Obama began his counter today. Here's an excerpt from his op-ed in today's WaPo:

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse....

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Notice what he did and did not do here. Although he did directly and forcefully take on the philosophy that has guided the Republican Party since the time of Reagan, he did not actually call out the Republicans by name. That's because he knows this isn't actually a fight between parties. It is a battle for ideas, for frames, and for narratives. If he can use his popularity to reframe our political debate, he will have won a victory far bigger than the stimulus bill. He will, as I've been so long arguing, have created a realignment. If he can do that there will be no need to fight fights and settle scores on a one-by-one basis, because through a realignment you can fight and win them all at once.

Back to Publius for point two:

Second, they’re deluding themselves if they think Republican votes will buy them political cover down the road.  This bill is going to be owned by Democrats whether 1 or 100 Republicans ultimately vote for it.  If things go well, Democrats will get credit.  If they don’t, then Democrats will get blamed.  Them's the cards.

Think back to Iraq.  The GOP was eventually punished for supporting Iraq even though it was a bipartisan effort (bipartisan in cowardice, but bipartisan all the same).  Sure, maybe a cleaner distinction on Iraq would have helped in 2004.  But in 2006 and 2008, the old Dem votes didn’t matter anymore.  Iraq was a GOP war, and they got blamed for it.  Gephardt’s 2002 Rose Garden dance was basically forgotten by the public.  The same will be true for the Democrats on the stimulus.

The point, then, is that Obama needs to resist cuts that will do substantive damage to the stimulus.  If dropping a few cosmetic provisions (e.g., film industry tax credits) will help, fine.  More votes are better than less votes, other things being equal. 

This is true, but I think it misses the point of what Obama is trying to do. Perhaps congressional Democrats are looking for political cover, I don't know, but I don't think that is what Obama is trying to do. Between realignments, coalitions might help create cover. During realignments, they reinforce the realignments themselves.

Here's another criticism that I don't think makes much sense. From Theda Skocpol:

Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him — and what else is his political capital for?

Something similar here from Michael Hirsch:

Obama's desire to begin a "post-partisan" era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill that's supposed to be "temporary" and "targeted"—among them, large increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts that will prompt immediate spending. Even so, Obama has allowed Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There's no way anyone can spend $800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules do not apply.

Both of these critiques assume that the President isn't going to be able to reframe the debate as precisely what Hirsch already says it is, a "stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending." Remember rope-a-dope. First you get your opponent to exhaust themselves by acting like a fool, then you pummel them. It seems to me that step one was just completed, and that with today's op-ed Obama has moved into step two.

Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe Obama waited to long to engage the debate directly, but I doubt it. Only time will tell... But for now, put me down with this reader back over at Andrew's place:

...the political “experts” on CNN yesterday wondered why Obama let the Republicans in the House get the “upper hand” on the stimulus bill.  They are still operating under the grudge expectations of the past (i.e., now that the Democrats are in charge they can take retribution against the Republicans).  Obama clearly seems to want none of this. He really seems to mean it when he says that this bill is not “his” bill, but everyone seems to be skeptical.  It’s understandable since Washington has operated in this mode of political revenge for so long now (at least since the Clinton years) that Democrats are waiting for him to give them the battle charge to vanquish the Republicans and Republicans are wondering when the veneer will drop and Obama will sucker-punch them. I admit that this, too, is my natural political inclination.  But I learned during the primary and presidential campaigns that every time I second-guessed Obama by wanting him to play the game as it has always been played, he proved me wrong.

Obama has no interest in sucker-punching the people that make up today's GOP. What he wants to demolish is its ideology. And to do that, he needs to keep the people, some of whom right now sit across the aisle, on his side. Remember that.

UPDATE: Watch as an old political dog, Joe Klein, learns new tricks

In 1993, I did a pretty shabby job of covering Bill Clinton's economic plan. It was, in sum, a very good plan--it worked wonders for the economy--but I focused on the mishaps. (Clinton, for example, pulled the rug out from under House Democrats by offering a carbon tax, which they voted for...and then the President removed it from the bill.) Clinton couldn't get any Republican votes for the package. A disaster! He had trouble getting Democratic votes for it; he had to beg Bob Kerrey for his vote to get it through the Senate. His presidency was in ruins! He had lost all credibility! (Actually, those of us who had focused on some big ugly trees rather than the blooming forest were the ones who had lost credibility.) It pains me to watch normally reasonable colleagues overreacting to Obama's situation now--which is far less dire than Clinton's was. Some form of stimulus will pass. If it doesn't revive the economy, then more stimulus will be passed. Obama's maintaining the proper balance of reaching out to Republicans, making some compromises, but staying firm on the need for a bill that includes public works as well as tax cuts. A Republican Senator, a vocal opponent of the bill, told me the other day: "The guy has really impressed us. We may not vote for the bill, and he may have to learn that you have to give us more than he wants to give us to make us happy, but he's made a really strong start that will work to his benefit down the road."

The legislative process is as ugly as a wart. We only notice it when an earth-shattering monstrosity like the stimulus bill comes gallumphing down the track, but there is no such thing as elegant legislation. You always have to throw in a little sweetener--the museum of organized crime in Las Vegas, the military kazoo band, whatever--if you want to cobble together the votes needed to win. This is business as usual--and Barack Obama is guilty as charged: he's trying to get this thing through the old-fashioned way. So what? What's new is his priorities: his efforts to put the needs of the working poor and the unemployed ahead of the wealthy, to build a new green economy, to fund inner city education and remake the health insurance system. That is what the American people voted for after an era of Republican neglect. The messiness of the current process is not only inevitable, it also says very little about Obama's ability to deliver on those very necessary goals

Bad Polling Data

For the most part, I think public opinion polling on policy questions is incredibly unreliable. Rather than measure independent, pre-existing opinions, it seems instead to reflect back the dominant frames and agendas being carried to the public by the political establishment. Most people don't spend their day thinking about public policy, so there's no reason to think that these polls measure anything other than the random bits and bobs they pick up from the news as they go about their normal routines.

And that's what makes this all the more discouraging:

Rasmussen Reports finds that to some degree, Dems in Congress are losing to the GOP in the spin wars over which party is treating the stimulus package in a more partisan manner. The poll finds that 58% think Dems are more partisan, while 52% think Republicans are — not great numbers for the GOP, but obviously worse for Dems.

But here’s the rub. The poll also finds that the public perceives President Obama as the bipartisan figure here; 42% say that he’s governing in a bipartisan manner, while only 39% say he’s governing as a partisan — far better than either party in Congress.

This suggests that Obama’s strategy of hovering above the fray while Dems duke it out with Republicans over the stim package is leading the public to perceive him in more positive terms than they view Congress — but at the expense of his fellow Dems.

In other words, it seems possible that the GOP strategy of driving a wedge between Obama and Congressional Dems, combined with Obama’s above-politics posture, is creating a separation between the public’s perception of the Dem President and its perception of Congressional leaders from the same party, even though both are essentially advocating for the same policy goals.

In another odd twist, positive perceptions of Obama aren’t necessarily translating into support for his package. A new Gallup poll finds that only 38% favor passing “Obama’s economic stimulus plan” as is, while 37% want major changes, with 40% of independents in that latter category.

Two caveats: 

Rasmussen tends to lean Republican, which would undoubtedly color the results - hopefully Nate will weigh in here over the next few days.

We can't simply assume that "bipartisan" is "good" and "partisan" is bad. Although you'd never know it from the way journalists cover politics, many voters actually like partisanship. Moreover, many expect different things from members of Congress than they do from the President of the United States. So although both Rasmussen and Greg Sargent (who I am quoting above) paint this as an either/or, it is not.

Take me, for example: I want Obama to make serious attempts to reach across the aisle. At the same time, I want Pelosi and Reid to fiercely defend our party in Congress, so much so that I've often criticized Reid for not being nearly partisan enough. I want this because in the short term I want to see progressive legislation passed, and in the long term I want to realign our political system by redefining its center. To do this, you need to be simultaneously partisan and bipartisan. 

Multiple goals, multiple venues. What is right to do in one may not be right in another. 

UPDATE: As if on cue, Nate Silver:

Rasmussen, however, has shown considerably narrower margins for the stimulus than other polling conducted during the same period. Gallup, for example, showed the stimulus preferred by a 52-37 margin, with essentially no change in support from a similarly-worded poll conducted in early January. And a Democracy Corps poll shows the stimulus with wide support, with 69 percent in favor of the initiative against just 24 percent opposed.

In short, there is some evidence -- the trendline in the Rasmussen poll -- that the stimulus has become less popular. There is no evidence, on the other hand, that the stimulus has become unpopular; on the contrary, the preponderance of polling evidence suggests it remains a course of action that most of the public likes.

Why the stark difference between Rasmussen and, say, Democracy Corps? Both are applying a likely voter methodology, whereas Gallup and most of the other polls on the stimulus are surveying all adults. I understand the argument that likely voters are the ones who matter from the standpoint of electoral politics -- but determining who is and who isn't a likely voter when there is no election at hand is a little abstract for my tastes. (Are these people who are likely to vote 2010? In 2012? People who were likely to have voted in 2008? Or what?) This is one situation where I'd trend to prefer the major news orgs' polling, as they tend to place more emphasis on just this sort of issue-based polling as opposed to the horse race stuff..

Nate goes easier on Rasumussen than I would. Using a likely voter model less than one month into an administration and more than 21 months out from the next Congressional election makes no sense whatsoever. There is absolutely no way to know who is and is not likely to vote next time around. And by no way, I mean no way.

UPDATE II: And while we are on the subject of bad polling, read this.

Bail on Bipartisanship?

Rachel Maddow spent the first 10 minutes of her show tonight imploring Obama to stop his bipartisan outreach efforts. Two Three things.

One:  He has been President for 13 days. I get that the newscycle has accelerated, but for god's sake people, please relax. We are less than .5% though his term in office, half that if he wins a second term. Isn't it a little bit early to start panicking? I know you all are Democrats, and Democrats love to panic, but please... building a new, durable majority isn't easy. It won't happen overnight. And it won't happen without outreach and compromise. Our goal here isn't a year or two's worth of progress; it's a decade or two, right? Eyes on the prize.

Two:  This is important news:

“I think the take-away here is ‘screw ’em,’” half-joked a House Democratic aide.

“Remember, you have a speaker who has dealt with that for a couple years. She dealt with it as minority leader, she dealt with it as speaker [under President George W. Bush],” another staffer close to Pelosi said.

“What she realized with Obama coming in was that, yeah, we can go through this dance, but at the end of the day, this was going to be a tutorial for the Obama folks,” the person added. “They’re all going to vote against you and then come to your cocktail party that night.”

Remember, the bipartisan/post-partisan efforts aren't actually aimed at Congress. Or at least, they aren't only aimed there. If he can convert some of the members of the GOP caucus into reliable allies, that's great! But compared to converting voters into reliable allies, its almost meaningless.

The goal is to convert voters. His approval ratings suggest that this is a possibility. Eyes on the prize. Please.

Three:  Greg Sargent reports:

Senior White House advisers are quietly beginning to put a system in place to ensure coordination between the White House and outside liberal groups and unions that are ramping up to push the Obama administration’s agenda and target its foes, a senior Dem operative who regularly advises the White House and is involved in these discussions tells me.

The operation, which is in its early stages, is expected to be overseen by senior Obama hand Valerie Jarrett, the senior Dem says, and Jarrett is playing a key role in assembling it, though other senior Obama advisers will also play a role.

The performance of this effort could have a major impact on how successful these groups are in driving the White House message on a host of big issues — and, by extension, on how successful the initiatives themselves prove. Failure to adequately coordinate messages could prove counter-productive or confusing to the public and could even open the White House up to an attack from the GOP if the groups diverge too sharply from the Obama message.

According to the operative, the White House was quietly informed in advance about the new ad campaign that several major unions are running with the pro-stimulus group Americans United for Change that pressures Republican Senators to back Obama’s stimulus package. As Ben Smith reports, the size of the ad campaign was just dramatically expanded to target Republican Senators in around 10 states. Obama aides were okay with the ad campaign’s message.

...Again, the efforts to set up a system for communication and coordination between the White House and these groups is just getting underway — another reminder of how much of a work in progress a new administration inevitably is. But pressure to get this right will only intensify as more groups join the fray on other issues such as health care and the environment.

That last paragraph is key. We're just getting started here. New institutions aren't simply built overnight. OK? 

The GOP's March To Irrelevance, Cont.

Ben responds to me responding to Nate Silver: 

In their distrincts they need to hate Democrats, hate unions, hate "big Government," hate immigrants, hate gays. Decades of gerrymandering have produced dozens of fringe districts. So that poses a fix: no Democrat can win those districts, but no Republican who wins those districts can be taken seriously by the mainstream.

Personally I'm at the point where I'd be happy to see the Republican Party go the way of the Whigs, into oblivion.

To which I would add: 2010 is the next census, after which state legislatures and governors will get to gerrymander in each and every state. Wondering where you should focus your effort$ over the next 2 years? Look local.

For the record, I wish our system wasn't so f'd up, but it is. Until the rules are changed, we must learn to both live with and use them to our advantage. If we don't, the other side will. AS Isaac Asmiov once said, "never let your morals get in the way of doing what is right."

So look local. Find ways to help good people get elected to state office in 2010. It truly is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to reshape the terms of the debate.

Yet More On Post-Partisanship

Nate Silver follows-on:

I don't mean to suggest, by the way, that most individual Republican lawmakers were wrong in their decision to oppose the stimulus. On the contrary, from a tactical perspective, they had few incentives to compromise. And for cripes' sake: the stimulus does represent roughly half a trillion dollars in new government spending. If conservatives weren't going to oppose this, then what are they supposed to oppose?

But what purpose Boehner and Cantor thought they were serving by whipping votes, instead of letting their members come to a decision on their own, I don't really understand. Nor do I understand what the House Republicans thought they were accomplishing by coming out en masse against something like the digital TV bill, which is about as harmless as it gets -- precisely the sort of thing on which you offer an olive branch to build credibility for more important battles.

The answer, I think, is that House Republicans believe that they are still in an era where voters will respond positively to open partisan warfare. And why shouldn't they believe that? It's how they came to power, and in their individual districts, it may be the only way for them to stay in power.

This represents as clear a test as you can possibly imagine of Obama's thesis that Americans want Washington to find a new way of doing business. Given that he just won a presidential election by defending that thesis, its an incredibly risky strategy, one premised almost entirely on the hope that his presidency will be not just a failure but a disastrous one.

In the end, either they lose badly or we all do. It's a hell of a bet to make for a party that just spent years demanding that we all fall in line and put "country first," no?

The 2010 Message

Nate Silver neatly summarizes the point I've been trying to make for the past few days:

...the Democratic message will essentially be one of two things in 2010

1. Obama's accomplished X, Y and Z and showed the country the way forward, let's give him leaders in Congress who can continue to deliver for the middle class, or,
2. Obama accomplished X, but he couldn't accomplish Y and Z because the Republicans obstructed those measures to protect the special interests ... let's put partisanship behind us and elect leaders in Congress who can represent the common good.

One can understand the Republicans betting against #1, which won't work unless the economy recovers. But in so doing, they seem to be writing the Democrats' taglines for them on #2, the partisanship message. Of course, this is not necessarily an easy hand for the Democrats to play: they at once have to maintain the continued pretense/appearance of bipartisanship while at the same time attacking them for their non-cooperation. 

But surely the phrase "ZERO Republicans voted for the Recovery Package" is more likely to escape Democratic lips on the campaign trail in 2010 than Republican ones. If the stimulus bill proves to be unpopular -- and it might well -- a House Republican can tout the fact that he voted against the package. But with the unanimous vote -- as well as the near-unanimity on measures like the Ledbetter Act and Digital TV -- the Republicans remove the emphasis from their individual judgment to that of their party. It is not clear why they would want this: the Republican brand, even under the best of circumstances, is not likely to be significantly rehabilitated by 2010, especially when the Republicans do not have agenda-setting powers.  

...Thus the Republicans, arguably, are in something of a death spiral. The more conservative, partisan, and strident their message becomes, the more they alienate non-base Republicans. But the more they alienate non-base Republicans, the fewer of them are left to worry about appeasing. Thus, their message becomes continually more appealing to the base -- but more conservative, partisan, and strident to the rest of us. And the process loops back upon itself.

This is almost precisely what happened to the Democratic Party during the 1980s. The difference then, however, was that they still retained large Congressional majorities, masking the long and painful slide into irrelevance. This time around the process is going to be much more obvious, since the GOP is already in the minority.

But make no mistake: it will only be obvious to the average voter if the Obama administration and its congressional allies work to make it so. The political goal here should be to set up situations that force the GOP to either moderate in our direction or move entirely the other way. We have the majority. We hold the center. We need to act in ways that are designed to make that clear.

Moving Day! (Part Two)

Welcome to my blog's new home! As you can see, I've made a few changes to the place. Let me explain...

The Design: What you see here is a work in progress. I'll be making some minor improvements over the next week or so, and some major ones throughout the course of the year.

The Content: Now that I'm on Typepad, its going to be much easier for me to add new features to the blog. Today, I've started with the basics.

• Comments are now fully functional and easy to use. If you've tried and failed to post comments in the past, please give it another go.


• The categories listing has been substantially streamlined.


• I've added direct links over on the right to my home at a variety of different social media sites. Most of them don't have much up yet, but that will quickly change. I'll be using Delicious to keep track of articles that are related to my dissertation, and Tumblr to post direct quotes that I don't want to lose. I'll be using my YouTube channel to keep track of the video clips in my posts. And my Facebook, MySpace, and AIM info is there as well.


• I've added a section where you can track the books I'm reading. This will be updated frequently over the next few months as I start focusing on the historical component of my dissertation. Expect to see material from this list integrated here and on Tumblr.


• The only downside to this transition is that it splits my archives between this site and my old home. As it says under the search box on the right, if you need to find something written before 2009, you'll have to click the link and search the old site.

That's it for now. As I mentioned last week, I expect blogging to pick back up from here on out, although not at the pace I kept up during the election.