Jan
26
The Democratic Problem
Filed Under American Politics, Polling | 2 Comments
PPP have done some polling on the popularity of the respective parties. They find that Republicans now lead Democrats on the generic ballot by 45% to 42%. But it is their deeper numbers that are more instructive and help dispel some myths.
Firstly, whilst it is true that approval ratings are higher for Democrats than Republicans, this isn’t because moderates like Democrats more than the GOP. It’s because Republicans are unhappy with their own party, hence their acceptance of the tea-party phenomenon:
Congressional Democrats continue to have a higher approval rating at 32% than the 24% of their Republican colleagues, but that’s mostly because Democrats are more likely to rate their own party well than Republicans are. 66% of Democrats express support for their Congressional leadership while only 50% of GOP voters do for theirs. Continuing a long running trend voters who don’t like either party plan to vote Republican by a 59-20 margin, which is why the GOP can continue to be unpopular and still have successes at the polls.
Secondly, Democrats are becoming ever more reliant on the minority vote:
Turnout from racial minorities is going to be huge for Democrats this fall because they actually trail 53-31 among white voters
. The only thing keeping the generic ballot competitive is their 88-12 lead with African Americans and 67-27 one with Hispanics. Minority turnout is always important for Democrats but with their level of unpopularity among white voters right now at an extreme level it’s going to be even more important than usual.
To put that in perspective, Obama won 43% of the white vote in 2008. That means that everything else being equal and assuming that support for the Democratic Party and Obama means the same thing, Obama would lose 11,520,000 votes leaving him some ground to make up as his winning margin was only 9,500,000 approx.
The second myth that needs to be dispelled is that Obama’s wavering support is down to the dissatisfied left:
You wouldn’t know it from reading the blogosphere but liberal Democrats are actually pretty happy with the direction of their party right now. On our most recent national poll 76% expressed that sentiment.
The other wings of the party are not that content- 58% of moderates say they like where the party’s headed but only 39% of conservatives do.
Those conservative Democrats unhappy with their party aren’t complaining too loudly about it- they’re just going out and voting for Republicans, as many of them did on Tuesday in Massachusetts.
The liberal blogosphere needs to understand this dynamic quickly. To regain his popularity, Obama needs to transition to the middle. He misread his electoral mandate but is showing signs that he understands the difficulties this has caused him. The left are yet to understand this and the last thing the Democrats need as they try to regain their poor numbers is an internal fight instigated by the base.
Jan
21
Liberals Are Revolting
Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment
Take that statement as you will.
Of course I mean it in the sense of rebelling (no honestly). At least Paul Krugman is:
But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.
It’s tough being a politician. you have to rely on your base to get elected. They’ll give you their adoration, their time and their money. But when it comes to governance, it requires governing to more than the base, who are an intolerant and impatient bunch. If you don’t give them what they want, the base soon no longer see you as “the one”.
I might be prepared to spend some time feeling sympathy for Obama on this one……..Okay I’m done now.
Oct
5
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation had a startling observation on ABC’s This Week, as noticed by Jim Geraghty:
I think what General McChrystal has done forces us to think very tough — in a hard way in this country about civilian control of the military. And he might go back and read the Constitution, Article II, the president is the commander in chief. I think we’re at a dangerous moment in the civilian-military relationship.
But as Jim Geraghty points out, she, amongst her liberal allies, didn’t have the same problem with generals talking truth to power when that power is manifested in George W. Bush and his administration:
The Army chief of staff is telling us that men like Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are arrogant commanders, who not only exaggerated the threat Iraq posed but gravely underestimated the problems of postwar occupation. Americans would do well to heed General Shinseki’s final warning.
So, to date, we’ve been told that the political atmosphere is one in which the President will be assasinated, or that there will be a military coup, that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan will ride again and that bands of Right Wing Terrorists supported by those dastardly veterans will be roaming America’s streets.
Seeing life through the lens of the left is like living in a Dan Brown novel. And they say the right are conspiracy nut-jobs.
Oct
5
Income Inequality
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Ross Douthat identifies the challenges facing the Democrats over the growing income inequality in America, a push button topic of theirs and one which their own reliance on special interests makes them ill-equipped to deal with:
The latest census figures show the gap between the wealthiest Americans and everybody else widening — rather than shrinking, as some economists expected — during the crash of 2008. An August report from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch suggested that middle-income Americans, buried in real-estate debt, will have to wait much longer than the rich to see their finances rebound.
Liberals, though, have spent decades telling a more simplistic story, in which conservatives bear all the blame for stagnating middle-class wages and skyrocketing upper-class wealth. So it’s fair to say that if a period of Democratic dominance doesn’t close the gap between the rich and the rest of us, it will represent a significant policy failure for contemporary liberalism.
But taxing the rich to give to the poor is an inadequate, economically illiterate and an unnecessarily punitive approach to solving perceived problem of income inequality*. In fact, liberal policies are part of the problem and definitely hinder any real solution:
For instance, inequality is driven in part by low-skilled immigration: it nudges wages downward for native workers, and the immigrants themselves are taking longer to achieve upward mobility than earlier generations did.
But today’s Democrats, bent on consolidating the Hispanic vote, aren’t likely to seek a lower immigration rate, or a better-educated pool of immigrants. The kind of “comprehensive” immigration reform that liberals support would probably increase low-skilled migration to the United States.
Inequality is also driven by the collapse of the two-parent household, which disproportionately affects the poor and working class, depriving them of the social capital they need to rise.
But today’s Democratic Party increasingly represents “unmarried America” — the single, the childless, the divorced. This makes it an unlikely vehicle for policies that discriminate, whether through tax code or the welfare state, in favor of the traditional nuclear family.
Inequality is perpetuated by our failing education system — and especially by the bloated cartel responsible for educating the nation’s poorest children. (If you want to understand inequality in America, start with last spring’s Los Angeles Times series on what it takes to fire a lousy teacher in the Angeleno school system.)
But today’s Democrats, the heroic efforts of some liberals notwithstanding, remain the party of the education bureaucracy, resistant to all but the most incremental efforts to bring choice and competition to our public schools.
* The reason I described income inequality as a “perceived problem” is that I don’t see it as a problem at all. What does it matter whether Mr Jones is now earning relatively more than Mr. Smith? Surely, all that matters is whether Mr. Smith is better of than he was previously. Discussing income inequality is really a discussion of income envy or income guilt. My only concern for my own wealth is whether I am better off or not, it should be no business of mine whether someone else is growing more wealthy than I am. If liberals want to focus on people’s financial security, make sure that the poor are better off, not that the rich are worse off.
Aug
16
Bush And His Wars
Filed Under American Politics | 16 Comments
During the last five years of Bush’s Presidency, the overwhelming rhetoric from the left was focused on George Bush’s wars. No other Bush policy (aside from possibly Guantanamo and torture) excited the left quite as much as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly Iraq, though even after the surge stabilised the situation there).
But under Barack Obama, not a lot has changed. Whilst American troops have withdrawn from Iraqi cities (a Bush administration agreement) and a timeline has been set for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops (similar to George Bush’s timeline), the war in Afghanistan has been escalated as have drone attacks on the Taliban in Pakistan.
But strangely, these are no longer serious issues for the left. A straw poll was conducted at Netroots Nation, an annual conference for liberal bloggers. The wars have fallen right down the liberal blogging agenda:
Now, with Obama in the White House, all that has changed. Greenberg presented respondents with a list of policy priorities and asked, “Please indicate which two you think progressive activists should be focusing their attention and efforts on the most.” The winner was passing comprehensive health care reform, with 60 percent, and number two was passing “green energy policies that address environmental concerns,” with 22 percent. Tied for eighth place, named by just eight percent of respondents, was “working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Not only are the bloggers no longer concerned about the wars, they are no longer interested in doing anything about them:
Then Greenberg asked which one of those issues “do you, personally, spend the most time advancing currently?” The winner was health care reform, with 23 percent, and second place was “working to elect progressive candidates in the 2010 elections,” with 16 percent. In 11th place — at the very bottom of the list — was “working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Just one percent of Netroots Nations attendees listed that as their most important personal priority.
So in the space of a few months and a new President, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone from the single most important reason for opposing Bush to a relative afterthought. Why is that? It’s because it was never about the wars, it was always about Bush. The left used the wars as a weapon with which to bash Bush, now he’s no longer there to bash, their righteous indignation has become more nuanced.
And now they are criticising Republicans and conservatives for opposing Obama regardless of policy. Interesting how that works.
Aug
9
Is It ALWAYS Bad To Be In The Elite?
Filed Under American Politics | 98 Comments
By Israel
In the last few weeks with the “debate” on healthcare, the exposed stupidity of the “birthers” and the inability of Republican lawmakers to denounce them for the crazies that they are without being driven out by those same “birthers” who are in the base, one thing has been latched on by right wingers and that has been some of the commentary from Bill Maher.
His July 31st New Rules, his interview with Wolf Blitzer four days earlier, and his August 7th New Rules have led to accusations of elitism thrown at him, and unlike the results that right wingers always expect and usually get, Maher is unrepentant.
In fact, during the New Rules segment on Friday he says:
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they’re talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.
Maher has actually discussed this point before. On an 2007 New Rules segment he said this:
New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word “elite.” By now you’ve heard the constant right-wing attacks on the “elite,” or as it’s otherwise known, “hating.” They’ve had it up to their red necks with the “elite media.” The “liberal elite.” Who may or may not be part of the “Washington elite.” A subset of the “East Coast elite.” Which is influenced by “the Hollywood elite.” So basically, unless you’re a shitkicker from Kansas, you’re with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being “elite” you’d almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.
And added:
I don’t get it: In other fields — outside of government — elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I’d like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad — the elite aren’t down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they’re actually doing is embracing incompetence.
His reasoning for the rant then was the discovery that Monica Goodling of the U.S. attorneys controversy was an alumnus of Pat Robertson’s tier four Regent University Law School along with 150 others who worked in the Bush Administration.
Maher was as scathing then as he was now and finished the segment by saying:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked at a hearing, “Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?” But in the Bush administration experience doesn’t matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson’s law school. The problem here in America isn’t that the country is being run by elites. It’s that it’s being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail? Went to a real law school..
Strong words then, and strong words in the last week denounced by people who always go on about personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps who don’t like the idea of someone pointing out that they have people in their group who are dumb enough not to know which came first, the Old or the New Testament.
Not that Democrats are totally immune.
You can’t jump on “birthers” if you link up with “truthers”. George Bush is not a favourite of mine in any way even with some of the things done by him and his administration for me personally the 9/11 myths are a step too far.
But Maher’s point, while brutally done is still pretty much correct in my mind. You want NASA run by a scientist, not an economist and if you are sick you would definitely want to be treated by House M.D rather than Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons.
Poster VivaZapata on Huffington Post said:
The only exception I would take to this extremely funny bit is that it is not elitist to recognize that too many wrongheaded decisions are made by snookering an uninformed american populace. Borat gave us the best exemplification of just how much stupidity is out there because it came from the dummies’ own mouths, but Maher’s statistical analysis is a close second.
And sadly, that is correct. When someone can actually stand up and yell “keep your government hands off my Medicare” how on earth can you not want them to be more informed and how can you really get annoyed at the person pointing that out?
Jun
23
The Left’s Comfort with Dictators.
Filed Under American Politics, Liberalism | 48 Comments
Andy McCarthy has a post up at The Corner in which he expresses his belief that Obama is comfortable not engaging in Iran because he shares a common anti-American cause with Ahmedinejad I don’t want to comment on that particular part of his post, it’s too polarising a point that cannot be proven and results in circular arguments. What I did want to comment on though was this particular passage:
The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chàvez. Indeed, he is the product of a hard-Left tradition that apologized for Stalin and was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists (and that, in Soros parlance, saw George Bush as a bigger terrorist than bin Laden).
Andrew Sullivan, unsurprisingly takes issue, calling it “seriously unhinged”. But here’s the thing, leaving aside the Obama bit which I admit is subjective and for which the evidence is certainly contestable, the rest of what Andy McCarthy says in that statement is true.
The left were apologists for Stalin and soviet communism; just look at the furore at Nixon’s exposure of Alger Hiss. The Congressional Black Caucus did go to meet Fidel Castro, Bobby Rush found him “endearing”. Bill Ayers thinks that Hugo Chavez is creating something “new and humane”, whilst Sean Penn thinks Chavez is a “great man”. But this is not a new tradition for the left. As I’ve stated in a comment thread, the pre-war progressive left in America idolised Benito Mussolini, who literally knocked heads together to get the trains to run on time. And let us not forget the ubiquitousness of Che Guevara posters, not only in student bedrooms, but on the walls of Obama campaign offices. And then, of course there is the ‘noble’ leftist George Galloway, who not only fawns over Saddam Hussein but acts as an apologist for Ahmedinejad too.
Now before anyone starts shouting at me, I’m well aware that the right have historically reached accommodations with despots too. But I believe there is a difference. For the right, these are pragmatic accommodations, either for foreign policy realpolitik reasons or for economic ones. But the left have a much more idolatrous relationship with dictators. They admire the rigid adherence to socialist doctrine, they empathise with the anti-Israeli and anti-American stance of self-proclaimed anti-Imperialists and they get very excited by despots who profess to be fighting the class struggle, who thumb their noses at global capitalism whilst all the time enjoying the opulence of power. But to admire the perpetrators of despotism means closing ones eyes to the realities, the oppression of the people and this is where the integrity of socialists and liberals falls down. They uniquely claim to represent the downtrodden and oppressed. But this representation is a sham, because when faced with a real world personification of their ideologies and values, the oppressed suddenly become irrelevant, sacrificed to the righteousness of class struggle.