Senate elections matter... for House Democrats

There has been growing consensus among both liberals and conservatives that the Senate is more important than it used to be. In the last two decades, the filibuster and secret holds have been abused to the dismay of many a ruling party. This did not used to be a problem, though in the 111th Congress, it was a major consideration in most major pieces of legislation. This is the main reason why most of the attention this election cycle has gone to the Senate.

There is a more important reason, however, why Senate elections truly matter this year. With no presidential candidate up for election during the midterms, Senate candidates often appear at the top of the ballot. Senate candidates have the rare opportunity to bring out voters from all over the state, something that is not possible for individual House races. Therefore, good turnout for a Senate candidate means good turnout for all the House races in the state for that candidate's party. 

Lets take a look. In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak (D-PA) is running against former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) for the seat of Arlen Specter (D-PA). Joe Sestak, though a strong candidate, has been having difficulty making headway in a strong anti-Democratic year. The RCP poll average for the race has Pat Toomey winning by 6.5%. Similarly, Nate Silver has a 92% chance of a Republican takeover. Pennsylvania has many swing districts held by vulnerable Democrats who will not be benefiting from a strong Democratic wave this year. I will list the key races below:

                     PA-03: R+6

                     PA-10: R+14

                     PA-11: R+11

                     PA-12: R+4

Notice there are no Republican seats in play. Some would argue Jim Gerlach (R-PA) is endangered, but I do not believe he will loose. Among the incumbents above, several have been in the House for more than two terms. Now lets take a look at a state which the Democrat is running an effective campaign. In Washington State, Incumbent Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) is fending off a challenge from perennial Republican candidate Dino Rossi. The RCP poll average for the race has Murray winning by 5.3%. Lets now look at the key House races.

                     WA-02: R+4

                     WA-03: R+9

                     WA-08: R+13

                     WA-09: D+3

Washington and Pennsylvania are relatively comparable states, when it comes to partisan identification. Both are strongly Democratic, but have many swing districts in the more rural areas. The four most likely to flip districts in Pennsylvania all lean or are Republican blowouts, and all controlled by Democrats. The Washington situation is somewhat different. Dave Reichert (R-WA) is vulnerable to the Democrats even in a bad year and the close Democratic races are all close to the margin of error. 

There is also a similar effect of Governor's races on those down ballot, though it is not as clear as their Senate counterparts. Many governors have cross-party appeal and make turnout for House candidates much less reliable. If the Democrats want to hold on to their majority in the House of Representatives, they should start by looking to shore up of their winnable Senate races.

It's all about playing down expectations

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs warned on Sunday that there is a concrete possability the Republicans could take back the House of Representatives in November. This is one of the first public admissions of political trouble from the Democratic establishment. Conservative pundits were quick to jump on the prospect of the Obama Administration sounding the alarm so early in the election cycle, citing the weakness of their position. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has repeatedly asserted the Democrats' House majority is not in danger, citing individual house races, but her statements have only become more positive following the completion of the health care debate.

Pelosi has a point here. Though the national trends have the GOP at a slight advantage, there are numerous reasons to suggest they will fall short of a majority. The individual House races that feature vulnerable Democratic incumbents are polling better for the majority party than would be expected. The Democrats also have a massive fund-raising advantage. Above all else, the Republicans are not viewed as a good alternative to the Democrats by the electorate. The nomination of people like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul does nothing to improve their standing in this area.

Furthermore, the White House statements about the Democratic Party's chances in November are likely to play down expectations. The Republican Party has been trumpeting their inevitable win so loudly that anything short of a sweep in November will make them look bad. It is likely Democratic strategists have realized there will be political capital to be had if the Republicans do not win the election by a mile. The comments could also have been trying to arouse the Democratic base, who are frightened by the idea of John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.

Dem leadership battle shows itself in immigration debate

Ever since Harry Reid's reelection prospects headed south, two top Democratic senators have been pushing for his position as Senate majority leader. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Richard Durbin (D-ILL) have been quietly building support for the leadership battle that will ensue if Harry Reid is defeated. Charles Schumer was chairman of the DSCC during the 2006-2008 election cycles and many senators owe him their job. Richard Durbin is the Senate majority whip and second ranking Democrat. There are absolutely no notable ideological differences between the two men. They are also roommates. This allows the race to avoid becoming a repeat of the 2006 House leadership battle, when moderate Representatives voted for John Murtha and liberals voted for Nancy Pelosi.

The split between the two men has showed itself on the issue of immigration. Charles Schumer is leading the charge with a comprehensive immigration bill. Durbin, however, is pushing for his DREAM Act. This bill would grant citizenship to U.S. born aliens who joined the military or completed college. The passage of either bill would undoubtedly give the upper hand to whichever author prevails, therefore watch for this battle to heat up in the coming weeks. This conflict comes as Harry Reid's standing appears to be improving. The GOP front runner is bogged down in controversy and the second pick is substantially weaker against Reid.

My take is the issue of immigration has been handled so sloppily by the Democrats, it would be better to leave a comprehensive bill for a later date. The DREAM Act would do well to appease angry Latinos, notably Louis Gutiererrez, while prolonging the real immigration fight for next year. The Democrats have a lot on their plate right now, from energy legislation to gay rights issues. Furthermore, immigration is an area in which finding Republican cosponsors will be relatively easy. Next year Democrats will see their majorities substantially reduced, and immigration could act as a good bipartisan issue to tackle in the first months of the 112th Congress.

Big tent parties require big tent policies

Political parties often have a decision to make about whether to adopt a certain group's stances on issues, or cede their votes. The Democratic Party resoundingly won over African-American voters in the 1960s when they passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Democratic Party won over women when they supported the equal rights amendment to The Constitution, which eventually failed. As gay rights activists began to mobilize in the 1980s, the Democrats embraced their agenda with open arms. The Republicans continued to maintain their hold on their traditional demographic, upper/middle class white males. Since the 1980s, they have not won over any further emerging groups, with the possible exception of white evangelical Christians. The next group to be won over by a party will be Latino voters.

Democrats have been winning the battle over the Latino vote. Barack Obama won over 60% of the Latino vote in 2008. This kind of resounding electoral victory will only be intensified with conservative antics such as the 2010 Arizona Immigration Law. Latino voters are one issue voters. They will essentially support any party which signs on to comprehensive immigration reform. At this point, this is is the Democrats. Republicans previously supportive of immigration reform such as John McCain have backed off the issue due to right wing pressure. At the same time, Chuck Schumer is currently pushing a comprehensive immigration bill with widespread support among his Democratic colleagues.

It is impossible to create a big tent coalition without having many diverse views included. The Republican Party cannot become a viable alternative unless they stop pandering to their shrinking demographic base. This means endorsing progressive immigration reform.

Wall Street Reform fails to garner 60 votes needed to end debate

In what is possibly a sign of trouble to come, Senate Democrats have failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to move their "Wall Street reform" bill. The opposition comes from both the left and right, though it is widely expected the measure will gain the 60 votes needed to move it to conference once the differences have been settled between various senators and the leadership. Those voting "no" on the cloture motion but expected to votes "yes" eventually include Russ Feingold (D-WI), Maria Candwell (D-WA), and Scott Brown (R-MA). Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and George Voinovich (R-OH) are both considered gettable votes based on previous statements they have made regarding the bill. Additionally, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) both voted to end debate.

What Christopher Dodd (D-CT) said earlier this month, that financial reform has been a uniquely non-partisan issue, seems likely to be true. The Senate Republicans who are considered in play are all considered fairly moderate, and most have a history of supporting the Obama Administration on key issues. The bipartisan support for this bill stands in contrast with statements John McCain and Lindsay Graham made earlier this year, which indicated bipartisanship would be dead for the remainder of the 111th congress because of the health care debate. Clearly it is not. These moderate Republicans in the senate may be what is left of the once noble GOP who knew how to compromise and did what is right for the country.

In contrast with these moderate GOP voices, Mitch McConnell blasted the "government takeover" of the financial industry. We have heard this argument repeated for every single controversial piece of legislation which has come up these last two years. It is one thing to be prudent about spending, it is another to not want anything done at all. The fact of the matter is, Mitch, you were elected to the United States government. Any decision you make is a government intervention. If you want so little government intervention, go work for a multinational corporation.

Update: The Senate has now passed the measure on a vote of 69-39. Chuck Grassley, Arlen Specter and Scott Brown joined the Senators previously supporting the measure. The measure now moves to conference committee with the House where the differences will be reconciled in the coming weeks.

Financial reform is an issue of unique agreement

This is strange. The financial reform bill has moved through the upper chamber with no GOP filibusters whatsoever. Many of the amendments, such as the Audit the Fed measure, have garnered near universal backing. The amendment in question passed the Senate 96-0. This is unheard of. During the health care debate, amendments were filibustered just to slow down the process. Furthermore, the bill has become more and more liberal as it has passed through the upper chamber. The health care and climate change bills, in contrast, become significantly more conservative when moving through the Senate. This is true of most legislative proposals. So my question is, what has changed?

The atmosphere certainly has not changed. Republicans are emboldened by the Democratic Party's dropping poll numbers and have been opposing Obama's agenda more than ever. I think the difference is the issue. The public is extremely angry over the greed of wall street, and headlines saying the GOP is obstructing wall street reform don't fly very well. Harry Reid made a uniquely good calculation by forging ahead without Republican votes. Earlier this month, when the motion to begin debate came up, the Republicans filibustered a total of three times before breaking. It seems the "liberal" media won them out once again.

Is there evidence of a Democratic Party surge?

This doesn't quite fit in with the Republican Party's narrative about the November midterm elections. The Democrats have regained the lead in the congressional ballot poll according to an Associated Press/GFK poll released today. This coincides with a surging approval rating for President Obama in numerous polls, including the Gallup Tracking Poll. Does this mean the Democrats are headed for less significant losses in November, and if they are, what is driving this reversal of fortune?

As Bill Clinton would say, it's all about the economy stupid. After recent economic reports, it's looking like the economy will be adding more jobs in the first two years of the Obama Administration than were created during the entirety of the Bush years. This should be sending shivers down Republicans' spines as they have been campaigning against the Administration's economic policies for much of the election season. This narrative will be difficult to hold once the economy is in a distinctive upswing, which looks more and more likely now.

One other conclusion is that the oil spill has solidified the public's opinion against the corporatism the Republicans in congress espouse. Rush Limbaugh telling his viewers the oil spill is not a problem may be acceptable for uber-conservative primary voters, but the average American really likes beaches in Florida (and maybe are worried about some dead sea gulls). The financial reform bill before congress could have this same effect. Republicans will have a hard time facing the voters if they outright oppose financial reform. The polls do not show a successful Democratic year, but may help to alleviate fears of a 1994- like disaster for the incumbent party.

How can the GOP say they care about job creation after this?

This week, house Democrats began to move a bill they named the COMPETES Act, which would increase funding for science, research and training programs. This would lead to job creation in these areas. It would also lead to indirect benefits such as technological innovation, individual opportunity and a more specialized workforce. The GOP, acting in good faith of course, introduced a motion to amend the legislation with a provision which would prohibit federal funds from providing salaries to employees charged with pornographic offenses while at work. This began a snowball effect among moderate Democrats, and the amendment passed. This creates serious policy issues and therefore the bill has been withdrawn from the house floor by the Democratic leadership.

These kind of wedge issues have not been uncommon during the 111th United States Congress. During the healthcare debate, Republican Senators such as David Vitter, began introducing random amendments meant to divide the Democratic Party. One of these would have prohibited federal funds from providing Viagra for registered sex offenders. Though many of these steps should be taken, they are not introduced in good faith. Vitter publicly declared he introduced many of these with the goal of slowing the bill.

These kind of amendments do not belong in our national politics. When the Republican Party says they are serious about job creation, they should not be trying to sink Dem efforts to help put Americans to work.

White House, stop meddling in Dem primaries!

Anti-incumbent rage is sweeping the nation. Incumbent Utah Senator Robert Bennet just lost the Republican nominating process, after being in the senate for 18 years and earning himself a spot on the Republican leadership circle. West Virginia Rep. Alan Mollohan is now about to suffer the same fate. Arlen Specter, the Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat, is now trailing in polls against primary challenger Joe Sestak (D). Blanche Lincoln is being given a run for her money against primary challenger Bill Halter.

There is no doubt that many of these incumbents' situations were made worse by votes they cast, but there is no denying that the electorate wants new people representing them. In the case of Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter, the primary electorate thinks them too conservative for their constituencies. This is healthy. Strong primary challenges to incumbents is a sign of a healthy democracy. If the party/constituents are fed up with a particular officeholder, they can either vote them out of office or pressure them to represent them in a better way.

President Barack Obama clearly doesn't think so. He has shown consistent support for both Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter, even though they both have voted consistently against his agenda (Arlen Specter when he was a Republican). He is likely protecting them because of the personal relationships he forged with them during his time in the senate. This is wrong. The United States senate can no longer be treated like a country club. Neither can the United States government. Obama, lets allow the people decide who they want to represent them, not their former friends in the senate.

What the UK elections say about our current political climate

As polls close across the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party under David Cameron stands to win a plurality of seats in the House of Commons. The center-left Labor Party, under Gordon Brown, stands to take a hit in the polls due to public outrage over the government's handling of the global economic recession. A third variable in the equation is the center-left Liberal Democrats, who have surged since the debates and will undoubtedly become a swing vote in the hung parliament that most pundits expect. The UK election, though much different than our own midterm elections, can give us some insight into the current political problems facing the Democratic Party (US).

The Democrats and Labor are in similar situations. Both are center-left parties that have come to power recently after a string of bad decisions by the center-right party. Both of them held majorities during the economic crisis and therefore had to make a lot of tough decisions that apparently did nothing to improve the economy. Let me clarify that though the Democrats did not control the presidency during the crash, they controlled both branches of the legislature and later the presidency during the economic fallout that was caused by the crash. The main difference between the parties is that Barack Obama appears to be generally improving the position of the Democrats whereas Gordon Brown appears to be driving discontent with the Labor Party.

What is important is both of these parties stand to take a major hit in their respective elections, likely losing their majorities. It is easy to forget that neither of these parties caused the recession. The Democrats generally opposed recent efforts to deregulate the financial markets and the Labor Party had little to do with it as the problem originated in America. Pundits have been talking about polls that show something like 60% of Americans would vote out their incumbent representative or senator. In most of these cases, the incumbent will be a Democrat. It is not clear, however, that most of these independent minded Americans want to vote Republican either. Last time I checked, the Republican Party's favorability rating stood at 22% whereas the Democratic Party stood at 38%. A similar trend is happing in the UK. Many people don't want Labor, but they also don't want to vote Conservative. Conservative is the lesser of two evils in their eyes. But the funny thing about a parliamentary system is there aren't only two choices. Enter Liberal Democrats.

The Lib Democrats generally follow similar policies to Labor, though they favor a free market economy and other centrist measures. Generally speaking, if support is shifting from Labor to Liberal Democrats, it isn't the policies that are drawing support from Labor. This is most likely true in America. People want to blame someone for the harsh economic conditions, so they blame the ruling party. They don't, however, want their lifeline cut by a center-right party so they are confused. The bottom line is that if there was a strong third party in America, they would be surging right now. We would likely be better off because of it.

Lets help resurrect the New England Republican

The New England Republican is an endangered species these days, being forced out of their own party by a Southern Republican party far more conservative than it. This is not to say that there aren't anyone who is a Republican in New England anymore, on the contrary, there are far more Republican leaning people in a liberal state like Vermont than one would think. The big problem for the New England GOP is that these Republican voters aren't voting Republican in federal races. The prime example of this is the election of Bill Owens to fill the seat of John McHugh. The Republican candidate was Dede Scozzafava though she was eventually forced out of the race by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, handing the Democrats a victory in the conservative NY-23.

So why do I argue that we should be resurrection a moderate GOP? What benefit does this bestow on the progressive agenda? First of all, let me open by saying that Medicare passed the senate with at least 10 Republican votes. Where did these votes come from? The answer is moderate areas like New England. Progressive strategists hailed Howard Dean's 50 state strategy that attempted to make the Democratic Party competitive in every area of the United States. This works well when there is a landslide and ample campaign funds, not so well for most election years.

This leads me to believe that we should prioritize investments in candidates that are running against conservative candidates in areas where they are the only liberal candidate. Lincoln Chafee, a liberal Republican senator, was unseated in 2006 with help by the DNC and the DSCC. Why are we, as a Democratic Party, wasting money to oppose people who already vote with our party most of the time? A much better use of the money would be to protect and capture seats that would be occupied by conservative Republicans if they were not represented by Democrats. This would also increase the number of GOP moderates, leading to legitimate bipartisan cooperation and possibly a softening of the GOP leadership's ability to rigidly control its members' voting patterns. Olympia Snowe commented after Arlen Specter's primary switch;

"I've always been deeply concerned about the views of the Republican Party nationally in terms of their exclusionary policies and views towards moderate Republicans."

By investing in races opposing conservative republicans, we could help change the GOP back into a party that we can work with in solving the country's issues. We won't get back our New Deal Coalition, but we can try to emulate its strategy.

High taxes? Yeah right.

As tax day approaches, around 35% of Americans actually believe that Obama has raised taxes on them. The media has been focused for so long on the Tea Party movement that seeks among other things to lower taxes which they view as having gone up under the Democrats. So this will be news to some of the country, that Obama in fact passed the largest tax cut in recent history as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Tax refunds in the form of a Making Work Pay tax credit are at their highest levels for at least twenty years. So what makes people think that the Democrats have raised taxes?

First of all, Democrats have mostly been supportive of tax increases more recently. They opposed the Bush tax cuts, supported Bill Clinton's tax increases, and have proposed numerous other ideas such as the carbon tax and tax on high end insurance policies. The truth of the matter is: Democrats would raise our taxes if presented with the opportunity to do so.

Now I agree with Paul Krugman in that I believe that the Republicans don't oppose taxes because they believe in "fiscal responsibility". The Republicans realized in the 1970s that they could not cut spending on Social Security, Medicare and other popular programs without facing a massive public backlash. At this point they began a strategy that deprived these programs of funding so the government would be forced to eliminate them. And how could they go about cutting spending? By cutting taxes.

Clearly the Republicans are winning the messaging war over the tax issue. When you have Democrats bragging about cutting taxes, clearly there has been a paradigm shift in America. But there is a difference between the parties on this issue. The Democrats have cut taxes on the middle and lower class whereas the Republicans have cut taxes for the wealthy. Liberals, including myself, have always argued that the wealthy should pay the most taxes because they have the ability to pay them. Also, depriving the upper classes of inherited wealth leads to increased social mobility, hence the American dream.

So the next time the Republicans say they want to cut taxes, lets ask them whose taxes they want to cut and for what purpose. As far as the Democrats go, the middle class should not see their taxes go up disproportionately under Obama though everyone will have to help bring down our deficit.

On the Democratic Party's low approval rating

Its not news to most people that the Democrats are in trouble. They have had two straight landslide elections, bring with it the largest congressional majority any party has been given since the 1970s. The initial problem was that the base was not energized, compared to the Republican counterpart. Republicans were riled up by Fox News and claims of socialism creeping into the country. Democratic activists were disappointed over their losses on key components of the health reform debate. The passage of health-care legislation has greatly improved the mood among the base, though there is little evidence that independents have been swayed. I would attribute the failure of the Democrats to maintain there position to several factors.

The first of these is their message. The Republicans have had a far superior public relations strategy than the Democrats for a long time. Somehow an ad that says, "Obama is going to kill Grandma" is more frightening than, "Republicans are going to destroy the public safety net that provides for class mobility in our society." It is just funny how the Democratic strategists haven't thought about trying to promote their ideas and further discredit the Republican brand. There are so many things that could be used against them: contradicting statements on national security, ethics violations, corruption and pandering to business interests that could stir equal animosity towards the GOP as we saw during the last months of the Bush presidency. There is a reason that the Republican Party's favorability ratings hang somewhere between 15-20%. People know they don't have the middle class's interests at heart.

The second of these is the fact that the Democrats have let the Republicans define every issue that they have brought up. On the stimulus package, we saw Democrats touting tax cuts rather than focusing on spending that is proven to be much better for economic growth. On health-care, we saw the Democrats scramble to ensure that people could keep their existing coverage, even when that coverage is worse than it could be under real reform. Democrats have to shift the paradigm that America is a center-right country, or we will never be able to enact center-left policies.

Third, Democrats have never thought to blame Republicans for a breakdown in bipartisanship. The public wants to see more bipartisanship, and some polls have shown that a near majority think this is the fault of the Democrats. Its about time to call the GOP out on not negotiating in good faith. Included in this is the inability for the Democrats to control the economy. I think the administration would have the economic situation much more stable than it is now if we could have had more bipartisan support for real jobs and economic stimulus legislation. The economy is not the issue here, I think, it is the framing of the economic situation and who is to fault for it.

One of my next posts tomorrow will be what I think the democrats should do about the economy, so stay tuned.