Villain Of The Year For Democrats

Villain Of The Year For Republicans

You Predict: Rahm's Code Name

You Predict: Obama's Approval Rating

You Predict: The Dow In January, 2010

Year-End Poll: Sarah Palin's Moments

Year-End Poll: Book Of The Year

Year-End Poll: McCain's Senior Staff

Year-End Poll: High-Impact Journalist Of The Cycle

Year-End Poll: Major GOP Gaffes

Year-End Poll: Best Scandal

Year-End Poll: Moment Of The Year

Year-End Poll: Democratic Gaffe Of The Year

Year-End Poll: The Clinton Characters

Year-End Poll: Unsung Obama Hero

Year-End Poll: Feud Of The Year

. Note: the polling site I use is down, so please read "Barack Obama where the text says "Bill Obama." Also, a line in the first poll should read "fired it up, ready to go. "

Year-End Poll: Political Catch Phrases

The Left Adapts To Power; Or, Overcoming Learned Pessimism

The Rick Warren dust-up seems to signal a knee-jerk reaction on the part of many liberals and progressives to what progressives would normally interpret as a slap in the face.

The contrast, though, between the impressively (from that point of view) liberal administration appointments that obama has been rolling out over the past few days and the choice of an anti-gay pastor to speak briefly for one morning (and presumably not about gays, or any other divisive social issue) is fascinating.

There has been some praise for Obama's choice of Hilda Solis as an ally of labor, but that praise has been nothing compared to the fury in many quarters about the symbolism of Rick Warren.

The Obama team probably misread the situation a bit, but it's easy to see how they might do so: the transition team obviously wanted two contrasting religious voices for the invocation and the benediction. Seen in this light, the Warren pick is far less controversial.

The deeper dynamic, though, is this: liberal groups are used to being treated like stepchildren in Washington. They are used to being under seige at all times, and it's going to take some adjustment to realize that gay rights are probably not in danger because of things like the Warren pick.   (An Obama adviser, discussing this matter with me, urged patience, saying that Obama is committed to the substance of his campaign promises to expand gay rights.)

A little private reassurance would go a long way, and it seems that the Obama team ihas not accounted for the fact that everyone, on all sides, is going through a period of psychological adjustment from the Bush years.

This includes liberal interest groups accustomed to being slapped around by Bush and taken for granted by Bill Clinton.

When new programs start coming down the pike, and Obama's priorities on gay rights (and on anything else on the progressive agenda) become clear, most of this early defensive posturing will probably be seen as premature and overblown.  Until Barack Obama does something substantial to advance gay rights, groups like HRC can hardly be blamed for feeling the deja vu.

The Democrats' Card Check Quandary

So - organized labor in the form of the Change to Win coalition and the AFL-CIO spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several cycles, devoted hundreds of thousands of person-hours, extended itself in myriad ways - to bring Democrats to power, to elect a Democratic president, to elect a labor friendly slate that would finally break down the governmental and economic barriers to allow the labor movement to breathe and expand. Central to all of this is one piece of legislation, ingeniously  titled the " Employee Free Choice Act," EFCA, or, card check. This column is fixated with EFCA because labor remains the backbone of the Democratic Party, EFCA is their top priority, and because the passage of card check legislation has the potential to dramatically reinvigorate the labor movement everywhere. Failure would probably doom it.

Conventional wisdom is that Democrats will pass card check upon assuming office, that Obama will pass it, and that all this will happen quite quickly. They'll anger business groups by doing so, but the quicker they get this out of the way, the more time they'll have to repair relations before the 2010 midterms. But card check is going to be one of the toughest pieces of legislation to pass.

First, it's not clear that Democrats have the votes to avoid a filibuster. A couple of Democratic senators, like Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, may balk. Business-funded groups are slamming Democrats in competitive states with pressure advertising, and anti-labor forces claim the support of virtually every major technology and industry association in Washington. Republicans like George Voinovich of Ohio and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania going to need an incentive -- positive or negative, depending on the case - to break ranks.

And nothing would be more disastrous for labor - and for the Obama administration - for Democrats to bring the vote to the floor and watch it fail. The history of the relationship between the Democratic Party and labor unions is not as clear cut as modern political rhetoric might indicate. Two of the most consequential labor policy failures occurred during Democratic administrations and in Democratic congresses. Jimmy Carter and the Democrats failed to pass legislation legalizing common situs picketing, which would have made it much easier for unions to strike an entire job site if only one party had a contractual grievance. Congressional Democrats, stymied by dissenters in their own party, couldn't pass labor law reform out of committee. Bill Clinton sided with labor in most disputes, but NAFTA and fast track trade negotiation legislation are regarded by many in labor as the two biggest catalysts to the recent globalization-related declines in union membership.

To say that an older generations of labor leaders is wary of big promises from Democrats is an understatement. Indeed, within the movement, there's an implicit bargain at hand. If Obama doesn't get to sign EFCA, he's not going to lose the support of service-oriented unions, the multi-ethnic, racially diverse unions. In 1994, union members stayed home or voted for Republicans in part because they were angry that Clinton had pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement upon them.

It would be difficult for Obama to retain the ironclad support of Midwestern industrial unions - leaders of which took risks among their culturally conservative members by supporting Obama so unequivocally. Obama is likely to bide time with labor by appointing friendly folks to the National Labor Relations Board, by reigning in government outsourcing and by ordering the Justice Department the Labor Department to more stringently enforce existing protections for workers.

Continue reading "The Democrats' Card Check Quandary" »

Democrats And The Legacy Question

Nepotism and dynasty are the politico-sociological phrases of the week, and Democrats who are digesting the possibility of Caroline Kennedy becoming a U.S. senator because she is Caroline Kennedy are concluding that the criticism is not entirely without merit.  Using the word "nepotism" to describe the Kennedy situation is inaccurate. Kennedy is a legacy; her family is not in charge of the process of selection and does not exert any formal influence on the process. Legacies benefit from the social characteristics imputed to their families; their values, ideals and informal social influences.  President John Adams appointed his son, John Quincy to be ambassador plenipotentiary to Prussia; JQA made peace with Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. The elder Adams worried about the appearance of nepotism, but his argument was sound: John Quincy was one of the very few Americans who had spent considerable time overseas, who knew the diplomatic causeways, and who the president trusted to handle the account.  The Adams dynasty survived  many iterations, but by the time of Franklin Roosevelt -- for whom family lineage was so important that he married his second cousin -- Henry Adams lived across from the White House and was treated as a benevolent, inconsequential wise man.  Americans have a habit of protesting dynasties as being violations of our civic creed, which, since the advent of Jacksonian Democracy, has helped to temper the rewards of birth when it comes to competition in the political sphere.  Growing up in a political family can anethetize budding politicians to the vagaries of politics, but, at the same time, a passion for public service can be cultivated rather quickly. We want good people in politics; we want good sons and daughters of good politicians to continue their legacies.

Now -- it's an entirely fair point -- Democrats, the self-named advocates of the common man, of an enlightened meritocracy,  have a rising number of high-profile dynasty candidates, candidates who, by the accident of birth, have found themselves in a privileged position.  Might this trend be mitigated by the advent of Obama Democrats? Consider that Democrats in 2008 had an opportunity to pick up a lot of Senate seats. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recruited candidates who could hit the ground running with name ID and the ability to raise funds, like Mark Udall in Colorado and cousin Tom Udall in New Mexico. Still -- dynastic considerations won't clear the field and aren't guarantors of anything. Another Udall cousin, Sen. Gordon Smith, was defeated, as were the GOP's two dynasty candidates -- incumbent John Sununu in New Hampshire and Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina At what point do committees like the DSCC have a 'social obligation'  to recruit and signal their support of candidates of quality and promise -- think of Barack Obama circa 2003, 2004 -- as opposed to clearing the field for the Udalls and Kennedys?

Is it possible for the Democratic to really be, at once, the party of Obama of Hawaii, Hyde Park, Kansas and Kenya -- and also the party of legacies? 

On the other hand, it is difficult, in a year in which Obama defeated a former first lady, and then the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, to make the case of a Dem-lead noblesse oblige-apalooza. Not the nobility of family or birth, at least.

What I'm Getting Andrew Sullivan For Christmas

A 2009 Sarah Palin wall calendar!

"A personal look at the Vice Presidential Candidate."

Pre-drilled for wall-hanging.  More than 50 photos of Palin and her family.

Understanding The Politics: Why Rick Warren Matters To Gays

Obama's Science Adviser

Reported, naturally, by Science, is  Harvard physicist and climate change expert John Holdren. Expect an announcement this weekend.

Obama Gets The Symbols, Bungles The Politics

Barack Obama, this morning:

Let me start by talking about my own views. I think that it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something that I have been consistent on and something that I intend to be consistent on during my presidency. What I've also said is that it is important for American to come together even though we have disagreements on certain social issues. I would note that a couple of years ago, I was invited by Rick Warren's church to speak despite his wariness that I held contrary views.... that's what this campaign was about....We're not going to agree on very single issue...but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere that we can disagree and not be disagreeable....

The furious reaction of partisans to Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is instructive. The left's bone to pick is that by giving Warren such a prominent inaugural post, Obama is signalling that Warren's views are at least minimally acceptable and legitimately part of the discourse in Changed America. The right's bone to pick is the idea that a pro-life leader would bless the inauguration of man who supports abortion rights. (Interesting that pro-choicers have no objection, per se, and that anti-gay marriage types have no objection, per se.)

In his short political career, Obama has deftly manipulated political symbols to his advantage, but he's never been one to pay homage to one of the most sacred regulations of identity politics, which is that one must take care of one's own kind before turning outward.  His mind operates differently. Obama does believe, as many of his supporters do, that there are uncrossable demarcation lines between the reasonable and the profane. But he doesn't believe that Warren, someone he admires for reaching outside his (Warren's) comfort zone on AIDS, is all that different from himself.  Obama is simultaneously capable of admiring Warren while disdaining Warren's oogedy boogedy appraoch to gay relationships and his uninformed response to torture. Warren's views might be hurtful to gays; Obama does not think they are harmful.

That said, his team bungled this a bit. Reaching out to gay groups to give them a heads up might have softened the edge of their reaction and given them internal confidence that they were valued members of Obama's coalition.  Dropping the list (like it's hot), without pre-notice, must have seemed like a sharp slap in the face. The LGBT community is still very raw about Proposition 8, and one would assume that at least someone in Obama's inner circle would be aware of this.

On the other hand, the coverage of gay community outrage accomplishes something tangible: isn't this the first time that Warren's been tagged as something other than a moderate, get-along cleric?

Paul Weyrich, RIP

On a day when cultural politics is Story A, it is fitting to ruminate about the life and influence of Paul Weyrich, who died this morning at the age of 66. He was the co-founder, with Jerry Falwell, of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation's first president, a founder of the Council for National Policy, a leading yoda for Beltway social conservatives, a bugbear to the left and a hero to the right. Virtually every conservative of import has noted his passing, his endearing peculiarities, and his decency.

However -- he had a visceral disdain for secular humanists; he considered gay people to be hyper-sexualized deviants. He was not very nice to those with whom he worked, although his orneriness can probably be attributed to the physical pain resulting from severe spinal trauma he suffered in 1996. He lost both of his legs in 2005 and worked mostly from his home near Washington. D.C.   The public's response to Bill Clinton's Oval Office infidelity discouraged Weyrich to the point where he suggested that evangelicals disengage with politics. He recanted that position, somewhat, but his abdication of a life's work made room for ambitious evangelicals like James Dobson to move in.

In his latter years, as his influence within the Republican Party declined, his willingness to find common cause with others increased. He joined with civil libertarians in 2002 to protest the Patriot Act and opposed the Bush Administration's terrorist surveillance program. 

The Clinton Foundation's Donors

All of them, right here, disclosed by President Clinton ahead of his wife's confirmation hearings.  The tens of millions contributed by foreign governments is about what you would expect. (The Saudis gave the most.)  Sen. Dick Lugar sounded a bit of warning: "I don't know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this -- who has such cosmic ties."

The Clinton Foundation's statement includes the following:

As soon as Senator Clinton was nominated to be Secretary of State, the Foundation staff began working with President-elect Obama's transition team to ensure that not even the appearance of a conflict of interest existed between the Clinton Foundation's operations and Senator Clinton's anticipated service as Secretary of State.  President Clinton's efforts are unprecedented and go above and beyond what the law requires and are intended to allow the important work of the Foundation to continue.

The memorandum of understanding worked out between the Clinton and Obama teams include a prohibition on fundraising by Clinton himself.

Democratic Interest Groups Join To Press For Obama Economic Plan

The Democratic coalition is ready to fight.

Tomorrow, liberal interest groups and unions will unite under the Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery Now (C-JERN) banner to pressure Congress to pass Barack Obama's economic recovery package.

Given the parlous state of the economy and the tricky politics of the auto bailouts, passing a large economic stimulus plan might be a heavier lift than Democrats might have anticipated in the weeks after the election.   "Why should [Obama] have to spend political capital on a problem created by his predecessors?" said Brad Woodhouse, whose Americans United for Change (c)4 will coordinate the group's activities.

Participants include the Change to Win unions, the AFL-CIO unions, ACORN, US Action, the NEA, the Sierra Club, the People for the American Way foundation, and others. They'll provide the field capacity; Woodhouse's Americans United for Change is organizing the coalition and will produce the bulk of its communications, both paid and earned. C-JERN has met with Obama's transition team and with representatives for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In 2005, Americans United for Change was called Americans United to Protect Social Security; it spent millions to  pressure Republicans and Democrats, ultimately helping to put the kibosh on the President Bush's aspiration to privitize Social Security.   

Lincoln "Undecided" On Card Check; Al Sharpton Opposes

A spokersperson for Sen. Blanche Lincoln says the Arkansas senator hasn't decided how to vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check.

"It was not her intention to make comments that would suggest opposition to the bill," said Katie Laning Niebaum, the spokesperson. "She believes the bill should go through the normal legislative process and she will not be taking a position until that time. So, to be clear, she remains undecided on the bill."

I'm not sure how influential Rev. Al Sharpton is these days, but he told his radio audience this afternoon that he opposes card check because a non-secret-ballot process could potentially create undue pressures for minority workers in majority-white work environments, and it could foist contracts on them that they would not otherwise support.

Gay Group Calls Obama Invocation Pick A "Genuine Blow"

Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, has sent a blistering letter to President-elect Obama, accusing him of delivering a "genuine blow" to the gay community in choosing Rev. Rick Warren to give the formal invocation at next month's inauguration.

Let me get right to the point.  Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans.   Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years.  And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

 

Rick Warren has not sat on the sidelines in the fight for basic equality and fairness.  In fact, Rev. Warren spoke out vocally in support of Prop 8 in California saying, "there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population ... This is not a political issue -- it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."  Furthermore, he continues to misrepresent marriage equality as silencing his religious views. This was a lie during the battle over Proposition 8, and it's a lie today.

 

Rev. Warren cannot name a single theological issue that he and vehemently, anti-gay theologian James Dobson disagree on.  Rev. Warren is not a moderate pastor who is trying to bring all sides together. Instead, Rev. Warren has often played the role of general in the cultural war waged against LGBT Americans, many of whom also share a strong tradition of religion and faith.

 

We have been moved by your calls to religious leaders to own up to the homophobia and racism that has stood in the way of combating HIV and AIDS in this country.  And that you have publicly called on religious leaders to open their hearts to their LGBT family members, neighbors and friends. 

 

But in this case, we feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.  Only when Rev. Warren and others support basic legislative protections for LGBT Americans can we believe their claim that they are not four-square against our rights and dignity. In that light, we urge you to reconsider this announcement.

From experience, one can presume that the decision to invite Rick Warren was made because (a) Obama likes the guy, and (b) he knows it would send a message to groups like the HRC, and to conservative Christians who might be wary of the new president. Not so much pandering as it is Obama's deft manipulation of the politics of symbolism.  Obviously, Obama disagrees with Rick Warren on important issues. He has said so, many times, and publicly.  And he agrees with him on other important issues. And ignoring something like Warren, a mainstream figure who commands the respect of million of Americans, would be foolish.  Obama's message is: Rick Warren is a part of Obama's America, too.

More Card Checkin' Across The Universe

Responding to my post today about comments from Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) on card check legislation for union organizing, a top Democratic political strategist noted that Lincoln "left herself some wiggle room" in the AP article. "She is in a tough state and is getting pounded on this issue and may well say things that make people like me uncomfortable, but it is wrong to suggest that she is a done deal on this," the strategist said.

Even though the labor movement is coming off of its most important political victory in decades, it has never encountered a more perilous confluence of circumstances. Fairly or not, labor's shouldering the blame for the collapse of the auto industry. Employers everywhere are firing workers and renegotiating contracts. The SEIU and Change to Win coalitions are caught up in the Blagojevich scandal (though there's no evidence they did anything wrong.)  And card check, which would be the single biggest boon for union organizing in years, is teetering on the brink, the victim of a concerted and ongoing Republican campaign to brand the legislation as anti-choice and anti-privacy. Labor may not have the 60 Senate votes it needs to beat a filibuster, although some labor strategists are confident that, in private, the numbers are there. Last week, in arguing that the United Auto Workers' contracts were mostly responsible for the collapse of the auto industry in the U.S., anti-union forces essentially conceded that the high wages and good benefits paid to auto makers were at the crux of the industry's competitive failings. This argument matureed at precisely the right time politically. The focus last week was on what went wrong, not on the material situations, relative to the middle class, of its workers. It's fashionable now to blame the UAW for forcing the automakers into a weak competitive position even though the non-wage and benefit clauses in those contracts are more deserving of scrutiny.

A German Lesson.

Q. The German word for "transition" is:

(Answer after the jump.)

Continue reading "A German Lesson." »

Rick Warren To Give Invocation At The Inauguration; John Williams, Aretha, Yo-Yo MA, I. Perlman, Too

Here's a bit of a surprise: Dr. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will give the formal invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.  The good pro-life theologian first met Obama in 2006 at a Saddleback AIDS forum in California. Obama used the occasion to press the evangelical pastors present to embrace "realism" when they considered the issue; preach abstience, yes, but preaching against contraception can kill. (Here's some of what Obama said that day: "I know that there are those who, out of sincere religious conviction, oppose such measures. And with these folks, I must respectfully but unequivocally disagree. I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence.")

When I interviewed Obama last year, he told me that the moment was integral to his decision to run for president; when was the last time, he had asked himself, when a Democrat had had such dialog with pastors about AIDS? 

Now -- lest you think that the ceremony will be preachy and give television anchors a chance to debate Warren's response to torture, gays and the Democratic Party, they'll have to pause while Aretha Franklin sings Obama onto the podium. 

Then comes the swearing in of the vice president by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Then comes  the delicious (as Cory Booker might say) John Williams will conduct Itzhak Perlman on the violin and Yo-Yo Ma on the cello.

Then comes the formal swearing in.

Also participating: poet Elizabeth Alexander, the San Francisco Boys and Girls choirs, the Marine and Navy bands, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.

Understanding Power In Washington: Who's Afraid Of Rahm Right Now?

As this blog matures into the next year, it will owe a debt to the great Hedrick Smith, as I'll be writing more and more about power in Washington; what it is; who has it, who pretends to have it; how it is expressed explicity, and how the press used as a conduit to weild it, implicitly.

The Politico's John Bresnahan has written a great story about how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the screws to her former House colleague, Rahm Emanuel, informing him that she did not need his advice about leadership elections and, most dramatically, demanding that the White House account for every conversation it has with Pelosi's members.

The story makes Pelosi look formidable and Rahm look like a creampuff.

Clearly, the origin of the story -- even if it was laundered through neutral parties before reaching the Politico -- comes from Pelosi allies.

Why share that anecdote now?

Because, in the wake of the Blagojevich revelations, Rahm's public standing is as weak right now as it's ever going to get. He's been portrayed as knee-deep in the Blagojevich corruption case, although there's no indication he did anything wrong or even suspicious. Cameras are chasing him all across Chicagoland, and he is hiding from them; and given the investigation, he is in the un-Rahm-ian position of not being able to comment. Right now -- and only right now -- no one's afraid of Mr. Emanuel.  He can't fight back.

Granted, there is no chance that Obama drops him before the inauguration unless everything we think we know about the case is entirely wrong. And once Rahm becomes the chief of staff, he'll be one of the strongest in recent memory -- probably stronger than Don Regan or H.R. Haldeman. Like Haldeman was to Richard Nixon, Emanuel will be first among equals to Obama. He'll be scary again, and no one will be able to dish about him without facing consequences. To borrow a wrestling analogy, Pelosi claimed a receipt on Emanuel after all those stories about Obama selected Rahm in part to make deals with Democrats around her back.

The real story behind this story is not even about Pelosi and Rahm; it's about the battle for the hearts and minds of rank and file Democrats, who will face four-way cross-pressures from the White House, their constituents, the Republicans and their party leadership in Congress.

Pelosi knows the power game.

Card Checkin' Across The Universe

That's.... 57 votes in favor of cloture now. In-cycle Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas formally opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. She says it's "not necessary" right now.  BTW: Lincoln's potential GOP opponent? Tim Griffin, the former White House political aide / Eastern District of Arkansas prosecutor / Karl Rove protege / native Arkansas / Iraq war veteran. Griffin says he'll make up his mind early next year.  Democrats need 60 votes, or they might not even bring EFCA to the floor for a vote.

A Shakeup In The RNC Chairman's Race

The decision of Texas Republican Party chair Tina Benkiser and former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to formally ally in the race to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee is, by rights, a minor affair, but it has to the potential to be the most important development yet.

"Recognized as a national conservative leader with an amazing record of accomplishment, Ken Blackwell is a dedicated servant-leader," Benkiser wrote in a letter to RNC members.  "Whether it is leading the charge on issues or successfully running an effective organization, Ken is what our Party needs at this time. He will establish a clear distinction between the Republican Party and our opposition."

Most significantly, this union gives evangelical Christians on the national committee a single ticket to join. Combined, the Blackwell-Benkiser ticket commands the support of at least 20 to 25 members, and probably closer to 30 of them.  About 40% of the 168 members on the committee are estimated to be hard core social conservatives. Support from 85 members is needed to win. Parochially, the alliance gives Blackwell an entree into the Texas delegation. More importantly, Benkiser gives him some administrative cover, because she, not he, has run a party organization before. But now that there's a ticket so solidly identified with the Christian right, there will be many Republicans who, while not wishing them ill, worry about a party that is too overtly Christian and religious.  The ticket, therefore, opens up an avenue for candidates who don't claim to be the avatars of evangelical activists. To be sure, the next RNC chairman will be opposed to gay marraige and pro-life.

Candidate Chip Saltsman, who has been courting, above all, Southern Christian conservatives, will probably lose support.

The frontrunner, current chairman Mike Duncan, is now in a bit of quandary. On January 5, the conservative steering committee of the party meets to interview the candidates. Duncan encouraged this committee to form, and intended to rely on the then-relatively even distribution of social conservatives to thread the needle between the right and the center-right.  The day before the meeting, all of the candidates will debate, in public, at the National Press Club.

Continue reading "A Shakeup In The RNC Chairman's Race" »