One of the President's duties is to act as the unofficial Mourner in Chief. When done right, the President helps the nation to put a tragedy in perspective and the President's approval ratings rise. When done poorly, the nation turns its anger on the President.
Bill Clinton's response to the Oklahoma City bombing comforted the nation. The event came at the end of a long series of public relations problems and repaired his image. His approval rating climbed.
George W. Bush took a day to strike the right tone but after that his response to September 11 was what the nation needed and his approval rating climbed into the 90+% range. Four years later his response to Hurricane Katrina was seen as inadequate and his approval rating started a drop that ended in a historic low.
How will the nation judge Barack Obama's response to the Fort Hood shootings? While not on the same level as these other tragedies, it was still a shocking event.
Obama's initial response was shockingly callous. Rather than changing his schedule, he simply inserted a mention of the shooting into a prepared speech. He didn't even lead with it. Instead he began with a "shout out" to a member of the audience who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor (he actually won the Congressional Medal of Freedom - the civilian version). Fort Hood's mention came two minutes later.
Obama has made some further remarks since then but he will not travel to Fort Hood until a memorial service on Tuesday. He spent Saturday lobbying Congress to pass health care. He even used the Fort Hood tragedy in this context, reminding Congressmen in marginal districts that their sacrifice was nothing compared to the people in uniform.
Over the last year the Obama administration has shown that it is single-minded in its agenda, no matter what else happens. The unemployment rate is at a 25 year high and a request for more troops for Afghanistan has waited two months for a decision but the Obama White House seems focused on health care. Even a major tragedy seems unable to get more than a moment's notice.
To their credit, the White House said that the timing of Tuesday's memorial service was for the convenience of the families and not the President. Still, one wonders. Obama postponed an overseas trip by one day. Had the service been any later it would have been much less convenient for the President to attend. Was this just good luck?
Regardless, the President has one last chance to set the right tone before public opinion starts to turn against him.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
New York 24
What to make of New York's 24th results? Actually, the whole situation was so muddled that you can make anything you want of it.
To recap - this was a special election to fill a vacancy. Obama won it in 2008. The Republicans nominated a liberal who supported most or all of the Obama agenda. A conservative independent surged after getting support from Sarah Palin. The official Republican dropped out of the race and threw her support (including her robo-calls) to the Democrat. The Democrat won the election with 49% of the vote.
The result of this mess is that:
A Democrat won this district for the first time since the 19th century.
Even with all of this, the Democrat could not get a majority of the votes.
Even if the independent had sat the race out and allowed the Republican to win, the Democrats would have gained a reliable vote.
The most important lesson for the Republicans and independents (and I'm not the first to point this out) is that they need each other to win. If the Republicans had nominated a candidate who was closer to mainstream Republican then this seat would still be in Republican hands.
On the other hand, trying to turn a single special election into a national mandate to continue the Obama Revolution is a stretch.
To recap - this was a special election to fill a vacancy. Obama won it in 2008. The Republicans nominated a liberal who supported most or all of the Obama agenda. A conservative independent surged after getting support from Sarah Palin. The official Republican dropped out of the race and threw her support (including her robo-calls) to the Democrat. The Democrat won the election with 49% of the vote.
The result of this mess is that:
A Democrat won this district for the first time since the 19th century.
Even with all of this, the Democrat could not get a majority of the votes.
Even if the independent had sat the race out and allowed the Republican to win, the Democrats would have gained a reliable vote.
The most important lesson for the Republicans and independents (and I'm not the first to point this out) is that they need each other to win. If the Republicans had nominated a candidate who was closer to mainstream Republican then this seat would still be in Republican hands.
On the other hand, trying to turn a single special election into a national mandate to continue the Obama Revolution is a stretch.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
A Year Later
A year ago the Democrats won big. The big question was if the election represented a national shift to the political left or a normal swing away from the party in power amplified by a charismatic minority at the top of the ticket. A year later it looks like the second scenario is the correct one.
The Republicans won the governor's office in two states that Obama won in 2008. Spin doctors are pointing out that these states usually elect the party that is not in the White House so we should not read too much into this election. In fact, that explanation confirms that the 2008 election was a normal swing instead of a permanent shift. If the country had shifted then the old rules would no longer apply.
The old rules also say that the party in the White House will have losses next year. The extent of those losses depends on how long the President's coattails were. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama all had long coattails. Reagan and Clinton lost seats. Chances are very good that Obama will lose seats, also.
This should concern representatives who were elected on Obama's coattails. By definition, they are people who won in districts that normally favor the other party. The thinking is that, either they profited from the halo effect of being in the same party as the President or that they got votes from people who turned out to vote for the President and who will stay home on off years.
The best chance that these representatives have of staying in office is to appeal to the people who normally elect Republicans. That means that they have to distance themselves from the Obama agenda.
What about the Republicans being too conservative to elect? That was tried in Virginia. It turns out that voters care more about economic issues. With the recession dragging on, the Democrats now own that issue and it is hurting them.
The Republicans won the governor's office in two states that Obama won in 2008. Spin doctors are pointing out that these states usually elect the party that is not in the White House so we should not read too much into this election. In fact, that explanation confirms that the 2008 election was a normal swing instead of a permanent shift. If the country had shifted then the old rules would no longer apply.
The old rules also say that the party in the White House will have losses next year. The extent of those losses depends on how long the President's coattails were. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama all had long coattails. Reagan and Clinton lost seats. Chances are very good that Obama will lose seats, also.
This should concern representatives who were elected on Obama's coattails. By definition, they are people who won in districts that normally favor the other party. The thinking is that, either they profited from the halo effect of being in the same party as the President or that they got votes from people who turned out to vote for the President and who will stay home on off years.
The best chance that these representatives have of staying in office is to appeal to the people who normally elect Republicans. That means that they have to distance themselves from the Obama agenda.
What about the Republicans being too conservative to elect? That was tried in Virginia. It turns out that voters care more about economic issues. With the recession dragging on, the Democrats now own that issue and it is hurting them.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Purity Part II
I wrote my last post on Friday. On Saturday Dede Scozzafava, the officially endorse Republican, bowed out of the race out of party unity. On Sunday she started campaigning for the Democrat. What to make of this?
First, Scozzafa is a sore loser with no honor. She took large sums of cash to run as a Republican. At the very least, she should have gone out quietly. Her actions on behalf of the Democrat show that she was never committed to the Republican party.
Second, this calls into question the judgment of the party members who supported her. Why support someone who has no party loyalty and whose views are not in line with the party? This minor race may eventually doom Newt Gingrich's presidential ambitions.
The third point is the question of who is welcome in the Republican Party? Several Democrats and their supporters have already insisted that this means that centrists and moderates are not welcome in the GOP. I have two answers to this. The first is that, in its rush to appeal to centrists, the Republicans have been alienating the conservatives. Which is more important to the party? Moderates or conservatives? The Tea Party movement shows that there are a lot of angry conservatives who the Republicans are either ignoring or taking for granted.
If this election means that moderates are not welcome in the Republican party, how welcome are they in the Democratic Party? Joe Lieberman is an interesting case study.
In 2000 he was the number two man on their ticket. He ran for president himself in 2004 although he tends to suck excitement out of a room. His voting record shows that he aligns with the Democrats more than 90% of the time. The exception was the Iraq war. This is where it gets interesting.
Because of his support for the war, Lieberman was run out of the party. A challenger defeated him in the 2006 primary. I saw liberals openly celebrate this. Several posts on Huffington claimed that this was the biggest victory for Democracy in America since 1776 (I'm not exaggerating). Someone forgot to tell the voters. They reelected Lieberan as an independent. Because of his treatment, he campaigned for McCain in 2008.
The Democrats still need him so he is allowed to caucus with them and he kept his committee assignments and seniority.
Last week he announced, as other centrist Democrats have done, that he cannot support a health care bill with a public option. Once again there were calls to have him expelled from the Democratic caucus and stripped of his committees. No centrist dissent is allowed here. So much for the Democrats appealing to the middle.
First, Scozzafa is a sore loser with no honor. She took large sums of cash to run as a Republican. At the very least, she should have gone out quietly. Her actions on behalf of the Democrat show that she was never committed to the Republican party.
Second, this calls into question the judgment of the party members who supported her. Why support someone who has no party loyalty and whose views are not in line with the party? This minor race may eventually doom Newt Gingrich's presidential ambitions.
The third point is the question of who is welcome in the Republican Party? Several Democrats and their supporters have already insisted that this means that centrists and moderates are not welcome in the GOP. I have two answers to this. The first is that, in its rush to appeal to centrists, the Republicans have been alienating the conservatives. Which is more important to the party? Moderates or conservatives? The Tea Party movement shows that there are a lot of angry conservatives who the Republicans are either ignoring or taking for granted.
If this election means that moderates are not welcome in the Republican party, how welcome are they in the Democratic Party? Joe Lieberman is an interesting case study.
In 2000 he was the number two man on their ticket. He ran for president himself in 2004 although he tends to suck excitement out of a room. His voting record shows that he aligns with the Democrats more than 90% of the time. The exception was the Iraq war. This is where it gets interesting.
Because of his support for the war, Lieberman was run out of the party. A challenger defeated him in the 2006 primary. I saw liberals openly celebrate this. Several posts on Huffington claimed that this was the biggest victory for Democracy in America since 1776 (I'm not exaggerating). Someone forgot to tell the voters. They reelected Lieberan as an independent. Because of his treatment, he campaigned for McCain in 2008.
The Democrats still need him so he is allowed to caucus with them and he kept his committee assignments and seniority.
Last week he announced, as other centrist Democrats have done, that he cannot support a health care bill with a public option. Once again there were calls to have him expelled from the Democratic caucus and stripped of his committees. No centrist dissent is allowed here. So much for the Democrats appealing to the middle.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Purity or Pragmatism?
New York's 23rd District is an interesting case. Right now there is a special election going on there. The district gave Obama a slight edge in 2008 so the Republicans decided that they needed to run someone who would appeal to swing voters and Democrats. They chose Dede Scozzafava who has a liberal voting record. Regardless, the party went along with this and endorsed her.
There was one notable exception - Sarah Palin weighed in, endorsing Doug Hoffman who she considered a more reliable conservative. Initially both parties reacted with disdain - 'There goes Palin again.' A funny thing happened since then - Hoffman is currently ahead of the Democrat by a slight margin and way ahead of Scozzafava. The race could still go to the Democrat but if it does the Republicans will have only themselves to blame (and I'm excluding Sarah Palin from this).
There is an important lesson here but I'm not sure that the Republicans echelon will heed it - conservatives can win, even in districts that went for Obama. For the past year conventional wisdom has held that the voters have turned against conservatives and that the Republicans' road back to power lies in recruiting moderates. At the same time there is a conservative movement that longs to see the Republicans run actual conservatives. This movement has embraced Sarah Palin and is scornful of the Republican leadership.
Recent polls show that the Republican strategy needs rethinking. People who self-identify as Republicans is down around 20% but people who identify themselves as conservatives is over 40%. This is nothing new. Conservatives have outnumbered Republicans for decades but the size of the split shows how dissatisfied conservatives are with Republicans. (Interestingly, the same polls show that there are usually more Democrats than liberals.)
The number of conservatives was at a low point in 2008 and has increased greatly as people see what a liberal (or progressive) government is actually like.
It is hard to predict how a three-way race would go if it was only a two-way race. It is possible that Scozzafava and the Democrat are splitting the liberal and moderate vote allowing a minority of conservatives to determine the election. It is also possible that a district that only gave Obama a slight edge in 2008 has turned against the chosen one and would elect any one who does not have a "-D" after his name.
In the meantime, the Republicans are in the strange position of opposing a front-runner who would act as a Republican in Congress.
On the other side, high-ranking Democrat Van Hollen made an interesting analysis.
I will not argue with that but I do wonder where Van Hollen stood when the Democrats tried to eject Joe Lieberman from the party in 2006 over ideological differences?
There was one notable exception - Sarah Palin weighed in, endorsing Doug Hoffman who she considered a more reliable conservative. Initially both parties reacted with disdain - 'There goes Palin again.' A funny thing happened since then - Hoffman is currently ahead of the Democrat by a slight margin and way ahead of Scozzafava. The race could still go to the Democrat but if it does the Republicans will have only themselves to blame (and I'm excluding Sarah Palin from this).
There is an important lesson here but I'm not sure that the Republicans echelon will heed it - conservatives can win, even in districts that went for Obama. For the past year conventional wisdom has held that the voters have turned against conservatives and that the Republicans' road back to power lies in recruiting moderates. At the same time there is a conservative movement that longs to see the Republicans run actual conservatives. This movement has embraced Sarah Palin and is scornful of the Republican leadership.
Recent polls show that the Republican strategy needs rethinking. People who self-identify as Republicans is down around 20% but people who identify themselves as conservatives is over 40%. This is nothing new. Conservatives have outnumbered Republicans for decades but the size of the split shows how dissatisfied conservatives are with Republicans. (Interestingly, the same polls show that there are usually more Democrats than liberals.)
The number of conservatives was at a low point in 2008 and has increased greatly as people see what a liberal (or progressive) government is actually like.
It is hard to predict how a three-way race would go if it was only a two-way race. It is possible that Scozzafava and the Democrat are splitting the liberal and moderate vote allowing a minority of conservatives to determine the election. It is also possible that a district that only gave Obama a slight edge in 2008 has turned against the chosen one and would elect any one who does not have a "-D" after his name.
In the meantime, the Republicans are in the strange position of opposing a front-runner who would act as a Republican in Congress.
On the other side, high-ranking Democrat Van Hollen made an interesting analysis.
By rejecting that candidate for a non-Republican ... and picking somebody else, I think they send a signal that they're more interested in purist ideology than they are in problem solving,
I will not argue with that but I do wonder where Van Hollen stood when the Democrats tried to eject Joe Lieberman from the party in 2006 over ideological differences?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Warming or Cooling?
A recent poll showed that the number of Americans who believe in global warming in general and man-made warming in particular has fallen quite a bit. Several skeptics have pointed out that warming seems to have stopped around a decade ago.
In their role as climate advocate, the AP commissioned some statisticians to review the climate record and see if the climate is warming or cooling. Their opinion, at least as reported by the AP, is that the world continues to warm. At first glance this looks like a case closed. Global warming is real and is continuing. There are some red flags in the story.
The biggest red flag is the data set presented to the statisticians. There are three possible sets, two based on satellite measurements and one based on ground-sensors. The satellite-based sets show less warming than the ground-based ones. The article mentions the satellite-based figures but minimizes them but it is not obvious that it is doing so. For example the paragraph:
Seems straightforward. You have to already know that this data comes from the ground-based sensors and is maintained by a department headed by a global warming activist. That puts the data in a different light.
Once you get around half-way through the article you finally get a single skeptic quoted (note that he is identified as a skeptic, no one else's affiliation is identified).
After that all pretense at fairness is abandoned. There is a quote from the Union of Concerned Scientists which is a lobbying group, not a scientific one. An economist and a couple of climate scientists are quoted without being identified as global warming believers. President Obama is quoted. Figures from NOAA are quoted without mentioning that they are are from the ground-based sensors and do not agree with the satellite-based figures. It has this observation
This is meaningless. Even if the world is cooling, it would be cooling from the 1998 high point.
It closes with the prediction that 2010 will be the warmest year on record, not because of global warming but because of an El Nino. Even with the qualification, this was only tossed in to confuse the issue. Temporary warming caused by El Nino has nothing to do with global warming.
Watts Up With That looks at the article and concludes that you can prove anything with statistics.
In their role as climate advocate, the AP commissioned some statisticians to review the climate record and see if the climate is warming or cooling. Their opinion, at least as reported by the AP, is that the world continues to warm. At first glance this looks like a case closed. Global warming is real and is continuing. There are some red flags in the story.
The biggest red flag is the data set presented to the statisticians. There are three possible sets, two based on satellite measurements and one based on ground-sensors. The satellite-based sets show less warming than the ground-based ones. The article mentions the satellite-based figures but minimizes them but it is not obvious that it is doing so. For example the paragraph:
U.S. government data show the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping, and 2005 was the hottest year recorded.
Seems straightforward. You have to already know that this data comes from the ground-based sensors and is maintained by a department headed by a global warming activist. That puts the data in a different light.
Once you get around half-way through the article you finally get a single skeptic quoted (note that he is identified as a skeptic, no one else's affiliation is identified).
One prominent skeptic said that to find the cooling trend, the 30 years of satellite temperatures must be used. The satellite data tends to be cooler than the ground data. Key to that is making sure that 1998 is part of the trend, he added.But Easterbrook is not given the final word. The next paragraph refutes him.What happened within the past 10 years or so is what counts, not the overall average, contends Don Easterbrook, a Western Washington University geology professor and global warming skeptic.
"I don't argue with you that the 10-year average for the past 10 years is higher than the previous 10 years," said Easterbrook, who has self-published some of his research. "We started the cooling trend after 1998. You're going to get a different line depending on which year you choose.
"Should not the actual temperature be higher now than it was in 1998?" Easterbrook asked. "We can play the numbers games."
After that all pretense at fairness is abandoned. There is a quote from the Union of Concerned Scientists which is a lobbying group, not a scientific one. An economist and a couple of climate scientists are quoted without being identified as global warming believers. President Obama is quoted. Figures from NOAA are quoted without mentioning that they are are from the ground-based sensors and do not agree with the satellite-based figures. It has this observation
Of the 10 hottest years recorded by NOAA, eight have occurred since 2000, and after this year it will be nine because this year is on track to be the sixth-warmest on record.
This is meaningless. Even if the world is cooling, it would be cooling from the 1998 high point.
It closes with the prediction that 2010 will be the warmest year on record, not because of global warming but because of an El Nino. Even with the qualification, this was only tossed in to confuse the issue. Temporary warming caused by El Nino has nothing to do with global warming.
Watts Up With That looks at the article and concludes that you can prove anything with statistics.
Monday, October 26, 2009
First Define Reform
News reports from the weekend paint a picture of a Congress (at least the Democrats in Congress) that is sure that they need to pass something called health care reform but cannot answer basic questions about what it will include. This is ridiculous. We are talking about mandating major changes to a significant portion of the economy but we haven't decided what should be reformed.
Should there be an employer mandate? The House isn't sure. Will there be a public option? We probably will not know until something is presented to the President for signing.
Regardless, there is still a sense of urgency that Congress has to get something passed this year. It doesn't matter what. All that matters is getting something through so that they can claim victory.
There is a solid reason for the urgency - fear. Many Democrats are sure that they suffered major losses in the 1994 election because they hadn't passed health care reform. This is rather silly since the voters turned to the party that opposed health care reform. More likely the switch had more to do with disillusionment with the Clinton administration in general and with specific policies like his attack on guns in specific (it is generally acknowledged that Gore lost the 2000 election because his home state of Tennessee was still upset about his role in passing gun control legislation). None of this matters to Democrats. Looking back, they see the 1992 election as having been a mandate to pass health care reform and their 1994 losses as their just punishment for failing.
Conventional wisdom is that Congress does not like to pass controversial legislation on an election year. It gives their opponent something to run on. According to this school of thought, Congress will not pass a health care will in 2010 so it must pass it now or wait until 2011. The hope is that is they pass it now, then voters will have forgiven and forgotten it by the 2010 election. Or they will be sick of hearing about the subject.
This is a strange bit of reasoning. Congress wants to pass major legislation but they are afraid of voter backlash.
There is another reason that Congress is worried about passing a health care bill. They need every vote that they have. There is a very real chance that they will not have enough votes in 2011.
But that is not an excuse for what they are doing now. It is impossible to claim a mandate if you can't clearly state the major provisions of the legislation you are trying to pass.
Should there be an employer mandate? The House isn't sure. Will there be a public option? We probably will not know until something is presented to the President for signing.
Regardless, there is still a sense of urgency that Congress has to get something passed this year. It doesn't matter what. All that matters is getting something through so that they can claim victory.
There is a solid reason for the urgency - fear. Many Democrats are sure that they suffered major losses in the 1994 election because they hadn't passed health care reform. This is rather silly since the voters turned to the party that opposed health care reform. More likely the switch had more to do with disillusionment with the Clinton administration in general and with specific policies like his attack on guns in specific (it is generally acknowledged that Gore lost the 2000 election because his home state of Tennessee was still upset about his role in passing gun control legislation). None of this matters to Democrats. Looking back, they see the 1992 election as having been a mandate to pass health care reform and their 1994 losses as their just punishment for failing.
Conventional wisdom is that Congress does not like to pass controversial legislation on an election year. It gives their opponent something to run on. According to this school of thought, Congress will not pass a health care will in 2010 so it must pass it now or wait until 2011. The hope is that is they pass it now, then voters will have forgiven and forgotten it by the 2010 election. Or they will be sick of hearing about the subject.
This is a strange bit of reasoning. Congress wants to pass major legislation but they are afraid of voter backlash.
There is another reason that Congress is worried about passing a health care bill. They need every vote that they have. There is a very real chance that they will not have enough votes in 2011.
But that is not an excuse for what they are doing now. It is impossible to claim a mandate if you can't clearly state the major provisions of the legislation you are trying to pass.
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