Wisconsin Waterloo: Where The GOP Sees Demons To Attack, Voters See Themselves
Wisconsin Democrats are filing recall petitions that could result in the Wisconsin Senate being controlled by Democrats. Summer 2011 will bring white-hot midterm elections and a potential Wisconsin Waterloo for the GOP that is spreading to other states and could shift the tectonic plate of American politics.
In Wisconsin, Ohio and other states a powerful backlash is brewing from giant swaths of voters who failed to turn out for Democrats or regret their votes for Republicans in 2010. They feel demonized by GOP attacks and financially threatened by GOP policies. They will be highly motivated to vote.
Wisconsin Democrats could win the three state Senate seats necessary to turn control of the Wisconsin Senate to the Dems, because voters do not want political holy wars against teachers, public workers or anyone else. They do not want fanatics in politics, fiats by government, incendiary partisanship or crusades against collective bargaining, which voters widely believe is a valued part of the American system.
Recently the Polish trade union Solidarity, one of the great voices for freedom in modern history, endorsed the Wisconsin workers and condemned the attacks on them by GOP Gov. Scott Walker. More voters agree with Solidarity than with Wisconsin Republicans.
In Ohio, the widely unpopular Republican governor, John Kasich, who was caught on tape verbally abusing a police officer who gave him a ticket, has now added both police and firefighters to the list of enemies he attacked in legislation. Most Americans view firefighters and police as heroes who risk their lives to save their neighbors, not as demons to attack or targets to have their financial security threatened.
In Washington, the GOP has added the venerable AARP to its enemies list. AARP has long represented tens of millions of seniors with honor. For Republicans to launch a Nixonian attack against them is an act of political stupidity that will not be well-received by senior voters.
Republicans wage holy war against National Public Radio, one of the fairest media in the nation, and one that provides vital service to small-town America and includes many Republicans among its fans.
Republicans threaten to shut down the government to pursue their war against Planned Parenthood, which is supported by many Republican women, while they attack a long list of programs important to mainstream American women. Many Republicans oppose efforts to achieve pay equity for women.
House Republicans even want to cut programs that help homeless veterans, cuts that Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) speak eloquently against.
The Texas GOP is likely to attempt to cheat Hispanics out of representation in Congress through a gerrymander similar to that once orchestrated by disgraced former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay. Many Republicans use tactics on immigration that are anathema to many Hispanics.
House Republicans will be widely blamed for any government shutdown or economic collapse from a failure to extend the debt ceiling if they pursue their partisan and ideological vendettas and refuse to accept 50-50 offers from Democrats.
A Wisconsin Waterloo is a real danger to Republicans. Where the GOP sees demons to attack, many voters see themselves.
By: Brent Budowsky, The Hill, April 4, 2011
A SUCKER’S BET: Are Republicans Really Prepared To “Gamble On Entitlement Reform”?
The effort to pass a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year will be the principal challenge for policymakers over the next few days, but while that work continues, congressional Republicans will also start a massive fight over the next budget.
We’ll have more on this later — sneak preview: the GOP wants to gut entitlements — but as the process gets underway, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the politics here. The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen Hayes has a lengthy new report, arguing that Republicans are prepared to “gamble on entitlement reform,” and the GOP thinks it can win this time.
If there is one thing that political strategists, pollsters, and elected officials of both parties have agreed on for decades, it’s that entitlement reform is a sure political loser. Social Security is the “third rail” — touch it and you die. Suggest changes to Medicaid and you don’t care about the poor. Propose modest reforms to Medicare and you’re the target of a well-funded “Mediscare” campaign that ensures your defeat.
No longer.
“People are getting it that these things are unsustainable,” says Karl Rove. “For so many people, debt is no longer abstract. It’s more concrete. I don’t know if it’s seeing Greece on TV or what. It’s still tough, but it’s not the political loser it used to be.”
Other influential Republicans go further. They believe that getting serious about entitlement reform can be politically advantageous.
“I think it can be a real winner for Republicans if we handle it the right way,” says South Carolina senator Jim DeMint.
The piece goes on to quote all kinds of Republicans, all of whom genuinely seem to believe there’s a public appetite for their entitlement agenda. GOP officials have been too scared to tackle this in earnest before, the theory goes, but bolstered by public support, this time will be different. This time, they say, Americans want entitlement cuts, and Democratic criticisms will fall on deaf ears.
Time will tell, I suppose, but all of the available evidence suggests these folks have no idea what they’re talking about, and are poised to pursue one of the most dramatic examples of political overreach we’ve seen in a very long time.
Republicans can presumably read polls as easily as I can, but let’s focus for a moment on the latest CNN poll, released late last week. Asked, for example, about Medicaid funding, a combined 75% want funding levels to stay the same or go up. For Social Security, 87% of Americans want funding levels to stay the same or go up. For Medicare, 87% want funding levels to stay the same or go up — and most want funding to increase, not stay the same.
For some reason, Hayes and his allies look at numbers like these and think Republicans will benefit from pushing entitlement cuts. No, seriously, that’s what they think. GOP leaders are not only arguing this, they’re actually counting on it as part of a larger political strategy.
Karl Rove, ostensibly the GOP’s most gifted strategist, believes Americans may be “seeing Greece on TV,” and suddenly find themselves favoring Medicare cuts.
I don’t think he’s kidding.
Hayes noted in his piece, “So have things really changed? We’ll soon find out.”
On this point, we agree.
By: Steve Bensen, Washington Monthly, April 4, 2011
Wisconsin Recall Drive Already Making History
Ever since Wisconsin Dems and labor activists announced late Friday that they had already amassed enough signatures to trigger a recall election against GOP state Senator Dan Kapanke — and filed their petition to make it happen — political observers have been wondering precisely how many signatures activists had gathered. The number could contain clues as to whether the election will actually happen and how much grassroots energy there remains on the ground in the state.
I’ve now been given the precise number by Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski, and it’s eye-opening: In that district, 15,588 signatures are needed to trigger a recall — and activists collected and filed a whopping total of 22,561.
That’s 145 percent of the total required — and Wisconsin election experts tell me it virtually ensures that a recall election will take place despite any challenges to the veracity of signatures.
Because the news of the petition broke late on a Friday, the signficance of it has gone entirely unnoticed. Dems and labor activists in the state collected nearly 23,000 signatures in Kapanke’s districts in 29 days — less than half the 60 alloted — which has tied the record for the fastest collection of signatures for a recall election in recent Wisconsin state history. And unlike in that previous case, recall drives are now simultaneously proceeding against other Republicans.
There have been only two successful recalls of state legislators in Wisconsin history, against former state senators George Petak in 1996 and against Gary George for corruption in 2003. George was subsequently convicted on felony charges. In the first case, the requisite signatures were filed on the last day of the 60-day period, according to Nexis, and in the second it took 29 days. In other words, Dems and labor racked up the signatures required against Kapanke as fast as organizers did against a legislator later convicted of a felony.
Wisconsin experts tell me that the number of signatures is a reliable indicator that grassroots energy on the ground remains strong. “Given how long you have to get the signatures and how quickly they got these, it’s a strong signal that the activation of the pro-recall forces is very high,” Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, tells me. “Kapanke is in the most Democratic leaning district, but completing a third more than rquired in 20-something days is quite a feat for any petition drive.”
Adds his fellow professor Barry Burden: “I would say it’s a near certainty that they have enough signatures to make the recall go forward.”
The question remains whether the drive on display in Kapanke’s district will manifest itself with similarly strong recall signature showings in other districts. But that said, even though the national press has moved on from this story, the energy and staying power of what has been unleashed in Wisconsin continue to surprise.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, April 4, 2011
Driving Ms. Bachmann: The Most Embarrassing Republican Presidential Candidates Of The Modern Era
For respectable Republicans, the embarrassment potential may be at an all-time high. The party is a year away from picking its next presidential candidate and never in the modern era has it faced a vacuum like this.
Sure, the odds are still strong that the GOP will ultimately settle on a “harmless enough” general election candidate — someone sufficiently generic and inoffensive to ensure that the party doesn’t fall far below its natural level of support in the fall of 2012. But the road from here to the convention looks unusually — and, if you’re a Democrat, comically — rocky for Republicans.
The party’s base — which nominated several utterly unelectable candidates in several high-stakes Senate races last year — is in revolt, thirsting for purity and likely to accede to a Romney or Pawlenty nomination only with reluctance. Before then, it figures to be tempted by an atypically large collection of red meat-spouting long shots: Michele Bachman, Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, Rick Santorum, maybe even Sarah Palin or (why not?) Herman Cain — personally and politically polarizing extremists who validate a damaging stereotype of the Obama-era GOP. It’s not impossible that one of these ideologues will fare surprisingly well in one or more of the early nominating contests next year (most likely activist-dominated Iowa).
It is this possibility that makes 2012 potentially different from previous Republican contests, in which the party has generally — but not always — succeeded in keeping the embarrassments to a minimum. Here’s a look at the most embarrassing Republican candidates to be taken (at least somewhat) seriously by the media since 1980:
1. Rep. Phil Crane — 1980
The heir to Donald Rumsfeld’s old House seat, Crane came to Congress in 1969, a Goldwater campaign veteran made good. He spent the ’70s racking up one of the most conservative voting records in the House and, in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful 1976 White House bid, set out to run for the presidency himself in 1980. (His theory was that Reagan, because of age and his two failed bids for the GOP nod, would end up passing on ’80, leaving Crane to gobble up “New Right” support.)
Crane’s politics weren’t really more conservative than Reagan’s, but unlike the Gipper, he didn’t know how to mask his extremism with warmth and charm. Instead, he conformed to the popular image of a far-right whacko, purchasing (for instance) 30-minute blocks of time to air a speech in which he held up the Bible and quoted from it in an effort to establish America’s Christian roots. He also attracted unwanted attention when, at the height of the campaign, he was sued by Richard Viguerie, the direct mail pioneer, for unpaid bills.
More damaging, though, was the wrath of Bill Loeb, the notoriously vengeful publisher of New Hampshire’s largest (and most conservative) newspaper, the Union-Leader. Fearful that Crane’s presence in the race would hurt Reagan, Loeb skewered him in a series of front-page editorials, then commissioned a devastating story that used anonymous sources to portray Crane as a serial philanderer with a drinking problem. The story attracted national attention and helped Loeb achieve his goal: Crane finished a distant fifth in Iowa and won only 2 percent in New Hampshire. (Years later, he would publicly admit to a drinking problem and seek treatment.)
2. Pat Robertson — 1988
The pioneering televangelist’s candidacy was the logical consequence of the rise of the Christian right, which emerged as a force and embraced the Republican Party during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
But Robertson, the founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network, was a particularly kooky frontman for this movement. By the time he announced his candidacy for the ’88 GOP nod, he already had one false Armageddon prediction under his belt (1982 would be the year, he’d forecasted in ’76) and had also taken credit for using prayer to steer Hurricane Gloria away from New York City in 1985. As a candidate, he sought to present himself as a businessman more than a religious leader, bristling at suggestions that he had “followers” and accusing Tom Brokaw of religious bigotry for calling him a “televangelist” during one debate.
You can imagine, then, the profound embarrassment — and fear — that mainstream Republicans felt on the night of February 8, 1988, when Robertson finished 6 points ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush to claim a shocking second place in the Iowa caucuses. Robertson quickly ran out of momentum — he finished dead last in New Hampshire a week later, behind even Pierre S. du Pont IV — and was blown out in South Carolina. But the Christian Coalition that he founded in the wake of his campaign played an instrumental role in creating the Republican Party that we know today.
3. Pat Buchanan — 1992 and 1996
Less than two months before announcing his challenge to Bush for the ’92 GOP nomination, Buchanan wrote a column offering advice to his party on how to win in the future: “Take a hard look” at the “portfolio of winning issues” being championed by … David Duke, the ex-Klansman who, in the fall of 1991, had won a place in Louisiana’s gubernatorial runoff (in which he was thumped by Edwin Edwards).
This was par for the course for Buchanan, who had also used his media platform to opine that women were “less equipped psychologically” than men to handle the business world and to defend accused Nazi war criminals — most notably John Demjanjuk. In the 1980s, he had also ridiculed third-world nations pushing for sanctions against apartheid South Africa, arguing that they were motivated by “racism and the resentment that failure always feels for success.”
Buchanan went on to fare alarmingly well in the ’92 New Hampshire primary, powered by the GOP electorate’s frustration with the economy and Bush’s broken “no new taxes” pledge. It was the high-water mark for Buchanan’s ’92 campaign, although it also helped him earn a prime-time speaking slot at the ’92 convention — a speech best remembered for Buchanan’s divisive declaration of “culture war” and his long-windedness, which knocked Ronald Reagan’s speech out of prime time.
Four years later, Buchanan gave the GOP an even bigger headache when he finished a close second in Iowa and then won New Hampshire, although his momentum was quickly arrested as a panicked party establishment rallied around Bob Dole.
(Note: Duke himself also sought the ’92 GOP nod, although he’s not included in this list on the grounds that — unlike the others — he was thoroughly isolated and shunned by the party’s establishment. No one respectable would touch him, not even Buchanan.)
4. Rep. Robert Dornan — 1996
A few highlights of the political career that preceded “B-1 Bob’s” absurd 1996 White House bid:
* On the House floor in 1985, he attacked fellow Rep. Tom Downey as “a draft-dodging wimp,” then grabbed the New York Democrat by his collar. Downey claimed that Dornan threatened him physically; Dornan said he’d merely been trying to straighten his tie.
* In 1993, he took the House floor to accuse President Clinton of giving “aid and comfort to the enemy” during the Vietnam War. He also branded the president “a flawed human being” and “a draft-dodging adulterer not fit to lace the boots” of America’s troops.
* In 1994, he outed fellow Rep. Steve Gunderson on the House floor, making reference to the “revolving closet door” on the Wisconsin Republican’s closet.
* During his 1992 House campaign, he bragged that “every lesbian spear-chucker in this country is hoping I get defeated.” And when Dornan was confronted by AIDS activists at a public event, his wife snapped, “Shut up, fag!”
* Court records made public in 1994 indicated that Dornan had been convicted and ordered to jail in 1996 for physically attacking his wife (although there was no record he’d actually done time). Dornan and his wife denied that any abuse had occurred and blamed the case on a drug problem she had at the time.
Dornan ran on the slogan “Faith, Family and Freedom” but struggled to raise money and assembled a staff that consisted primarily of family members. One of his final acts as a candidate came at a New Hampshire party dinner the weekend before that state’s primary. He literally begged the audience for sympathy votes, so that he would avoid the indignity of finishing with 0 percent. He didn’t get his wish.
5. Alan Keyes — 1996 and 2000
Described in one of Al Franken’s books as a “Reagan administration functionary,” Keyes entered politics in 1988, waging a hopeless Senate campaign against Democratic incumbent Paul Sarbanes in Maryland. He was trounced, but tried again four years later against Barbara Mikulski. He was slaughtered again, but this time he made national news — for taking the unusual step of giving himself a salary of $8,500 per month with campaign funds. A few years later, he set out to run for president.
Keyes ran on a platform of Puritanical morality, lashing out at America’s “licentious, self-indulgent culture,” lashing out at the Clinton administration and its “condom czars” and focusing almost obsessively on abortion. He also had this exchange with a local right-wing radio host, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:
Muller says slavery has been misconstrued by many blacks. “This whole slavery thing has been bastardized into ‘Oh, we were oppressed. Now we don’t have to do anything because of what happened 300 years ago.'” Keyes, who is black, agrees, saying the devastation imposed on black families by liberal government programs, such as welfare, has been worse than slavery.
By: Steve Kornacki, News Editor, Salon, March 31, 2011
Without the Campaign Donors, This Wouldn’t Be Possible
Even by Washington’s low standards, the House’s Republican freshmen are turning pandering into a high art. At a recent transportation hearing in his home district, Representative James Lankford of Oklahoma heaped praise on a panel of private sector witnesses. Three of the four executives so publicly favored were later discovered to be donors to Mr. Lankford’s campaign.
Nothing illegal in that, nor in the enthusiasms of another freshman, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, dubbed the Congressman from Koch for championing the conservative agenda of the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David. They contributed handsomely — $80,000 worth — to Mr. Pompeo’s campaign kitty. Once elected, Mr. Pompeo hired a former Koch Industries lawyer as his chief of staff.
Mr. Pompeo said he ran for Congress because as a businessman (whose business included some Koch investment money) he saw “how government can crush entrepreneurism.” His contributions to the House Republicans’ budget-slashing legislation included two top priorities of Koch Industries: killing off funds for the Obama administration’s new database for consumer complaints about unsafe products and for a registry of greenhouse gas polluters at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The congressman said he was concerned that the database would encourage false accusations about good products and that the registry would increase the E.P.A.’s power and cost jobs. Those arguments are nonsense, but Mr. Pompeo represents an early warning of the shape of things to come when the Supreme Court’s misguided decision to legalize unfettered corporate campaign donations fully kicks in next year.
The Koch brothers are planning to spend tens of millions in the 2012 campaign, as are Democratic power brokers and unions. Ordinary voters may be making a show of demanding real political change, but they are being increasingly outbid at the big money table where American politics happens.
By: Editorial, The New York Times, March 30, 2011
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