A Fascinating Decade in Politics, An Awful Labor Day, 9/11 Remembered

The Most Interesting Political Stories of the Decade
The period of time surrounding Labor Day is historically a slow period for political news and this year has been no different.  With Congress in recess and most of the American public tuned out, we are largely taking a break from budget battles and election campaigns that are sure to heat back up in the coming weeks.  So, I thought I'd take a step back and recall what I consider to be the most interesting political stories of the past decade.  For consideration, my time window is from election day 2000 to election day 2010, as historical a period in American politics as I can recall.  In reverse order, here are my favorite stories:

(5) TARP is Signed Into Law, October 3, 2008
This story is fascinating on many levels.  The economics of sub-prime mortgages and the subsequent financial crisis are well documented.  But what amazes me is the political juxtaposition that all of this caused.  A Republican President calling for massive government intervention in the economy.  A Democratic Congress delivering a a corporate welfare bill with mostly Democratic votes.  Key Republican votes bought-off with earmarks and set-asides.  They say sausage-making is ugly, and this necessary (and ultimately not very costly) intervention in the economy had all kinds of twists and turns that caused it almost not to happen.  Passing unpopular legislation in any time is tough.  Passing it heading into a Presidential election is almost unheard of.  That it did is nothing short of a bi-partisan miracle.

(4) Iraq War Resolution Enacted, October 16, 2003
The Iraq war would become issue number one by liberal critics for President George W. Bush's foreign policy.  It seems in retrospect, somewhat absurd to get attacked by terrorists in Afghanistan and attack an unrelated dictator in Iraq, where Al Qaeda didn't even have a presence prior to our invasion.  But let's face it, Hussein was a known enemy with no shortage of reasons not to like.  Perhaps it is for this reason, or perhaps the fact that a congressional election was a few weeks away and nobody wanted to run as a dove, but the fact that the likes of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for the war resolution, a position that they would forever try to explain away, speaks volumes of the political climate of the time.

(3) Lisa Murkowski Elected to the Senate as a Write-In, November 2, 2010
Does an Alaskan Senate election really warrant being halfway up this Top 5 list?  You bet it does.  Look, I realize that this was more a story for political junkies than it was a national news item, but as a purely political story (remember, these are the top 5 political stories), it doesn't get any better than this.  After losing a close primary to Tea Party darling Joe Miller, incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski decided to run for re-election as a write-in candidate.  Ultimately, she won by over 4% with her 39% trumping Miller's 35% and Democrat Scott McAdams 23%.  Including Murkowski, there have been exactly two successful write-in candidates in Senate history; the only other time this has happened was in 1954 when South Carolina elected Strom Thurmond by write-in.  And in Thurmond's case, he had the support of the local party (the popular incumbent had died shortly before the election, wheeas Murkowski was strictly an independent operator.  And it was a bold signal that even in conservative Alaska, moderates could still beat Tea Party candidates.

(2) Barack Obama Elected President, November 4, 2008
Forget what you think of his Presidency for a second (and a majority of you disapprove, if I'm reading the polls correctly) and focus on how incredible the moment was.  I'm a close political follower, but if you'd asked me in 2003 who Barack Obama was, I wouldn't have known.  I do remember seeing then Senate Candidate Barack Obama's speech before the 2004 DNC and being awed.  But if you had told me then that a man who's highest political office at the time was the Illinois State Senate, a man who was black, a man who had a Muslim name and a man who had attended a radical black church in Chicago (or at least been a member, who knows how often he really went, but I digress) would not only be elected President but win Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana in doing so, I'd have dismissed you as a real hack.  But one incredible night in 2008, it all happened.  The arc of American politics and civil rights will never be the same, regardless of what happens in 2012.


(1) The Florida Recount, November-December, 2000
There will never be a political story of this magnitude in our lifetime.  This had ALL the elements.  A stunningly close deciding vote tally in Florida (537 votes for Bush by the official results, 154 votes for Bush by the unofficial tally when the recount was halted and somewhere between a Bush win by 493 votes and a Gore win by 170 votes depending on the standard and the counties looked at, according to post-election studies), a national popular vote win for Gore, a drama set up by Gore losing his home state of Tennessee after never campaigning in it, the third-party candidacy of Ralph Nader gumming up the works, the butterfly ballot causing thousands of votes to incorrectly be case for Pat Buchanan, a Supreme Court case decided on party lines.  This was Tilden-Hayes without the backdrop of the Civil War.  And whether the "correct" guy won is still a matter of debate among the political class and the American public.  The truth of the matter?  We proved that the margin of error in vote tabulation is greater than 0.009%, the margin of Bush's official win, meaning that it is simply impossible to know who won with any certainty, except by looking at who was sworn into office.  It's a shame that real voting reform hasn't followed.

I promised 5, but I need to do 1 honorable mention, which isn't terribly significant politically, but is fascinating none the less:
John Ashcroft Losses to a Dead Man, November 7, 2000
Before he was the Attorney General that famously signed off on all the controversial homeland security policies of the Bush administration, John Ashcroft was a United States Senator from Missouri.  In 2000, Ashcroft was running for re-election against incumbent Governor Mel Carnahan.  In October, Carnahan was killed in a plane crash, too late to be removed from the ballot and replaced with another Democrat.  Roger Wilson, Carnahan's Lieutenant Governor and now-Governor of Missouri pledged to appoint Carnahan's widow to the seat if Carnahan won (if a dead man wins election to the Senate, the seat is considered vacant and the Governor can make a temporary appointment.)  The vote totals on election night where 51% for Carnahan, 49% for Ashcroft.  Thus, Mel Carnahan became the only dead man in United States history to win a Senate election.  Jean Carnahan went on to the Senate for 2 years and John Ashcroft went on to the AG's office.


Have other great political stories of the past 10 years that I've missed?  Send me your favorites.


A Miserable Labor Day
It's hard to think of a more depressingly ironic piece of news for Labor Day, a day built to celebrate America's blue collar workers to be celebrated with the backdrop of a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday that the U.S. economy created zero new jobs in August, the economies worst performance in nearly a year.  Some would argue that is not quite as bad as it sounds, as the private sector was modestly net positive, offset by cuts in governmental jobs.  But it is awful.  Keep in mind that the economy needs to grow by about 200,000 jobs each and every month just to keep up with population growth.  By this measure, since November 2007 (the month before the recession officially began), we are 15.6 million jobs in the hole, that is, there are 6.8 million less jobs and we need job growth of 8.8 million to keep up with population growth.  So, just to get back to where we were in 2007, we'd need job growth of 400,000 jobs per month for six and a half years.  And we aren't close.  The result?  An "official" 9.1% unemployment rate, but a more daunting decline in participation in the workforce not seen since before working women were the norm.

Remembering 9/11
Do you remember what you were doing on September 11, 2001?  Where you were?  What you felt?  I think we all do.  Next Sunday, it will have been 10 years since those awful attack in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania.  We have been the right combination of good and lucky to avoid a major attack in the 10 years hence.  We are a more sober, less arrogant America than 10 years ago.  We are more war-weary, more pressed economically and know a whole lot more about radical Islam.  We are more politically divided than ever and our problems are large.  But we are still One America, a feeling that flashed back through our consciousness earlier this year when we learned that Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind killing thousands of our innocent countrymen and women had been killed.  A whole generation will be defined by the events of 9/11, which was really the coming of age moment for the Millennials.  Let's never forget the unity and national pride that brought us together that day.

Happy Labor Day, everyone.  Here's hoping that you are off work and that it is because you get today as a holiday, not because you can't find work.

A Check-in on Obama's Promises, 2010 Updates, Ridiculous Protest?

Is Obama Doing What He Said?
Today marks President Obama's 230th day in office, 15.7% of his term now having been completed. Time for a check-in on if he is doing what he promised.

The continuing cry from conservatives around the country is that President Obama ran as a moderate and has governed as a liberal. I've written about this fallacy before -- to me, President Obama clearly ran as a liberal on POLICY issues (his views on taxation, health care, climate change and such were all well known early in the primaries), but ran as a post-partisan "uniter". On the post-partisanship question, he has failed more than he has succeeded, with the hallmark legislation of his administration passing in a partisan fashion and prospects for a highly bi-partisan piece of health care reform legislation floundering. That being said, I've noted by way of the partisanship index, that for all the rancor in Washington, there are actually a number of smaller pieces of legislation that have been quietly getting done in a very bipartisan manner. On balance though, it would be hard to credibly say that President Obama has changed the tone in Washington.

On the policy front, the emperical evidence indicates that President Obama is headed largely down the path that he committed to. First, on major policy inititaives: the stimulus, healthcare reform and carbon control legislation are all exactly along the lines of what President Obama articulated on the campaign trail. His policy in Iraq, is, if anything, more Conservative than how he ran -- combat troops are staying longer and 50,000 "non-combat" (whatever that means), troops are staying 2 years longer than he committed on the campaign trail. In Afghanistan, President Obama campaigned on escalating military efforts and he is certainly headed down that path.

Looking at the raw numbers, the latest, independent, politifact.com assessment gives President Obama the following scores on the 516 promises that they documented from the 2008 campaign:
Of the 516 promises, 59 have some sort of "final" disposition (they have either been kept, broken or compromised.) At 11.4% of his 516, this is slightly behind scheduled, if he is going to deal with all his promises in his 4 years in office.

Of the 59, 41 of the promises are rated "kept", 11 are rated "compromise" and 7 are rated "broken". Giving 1 point for kept promises and half a point for compromises, this gives President Obama a promise keeping rating of 79%.

Of the 457 that do not have a final disposition, 91 are rated "in the works", meaning President Obama clearly still supports them and is working towards implementation. 12 are rated "stalled" meaning that the President has not outright broken them, but appears to have either passed on opportunities to implement changes or has made it clear that it is not a policy priority. The remaining 354 are rated "no action", which simply means that the issue hasn't really come up yet.

This gives us the following rates:
(1) Promises Dealt With (11.4% of total)
Kept: 69%
Compromised: 19%
Broken: 12%
Overall Score: 79%

(2) Promises To Be Dealt With (88.6% of total)
In The Works: 20%
Stalled: 3%
No Action: 76%

Overall
Kept: 8%
In The Works: 18%
Compromised: 2%
Stalled or Broken: 4%
No Action: 68%

% Promises Completed (1 pt for Kept, 1/2 pt for In the Works or Compromised): 18%
% of Term Completed: 16%

Not too bad a record, all things considered. Of course, we don't have comparability with other Presidents, based on the relative newness of politifact.com, which is a fantastic project for holding politicans accountable. It would be hard to imagine a modern President who would have better ratings at this stage in his Presidency, though.

2010 Updates
Not a ton of new news in the races, but the trend definitely seems to be heading towards the GOP. Here is the latest news:

Nevada -- two new polls again possible opponents show Sen. Harry Reid (D) trailing two possible opponents, although both were withing the margin of error. This is enough to take the race all the way from a likely DEM hold to a toss-up. You could make a case to take it to a Lean Republican Pick-up, but I'll wait for some more information to confirm it -- I don't like to move races three notches in one update unless there is more information than this.

New York -- no change to the rating...yet. Incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand (D) is crushing Rep. Peter King (R) in statewide polls, but is in a dead heat with Gov. George Pataki (R). I'm going to leave this a likely DEM hold for now, as it is unclear that Pataki will run, but it would move to a toss-up if Pataki announces that he is in.

Massachussetts -- we initiate coverage with the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D). It is very unclear who the candidates will be, but in this heavily blue state, I'm initiating this one as a likely DEM hold.

Illinois -- no change in the rating as this one remains a toss-up. New polls show Kirk and Giannoulis in a deat heat, confirming that this will be a hot race.

Pennsylvania -- remains a toss-up for now, but may shift back in the blue column. Polls show incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter (D) beating former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) in a general election. But he has to first get past a primary challenge. If Sestak unseats Specter in the primary, however, Toomey leads in the general. Specter is leading primary polilng now. Democrats would be wise to stick with him or they may give this seat up.

Florida -- more evidence that Gov. Charlie Crist (R) is way ahead in this one. He continues to hold double digit leads in new polls. This one stays a likely GOP hold.

All of which leaves us with:
Safe DEM Holds (7)
Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Hawaii & Wisconsin

Likely DEM Holds (3)
North Dakota, New York (Gillebrand), Massachussetts

Lean DEM Holds (2)
Arkansas, California

Lean DEM Pick-ups (3)
New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri

Toss-ups -- GOP Held (0)

Toss-ups -- DEM Held (3)
Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania

Lean GOP Pick-ups (3)
Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut

Lean GOP Hold (3)
Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia

Likely GOP Hold (6)
Florida, Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota

Safe GOP Hold (6)
Alabama, Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah

Which leaves us with a projection of:
GOP Pick-up of 0 to 3 seats (central projection +1 seat)
GOP pick-up of 11 seats is needed to gain a majority

In the House, polls are all over the map. The Rasmussen Poll (which this year has almost always been the most GOP-leaning poll on all subjects), shows the GOP at +7%, whereas the Ipos-McClatchy poll shows the DEMS at +8%. Neither of these scenarios seems plausible right now. Taking a "margin of error overlap" approach to all the polls, my guess is that we are somewhere between GOP +1% and DEMS +2%. The sample-weighted average of all polls shows Dems +0.7%.

Based on this, my current projection is:
GOP Pick-up of 16 to 34 seats (central projection is +17 seats)

I'm not sure what to do about the Rasmussen polls going forward if the current trend of them being 10-15% more Republican than all the other polls continues. On the one hand, I could throw them out as an outlier. On the other hand, I don't really know whose sampling methodology is right and perhaps Rasmussen has found a formula that the other guys have missed that will prove to be more accurate. Without emperical evidence to validate polls versus results, it is difficult to know. And Rasmussen was well within the mainstream last November (+6% for Obama vs. an actual result of +7.2%.) My inclination is to leave them in the averages and hope to continue the trend from last November, where a large group of sample-weighted polls lead to a very reliable results.

The President Can't Talk to School Kids?
Even Democratic hypocrites (and there are plenty of them) would never have dreamed of protesting President George W. Bush reading to school children. Yet, conservatives across the nation are protesting President Obama speaking to school children, claiming some sort of political indoctrination. That's right, folks, the Orwellian plan of the Obama Administration is to indoctrinate third graders by having the President talk to them about achieving their goals while sending secret subliminal messages that will make them force their parents to support universal health care. What a joke.

President Reagan actually made a blatantly political speech to school kids in the 1980s, speaking out against the evil of taxes, and nobody protested or threatened to pull their kids out of school. All indications are that President Obama's speech will be a heck of a lot more benign than this. If these protestors are serious, than I fear for the type of education their kids are getting at home.

I'm not one to liberally throw the race card around, but does it strike anyone else that these protestors don't so much have a problem with the President addressing school kids, but perhaps with a BLACK President addressing school kids. Shame on them.

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The Late Senator Edward Kennedy, Can Obama Rediscover His Mojo?, Can You Be Pro-Stimulus and Anti-Deficit

Senator Edward Kennedy (R-MA)
The passing of Senator Edward Kennedy is an historic end to an era of prominence for the Kennedy family in New England and across the country. The "lion of the Senate" served for 47 years, longer than all but two men, the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) and the current President Pro Tempe of the Senate, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). His passing reminds me of my own internal conflict about the man called Teddy by his friends and the broader divide in America that it reveals.

Senator Kennedy was a deeply flawed man. A famous drunk, who was four times convicted of DUI in his youth, Teddy was twice kicked out of Harvard for cheating. Once considered the black sheep of the Kennedy family, Teddy rose to prominence after the death of his progressive-hero brothers, President John F. Kennedy and sure-to-be President Bobby Kennedy, both dead far too early at the hands of killers' bullets.

The event that more than any other defined Senator Kennedy as a villainous figure in the minds of many on the right and some on the center occurred July 18th, 1969, when Senator Kennedy drove off a bridge killing Mary Kopenche and then failed to report the death until nearly nine hours later, the next morning. There is much unknown about the famous Chappaquiddick incident (named for the island on which it occurred.) Was Mary in the car as part of an extramarital affair? Had Kennedy been drinking that night? Where was he really headed that evening (he claimed to be headed to a ferry but there are inconsistencies in both the location and the timeline)? Given Kennedy's history, it is not unreasonable to assume the worst about all of those questions. Some have even suggested that the killing was an intentional murder, although the evidence of this is scant. At the end of the day, however, they don't really matter. Senator Kennedy killed a woman and failed to make the feintest effort to get emergency services on the scene, who could have at least had a chance to save her life. It was the most morally repungnant behavior from every possible angle that one could imagine.

Despite Chappaquiddick, Senator Kennedy easily won re-election in Kennedy-friendly New England and went on to possibly the most accomplished Senate career in U.S. history. His friends span the ideological spectrum -- his close friends included former President George Herbert-Walker Bush and the very conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). He fought relentlessly for social justice, health care and the underrepresented. He reached across the aisle to get things done rather than grandstand, including being a key player in President George Walker Bush's crowning piece of social policy, No Child Left Behind.

So what are we to make of this dichotomy? For me, I can appreciate the accomplishment, but can't forgive the crime. I've never been a fan of royal families in our Republic, and there is little doubt that Senator Kennedy would have done jail time and never been heard from again if he had another name. The hubris and entitlement of the Kennedy clan has always annoyed me, the latest example being Caroline Kennedy's aborted attempt to be handed Hillary Clinton's Senate seat with zero qualifications.

Senator Kennedy may have been an advocate in the Senate for those who needed one and a great legislator, but he was still a meager man. Some will say that I would be best not to criticize the deceased, but I have to call them like I see them. The guest list at Kennedy's funeral proves that I am probably in the minority -- those who knew him seemed to all love him, left and right.

Looking for Some Mojo -- Will Obama Slip Below November?
Same old story from the past two months. President Obama's approval has slipped to a new low since taking office, with the daily tracking at +9.7%.


President Obama can still take solice in a few facts:
(1) His poll numbers have never, for a single day, been below his margin of victory in November (although he is flirting with the lines, only 2.5% ahead of his November margin)
(2) Congress will be back in session in a couple of weeks and the town halls will stop
(3) President Clinton had even lower numbers at this stage in his Presidency and went on to win re-election by a wide margin (9%)
(4) Opinion is fickle -- President's routinely gain and lose double digits in a matter of months

If you are on the other side, you can rejoice in these fact:
(1) No post-World War II except Clinton was less popular at this stage in his term
(2) While this may not be predictive of 2012, the history with Clinton would indicate a good shot at a resounding GOP comeback in congress in 2010
(3) President Obama's daily numbers are still below his monthly numbers, meaning that at least in the short-term, he is likely to continue to see decline

The monthy numbers are below:

If current trends were to hold, sometime in September, President Obama would drop below his November margin and sometime around this November he would drop below the all-critical zero line. Not too strong a negotiating position to try to push a health care bill through Blue Dog Democrats. Of course, as I've said, if unemployment starts falling, don't be surprise if these numbers reverse fast, regardless of the environment in Washington.

Pro-Stimulus and Anti-Deficit?
I've been loaded down with e-mail from conservatives and liberals alike questioning how I could have been in favor of an almost $800 billion stimulus bill and at the same time be bemoaning the size of the deficits over the next 10 years.

Allow me to explain -- a fiscal stimulus is designed to jump start a damaged economy. By spending large sums of money quickly, the government can light a fire under economic growth and reduce unemployment. This, in turn, yields greater long-term tax revenues that repay the initial investment. Now, you could certainly quibble with some of the details of the stimulus bill that passed -- I would have liked to see more infrastructure (roads, bridges, electrical grid, etc.) and less lower-order stimulus (state aid, etc.), but the concept of a stimulus is one that I'm firmly behind.

Of course a big stimulus increases this year's and next year's deficit. That is not my concern -- you should run deficits in a recession to try to jump start the economy. My concern is the STRUCTURAL deficit that continues over the next 8 years. Still being $900 billion in the whole every year 10 years from now is not acceptable. President Obama needs to come clean with the need for either dramatic entitlement reform, dramatic tax increases or some combination of both. He shouldn't attempt to do it now -- fixing the economy is job one, but we need to be doing it in 2011 and to do so, we should at least be talking about the need for future reform now.

Speaking of stimulus, the latest figures are as follows:
Of the $499 in spending:
$208.0 billion has been authorized (41.7%)
$84.6 billion has been spent (17.0%)

To date, since the bill was enacted, we have averaged about $3.15 billion in stimulus spending per week. At this pace, it would take over 3 years to complete spending on the bill. It is clear to me that this is not fast enough. The pace has picked up somewhat recently (the last 5 weeks have averaged $3.44 billion), but it needs to move much faster. The economy is continuing to get healthier, but unless the pace picks up, we may have protracted high unemployment even with the economy likely growing again in Q3 (albeit at a shaky 1 or 2%.)

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