2012: A Good Year for Progressives

There always seems to be plenty of bad news burdening people's spirits, so I thought it might be a good idea to counteract that and help put Democrats and progressives in a positive frame of mind for the new year by highlighting some of the many electoral successes achieved in 2012.

First and biggest of all, of course, was President Barack Obama's decisive re-election victory on November 6.  The final outcome wasn't as close as many expected, with the President running up margins of 332-206 in the Electoral College, nearly 4 million in the popular vote, and 4% in the popular vote percentage.  The Obama-Biden ticket pulled in over 51% of the total vote, while, in delicious irony, Republican challenger Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan garnered...you guessed it...47%!  See all the final results here. 

Congress will be more friendly this session too.  Democrats had to defend 23 Senate seats to only 10 for the GOP.  Democrats annihilated the opposition, winning 25 seats to only 8 for the GOP.  Consequently, the Democratic majority in the Senate will expand by two, to 55-45.  In the House, Democrats prevailed too, taking 1% more of the people's votes nationally than the Republicans.  GOP monkey business with District "gerrymandering" kept Democrats from taking control of the House, but they still picked up 8 seats, 4 of them here in California.

Here in California, Democrats set the table in 2010 by winning every statewide office from Governor down to Secretary of State.  Thanks to the people's nonpartisan reapportionment commission and the Republicans' increasingly out of touch stands on the issues, Democrats finished the job in 2012 by rolling to 2/3 majorities in both the State Assembly (55-25) and State Senate (30-10).  These super majorities mean the Republicans will no longer be able to block the budget as they have been doing for years now, returning state government to functionality for the first time in years.

Progressivism also prevailed in the balloting for state initiatives.  The schools were saved from additional devastating cuts courtesy of the voters' solid approval of Proposition 30.  The public also saw through and turned down repugnant special interest efforts to silence the political voice of workers while leaving those of corporations and the wealthy untouched (Prop 32, the Koch brothers) and to fleece auto insurance customers (Prop 33, Mercury Insurance).   

What's more, around the country there were other important progressive victories in direct democracy.  For the first time, same-sex marriage was approved by the voters.  The first states to share the distinction of voting for marriage equality are Maine, Maryland and Wisconsin.  In addition, Minnesota turned down an initiative that would have prohibited gay marriage. 

There were also successful ballot measures in Montana, Colorado and the city of Chicago to declare that corporations do not have the rights of people and to direct their states to draft a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. 

All in all, it was a satisfying year at the ballot box for progressives in 2012, making it all the easier to keep a positive and optimistic attitude for the coming year.  A Happy New Year to one and all!     

Presidential Race: States to Watch

The average of recent national polls between President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney has the president ahead by four percent.  However, the national vote doesn't mean anything in an American presidential election.  What matters are the separate elections in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.  The winner of each state will win its electoral vote (EV), a number equal to the size of the state's congressional delegation, which includes the number of its members in the House of Representatives, plus its two Senators.  (D.C. gets three votes, the same as the smallest states.)

The total number of EVs at stake in the election is 538, and it will take 270 to win.  In this Electoral College election there are only eight states that really matter in 2012, and you will see the candidates and their running mates returning to them time and again in the next five and a half weeks.  Their residents will also be bombarded with broadcast advertising.   

The reason only eight states matter from here on is that 42 of the 50 states, along with Washington, D.C., are already safely in one or the other candidate's columns.  Obama has comfortable leads in 19 states plus D.C. worth a total of 247 EVs.  Romney has sewed up 23 states worth 191 EVs.  That leaves eight closely contested states worth exactly 100 EVs that are still up for grabs.  To win reelection Obama needs 23 of these remaining 100 EVs.  To unseat him Romney needs 79 of them.  This makes it clear that Obama has much the easier task.  Here are the close states and the pertinent statistics.

West
Colorado (9 EV) Obama leads in recent polls by an average of 3 percent. 
Nevada (6 EV) Obama is ahead by 4. 

Midwest
Ohio (18 EV) Obama leads by 5. 
Iowa (6 EV) Obama is up by 4.

East
New Hampshire (4 EV) has Obama ahead by 3. 

South
Florida (29 EV) Obama leads by 3.
North Carolina (15 EV) Obama is up by a slim 1 percent.   
Virginia (13 EV) Obama is ahead by 4.

All these states are close but you will notice that Obama leads in every one of them.  He can win the election by winning Florida alone, even if he loses the other seven.  Winning Ohio and any other state bigger than New Hampshire would also reelect the president.  Or he could take North Carolina and Virginia, or North Carolina and Colorado, Virginia and any two other states, in short, anything that adds up to 23 or more.  He has many paths to victory.

Romney, on the other hand, has less margin for error.  He has to win Florida, and more or less has to win Ohio too.  (If Romney loses Ohio and New Hampshire but wins the other six both candidates would wind up with 269 EVs.  The tie would be settled by the House of Representatives.)  In any case, Romney has to keep Obama from winning any combination of these states adding up to 23 EVs or more. 

Now you know what to look for in the coming weeks.  You can play around with the arithmetic yourself and try out the various combinations.  And remember, a survey that tells who is leading in Iowa, Colorado or any of these states is a lot more important than one indicating who has the most votes nationwide.

Democrats Win Battle of the Conventions

Now that both major party conventions are over, it's time for a bit of reflection on how they did.  Nowadays a convention rarely chooses the party's nominee.  That is what the grueling primary process is for, and it usually does its job of winnowing things down to one candidate who will bear the standard.

There are two true purposes of the modern convention, one internal and the other external.  The internal purpose is to excite and energize delegates from all over the country to go back home and work hard for the party in the campaign.  The external purpose is to showcase the party's members, views,  leadership, and most of all its presidential and vice presidential candidates in the most favorable light possible for the nation's voters.  And in this most crucial contest there can be no doubt the Democrats at their convention gave President Obama a huge boost going forward into the home stretch of the campaign.

The Republican Convention in Tampa was certainly presentable, but it wasn't electrifying.  When it was all over, Mitt Romney got a one percent "bounce" in the polls.  Keynote Speaker New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was flat.  Florida Senator Marco Rubio, speaking to introduce Governor Romney's acceptance speech, impressed me as an excellent speaker, the best I saw in the GOP fold.   Both, however, unfortunately talked more about themselves than their party's nominee.  It seemed more they were positioning themselves for 2016 than addressing themselves wholeheartedly to the full-throated support of the 2012 ticket.  Vice Presidential pick Paul Ryan came across as a regular guy, but his remarks included so many factual inaccuracies they became the focus of the coverage.  Prospective first lady Ann Romney did a good job with a weak speech.  See for yourself.  Clint Eastwood embarrassed himself and the party with a rambling conversation with an empty chair meant to symbolize President Obama.  It derailed things right before the nominee himself took the floor.  Finally came Mitt Romney himself.  I felt he gave the best delivery of a speech I have even seen from him.  That means it was average.  See Romney's speech here.  It was not memorable, however, and included, like most of the other speakers' remarks, hardly anything of firm substance that he would do as president.  He made quick reference to a 5-point plan for the country in about fifteen seconds, then went back to generalities.

The Democratic Convention in Charlotte was, in the eyes of most longtime observers, the best in memory.  The clearest evidence for this is President Obama polling a post-convention seven percent bump in his approval rating.  Michelle Obama easily out duelled her counterpart talking about her man in her First Lady speech.  Bill Clinton gave what was likely the strongest address in either convention, taking on virtually every Republican objection to Obama's outlook and policies in impressive fashion.  He made the kinds of defenses of Democratic policies the Obama administration has been largely fumbling with during most of its tenure.  This was followed on the final night by Obama's acceptance speech, one of his customary stem winders that had the audience in tears and on its feet throughout.  It definitely helped the Democrats to go second, as they had clearly tailored their remarks to rebut earlier GOP points and pounce on Republican missteps.  Obama came off as confident yet caring, immersed in policy yet still imbued with the optimism and idealism that launched his election four years ago. 

This time it was the Democrats who put their social issues (gay rights, immigration, women's issues) front and center while the Republicans tried to avoid discussing them.  This time it was the Democrats who were on top of foreign policy while their rivals scarcely brought it up.  Obama gave detailed solutions while Romney avoided specifics altogether.  There are still eight weeks left in the campaign and a lot can happen.  But the strong edge the Democrats gained in the Battle of the Conventions puts Obama in the driver seat at this point.  To win, Team Romney will have to come from behind to make up a good deal of lost ground.      

Senate Action Exposes Real GOP Jobs Position

Last Thursday July 19, Republicans in the Senate used a filibuster to stop a jobs bill that would have given companies tax incentives to return outsourced jobs back to this country.  In so doing they once again made perfectly clear not only their intent to oppose any worthwhile legislation that might improve the economy (and President Obama's re-election prospects) before the election, but also their utter indifference to the plight of the American worker.

The "Bring Jobs Home Act" was introduced by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan.)  Under current law companies can deduct as a business expense all costs associated with outsourcing jobs to foreign countries.  In effect, American taxpayers are subsidizing the shipping of their own jobs overseas.  The bill would have removed this tax incentive to move U.S. jobs to foreign countries.  It would have kept the tax deduction for all costs associated with bringing outsourced jobs back to the United States and additionally have granted a 20% tax credit on top of those costs as an extra incentive.

The bill was actually approved by a solid majority, 56-42, but under the arcane rules of the Senate it requires 60 votes to "end debate" and move legislation to the floor for a vote.  Stabenow's Act received unanimous support from Democratic Senators.  It makes so much sense it even induced four Republicans to defy their leaders and vote for it.  Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine were joined by Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Dean Heller of Nevada in voting to give companies a federal incentive to create jobs in America rather than send them to foreigners.  The rest of their GOP colleagues felt that election year politics and subservience to business interests rather than the average worker were greater priorities.

Earlier in the week Republican Senators also blocked the Disclose Act, which would have required transparency and the disclosure of any contribution over $10,000 to a campaign or a PAC.  For the remaining 100 days of this campaign we will hear a lot of rhetoric from the Republican side about their commitment to jobs.  Their actions, however, belie such talk.  Rather than voting to protect American jobs, they vote to offshore them.  They do this in the service of corporate interests who want taxpayer money to pay them to do so.  And they don't want the American people to know that's where the bulk of their money is coming from.         

Romney's Economic Plan: Would it Work?

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is running for the highest office in the land mainly based on his claim that he can work wonders with the economy.  To see what he has in mind to bring this about, I went to the Romney campaign web site to see what his plans are.  There I discovered  the most remarkable characteristic about the former Massachusetts governor's platform is how strongly it resembles the formula laid out by the most recent Republican president--George W. Bush.  Yes, that's right; the very policies Bush enacted that led to financial collapse and recession are the same ones Mr. Romney wants to bring back and says will restore prosperity this time.

The first has to do with the elimination of regulations.  In particular, Romney wants to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations requiring oversight, transparency, shareholder involvement and consumer protections against risky secret hedge and derivative funds.   The above link will take you to an excellent synopsis of what it does.  Romney would have us go back to the unsupervised, casino-trading operations that put millions out of work and led to $1.5 trillion in bailouts for the "too big to fail" institutions.  Morgan Chase's recent $2-$3 billion debacle shows how little the giants have learned their lesson and how closely they still need to be supervised.  Romney would remove even the semblance of a brake on these high-stakes high-risk operations.  Leave these federally-insured investors free to take whatever wild ventures promise to make the highest short-term profits.  If it entails enormous long-term risk, no problem.  The taxpayer's dime will be there to bail them out.

The second part of the Romney program is a reprise and indeed an extension of the Bush tax policy.  The 2001 Bush tax cuts reduced the marginal rates about 3% for most payers, though 4.6% for the top earners.   Another round of Bush cuts in 2003 raised the brackets about 2%, effectively cutting taxes again.  See a detailed treatment of both cuts here.  Though the conservative Heritage Foundation forecast the plan would eliminate the deficit by 2010, what they actually did was turn a $230 billion yearly surplus from the Clinton years into a $450 billion deficit under Bush.  In fact, the Congressional Research Service finds that the Bush tax cuts have cost $2.9 trillion in deficits plus an additional $600 billion in debt interest payments since their enactment.  

For his part, Romney's site advocates another 20% income tax cut, across the board, along with the elimination of the estate tax.  The corporation tax on profits would fall, after expenses and deductions, by 29%.  Once again the wealthy would reap the lion's share of the reduction, while the middle class and poor would suffer the bulk of the pain.  That is because of the third facet of the Romney plan.

The third part is the spending side of the ledger.  Again, as with Bush, domestic spending would be slashed while military spending would skyrocket.  Romney would accelerate military spending even though we have disengaged from one war and are winding down another.  His plan calls for cutting $500 billion a year, though that would be greater for domestic priorities because of the augmentation for defense.  I was only able to identify $264 billion of cuts from the web site.  But much of it would come from enacting the "House Republican (Ryan) Budget" which would privatize Medicare.  Another part of the plan would make Social Security recipients wait until they are older to collect benefits. 

As usual, average people would be asked to do without so richer people could be given lower taxes, under the view that this would encourage growth and balance the budget.  The persistence of this ideology is rather astonishing, given its failure to produce either a balanced budget or increased broad-based prosperity any of the times it has been tried in past economic downturns, whether under Hoover, Reagan or either Bush.  Yet this is precisely what Romney would try again if he is given the chance.  Among other things, the success of the Romney campaign hinges on the American people having extremely short memories. 





     

2012 Endorsement: Re-Elect President Obama

The Presidential nominating contests are now over.  In the past few days President Barack Obama has officially kicked off his re-election campaign with rallies in the battleground states of Virginia and Ohio, and challenger Mitt Romney has seen his last serious opponent withdraw from the Republican race.  With both nominations now assured at the respective major party conventions, it is time to go ahead and make my endorsement.  The choice for 2012 is clear: President Obama deserves a second term and should be re-elected President of the United States. 

The president who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013 will confront a host of problems.  Domestic policy, including the economy, will be at the forefront of these.  Yet the nation also faces serious challenges in foreign policy.  Beyond this, the next administration will also be called upon to navigate a number of serious and inherently divisive social issues as well.   On all three counts, President Obama is the best choice for the American people.

Obama has the right prescription for what ails the American economy.  He entered office during the worst recession in 80 years, a downturn caused by the reckless irresponsibilities of a financial industry that in creating a housing bubble and risky investment instruments, brought the global financial structure to the edge of collapse.  This had been abetted in government by a diffident philosophy that gave irresponsible fast buck operators free rein to operate without serious regulatory accountability.  President Obama acted on that with Wall Street Regulatory Reform and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  He also stopped the free-falling economy with a $787 billion stimulus package that stopped the job losses and has produced job gains every month for over two years now.  See these graphs. 

In contrast, Romney wants to return to the lax regulatory stance of the Bush years and supports the Paul Ryan budget plan of tax cuts for the wealthy and budget cuts to the infrastructure and human needs of the rest of society.  Analysis shows that the Romney budget would actually increase the deficit by cutting revenues so sharply.  Beyond that, its cuts in domestic spending would follow the "austerity" path the European nations adopted and that now is leading them into a double-dip recession.  Spending cuts are working no better for them in a recession than they did for Herbert Hoover, and for the same reason.  Yet Romney hews to the discredited party line.

Obama has also excelled in foreign policy, ending the Iraq War and now in the process of successfully winding down the Afghan War.  His drone strikes despite Pakistani protests have eliminated two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership and his decisive action in ordering the Bin Laden raid rid the world of its greatest terrorist menace.  He demonstrated admirable deftness in dealing with the Arab Spring, including the insurgency against Libya's Qaddafi.  He is handling the Korean and Iranian situations with the perfect balance of diplomatic incentives and sanctions.  As a result, under Obama's leadership the U.S. is once again respected and even liked in the world. 

In Romney's case, on world affairs he appears disengaged and uninformed.  He relies on many of the same interventionist neocon advisers left over from the ruinous Bush-Cheney administration.  He is still living in the Cold War, saying that "Russia is public enemy number one" in one memorable statement.  As if we haven't had enough problems with open-ended wars, he joined the rest of the Republican candidates in advocating starting a new war against Iran.  He is clearly out of his depth in foreign affairs, a shortcoming that could be highly damaging were he to become the leader of the free world.  

Obama is similarly the better of the two on social issues by far.  In supporting the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell in the military, supporting the Violence Against Women Act, leaving women's questions such as abortion and contraception up to them, supporting the DREAM Act and standing strong for college Pell Grants and low student loan interest rates, the President continues to serve the causes of fairness and equality in society.  Romney, on the other hand, has stood with the extreme right-wingers in his party on all these issues except for his belated support for the student loan interest rate matter.  He campaigned on being the most opposed to comprehensive immigration reform, is against gay rights and has supported all the recent restrictions Republican-controlled state legislatures have enacted against permitting women to make their own choices.  It is no coincidence Romney trails the President 70-14 with Latinos and 55-39 among women.

GOP Driving Women's Vote to Democrats

President Obama, by the conventional wisdom, ought to be vulnerable this November.  The economy is getting better, but more slowly than almost everyone had hoped.  While we have left Iraq, our forces remain in Afghanistan and developments there seem to get messier and more complicated all the time.  The deficit remains high and most of the Bush tax policy is still in place.  Gas prices have been going up.  None of these goings on are particularly advantageous for an incumbent seeking a second term.  Never mind that all of these problems either began on his opponents' watch or have been made worse by their obstruction during his tenure.  The top dog tends to suffer the blame when things are not going as folks would wish.

So as if to make the point that they really don't want to win this year, the Republicans have chosen this time to try to infuriate women on health issues.  The  Republican House doesn't want contraception to be covered in health plans even when insurance companies offer to provide it for free.  Their Presidential candidates want to end Planned Parenthood entirely, even though hundreds of thousands depend on it for regular checkups.  The GOP legislature and governor of Arizona want women to have to prove that if they are taking birth control pills it is not for contraceptive purposes.  Otherwise their employer would be able to fire them.  The GOP legislature of Virginia passed a provision mandating vaginally invasive procedures for women considering abortions.  Republican governments in Texas and Pennsylvania similarly want to get out the shaming sticks to try to control women's behavior.  Republican chairmen hold congressional hearings on women's health and bar any women from testifying.  When a woman complained about this Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" and a "prostitute."  Without commenting on the sentiment behind them, the Republican presidential front runner said only that he "would not have chosen those words." 

In 2008 women supported Obama over McCain by 13 points--56% to 43% while men only preferred Obama by 1%--49% to 48% (source).  Instead of working to improve on that deficiency, Republicans seem intent on exacerbating it.  A Washington Post survey now shows Democrats with a 25-point lead in "caring about issues that are important to women."  There are various explanatory theories for the current Republican thrust.  The motive could be to respond to the zeal of the conservative fundamentalist wing of their Party.  It might spring from an irresistible streak of innate sexism they can no longer discipline themselves to suppress.  It has even been suggested it could be some sort of political death wish by which they are intent on permanently alienating the 53% of the electorate that is female.  It's not as though much male support is engendered by these positions.  The Post poll shows the requirement to include contraception in health insurance is supported by all respondents 61% to 33%, nearly two to one. 

Whatever the intent, Republicans have resurrected issues thought settled for 50 years that enjoy overwhelming public support.  (They also look to be writing off the Hispanic vote.  A Fox poll released last week shows Obama beating Romney 70% to 14% among Latinos.)  If a drastic course correction is not made soon, the approach bears all the signs of political suicide.

To sign Senator Dianne Feinstein's petition against these regressive attitudes and policies click here.

Texas Turning Democratic?

Changing population demographics and an increasingly anti-immigrant political stance may soon cost Republicans the state of Texas in national elections. Such is the convincing analysis by Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post this week. Any Republican hope of winning a presidential election starts with Texas. As the biggest solid Republican state, its electoral votes (likely to rise by four to 38 after the 2010 census) are crucial to the GOP to offset the massive bloc of 55 electoral votes California customarily puts into the Democratic column every election night. This tectonic shift may not come in 2012, but it is coming a few years down the road unless major voting patterns drastically change.

Hispanics tend to vote Democratic. Nationally, in 2004 they supported Kerry over Bush by 20 points, 60 to 40. In 2008 they went even more lopsidedly for Obama over McCain, 67 to 31. Results in the state of Texas mirrored the national results, especially without former Texas Governor George W. Bush on the ballot in 2008. Kerry had just edged Bush 50-49 among Hispanics in 2004, but Obama walloped McCain with Hispanics in the Lone Star State in 2010, 63-35.

This is significant because census figures show the ethnic balance in Texas tilting away from a white majority. In fact, "during the past decade, Texas joined California as a majority-minority state: The percentage of whites in the Texas population declined from 53 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2010, while the percentage of Latinos rose from 32 percent to 38 percent." And of all Texans under age 18, 48 percent are now Latinos. Add in the 12 percent of Texans who are black, and these two strong Democratic-leaning groups now account for 50 percent of the Texas population between them. The only thing currently saving Republican prospects in Texas are turnout figures. In 2008 whites were less than 50 percent of the population but constituted 63 percent of the voters. Blacks came out at their percentage of the population (13), but Hispanics, 36 percent of the people, provided only 20 percent of the votes. Once the Democrats can register more of them and get them to the polls, the Republicans are sunk there.

Even more ominous for the GOP, Meyerson points out that nationally, "whites are now a minority-49.9%-of Americans 3 and under. Looking at all school enrollment, pre-K through graduate school, whites were 58.8% of all students in 2009, down from 64.6% in 2000." And yet, "As America becomes increasingly multiracial, the Republicans have chosen to become increasingly white." 90 percent of McCain's voters were white, compared to 61 percent of Obama's.

Rather than reaching out to Hispanics, Republicans have intensified a campaign against their concerns. By passing the Arizona identification law, opposing the Dream Act and introducing constitutional amendments to deny birthright citizenship to children of the undocumented, they have chosen a stance of hostility. Hispanics have responded in kind at the polls. As Meyerson points out, in Nevada, Colorado and California last year, "Republicans ran statewide candidates who embraced Arizona's draconian racial identification law. And massive turnout from Latinos, who overwhelmingly voted Democratic, defeated those candidates."

In view of the inexorable population trend and the Republican base's ever more rightist and anti-immigrant requirements, it is hard to see how the GOP can hold onto Texas from 2016 onward. And once it slips from their grasp they will face an existential electoral dilemma. For with California and Texas both firmly in the Democratic camp, those two states alone will provide them with more than one-third of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Together with the 16 other safely Blue states and the District of Columbia that have voted Democratic at least five elections in a row, Democratic presidential candidates would have 264 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win before a campaign even started. Republican hopefuls would have to sweep every swing state every time to barely squeak out a victory.