Welcome to the Wilderness: Where Will the GOP Go From Here?

As I watched Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press recently, I began to think about the current state of the Republican Party. Now, a Republican I am not. However, I do believe in a healthy multiparty system, and with the current death spiral of the Republican Party, we are drifting more and more away from that.

Of course, all parties often find themselves in the political wilderness from time to time. In many parliamentary systems, such as the UK, virtually all power shifts from one party to another every 5-15 years. In the US, with multiple branches of government and rules such as the filibuster, which theoretically are designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, such wilderness periods are usually not as absolute. The closest thing the US has seen in the past century was perhaps the period from 1933 to 1939, when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and supermajorities of both Houses. But even then, the Supreme Court was not fully in line, hence FDR’s disastrous attempt to expand the size of the court.  Other time periods in the “liberal consensus” period of 1933-1969 saw much division within the majority party (largely along North-South lines), which gave a great deal of power to the minority party on many issues, such as civil rights.

Therefore, the current Republican wilderness period isn’t as common as we might think. However, at the same time, it is a great time for the party to define itself going forward without the pressure of actually governing. Going forward, there are several different paths the Republican Party could take. Let’s take a look at some of them:

1. The Establishment Direction

Current Leaders: Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Dick Cheney

Potential 2012 Candidates: Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush

This option generally embraces the past and takes the position that what worked in the 1990s will work now, full stop. It simply plugs in tired arguments of the past into the present and expects that they will produce the exact same results, no matter how different circumstances may be today. This option embraces the fact that Republican values are important, and that the party cannot compromise on its core values. This “love us, or leave us” strategy places a renewed emphasis on national security, fear, and wedge issues.  However, unlike some of the options outlined below, this option is very inside baseball. It’s Washington insiders, roaring 1990s, all over again.  According to the latest CNN Research poll, each of the leaders of this strategy have approval ratings in the 30s according recent opinion polls, but yet enjoy the support of a large majority of members of the shrinking Republican party. As more and more Republicans leave the party, the greater percentage of those left that will be in support of this strategy.

2. Establishment with a Twist

Current Leaders: Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor

Potential 2012 Candidates: Mitt Romney, Lindsay Graham, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and Tim Pawlenty

This faction of the Republican party is in some ways perceived as “moderate,” but yet in other ways very conformist and in sync with the establishment listed above. However, unlike members of the establishment, people like Mitt Romney and Lindsay Graham are actually somewhat likable individuals that don’t seem like retreads from a past era. However, when you look beyond a few policy exceptions, most in this group fall in line with the group above. However, this path realizes the importance of aesthetics and is willing to compromise on a few tangential issues in order to actually win. While there is nothing necessarily fundamentally different about this group that could necessarily shift the dynamics away from the Republican Party becoming limited to a regional force in the long run, right now this option may be the best bet for the short term survival of the party that doesn’t compromise some on some of its core ideals of the past several decades.

3. Movement Conservatives

Current Leaders:  Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh

Potential 2012 Candidates:  Sarah Palin and Tom Tancredo

This path is top-down populism if there ever was such a thing. Four plus decades after the Southern strategy began its outreach to social conservatives throughout the country, the “movement” they created has come close to completely taking over the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln. What started with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan’s pawns, first achieved electoral victory within its new home in 1988 when Pat Robertson finished a strong second in the Iowa caucuses, solidly ahead of sitting Vice President George H. W. Bush.  Twenty years later, for the first time, the movement had one of its own nominated to be Vice President of the United States. Don’t expect the movement to stop there. The movement has all the momentum within the party and will not be satisfied until one of its own is the Presidential nominee, no matter what that might mean for the overall party’s general election chances. Although his name may never appear on a ballot, Rush Limbaugh is without a doubt the current leader of this faction of the Republican Party.

4. A New Populism

Current Leader: Mike Huckabee
Potential 2012 Candidate: Mike Huckabee

This option is intriguing because it has the potential to contract and/or expand the reach of the Republican Party in the long run.  Like the movement, it is populist in nature. However, unlike the movement, it seems to have the potential for real bottom-up populism. With an emphasis on social values, religion, and cultural issues, this option in many ways continues the trend of making the GOP a regional party of the South. However, at the same time, this option is also anti-establishment in a way that the movement is not. Also, this path is not necessarily in line step by step on foreign policy and economic issues with the three factions outlined above. Mike Huckabee flirted with economic equity arguments in 2008, but never went quite far enough to establish a real break here. In the long run, a real break with Republican core stances on certain issues, such as tax policy or immigration, with a reemphasis on cultural issues, could be an intriguing strategy for the GOP.  This strategy could finally open the GOP tent to many African American and Latino voters, who tend to be more socially conservative. While this may sound drastic, such a realignment would not necessarily be anything new in American politics. American history suggests that fundamental political realignments may occur every three to four decades. If you consider 2006-2010 a realignment period (some scholars argue that a realignment normally includes three consecutive elections with the same dynamic trend, although there is generally a critical election) that has finally ended the political equilibrium that has existed since 1968 or 1980 or 1994 (depending on when you define end of the Fifth Party System), then it is still unclear exactly what equilibrium may exist by the middle part of next decade. In fact, some scholars argue that we are currently in the middle of a disalignment, and the exact composition of the Sixth Party System is yet to be set in stone. (Admittedly, with Republican actions in recent years and the rise of Obama, this sort of realignment is probably not realistic for at least a decade or more.)

5. Rockefeller Revisited

Current Leaders: Colin Powell, Jim Huntsman, Charlie Crist, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Tom Ridge

Potential 2012 Candidate:  Tom Ridge

This is the old, moderate, and even sometimes liberal Republican party. And it also could be the new Republican Party that emerges out a possible realignment period. At least in the short term (2012), this looks like the only faction that could actually stand a chance at winning a general election at the presidential level. However, although more popular overall, this faction no longer has many votes within the Republican Party itself. As moderate Republicans have become independents or Democrats in recent years, the Party has essentially purged itself of many of these sane voices. For example, while Republican Colin Powell has a 70% approval rating in the latest CNN poll of all voters, only 64% of Republicans approve of him. When a greater combined percentage of Democrats and independents approve of a Republican than Republicans, chances for a like-minded moderate winning a Republican primary are slim to none. Smartly, Obama and many Democrats know that this is the only faction of Republicans that could beat them in the short term and have strategically moved to the center on several key peripheral (in their mind) issues to ensure that most of those who switched party affiliation in the past 4 to 8 years will remain Democrats or independents throughout the Obama years. This virtually eliminates the GOP’s best hope for 2012, nominating a moderate voice. Further, the best and brightest potential presidential candidate for the GOP out of this moderate wing, Utah governor Jim Huntsman, was recently appointed by Obama to be Ambassador to China.  With Hillary and Huntsman on board, Obama has continued to marginalize those who he sees as political threats. It’s no coincidence that David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and presumed reelection captain, said publicly 10 days before the appointment that Huntsman was his greatest worry for 2012.

Who Will Win Out?

As the Republicans continue their internal fight out of the wilderness, everyone will speculate about who will emerge out of this power vacuum. While a month, let alone a year, is an eternity in politics, if I were to guess right now, I would predict the following:

The Three Headed Monster of Gingrich-Cheney-Limbaugh will continue to dominate the conversation through the 2010 elections. At that time, as the Republicans gear up for 2012, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee will all emerge as serious presidential contenders. Notice how I did not mention any of the moderate Rockefeller Republicans in that list. Right now, I simply don’t see anyone emerging. Possibly Tom Ridge, but I wouldn’t bet on it. While I think Romney would be the most competitive general election candidate out of the four names listed above, I still think all four would lose pretty handily. Huckabee may be the best hope for some sort of outside-the-box, realignment election. Gingrich is the worst for the short term and the long term, but next to Romney, may have the best shot at the nomination. However, by 2014 or 2016, I believe that either the movement or Huckabee wing will emerge. In many aspects, both of these options represent a complete destruction of the Republican status quo and establishment. The movement was meant to elect Republicans, not to actually run the party from within. The Southern strategy will have finally come full circle.

So what happens if and when the movement does finally completely take over the party? The movement could then continue down the death spiral to irrelevance, leading to a possible reemergence of a moderate wing of the GOP or a formidable new second party to fill that vacuum (assuming the Dems don’t totally co-opt the center, which may lead to a leftist party).  Finally, although unlikely, a unification of populist elements under the guise of cultural conservatism, racial tolerance, economic equity, and/or freer migration of people is another intriguing possibility for a potential new period in American political history.

And you wonder why they call it the wilderness….

Sex Scandals and Politics: A New Norm?

In light of David Vitter’s political survival and the apparent political comeback of Eliot Spitzer written on the wall, I began to think back to a simpler time, a time when sex was taboo and charlatans claimed a 100,000 Dow was possible.

When thinking about such a time, I also remembered chuckling a few years back when I saw a particularly astute bumper sticker that read:

When Clinton Lied, Nobody Died

In the midst of the many abuses of power by the Bush administration, not seen since Watergate (and probably Teapot Dome before that), it seemed funny in retrospect how obsessed many had been in the late 1990s, just a few years before, about President Clinton’s zipper problem with the infamous Ms. Lewinsky.

Many of the popular defenses of Bill Clinton’s behaviors during the aftermath of the Lewinsky affair seemed to be based on two lines of thought:

1. This sort of behavior was nothing new among American Presidents.

Popular icons such as FDR and JFK were anything but faithful during their days in the White House. While no evidence exists about oral favors in the Oval Office per se, speculation about JFK makes Clinton’s behavior look like an ABC Family Special. Granted the press also conveniently never mentioned that FDR was in a wheel chair or that Kennedy was in ill health. In addition, for anyone who has watched the television series Mad Men knows, it was a different time. It was before the sexual revolution, it was before Watergate and the loss of trust between the public and its politicians, and most importantly, it was before the rise of the popular press and cable news (not to mention the internet). There wasn’t the competition we see today, and those in power were good friends with those in the media. For good or bad, it was a good old boys club with respected boundaries.

2 . This sort of thing was not a big deal elsewhere in the world.

This line of thought was especially interesting to me as at the time when I was studying European politics. It seemed that all of the institutional factors that had arisen in the US, such as the popular press, the internet, and the devolution of the good old boys club, had all occurred in Europe as well. However, unlike the US, despite the fact that the public now knew about the personal faults of their leaders, it seemed that the public didn’t give a damn. The easy explanation for this at the time was that Europe didn’t have the same evangelical and fundamentalist tradition as the US and was far more secular. As such, they didn’t see their politicians as moral role models and therefore could properly separate their actions as individuals from their policies which actually affected their pocketbooks.

As I read a Newsweek snippet that claimed that Bill Clinton’s survival was the exception to the rule of death by sex scandal, I began to wonder whether or not Bill Clinton’s scandal was not an exception, but rather an inflection point in the ethos of the politics of sex scandals. The more I thought about this hypothesis, the more it seemed to make sense. If this were true, what then could be the reasons for this new dynamic?

The Moral Crusaders Went Too Far

This argument goes on the assumption that politics works like a pendulum in the sense that one side often goes too far, which then causes a big backlash that moves the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. From a cultural perspective, this argument would start somewhere back in the middle of the 20th century. Out of the economic and war torn family unit of the Great Depression and World War II emerged a period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s that is sometimes referred to as the neo-Victorian era. This period of unprecedented economic prosperity enabled a return the one worker per family norm that hadn’t been seen in several generations. However, “hi honey, I’m home” had run its course by the mid-1960s, and the pendulum swung far back to the cultural left with the rise of the sexual revolution, the flower children, and a general destruction, for good or bad, of the morals and cultural norms of the previous period. This period in turn ran its course with the excesses of the 1970s, and by the early 1980s the new “moral majority” had risen to power and catapulted conservative California governor Ronald Reagan (who was once deemed far too conservative to ever be elected president) to power. This backlash/pendulum argument would then speculate that this moral majority movement had gone too far, starting with the Lewinsky affair and ending with the assault on homosexuals and immigrants in the years to follow.

Generational Changes

Tied to this previous explanation is the fact that just as the moral majority was stepping too far, new generations began to come of age who cared little for the wedge politics that defined their parents and grandparents generations. Many in these new generations X and Y had grown up in broken families, had a parent who had strayed, and had had friends of different races and sexual orientations. To many in these new generations, things weren’t as black and white or as us versus them. Simply put, most young people don’t care about consensual adult sex.

Context is Everything

Finally, as hinted at before, in the light of Bush’s abuse of powers and the overall failure of a presidency, all of 1990s’ political scandals seemed so feeble in comparison. Dear God, how naïve were we back in those roaring 90s? This argument is not only the easiest to explain, but is also needed by default to even begin to explain and/or justify the previous arguments. This would also seem to imply that any movement of the past decade in cultural norms is anything but nonreversible. If history is any guide, there is likely to be at least one step backward before we can necessarily begin to move forward. Conservative cultural forces in the United States are too strong and too entrenched to simply fade away.

What’s Next?

Granted, it will be years before we will know for sure whether the recent cases of David Vitter or Eliot Spitzer are evidence of a new dynamic or confirmation that our cultural pendulum has not swung much after all. Perhaps in the context of American evangelical traditions, American politicians with loose zippers can now finally be born again.

The Evolution of Demockracy

As our loyal readers have undoubtedly noticed, Demockracy has a new and improved design. However, there’s more than meets the eye. While this new design is the most obvious of recent upgrades, it is only one of our ongoing efforts to constantly improve the site based on feedback from our writers and loyal readers. Some of the changes in recent months include defining our mission and vision and focusing on more in-depth content, adding a commentary section to display regular columns and other political commentary, bringing on an art editor who contributes a weekly political cartoon to the main page, moving toward a regular cycle of publishing featured articles and most commentaries at the beginning of each week, initiating our first podcast, and a starting a new satire column.

The most recent changes have included an initial redesign of the site to incorporate more of a magazine feel. Within this new and improved design, we have incorporated more ways for writers and users to interact with the site through our new “connect with Demockracy” feature. This feature includes a link to our own Facebook group, a Twitter feed, a direct link to submit original material to the site and contact one of our editors, and  a more seamless way to connect to our RSS feed and email list to help keep our loyal readers up to date on all new Demockracy content.

As we move forward, we plan to implement more improvements to the site. Some of these ideas include:

• Interviews with Policymakers
• Monthly Podcasts
• Original Video and Photography (ideally satire)
• New Columns

We would love any feedback from writers and readers. Among other things, we’d like to know:

• What do you like?
• What other features should we add?
• How should we best leverage Web 2.0 tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to make the site more interactive?
• What type of content would you like to see more of?

Every suggestion will be considered seriously as we move forward. Because of our non-profit model, it is paramount that all change be organic and incorporate feedback from everyone who enjoys the site. We are thus committed to rapid cycle improvement and a process of plan, test, evaluate, and, when deemed worthwhile, implement.

Please leave your thoughts below and/or send a personal note to our editors.

Scapegoats, Red Herrings, and Zombie Banks

The last 10 days has been anything but roses for the Obama administration. While the AIG bonuses are largely irrelevant in the whole scheme of things, they are a symptom of a potential larger problem facing this administration.

The AIG Distraction–How does it play in Connecticut?

When news first broke about the shenanigans at AIG that were allowable because of bonus restrictions being stripped from the bailout bill, the White House pointed a finger at already embattled Connecticut Senator, and member of the Countrywide VIP Club, Chris Dodd.  Because Chris Dodd, like Chuck Schumer and most of the congressional delegations of New York and Connecticut, is easily influenced by the Wall Street hacks, Dodd was an easy scapegoat.  To Dodd’s much maligned credit (pardon the pun), he and others would be hard pressed to be anything other than such friends of Wall Street when such a large percentage of their constituents are so reliant on Wall Street for their bread and caviar.

However unscrupulous Dodd may or may not be, there was a little fact about this story that the Obama administration apparently forgot to mention. It was their men, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, who had lobbied Dodd to strip the bonus restrictions in the first place. Senator Dodd, of course, was quick to point this out. While Geithner, Summers, and team have had barely two months to formulate a response, their ineptness to even get out of the batter’s box lately makes one wonder if Obama may have sacrificed the wrong lamb when it came to tax issues. It sure seems now that Timothy Geithner may have been a better fall guy.

What’s the Dilemma Guys?

When AIG isn’t being blamed for all of our current troubles, it’s the lobbyists. The Obama administration’s response to this situation seems to be an insistence on having it both ways. They claim the “change” mantle and a new way of doing things in Washington, but yet at the same time, they are finding that it is virtually impossible to field a competent staff to address the unparalleled challenges facing our country without hiring at least some experts who have spent some time lobbying. Virtually all of those who have had previous government experience have spent at least some time in some lobbying function. “The rotating door” is alive and well and will take decades to remedy. While efforts at stopping this trend in the long run are noble ideas, suddenly stopping this trend to hire those without any type of lobbying experience means that you de facto are eliminating most of those who have any previous top-level government experience. Of course, new blood is surely needed, but to staff the entire upper strata of government with neophytes in this current environment makes little sense. Therefore, while lobbyists may be good bogeymen to go with the AIG executives, they seem to be the least of our worries. The bigger issue seems to be an utter lack of political will on behalf of the Obama administration and many in the United States Congress.

Socialists and Communists, Oh No!

Just as no Democrat could go to China during the Cold War (Dick Nixon of course could), it seems that no Democrat can muster up the political will to do what is right–temporarily nationalize several of the larger banks. This is something that has been called for by many liberal (in the economic, free market sense) economists and publications such as The Economist. This is anything but a fringe idea.

Instead, Tim Geithner announced today that the government will form “public-private partnerships” to help out the banks. The problem with this approach is is that many economists seem to doubt that the private sector will in fact buy much of these assets.  In fact, the plan basically entails the government subsidizing private investors to buy bad assets. If the assets are in fact undervalued (as Geithner is betting the farm on), then the private investors will make it rich off of Uncle Sam’s dime.  (Of course, this would also likely mean the economy would likely start rolling again and millions of jobs may reappear–presto!) However, if the assets are not really undervalued, as Paul Krugman speculates, then these private investors will simply walk away from the losses. It seems to be more of the same–the public bearing the risk with investors reaping most of the benefits. It certainly sounds good for Wall Street–the Dow was up 500 points today!

To Geithner’s credit, he also mentioned today that there must be new regulations put in place that stop the same moral hazards that got us into this mess in the first place. The problem is that these regulations seem to be something to eventually get around to in the future. In the meantime, more of our tax dollars are going to prop up zombie banks, without much control over where the money goes. In other words, the same people who got us into this mess are still running the same companies under the same set of rules that existed for the last decade. Plus, we’re giving them more money to boot! Does anyone see a problem with this?

Is it possible that the Obama administration cannot possibly do what is economically necessary because of a fear of being called socialists? For God’s sake, they were called socialists during the entire election season and still won in a landslide. If anything, this was a landslide of socialism. You might as well own it if it what is necessary for national economic recovery. As a free marketer and University of Chicago grad, I, of course, am not a big fan of long-term government interruption of the markets. However, I also am not a fan of zombie banks being propped up by the government. The best economic (although apparently not political) solution seems to be obvious. These banks need to be temporarily taken over, divvied up, sacked of most management, and sold off once solvent again. If this is not done, we risk the chance of a lost decade similar to what Japan faced in the 1990s. Temporary nationalization sure beats a decade of no growth.

But instead, the Obama administration, lead by friends of Wall Street within the administration and Congress, apparently plan to do what’s best for the executives and what seems to be politically palatable. However, like it or not, if the economy fails to rebound in a few years, the Obama administration will be blamed for it. It’s as simple as this. They must do what’s necessary to turn around the economy, no matter what labels it may lead to. They must be bold. They must be independent. They must shed away fears of socialism and embrace what’s right. Because, in fact, showing that companies that fail will not be allowed to survive is anything but socialism. It is the true nature of the free market. Without such consequences, we encourage moral hazard and the adverse behavior that have plagued our markets in recent years. Those who make bad decisions must be held accountable for their actions. Those who fail must be allowed to fail so that there is room for the new best ideas to flourish. Every so often it is necessary to flush out the waste to achieve new growth. Sometimes government is the only entity with the buying power to successfully flush out this waste while avoiding complete economic collapse.

It is not the ideal situation. But it is the best worst option in these worst of times. It is about time the Obama administration be honest with the American people and do what’s right for everyone, not just for those in Manhattan and Connecticut. It’s time for the best economic solution for the future of our country, even if it’s not the best short-term political decision. This is what real leadership would entail. This is what real change would look like.

Metrics, Mistakes, and Opportunities for Growth

Overall, I am a big fan of metrics. I truly believe that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Presidents are often measured on a 100-day metric, “The First 100 Days” as a phrase often chirped by the media. Questions have persisted recently about how realistic a metric this is. With President Obama, many believe that this amount of time will not be sufficient to even begin to make a dent in the serious deficits (both moral and economic) that were left behind by the previous President. Some have proposed that the end of 2009 might be a better metric. With most economists speculating that the current deep recession will not turn around under a best-case scenario until late 2009, this seems a bit fairer.

However, after less than 20 days, for many on the far left and far right, Obama’s honeymoon has already ended. No one expected his honeymoon with those on the far right to last long. However, the fact that the far left have in many cases already turned on Obama is disconcerting.  For example, check out some of the comments on this thread from OpenLeft.

Yes, Obama has made some blunders, but I do not believe that these mishaps have been anywhere near fatal errors. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, let’s take a look at two areas where I believe Obama actually has made a mistake, and more importantly, how I believe he can use this mistake as a learning experience. As a human being, everyone makes mistakes, even presidents. The question is not whether a mistake was made during the beginning days of a presidency, but rather whether action was taken to learn from that mistake. In general, this includes a root-cause analysis with corrective action going forward. For example, President Kennedy took the Bay of Pigs failure and used it as the impetus to change the decision-making process in his inner circle. This fundamental change helped get rid of the previous group think and helped avert a disaster in the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred the next year. Yes, the Bay of Pigs was unfortunate. However, if the Bay of Pigs mistake had not happened, the same disaster, at a billion times the magnitude (i.e., nuclear holocaust) could have occurred the following year. Working with the subject of patient safety in health care, I am exposed to this type of analysis all the time. Most errors are not the fault of one person, but rather the result of a misaligned organizational structure that does not catch errors or raise the proper questions.

Let’s take a look at two examples of what I believe have been mistakes and how the Obama administration could possibly learn from them going forward:

1. Tom Daschle Appointment

As a health care policy wonk, I found the developments with Tom Daschle the most disappointing developments to date. As I wrote here, I believed Tom Daschle would have been a perfect fit to get real health care reform through Congress. Granted, I write this before it is clear who Obama’s replacement choice may be, and this choice may surprise us all. However, when it came to the pure Washington knowledge needed to get something through, Daschle was the man. However, this greatest strength also came to be Mr. Daschle’s greatest weakness.  To me, the tax issue was an aside. The biggest problem was that Daschle became emblematic of the Washington insider’s sense of entitlement or the lobbyist rotating door cycle of greed that Obama campaigned against. When taking office, Obama seems to have caved on some of this campaign rhetoric in favor of practicality, with the reality that you must work within the system in order to get anything done.  Overall, this is unfortunate, but largely correct. However, there is a line to be passed; there is a needed sense of accountability and most importantly transparency in government. Tom Daschle crossed this line, and more importantly, did not disclose these transgressions. The fact that no one in the Obama transition raised questions about Daschle’s past lobbying or tax issues is very troubling. The dilemma is that in order to get anything accomplished, you must work within the system (even if you are independently working to change it). However, at the same time, if the system is broken, you cannot try to make lasting change with those who have become one with the system. Finding a cabinet secretary who can meet this requirement is easier said than done.

The solution here is perhaps to create two positions, one for a “health care czar” to handle the political issues and another for Secretary of HHS to handle the technical aspects and realities of health care reform. Ideally, there would also be an independent board appointed outside of the political realm to handle tough decisions related to such issues as cost effectiveness and reimbursement. Such tough decisions must be brought outside of the direct influence of lobbyists. Outside of being a health care expert, President Obama must make sure that he finds individual(s) with the complex mix of insider knowledge and outsider credibility, and most importantly, that any such person is properly vetted.

2. Stimulus Bill Negotiations

Although successful in the end, President Obama severely underestimated his opponents in the negotiations over this package. In a gesture of bipartisanship, Obama offered a large percentage of the bill as tax cuts in his first proposal to Congress, thinking that this would lead to widespread Republican support and easy passage of the bill. This was naïve at best, possibly political malpractice if repeated in the future. One of the big lessons out of this is that outside of a few Republican Senators, the Republican party is not a moderate party. The last two election cycles have defeated most Republican moderates in swing districts and turned the once great party of Abraham Lincoln into nothing but a regional party controlled by the Deep South. There is no incentive for most of these members, outside of people like Arlen Specter who are up for reelection in blue states, to be for a stimulus package. If the stimulus is a success, it doesn’t matter how they voted because the Democrats will get the credit. If the stimulus package fails, there will be a real opportunity for Republicans who voted against it to claim they were in the right. Therefore, a simple logic tree would have shown Obama and his political team that there was no incentive for the Republicans to compromise on this bill.

Hopefully, Obama’s political team will learn from this mistake in the same way that Kennedy’s team learned from the Bay of Pigs disaster. From now on they must give nothing without getting something in return. Bipartisanship only works if someone is willing to meet you in the middle.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the far right needs to be ignored, the far left needs to chill out, and the Obama administration needs to methodologically look at and learn from their early mistakes. If the Obama administration is to be successful, odds are that these early mistakes will be looked back at not as blunders, but rather as invaluable learning opportunities for a young presidency.

Harry, Are We There Yet?

On January 3, 2009, just one week ago, the 111th U.S. Congress was sworn into session. So now that all the dust has settled, where do things stand? The dust has settled, right?

Well, things are pretty straightforward in the House where the exact number of the Democratic majority matters little at this point. With a comfortable majority, even when subtracting conservative blue-dog Dems, most legislation will be a foregone conclusion. Of course, the Senate with its arcane rules and blue-blood past has always been the voice of idiocy and reason at the same time. This is not a new phenomenon. President Garfield is famous for allegedly responding to his wife’s call that robbers were in their house, with a quip of “No, my dear, not in the House, but there are plenty in the Senate.”

Nothing controversial gets done in the Senate, of course, unless you can somehow muster 60 odd votes for your particular bill. With that said, I began to ask myself what exactly is the makeup of the Senate as of today, the 11th of January.  The number of Republicans looks fairly certain.  With Norm Coleman losing the recount in Minnesota and with Illinois refusing to hold a special election, there will be almost certainly 41 Republicans in the upcoming session. However, after that it gets a little tricky. Right now, there are 53 Democratic Senators, not including Joe Biden, who is still a Senator and who will also become vice president in a week. Biden stayed on, unlike Obama, because he got a photoop with Dick Cheney while being sworn in for his seventh six-year term. (Perhaps he and Cheney can talk about whether Biden will actually be switching branches of the government next week.)

So that leaves us with 94 total Senators. Who else is left? Well, there is also one Benedict Liebercrat and one Ben-and -Jerry socialist (Bernie Sanders, Vermont), making 96. But this is not a Lost episode, and I am not having a flashback to before Hawaii became our forty-ninth state in the year my mother was born. Instead, what we have here is four Democratic Senators in limbo, with only one assured of actually becoming a Senator.

Still confused?

Well, let’s take a brief look at all four of these individuals who could potentially fill out the remaining four spots. Or at least at three of them. Or maybe at two.

1. Well, we know who one will be for sure anyhow, Ted Kaufman of Delaware. Mr. Kaufman, a long-time aide to Joe Biden, will be a two-year seat warmer for Joe’s son Beau to continue the nepotism tradition of the Senate. I think we can agree that Mr. Kaufman’s isn’t all that interesting, so let’s move on.

2. Next in the order of likelihood is either Al Franken or Roland Burris. Now these two, unlike Mr. Kaufman, are very interesting stories. Mark Wilson gave a good background about the legalities surrounding the Burris appointment. In short, Burris is the legitimate appointment of illegitimate and recently impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. First, Harry Reid appeared to be playing hard ball, and the Senate Sergeant at Arms (no, this is not Britain) even went as far as denying Mr. Burris’ credentials this past week. However, as the days go on, it looks likely that Burris will probably become the junior senator from Illinois. Well, unless Blago is actually convicted by the Illinois Senate before the U.S. Senate finally caves. The fact that some, including Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush, are comparing the treatment of Burris to a lynching, makes it likely that Mr. Reid will capitulate.

3. The other interesting individual here is a comedian who is ahead by only 225 votes after a two-month recount. Famous for his Saturday Night Live role as Stuart Smalley, Franken looks to be good enough and smart enough to actually become Minnesota’s Senator. However, unlike in Illinois, where the law is probably on Burris’ side, Franken still legally is not allowed to be sworn in as Senator, and it’s not exactly clear when that might change. Incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, who had a few hundred-vote lead before the recount of all the lizard people votes, has filed a lawsuit, and Minnesota law states that the results cannot be certified until this is settled. Yes, Franken will most likely pull this out at the end of the day (or month or winter), but it’s not completely over yet.

4. Finally, we get to the seat that, although everyone this side of Cher is lobbying for it, hasn’t actually had anyone appointed to it yet. New York Governor David Paterson, who is apparently too scared to tick off either the Kennedy or Cuomo family, has waited nearly two months and still has not selected anyone to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. We know it will likely be a political scion–we just don’t know which one yet.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve linked to a few other previous articles that I have written in the past. This isn’t because I’m feeling cocky or self-important tonight. Rather, it’s to demonstrate a point. We have been in purgatory season for U.S. national politics for the past two months, with only Senate seat payoffs, tainted ballots, and dinosaur bailouts to keep our domestic palate wet. Thankfully, this long national political nightmare is about to come to an end. No, I’m not talking about the Bush presidency (although that will be nice as well). Rather, the dead zone between the election and inauguration is finally almost over, and we will at last have some fresh new policy to talk about in the coming months. Now we can start debating important things, like how long until the new Congress actually passes meaningful legislation. Nancy Pelosi has promised to keep the House in business through its President’s day vacation if the Stimulus package is not passed yet. Harry Reid has made no such promises. The word on the street is that the House might even reintroduce the State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill again as soon as this coming week.

I’m starting to feel excited about U.S. national politics again. Kind of like a kid who might be lucky enough to find health insurance under the Christmas tree (and maybe a tax cut after that). How in God’s name did people wait until March for this dead season to end back in the days when there were actually supposed to be 96 Senators?

Annual Essay Contest

Inspired by the historical 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Demockracy has decided to launch its First Annual Essay Contest. In addition to a substantive prize for the winner, it is our hope that this contest will help further our vision of a nonprofit online policy and politics magazine based upon open dialogue, in-depth analysis and intellectual honesty. As such, although there will only be one grand prize winner, we plan to publish and recognize the work of several runner-up submissions.

Essay Topic:

Four years ago, no one could have imagined that Barack Obama would become the 44th President of the United States. This should be a lesson to us all that a lot can change in four years. As such, Demockracy.com would like you to look forward to New Year’s Day 2013 and speculate about what changes the world is likely to see in the next four years.

Guidelines:

• All essays must be submitted via the form below no later than Friday, January 2 at 5 pm EST.
• All essays must be between 1,500 and 2,500 words.
• Essays can focus on politics, policy, and/or culture. However, we encourage essays to have a primary area of focus (e.g., changes in international affairs, health policy, gay rights, other rights or issues, etc.).
• The unit of analysis for essays can be the world, a nation state, or a group of individuals.

Winners:

• The first place winner will receive a $100 gift card to his or her online store of choice and will have his or her article published as a featured article at Demockracy.com.
• Additional entries may be published at the discretion of Demockracy editors.

Questions? Contact Us.

Submit Your Essay:

Hot Rod, Sweet Caroline, and Preacher Rick

When the highlights of the last few weeks are wiretaps, profanity, political dynasties, and invocation speakers, you know you’re in political dead season. As the awkward transition from fear to hope continues, here is my view of some of the highlights:

• Hot Rod on Tape
  

Yes, Mr. Ego himself, Hot Rod Blagojevich, was allegedly caught trying to sell the U.S. Senate Seat being vacated by President-elect Obama. To be honest, this wasn’t much of surprise to me. Blagojevich has long been known in my state of residence as an alleged opportunist crook. I know many who know the governor, and I honestly cannot attest to anyone ever offering good words about him as an individual. He has been a laughing stock, even among Democrats, for years. Before this scandal, he was said to be leaning toward taking his 18% approval rating into a run for a third term in 2010. There are not many good things that came out of this scandal, but at least we’ll be spared of that. Unfortunately, Blagojevich is showing no intentions of resigning, so this mess should drag on a little longer.

• Sweet Caroline’s Ambition
  

Caroline Kennedy, the once reclusive daughter of JFK that we knew so little about, is actively lobbying New York Governor David Paterson for the appointment to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.  Caroline finally came out of the her self-imposed political exile this past year, co-chairing President-elect Obama’s VP selection committee, and now has apparently caught the family political bug. This lobbying effort has apparently put Governor Paterson and another political legacy, Andrew Cuomo, in a real bind. Cuomo apparently believes the seat is rightfully his. Outside of these two front runners, there are several very qualified candidates, including representative Nydia Velazquez , the chair of the House Small Business Committee and first Hispanic woman to ever chair a full House committee. Although I would prefer someone like Velazquez, if Paterson is going to go with a big name to represent a state used to having big names to represent it, Ms. Kennedy and the Kennedy charisma make more sense than Mr. Cuomo.

• Preacher Rick and the Angry Left
  

And the left goes crazy… Many on the fringes of the left-wing blogosphere are already one step shy of calling for a primary challenge to President-elect Obama in 2012, in part because of who he selected to give the prayer at his inauguration. This ideological purity litmus test garbage is appalling.  In the aftermath of this election, we’ve seen that there are just as many zany political purists on the left as there are on the right. Would Rick Warren as Secretary of HHS be nuts? Of course. But this, in my opinion, is a benign gesture to the millions of younger evangelicals who bucked the wishes of their parents and voted for President-elect Obama.  Obama has stated from the beginning of his campaign that he would work with everyone. If you agree with him on 1 out of 10 issues, he’ll work with you on that one issue that you happen to agree on. As such, I don’t understand why so many on the far left are so surprised at this gesture. Obama has always been honest about wanting to do things exactly like this.  Were people too caught up in the Obama mystique that they weren’t even listening to what he was saying?

I understand the need by many on the left to “get even” after all the harm that has been done to this country by ideologues on the right over the past eight years. However, seeking revenge for the sake of revenge is no way to make this country better.  President-elect Obama is inheriting the worst domestic and international situation of any president in at least three generations. He’ll need the help of many on the other side of the aisle to adequately face these problems. Is health care reform worth a small gesture such as a prayer? It sure is in my book. As Kenny Rogers once said, “you have to know when to hold them…”  It seems that President-elect Obama will do his best to build up goodwill among a wide array of Americans and save his political capital for more important issues. If you’re looking for someone that you’ll agree with on everything, Barack Obama is not your man. In fact, he never claimed to be.

The Mission and Vision of Demockracy

My column will take on a different look today. Instead of the week in updates, I’d like to give our loyal readers an update about Demockracy–where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.

As some of you may know, Demockracy was founded just a few short months ago.  Starting out in the middle of the crescendo of the 2008 election, the site naturally took a strong politics and news focus. However, as the last screaming Chicagoan headed out of Grant Park on election night, we decided that it was time to refocus and reevaluate who we were. In the past month, we have taken one step back and properly defined our mission and vision before going two steps forward:

The mission of Demockracy is to create intellectual discourse and thoughtful discussion on the policy and political issues of the day through the lens of top quality analysis and informed opinion.

The vision of Demockracy is that of a nonprofit online policy and politics magazine that thrives as a virtual intellectual community of scholars through open dialogue, in-depth analysis, intellectual honesty, and a plethora of quality writers.

As such, we’ve implemented a few new policies and will try our best to live by our golden rule:  Above all, quality over quantity.

As part of this policy, we’ve made a concerted effort to recruit new writers who will meet the standards of our current contributing editors and columnists, Mark Wilson and Dave O’Gorman, who earned these positions through the quality of their work.  So far, we’ve been fairly successful in bringing in a new crop of writers from a wide array of backgrounds. Two of these new writers have already posted articles, including this great piece by Tony Smith.  Expect to see plenty more in the coming weeks and months.  Since quality writing takes time, and all our authors volunteer their time and have full-time day jobs, it will obviously take a few new quality writers to get to the point where we can have a daily stream of quality work. Right now, perhaps it should be “quality, served fresh every few days.” However, we believe that in the next few months, you will begin to see top quality content practically every day. If you would like to join our team or know of anyone whom you think would be a good fit for Demockracy, contact me directly.

What will this new Demockracy look like?

1. More columns.

2. Original video content.

3. More in-depth politics and policy pieces.

4. More comprehensive featured pieces.

5. A wider variety of topics, including more of a focus on policy and international politics.

6. More diversified political commentary that goes beyond reporting the news.

If you’ve been reading recently, you’ve already seen the seeds of many of these changes. As the weeks and months go by, you will only see more.

Thank all of you for reading, and I’ll be back soon with my take on the world.

12/1 Roundup: Cabinets, Contractions, and Peach Pie

• President-elect Obama announced his national security team this morning. In light of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, this announcement couldn’t have come any sooner. Although the attention needs to be on President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and the rest of the current administration, it is important that there is a team ready to take over in six weeks. The last thing this country needs is a power vacuum in international relations. On this point, I think keeping Robert Gates on at Defense is a good move. Gates seems to agree with Obama on much of Iraq and Afghanistan policy. Although the current talk is that Gates will stay for only one year, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was longer.  Gate’s new number two at the Pentagon will be important, as it is my understanding that Obama will be appointing new top deputies as a condition of Gates staying on. Gates is the only Republican cabinet designee so far. Hopefully, President-elect Obama will name at least one more Republican to a semi-high-profile position. Of course, it should be noted that many appointees, such national security adviser Jim Jones and many on the economic team, are not partisan figures.

• The Senate still stands at 58 D-40 R with Minnesota and Georgia yet to be determined. The recount continues in Minnesota, where Norm Coleman hangs on to a slight lead. The runoff in Georgia will occur tomorrow.  Saxby Chambliss leads Jim Martin by a few percent points in most polling, but it is impossible to predict what turnout will be like. Although the Obama campaign sent hundreds of its paid volunteers to Georgia for one last hurrah before most find themselves temporarily unemployed and searching for what to do next, President-elect Obama has not actually campaigned there himself. This is somewhat disappointing. Yes, Saxby Chambliss probably holds on to this seat regardless of any appearances by the President-elect, but Obama could at least make one or two appearances there as good with many of his campaign workers giving one last go at it.  I understand that he doesn’t want to have this loss on his hands and is trying to stay above politics in this transition period, but like it or not, he will be linked to the outcome of this race regardless of whether he campaigns in the peach state. Making an appearance there would be the right thing to do in my opinion.

• In Senate appointment news, lightweight Ted Kaufman will be appointed to keep Joe Biden’s seat warm for Biden’s son, Beau. There is still no word out of Illinois, except that the appointment will come before the end of the year.  As I’ve mentioned before, I think that something similar should be done in Illinois, sans the nepotism.

• According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the United States has been in a recession since December 2007. It’s interesting that most in the media were clueless to any slowdown until the financial crisis hit this fall. If the recession in fact started in December 2007, we are already approaching the longest such contraction since World War II. The early 1980s and mid 1970s saw 16 month recessions. (However, it should be noted that the 1981-1982 recession was proceeded by another 6 month recession the year before.)

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