Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Yes, I'm back - and to my regular politically savvy friends, I apologize for the absence. I love writing this occasional missive, but I admit that after the unbelievably hectic schedule I had during the 2008 election year it was a bit liberating to take a break from my PSFs. But now a new era has begun with a new president, so perhaps it's timely to share some thoughts and insights with you. On some levels, this country was left in pretty sad shape by the prior administration, but some are not convinced the new guys in town have the right prescription. So that will provide great fodder for the months ahead.
As always, this is a two-way street. As a politically savvy friend, your comments and special inside tips on the national, state, or regional political scene are valuable to me, so I encourage you to keep in touch. Finally, I don't want to be spam for anyone, so if you have no interest in how politics affects your life just use that delete key down below. In the meantime, read on, enjoy, and let me hear from you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGE!
Happy Washington's Birthday! There is no such thing as Presidents Day. I mean really - it's a hoax. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 - 277 years ago this coming Sunday - and as the commander-in-chief who guided us to victory in the Revolution and then served eight years as the nation's first president, he deserves a special day of recognition. In 1968, Congress (always keen to meddle with things) moved the federal holiday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. Then President Richard Nixon (maybe thinking he could be included in the mix) started calling this day "Presidents Day," the silliest notion of all. The dumb calendar-makers and media followed suit. But, officially and legally, the holiday is still "Washington's Birthday." You wouldn't know that from all the marketing hoopla, mistaken calendars, and media ignorance of this fact. But I know my PSFers are smart folks, so correct the unknowing who insist that today is Presidents Day!
THE OBAMA ERA BEGINS
Four Weeks Later, Does Anyone Remember George Bush:
We've had a new president for just four weeks, and already the memory of George Bush has faded fast. To his credit, President Bush has kept his mouth shut and his face hidden, giving the new president the chance to establish himself without immediate criticism from his predecessor. That will surely come in the future, as Bush joins the ranks of Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter as former presidents who always have something to say about anything. Of recent presidents, the only one I remember who said little or nothing in retirement was Ronald Reagan and that was because he suffered Alzheimer's disease. At some point, George Bush, like Richard Nixon sought to do, will try to restore his reputation. It's hard to be the most unpopular president to leave office in modern history, but now Bush is smart to put some quiet time in before attempting the image rehabilitation.
A couple PSFers took me to task last fall for wondering out loud exactly how history would judge George Bush. Apparently, I asked whether he would ultimately be viewed as one of our better presidents like Harry Truman who left office down in the polls only to be revered later in life, or be lumped in with the likes of Millard Filmore and Chester A. Arthur. Turns out President Arthur has some local fans who did not welcome the comparison. For the moment, I leave it to you and smart historians to judge the presidency of "W" - but to refresh your memory of the last 43 presidents - you might enjoy this video listing of all of them: http://www.flixxy.com/presidents-morphing.htm Feel free to email me your list of the "worst" presidents in American history. Might be fun to do on this misnamed Presidents Day!
The Inauguration of Barack Obama:
I attended the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981 and Bill Clinton in 1993, and for all the pomp and glitz of those events, nothing compares to the inauguration of Barack Obama a few weeks ago. Photojournalist Dave Colabine (a KDKA-TV photographer) and I arrived in DC about midday on January 19th, where we set to work catching up to the many Pittsburgh people who were in Washington for the festivities so we could send stories back home for the evening news. Washington was certainly festive, as it always is when a new president comes to town, but the sheer number of celebrants made this extraordinary. On Inauguration Day, we got stuck underground for an hour-and-a-half on the Metro, as hundreds of thousands jammed the system. Now, normally, such crowds and delays would make people irritable, but not this day. Folks sung songs, clapped, and couldn't have been nicer to each other. In the end, two million Americans jammed the Mall that stretches two miles from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol. The Obama campaign clearly knew and welcomed these folks, although the same team lacked an "exit strategy" when it came time to leave - we had to walk miles to find an open Metro stop, taking more than three hours to get back to our satellite truck on Connecticut Avenue.
During the swearing-in ceremony, we were just east of the Washington Monument, about a million people away from the Capitol. The crowd was perhaps more black than white, but not overwhelmingly so. This was not a surprise to me. Washington is a majority black city, and the inauguration of the first African American president is, was, and should be a point of pride to the black community, as was the swearing-in of John F. Kennedy in 1961 to millions of Catholics who saw that religious barrier finally fall. No surprise, my TV reports showed the black crowds, which prompted some cowardly anonymous hater to send me a sick hand-written note, "You fit right in with all those niggers in D.C." Obviously, this racism isn't unique to western PA, but it's just another sad reminder that despite the election of an African American president, this country still has a segment of society that just can't get beyond the color of one's skin. What more can you say.
Standing so far away from the swearing-in itself, I watched the event on the jumbo screens placed all over the Mall. From my vantage point, the crowd was very partisan, booing loudly when President Bush was introduced and cheering for President Clinton. Despite all the controversy that accompanied the Rev. Rick Warren, his invocation prayer was well-received on the Mall, bringing tears to the eyes of many. It was hard not to catch the verbal slip-up of Chief Justice John Roberts. Why the dude didn't have a written copy of the oath of office in front of him is beyond me. This editor of the Harvard Law Review couldn't administer the oath to another editor of the Harvard Law Review? Well, at age 54, the chief justice will have plenty of future times to get it right, although he may always be remembered for this one.
As for President Obama's inaugural address, can anyone tell me what he said? I listened carefully for some memorable line and found none. To some extent, Obama was the victim of that old high expectation game. He is given to great moments of oratory, but his swearing-in was not one of them. But reading the speech later, there is plenty of meat in it, even if on the Mall it sounded awfully pessimistic about the country. One thing that caught my attention on the Mall was the president's renewed effort to reach out to the Muslim world, first by not shying away from his middle name in taking the oath, and then by reciting that America is "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers." Actually, America is about 76% Christian, 14% non-religious, 1.3% Jewish, 0.5% Muslim, 0.5% Buddhist, 0.4% Hindu, and a smattering of some others. We are still overwhelmingly Christian, but the difference is that we have no state religion, and we welcome (or at least most of us do) the practice of all faiths (or no faith) in this country.
To me, the most important part of the Inauguration itself was the spirit of change, of starting over again, of a new chance to get things right. President Obama's campaign, of course, was predicated on this notion that he, a real outsider to Washington (unlike the Clintons and Bushes), could better mirror the peoples' desires to change the direction of the country. Whether "Change We Can Believe In" is more than just a slogan will depend on the actions of the Obama administration in the weeks ahead. But on Inauguration Day, clearly the desire for change was palpable.
All the stories I filed can be searched at www.kdka.com, but here's a wrap-up montage I did a couple hours after we got back from D.C. http://kdka.com/video/?id=52112@kdka.dayport.com
As Economy Falters, Republicans Say, It's All Yours, Dems:
Having won the White House and increased their majority in both the House and Senate in large measure because President Bush and the Republicans screwed up so badly on the economy, Democrats now have both the power and the responsibility to fix the economic misery felt by millions of Americans. In short, even though they may have inherited the problem, it's theirs now, and the Democratic Party will be judged in 2010 on whether we all feel better, or worse, about the economy.
That analysis helps explain why Republicans, for obvious political reasons, were so united in opposing the president, despite his almost obsequious effort to court them. The clearer it is that the "rescue plan" is the Democrats' plan, the easier it will be to campaign against the Dems next year if things don't get better. By voting unanimously against the stimulus package in the House and almost unanimously in the Senate, the G.O.P. is attempting to wash its hands of any responsibility for the economic mess. It's smart politics, and it just might work. This is not to say that the Republicans had no legitimate policy arguments against such a costly recovery plan. The massive government spending gave opponents lots of targets. But these objections are largely irrelevant to the broader political picture.
Of course, there's a lot in the $787 stimulus package that people will like. It's hard to argue against a $400 per person, $800 per couple (filing jointly), tax cut through a smaller withholding of taxes, even if it only amounts to about $13 per bi-weekly paycheck. And most of those who get Social Security payments will enjoy the one-time $250 check. More meaningful to the economy may be some of the other provisions, like a tax deduction of the sales tax you pay if you buy a new car or truck - or a $1,500 tax credit to offset expenses in making your home energy efficient - or the $2,500 tax credit on college tuition payments - or, if you're among the many temporarily out of work, the increase in unemployment payments and, more importantly, its extension from 26 to 46 weeks (and longer in some hard hit states), along with a 60% government subsidy of your COBRA health insurance payments.
If any of this stuff works, only President Obama and the Democrats can take credit for it, with the exception of three Republican senators, one of whom is up for reelection next year [see below]. And if the economy continues to sour, Republicans can say, we told you so.
Fixing the Wall Street Bailout:
The more we learn about last fall's $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, the less people like it. The problem may not have been in the concept, and the infusion of funds may have actually worked to stop the stock market decline, but the plan's implementation by President Bush and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been sharply criticized by many. From all appearances, the Bush administration simply handed out $350 billion to the banks with no rules, no accountability, and no real paper trail of what these banks did with all these tax dollars. There's no defending the award of "bonuses" to bank executives and Wall Street financiers whose organizations were going under, whose stock prices have plummeted, and whose reckless profiteering and greed in these complicated housing finance scams wiped out at least a third of most people's retirement savings in the stock market. While Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and other ratings institutions suspended judgment to give AAA ratings to worthless financial instruments so others could make billions, the Bush administration, the Securities & Exchange Commission, and, yes, both the Republican-controlled and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the last five years turned a blind eye to appropriate regulation.
The bottom line to all this scummy behavior is that taxpayers do not want to spend one more penny on banks and their Wall Street friends. But the reality for President Obama and now-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is that they must do just that. The remaining $350 billion needs to be spent, and many think even that won't be enough to prop up the ailing financial markets. Some economists think some banks are already insolvent or heading towards insolvency. I don't know. What I do know is that the rules should be absolutely clear and transparent to the public about how this money is to be used and what conditions are attached if a bank accepts public dollars. Banning bonuses above $500,000 seems reasonable, but corporate bonuses are not really the issue, any more than strictly limiting the use of corporate jets (although that should be done, too). Restoring confidence in our financial institutions is critical, along with a renewed effort to shore up home mortgages and to ease credit for companies and individuals, and then opening up the institution's books for regulators and the public to examine. If a bank accepts corporate welfare, there can be no more hiding how the bank's dollars are spent.
As this week begins, we don't know exactly how the Obama administration will proceed in this arena. The president seems correctly focused on the housing foreclosure problem, but that alone won't solve the banking crisis. And until banks are solvent, it is unlikely that the stock market can really begin to recover.
So What's Obama's Four-Week Report Card?
It's pretty early in the game to assess how President Obama is doing, but that doesn't stop pollsters from trying. By most accounts, Obama is still soaring. His job rating in February is 62% approval (CBS), 66% (Gallup), 69% (Ipsos/McClatchy), and 76% (CNN). An interesting Pew Research Center Poll asked respondents for one word to describe Obama: 33% picked "intelligent/intellectual" followed by "change" (17%), "honest" (16%), and "confident" (15%). The first negative word was "inexperienced" (15%) followed by "socialist" (13%).
My own take on this is that the president is doing remarkably well for someone who has had a few slip-ups in his Cabinet appointments. Most people don't seem to care about who is secretary of commerce or health & human services, as much as they want a smart, honest leader who will confront the economic challenges. I think it's also important for Obama to be perceived to represent the average working family beyond the DC Beltway and not the political in-crowd in Washington or the big financial interests on Wall Street. His town meetings in Indiana, Florida, and Virginia helped to reassure people that he understands the pain most of us are feeling to which the Bush administration could never relate. The president needs to continue these trips to "middle America" both to hear the Mrs. Hughes out there and to demonstrate that he will not become captive to Washington's governing class.
PENNSYLVANIA - THE RENDELL ERA NOT QUITE OVER
Harrisburg Struggles to Balance the Budget:
Don't tell Gov. Ed Rendell that he's a lame duck. His putative successor is already out there somewhere stirring the political waters, but it's more than fifteen months until PA Democrats and Republicans nominate the next gubernatorial candidates. That leaves Rendell still in a visible driver's seat, and the guv, along with the Republican-controlled state Senate and the Democratic-controlled state House, must confront the largest budget deficit in decades - a $2.3 billion deficit that could easily double in the next couple years.
In his Feb. 4 budget address to the legislature, the governor took credit for a degree of fiscal conservatism that makes PA not quite the economic basket case of others. Rendell was quick to compare this state's fiscal mess to that of California ($41 billion deficit), New York ($14 billion deficit), New Jersey ($4.0 billion deficit), Ohio ($3.5 billion deficit), and Massachusetts ($3.1 billion deficit). Still, Pennsylvania must balance its books. Unlike many other states, Rendell made it clear that he would not increase the state's flat income tax (3.07%), or increase the state sales tax (6%) or the gasoline tax (32.3 cents/gallon). And he will not halt his effort to (slowly) reduce business taxes in Pennsylvania. So that leaves him with cutting government spending, finding some creative new revenues, and praying that the just-approved economic stimulus package will help out the most.
To close the deficit, Rendell proposed cutting or eliminating 89% of the line items in the budget. He says he'll cut completely 20% of the line items, saving $395 million, and he'll reduce most of the others, saving $582 million. That's not enough. Rendell is counting on $1.1 billion from the Obama recovery plan to help pay for Medical Assistance (the state's version of Medicaid, health insurance for the poor). The guv also wants to raise taxes on cigarettes by a dime (up to $1.45 a pack) and impose a first-time tax on cigars and smokeless chewing tobacco. He is also freezing executive branch salaries and negotiating with state unions to scale back labor costs. The most interesting new proposal was to legalize and tax video poker machines, but Rendell is not really proposing to use this tax revenue to balance the budget. Rather, the money would subsidize a new program to allow families a rebate of up to $7,600 off annual tuition, fees, room and board when their kids attend a Pennsylvania community college or one of the PA state universities.
The Republicans, who control the state Senate, are not particularly enthusiastic about the governor's budget. If past is prologue, and it usually is in Harrisburg, watch for a lot of political posturing by both sides before the deals are cut in the backrooms around the June 30 end of the fiscal year.
Onorato Tries to Scare Opposition with Cash on Hand:
Sometime by June, Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato will announce his candidacy for governor. The Democrat hopes to break the jinx since WWII that dictates that after eight years of a Democrat in the governor's mansion it's the Republicans' turn. But before turning his attention to an election nearly 21 months away, Onorato needs to convince the state's Democrats that he's just the man to break that jinx. That's where the cash comes in.
The latest end-of-the-year campaign filings shows the conservative western PA Democrat has already raised more than $4 million in his quest to succeed Rendell. An astounding $2.2 million was raised in 2008, when most political money was being sucked up by the presidential and congressional candidates. Most of the other potential candidates on the Democratic side have nothing approaching a million bucks, let alone four million. This includes Lehigh County executive Don Cunningham, state Senate Democratic leader Bob Mellow of Scranton, Philadelphia millionaire businessman Tom Knox, and (the best known) state Auditor General Jack Wagner, who's also flirting with running for the U.S. Senate. Onorato's game plan is transparent. Scare these Dems out of the race for governor.
Coming from Pittsburgh, Onorato is not your typical Philadelphia Democrat. He is both socially and economically conservative. He is pro-life, pro-gun, and generally anti-tax, and anti-deficit spending. In five years as county executive, he has never raised county property taxes and vigorously opposed any reassessment of property in the county (a traditional back door way to raise revenue). He cut the size of Allegheny County's government by firing 700 county employees and pushing the consolidation of county elected offices from ten to four. His biggest "mistake" (according to his opponents) was the 10% alcoholic drink tax (now reduced to 7%), which Onorato pushed as a way to provide some dedicated funding for Allegheny County's public transit system. The drink tax is unpopular, and his opponents will surely use it against him. That doesn't bother Onorato at all, who has a scrappy but congenial in-your-face demeanor when it comes to his critics.
Can Onorato be defeated in a Democratic primary? Of course. He's not yet that well known outside of southwestern PA, and an opponent with money could hone in on the Pittsburgh native's conservative views, which will not be popular in Philadelphia or its suburbs where so many Democrats live. But Onorato will argue that, like U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, sometimes this is the best way for a Dem to win statewide office. We're at the early stages of this race, but I give Onorato credit for having a solid game plan and sticking to it.
Corbett Positions for the Governor's Mansion:
When the television cameras panned the crowd of legislators, elected officials, and guests gathered to hear the governor's annual budget address, one man was more than visible at the back of the House chamber: state Attorney General Tom Corbett. Corbett, who hails from suburban Pittsburgh and won a very impressive reelection last November, is the Republican heir-apparent to Rendell. When Rendell began his address by hailing the victory of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Corbett was spotted waving his Terrible Towel with gusto. History dictates that the Republicans will win in 2010, although the Dems could break that jinx because they have rarely been stronger in numbers and political clout than they are today. Whether Corbett is the right Republican to maintain tradition is a decision Republican voters will have to make next year.
Still, the attorney general, who made a name for himself by going after Democrats in the state legislature over bonuses allegedly paid to staffers for doing political work, is not the only candidate in the field. Former U.S. attorney Patrick Meehan, a suburban Philadelphian, has filed preliminary campaign papers and already raised $275,000 in his exploration of the quest. Meehan is well-known in the state's largest media market for his crime-fighting and anti-corruption cases, including the high profile case he filed (but left office before prosecuting) against former state Sen. Vincent Fumo. Meehan is no push-over for Corbett, although the political waters muddied a bit when U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, another suburban Philadelphian, announced he was exploring a run for governor. Gerlach, who has escaped defeat in his own congressional district a couple times, could easily split Republican votes in that region with Meehan. A fourth Republican expressing interest in the race is former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey of Lehigh County. Toomey, who now leads the economically conservative Club for Growth, will be remembered for coming within an eyelash of knocking off Arlen Specter in the 2004 Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Toomey says he's interested in running because of the budget mess in Harrisburg, but another race against Specter could also be possible.
My own very early view is that, while Meehan and Toomey alone could each give Corbett a solid race, multiple candidates in the field only helps the southwestern PA native. How this sorts out in the months ahead is anybody's guess but, as the incumbent attorney general, Corbett alone has a statewide megaphone to act governmentally, which (by definition in this never-ending campaign season) means gubernatorially.
Arlen Specter Takes 'Em On:
Pennsylvania's senior U.S. senator is a unique piece of work. I have known him for nearly 30 years, and I have tremendous respect for the political skills of Arlen Specter, the longest-serving senator in PA history. Just when people count him out, he emerges victorious, a phoenix among the political carrion. The 79-year old senator, first elected in 1980, has no intention of retiring next year, and barring some medical calamity Specter's name will be on the ballot for a sixth 6-year term.
But, first, the Republican must engineer the shoals of his own unhappy party. Arlen Specter listens to his own drummer, which tends to march back and forth across the field rather than in any straight line. He is consistent in his unpredictability. So when he joined to two Republican senators from Maine to enact President Obama's economic recovery plan, it was not particularly surprising. But it has emboldened a number of Republicans who say, as they did in 2004, that it's time for Specter to retire - and if he won't, it's time to defeat him.
Could 2010 be the year of Specter's demise? Maybe, and maybe not. The 2004 Republican primary showed both strength and weakness in Specter's base within his own party. Pat Toomey got 513,693 votes to Specter's 530,839 that spring, with Philadelphia and its suburban counties putting Specter over the top. The key that year was also strong support for Specter from his then colleague, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who encouraged his conservative supporters to back Specter over Toomey. It was enough for Specter to win the nomination, and then to go on to defeat U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel by 10 points and nearly 600,000 votes. Specter has always been a stronger general election candidate than he is in his own party.
Specter's support for Obama has spiked renewed interest among conservative Republicans to take him on next year. Toomey would be the obvious candidate, but he seems to be more interested in running for governor than senator. That leaves the field open to others like Peg Luksik, a conservative activist from Johnstown, who is no stranger to PA politics since she first made the scene by nearly defeating then-Republican Barbara Hafer for the GOP nomination for governor back in 1990. In 1994, she ran has an independent for governor and, again in 1998, she was the Constitutional Party candidate for governor. This past year, she was the campaign manager for William Russell, a newcomer who took on U.S. Rep. John Murtha in the 12th congressional district.
Another interesting candidate is Glen Meakem, a millionaire entrepreneur who lives in suburban Pittsburgh and founded a business-to-business internet firm called FreeMarkets. Now a venture capitalist and conservative talk show host, Meakem has caught the political bug. After Specter's embrace of Obama's economics, Meakem quickly circulated a statement, boldly predicting, "There will be a Republican primary fight for Specter's Senate seat in 2010, and I am going to be actively involved in electing someone who will do what's right for Pennsylvania taxpayers, not the Washington lobbyists." I've known Meakem for a number of years, and he would be an impressive candidate. Although a solid pro-life conservative, he served as campaign chair to Bill Scranton during Scranton's short run for governor in 2006 because he liked Scranton's conservative business views and because he thought Scranton would make a stronger opponent against Ed Rendell than local Steelers star Lynn Swann. Right now, Meakem - who is Harvard educated and served in the 1991 Iraq War -- says he's not a candidate, but much will depend on whether better-known and better-funded conservatives step forward to challenge Specter in the months ahead.
The Dems Smell Blood:
With Arlen Specter under attack in his own party, there's no shortage of Democrats eyeing the 2010 senate race. MSNBC's Chris Matthews would have been the most colorful of the bunch, but he has taken himself out of the race. I've known Chris since my congressional days, and I think he could have brought national visibility to the race, to say nothing of an incredible wealth of knowledge of government and politics. That leaves the field to others, including state auditor general Jack Wagner of Pittsburgh, who many think is well-positioned for the contest. A Vietnam veteran, wounded in combat, the generally conservative Wagner has a statewide pulpit to preach fiscal responsibility. Wagner is still toying with the governor's race, and that has encouraged others to step forward for Senate. But in a crowded Democratic field for Senate, Wagner has got to be considered a strong candidate.
Joe Torsella, a 45-year old Philadelphian best known for leading the effort to construct the marvelous National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, is hardly a household name outside of southeastern PA. But earlier this month he became the first Democrat to declare his interest in running for the U.S. Senate. Torsella is no stranger to politics, serving as then-Mayor Ed Rendell's deputy mayor for policy and planning while still in his 20s. A Rhodes scholar and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of PA, Torsella has taken one stab at electoral politics, losing by just 2100 votes in the Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz in the 13th congressional district in Montgomery County and northeastern Philadelphia.
While Torsella seems intent on running, other Dems are toying with the idea, including two Philadelphia area members of Congress: the aforementioned Allyson Schwartz and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, from the 8th district which is primarily in Bucks County. Schwartz is no stranger to statewide politics. In 2000, she ran for the Democratic nomination for Senate to take on Santorum, making a lot of friends along the way. With 26% of the vote, the pro-choice Schwartz came in second to the pro-life U.S. Rep. Ron Klink of Pittsburgh who got 40% of the vote. It didn't help that four other candidates on the ballot that year came from eastern PA. Schwartz is an unapologetic advocate for women's rights and an indefatigable fundraiser, and if she gets in the race will be formidable.
Patrick Murphy is a relative newcomer to politics, having just won his second term in Congress in suburban Philly. The 35-year old lawyer is the only Iraq War veteran serving in Congress, and he was the only Pennsylvania congressman to endorse Barack Obama in the PA primary last year. During his first term, Murphy was a consistent critic of President Bush's handling of the war, and his close ties to the Obama administration could help him if he chooses to make a run for Senate.
As if three Philadelphians weren't enough, there's a fourth potential candidate from that region, state Rep. Josh Shapiro of Montgomery County. The 35-year old state rep was first elected to Harrisburg in 2004 and has already achieved some recognition in that body. He co-chaired the House commission that came up with a number of legislative reform measures, many of which were enacted. A lawyer, Shapiro began his political career on Capitol Hill in Washington where he served several members of Congress, including a stint as chief of staff to then-U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel.
No matter who gets the Democratic nomination, if Arlen Specter survives his primary, he's still the favorite for reelection. Having helped President Obama win his first major battle as president, watch for Specter to get a little bit of something from this White House. It's all part of the game. And few play it better than Specter, which is why a lot of folks have lost money over the years betting against him.
I've got a whole lot more Pennsylvania politics to cover, including the race for mayor of Pittsburgh, but let's leave something for my next PSF. Again, if you've got an interesting political tidbit, please send it along, knowing that I always consider your emails off-the-record! If you're lucky enough to get today off - I'm not - enjoy the day. Remember, we're celebrating the birthday of George Washington, not the less-than-luminary careers of so many of his successors.
Showing posts with label George Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Bush. Show all posts
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Three Weeks to Go & Counting
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Happy Columbus Day! While the legal holiday is observed on a Monday, it was actually October 12, 1492, that Christopher Columbus saw the Bahamas. As we all know now, he was not the first European to “discover” America, but be careful to whom you say that. I am old enough to remember the late PA Supreme Court Justice Michael A. Musmanno, a wonderfully colorful man who went on a six-week tour of the nation to defend Columbus when Yale scholars declared that Leif Ericson had landed in America first. Ironically, Musmanno died on Columbus Day!
As many of you have reminded me, it’s been weeks since I’ve taken hand to keyboard to share my thoughts about this presidential race. It’s not like I’m vacationing! Between money (read the economy and Wall Street) and politics, my two principal news beats these days, my plate has been very full indeed. Since the presidential conventions, I’ve had two interviews with Barack Obama and one with John McCain and multiple interviews with surrogates. Obviously, both campaigns know how important Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio (just 30 miles west of me) are in this contest, and I can practically guarantee that if Pennsylvania and Ohio vote alike on November 4, that man will be president.
So, three weeks from decision day, where do we stand? Can you say President Obama? No, wait, could it be President McCain?
In this latest PSF, let me share my thoughts as someone who has spent 25 years in the political world – first, as a behind-the-scenes player, and, now, as an observer and commentator. As always, I welcome your off-the-record views. If you prefer not to get these occasional missives, there’s a button below to get off the list. Otherwise, dear Politically Savvy Friend, read on.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Wall Street Mess -- Calling FDR:
A friend of mine asked me the other day where was Franklin D. Roosevelt when we needed him. The reference, of course, was to FDR’s famous call in his First Inaugural: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” In the wake of the collapse of the Stock Market, causing most of us to lose more than one-third of our retirement funds, the absence of presidential leadership has been obvious.
It’s not that President Bush isn’t trying. It’s just that nobody cares what he says. His job approval ratings are in the mid-20s, the lowest of his presidency, and most financial analysts concluded that every time he spoke to the nation last week the market dropped some more.
Of course, presidents are not economists, finance wizards, or portfolio money managers. But they do have experts around them that are or should be. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may know a thing or two, but it’s not clear that even they know how to turn this market or the economy around. We begin this week with some hopeful signs. The stock market has resurged some 900+ points, and we are now seeing some concrete action out of Washington.
What surprised me most is that the Bush administration, having pushed so hard for its Wall Street rescue plan (or bailout, as detractors call it), seemed so unprepared to implement it, once Congress approved the bill a week ago. I would have thought the implementation plan would have been on the drawing board as the Congress debated its inevitable passage. The consequence has been delay, instead of action, and we all saw how Wall Street reacted to that. But concerted global action over this last weekend gives hope that maybe, just maybe, we can regain our footing.
Ultimately, the market will bottom out and eventually regain some, if not all, the losses over the next two years, if not sooner. At least that’s what the experts say. But all this focus on the economy demonstrates like nothing else how important it is to have a president with a team in place to make sure these meltdowns don’t occur and, if they do, to have a plan to minimize their impact on average working people. The Bush administration had neither.
It’s the Economy, Stupid:
When you’re hurting economically, it’s always about you. That’s a basic rule in politics. The candidate who can address your concerns or at least appears sympathetic to your plight will get your support. No surprise, every recent poll puts the economy and jobs as the #1 issue in this presidential race – 57% in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Most of us have felt a lot of economic pain in recent months – unrestrained energy and food price increases, higher unemployment, devaluation of our homes, and now the evisceration of our 401-Ks and IRAs.
Baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), some 76 million of us, are particularly hurt by the latter, even if it’s just a paper loss (as long as we don’t cash in). My father’s generation had guaranteed company pensions, the so-called defined benefit plans, where the retired employee got a check every month from his employer for as long as he lived. Corporate America abandoned that approach when it became too expensive to sustain, and substituted a plan tied to the stock market wherein employees would deposit part of their own money (often matched partially by the employer) in a 401-K. Gone are those guaranteed monthly pension checks during retirement – except, of course, Social Security. Your retirement security depends on the return of your money set aside in investment accounts of your choosing and always subject to the vagaries of the stock market. That’s why everyone is so angry about what happened on Wall Street and the failure of our politicians to prevent it.
[Parenthetically, the only people left with those old-fashioned pension checks are public employees – teachers, government workers, and elected officials. We, the taxpayers, pay much of that monthly check, and I suspect that this last remnant of defined benefit will disappear in the years ahead, particularly if the typical American retiree appears to struggle while their neighbor who worked for the taxpayer enjoys a comfortable retirement.]
All this is to say that Americans hunger for a president who, not only understands all this, but appears willing to protect our jobs and restore jobs shipped overseas, raise our wages so we can (at least) stay even with inflation, provide affordable health care for all, and maintain our retirement security. It’s a very tall order.
McCain or Obama – Can Either One Make Life Better?
In their gut, most Americans don’t think either John McCain or Barack Obama can really do all that is necessary to make our lives better. Such is our cynicism that it’s easy to say that it doesn’t really matter who wins the White House, at least on the economy. But empathy is important and forced to choose, most Americans think Obama can address the economy better than McCain. In the latest Newsweek poll, those polled said Obama would do a better job on the economy and jobs than McCain by a 54% to 35% margin. Close to the same result in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, 50% to 30%. We see similar results on health care, 56% to 30% for Obama in the Newsweek poll and 52% to 32% in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll.
McCain’s initial response to Wall Street even if taken out of contest (“The fundamentals of our economy are sound.”), coupled with his short-lived suspension of his campaign and refusal to debate Obama until Congress resolved its response to the crisis, made it easy for Obama to portray him as “out-of-touch” and a bit schizophrenic. That’s not fair to McCain, but nothing is ever fair in politics.
Fundamentally, what hurts McCain, in my view, is the general sense that, at least on the economy, he is really not much different than President Bush, someone traditionally hostile to government regulation of Wall Street, generally pro-business, and much more attuned to the interests of the wealthy than working Americans. In short, in difficult economic times, it’s tough to be a Republican politician because it’s so easy for Democrats to affix a label to you.
McCain Tries to Change the Theme Line:
Democrats don’t like it, but the McCain campaign did exactly what a smart candidate does when the number one issue in a campaign is against you – change the issue. Enter Bill Ayers, a ‘60s anti-war radical who cofounded the Weathermen underground movement and participated in the bombing of the NYC police headquarters, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, activities that occurred when Obama was a young kid, but actions that caused damage to public property but, fortunately, no death or injury. Not my kind of guy, that’s for sure.
Fast forward to the mid-1990s in Chicago. By this time, Ayers has become a prominent educator in that city, with multiple Masters degrees and a doctorate. Ayers, now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, worked with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to write the so-called Chicago Annenberg Challenge, securing $49 million to reform the Chicago public schools over a five-year period. [Walter Annenberg, a Republican who died in 2002, was the billionaire Philadelphia publisher who was President Reagan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom]. Obama was an original member of the board named to distribute that money. Besides their association in this project, Obama and Ayers were board members on the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty philanthropic group. It’s also a fact that Obama was in Ayers home when Ayers hosted an event at which then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer presented Obama as her choice to succeed her in the 1996 Democratic primary.
What are we to make of all this? Obama has condemned Ayers’ illegal activity and calls McCain’s attempt to question his character through Ayers as “guilt by association.” He says he never “palled around” with Ayers, as McCain’s running-mate has charged. But McCain and his allies suggest that it’s just not believable that Obama was unaware of Ayers’ background and that he should have, if he had any decent character at all, completely excused himself from any association with this man. [This is similar, by the way, to the same argument made against Obama because of his long-time association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose anti-American, anti-white rhetoric was so inflammatory during the primary season].
PSF’ers can make their own judgment about what this says about Obama or McCain, for that matter. The political question is – has it worked to help McCain? Not yet, is my quick answer. Sure it’s “red meat” for the Republican base that wants McCain to attack Obama more vigorously, but the last-minute nature of the attack strikes many as “desperation” politics. The Fox News poll last week found that 61% of those polled said it made no difference to their vote. Even worse for McCain, some 51% said McCain was running a “negative” campaign for president, while only 21% said that of Obama.
So while McCain’s campaign may be right to change the issue from the economy to something else, a character assault on Obama because of his association (whatever it was) with Bill Ayers doesn’t seem to be working, at least not yet. Perhaps a better issue for McCain might be national security.
Sarah Palin (a/k/a Tina Fey) Becomes a Pop Culture Phenom:
Whether you think Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States, no one can doubt that she has taken America by storm – and thanks to Tina Fey – has singlehandedly restored Saturday Night Live to “must-watch” television.
I have not met Palin, so I don’t know what she is really like in person, but her spunky style has certainly hit a chord with many. But, let’s be honest, she has also become a figure of ridicule – and, at this stage of the campaign, it’s unclear whether the strong support she gets from some trumps the shake-of-the-head others give her. The most recent Newsweek poll gives her a 49% to 45% favorable rating.
Nonetheless, McCain’s choice of Palin, in my view, did exactly what was intended. It brought the Christian conservative evangelicals back on board the Republican ticket. McCain is a social conservative, but he’s never really been comfortable with the Falwell-Robertson ideology. Palin is not only comfortable with that ideology -- she lives her beliefs. That scares some Americans, but it was those Christian conservative voters who delivered the state of Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004 and nearly delivered Pennsylvania.
Fundamentally, I don’t believe that either Joe Biden, who can quite legitimately point to his Pennsylvania roots, or Sarah Palin determines the outcome of this election. The race is between Obama and McCain, not their running-mates. The last vice presidential nominee to make a difference electorally was Lyndon Baines Johnson who delivered Texas – and the White House – to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
PENNSYLVANIA
Up for Grabs:
As the economy got worse, Barack Obama’s poll numbers got better in Pennsylvania. His lead last week over John McCain ranged from 12% (Marist poll) to 15% (SurveyUSA). Mind you, in September, Obama’s lead was well within the margin of error, ranging from 1% (Strategic Vision) to 4% (Morning Call). So is the recent double-digit bump for Obama a temporary surge, or a predictor of the final outcome?
McCain obviously believes it’s temporary, as both he and Palin criss-cross much of the state and, almost as importantly, their TV ads – and those of groups that support them – continue to run at full strength. Obama hardly thinks PA is decided yet either, as he and Biden stump the state and bring in some heavy-weights like President and Senator Clinton to campaign in Scranton this past weekend.
In short, both candidates act like this state is up for grabs, regardless of the polls. Maybe they know something we don’t know!
The Key for Victory in PA:
James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. It was a clever line, but not exactly right. In many ways, PA is like 50 states – urban centers, manufacturing river towns, rural deer country, agricultural heartlands, areas that identify with the east coast and other parts that are clearly Midwestern in outlook. PA has liberal Republicans and very conservative Republicans, just as it has liberal Democrats and very conservative Democrats, and both parties have Christian evangelicals. And, yes, many Pennsylvanians have guns, religion, and a small-town ethos. Bottom line, this is a hard state to categorize.
But the keys to victory are not hard to discern.
Four years ago, John Kerry just barely defeated George Bush in PA by 2.5% of the vote, or 144,000 votes out of 4.7 million votes cast. The Democratic victory began in Philadelphia where Kerry racked up a record 412,000 vote margin over Bush. In August, Gov. Ed Rendell told me that he hoped Philadelphia would beat that record for Obama this November. The latest registration figures show it possible: Philadelphia has about 852,000 Democrats, 145,000 Republicans, and 93,000 independents (or other third-party members). Could Philadelphia give Obama a 500,000 vote lead? It would be astounding, but do-able. Last Saturday’s four-stop visit within Philadelphia by Obama was designed to do just that.
The suburbs of Philadelphia used to be a sure Republican thing. No more. In 2004, Kerry carried three of the four “bedroom” counties – Montgomery (by 46,000 votes), Bucks (by 9,000 votes), and Delaware (by 42,000 votes), losing only Chester County (by 10,000 for Bush). This year, McCain thinks he can do better by stressing his “maverick” independent style. What hampers that is the growth of Democrats in these counties. Montgomery County has now turned Democratic by 19,000 votes, with only 10,000 votes separating Republicans from Democrats in Bucks County and 23,000 in Delaware County.
But even if Obama scores big in Southeastern PA like Kerry did, that does not guarantee victory in the state. Pennsylvania has important concentration of voters in the Northeast (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre), Northwest (Erie), South Central East (Harrisburg/Lancaster/York), South Central West (Johnstown, Altoona, Somerset), and the voter-rich area surrounding Pittsburgh in Southwestern PA. And I’ve left out lots other important nooks and crannies of the state.
Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh) is almost certainly going to vote for Obama. While not as lopsided as Philadelphia, it is overwhelmingly Democratic. Latest registration numbers have roughly 586,000 Dems here to 254,000 Republicans and 101,000 independents. In 2004, Kerry beat Bush here by 97,000 votes. In my view, Obama has the potential to win Allegheny County by more than 100,000 votes, depending on whether all the new registrants actually turn up to vote, but it is hardly a done deal.
It looks much better for McCain outside Pittsburgh and its immediate environs. Take Westmoreland County, where Democrats have a 49,000 voter registration edge over the Republicans: Four years ago, Bush beat Kerry in this county by 22,000 votes. In Washington County, Dems have a 40,000 registration edge today but Kerry only beat Bush by 552 votes. In Beaver County, Dems lead Republicans by 34,000 voters but Kerry only won by 2,200 votes. Take Lawrence County where Dems outnumber Republicans by 12,000 voters but Bush won by 551 votes. You get the picture.
The conservative Democrats in Southwestern PA can never be taken for granted by a Democratic candidate running statewide. Neither Obama nor McCain have campaigned in this region since late August – although Palin was here last Friday and Michelle Obama is expected on Thursday – but at some point the race will come down to regions west of the Susquehanna River. Both Gov. Ed Rendell and former Gov. Tom Ridge have certainly counseled their party nominees – western Pennsylvanians like retail politics, vote a higher percentage than back east, and are never predictable. In the end, while small in numbers, how Democratic counties like Beaver County and Washington County vote could well predict who wins the state of Pennsylvania.
The Role of Race in PA:
Finally, a word about race. I had a Democratic committeeman from this area come up to me a few months ago and bluntly tell me that he could never support Obama because he’s black. It’s abhorrent to me that anyone would vote for or against someone on the basis of race, gender, or religion, but we all know that it happens in every election. I have written about this in earlier PSFs. While most of us can point to stories from friends or relatives who say they know somebody who will never vote for Obama because of his race, it’s hard to measure the impact of this.
Last spring, Rendell observed that he felt in his race against an African American in Pennsylvania, the white candidate benefitted by as much as five to seven percentage points. He should know, not only as an astute politician but also as one who ran against an African American in 2006, the Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, a Republican. If Rendell is correct, then Obama needs a double-digit lead to win PA.
But I don’t know if Rendell is right, especially when it comes to Barack Obama and John McCain. It seems to me that there are so many other legitimate reasons to vote for one or against these candidates that race is consequential only for the true racists, which I hope is less than one percent of the PA electorate, not seven percent.
Still, there is a gnawing feeling that race will play a greater role in this election than anyone wants to admit. There is not much Obama can do about this, although his recent 60-second biographical ad featuring his white mother and white grandparents was a subliminal way to deal with the issue. My gut instinct is what worries some white voters is not Obama but other African Americans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (notice how they’ve disappeared this election season?) who appear to have made a career blaming whites for everything wrong in the black community. One white woman asked me the other day if I thought Obama would be beholden to those leaders if he won.
Obama deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of Jackson or Sharpton – just as John McCain deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of George W. Bush. But it’s the nature of politics to obfuscate rather than clarify. We won’t know the role of race in this contest until the votes are counted.
There is always much more that I can opine on, especially here in Pennsylvania. But let me save something for another PSF next week. I’m committed to doing at least one a week through and right after the election. As always, I welcome your comments – and hope to see some of you out on the campaign trail.
Happy Columbus Day! While the legal holiday is observed on a Monday, it was actually October 12, 1492, that Christopher Columbus saw the Bahamas. As we all know now, he was not the first European to “discover” America, but be careful to whom you say that. I am old enough to remember the late PA Supreme Court Justice Michael A. Musmanno, a wonderfully colorful man who went on a six-week tour of the nation to defend Columbus when Yale scholars declared that Leif Ericson had landed in America first. Ironically, Musmanno died on Columbus Day!
As many of you have reminded me, it’s been weeks since I’ve taken hand to keyboard to share my thoughts about this presidential race. It’s not like I’m vacationing! Between money (read the economy and Wall Street) and politics, my two principal news beats these days, my plate has been very full indeed. Since the presidential conventions, I’ve had two interviews with Barack Obama and one with John McCain and multiple interviews with surrogates. Obviously, both campaigns know how important Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio (just 30 miles west of me) are in this contest, and I can practically guarantee that if Pennsylvania and Ohio vote alike on November 4, that man will be president.
So, three weeks from decision day, where do we stand? Can you say President Obama? No, wait, could it be President McCain?
In this latest PSF, let me share my thoughts as someone who has spent 25 years in the political world – first, as a behind-the-scenes player, and, now, as an observer and commentator. As always, I welcome your off-the-record views. If you prefer not to get these occasional missives, there’s a button below to get off the list. Otherwise, dear Politically Savvy Friend, read on.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Wall Street Mess -- Calling FDR:
A friend of mine asked me the other day where was Franklin D. Roosevelt when we needed him. The reference, of course, was to FDR’s famous call in his First Inaugural: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” In the wake of the collapse of the Stock Market, causing most of us to lose more than one-third of our retirement funds, the absence of presidential leadership has been obvious.
It’s not that President Bush isn’t trying. It’s just that nobody cares what he says. His job approval ratings are in the mid-20s, the lowest of his presidency, and most financial analysts concluded that every time he spoke to the nation last week the market dropped some more.
Of course, presidents are not economists, finance wizards, or portfolio money managers. But they do have experts around them that are or should be. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may know a thing or two, but it’s not clear that even they know how to turn this market or the economy around. We begin this week with some hopeful signs. The stock market has resurged some 900+ points, and we are now seeing some concrete action out of Washington.
What surprised me most is that the Bush administration, having pushed so hard for its Wall Street rescue plan (or bailout, as detractors call it), seemed so unprepared to implement it, once Congress approved the bill a week ago. I would have thought the implementation plan would have been on the drawing board as the Congress debated its inevitable passage. The consequence has been delay, instead of action, and we all saw how Wall Street reacted to that. But concerted global action over this last weekend gives hope that maybe, just maybe, we can regain our footing.
Ultimately, the market will bottom out and eventually regain some, if not all, the losses over the next two years, if not sooner. At least that’s what the experts say. But all this focus on the economy demonstrates like nothing else how important it is to have a president with a team in place to make sure these meltdowns don’t occur and, if they do, to have a plan to minimize their impact on average working people. The Bush administration had neither.
It’s the Economy, Stupid:
When you’re hurting economically, it’s always about you. That’s a basic rule in politics. The candidate who can address your concerns or at least appears sympathetic to your plight will get your support. No surprise, every recent poll puts the economy and jobs as the #1 issue in this presidential race – 57% in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Most of us have felt a lot of economic pain in recent months – unrestrained energy and food price increases, higher unemployment, devaluation of our homes, and now the evisceration of our 401-Ks and IRAs.
Baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), some 76 million of us, are particularly hurt by the latter, even if it’s just a paper loss (as long as we don’t cash in). My father’s generation had guaranteed company pensions, the so-called defined benefit plans, where the retired employee got a check every month from his employer for as long as he lived. Corporate America abandoned that approach when it became too expensive to sustain, and substituted a plan tied to the stock market wherein employees would deposit part of their own money (often matched partially by the employer) in a 401-K. Gone are those guaranteed monthly pension checks during retirement – except, of course, Social Security. Your retirement security depends on the return of your money set aside in investment accounts of your choosing and always subject to the vagaries of the stock market. That’s why everyone is so angry about what happened on Wall Street and the failure of our politicians to prevent it.
[Parenthetically, the only people left with those old-fashioned pension checks are public employees – teachers, government workers, and elected officials. We, the taxpayers, pay much of that monthly check, and I suspect that this last remnant of defined benefit will disappear in the years ahead, particularly if the typical American retiree appears to struggle while their neighbor who worked for the taxpayer enjoys a comfortable retirement.]
All this is to say that Americans hunger for a president who, not only understands all this, but appears willing to protect our jobs and restore jobs shipped overseas, raise our wages so we can (at least) stay even with inflation, provide affordable health care for all, and maintain our retirement security. It’s a very tall order.
McCain or Obama – Can Either One Make Life Better?
In their gut, most Americans don’t think either John McCain or Barack Obama can really do all that is necessary to make our lives better. Such is our cynicism that it’s easy to say that it doesn’t really matter who wins the White House, at least on the economy. But empathy is important and forced to choose, most Americans think Obama can address the economy better than McCain. In the latest Newsweek poll, those polled said Obama would do a better job on the economy and jobs than McCain by a 54% to 35% margin. Close to the same result in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, 50% to 30%. We see similar results on health care, 56% to 30% for Obama in the Newsweek poll and 52% to 32% in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll.
McCain’s initial response to Wall Street even if taken out of contest (“The fundamentals of our economy are sound.”), coupled with his short-lived suspension of his campaign and refusal to debate Obama until Congress resolved its response to the crisis, made it easy for Obama to portray him as “out-of-touch” and a bit schizophrenic. That’s not fair to McCain, but nothing is ever fair in politics.
Fundamentally, what hurts McCain, in my view, is the general sense that, at least on the economy, he is really not much different than President Bush, someone traditionally hostile to government regulation of Wall Street, generally pro-business, and much more attuned to the interests of the wealthy than working Americans. In short, in difficult economic times, it’s tough to be a Republican politician because it’s so easy for Democrats to affix a label to you.
McCain Tries to Change the Theme Line:
Democrats don’t like it, but the McCain campaign did exactly what a smart candidate does when the number one issue in a campaign is against you – change the issue. Enter Bill Ayers, a ‘60s anti-war radical who cofounded the Weathermen underground movement and participated in the bombing of the NYC police headquarters, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, activities that occurred when Obama was a young kid, but actions that caused damage to public property but, fortunately, no death or injury. Not my kind of guy, that’s for sure.
Fast forward to the mid-1990s in Chicago. By this time, Ayers has become a prominent educator in that city, with multiple Masters degrees and a doctorate. Ayers, now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, worked with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to write the so-called Chicago Annenberg Challenge, securing $49 million to reform the Chicago public schools over a five-year period. [Walter Annenberg, a Republican who died in 2002, was the billionaire Philadelphia publisher who was President Reagan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom]. Obama was an original member of the board named to distribute that money. Besides their association in this project, Obama and Ayers were board members on the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty philanthropic group. It’s also a fact that Obama was in Ayers home when Ayers hosted an event at which then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer presented Obama as her choice to succeed her in the 1996 Democratic primary.
What are we to make of all this? Obama has condemned Ayers’ illegal activity and calls McCain’s attempt to question his character through Ayers as “guilt by association.” He says he never “palled around” with Ayers, as McCain’s running-mate has charged. But McCain and his allies suggest that it’s just not believable that Obama was unaware of Ayers’ background and that he should have, if he had any decent character at all, completely excused himself from any association with this man. [This is similar, by the way, to the same argument made against Obama because of his long-time association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose anti-American, anti-white rhetoric was so inflammatory during the primary season].
PSF’ers can make their own judgment about what this says about Obama or McCain, for that matter. The political question is – has it worked to help McCain? Not yet, is my quick answer. Sure it’s “red meat” for the Republican base that wants McCain to attack Obama more vigorously, but the last-minute nature of the attack strikes many as “desperation” politics. The Fox News poll last week found that 61% of those polled said it made no difference to their vote. Even worse for McCain, some 51% said McCain was running a “negative” campaign for president, while only 21% said that of Obama.
So while McCain’s campaign may be right to change the issue from the economy to something else, a character assault on Obama because of his association (whatever it was) with Bill Ayers doesn’t seem to be working, at least not yet. Perhaps a better issue for McCain might be national security.
Sarah Palin (a/k/a Tina Fey) Becomes a Pop Culture Phenom:
Whether you think Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States, no one can doubt that she has taken America by storm – and thanks to Tina Fey – has singlehandedly restored Saturday Night Live to “must-watch” television.
I have not met Palin, so I don’t know what she is really like in person, but her spunky style has certainly hit a chord with many. But, let’s be honest, she has also become a figure of ridicule – and, at this stage of the campaign, it’s unclear whether the strong support she gets from some trumps the shake-of-the-head others give her. The most recent Newsweek poll gives her a 49% to 45% favorable rating.
Nonetheless, McCain’s choice of Palin, in my view, did exactly what was intended. It brought the Christian conservative evangelicals back on board the Republican ticket. McCain is a social conservative, but he’s never really been comfortable with the Falwell-Robertson ideology. Palin is not only comfortable with that ideology -- she lives her beliefs. That scares some Americans, but it was those Christian conservative voters who delivered the state of Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004 and nearly delivered Pennsylvania.
Fundamentally, I don’t believe that either Joe Biden, who can quite legitimately point to his Pennsylvania roots, or Sarah Palin determines the outcome of this election. The race is between Obama and McCain, not their running-mates. The last vice presidential nominee to make a difference electorally was Lyndon Baines Johnson who delivered Texas – and the White House – to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
PENNSYLVANIA
Up for Grabs:
As the economy got worse, Barack Obama’s poll numbers got better in Pennsylvania. His lead last week over John McCain ranged from 12% (Marist poll) to 15% (SurveyUSA). Mind you, in September, Obama’s lead was well within the margin of error, ranging from 1% (Strategic Vision) to 4% (Morning Call). So is the recent double-digit bump for Obama a temporary surge, or a predictor of the final outcome?
McCain obviously believes it’s temporary, as both he and Palin criss-cross much of the state and, almost as importantly, their TV ads – and those of groups that support them – continue to run at full strength. Obama hardly thinks PA is decided yet either, as he and Biden stump the state and bring in some heavy-weights like President and Senator Clinton to campaign in Scranton this past weekend.
In short, both candidates act like this state is up for grabs, regardless of the polls. Maybe they know something we don’t know!
The Key for Victory in PA:
James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. It was a clever line, but not exactly right. In many ways, PA is like 50 states – urban centers, manufacturing river towns, rural deer country, agricultural heartlands, areas that identify with the east coast and other parts that are clearly Midwestern in outlook. PA has liberal Republicans and very conservative Republicans, just as it has liberal Democrats and very conservative Democrats, and both parties have Christian evangelicals. And, yes, many Pennsylvanians have guns, religion, and a small-town ethos. Bottom line, this is a hard state to categorize.
But the keys to victory are not hard to discern.
Four years ago, John Kerry just barely defeated George Bush in PA by 2.5% of the vote, or 144,000 votes out of 4.7 million votes cast. The Democratic victory began in Philadelphia where Kerry racked up a record 412,000 vote margin over Bush. In August, Gov. Ed Rendell told me that he hoped Philadelphia would beat that record for Obama this November. The latest registration figures show it possible: Philadelphia has about 852,000 Democrats, 145,000 Republicans, and 93,000 independents (or other third-party members). Could Philadelphia give Obama a 500,000 vote lead? It would be astounding, but do-able. Last Saturday’s four-stop visit within Philadelphia by Obama was designed to do just that.
The suburbs of Philadelphia used to be a sure Republican thing. No more. In 2004, Kerry carried three of the four “bedroom” counties – Montgomery (by 46,000 votes), Bucks (by 9,000 votes), and Delaware (by 42,000 votes), losing only Chester County (by 10,000 for Bush). This year, McCain thinks he can do better by stressing his “maverick” independent style. What hampers that is the growth of Democrats in these counties. Montgomery County has now turned Democratic by 19,000 votes, with only 10,000 votes separating Republicans from Democrats in Bucks County and 23,000 in Delaware County.
But even if Obama scores big in Southeastern PA like Kerry did, that does not guarantee victory in the state. Pennsylvania has important concentration of voters in the Northeast (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre), Northwest (Erie), South Central East (Harrisburg/Lancaster/York), South Central West (Johnstown, Altoona, Somerset), and the voter-rich area surrounding Pittsburgh in Southwestern PA. And I’ve left out lots other important nooks and crannies of the state.
Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh) is almost certainly going to vote for Obama. While not as lopsided as Philadelphia, it is overwhelmingly Democratic. Latest registration numbers have roughly 586,000 Dems here to 254,000 Republicans and 101,000 independents. In 2004, Kerry beat Bush here by 97,000 votes. In my view, Obama has the potential to win Allegheny County by more than 100,000 votes, depending on whether all the new registrants actually turn up to vote, but it is hardly a done deal.
It looks much better for McCain outside Pittsburgh and its immediate environs. Take Westmoreland County, where Democrats have a 49,000 voter registration edge over the Republicans: Four years ago, Bush beat Kerry in this county by 22,000 votes. In Washington County, Dems have a 40,000 registration edge today but Kerry only beat Bush by 552 votes. In Beaver County, Dems lead Republicans by 34,000 voters but Kerry only won by 2,200 votes. Take Lawrence County where Dems outnumber Republicans by 12,000 voters but Bush won by 551 votes. You get the picture.
The conservative Democrats in Southwestern PA can never be taken for granted by a Democratic candidate running statewide. Neither Obama nor McCain have campaigned in this region since late August – although Palin was here last Friday and Michelle Obama is expected on Thursday – but at some point the race will come down to regions west of the Susquehanna River. Both Gov. Ed Rendell and former Gov. Tom Ridge have certainly counseled their party nominees – western Pennsylvanians like retail politics, vote a higher percentage than back east, and are never predictable. In the end, while small in numbers, how Democratic counties like Beaver County and Washington County vote could well predict who wins the state of Pennsylvania.
The Role of Race in PA:
Finally, a word about race. I had a Democratic committeeman from this area come up to me a few months ago and bluntly tell me that he could never support Obama because he’s black. It’s abhorrent to me that anyone would vote for or against someone on the basis of race, gender, or religion, but we all know that it happens in every election. I have written about this in earlier PSFs. While most of us can point to stories from friends or relatives who say they know somebody who will never vote for Obama because of his race, it’s hard to measure the impact of this.
Last spring, Rendell observed that he felt in his race against an African American in Pennsylvania, the white candidate benefitted by as much as five to seven percentage points. He should know, not only as an astute politician but also as one who ran against an African American in 2006, the Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, a Republican. If Rendell is correct, then Obama needs a double-digit lead to win PA.
But I don’t know if Rendell is right, especially when it comes to Barack Obama and John McCain. It seems to me that there are so many other legitimate reasons to vote for one or against these candidates that race is consequential only for the true racists, which I hope is less than one percent of the PA electorate, not seven percent.
Still, there is a gnawing feeling that race will play a greater role in this election than anyone wants to admit. There is not much Obama can do about this, although his recent 60-second biographical ad featuring his white mother and white grandparents was a subliminal way to deal with the issue. My gut instinct is what worries some white voters is not Obama but other African Americans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (notice how they’ve disappeared this election season?) who appear to have made a career blaming whites for everything wrong in the black community. One white woman asked me the other day if I thought Obama would be beholden to those leaders if he won.
Obama deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of Jackson or Sharpton – just as John McCain deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of George W. Bush. But it’s the nature of politics to obfuscate rather than clarify. We won’t know the role of race in this contest until the votes are counted.
There is always much more that I can opine on, especially here in Pennsylvania. But let me save something for another PSF next week. I’m committed to doing at least one a week through and right after the election. As always, I welcome your comments – and hope to see some of you out on the campaign trail.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Political Independence Day
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Happy Independence Day! In a political year of so many firsts, it’s easy to forget how novel this whole experiment in American democracy was 238 years ago when some wealthy white men met in Philadelphia to declare independence from an incompetent king and a despotic Parliament in Great Britain.
The notion that a colony could assert its own rights to elected representation and govern itself, separate and apart from its mother country, was mind-boggling at the time. The revolution of 1776, labeled by some historians a “conservative” revolution, clearly unleashed the “radical” belief among millions in the years that followed that political independence is a goal worth fighting – and dying – for. The killing of innocent Zimbabwe citizens by the Mugabe murder squads, when their only crime was a desire to exercise the basic democratic right to choose a new leader, demonstrates that the fight for democratic freedom begun in 1776 is still not won for many in 2008.
We should remember that as we proudly fly the flag on the Fourth of July, enjoy our family picnics, and ooh-and-aah to fireworks displays across the country.
Much has happened since my last PSF, so forgive a little bit of catch-up. As always, if you do not want to receive these political emails, just use the unsubscribe key. But I hope you will read on, and, more importantly, send me your personal comments, observations, and off-the-record opinions (and tips) about all things political. If you want to know more about me, see some of my recent TV stories, or post a public reaction, just log onto my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Summer of Our Discontent:
Nobody beyond the Washington Beltway is really happy about the direction of the country or the state of our economy these days. With four dollar a gallon gasoline, a stock market in rapid decline, a depressed housing market and growing foreclosures, and the rising costs of just about everything, family budgets are stretched beyond belief. Sometimes I wonder if the politicians in Washington really understand the pain.
In some of the latest polls in June, only 13% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) to 16% (Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll) of those polled think the country is heading in the “right” direction. Put another way, only 14% (both Gallup Poll and Newsweek Poll) are “satisfied” with the way things are going in this country. I can’t remember poll numbers this pessimistic.
While you have to wonder who these contented people really are, the fact is the vast, vast majority of Americans (76% to 84%) are unhappy about the state of the nation. And why not? It’s a rare family that has not seen its standard of living decline this year, as wages and salaries fail to keep even with rising costs. In short, Americans are in the dumps, both economically and emotionally.
Where is President Bush?
When it comes to dealing with the economy or addressing the energy crisis, President Bush is perceived by many Americans to be AWOL. Only 9% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) think Bush’s economic policies have left us better off today than we were before he took office in 2001. Some 75% say the Republican White House has made things worse.
With just six months left in office, the president is doing what many lame ducks do – escape Washington by traveling all over the world. But given how bad things are in this country and how indifferent he and his administration appear to be to problems that are stripping the value out of our wallets, it’s no surprise that his popularity is at all-time lows.
Every poll conducted in the last four weeks shows President Bush with job approvals ranging from 23% to 30%. His disapproval ranges from 64% to 73%. Unless something changes in the next few months, President Bush is likely to leave office as one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.
Parenthetically, some have suggested to me that George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. That’s a judgment better left to historians. Lots of presidents left office deeply unpopular (like Harry Truman), only to be resurrected years later. For Bush to be the worst president in history, he would have to beat such undistinguished predecessors as Millard Filmore, James Buchanan, and Chester Arthur. Another standard to consider is that only 16 presidents of 43 were reelected to a second term: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. Of those, three did not get to complete their second terms (Lincoln, McKinley, and Nixon). So credit President Bush with being in very rare presidential company. As for his legacy, that’s a column for later.
Where is the Congress?
The lack of presidential leadership on our major problems is matched by the seeming indifference emanating from both parties in the Congress. Only 13% to 19% in the four most recent polls (FOX/Opinion Dynamics, AP-Ipsos, Gallup, and Wall Street Journal/NBC) approve of the job Congress has done.
What’s there to approve? The partisan bickering has deadlocked the joint, and only on rare occasion (like the economic stimulus package) have both parties come together for action.
Having worked in that body for 14 years once upon a time, let me say that the Congress is inherently incapable of leadership, especially when there is little leadership out of a lame duck White House. With 535 politicians, often with separate agendas, it takes very strong House and Senate leaders to corral the troops, and I don’t see that leadership in either party right now.
It’s also unfair to blame only the Democrats who have a narrow majority in both houses right now. As a representative body, the rules allow the minority party, especially in the Senate, to block the majority’s agenda at almost every turn. The Republicans have done that, sometimes for good reasons, but it adds to the perception of inaction.
In a few months, voters will get the chance to rate the Congress by assessing their individual representative and (in some states) their senator. In early July, most pundits think the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate. If that happens, it’s not because the Democratic-controlled Congress accomplished much this last year. In truth, the public is blaming the Republicans, via unhappiness with President Bush, for the mess we’re in. Fair or not, when times are tough, the party in the White House almost always gets the blame.
The Race for the White House:
If you live in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, you are already being saturated with television ads from both John McCain and Barack Obama. People often ask me why the candidates don’t take a break this summer like they did in the old days. Well, truth is this election is up for grabs, and neither candidate can afford to let the other get a head start. So the public is doomed to a never-ending campaign on our TV screens.
With the mood so sour on President Bush, it’s a wonder that McCain is even in this race at all. But he is, in part because of his unusual background and in part because the nation is still uncertain about Obama.
Forget the national match-up polls. They are meaningless because we don’t elect presidents by popular vote [just ask Al Gore]. The presidential contest comes down to a state-by-state battle for electoral votes, and that’s what gives McCain hope that a Republican can win the White House this year.
I’ve seen one electoral college map that gives McCain 194 electoral votes to Obama’s 185, with 270 needed to win the White House. Thirteen states are up for grabs in this scenario. Another map, which allocates every state based on local opinion polls no matter how narrow the lead, gives Obama a whopping 317 votes, by awarding him states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states in which he currently leads by single digits within the margin of polling error.
Both campaigns are much too smart to think these early electoral college maps are predictive. Here’s my all-inclusive list of early-summer “battleground” states that will determine the next president: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Many of these 18 states may be lost to one candidate or the other by mid-September after both presidential conventions conclude. But in the meantime, watch Obama and McCain criss-cross the country with strategic stops in the states listed above.
Some Personal Reflections:
As PSF readers know, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidates over the years. I just had my third chance this year to sit down with Barack Obama when he was in Pittsburgh last week, and I’m looking forward to my first chance for a sit-down chat with John McCain in the near future [I have interviewed McCain in one of those media scrums, but that hardly counts for creating impressions].
As a journalist and political analyst (although one of those rare ones who worked on the government and campaign side before leaping to the dark side of media), I try hard to be scrupulously objective in these encounters. Generally, the campaign gives much less time than needed – I was given 5 minutes of air time with Obama that stretched to 6 minutes, 40 seconds, because of his answers – but you do form some judgments in both their demeanor before and after the interviews, as well as the way they answer your questions.
Obama is smart, politically astute, cordial, thoughtful, and careful in his answers. In this third interview, he acted like he remembered me (although that could be good staff work), but I’m not convinced that he does (unlike Hillary Clinton who spouted off things from our earlier off-camera conversations that evidenced she really did remember). I don’t fault the candidates for this, as they meet so many local journalists that one encounter probably seems like another.
Much more importantly, Obama’s answers to my questions were direct. In particular, I asked him about whether he could relate to the pain of average Americans (after all, he’s now a millionaire) which he answered (in my view) honestly, acknowledging that his circumstances today allow him to absorb the pain at the pump (unlike most of us) but stressing that he is not far removed from his days of struggle and reflecting that he is probably the closest to a “middle class” candidate for president in a long time.
You can watch my full interview with Obama, including his answers to my questions on presidential leadership, energy (especially clean coal technology), the Pennsylvania primary and upcoming contest here, and his plan to replace the White House bowling alley with a basketball court. Just click http://kdka.com/video/?id=43059@kdka.dayport.com. I’ll give equal time to McCain in my next PSF, after I sit down with him.
PENNSYLVANIA:
Up for Grabs:
Early in the PA primary season, I wrote that Obama could beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, if he did certain things, including camping out in western PA as per the Ed Rendell campaign playbook of 2002. Obama did not do this, and Clinton won the state by 9 percent. The western part of the state (indeed, almost all parts of the state outside Philadelphia) supported Clinton. While Obama won the city of Pittsburgh, he lost Allegheny County (where Pittsburgh is located) and was trounced in the neighboring southwestern counties that Democrats must win to carry the state. In Fayette County, for example, 79% of the Dems voted for Clinton over Obama.
Will these Democrats, even at Hillary’s urging, vote for Obama in November? To be absolutely honest, I don’t know. The most recent Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead by 4 points, 46 to 42. Considering that John Kerry only defeated George Bush by two points in Pennsylvania, it’s hard to consider the Keystone State as anything but a battleground in the months ahead.
What Obama has going for him is the economic mess that argues for change. Few people want a “third term” for George Bush, the very clever mantra Democratic pundits have used to frame John McCain. What he has going against him is that he is still not well known on a personal level and is subject to every suspicion and insinuation that his opponents can dredge up and that the conservative folks in this state could buy into.
And, yes, race will play a role, too. Gov. Rendell was excoriated by some when he suggested that an African American running for office in PA automatically loses five to seven percentage points because of race. Rendell cited his own campaign against former Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, an African American Republican. Whether the governor should have played political pundit is one thing, but Rendell was absolutely correct in his observation. Race does still matter to enough people that in a close election it can make a difference.
If Obama could beef up his PA schedule, so could McCain. McCain has spent even less time in PA than Obama. The Republican visited Pittsburgh just once during the primary, and is scheduled to make his first post-primary stop here next week. He did spend a day in the eastern part of the state last week, and I suspect we shall see a lot of both nominees in the months ahead.
History is pretty clear on the importance of Pennsylvania. The last Democrat to win the White House without PA was Harry Truman in 1948, and only two Republicans in U.S. history (beginning with Lincoln’s win here in 1860) have won the presidency without Pennsylvania – Richard Nixon and George Bush.
Statewide Contests Below the Surface:
Quickly now, can you name the candidates for State Treasurer? How about the challengers to state Attorney General Tom Corbett or Auditor General Jack Wagner? Surprise! Pennsylvanians will elect its three statewide row officers this year, positions that are often stepping stones to Governor and Senator.
Republican Corbett’s opponent for the state’s top legal job is Democrat John Morganelli, the district attorney of Northhampton County (back east in Allentown, PA). Democrat Wagner’s opponent for auditor general is Republican Chet Beiler of Lancaster County, a local businessman. So far, neither Morganelli nor Beiler have been particularly visible, while the incumbents do everything they can to say in the news.
The open seat for state Treasurer, the seat given up by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, features a race between two Philadelphians – Republican Tom Ellis, a former Montgomery County commissioner, and Democrat Rob McCord, a Montgomery County venture capitalist. McCord was much more visible in the primary because he had opponents, unlike Ellis, so perhaps has a slight leg up in this mostly invisible contest.
While there is so much other state and local political intrigue to opine on, I’m going to halt this here, asking my PSF’ers to give me the chance to pen something over the holiday weekend. If some events get rained out this weekend, I just might get Part II out on Monday! In the meantime, I hope you and your family have a terrific Fourth of July celebration. Despite our current travails, this is a great country because of the sacrifices of so many men and women. Few among us would want to live in any other nation, especially those for whom this kind of democratic debate would risk torture and death. The optimist in me knows that it won’t be long before America is back on a roll again.
Happy Independence Day! In a political year of so many firsts, it’s easy to forget how novel this whole experiment in American democracy was 238 years ago when some wealthy white men met in Philadelphia to declare independence from an incompetent king and a despotic Parliament in Great Britain.
The notion that a colony could assert its own rights to elected representation and govern itself, separate and apart from its mother country, was mind-boggling at the time. The revolution of 1776, labeled by some historians a “conservative” revolution, clearly unleashed the “radical” belief among millions in the years that followed that political independence is a goal worth fighting – and dying – for. The killing of innocent Zimbabwe citizens by the Mugabe murder squads, when their only crime was a desire to exercise the basic democratic right to choose a new leader, demonstrates that the fight for democratic freedom begun in 1776 is still not won for many in 2008.
We should remember that as we proudly fly the flag on the Fourth of July, enjoy our family picnics, and ooh-and-aah to fireworks displays across the country.
Much has happened since my last PSF, so forgive a little bit of catch-up. As always, if you do not want to receive these political emails, just use the unsubscribe key. But I hope you will read on, and, more importantly, send me your personal comments, observations, and off-the-record opinions (and tips) about all things political. If you want to know more about me, see some of my recent TV stories, or post a public reaction, just log onto my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Summer of Our Discontent:
Nobody beyond the Washington Beltway is really happy about the direction of the country or the state of our economy these days. With four dollar a gallon gasoline, a stock market in rapid decline, a depressed housing market and growing foreclosures, and the rising costs of just about everything, family budgets are stretched beyond belief. Sometimes I wonder if the politicians in Washington really understand the pain.
In some of the latest polls in June, only 13% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) to 16% (Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll) of those polled think the country is heading in the “right” direction. Put another way, only 14% (both Gallup Poll and Newsweek Poll) are “satisfied” with the way things are going in this country. I can’t remember poll numbers this pessimistic.
While you have to wonder who these contented people really are, the fact is the vast, vast majority of Americans (76% to 84%) are unhappy about the state of the nation. And why not? It’s a rare family that has not seen its standard of living decline this year, as wages and salaries fail to keep even with rising costs. In short, Americans are in the dumps, both economically and emotionally.
Where is President Bush?
When it comes to dealing with the economy or addressing the energy crisis, President Bush is perceived by many Americans to be AWOL. Only 9% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) think Bush’s economic policies have left us better off today than we were before he took office in 2001. Some 75% say the Republican White House has made things worse.
With just six months left in office, the president is doing what many lame ducks do – escape Washington by traveling all over the world. But given how bad things are in this country and how indifferent he and his administration appear to be to problems that are stripping the value out of our wallets, it’s no surprise that his popularity is at all-time lows.
Every poll conducted in the last four weeks shows President Bush with job approvals ranging from 23% to 30%. His disapproval ranges from 64% to 73%. Unless something changes in the next few months, President Bush is likely to leave office as one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.
Parenthetically, some have suggested to me that George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. That’s a judgment better left to historians. Lots of presidents left office deeply unpopular (like Harry Truman), only to be resurrected years later. For Bush to be the worst president in history, he would have to beat such undistinguished predecessors as Millard Filmore, James Buchanan, and Chester Arthur. Another standard to consider is that only 16 presidents of 43 were reelected to a second term: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. Of those, three did not get to complete their second terms (Lincoln, McKinley, and Nixon). So credit President Bush with being in very rare presidential company. As for his legacy, that’s a column for later.
Where is the Congress?
The lack of presidential leadership on our major problems is matched by the seeming indifference emanating from both parties in the Congress. Only 13% to 19% in the four most recent polls (FOX/Opinion Dynamics, AP-Ipsos, Gallup, and Wall Street Journal/NBC) approve of the job Congress has done.
What’s there to approve? The partisan bickering has deadlocked the joint, and only on rare occasion (like the economic stimulus package) have both parties come together for action.
Having worked in that body for 14 years once upon a time, let me say that the Congress is inherently incapable of leadership, especially when there is little leadership out of a lame duck White House. With 535 politicians, often with separate agendas, it takes very strong House and Senate leaders to corral the troops, and I don’t see that leadership in either party right now.
It’s also unfair to blame only the Democrats who have a narrow majority in both houses right now. As a representative body, the rules allow the minority party, especially in the Senate, to block the majority’s agenda at almost every turn. The Republicans have done that, sometimes for good reasons, but it adds to the perception of inaction.
In a few months, voters will get the chance to rate the Congress by assessing their individual representative and (in some states) their senator. In early July, most pundits think the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate. If that happens, it’s not because the Democratic-controlled Congress accomplished much this last year. In truth, the public is blaming the Republicans, via unhappiness with President Bush, for the mess we’re in. Fair or not, when times are tough, the party in the White House almost always gets the blame.
The Race for the White House:
If you live in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, you are already being saturated with television ads from both John McCain and Barack Obama. People often ask me why the candidates don’t take a break this summer like they did in the old days. Well, truth is this election is up for grabs, and neither candidate can afford to let the other get a head start. So the public is doomed to a never-ending campaign on our TV screens.
With the mood so sour on President Bush, it’s a wonder that McCain is even in this race at all. But he is, in part because of his unusual background and in part because the nation is still uncertain about Obama.
Forget the national match-up polls. They are meaningless because we don’t elect presidents by popular vote [just ask Al Gore]. The presidential contest comes down to a state-by-state battle for electoral votes, and that’s what gives McCain hope that a Republican can win the White House this year.
I’ve seen one electoral college map that gives McCain 194 electoral votes to Obama’s 185, with 270 needed to win the White House. Thirteen states are up for grabs in this scenario. Another map, which allocates every state based on local opinion polls no matter how narrow the lead, gives Obama a whopping 317 votes, by awarding him states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states in which he currently leads by single digits within the margin of polling error.
Both campaigns are much too smart to think these early electoral college maps are predictive. Here’s my all-inclusive list of early-summer “battleground” states that will determine the next president: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Many of these 18 states may be lost to one candidate or the other by mid-September after both presidential conventions conclude. But in the meantime, watch Obama and McCain criss-cross the country with strategic stops in the states listed above.
Some Personal Reflections:
As PSF readers know, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidates over the years. I just had my third chance this year to sit down with Barack Obama when he was in Pittsburgh last week, and I’m looking forward to my first chance for a sit-down chat with John McCain in the near future [I have interviewed McCain in one of those media scrums, but that hardly counts for creating impressions].
As a journalist and political analyst (although one of those rare ones who worked on the government and campaign side before leaping to the dark side of media), I try hard to be scrupulously objective in these encounters. Generally, the campaign gives much less time than needed – I was given 5 minutes of air time with Obama that stretched to 6 minutes, 40 seconds, because of his answers – but you do form some judgments in both their demeanor before and after the interviews, as well as the way they answer your questions.
Obama is smart, politically astute, cordial, thoughtful, and careful in his answers. In this third interview, he acted like he remembered me (although that could be good staff work), but I’m not convinced that he does (unlike Hillary Clinton who spouted off things from our earlier off-camera conversations that evidenced she really did remember). I don’t fault the candidates for this, as they meet so many local journalists that one encounter probably seems like another.
Much more importantly, Obama’s answers to my questions were direct. In particular, I asked him about whether he could relate to the pain of average Americans (after all, he’s now a millionaire) which he answered (in my view) honestly, acknowledging that his circumstances today allow him to absorb the pain at the pump (unlike most of us) but stressing that he is not far removed from his days of struggle and reflecting that he is probably the closest to a “middle class” candidate for president in a long time.
You can watch my full interview with Obama, including his answers to my questions on presidential leadership, energy (especially clean coal technology), the Pennsylvania primary and upcoming contest here, and his plan to replace the White House bowling alley with a basketball court. Just click http://kdka.com/video/?id=43059@kdka.dayport.com. I’ll give equal time to McCain in my next PSF, after I sit down with him.
PENNSYLVANIA:
Up for Grabs:
Early in the PA primary season, I wrote that Obama could beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, if he did certain things, including camping out in western PA as per the Ed Rendell campaign playbook of 2002. Obama did not do this, and Clinton won the state by 9 percent. The western part of the state (indeed, almost all parts of the state outside Philadelphia) supported Clinton. While Obama won the city of Pittsburgh, he lost Allegheny County (where Pittsburgh is located) and was trounced in the neighboring southwestern counties that Democrats must win to carry the state. In Fayette County, for example, 79% of the Dems voted for Clinton over Obama.
Will these Democrats, even at Hillary’s urging, vote for Obama in November? To be absolutely honest, I don’t know. The most recent Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead by 4 points, 46 to 42. Considering that John Kerry only defeated George Bush by two points in Pennsylvania, it’s hard to consider the Keystone State as anything but a battleground in the months ahead.
What Obama has going for him is the economic mess that argues for change. Few people want a “third term” for George Bush, the very clever mantra Democratic pundits have used to frame John McCain. What he has going against him is that he is still not well known on a personal level and is subject to every suspicion and insinuation that his opponents can dredge up and that the conservative folks in this state could buy into.
And, yes, race will play a role, too. Gov. Rendell was excoriated by some when he suggested that an African American running for office in PA automatically loses five to seven percentage points because of race. Rendell cited his own campaign against former Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, an African American Republican. Whether the governor should have played political pundit is one thing, but Rendell was absolutely correct in his observation. Race does still matter to enough people that in a close election it can make a difference.
If Obama could beef up his PA schedule, so could McCain. McCain has spent even less time in PA than Obama. The Republican visited Pittsburgh just once during the primary, and is scheduled to make his first post-primary stop here next week. He did spend a day in the eastern part of the state last week, and I suspect we shall see a lot of both nominees in the months ahead.
History is pretty clear on the importance of Pennsylvania. The last Democrat to win the White House without PA was Harry Truman in 1948, and only two Republicans in U.S. history (beginning with Lincoln’s win here in 1860) have won the presidency without Pennsylvania – Richard Nixon and George Bush.
Statewide Contests Below the Surface:
Quickly now, can you name the candidates for State Treasurer? How about the challengers to state Attorney General Tom Corbett or Auditor General Jack Wagner? Surprise! Pennsylvanians will elect its three statewide row officers this year, positions that are often stepping stones to Governor and Senator.
Republican Corbett’s opponent for the state’s top legal job is Democrat John Morganelli, the district attorney of Northhampton County (back east in Allentown, PA). Democrat Wagner’s opponent for auditor general is Republican Chet Beiler of Lancaster County, a local businessman. So far, neither Morganelli nor Beiler have been particularly visible, while the incumbents do everything they can to say in the news.
The open seat for state Treasurer, the seat given up by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, features a race between two Philadelphians – Republican Tom Ellis, a former Montgomery County commissioner, and Democrat Rob McCord, a Montgomery County venture capitalist. McCord was much more visible in the primary because he had opponents, unlike Ellis, so perhaps has a slight leg up in this mostly invisible contest.
While there is so much other state and local political intrigue to opine on, I’m going to halt this here, asking my PSF’ers to give me the chance to pen something over the holiday weekend. If some events get rained out this weekend, I just might get Part II out on Monday! In the meantime, I hope you and your family have a terrific Fourth of July celebration. Despite our current travails, this is a great country because of the sacrifices of so many men and women. Few among us would want to live in any other nation, especially those for whom this kind of democratic debate would risk torture and death. The optimist in me knows that it won’t be long before America is back on a roll again.
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