Category Archives: elections

When Smart People Are Really Stupid

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At the New York Times, Nicholas Confessore writes about the continuing fallout from Citizens United.

… for a growing number of strategists and operatives in both parties, the very nature of what it means to work in politics has shifted. Once wedded to the careers and aims of individual candidates, they are now driven by the agendas of the big donors who finance outside spending. …

…In the insular but fast-growing world of super PACs and other independent outfits, there are no cranky candidates, no scheduling conflicts, no bitter strategy debates with rival advisers. There are only wealthy donors and the consultants vying to oblige them.

Political consultants are stampeding to the Super PACs for jobs, because the bankrollers pay better and there’s no campaign to run. So instead of working for candidates, parties, or even advocacy groups, they work for a small number of billionaires with agendas. Some of the Super PACs do accept small donations from many donors, but some of them are “boutique” PACs “set up on behalf of a few donors — sometimes only one.”

The Super PACs are undermining the authority of parties, because it’s so much easier for a wealthy individual or interest group to dump a lot of money into a PAC that can be directed as the benefactor(s) wish. “Because they can give unlimited amounts to outside groups, they can have substantial influence without the hard work of raising money for a candidate, $2,500 check by $2,500 check, from other donors.”

The old worry was that the Super PACs would secretly be in collusion with the campaigns. The new worry is that the campaigns, and the parties, are being frozen out.

Every time I read something about What CU Hath Wrought, I think of the five Supreme Court justices who made this mess possible. These were Kennedy (who wrote the majority opinion), Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that these five thought they were helping the Republican Party. But let’s assume that on some level they actually believed what they wrote in their opinions. Justice Kennedy wrote in his opinion,

“The fact that speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that these officials are corrupt. … The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy. By definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate. … The fact that a corporation, or any other speaker, is willing to spend money to try to persuade voters presupposes that the people have the ultimate influence over elected officials. This is inconsistent with any suggestion that the electorate will refuse “ ‘to take part in democratic governance’ ” because of additional political speech made by a corporation or any other speaker.”

All kinds of people knew this was hooey at the time of the decision. All kinds of people knew that this decision would have a deeply corrosive influence on campaigns and on American government itself. Is Justice Kennedy really so stupid that he believed what he wrote?

The Tao of Politics

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Or, why the GOP presidential candidates are such losers — Paul Krugman writes,

How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? …

… My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

You’ll recognize that “appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy” was the subject of Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter With Kansas? And of course cultural/racial warfare was cranked up back when red-baiting was losing its punch. This has been going on for decades. So why are the chickens coming home to roost now?

The complete answer probably is the stuff Ph.D. dissertations are made of. Possibly the single biggest reason is the Faux News factor, or the degree to which the Right has managed to manipulate mass media into delivering its message while freezing out progressive perspectives. A big chunk of the electorate is being “informed” exclusively by Heritage Foundation talking points.

But in the past, the message was still being mostly controlled by the elite, so the masses would all be herded in the same direction. Thanks to Citizens United, however, anybody with a few million bucks to throw around can manipulate public opinion, too!

In 2000, there was no Sheldon Adelson underwriting videos about George W. Bush’s business career, for example. The GOP was able to package and market Bush as a successful business man and governor. Were Dubya running today, I doubt he could get away with that. It’s like a hundred Karl Roves have bloomed.

So, yeah, the GOP field is a pathetic mess. But were other recent presidential candidates any better? Here’s the complete list of candidates for 2000, according to Wikipedia:

George W. Bush, Governor of Texas
John McCain, Senator from Arizona
Alan Keyes, former U.S. ECOSOC Ambassador from Maryland
Steve Forbes, businessman from New Jersey
Gary Bauer, former Undersecretary of Education from Kentucky
Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah
Elizabeth Dole, former Secretary of Labor from North Carolina
Pat Buchanan, publisher and author from Virginia
Dan Quayle, former Vice President from Indiana
Lamar Alexander, former Governor of Tennessee
Robert C. Smith, Senator from New Hampshire
John Kasich, Representative from Ohio
Herman Cain, CEO of Godfather’s Pizza from Nebraska

There’s a couple of ’em who were possibly not crazy, but that’s about all I can say for them. And Bush was as big a joke as the rest of them, but the GOP elites had tight enough control of the message to package Bush as a respectable candidate.

Jesse Singal wrote,

When Citizens United first came down, there was a lot of sturm und drang about how the GOP would use the new rules to beat up on Obama and Democratic candidates in general. I’m not sure people gave enough thought to how these rules would affect primary races, or to the fact that the first party to really be affected by them would be the GOP, since they actually have to choose a candidate for 2012.

Maybe when this election is over, Republicans will rethink their opposition to election reform.

And Now for Something Completely Different

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This is Rick Perry’s genuinely disgusting ad that he hopes will win him back the bigot social conservative vote in Iowa.

If you don’t want to watch it, here is the transcript:

“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As president, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.”

Here is a response:

Was it really faith that made America strong? Or attitude?

Polls and Predictions

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If you can stand another post about Herman Cain this morning — Nate Silver has a post about Cain’s chances for winning the nomination.

If all you had to go on was the polls, you might think that Mr. Cain was the favorite to win the Republican nomination.

But then there are the nonpolling factors, some of which can be objectively measured and some of which cannot, but which would generally point toward Mr. Cain as being a second- or third-tier candidate. Mr. Cain has no endorsements from Republican members of Congress or Republican governors, and very few from officials in key early voting states. He has raised very little money. He has not hired well-known names for his campaign staff. He does not have traditional credentials. He has run for elected office just once before. He has begun to get a fair amount of media coverage, but the tenor of it has been fairly skeptical. His campaign commercials have been … interesting.

Has there ever been a candidate with such strong polling but such weak fundamentals? Almost certainly not, at least not at this relatively advanced stage of the race.

I’m just speculating here, but what this might be telling us is that endorsements and positive media coverage may mean much less to the Republican voting base than it used to.

According to (don’t click if you’re at work) this video, Cain coverage has been dominating Fox News lately. This is not all good coverage, mind you, but Fox viewers sure as heck have seen a lot of Cain.

Recently Karl Rove did a takedown of Cain on Fox News that was supposed to be devastating. Politico ran a headline about it that said “Karl Rove sticks a fork in Herman Cain.” I did a quick survey of rightie blog reaction to this, and I saw not one post or comment that agreed with Rove; most just yelled at him to get off the lawn, so to speak. Rove appears to have no authority at all with the base.

On the other hand, I take it Rush is still promoting Cain, who is running ads on Rush’s show.

Nate says you can find examples of candidates with strong “fundamentals” (endorsements; the support of the establishment) and weak polling. One example that comes to mind was Haley Barbour, whom the GOP establishment and bobbleheads kept promoting as a real contender, but the base ignored him. But it’s unprecedented, at this point in the campaign cycle, to have a candidate who is polling this strongly but whose fundamentals are next to zilch.

Would the Republican voters nominate a black candidate? I’ve said for some time that the dynamics of racism on the Right are more complicated than they were when Lester Maddox and his axe handle ran for governor of Georgia on a segregation platform. The wingnuts might vote for a black candidate who (a) assures them they are not really racists, like those liberals keep saying; and (b) is not likely to come anywhere near their womenfolk.

Smells Like Victory

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Let’s start the day with some good news. Here are some new results from a Quinnipiac University poll —

Ohio voters support 57 – 32 percent the repeal of SB 5, the centerpiece of Gov. John Kasich’s legislative program, as the margin against the governor’s measure has almost doubled in the last month, from 51 – 38 percent for repeal September 27, a 13-point margin, to a 25-point margin in today’s Quinnipiac University poll.

Gov. Kasich’s standing is in the same negative neighborhood as SB 5, with Ohio voters disapproving of his job performance 52 – 36 percent, down from 49 – 40 percent disapproval in September’s survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

“With two weeks until Election Day, the opponents of SB 5 have strong reason to be optimistic,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The opponents had seen their 24-point margin in July close over the summer and early autumn. As we enter the home stretch, however, they have once again taken a commanding lead. Except for Republicans, just about every demographic group favors repealing the law.”

You rock, Ohio.

News That Isn’t News, Teabag Edition

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Kate Zernike writes for the New York Times that the “tea party” movement is largely being organized and funded by FreedomWorks, which isn’t really news.

FreedomWorks staffers are going around the country training the teabaggers how to be useful political tools and get out the vote for FreedomWorks candidates. It is this organizing that is behind the several upsets in recent Republican primaries, in which “tea party” candidates upset long-entrenched Republican incumbents. FreedomWorks is also helping Glenn Beck stage his vanity rally in Washington, DC this weekend.

Also,

Through its political action committee, FreedomWorks plans to spend $10 million on the midterm elections, on campaign paraphernalia — signs for candidates like Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida are stacked around the offices here — voter lists, and a phone system that allows volunteers to make calls for candidates around the country from their home computers. With “microfinancing” grants, it will steer money from FreedomWorks donors — the tax code protects their anonymity — to local Tea Parties.

There are other groups, including labor unions, spending more than that. But the interesting thing to me is the degree to which the sheep teabaggers tea partiers see themselves as a grassroots anti-establishment movement when it’s really an astroturf organization being fueled by establishment figures of long standing.

FreedomWorks itself evolved from another organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy, created in 1984 by the Koch Foundation with help from Big Tobacco. Joshua Holland of AlterNet has called FreedomWorks a “Wall Street front group,”, although I think it’s probably more accurate to call it “astroturf for hire.” FreedomWorks works with a number of PR firms to manipulate public opinion for a number of right-wing special interests.

According to SourceWatch, its funders in 2007 included —

  • Armstrong Foundation, $20,000
  • Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, $80,000
  • Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, $100,000
  • Sarah Scaife Foundation, $200,000
  • Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation, $20,000

In other words — grassroots, my ass. What’s behind the “tea parties” are the same mega-wealthy familiy trusts that bankroll everything else that’s right wing in America. Other establishment figures associated with FreedomWorks include Dick Armey, Steve Forbes, and C. Boyden Gray.

Teabaggers also like to pretend they aren’t working for either party. But Zernike writes, “in the 2010 midterm elections, FreedomWorks is urging Tea Party groups to work for any Republican, on the theory that a compromised Republican is better than Democratic control of Congress.” In other words, now that most of the primaries are behind us the baggers are being used as Republican party operatives, and I doubt many of them will notice.

Update: See also Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.

Yesterday’s Primaries

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Conventional Wisdom is that Harry Reid may be yesterday’s big winner, even though he wasn’t on the ballot. He’ll be running against Sharron Angle, who by all accounts is even more off-the-wall that the Chicken Lady.

I understand Dems are also happy that Carly Fiorina won the California senatorial primary and will be the one campaigning against Barbara Boxer. I’d like to hear from y’all in California about that.

Lincoln won over Halter in Arkansas — see Marc Ambinder and Gabriel Winant.

Update: Here’s a blast from the past. Remember all the hysteria about fluoride in drinking water being a Communist plot? Apparently the winner of the GOP Nevada Senate primary, Sharron Angle, used to be one of the marching anti-fluoride crusaders.

Results

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Well, Rand Son of Ron won big in Kentucky, as expected. Waiting on other results.

Update, 9:36— Nate says Lincoln and Specter are in trouble, but he’s not calling the elections.

Update, 9:51: It’s not an official call, but a couple of sources are saying it’s going to be Sestak over Specter.

Update: 10:13 Sestak wins. Interesting.

Update, 10:48 It appears the Democrat, Crist Critz, will win John Murtha’s old seat. We don’t yet know the final margin, but it seems to be comfortable so far. Nate Silver had said that if the Dems win the seat by 5 or more, it should be a good omen for Dems in November.

Update: 11:43 The Arkansas race will go to a runoff.