The Technocrat

by db

Minority Leader Boehner claimed today the GOP could net more than 100 seats this fall. Whoa, there, John. Might want to ease off on the instant tan for a few days, big fella. The always brilliant Nate Silver has suggested, however, that the Dems are in a rough spot and could lose upwards of 70, flipping the House. I think that’s a bit far-fetched, but I can’t take issue with the online oracle’s predictive capabilities and spreadsheet macro mastery. I do, however, have my own back-of the envelope math for this fall:

- First, assume the Dem’s lose 20 seats because (A) it’s the mid-terms in the first term of a particularly successful Democratic president (from a legislative perspective) and, perhaps more importantly, (B) there are at least 15 seats we shouldn’t by all reasonable measures be holding, and, as a donor, I frankly don’t want the DCCC spending limited resources to defend.

- Second, let’s assume there is significant progress on issues of import to the Democratic base, bolstering confidence and closing the all-important enthusiasm gap. With the passage of HCR, the party dodged a Titanic-like implosion of confidence. (Someone called that one a while ago. Hmmmm.) With Wall Street reform on a greased track, immigration reform on deck, and a helpful SCOTUS nomination fight reminding the base why elections do matter. Tough to say exactly the value in lose/gain seats out of these presumed legislative victories, but let’s say a win on all three ensures against complete wipe-out in November owing to Democratic base dissatisfaction.

- Third, these elements matter, but are trifling in significance compared to one metric: Unemployment. Yes, the economy, as judged by the market, GDP, productivity, and even the debt are all important figures and, sure, matter tremendously to slices of the electorate, but none have a greater impact on the baseline happiness quotient of the average American more than unemployment. Pure and simple: This number remains high and incumbents will lose. House, Senate, Governor, Mayor, I don’t care who you are — if you got an “I” next to your name on the ballot and unemployment is 10%+, you might want to brush up your LinkedIN profile and start eying resume paper. Want more specificity? Okay, here’s my handy-dandy Dem House loss benchmark chart based on unemployment (as of October):
10%+ – (Including the 20 mentioned in the first rule above) Dem Losses = 40+ ~ Lose House
Below 10% Dem Losses = 35 ~ Keep House (barely)
9% Dem Losses = 32
8.5 = 30
8 = <30
... And so on.

Main point is this, the elections are not tomorrow, but they ain’t happening in a separate dimension or a full year from now. If the mood of the electorate doesn’t demonstrably improve on the economy, the House Dem’s are in a world of hurt. If, however, we enjoy two consistent quarters of growth between now and election day, Dem’s will hold the House, albeit with a smaller margin.

And why that may be better for the caucus will be the subject of another column.

by db

Yes, I’m a bona fide political dork: I’m at home on a Saturday night, enjoying the Correspondents Dinner on c-span. That’s right. If you must, judge me. If you’re reading this site, though, I can’t imagine you can judge me too harshly.

Having some British lineage, I track UK elections with some fascination. Given our interminable 2008 presidential election cycle, I have enviously watched the weeks involved in this round of parliamentary elections. The very moment TV debates between the three leading contenders for PM were announced, however, I knew this was going to be an even more intriguing run to the polls for the Brits. A first for the country, what would happen when their election was made all that much more “presidential” with the interruption of TV presence? Well, a lot, but, in the end I feel, very little.

Three months ago, Cameron, the Tories fresh-faced leader was the PM-in-waiting. Gordon Brown, Labour’s hapless standard-bearer since Tony Blair bequeathed the office to him with multiple wars raging on and an economy on the precipice of disaster, simply couldn’t get out of his way. More to the point, every single British voter I knew and asked, simply said they were tired of him and the whole Labour operation. It didn’t help that Brown’s Labour party was mired in internal strife, largely around members threatening to depose Brown and soon finding themselves on the wrong side of Downing Street, and multiple MP’s, both inside and outside Labour, were enmeshed in a seedy expenses scandal. (One would think “moat cleaning” a personal expense, but that’s just me.)

Then the inevitable pendulum swing. Cameron was suddenly viewed as an alien, somewhat uppity commodity. Friends across the pond started dropping the dreaded “posh” adjective; in American parlance a “double Izod collars-up, preppie, snob.” It appeared Brown’s dogged persistence, and the recognition that maybe he does deserve some credit for constructing a plan that managed to avoid America’s populist bailout blow-back and Greece’s inexorable slide into junk bond status, was finally bringing him some electoral momentum. A hung parliament, wherein no party has a majority and, therefore, has to form some sort of unity government with one of several smaller, regional parties or the heretofore not significant third-place player the Liberal-Democrats, was not only possible, but likely. And, with it, Gordon Brown would somehow cling to his office.

Cue the debates.

Nick Clegg, the young, new face (at least to most UK voters) at the helm of the Lib-Dem’s, played 1960′s Kennedy to Brown’s Nixon. You could feel the flop-sweat from the other side of the pond and oozing through YouTube. Brown righted the ship somewhat in the second and third debate. Finally, in the last, he took on Cameron, who basically managed to play the part of Neo in the prior sessions dodging the bullets that zinged around the room. What killed Brown, however, occurred outside the debate halls. Earlier in the week he disastrously left a hot mic on after meeting with a constituent complaining about the impact of immigration on the country. Here was an entirely innocent figure, an elderly, nice grandmotherly type getting picked upon by her PM, calling her “bigoted.” In the hothouse of tabloid-happy Britain with days to go to the election, the papers might as well have run an epitaph for poor Gordon. I have to say I’m a natural fan of the underdog, especially one who has been through as much as Brown. But, as a political realist, I have to admit he’s done.

So, now all analysis indicates the election Thursday will essentially end as it was predicted months ago: Cameron will be the new PM, likely with the help of a complicit, and rising, Lib-Dem party and Labour in the wilderness. One thing will be forever changed in UK politics: TV debates aren’t going away for better or, I fear, worse.

by db

Current thoughts on the state of HCR as it wends its way through the legislative labyrinth:

1. The Admin misinterpreted the lessons of the Clinton round of health care reform and entrusted far too much to the legislative process.

2. Common misconception that Clinton couldn’t pass HCR when times were “good,” (’91-’92 recession is what helped get Clinton elected in the first place), but times are much worse now. People are freaked, jobs continue to disappear, and the deficit is becoming a legitimate concern. (Even I’m starting to get worried. No matter how we got here, we’re here. The American people, rightfully, allow a new President 6 months to blame the last guy before the problem is his to own.) This is a toxic environment in which to talk about any spending other than on jobs. And the Administration’s purported plans for an increase in Afghanistan isn’t going to help on that front; money we don’t have for a war many, if not a majority, of Americans don’t support. (Not saying that’s my opinion, necessarily; just that it is the commonly-held view out there.)

3. Obama may have campaigned on HCR, but D’s like Landrieu, Nelson, and certainly Lieberman didn’t. Of course Reid’s going to have to coax them with pork. All of them. That’s the way it works with big votes these days. (Did the GOP do any less to pass Medicare Part D? There was a lot of pork there, if memory serves.)

4. And this is the most important lesson I have drawn: HCR is so nasty an issue, so horrendously screwed up, impacts so many people that they only way to repair it may be to endanger the majority that attempts to do so, and, potentially, the President as well. This is one point upon which I agree with the Admin’s strategy entirely: Obama has said he will risk his reelection to pass it. He may well and that may be the only way to make any progress on this.

I think HCR will pass, if only because there’s a very real threat that to not do so will present more harm to incumbent D’s. If they don’t pass HCR, the Democrats may, rightfully, lose the House and suffer losses in the Senate. The Admin will be hobbled and will be left to passing parochial, trivial regulation and legislation a la Clinton post-HCR in his first term. Obama may well be reelected, but significant HCR will never be attempted again for a generation.

So, passing HCR is going to take a ton of pork and plenty of back-room dealing to boot, but those incumbents may well go down anyway, and I’ll take some pork and convoluted language that we can clean up later to claim a victory over nothing, losing even more seats and potentially electing a GOP demagogue cum populist pretender in 2012. The polls don’t necessarily reflect only fear on the part of voters of the eventual outcome, they reflect a lack of faith in the Congress to do anything right. And the most wrong thing would be to pass nothing. If you think approval ratings are low now, wait until the Democratic base abandons Congress entirely. No, the bill will pass because it has to. It won’t include the Public Option and that may not be such a bad thing, but it will pass and we (the American people), the party, the Congress and the Admin need it to pass.

by bk

What’s the difference between the McCain Campaign and the Titanic?

The Titanic had a band.

After the MI decision, I think it’s time to start watching for the rats jumping ship. That is a sure sign of a boat that’s going down. I know we’re not over the finish line yet but desperation has a way of feeding on itself and I think we’re approaching that point faster than we may realize, so it’s just a matter of looking for the tell tale signs.

Here is the video that inspired my post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWCGzS7E_IM

by bk

So pardon me for calling the election on September 2 but within the last day the first polls showing Obama with 50%+ started showing up. I’ve long held that lots of America’s choose not to decide until after Labor Day. They can’t be bothered to, it’s just not in their blood like us partisan types. Every cycle just as the decidedly undecides starting tuning in to make their decision they use two events to judge the candidates – the convention acceptance speech and the Presidential candidate’s first executive decision on VP candidate. Some of the more serious undecides will watch and listen to everything, others will judge it by how others in and out of the media seems to perceive it. Depending on the year, the undecides may make the difference in a close election or simply pad the margin of victory. Ultimately, I believe turning out the base is the most important thing and by all measures the Democratic base is more enthusiastic this year than the Republican base so I’ve felt for awhile Obama would win and I’ve been looking to the undecides to provide the margin of victory. But that hasn’t been showing up in the polls yet so I’ve seen and heard a lot of hand wringing among Dems I know. It’s a natural reaction to how the last couple of elections have unfolded and I’m sure it will last until Obama takes the oath. But when the story of the 2008 Presidential Election is written, I believe the turning point will be fully encapsulated within less than 24 hours, the night of August 25th and the morning of August 26th.

More Americans tuned in for Barack Obama’s speech than tuned in for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics and the American Idol finales. He spoke to those who could be convinced, the 70%+ who believe we’re heading in the wrong direction. And they got a speech that knocked down the patriotism attacks while making the attackers look petty, they got policy proposals and soaring and flawless rhetoric, and they got to see a man they could believe could be President. The expectations were high and he still managed to surpass them; he passed the test.

The very next morning, the other shoe dropped. McCain had named Sarah Palin as his running mate and across America a collective, “WHO?” rang out. Over the course of the next 2 days, it became obvious that McCain’s team hadn’t done the most basic of vetting. The choice was instinctual and a political sop to the base. In another year, that might have been okay but not considering recent history like the rush to war and the move to privatize social security, and recalling Republican appointments like Michael Brown, Harriet Meirs, and Alberto Gonzales, it was all too familiar and in 1 fell swoop it undercut McCain’s main argument against Obama and re-inforced Obama’s main line of attack on McCain, that a McCain Presidency would be more of the same.

There are only really two parts to the VP decision as far as the voting public is concerned. Number 1 is the heartbeat question. Are we comfortable with this person being a heartbeat from the Presidency? And number 2 and more importantly, what the choice says about the Presidential candidate. Context is very important. Quayle was an obvious sop to the right as the right was starting to really flex its muscles. But he had been in Congress for 12 years and the Senate for the previous 6 and Bush was a sporty, healthy WASP. McCain is a 72 year who has twice battled skin cancer and Palin is the 2 year governor of Alaska with prior experience as mayor of a town of 7,000. Barack Obama’s choice of Sen. Joe Biden was a serious choice who could easily step in to the Presidency at a moment’s notice. Barack passed. Outside the 28 Percenters, those that absolutely can’t see past their partisan blinders and still support Bush, John McCain’s choice was clearly questionable and no one believes she’s ready to be a heartbeat from the Presidency. So on the first test of a President McCain, McCain failed and he failed the same as Bush, playing to the base and playing politics with the future of America.

On the night of Thursday August 25th, Senator Barack Obama showed America a vision of its future. On the morning of Friday August 26th, Senator John McCain showed America a vision of its past, the past 8 years. Within that short time, John McCain lost the election and Barack Obama won it.

At least, that’s how I believe it will be remembered.

by bk
I saw a comment on TPM by KD that suggested that if Obama hadn’t stopped the 527s, he’d be in a better position and it got me thinking about whether that’s right. I think KD is wrong and we’re actually better off so far in 2008 without the 527s because it’s harder to fight a proxy battle.

McCain’s attacks are coming from McCain not some third party “Citizens Against Celebrity” group, which is actually comprised of 5 billionaire Republicans. It’s his attack ad not some citizens exercising their First Amendment right so he can’t disown the attacks while allowing the attack to continue. Thus, he can’t enjoy the benefit from going negative without taking the hit for having done it himself. This is why I think we’ve seen the polls return to about where they were before the celebrity ads started. There was an initial benefit but then the backlash balanced it back out after another week.

Also when the attacks come from McCain directly, Obama’s campaign has only to confront McCain to respond instead of trying to take on a faceless 527. And so they are able to respond with the ads they did which point out 2 hypocrisies – the hypocrisy of the celebrity charge from McCain, of all people,and his hypocrisy in going negative as he so often said he wouldn’t. And because Obama didn’t go negative first, he’s simply responding to McCain’s ads, I believe there will be less backlash for Obama than for McCain.

If that’s the case then this will work out to a net gain for Obama and it will be very much because it wasn’t a 527 group shooting from the woods but rather John McCain, himself, in broad daylight. So everyone knows who did it and Obama has a clear target for returning fire.

by bk

In light of the 4 polls out this week showing Barack re-establishing his lead in national polls, I’d like to thank Jesse Jackson. Far from cutting Barack’s nuts off, I say he has provide Obama with the Sista Soulja moment he’s been needing.

Hmmm Trying to pivot to the center? What better opportunity than having an icon of the left all pissed off at you. And better still, it was the kind of dirt Fox loves. So Fox and the rest of the MSN play in the dirt, which is job #1 at Fox, and help Obama pivot all at once and because it’s not a policy shift, there can be no flip flop charge. It’s just Barack Obama defending himself from the left for a full news cycle for all to see.

A special thanks to Jesse for his timing, right in the heart of the the post-primary, pre-convention center shift. Could hardly have been better.

by db

You might be thinking the same of The Technocrat. Excuse us, we have been a bit, shall we say, preoccupied. Hoping to get a more regular flow of posts with professional lives calming down… a bit.

What I find truly surprising about the McCain campaign: How much it sucks. Seriously, this campaign is enjoying a high level of suckiness for an effort that has been essentially unchallenged for three-plus months. McCain has effectively had the nomination sewn up going back at least that far and the media was too busy with the waning Hillary-Obama fight to pay him much attention.

When I have those periods in my life, work slows down (or I’m in between gigs), I tend to do a little “me time.” Focus on finally cleaning out the office, shredding old bank bills, backing up the computers, maybe even work out (okay, that one not so much). That’s the way I roll when I have some down-time. The equivalent for a campaign, especially one that effectively won by default the way McCain’s did, is building the organization, finessing the message, researching the general election opponent, and raising money.

If last Tuesday’s abysmal and now-infamous “green screen” speech and comments since then (“when we leave [Iraq] doesn’t matter”) were any signal, it’s abundantly clear that whatever the campaign has been doing during this blessing of down-time, it hasn’t been getting itself in shape for the general. It’s akin to me taking up another Saturday to catch up on BSG episodes archived on TiVo rather than balancing Quicken. It’s wasted opportunity to get something done.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m perfectly content to see the campaign roll out me-too slogans (“That’s not change we can believe in”) and pathetic, jingoistic tag-lines (“The American President Americans Can Believe In Americanly”). Added to this, the fundraising numbers remain pathetic. HardBall noted this week that only 8% of Bush’s Ranger crew, the high-flying, major donor class he so successfully leveraged in 2000 and ’04 cycles, have given to McCain. Now that’s a statement.

There’s the contrary view that it’s impressive McCain is within shooting distance of Obama in spite of the embarrassment his campaign has been the last few weeks. Uh, okay. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign essentially relocated the DNC to Chicago to streamline management between the two teams and kicked off a nationwide training effort of 3,600 volunteers. Those poll numbers will be cold comfort when the GOP starts worrying about states like North Carolina and Georgia in the fall.

But whatever the McCain campaign is or isn’t doing, here’s my advice: Keep it up.

by bk

Social Security isn’t the third rail of American politics, race is and frankly we can tighten that up even more. “Race is the third rail of America.” With a short national history that includes, codifying blacks as 3/5th of a person, the Civil War and 100 years of Jim Crow, and the decimation of the Native American peoples, it is a solid line that runs thru our national psyche. And it’s pumping high voltage. In this decade in politics alone, it’s taken down Trent Lott and George Allen and Bill and Hillary got a mighty nice jolt from it in South Carolina last week.

When Bill Clinton brought up Jesse Jackson’s previous victories in SC, it was at worst awkward but I can see where people took it the way they did. That is simply the state of racial politics in America and you need to be ready for it. But if anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt on racial issues, isn’t it Bill Clinton? He has spent a lifetime in civil service on the side actually concerned with minorities rights. He didn’t get nostalgic for better days before Brown vs Board of Edu. and he didn’t let slip an obscure racial slur. He brought up that Jesse Jackson had won SC (albeit under different system and very different circumstances) twice and that he ran a good campaign and Barack has run a good campaign here and everywhere. That was all he said. The subtext, however, is wide open to interpretation.

Because race is a such a high voltage issue (and frankly so are the Clintons,) people bring tons of baggage to the subtext. If you’re especially sensitive to racial undertones, you see the effort to inject race. If you hate the Clintons, great chance to tee off on them. If you think Bill was the master, it’s very hard to believe he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. And if you’re the media, you are apparently still ready to continue peddling any anti-Clinton story you can. Maybe it’s because they hate them but it’s probably just ’cause it’s good for ratings. Either way, once the race card has been invoked it is not easily put away.

Personally, I’ve always held a generally favorable view of Jesse Jackson so 1) I don’t see that as a negative comparison and 2) it doesn’t remind me that Barack is black, I knew that by now. South Carolina democrats are over 50% black and polling was already showing a solid win for Obama so how could it benefit Hillary’s campaign in SC or afterwards? Did Bill think there were enough closet racists in SC to swing it to Hillary? It was too late to launch the “closet SC racist strategy” and actually impact the vote… if it would have even worked on the Dem side in SC. Or was he thinking it would work in Florida or beyond in NY, CA, NJ? Racist Dems in heavily multicultural states, not what I would call a swing demographic. No, he was playing the expectations game as he always does before a primary, he put on his professorial hat for the reporters and went with historical footnotes relevant to that state. Should he have compared Obama to JFK? Sure, Obama would love that but it doesn’t so much work for Bill, that’s his idol. We’ve only had one serious black presidential candidate in the entire history of our country and SC was one of the states he won twice so, yeah, his name came up.

The hardest part for anyone to believe is that Bill says anything by accident. He’s the master politician of his age he knows exactly what he is saying and doing at all times. But if he is, why would he inject race where there would be little benefit to doing so and tons of risk? And is discipline the word we really associate with Bill? I would suggest he’s masterful enough to know he can’t control race but needed a lesson in discipline and the explosion of the echo chamber since his last real race in 1992. He was attempting to lower expectations, and compared Obama to Jesse Jackson, the natural historical comparison. It was kinda awkward but not inaccurate or unflattering unless you choose to interpret it that way. Is it really offensive to compare a successful black politician with the only previous black candidate to achieved success in the presidential primaries?

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my in-laws in WI. They may be in a rural area but they are well educated, well read, and very open minded. And yet, I had to explain that simply calling someone a jew is not anti-semitic or insulting. But with the right tone, and a little bit of context, it can get there pretty quick. Comparing Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson is not in itself insulting but with the right tone and context it’s a short trip. I don’t think Bill went so far as to cross the line but I know we don’t all draw the line at exactly the same spot either. Which is why Bill might want to consider prepared and pre-approved remarks for the next few months because even the littlest asides can cause a helluva jolt if they are thought to touch the 3rd rail, race.

Side notes -
#1 – Bill’s discipline has always been a cause for concern. This and other recent events bring that right to the fore. It’s definitely a point to consider when choosing who to vote for.
#2 Considering the GOP’s stellar record of racial sensitivity, Obama may be a perfect trap candidate. How many Republican machine workers will get caught up with some racially insensitive comment when Bill’s getting it for such an innocuous statement? And will McCain be forced to apologize every time?
#3 I think the real racially insensitivity last week was when Barack was asked whether Bill was the 1st black president. It’s a cute line that been tossed around for awhile now. But to actually pose that in a question to the man who has a real chance of actually being the 1st black president, I was offended by that. Of course, Obama handled it so deftly but I still gotta think inside he was saying “No! He wasn’t! No matter what kind of friend he’s been to blacks, he’s just another link in a chain of old white men”.
#4 As a white guy, I have no doubt I have done or said things sometime somewhere, heck probably in this piece, that were construed as racist or at the very least ignorant by those of other races. I can almost guarantee (who among us is perfect?) I didn’t intend it that way. It’s an incredibly slippery slope for even the best intentioned.

by db

A little late on clean-up here, but I was traveling last week, as I am this one, so playing a bit of catch-up.

On my NH prediction: Well, missed that one. Quite significantly, in fact, but I wasn’t alone. I think it’s time for the media to stop the self-flagellation, though. The reality is that it is very tough to poll all the way up to the moment folks vote and it appears a very last-minute, by the definition of the term per haps, surge among women helped Hill. As the NYT commented, however, NH is owed a debt of gratitude by allowing the process to continue beyond its borders.

A prediction not posted I will claim credit for, anyway: Mitt and Michigan. I had a feeling it was going to swing his way. Now the pressure is on McCain to close the deal in SC, which was his Waterloo in 2000 and I have a feeling it will be very hard for him this round, given a resurgent Mitt and the significant support Huck will receive from the state’s evangelical voters.