Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Obama's Coattails for Peace


People need to start recognizing that Obama is the best nominee, not just because he is more likely to beat McCain in November, but because he is more likely to beat him big, bring new voters into the process, thereby positively affecting the downticket races.

Donna Edwards is the first exciting case in point. Yesterday, Democrat Donna Edwards (who happens to be a former Congress Watch colleague of mine) pulled off a stunning upset against 6 term incumbent congressman Al Wynn (D-Maryland) in Maryland's fourth congressional district (a hybrid of Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in suburban DC).

The margin of victory? 20%! Completely unheard of for a primary challenge against an incumbent not currently under indictment. Hmmm...Who else won his Maryland Democratic primary by 20% on Tuesday?

Three guesses and the first two wear bold colored pantsuits.

This is no joke. Maryland's appear to be the first congressional primaries of the year (February is very early). Donna is part of a slate of Democratic challengers across the country running against Democrats who supported the war and continued military buildup. And she won, not a little bit, but huge, with the exact same margin of victory as Obama.

People who know Maryland's fighting 4th tell me the little old lady faithful stayed with Winn. They've voted for him for years and saw no reason to change. So what made the difference for Donna is not the party faithful but new voters, or occasional voters; people who don't usually come in in droves in primaries.

We all know about the Clinton coattails (in his second presidential bid, Clinton not only maintained his loss of Democratic control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 50 years, but Democrats lost gubernatorial seats and control of state legislatures across the country).

I love the idea of peace candidate Obama first sweeping in new peace Democrats in the primaries, and perhaps adding to the Democrats' margin in November, transforming it in the bargain from a majority of Democrats, to, dare I hope? a majority of progressives.

Monday, February 04, 2008

"Nostalgia" for the Clinton Administration; Yes on 93 and other Unsolicited Advice on the California Primary Tomorrow

1. The Democratic presidential primary. I loved the L.A. Times Editorial for Obama on Saturday (link above and here). I can't possibly improve upon how they said it. This is a historic choice and the right choice is Obama.

I can't resist, however, a little last minute reminder in case anyone is having nostalgia for the Clinton administration. In the Bush era, believe me, it's easy to have nostalgia for Bill Clinton (hell, under Bush, I've even had nostalgia for Richard Nixon) but the time to wax nostalgic for just any Democrat is not in the primary, it's the general election.

Get a cuppa, relax and let's enjoy a trip down memory lane with the Clinton administration, some highlights:

**"don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military
**welfare "reform"
**passage of NAFTA and paving the way for free trade agreements that run roughshod over the environment, health and safety rules, and consumer protection (can anyone say lead toys from China? A direct legacy of this administration)
**weakening the enforcement of clean and safe food regulations, so that we began to have ecoli outbreaks in burgers, fear of mad cow disease, and many other problems in food safety that hadn't happened since the laws were strengthened in the early 70s.

and the number one legacy of the Clinton administration (drumroll please):
losing Democratic control of the Congress for the first time in 40 years!

No. Obama's not perfect. Many of his positions seem a little too calculated, mainstream and corporate-oriented for me. But here's what I believe about him. He has been against the Iraq war from the start. His record as a legislator in Illinois and in the U.S. Senate shows that he is a progressive (he started out as a community organizer). He is smart enough to create enough of a makeover for him to win the White House in November. He is an orator. He is a leader. He is inspiring. His very name, his very skin, his very being will be a healing presence for the nation and hence the whole world. Vote for Obama tomorrow.

And remember, the delegates are awarded congressional district by congressional district, so Clinton could win the popular vote in California but Obama could still get a delegate from your congressional district (for example, it's neck and neck in Sacramento Matsui's district here). So every vote matters. And if you're in a Republican district, don't despair, they only count the Democratic votes in the Democratic primary!

2. On the rest of the ballot. All you need to remember is Yes on 93, no on all the the other California propositions. Regardless of what you think of the current leaders of the legislature, it will bring increased sanity to California government to have legislators develop greater expertise and stay in one house for longer instead of hopping from Assembly to Senate.

I have worked in and around the California legislature for almost 10 years and I have seen speakers come and go. We need to retain experienced legislators and the only way we can tackle any of the big intractable problems in California is to develop a consensus over time. The current term limits law doesn't allow that to happen.

No on the Indian gaming pacts. No on the education initiatives because it unfairly ties their hands.

Re-read my husband's recommendations for more details on these if you like.

Bill Magavern's ballot recommendations.

See you at the Obama victory party!

Friday, February 01, 2008

The Edwards Effect by Paul Krugman

The Edwards Effect
By PAUL KRUGMAN in the New York Times
Published: February 1, 2008

So John Edwards has dropped out of the race for the presidency. By normal political standards, his campaign fell short.
Skip to next paragraph

Paul Krugman.
Go to Columnist Page » Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal

But Mr. Edwards, far more than is usual in modern politics, ran a campaign based on ideas. And even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built.

To understand the extent of the Edwards effect, you have to think about what might have been.

At the beginning of 2007, it seemed likely that the Democratic nominee would run a cautious campaign, without strong, distinctive policy ideas. That, after all, is what John Kerry did in 2004.

If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit.

It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.

Before the Edwards plan was unveiled, advocates of universal health care had difficulty getting traction, in part because they were divided over how to get there. Some advocated a single-payer system — a k a Medicare for all — but this was dismissed as politically infeasible. Some advocated reform based on private insurers, but single-payer advocates, aware of the vast inefficiency of the private insurance system, recoiled at the prospect.

With no consensus about how to pursue health reform, and vivid memories of the failure of 1993-1994, Democratic politicians avoided the subject, treating universal care as a vague dream for the distant future.

But the Edwards plan squared the circle, giving people the choice of staying with private insurers, while also giving everyone the option of buying into government-offered, Medicare-type plans — a form of public-private competition that Mr. Edwards made clear might lead to a single-payer system over time. And he also broke the taboo against calling for tax increases to pay for reform.

Suddenly, universal health care became a possible dream for the next administration. In the months that followed, the rival campaigns moved to assure the party’s base that it was a dream they shared, by emulating the Edwards plan. And there’s little question that if the next president really does achieve major health reform, it will transform the political landscape.

Similar if less dramatic examples of leadership followed on other key issues. For example, Mr. Edwards led the way last March by proposing a serious plan for responding to climate change, and at this point both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are offering far stronger measures to limit emissions of greenhouse gases than anyone would have expected to see on the table not long ago.

Unfortunately for Mr. Edwards, the willingness of his rivals to emulate his policy proposals made it hard for him to differentiate himself as a candidate; meanwhile, those rivals had far larger financial resources and received vastly more media attention. Even The Times’s own public editor chided the paper for giving Mr. Edwards so little coverage.

And so Mr. Edwards won the arguments but not the political war.

Where will Edwards supporters go now? The truth is that nobody knows.

Yes, Mr. Obama is also running as a “change” candidate. But he isn’t offering the same kind of change: Mr. Edwards ran an unabashedly populist campaign, while Mr. Obama portrays himself as a candidate who can transcend partisanship — and given the economic elitism of the modern Republican Party, populism is unavoidably partisan.

It’s true that Mr. Obama has tried to work some populist themes into his campaign, but he apparently isn’t all that convincing: the working-class voters Mr. Edwards attracted have tended to favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Obama.

Furthermore, to the extent that this remains a campaign of ideas, it remains true that on the key issue of health care, the Clinton plan is more or less identical to the Edwards plan. The Obama plan, which doesn’t actually achieve universal coverage, is considerably weaker.

One thing is clear, however: whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign.

Personal appeal won’t do the job: history shows that Republicans are very good at demonizing their opponents as individuals. Mrs. Clinton has already received the full treatment, while Mr. Obama hasn’t — yet. But if he gets the nod, watch how quickly conservative pundits who have praised him discover that he has deep character flaws.

If Democrats manage to get the focus on their substantive differences with the Republicans, however, polls on the issues suggest that they’ll have a big advantage. And they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.