issue: Politics

Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Wednesday night’s first presidential debate has thrown calculations about the presidential contest into some disarray, though it probably won’t be until after the weekend that sufficient public opinion surveys will have appeared to get a sense of whether Mitt Romney’s undisputed (if perhaps disputed in its extent or implications) win over the president will have any impact on the actual race, which has been remarkably stable for a very long time.

Political Scientist John Sides is one of the few to make a specific prediction: that Romney would likely enjoy a 1.25% “bump” in national polls, at least temporarily.  Some observers who had earlier thought Romney’s prospects for victory were evaporating viewed his debate performance as crucial in keeping donors from cutting their losses and focusing on downballot races.

In terms of the strategic impact of the first debate, the general view is that Romney sought and to some extent succeeded in repositioning himself to “the political center,” via his hedging on his earlier tax cut proposal, his passionate declaration of interest in public education and the protection of Medicare, his claims of possessing a viable alternative to Obamacare that would protect those with pre-existing conditions, and his assertion that he’d been more open to bipartisan cooperation than Obama.  It appears this tack by Romney threw the Obama campaign off-balance, contributing to a low-key and not terribly responsive performance by the president (who had allegedly decided against too many sharp attacks on his struggling opponent). Interestingly, after months and months of demands by conservatives that Romney run a sharply ideological “choice” campaign based on his running-mate’s budget, his very different tack in the debate drew virtually no criticism, presumably because conservatives were so delighted by Obama’s discomfiture and “defeat.”  The framing of the debate by moderator Jim Lehrer made it very difficult for Obama to bring up Romney’s vulnerabilities on cultural issues, though it’s surprising he didn’t find a way to bring up Mitt’s recently revealed remarks about “the 47%.” Continue reading “Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report” →

Moderate Mitt Returns

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

No one should be surprised that Mitt Romney turned in a strong debate performance last night. After a string of missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds stretching back to the Republican National Convention, his campaign had stalled and was losing altitude. Whereas President Obama merely had to avoid mistakes, Romney needed to pull himself out of a political tailspin.

Did he succeed? The commentariat says yes, but it has a vested interest in keeping the presidential race close. It will take a few days to gauge the debate’s impact on actual voters, but it’s probably safe to say Romney was won himself a fresh hearing.

Most important, Romney used the first presidential debate to reposition himself closer to the political center. This was just the opposite of what he had done during the GOP primary debates. Then, Romney worked hard to ingratiate himself with the ultra-conservative Republican base by attacking his rivals from the right — for example, by lambasting Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a softie on immigration.

Last night, in a bravura act of self-revisionism, Romney recast himself as the Massachusetts moderate he vehemently denied being during the primaries.

In the primaries, Romney had railed against regulation as a mortal threat to America’s “job creators.” Last night’s moderate Mitt sounded more reasonable, embracing the general need for regulation while singling out a few provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law he regards as going too far. Continue reading “Moderate Mitt Returns” →

Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The President’s modest but wide-ranging lead in most national and battleground state polls is no longer dismissible as a post-convention “bounce,” and is beginning to engender some serious concern in Republican circles. NBC’s First Read has a useful summary of that network’s own polling:

We’ve now released nine battleground state NBC/WSJ/Marist polls in the last three weeks, and what have we learned? President Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney in all nine, with his biggest leads being 7 and 8 points (in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Iowa) and his smallest edge at 2 points (in Nevada and North Carolina). Obama’s average percentage in these polls is 49.5% and Romney’s is 44% — which is consistent with the national polls (see below). Our state surveys also show a slight improvement in voters who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction. And they find Obama and Romney essentially tied on who would better handle the economy, while Obama mostly enjoys double-digit leads on foreign policy.

Republican reactions to these numbers have fallen into three categories. Some express no particular concerns, suggesting it remains a close race where some combination of heavy pro-Romney, anti-Obama advertising, better-than-expected debate performances, and a general realization of the incumbent’s “failure” could easily turn things around. Others are more concerned, and are offering various ideas for a Romney “comeback,” ranging from a harshly conservative comparative assault on the president (with loud-and-proud association of the ticket with the Ryan Budget and other provocative policies) to highly targeted voter appeals. And still others are attacking with considerable ferocity the accuracy of polls (other than those from the reliably pro-GOP Rasmussen firm), arguing either deliberate bias or skewed 2008-based samples, or both. Continue reading “Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters” →

Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Twas another week when negative attention to comments by Mitt Romney combined with relatively strong poll showings by Barack Obama made observers wonder if the incumbent is still enjoying a post-convention “bounce,” is actually opening up a serious lead, or is fundamentally still in a very close race with the challenger.

As surely everyone has heard by now, a neglected videotape (unearthed and publicized by Mother Jones’ David Corn) of a May appearance by Romney at a Boca Raton fundraiser showed him embracing a Randian view of American society in which the 47% of households who don’t (currently) owe federal income taxes are locked into “dependence on government” and are sure Obama voters of no concern to the candidate and his virtuous coalition of productive folk. Aside from exposing Romney to Democratic criticism and media ridicule, the incident immediately set off an extended intramural debate among conservatives over the accuracy and political wisdom of his “47%” characterization (called, for example, “libertarian nonsense” by conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson).

In terms of the state of the race, the consensus seems to be that Obama currently enjoys about a 4-point lead among likely voters, though the major dissenter, the Gallup Tracking Poll, which shows Obama’s “convention bounce” gone and the race tied, is unusually prestigious. Another consensus finding is that the “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats has largely evaporated, which means Romney is not getting the polling “bump” long expected when pollsters started applying LV “screens” to the respondents. A heavy battery of battleground-state polls have been coming out this week, most providing good news for Obama (he’s led in all 21 post-convention polls of the ten closest battleground states that were conducted by traditional, phone-interview methodologies; robopolls have been somewhat less favorable), particularly in Virginia, Iowa and Colorado; Florida and (especially) North Carolina are dicier for the president. A closer national race, of course, would be reflected in closer battleground results, though the playing field is somewhat tilted to Obama so long as he looks strong in Virginia, Ohio and Iowa. Continue reading “Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign” →

WTO Filing a Step Toward Enhancing Competitiveness

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Are U.S. manufacturing jobs gone for good? Many so-called experts have mocked the Obama Administration’s latest trade action against China as being fundamentally useless, the economic equivalent of spitting into the wind. After all, factory job seem like a relic of the past.

Yet by our calculations, the U.S. could regain 4 million jobs in manufacturing at relatively low cost – if we follow the right policies. PPI does not advocate a trade war with China, or a tit-for-tat exchange of trade actions. But taking legitimate disputes to the WTO is the right way to enforce the rules – and in most cases to date with China the U.S. has had success. Such carefully targeted actions, back by accurate data, could make a big difference in boosting the economy.

That’s because we are fighting to recapture competitiveness that may have been disingenuously lost. When countries like China provide non-market financing or other subsidies to industries like automobiles, it gives their companies an advantage that wouldn’t be there absent government support. Such an advantage negatively impacts U.S. companies trying to compete, even if China does not export directly to the U.S. As the NYT explains, “While China exports virtually no fully assembled cars to the United States, it has rapidly expanded exports to developing countries, and those exports compete to some extent with cars exported from or designed in the United States.”

Monday’s WTO filing may be a small first step, but we must start somewhere. We are in a slow-growth economy with an anemic labor market. If we want U.S. companies to keep and increase production (and jobs) here, if we want to close the non-oil trade gap, we must be competitive. And it would help if we gave U.S. companies a level playing field to fight on instead of an uphill battle. Continue reading “WTO Filing a Step Toward Enhancing Competitiveness” →

Election Watch: Obama’s Post-Convention Bounce and Romney Presses on in Shrinking Battleground

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The week after the conclusion of the two national political conventions has been lively, to say the least. Amid signs of a modest post-convention “bounce” for Obama, augmented by some favorable economic signs, the Romney campaign seems to be undergoing one of its periodic mini-crises, launching risky personal attacks on the president even as intraparty criticism reemerges about his campaign strategy and execution.

The Obama “bounce,” initially measured at around five points (after a one-to-two point bounce for Romney), seems to mainly involve renewed enthusiasm among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (as reflected in relatively small “gaps” between Obama’s standing in registered-voter and likely-voter polls, with the latter beginning to be deployed by most of the major polling firms). Aside from taking a small but significant lead in virtually all of the “horse-race” polls (and in polls of most battleground states), the president’s job approval rating in the much-watched Gallup tracking survey has broken the crucial 50% barrier. Moreover, the positive feelings emanating from the Democratic convention seems to have obscured any backlash to a tepid August jobs report. Subsequent positive market reactions to a Eurozone “rescue” plan and just today to the Federal Reserve Board’s announcement of a third—and this time, open-ended—round of “quantitative easing,” help boost a shaky but very real aura of economic optimism that could be critical for the incumbent.
Continue reading “Election Watch: Obama’s Post-Convention Bounce and Romney Presses on in Shrinking Battleground” →

Debacle in Chicago

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Chicago teachers’ strike is turning into an all-round debacle – for school children and their families, for President Obama and his party, and quite likely for the teachers themselves. Only Republicans are smiling, as the strike supplies fresh fodder to their campaign to vilify and weaken public sector unions.

By shutting down the city’s public schools over a contract dispute, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has left about 350,000 students in the lurch, not to mention their parents, who’ve had to scramble to find safe places to park them during the day. Even if you think the teachers have valid grievances, it’s hard to justify using Chicago’s public school students as pawns in a political test of will with city leaders.

Now in its fourth day, the strike also threatens to throw a monkey wrench into President Obama’s finely tuned campaign machine.

Chicago, after all, is the President’s home town. Its mayor, the sharp-tongued Rahm Emanuel, is Obama’s former Chief of Staff and a key political ally. The CTU, 25,000 members strong, is furious at Emanuel for pushing accountability measures it claims are unfair to teachers. And teachers’ unions are a potent source of votes and money for Democrats.

The stage is thus set for a family feud among Democrats at the worst possible moment – just as Obama seems to be pulling away from Mitt Romney.

Continue reading at The Hill.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Idealism without Illusion: Henry Jackson at 100

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI’s Will Marshall is quoted in World Affairs on the need to rebalance U.S. foreign policy:

My wager is that Jackson would have cheered on the Democratic Leadership Council’s Will Marshall, who has called for another rebalancing of US foreign policy. The course correction from the George W. Bush years was necessary, he argues, but the chastened realism of his successor is an over-correction that must be addressed in turn. Marshall, the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, argues, in true Jacksonian style, that

the administration’s policy of reassurance and strategic humility … has overlooked … the “values dimension” of American power as well as the ideological wellsprings of conflict in today’s networked world.

While noting that Obama’s closure of the half-century national security confidence gap between the Democrats and Republicans is “no mean feat,” Marshall points out that when it really matters—for example, when Iran’s Green Movement was repressed in 2009 and needed support, or when the ideological roots of violent extremism needs articulating and combating—“the president seems to lose his voice.”

Read the entire article here.

Michelle’s Winning Message

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Michelle Obama cleaned Mitt Romney’s clock last night. By recounting the sacrifices her family and her husband’s family made to give their children a better life, she put the lie to Republican claims that Democrats stand for entitlements and dependency.

Obama exemplifies the middle class values and aspirations that Republicans love to extol, but unlike them she understands the social context that makes personal success possible — supportive families and communities and public investments that give everyone a shot at opportunity. By emphasizing her own blue collar roots and work ethic, she made it clear she doesn’t need lectures from GOP trust fund babies about the threat moochers, free loaders and “takers” supposedly pose to U.S. prosperity.

Opportunity, responsibility, community – haven’t we heard Obama’s message somewhere before? In any case, it’s the right answer to the GOP’s chilly new brand of selfish, anti-social, and anything-but-compassionate conservatism.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Renewing America’s Fighting Faith

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI’s Will Marshall writes for Foreign Policy on why Barack Obama’s correction to the excesses of the George W. Bush years was necessary, and why a cold-blooded realism is not enough to safeguard America interests and promote its values.

One of the most striking aspects of the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign has been Barack Obama’s ability to neutralize the Republican Party’s traditional advantage on national security. Voters see Obama as a better commander in chief than Mitt Romney and have more confidence in his ability to handle foreign policy.

How much this will matter in an election dominated by economic anxiety remains to be seen. But closing the national security confidence gap that has dogged Democrats for nearly 50 years is no mean accomplishment — if it lasts.

Republicans, meanwhile, have splintered into rival camps. Centrist internationalists like Dick Lugar are out of favor, leaving realists, neocons, Tea Party nationalists, and neo-isolationists to battle it out for the party’s soul. Romney hasn’t even tried to weave a coherent story about America’s global role from such incongruous strands, confining himself instead to scattershot criticisms of Obama’s polices and hackneyed slogans about “American exceptionalism” and “peace through strength.”

Read the entire article.

Election Watch: Look Back, Look Forward

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Today we’re going to take a look back at the Republican National Convention, and a look ahead at the Democratic confab.

Republicans entered their convention with multiple challenges: (1) introducing Paul Ryan; (2) reintroducing Mitt Romney; (3) showing some diversity in a party that’s in deep trouble with minority voters; (4) exhibiting excitement and enthusiasm; (5) tightening their negative case against Barack Obama; (6) presenting a plausible positive agenda related to the shortcomings in Obama’s performance they had identified; and (7) avoiding mistakes.

The general judgment (or mine, anyway) is that they did a reasonably good job with (1), (3) and (5); a minimally effective job with (2) and (4); and fell significantly short on (6) and (7). Some of these tasks involved serious tradeoffs: Ryan’s effective speech, and to a considerable extent Romney self-“humanization,” came at the direct expense of a positive presentation of a coherent agenda. You’d never know listening to Ryan that he was the author of a budget resolution that constitutes most of the GOP agenda; to the uninitiated, he came across as a nice, non-controversial young man who is most focused on protecting his mother’s Medicare benefits from Barack Obama. This image will obviously not bear a great deal of scrutiny. Despite a brisk recitation of his alleged 5-point “jobs plan,” Romney did not do much to connect his burnished autobiography to any policy specifics, particularly as related to economic recovery and jobs.  His speech may have been effectively reassuring to voters who have already decisively turned against the incumbent and simply want to be convinced the GOP nominee is not a robotic corporate executive, but didn’t exactly seal the deal otherwise. Continue reading “Election Watch: Look Back, Look Forward” →

The Anti-Reagan: Even A Hologram Of The Gipper Overshadows Mitt Romney

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Writing for the Daily Beast, Will Marshall argues Ronald Reagan, whatever his failings, was a man of convictions. Mitt Romney, by contrast, is a man of circumstance.

In a small but telling episode, Republican activists reportedly blocked a plan for a surprise speech outside the party’s convention—by a hologram of Ronald Reagan. They feared the projection would overshadow living candidate Mitt Romney’s speech accepting the GOP nomination.

It was the right call. The Tampa Republicans have resigned themselves to Romney, but they positively adore Reagan. The last thing they needed was a giant holographic image reminding them of how very unlike the Gipper their nominee is.

Reagan was the ultimate conviction politician. It helped, of course, that he was a genial ex-actor who knew how to deliver a line. But his political career was anchored in the bedrock of certain political beliefs: individual liberty, free enterprise, anti-statism, and America’s democratic mission. Even many who disagreed with Reagan or thought his views too simplistic admired his sincere and steadfast dedication to these principles.

Read the entire article. 

Romney’s stance on housing: ‘Let it run its course’

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI’s Jason Gold was quoted in foxnews.com about the way Romney wants to fix the ailing housing market:

“Romney’s running as Mr. Fix-it on the economy, but he has nothing to say  about one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle,” said Jason Gold, a senior fellow  at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank  affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Gold, who specializes in housing policy, questioned whether Romney’s  selection of Ryan as a running mate indicates he supports privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Ryan called for in a budget blueprint last year. Romney  hasn’t said.

Many conservatives argue such a move would finally untangle government — and  taxpayers — from the mortgage business. Gold calls it an impractical step that would almost  certainly end the days of 30-year fixed mortgages. “It would take a sledgehammer to the housing market and throw us right back into recession.”

Read the entire article here. 

 

What Paul Ryan learned from Jack Kemp

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Washington Post’s Suzy Khimm quotes Will Marshall on Jack Kemp and Empower America:

“What the Empower America folks wanted to do is move beyond the green eyeshade, balance-the-budget message of traditional conservatism. They didn’t want to have simply a negative narrative about government,” said Will Marshall, who headed a similar policy shop for Clinton’s New Democrats.

Marshall also pointed out that Kemp went out of his way to advocate for new ways of helping low-income Americans. He proposed creating specially targeted business and income-tax breaks in designated “enterprise zones” of high poverty as an alternative to direct government handouts.

Read the entire article.

Election Watch: Akin’s Flap May Doom GOP Senate Takeover Chances

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s a rare event when a Senate contest affects a presidential campaign—or indeed, an entire election cycle. But for the moment, that’s what seems to have happened in Missouri, thanks to freshly minted GOP nominee Todd Akin’s witless talk about abortion and rape, and his determination (so far) to stay in the race despite threats and importuning from practically the entire Republican Party and conservative movement (with the exception of a few Christian Right colleagues). Most immediately, Akin’s big mistake has demolished what Republicans thought to be their most promising Senate takeover opportunity this year. Shortly after his primary win over two other major conservative opponents earlier this month, Akin, long considered the weakest of the available candidates, had already opened up a big lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill, and was beginning to consolidate conservative support very rapidly. Now a new Rasmussen poll (of all things!) shows McCaskill up by ten points, with Akin’s favorable/unfavorable ratio at a disastrous 35/53 level.

No one but Akin himself can get the wounded candidate off the ballot at this point, and with the deadline for an easy withdrawal and replacement by the state party having already passed, it would be complicated to make the switch, aside from the depleted resources, hurt feelings and late start a new nominee would inherit. So we are now in the midst of a game of “chicken” in which Akin may still believe the state and national GOP will relent and support his candidacy once the current furor has ended, and Republicans will undoubtedly keep the pressure on to convince him he’s throwing away a Senate seat and the good will of the party forever and ever. My money’s on an eventual withdrawal, but the hard-core public support he’s gotten to hang tough from Mike Huckabee, a pretty formidable figure in the GOP and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, is an important counterweight to that temptation. Another factor will be whether grassroots Christian Right forces around the country embrace Akin as a martyr to their ban-abortion-with-no-exceptions cause, and provide him with the money to run a credible campaign without the party, 501(c)(4) and super PAC funds he’s been denied. Continue reading “Election Watch: Akin’s Flap May Doom GOP Senate Takeover Chances” →