Friday quartet
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - American Debate
Friday quartet
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
On various fronts:It's hard to overstate the importance of the impending House floor vote on health care reform, now scheduled for Saturday night. The moment of truth is finally at hand. For the ruling Democrats, this is akin to a standing at home plate in the late innings of a crucial World Series game; either they put the barrel of the bat on the ball, or they might as well hit the showers. If they somehow suffer more than 40 rank-and-file defections and the reform bill goes down (seemingly unlikely), the whole timetable for bringing a final measure to President Obama by the close of '09 will be upended. And then we're into an election year; fence-sitting politicians are congenitally averse to taking any legislative risks in an election year. So it's probably now or never for the Democratic leaders to figure out how to tweak the reform package in ways that will make it liberal enough for their liberal lawmakers and conservative enough for their Blue Dog and moderate lawmakers. Such is the prime challenge of a big-tent party. No doubt the Republicans would prefer to be running things, rather than naysaying from the sidelines; on other hand, because they are more ideologically homogeneous, they don't have the headaches that come with trying to herd various breeds of cats.
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Speaking of the House Republicans, they unveiled their own health care reform proposal the other day. Finally. It's a meaningless gesture, given the fact that they held power for eight years while one of their own party brethren sat in the White House, yet never showed the slightest interest in the issue. And sure enough, the new GOP proposal is a veritable blueprint for the status quo. The Congressional Budget Office has already checked it out: "By 2019, (we) estimate, the number of non-elderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million non-elderly residents uninsured." The GOP proposal wouldn't even prohibit the insurance companies from denying coverage to Americans with pre-existing health conditions. No wonder Americans continue to trust the Democrats far more than the Republicans on health care, even with all the public skepticism about the Obama agenda. Nor did the House Republicans help themselves yesterday, when they pandered to a crowd (bused to the Capitol by a corporate front group) that was heavily populated by the usual suspects yelling about Obama's Nazi/communist/Kenyan heritage. It was pathetic to watch Republican leader John Boehner bond with the loons by declaring that health care reform is "the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington." Well, gee. Until Boehner enlightened me, I had assumed that, in all those years, the crashing of a planeful of innocent Americans into the Pentagon had been the greatest assault on freedom. I stand corrected.
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Speaking of the people who are really running the GOP these days, consider Club for Growth, the well-heeled organization of economic conservatives that has made it a mission to purge the party of all ideological diversity. Fresh from its debacle this past week in upstate New York - where the group drove a moderate Republican out of an easily winnable congressional race by pumping a million bucks into the candidacy of a conservative who wound up losing - Club for Growth is now doubling down by targeting Charlie Crist, the electable Republican senatorial candidate in Florida. Crist is the (relatively) moderate Florida governor who made the inexcusable mistake of welcoming federal stimulus money (as well as Obama personally) last winter; today, fearful of the right's wrath, he's trying to play down that behavior - and Club for Growth is running Florida TV ads to ensure that '10 Republican primary voters won't forget. Club's efforts will boost Crist's conservative challenger, ex-Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, and further ratchet up internal GOP tensions between the grassroots right and the more pragmatic party establishment. The same thing seems likely to happen next year in contested Republican primaries, for both House and Senate seats, in California, Illinois, North Carolina, Kentucky, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Is this healthy for the party? Nor according to the reliably Republican Wall Street Journal editorial page: "A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience of your average right-wing blogger or talk show host....If conservatives now revolt against every GOP candidate who disagrees with them (on key issues), nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will keep their majorities for a very long time." Tell that to Rush and Sarah and Glenn and Club.
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Regarding Tuesday's Virginia gubernatorial contest, it's too simplistic to say that Virginians, having supported Obama a year ago, have now repudiated Obama by picking a Republican governor. Such was the flawed theme of many news reports. Based on my look at the exit polls, it is far more accurate to say that a different Virginia electorate - far more conservative than the state's '08 electorate - showed up on Tuesday. When asked who they supported in the '08 presidential election, 51 percent of this week's Virginia voters named John McCain, and only 43 percent named Obama. That's a virtual reversal of the '08 statewide electorate's verdict: 53 percent Obama, 46 percent McCain. A comparison of the two electorates makes it clear that conservatives were motivated to show up and vote, while the '08 Obama voters simply stayed home. Some were probably ill-inspired by the uninspiring Democrat for governor, Creigh Deeds. But my educated guess is that far more were simply dispirited by the general state of things, particularly the economy. And economic anxiety played a big role in Jon Corzine's New Jersey gubernatorial defeat as well; according to the Jersey exit polls, 56 percent of the voters were "very worried" about how the economy will perform in the year ahead, and those worriers broke for Republican Chris Christie, 61-34. As I said here a few weeks ago, incumbent parties tend to get blamed in bad economic times, and today's new jobless figures - topping 10 percent nationwide - won't help the Democrats either. Obama economic adviser Christina Romer admitted this morning: "Having the unemployment rate reach double-digits is a stark reminder of how much work remains to be done before American families see the job gains and reduced unemployment that they need and deserve." If the Democrats want to minimize their losses in the '10 congressional elections, they need to post perceivable job gains by next spring. They have a very narrow time window.
NEPhilly: it lowers coverage among some of those that have it and doesn't really cover anyone new. OF COURSE it's cheaper.— still_independent- tom : "Just goes to show how counting "saved jobs" is just so much nonsense." i agree. yet you tout a just as innacurate number, the unemployment rate, several times a day.— still_independent
- From NBC Chicago "President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships. After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective. But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?"— tom - wilmington, de
- swedesboromike: "It certainly would include such things like it was another affirmation of the Obama coalition and further proof that Republicans are out of touch." You love to ASSume what other's might say, and then attack them on it. Both before and after the election I have been consistent. Anyone that votes for any candidate in a statewide office based upon the occupant of a national office is a complete and utter moron.— still_independent
- still, then since the unemployment number is inaccurate, we should just stop reporting it, and never again mention the rates under Clinton, Reagan, Carter, FDR, or any other president past, present or future. Why even count a number that is inaccurate? Good point.— tom - wilmington, de
- still, it is $1 Tril cheaper over 10 years and probably $2 Tril cheaper in years 10-20 and so on and so on. As for expanding coverage, cutting premiums and having states start pools for higher risk people sounds like a bettter idea to me. I also would go for spending more to make buying health insurance by individuals tax deductible, like it is for companies (I wonder how I could get the CBO to score that:)— NEPhilly
- Still Independent- Are you saying I am wrong? So if Christie and McDonnel lost what would you have said?
- Still Independent- from November 5th 2008- "Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Democrats, fueled by enthusiasm for President-elect Barack Obama, extended their hold on U.S. governors' offices with wins in Missouri, North Carolina and five other states." so when Democrats win governorships it is fueled by Obama but when you lose it has nothing to do with Obama. Utterly pricesless.
- Tom - How laughable is that. Now the unemployment rate is innacurate. We'll have to file that post away to be used at a later time.
Comment removed.- tom/swedesboromike and now jwad: we can compare the unemployement rate between different eras, and since the methodology is relatively the same. But you guys act like there is ANY difference between 9.8 and 10.2. there isn't. This only came up in that Tom (perhaps rightfully) dismisses the "jobs saved" number. I'm fine with that. But you can't dismiss that number and act like a 0.2 or 0.4 increase actually means anything. In some cases, the unemployment rates drops when the actual number employed drops as well. You can look up the Current Population Survey to get the details, but they basically survey 60,000 households. People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm. People are also counted as employed if they were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management disputes, or personal reasons. People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following criteria: They were not employed during the reference week; They were available for work at that time; They made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. (The exception to this category covers persons laid off from a job and expecting recall). Those who are not classified as employed or unemployed are not counted as part of the labor force. They are tracked as "discouraged workers". So students are not unemployed if they went back to school because they got laid off and were unable to find work. Yet the person with the MBA working ten hours a week at 7-11 IS employed. Those who have given up looking? Not unemployed. .... Again, I'm OK with the unemployment rate as a general indicator. Just stop pretending that decimals of percentages matter. Swede - you yourself continually bring up the "real" rate— still_independent
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- Comment removed.
- jwad: I will agree that the double digit number probably is an important psychological barrier. And since consumer confidence/spending is so important, it probably does matter in that sense (although I doubt if the average person on the street could tell you what the current rate is). And obviously, lower is better. I think some parts of the stimuls worked (clunkers, unemployment benefits, homebuyer's credit) and some parts didn't. If I weren't so debt averse, I'd probably have preferred it me bigger.— still_independent
- swedesboromike : my other post went into the ether. You ask "if Christie and McDonnel lost what would you have said?" If Christie lost, I would have said that Daggett cost him the election (as I was an example of this). VA I would have probably left uncommented, as I didn't really delve into the dynamics of the race, nor does it affect me in any way. Now as to the cut-and-paste, look at the date. 2008. Turnout is MUCH higher in a presidential year. Do you deny this? It's called coat tails. there is a measurable effect. As an example, usually the party of the winner picks up seats in congress during a presidential election year. Obviously, Obama had more supporters at the polls. that means more Democrats. So there are more democrats available to pull the democratic lever. Note that they spoke about "enthusiasm". If you don't get the difference between that and "rebuke of Obama and his policies" then I can't help you. ... Speaking of which, stop using "you" as in "you lost". I am not a registered democrat. I have never voted for Obama. I have never voter for Corzine. I have never written for Bloomsberg. As I keep posting, I vote for individual candiates. I wish I could do your "Vote of the Living Dead" thing, where just can stumble aimlessly into the voting booth and mindlessly push all the buttons in one column. but I can't. Sorry.— still_independent
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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