Posts by Chris Bowers

Chris Bowers was a full-time editor at MyDD from May 2004 until June 2007. Some of his projects have included the creation of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, the first scientifically random poll of progressive netroots activists, the Use It Or Lose It campaign, the nation's most accurate forecast of Democratic house pickups in 2006, and the 2006 Googlebomb the Elections campaign.

More Republicans Think Obama Stole an Election than Democrats Believe Bush Did
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on November 20, 2009 at 9:53 AM.

A new survey from PPP (PDF) shows that 26% of Americans, most of whom are Republicans, think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama.

For the sake of comparison, a Gallup poll immediately following Gore's concession in the 2000 election showed that 18% of the county, a significant percentage of whom were African-American, believed that Bush stole the election.

In 2004, the numbers for Bush were even lower.  Back then, in the wake of Kerry's concession, a Gallup poll showed only 13% of the country believed that Bush stole the election.  (FWIW, I was among the 5% or so that shifted from 2000 to 2004.)

This is simultaneously a demonstration that hard-core conservatives live in an entirely different reality than the rest of the country, and that the hardcore conservative base is as much as twice as large as the hardcore progressive base. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Ned Lamont to Run for Governor of Connecticut
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on November 4, 2009 at 7:30 PM.

This just in--Ned Lamont is looking to run for Governor in Connecticut:

NED LAMONT ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE

Norwalk, CT - Ned Lamont, successful businessman, co-founder of the state policy center at Central Connecticut State University, and Democratic nominee for US Senate in 2006, announced that he will be filing papers today with the State Elections Enforcement Commission establishing an Exploratory Committee for statewide office:

"As I have continued to meet with citizens across our state over the last three years, as co-chairman of President Obama's Connecticut campaign and on behalf of health care reform, I have been constantly reminded that Connecticut is not living up to its potential and that too many of our families are being left behind," said Lamont.

"Like businesses, states thrive with strong executive leadership, and they fall behind with weak leadership. As measured by the loss of jobs, young people leaving our state, and the never-ending budget crisis, Connecticut's Chief Executive is simply not getting the job done."

There is no polling on Lamont in this campaign. Republian Governor Jodi Rell is able to run for another term, and was popular as of February. However, that could easily change in the current, anti-incumbent climate.

A couple other Democrats have announced they are running, as well.

There are not many progressive Democratic Governors.  Lamont's entry into this campaign could change that.

No More Excuses: John Tester Brings 51st Senate Vote for Public Option
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on October 10, 2009 at 4:40 AM.

I have just received word that Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) would vote in favor of Senator Schumer's "level playing field" public option.

This pushes the Senate whip count to 51, even without Joe Biden casting a tie-breaking vote.

Since there are now finally 60 active, voting Democrats, it is possible to break any Republican filibuster. Hell, it actually only requires 51 votes to break a filibuster, if Senators were more honest about process. Further, if they didn't even want to both with filibusters, they could always just go with reconciliation, since Tester now gives them enough votes even if Robert Byrd (who is opposed to using reconciliation for health care) defects.

Senate Democrats have the votes. No more process excuses. Pass the public option.

Are There Enough Votes For a Public Option? Here's the Math
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on October 8, 2009 at 8:31 AM.

At the request of Speaker Pelosi, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is currently undertaking a whip count to see if there are enough votes to pass a health care reform bill in that chamber with a "robust" public option (that is, a public option tied to Medicare rates, +5%).

As I reported on Friday, they began this whip count a couple weeks ago, interrupting their whip count of House Progressives who would vote against a health care reform without a robust public option to do so.

Yesterday, anonymous Blue Dog aides told Politico that Progressives had found only 145 votes for the robust public option during this whip count. This morning, Greg Sargent reports that Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Raul Grijalva's office is claiming a much higher number, around 180:

"I am confident that we have the support of over 70% of the Democratic Caucus," Grivalva said in a statement emailed my way. That means according to him, around 180 of the 256 Dems in the House are prepared to back the robust public option right now.

Sargent is correct, not the anonymous Blue Dog aides. I know this, because I have the actual numbers. As of Friday, here is where the whip count stood:

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3 Important Lessons Dems Should Learn From Grayson
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on October 1, 2009 at 3:01 PM.

Usually when Republicans and conservative media join together to throw a coordinated hissy fit against something "outrageous" a Democrat has said, it resulted in apologies (John Kerry in 2006), resignations (Van Jones) and public condemnations in Congress (MoveOn.org). Yesterday, however, Republicans actually backed down from their hissy fit when Rep. Alan Grayson stood up to them. Even as Grayson intensified his rhetoric, Republicans withdrew their resolution to condemn him on the House floor.

There were several important differences between this and most of the other attacks from the Republican manufactured outrage machine. Other Democrats in Congress could stand to learn from them: 

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Public Option Update: 51 Votes Secured on the Floor
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 29, 2009 at 1:12 PM.

Some big news in the Finance Committee mark-up:

• The Rockefeller amendment for a strong public option tied to Medicare rates was defeat by a vote of 8 in favor, 15 against. Senators Baucus, Carper, Conrad, Lincoln and Bill Nelson voted against.
• The Schumer amendment for a "level playing field" public option will be voted on next. So far, among opponents to Rockefeller amendment, already Bill Nelson has said he will vote in favor.
• Removing Baucus and adding Bill Nelson as a supporter of some sort of trigger-less public option keeps the whip count at the same number (and really, since we are now talking cloture instead of reconciliation, Byrd becomes a "yes," and we have a safety margin). There are still enough votes to pass a public option if it is included in the merged bill sent to the floor by the Budget Committee, and if it isn't filibustered.
• Update Carper votes in favor of Schumer public option. With Carper and Byrd, we don't even need Tester, Pryor or Begich. 51 votes now secured for Schumer public option on Senate floor. If this public option is in the bill and passes cloture, the public option will pass into law.

Dems Regain Electoral Footing Looking Ahead to 2010
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 25, 2009 at 4:14 PM.

Earlier in the week, in my first House forecast for 2010, I looked at generic congressional ballot polling from August 20th through September 17th.  At that time, the most recent survey from the nine polling organizations to publish generic congressional ballots conducted entirely since August 20th showed Democrats ahead by 3.5%.

However, several generic congressional ballots have been released since that time, which cumulatively show the Democratic position improving. Here are the most recent surveys from the eight polling organizations that have published generic congressional ballots which were conducted entirely since President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress. Most of the surveys can be found at Pollster.com.

House Generic Ballot Polling, 9/10-9/24

The tea-party is over. Since President Obama's speech on September 9th, Democrats have clearly regained their electoral footing. For all the conservative organizing around tea parties since March, Republicans have made up no ground at all in the generic congressional ballot. While Obama's approval rating has dipped, his net job approval of +7.5% is identical to his victory margin in the 2008 election. The only people Republicans have won over are people who already voted for them in 2008.

The problem Republicans face is that their members of Congress and leading spokespeople are engaging in pretty much the same behavior as their more bombastic astroturf / grassroots supporters. The image of "average citizens" yelling at powerful members of Congress plays well. The image of members of Congress engaging in the same behavior--not so much. In a sense, the lack of what Matt Stoller called a "rootsgap" in his farewell article at Open Left is keeping Republicans in a poor electoral position, while it keeps Democrats from passing good legislation. However, the Progressive Block is helping to solve that gap, and today I feel more optimistic about the short-term political future than I have in months.

Here's the Latest on Where the Fight for Health Care Stands
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 23, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

Here is context on where the health care campaign stands:

• Several reports claim that Speaker Pelsoi has nixed the deal Henry Waxman made with Blue Dogs to  pass a weakened health care bill through the Energy and Commerce committee back in July. While this would raise hopes for a stronger public option passing through the House, Pelosi's office denies that any deal has been made.
• House Democrats will meet Thursday to, among other things, discuss the public option. No word on how the Progressive caucus whip count went, but once this meeting is over I imagine we will know more.
• The Senate Finance Committee is continuing its markup--that is, debate and amendment process--over the Baucus health care bill. One of the reasons this committee is so problematic is because of how conservative it is. For one thing, the committee has 23 members, 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans, even though a 14-9 balance would have more closely reflected the 59-40 makeup of the Senate at the start of the 111th Congress. It is also loaded with some of the more conservative members of the caucus, including Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Blanche Lincoln, Bill Nelson, and Tom Carper.
• Kent Conrad wants to delay the Senate Finance bill by another two or three weeks so that he can read a CBO score. Fortunately, even Max Baucus thinks waiting that long is a bad idea. Double fortunately, there isn't really any deadline for reconciliation. While all committees with oversight have to report bills by October 15th in order for them to be eligible for reconciliation, there is no such deadline for the Senate Budget committee, which will merge the Finance and HELP committee bill. The Budget commitee can report a health care bill whenever it wants, and it will still be eligible for reconciliation.
• The key amendments that the Finance Committee will address are the Snowe trigger amendment, which Mike discussed earlier today, and three good strengthening amendments:
  
  AMENDMENTS TO SUPPORT

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Blue Dogs Offer Bogus Justifications for Opposing Real Health Reform
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 18, 2009 at 4:19 PM.

The primary justification that conservative and moderate Democrats offer for their policies is not the strength of the policy, but rather its electoral and legislative viability. The way that members of the Senate Conservadem group talking about the public option is a good example of this:

• Joe Lieberman cites the lack of votes as his main reason for opposing a public option:

  And the third, and probably the most important, the votes are not there for a public health plan, government-run option.

• Kent Conrad refuses to go on the record on a public option, simply declaring the issue "moot":

  Pressed, Conrad's spokesman said the senator doesn't have an opinion on the public option, because he believes the issue is "moot."

• Max Baucus:

  "The public option cannot pass the Senate," Baucus said.

• Bill Nelson:

  "You can't get 60 votes in the Senate," Nelson said of a public option. "I'm trying to get something passed."

• Mark Pryor:

  "My guess is that there are not votes to do it in the Senate, even a very modest public option like what he's talking about," Pryor said.

Instead of arguing against the public option in policy terms, the Senators instead argue that the public option simply cannot pass. In fact, among these five Senators, only Joe Lieberman has even stated his opposition to a public option--and Lieberman cites the inability of the public option to pass as his "most important" rationale for opposition.

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White House Summons Conservadems, Doesn't Call Progressives Back
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 10, 2009 at 10:15 AM.

It looks like I may have spoken too soon about House Progressives successfully forcing their way into key health care negotiations. From TPMDC, it appears the White House never called them back about their expected meeting with the President:

Remember back on Friday, President Obama discussed the public option on a conference call with House liberals? And remember how the upshot of that call was that Obama planned to meet yesterday with the chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, And Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus?

Well that meeting never happened. Yesterday, sources told me that the meeting hadn't been scheduled, but could happen as late as this morning. Today, a House aide tells me that it's not going to happen at all.

"They never called," the aide said.

This doesn't mean the meeting isn't going to happen. However, it does mean that the Congressional Progressive Caucus still doesn't have the same role in the negotiations as, say, the 16 Democratic Senators who have been summed to the White House:

ABC News has learned that President Obama will be meeting with 16 Democratic senators (and one "Independent Democrat") this afternoon at the White House.

They are: Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tom Carper of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

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President Olympia Snowe's Utterly Illogical Trigger Argument
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 9, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

Today, President Olympia Snowe declared her opposition to a public option:

"The point is I don't support a public option. And none of my Republican colleagues do and some Democrats in the Senate and even in the House. I think the point is how do we bridge the divide?" That is why, she said, she suggested the so-called trigger mechanism months ago.

In response to this statement, Open Left's rudimentary deductive logic analyst, Chris Bowers, says that if President Snowe opposes a public option, but she supports a trigger, then she only supports a trigger that well never result in a public option.  Otherwise, she is contradicting herself, and actually supporting a public option.

Previously, President Snowe stated that the reason she did not support a public option is because it would offer lower-priced health insurance than private companies:

"If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages," she said.

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Blue Dogs Have More to Lose Than Progressives
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 3, 2009 at 1:27 PM.

Responding to the Progressive Block strategy, which was designed to put the Progressive Caucus on equal footing with Blue Dogs, Ezra Klein seems to conclude that Progressives can never have more influence than Blue Dogs. This is because Blue Dogs only have incentives to oppose must-pass Democratic legislation, while Progressives only have incentives to support it:

What, in other words, is the endgame of this strategy? The hope seems to be that Rahm Emanuel turns his attention to beating Blue Dogs, rather than liberals, into line. Maybe. But what makes people think that's possible? What's his actual leverage against vulnerable Democrats voting for initiatives their voters don't obviously support in districts Barack Obama didn't win at a time when the president is no longer popular?

There's no successful model for blunting the power of centrists to write -- or kill -- the final compromise.(...)

The outcome of this strategy, then, seems to be that the Democratic Party pretty much collapses into infighting and fails to pass its top priorities and loses a bunch of seats in the next election. The media explains that the liberal Nancy Pelosi and her liberal House Democrats caused the electoral disaster, or that Democrats couldn't agree on an agenda.(...)

But it's hard to imagine that liberals will ever beat the Blue Dogs at their own game. The likelier outcome is that everybody loses.

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Code of Silence: What's Behind Some Dems' Opposition to the Public Option?
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 2, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

 There are 59 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, and the only Democrat to oppose a public option is Joe Lieberman. It takes only 51 votes to pass a public option through reconciliation, and the Senate leadership has not yet decided whether to use reconciliation for the public option.

And yet, somehow, we keep being told by Democratic members of the Senate that there is no way a public option will pass through the Senate. Today, Bill Nelson chimed in:

Nelson later told The Ledger in an interview that the public option also can't pass the Senate.

"The public option is only one of hundreds of issues concerned with health care reform," he said. "Public option means different things to different people. Some people think of it as socialized medicine, but that type is not and has not ever been considered.

"Still any public option will not pass," he said.

There are only three ways to reconcile what Senator Bill Nelson said with the political situation that Democrats are currently presenting to the public: 

1. The Senate leadership has decided not to use reconciliation for the public option, and just hasn't told the public this yet.

    

2. In addition to Joe Lieberman, nine other members of the Senate Democratic caucus are categorically opposed to a public option of any sort, but haven't told the American people this yet.

    

3. Bill Nelson is just making random predictions to the media.

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It Is Possible To Pass A Public Option Now
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on September 1, 2009 at 10:46 AM.

In both branches of Congress, Democrats already have the votes and procedural options in place to pass a public option on health care reform. This means it is possible to pass a public option now. It also means that if a public option does not pass as part of health care reform, it will be a because of a political calculation made by the Democratic leadership, not because there was no way to pass one.

Reconciliation Flexible for the Public Option
Despite what Democrats such Kent Conrad, Jim Cooper, and George Stephanopoulos are saying, it is entirely possible to pass a public option through reconciliation in the Senate. As budget expert Stan Collendar wrote two weeks ago, determining what can be passed through reconciliation is a bit of a gray area open to some degree of interpretation:

As I said, this is complicated and will be extremely controversial.  There are budget experts on both sides of the aisle and this is more of a judgment call than the application of a hard and fast rule.

One expert arguing that a public option can be passed through reconciliation is Martin Panoe, who served as Secretary for the Senate Democratic caucus from 1995-2008. Last week, Panoe said the following:

"If a public plan is shown to have a cost to the government that affects outlays or revenues, it could be included in a health care bill using reconciliation procedures," said Martin P. Paone, a former Senate aide who has been consulted by Senate Democrats.

Given that there is a range of interpretation when it comes to the use of reconciliation in the Senate, and that at least one of the leading experts on Senate process believes that a public option can be passed through reconciliation, then it is at least possible to pass a public option through reconciliation. The idea that 60 votes are absolutely required for a public option simply isn't true.

Majorities In Both Branches Of Congress
As far back as April 30th, 235 members of the House of Representatives were in favor of a public option. This number is well over the 218 needed to pass  a bill through the House.

According to our latest Senate whip count, 44 Senators are on the record in favor of a public option.  Further, Max Baucus has recently claimed that he wants a public option, and Senators Mark Warner and Ron Wyden have said they will vote for one if it reduces costs. Both Jon Tester and Mark Pryor have said there are public options they could support. Tom Carper has said that he doesn't care if there is a public option or not, and Blanche Lincoln has said that people should have the choice of a public option.

Overall, there are at least 51 members of the Senate and 235 members of the House who have said they are open to some sort of non-co-op public option. Further, there are at least 60 members of the Senate who have not ruled out a public option. This means that there are enough supporters of some sort of non-co-op public option to make a majority in both branches of Congress.

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Mike Enzi: I Am Why Health Care Hasn't Passed
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on August 27, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi on the "Gang of Six" negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee:

Enzi found himself under attack at the town hall simply for sitting in the same room as the three Finance Committee Democrats. Republicans in the crowd called for him to exit the talks. He assured conservatives that his presence was delaying health care reform.

"If I hadn't been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care," he said.

It is good to know that we have decided to trade national health care for an occasional conversation with Mike Enzi.