Posts by Thomas B. Edsall

Thomas B. Edsall is the political editor of the Huffington Post. He is also Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Democrats Make Massive Gains as GOP Deteriorates
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on May 21, 2009 at 12:56 PM.

In seven short years, the American electorate has radically changed, as voters' priorities have shifted to the economy and away from such wedge issues as abortion and gay rights, as well as away from the threat of terrorism and from the war in Iraq, according to a comprehensive survey released Thursday morning by the Pew Research Center.

From 2002 to 2009, voters' partisan identification has moved from virtual parity -- 43 percent Republican and 43 percent Democratic at the height of George W. Bush's popularity in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- to a massive Democratic advantage today of 53 to 36, a 17 percentage point split, by far the largest difference in the past two decades.

The Pew survey is a testament to the miscalculations of the Bush administration and of the Republican leadership in Congress. The two were handed an extraordinary opportunity to build on an outpouring of public support in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Instead, those chances to revive a Republican majority were squandered on a mismanaged invasion of Iraq and dissipated by ill-advised culture war offensives, as well as by disclosure of corrupt lobbying and spending scandals in Congress under Republican rule.

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A Look at Obama, Banks, and Being Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on March 23, 2009 at 8:32 AM.

The decision by the Bush and Obama administrations to use taxpayer money to prop up troubled financial institutions has produced a growing populist outcry that threatens to undermine the administration's ability to win Congressional approval for future legislation to counter the recession, and/or to win approval for the record-setting $3.55 trillion 2010 budget proposed by Obama on February 26.

In effect, the Obama administration has tied itself to a policy that shows every sign of becoming an inexorably-tightening hangman's noose around the president's neck.

Not only does public anger over the current bailout strategy threaten the administration's executive authority, but it also the carries the political risk of linking the White House to the now-loathed Wall Street establishment.

Democrat Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the Clinton administration, and chairman of the economic advisory firm Sonecon argues that, by generally deferring to Wall Street leaders, the administration has become the target of populist resentment, drawing attention to the fact that many in the administration came from the financial industry, or the New York Fed -- which is closely linked to the industry, including Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Now, Shapiro added, Summers and Geithner are in position of virtually defending Wall Street - only backing off on the AIG bonus issue, for example, when the public rose up in fury.

Shapiro argues strongly in favor of temporary nationalization of those banks which are on the verge of collapse. A full scale, short-term takeover of insolvent institutions "is the only reasonable course at this point," he said, if that means "pulling out the bad assets and the leveraged borrowed to hold them (without having to put a particular value on them), and selling what's left to a new group, under a new name or the old one. It could actually be done very quickly - so the institution is closed for a short time while the depositors' accounts are quickly transferred to the new entity."

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The $800 Billion Gamble: Economists Say Stimulus Cuts Could Be 'Disastrous'
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on February 9, 2009 at 7:38 AM.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, pushing for fast action on the stimulus bill, turned to a well-worn maxim: "We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

The bill the Senate is expected to send to a conference committee as soon as Tuesday includes provisions -- particularly the $69.8 billion one-year "patch" on the alternative minimum tax (AMT) -- that key economists and budget specialists say are less likely to have the maximum anti-recessionary impact than direct spending provisions calling for substantial purchases by all levels of government.

The Senate has compounded the weaknesses in the bill by sharply cutting what economists agree are essential ingredients of a stimulus bill, including $40 billion in aid to states and $16 billion for school construction.

The reaction to the changes adopted at the behest of a small but key group of "centrist" Senators -- Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) -- was strong.

"The compromise is worse than the original bill because it is smaller, and the changes appear to have reduced rather than increased the bang-for-buck effectiveness of the bill," said Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong, who was a Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration. "Ben Nelson and Susan Collins don't appear to have understood what they were doing very well -- the point is to keep lots of extra Americans from being unemployed for the next two years and have them, instead, do useful things for the country. Nelson and Collins, well, it's not clear what their objective is."

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Republican Purgatory: How Long Will It Last?
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on December 19, 2008 at 8:44 AM.

From the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the National Review Online, Republicans are working furiously to develop a comeback strategy.

The range of proposals and tactics runs the gamut from abandoning the religious right, to staying the course, to purging traitorous big-government conservatives lured by pork and power.

"Republicans walked away from the principles that minted our governing majority in 1980 and 1994," declared Mike Pence, the newly elected chair of the House Republican Conference. "There is a way out of the wilderness. But it will require humility, vision, positive alternatives and a willingness to fight for what makes America great."

That's not enough, counsels the American Enterprise Institute's David Frum: "College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats--but that their values are under threat from Republicans. And there are more and more of these college-educated Americans all the time. So the question for the GOP is: will it pursue them? To do so will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will potentially involve even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarizing on social issues. That is a future that leaves little room for [Sarah] Palin--but it is the only hope for a Republican recovery."

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Next: What's in Store for President Obama
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on November 5, 2008 at 7:59 AM.

Barack Obama will take office facing economic collapse and wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan - a situation which could present him with an opportunity to build a revived Democratic coalition or foil his attempts to restore a durable center-left majority.



Obama appears to be acutely aware of what is in store for him. The challenges are "the greatest of a lifetime," he told thousands of supporters gathered in Chicago's Grant Park Tuesday night, "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."



Working to Obama's advantage is that his victory is part of an ongoing Democratic surge that began in 2006 and moved powerfully forward on Tuesday. "This was a broad-based victory that pulled in a slew of new Democratic Senators, and Democratic House members. Millions of new voters--especially the young and minorities--were brought into the system. These are the prerequisite conditions for the possibility of a sustained Democratic majority," University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato pointed out to the Huffington Post.



The potential for Democratic revival was demonstrated by extraordinary fundraising success - much of it fueled by online contributions: this year's election marked the first time in recent memory that the Democratic president candidate and the Democratic National Committee raised and spent substantially more money than their GOP counterparts. In 2004, total spending by Kerry and Bush and their respective party committees was roughly equal. This year, Obama and the DNC spent a total of almost $750 million, while McCain and the RNC spent about $450 million.

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A Guide for Watching Election Night Results
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on November 3, 2008 at 11:15 AM.

For those obsessed with the results on Tuesday night, here is a November 4 guide to watching television and searching exit poll data on the web.



There are three basic questions (with hundreds more to follow in the weeks ahead): 1) When can you feel confident about the outcome of the presidential contest?; 2) How well are Democrats progressing toward their goal of 60 seats in the Senate?; and 3) Will 2008 be another Democratic blowout, signaling the possibility that the party could establish a majority coalition in future elections?



The basic rule of thumb is to follow the closing times of the polls in each state. Once voting is stopped, the networks can start using detailed exit polling and post the material on their websites. If the networks are unwilling to call a given state, an examination of the exit poll data can often give you a clear signal of the ultimate results. The state-by-state exit polls released after poll closings will have large samples and should not suffer the defects that plagued the early findings in 2004 which pointed to a solid Kerry victory nationwide.



For additional help, HuffPost has election night widgets from CNN and MSNBC that will allow you to "watch the electoral vote count and the congressional balance of power with the national U.S. map or choose a state and see how individual counties are voting."



Fortunately for those who cannot stay awake, some of the first states with earliest poll closing times of 7 PM EST are key battlegrounds: Indiana, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky.



Virginia is a crucial battleground state, and an Obama win there (without Georgia or Indiana) would suggest he is likely to take the oath of office on January 20. In terms of the future, an Obama victory would mean that Virginia has completed the move from red to purple, with all the demographic changes pointing toward further Democratic gains.



If Obama carries either Georgia or Indiana, look for a big Democratic night all around. If he carries both (along with Virginia), Republicans should consider turning on the gas and closing the windows. Those who care only about the presidential outcome should feel free to switch to sports, watch a movie, or go to bed.



Conversely, if McCain carries Virginia, Indiana and Georgia, plan to stay up a little later.



These early states are also key to the Senate outcome:

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What did Bill Clinton Do to Get $15M From Ron Burkle?
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on April 5, 2008 at 7:49 AM.

The campaign press statement accompanying the release on Friday of Hillary Clinton's 2000 - 2007 tax returns includes some useful summary data for the media: Bill and Hillary Clinton's total income over the past 8 years, $109 million; her Senate salary, $1.1 million; his presidential pension, $1.2 million; her book royalties, $10.5 million; his book royalties, $29.6 million; and his speaking fees, $51.9 million.

One big line item is missing from the press summary however: the $15 million paid to Bill Clinton between 2003 and 2007 by Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund.

In fact, the Burkle payments, buried deep in the income tax forms themselves, were the only real news in tax documents, which were made public for the first time.

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Huckabee Embraces Confederate Flag to Seduce White Evangelical Voters
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on January 18, 2008 at 12:02 PM.

Columbia, S. Car. -- The populist campaign of Mike Huckabee, seeking to mobilize an insurgency of white evangelicals against the Republican establishment, took an abrupt turn today after the former Arkansas governor directly appealed to voters on the issue of race, summoning his fellow candidates to stop calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from government offices.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. ... If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole. That's what we'd do," he declared to applause at a campaign rally in Myrtle Beach Thursday.

At the same time, an Atlanta, Georgia, based organization, Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, began running radio ads attacking John McCain for his opposition to displays of the Confederate flag on public buildings and praising Huckabee.

"McCain has been doing it -- calling the flag a racist symbol -- for years," the announcer declares. "After McCain, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee stands as a breath of fresh air. Governor Huckabee understands that all the average guy with a Confederate flag on his pickup truck is saying is, he's proud to be a Southerner." The ad concludes: "In South Carolina, we're proud to be Southerners."

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Michigan Results Reveal Dangerous Trends for Hillary
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on January 16, 2008 at 7:59 AM.

The Michigan Democratic primary was on the surface a non-event. The national party has ruled the state's delegation will not be seated. Of the major candidates, only Hillary Clinton was on the ballot, pitted against "uncommitted" in a seemingly meaningless race (she won by 15 percent).

Yet the exit poll results from this strange contest reveal some troubling trends for the New York Senator.

Among men, for example, the battle was neck and neck. Clinton got 47 percent and the anonymous/non-existent opposition got 43 percent. (Clinton did substantially better among women, winning 58-37.)

The opposition was not, however, altogether ethereal. For the most part, voting "uncommitted" was a substitute for casting a ballot for Barack Obama, or for some voters, John Edwards.

Among black voters, Clinton was crushed by "uncommitted," 26-70. If that kind of margin among African Americans continues into future primaries, she faces major problems in the heavily black January 26 South Carolina primary and in the states with large black populations going to the polls on February 5 -- so-called Tsunami Tuesday. Clinton carried whites in Michigan by a 61-30.

Clinton ran poorly among young voters of all races, losing those under the age of 30 by 39-48 percent; splitting voters from 30 to 44 by 46-48 percent; solidly carrying the 45 to 56 age group by 54-34 percent; and winning voters 60 and older by a landslide 67-31 percent.

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NH Debate: Clinton Fumes as Edwards Takes Obama's Side [VIDEO]
Posted by Sam Stein, Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on January 6, 2008 at 8:27 AM.

Manchester, N.H. - Hillary Clinton went on the attack against Barack Obama at the Democratic presidential debate Saturday night, but she ran into a tough push back not only from the Illinois Senator but also John Edwards, who took Obama's side and lashed out at her as an agent of "the status quo."

For Clinton, the forum provided her only real chance to stall Barack Obama's momentum before the January 8 state primary. Initially she appeared very cautious, as all the candidates conducted a sober discussion of nuclear and terrorist threats in which there was much more agreement than conflict.

But then, when the discussion turned to domestic policy, Clinton shifted gears to accuse Obama of holding three different positions on federal health care, of voting for the Patriot Act after promising he would vote against it, and of failing to call for federal health insurance that would cover everyone with no exceptions.

Clinton cited a news story contending that Obama "could have three pretty good debates with himself" on health care. "You've changed positions within [the past] three years on a range of issues," Clinton said. In the second half of the debate, she tried to tarnish Obama's claim to be a candidate who will severely constrain the power of lobbyists, noting that Obama's New Hampshire co-chair, Jim Demers, lobbies the New Hampshire legislature in behalf of the pharmaceutical and financial services industries.

"You've changed positions within three years on, you know, a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate, and now you have changed....you said you would vote against the Patriot Act. You came to the Senate; you voted for it. You said that you would vote against funding for the Iraq war. You came to the Senate, and you voted for $300 billion of it," Clinton declared.

Obama did not appear ruffled by the Clinton assault, stronger than her past rhetoric, and tried to discuss in detail the rationale for his position on health care, but then Edwards stepped in to make a much more aggressive defense both of Obama and himself:

"We [Edwards and Obama] have a fundamental difference about the way you bring about change. But both of us are powerful voices for change. And if I might add, we finished first and second in the Iowa caucus, I think in part as a result of that. Now, what I would say this: Any time you speak out powerfully for change, the forces of status quo attack. That's exactly what happens," Edwards said, clearly identifying Clinton with the status quo.

In a second clear reference to Clinton, Edwards said, "I didn't hear these kinds of attacks when she was ahead."

"I want to make change, but I've already made change," Clinton countered forcefully. "I'm not just running on the promise of change, I'm running on 35 years of change."

As the tension rose, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who was largely on the periphery of the debate, remarked, "Well, I've been in hostage negotiations that are a lot more civil than this."

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Romney Scrambles to Win Iowa After Spending Tens of Millions
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post on December 29, 2007 at 8:12 AM.

Mitt Romney, who a month ago believed his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire were bought and paid for, is now scrambling to remain competitive in both states, continuing to outspend his adversaries by a wide margin, saturating the Iowa and New Hampshire airwaves with anti-Huckabee and anti-McCain commercials.

From a purely business point of view the past four weeks have marked an extraordinary setback for the Romney campaign.

Since January 1, 2007, the former Massachusetts governor has spent well in excess of $80 million, including at least $17.4 million of his own money, paying media fees in excess of $30 million, salaries of roughly $16 million, and consulting payments of more than $15 million.

Among Romney's costly innovations this year has been putting more than 80 local conservative leaders in key states on his campaign payroll, in what amounts to a 21st Century revival of "walk-around money."

For a long time - through the summer and well into November -- the Romney "early state" strategy aimed at winning Iowa and New Hampshire looked as if it had paid off in spades.

From August 26 to November 27, Romney led in 26 straight polls in Iowa, sometimes by as much as 23 points. In New Hampshire, Romney saw his advantage grow to 15 points in mid-December.

Since those halcyon days, however, Romney has fallen into second place in Iowa, running roughly four points behind former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. In New Hampshire, Romney's double digit lead has steadily eroded, while John McCain, who was trailing by 11 to 18 points at the start of December, has surged to within 3.5 percentage points.

Romney, in the assessment of most political analysts, can still pull it out. But even after accommodating social issue conservatives by abandoning his formerly moderate stance on such cultural/moral matters as gay rights and abortion, Romney finds himself struggling to convince voters that he is a legitimate conservative while simultaneously ripping into the ideological credentials of his competitors.

Romney's biggest setback was a devastating December 26 editorial in the Union Leader, a conservative Republican newspaper with the widest circulation of any publication in New Hampshire.

"Granite Staters want a candidate who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth....Mitt Romney has not," the editorial declared. "The more Mitt Romney speaks, the less believable he becomes.... Mitt Romney has spent a year trying to convince Granite Staters that he is [trustworthy]. It looks like they aren't buying it. And for good reason."

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