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Election 2008
Election Activists Win Three Key Battles
Posted by Steven Rosenfeld on May 16, 2008 at 4:56 PM.
Voting rights activists won three big battles this week.
The Missouri state Legislature adjourned without taking up a controversial voter ID bill. The Department of Justice settled a lawsuit with Arizona that will force the state to offer welfare recipients the opportunity to register to vote. And Hans von Spakovsky, the White House's controversial nominee to the Federal Election Commission, withdrew his nomination.
The Missouri voter ID bill would have required voters show a government-issue photo ID to vote and would have required new registrants to produce proof of citizenship to complete their voter registration. Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, estimated more than 200,000 people could have been disenfranchised by the citizenship requirement.
The voter ID proposal, which was intended to take effect before the November election, was extremely controversial. According to voting rights activists monitoring the Missouri Legislature's final day, the criticism of the bill pressured Republican sponsors and legislative leaders to not bring up the proposal before the Missouri Legislature adjourned on Friday.
Missourians for Fair Elections reports over 4,200 calls were made to lawmakers in the past two weeks urging them to not back this legislation.
Arizona
In Arizona, which is the only state to require proof of citizenship from state residents seeking to register to vote, that requirement has lead to the rejection of 37,000 new applications since 2004, when the law took effect.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was settling a lawsuit with Arizona to bring the state into compliance with a federal law that requires certain state agencies offer public aid recipients the opportunity to register to vote.
This past January, Project Vote and Demos, two voter advocacy groups, sent a letter to Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer notifying her that Arizona was not in compliance with the public agency provisions of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The letter said voter registration at the state's welfare had declined 70 percent over the past 12 years.
"This agreement ends the need for litigation and means Arizona will bring voter registration to the state's low-income communities," said Michael Slater, deputy director of Project Vote.
Washington, DC
Finally, the decision by Republican lawyer Hans von Spakovsky to withdrew his name for consideration for an appointment to the Federal Election Commission was also seen as a victory for voting rights activists. He had been one of the administration's most outspoken voices to newly regulate various aspects of voting, such as more stringent voter ID laws.
Von Spakovsky had served as a FEC commissioner after a recess appointment but could not gain Senate confirmation. Before his temporary FEC post, he was a lawyer at the Justice Department where he changed its voting rights enforcement priorities from defending minority voting rights to ensuring only people with current ID and other credentials could vote.
Republicans Are Hoping That Democrats Will Win - Then Fail
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on May 16, 2008 at 2:39 PM.
Last night I had the great pleasure of hearing Rick Perlstein read from Nixonland here in LA. There were many interesting questions and among them, naturally, were some about the current election. One, during the book signing phase, was "do you think the Democrats can possibly win?" which Perlstein deflected to me, explaining that I've been writing for the past year that it's in the bag, "tell him in 25 words or less, why you think the Democrats can't lose..." Since I go into brain freeze at times like that, I think I muttered something about seismic forces and tsumanis, so I'm sure the poor fellow thought I was confused and thinking about the natural disasters in Asia.
Upon reflection, I think the short answer is this: Because the Republicans want to lose.
It's not that I believe the winds of change aren't at our back. They are. And it's not because I don't think that the modern conservative movement is tired and played out. I do. There is a shift happening toward the liberal side of the spectrum which started with the Nader campaign, grew with the Dean campaign and has reached critical mass with the Obama campaign. The broad middle is disgusted by what Bush has wrought (he was never that popular to begin with, you'll recall, and only became so after a terrorist attack.) They too are listening to the Democrats for the first time inmany years. There is fundamental discontent with GOP governance and the people are highly unlikely to reward them for it.
But just as important, I think the conservatives have always taken the long view of politics and they understand the value of a tactical retreat. The Bush years have weakened them considerably and they are going to take some time to count their ill gotten gains, rest up and reengage. The Republicans are all about ressentiment. They understand the value of being out of power and know how to advance their agenda from that perspective. I wrote this a while back:
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McCain the Flip-Flopper
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 16, 2008 at 8:26 AM.
Soon after the president told the Israeli Knesset that Democrats are Chamberlain-like appeasers because Obama is prepared to talk to Iran (just as Bush’s own Defense Secretary and Secretary of State have recommended), John McCain jumped on the far-right bandwagon. Aboard his campaign bus, McCain told reporters Obama’s willingness to negotiate with rival heads of state reflects “naivete and inexperience and lack of judgment.”
As it turns out, however, two years ago, McCain was prepared to go even further than Obama. While Obama is willing to try diplomacy with Iran, McCain has expressed interest in possibly even negotiating Hamas.
Jamie Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state, the State Department’s chief spokesman during the Clinton administration, and an active supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has the story.
[G]iven his own position on Hamas, McCain is the last politician who should be attacking Obama. Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News’s “World News Tonight” program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:
I asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”
McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”
For some Europeans in Davos, Switzerland, where the interview took place, that’s a perfectly reasonable answer. But it is an unusual if not unique response for an American politician from either party. And it is most certainly not how the newly conservative presumptive Republican nominee would reply today.
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In Israel, Bush Lays Down Some Serious Fear-Mongering
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on May 15, 2008 at 4:57 PM.
During today’s press gaggle, reporters pressed White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino about President Bush’s comments implying that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. Perino denied that Bush was taking aim directly at Obama, stating that presidential candidates often believe “the world revolves around you.”
However, she wouldn’t refute that his comments were meant to include the senator:
Q: But, so, not aimed at him — do they include him?
PERINO: He’ll have to speak for himself as to what his policy is and you guys can know it well. This was a speech that the President gave to the Knesset. And this is not a new statement by President Bush. This is long-established United States policy, so it should come as no surprise that President Bush suggests that we should not be talking with these people.
Perino’s comments contradict what Bush administration aides are admitting privately. As CNN’s Ed Henry reported earlier today:
White House aides are acknowledging that this was a reference to the fact that Sen. Obama and other Democrats have publicly said that it would be ok for the U.S. President to meet with leaders like the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
NBC’s John Yang also said that a White House official told him that Bush’s comments were aimed not only at Obama, but at former President Jimmy Carter and his suggestion that the United States talk with Hamas.
Disruptive Party Building: From a Straw to a Funnel
Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left on May 15, 2008 at 11:29 AM.
The evolution in field and the reimagining of politics continues apace. Back in May, 2007, I pointed to this quote from David Plouffe.
"Don't get me wrong," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager and Rospars's boss, "the Internet is a powerful organizing and fundraising tool, and it's getting more and more important every day, but it's still not the persuasion and message tool that TV is."
Though I criticized him at the time, I believe Plouffe was correct. Obama's speech on Wright was perhaps a singular messaging moment for the internet, and the pushback on the gas tax came from the internet. But by and large, the messaging from Obama has been TV messaging, and it has worked. Plouffe was correct about the internet's impact on field, as I noted at the time.
Social networks will be combined with voter files, which have seen dramatic improvements since 2000. And fundraising, field, and media will have converged. Candidates will be putting out youtube clips early to raise money, identify supporters, and win primaries. All of this has been tested already, and it works.
Rock the Vote, in 2004, registered 1.2 million voters with a simple online voter registration download tool. That's more than twice as much as they had ever registered in any other cycle, including the youth-spike year of 1992...
The number of 18-29 year old voters who voted in 2004 versus 2000 jumped from 15.8 million to 20.1 million, an increase of 4.3 million. With Facebook, MySpace, and Youtube turning intensely political, it's pretty clear that voter registration, and specifically, being able to count voter registration and compete over it, will be a killer app.
Finally, field will be at least in some part measurable and put online. Facebook alone has 22-24 million members, and is growing at 150,000 members a day. MySpace is over 100 million. And though it's unclear how many of these user accounts are citizens and how seriously they take participation in these public spaces, the fact that there are these public spaces, and that they are gargantuan, is a game-changer. My guess is that the opinion leaders in these communities are traditional pundits and stars, but it doesn't have to be this way, and bands and bloggers are in the mix as well.
If Rock the Vote experiences the type of growth of regular Web 2.0 startups like Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, etc, there's no reason that 18-29 year old voting block can't expand its share of the electorate by 3 or 4 points. This would swing Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio. And it would put North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, and Arkansas into the swing category, while pulling New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania out of swing state territory.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Cindy McCain Sells Sudan Investments; Renews Tax Return Debate
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 15, 2008 at 8:25 AM.
Given the mystery surrounding John McCain’s wife’s finances, stories like these are not going to help matters.
Cindy McCain, the wife of the Republican presumptive nominee for president, has sold off at least $2 million she held in funds with investments in Sudan businesses.
The mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income — have investments in companies with business in Sudan, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force, an advocacy organization that has been working to persuade states, universities and other organizations to divest.
“As soon as she was made aware, she sold it,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “Senator and Mrs. McCain are committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur.”
Both funds were listed by her husband, Senator John McCain, on his financial disclosure forms. The investments and the divestiture were first reported by The Associated Press, and confirmed by the McCain campaign.
This issue came up briefly a year ago, when four presidential candidates — Sam Brownback, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, and Barack Obama — learned of their Sudan-related holdings and quickly divested themselves. For John McCain, who seems to have very few assets of his own, this didn’t come up until now.
In light of Cindy McCain’s rather indignant remarks last week about keeping her finances private, these $2 million dollars in Sudanese investments just won’t do.
Here’s a WaPo editorial on the subject published yesterday:
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Obama-Backing Edwards Elbows Aside Clinton
Posted by John Nichols, The Nation on May 15, 2008 at 3:52 AM.
It was a weary and wistful Hillary Clinton who sat down with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and other network anchors for extended interviews in the middle of the day Wednesday. She knew that, no matter what she said, and how well she said it, it would not be enough.
Like the coronation march that her 2008 campaign was supposed to be, her latest gambit would be trumped by Barack Obama's juggernaut.
Yes, she had just been handed a face-saving landslide win by West Virginia Democrats, beating Obama by more than 2-1 in an honest-to-goodness swing state. But Clinton did not seem to be fighting very hard on a day when her senior campaign adviser, Harold Ickes, was disptached to Capitol Hill to reassure congressional supporter that the former frontrunner would remain in the race through June 3.
Clinton used her precious spotlight time to defend Obama as a friend of Israel, describe his supporters as people who thought he would be the best president and promised to "work my heart out for whoever our nominee is." Indeed, if she made news Wednesday, it was with a seeming show of openness to an as-yet-unoffered place on an Obama-led ticket. Clinton did not dismiss the vice-presidential talk – and she certainly did not resort to the old dig of suggesting she might have a place on her ticket for the senator from Illinois – she simply it was "premature" to talk about what she would be doing after her campaign was done.
Perhaps it was. But only by a few hours.
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NARAL Pro-Choice Endorses Obama
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on May 14, 2008 at 3:57 PM.
This has made my friggin' day :
NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC Endorses Senator Barack Obama for President
Washington, D.C. – NARAL Pro-Choice America, the political leader of the pro-choice movement with more than one million member activists in all 50 states, today announced that its political action committee is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president.
"There are few more tireless defenders of women's rights in this country than NARAL Pro-Choice America and I'm proud to accept their support," Sen. Obama said. "For decades, they have worked in the courthouse, in the legislature, and in the streets to make sure that women have the right to choose. This is a fundamental civil right that I've fought to protect in Illinois and in Washington, that's being threatened by Senator McCain, and that I'll be fighting in the months ahead to make secure today, tomorrow, and always."
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, praised both Sen. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton for their leadership in standing up for women's reproductive rights throughout this campaign, but only one of these dynamic candidates can advance to the general election.
"Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race," Keenan said. "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grassroots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Sen. Obama."
Keenan said the stark contrast between Sen. Obama's pro-choice record and John McCain's 25 years of anti-choice votes in Washington will be a major reason many voters, especially pro-choice Independent and Republican women, will cross party lines to support Sen. Obama in the fall.
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Red-Faced GOP Turns Blue Over Mississippi Loss
Posted by Daniel DiRito, The All Spin Zone on May 14, 2008 at 6:05 AM.
The GOP’s loss of a special election in Mississippi’s 1st. district earlier this evening is bound to leave a number of Republicans tossing and turning tonight as they weigh the 2008 election. Regardless, Democrats should redouble their efforts to achieve more gains in November.
I don’t believe in crystal balls or tarot cards…but the fact that the Democrats have now won three congressional special elections in stronghold Republican districts doesn’t bode well for the GOP in November. The most recent loss took place tonight in the solidly red 1st. district in the state of Mississippi.
Democrat Travis Childers won Tuesday’s Mississippi special election runoff for Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R) former House seat, handing Democrats the biggest of their three special election takeovers this cycle and sending a listless GOP further into a state of disarray.
Childers led GOP candidate Greg Davis 53-47 with more than 90 percent of precincts reporting. Turnout increased substantially over the 67,000 voters who cast ballots in the April 22 open special election, with more than 100,000 voting in the runoff.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), issued a somber and self-reflective statement following the loss, saying Republicans were “disappointed” and that they need to prepare to run against Democrats campaigning as conservatives.
Cole added that “the political environment is such that voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general. Therefore, Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward-looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for. This is something we can do in cooperation with our presidential nominee, but time is short.”
Now I understand that Rep. Cole has to respond to the defeat and I’m sure it’s difficult to craft a palatable rationale. Regardless, it’s hard to imagine the words “forward-looking agenda” and GOP in the same sentence.
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Obama Volunteers Find Racism in "Post-Racial" America
Posted by Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend on May 14, 2008 at 5:02 AM.
As we've seen this election cycle, there's a desperation seen in the MSM talking heads and newpaper columnists, even some blogs, to declare Barack Obama's success a post-racial triumph in this country -- that racism is rapidly becoming a distant memory.
First, take a look at this lovely T-shirt being sold at Mulligan's Bar and Grill in Marietta/Cobb County, Georgia (h/t Jeremy from Cobb).
Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" scrolled underneath, are "cute." But to a coalition of critics, the shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations past.
"It's time to put an end to this," said Rich Pellegrino, a Mableton resident and director of the Cobb-Cherokee Immigrant Alliance. It was among the organizations planning to gather outside Mulligan's Bar and Grill Tuesday afternoon to protest the "racist and highly offensive" shirts.
Just down the street from Marietta's famous Big Chicken, Mulligan's has carved a provocative niche in an increasingly multicultural area, thanks to its owner's ultra-conservative political views. If you live in Marietta, it's impossible not to know what's on Norman's mind, as he posts his views on signs in front of Mulligan's. Among his recent musings: "I wish Hillary had married OJ," "No habla espanol - and never will" and the standard "I.N.S. Agents eat free."
"I'm saying out loud what everyone in this town whispers," Norman said.
...Norman said those offended are "hunting for a reason to be mad" and insisted he is "not a racist." Why picture Obama as Curious George? "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George," Norman said.
Not a racist. I guess he doesn't do Klan night riding on the weekends, so in his mind he's free and clear of that label. Even sadder, he's donating the proceeds to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I wonder what the MDA thinks of this?
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McCain's Lobbyists Continue to Cause Him Headaches
Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report on May 14, 2008 at 3:49 AM.
Following up on an earlier item, John McCain had to accept the resignation of Doug Goodyear, the man he tapped to manage the Republican National Convention, after reports surfaced that Goodyear’s lobbying firm represented Burma’s brutal military junta.
But Goodyear simply ran the firm. What about the specific lobbyist who actually worked on the junta’s behalf? As it turns out, that would be Doug Davenport who, you guessed it, also works for John McCain’s campaign. (Davenport is a regional campaign manager for McCain, overseeing the operation in mid-Atlantic states.)
Apparently hoping to clear this unpleasantness up before the weekend’s over, Goodyear resigned yesterday afternoon, and Davenport resigned this morning.
“Doug has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it,” Jill Hazelbaker wrote in an e-mail.
She said Davenport quit this morning for the same reason that spurred McCain’s hand-picked convention manager to resign yesterday: connections to the DCI Group.
The lingering oddity is that the McCain team knew that their lobbying connections were controversial, and that the lobbyists-turned-campaign-staffers might be scrutinized based on their client list. We know this because Newsweek reported that McCain passed over a different lobbyist for the convention post because he’d served as a consultant for “Viktor Yanukovich, the former Ukrainian prime minister who has been widely criticized for alleged corruption and for his close ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin — a potential embarrassment for McCain, who in 2007 called Putin a ‘totalitarian dictator.’”
One McCain strategist said, “The Ukrainian stuff was viewed as too much.”
If they knew this, why not consider the seriousness of the association with the Burmese junta? As hilzoy asked, “Ukraine is too much, but Burma is OK?”
Handicapping the Veepstakes
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on May 13, 2008 at 11:02 AM.
The Hill has a cool story up, where they managed to get 97 of the 100 Senators to say whether or not they would accept the vice-president spot. Here is the question all of the Senators were asked:
The Hill asked all 97 senators who are not running for president the same question: "If you were asked, would you accept an offer to be the VP nominee?"
Looking only at the Democratic responses, here are my interpretations of the answers:
The "no" responses cross off some pretty strong and popular choices, including Sherrod Brown, Kent Conrad, and Jim Webb (and yes, they are all really clear and strong "no's." The unclear answers don't really matter that much, because none of them really have any chance of being asked (I think). Among the "yes" answers, Cardin, Lautenberg, Mikulski, Murray and Stabenow meet the "reinforcement" criteria by being against the war before it began. Of those choices, Murray is the strongest choice by a long way. She even has a similar background to Obama, working as both a teacher and a citizen activist before running for office. I could dig Patty Murray as VP.
Among the Democrats, the most annoying responses came from Ron Wyden and Blanche Lincoln. Here is Lincoln:
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