2013-05-24T11:32:14-04:00 Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=bill-schneider Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Bill Schneider Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3255622 2013-05-10T18:00:12-04:00 2013-05-10T18:34:20-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Oh, wait. That may not be altogether a good thing. Certainly not for Republicans. They need an out-of-control deficit to bludgeon Democrats into cutting more spending. It may not be good news for the economic recovery either. Budget austerity means slower growth. Want proof? Look at Europe.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this year's federal budget deficit will drop from $1.1 trillion to $845 billion. Economists at Goldman Sachs project that we will get the deficit under control within two years. Why is this happening?

For one thing, we cut government spending. Not in a very thoughtful way, to be sure. We did it with a meat axe, known as the sequester. We also raised taxes, and not just on the rich. Everybody's payroll taxes went up this year.

Now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, defense spending has been declining. And there's good news on Medicare and Medicaid: nobody is entirely sure why, but health care costs have not been rising as rapidly as expected. Tax revenues increased this year because of the economic recovery, weak though it may be. Plus, the recovery in the housing market has earned big profits for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are repaying tens of billions of dollars in bailout money to the federal government.

One consequence: we won't hit the debt ceiling as soon. It looks like the deadline won't come until October. October could be a double whammy. That's the beginning of a new fiscal year, and if Congress can't pass a budget, we could have a government shutdown. Oh, joy.

Actually, it is joy for Republicans. Fiscal crises give them political leverage. They can force Democrats to make concessions: if you don't slash government spending, we'll force the government to default on its debts. That's an unthinkable prospect for Washington and Wall Street. Would Republicans actually do that?

Yes. They've got public opinion on their side. Raising the debt ceiling is never politically popular. To most Americans, it means we've overspent on our credit card so we're going to raise our credit limit. Doesn't sound like such a good idea.

Just to protect themselves, House Republicans have passed a bill saying that, if the U.S. goes into default, the first people who get paid will be our creditors. That's supposed to reassure bondholders that, even if the U.S. goes into default, "we're going to meet our obligations," as House Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh.) put it. Democrats, who are certain to kill the bill in the Senate, call the Republican proposal "Pay China First."

A shrinking deficit will help avert another fiscal crisis. Why is that a problem?

Because the only way Washington works these days is if it is facing a crisis. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) complained to the Washington Post that the Senate is facing "fiscal fatigue" -- "There isn't any sense of urgency right now." Not like there was in August 2011, the last time a debt crisis loomed. Democrats and Republicans made an 11th hour deal, which gave rise to two more crises -- the fiscal cliff and the sequester. "Sometimes we don't want to act until a gun is at our heads," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) told the Post.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called it "management by crisis." If there is no crisis, there will be no management. Gridlock will rule. That's because of our Constitution, which sets up a complicated system of checks and balances that makes it difficult for the government to get anything done unless there is an overwhelming sense of public urgency, i.e., a crisis.

What we're seeing now is the routinization of crisis. Fiscal crises have become routine because they're the only way we can break the gridlock in Washington.

Now that the deficit's going down, Republicans have to come up with a different crisis. They have: tax reform. Republicans are insisting that any increase in the debt ceiling be "paid for" by simplifying the tax code. President Obama has no problem with tax reform. The battle will come when Congress starts ending tax deductions and has to decide what to do with the new revenue. Obama wants it to be used for deficit reduction. Republicans will insist that the revenue by used to pay for new tax cuts. More gridlock!

Shrinking the deficit is also causing another problem. It's holding down economic growth. That's why higher taxes and lower government spending are called "austerity." Economists estimate that the current austerity regime is driving up unemployment by a full percentage point and driving down the nation's economic growth rate nearly two points.

Are voters going to treat President Obama as a hero for reducing the deficit? Not likely. What Obama needs is a second-term economic boom. That's what enabled both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to go out in a blaze of glory. And to get their vice presidents elected after them. (Well, Al Gore did get 540,000 more votes than George W. Bush in the 2000 election.) In Reagan's second term, the nation's economic growth rate jumped to 4.4 percent. In Clinton's second term, it was 4.5 percent. So far, in Obama's second term, economic growth has averaged a pallid 2 percent.

In his State of the Union speech way back in 1985, President Reagan said, "The best way to reduce deficits is through economic growth."

That was true then and it's still true, nearly 30 years later.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3165908 2013-04-26T17:33:01-04:00 2013-04-26T18:20:09-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
The Obama administration did it once before, in Libya. The U.S. had limited interests in Libya. The Obama administration proved that it could make a limited commitment, using limited resources, for a limited goal. No invasion, no nation-building. Syria, however, is more complicated and more dangerous.

There are two arguments propelling the Obama administration to intervene in Syria. One is political. President Obama has drawn a "red line" in Syria. The government of Syrian President Bashar Assad appears to have crossed it. Obama said last year, "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized."

Now the White House has released a finding by the intelligence community asserting "with varying degrees of confidence" that the Assad government has used chemical weapons "on a small scale." The Syrian regime has called Obama's bluff. Now what will we do?

The president never spelled out the consequences of crossing the "red line." All he said last year was, "That would change my calculus." A White House official warned after the intelligence assessment was released, "Don't take from this that this is an automatic trigger."

The administration says the evidence is still not conclusive. "Intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient," the White House letter said. No siree, not after what happened with the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Obama administration is being super-cautious with Syria, as it should be. "It is precisely because this is a red line that we have to establish with airtight certainty that this happened," a White House official told The New York Times.

But pressure from Congress is mounting. Sen. John McCain, who never seems to have met a military intervention he didn't like, said, "I think it's pretty obvious that a red line has been crossed." Democrats are joining the call. "Something has to be done," Sen. Majority Whip Dick Durbin said. Sen. Diane Feinstein said, "Clearly Assad must go." Syria is turning into a test of U.S. credibility. If the Obama administration shows a failure of nerve with Syria, how can it be trusted to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?

The second argument for U.S. intervention is world leadership. The rule in world affairs since World War II has been that if the U.S. doesn't do anything, nothing happens. If the United States had not gone to war in 1991, Kuwait would be part of Iraq. If the U.S. had not acted in Kosovo, ethnic cleansing would never have been stopped. If the U.S. had not led the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban would still be in power. The U.S. may have "led from behind" in Libya, but U.S. enforcement of the no-fly zone was essential in ending the Qaddafi regime. It is hard to imagine a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians that is not guaranteed by the United States. When the U.S. failed to act in Rwanda and Sudan, the result was genocide.

The rationale for intervention in Syria is legal and humanitarian. Legal because the use of chemical weapons is a violation of international law. Humanitarian because the Assad regime, like the Ghaddafi regime, is murdering its own citizens. More than 70,000 Syrians have been killed in the past two years. As in Kuwait, Kosovo and Libya, if the U.S. doesn't do something, nothing will happen. The murderous bloodletting will go on.

There are significant constraints to U.S. action in Syria. The New America came out of the bowels of the antiwar movement. Two antiwar movements in fact -- Vietnam and Iraq. One of President Obama's principal achievements in foreign policy has been disengaging U.S. troops from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has relied heavily on drones to keep U.S. troops out of harm's way. No one is talking about a major commitment of U.S. troops to Syria. Not even McCain, who said, "It does not mean boots on the ground."

Any U.S. commitment will have to be multilateral, fast and decisive. And cheap, given the constraints on the U.S. budget. The White House is already talking about using "war savings" from our disengagements in Iraq and Afghanistan to replace the budget sequesters that went into effect in March.

The problem is that Syria is far more dangerous than Libya. Many countries have a stake in the Syrian outcome: Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, plus the Assad regime's two principal supporters, Iran and Russia. The Syrian conflict has a sectarian dimension -- a minority Shi'ite regime confronting a Sunni insurrection. Any intensification of the conflict could ignite a much larger war in the Middle East.

The United States faces a special problem because the rebel forces fighting the Syrian government have been infiltrated by al Qaeda. We would have to find ways of supporting resistance forces we trust without allowing arms to fall into the hands of Islamic radicals. The Syrian government is taking advantage of this dilemma by claiming that Syria and the U.S. are "partners in fighting terrorism" and that Syria is "the last real secular state in the Arab world."

Syria is a tough test. "Once you're in, you can't unwind it," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Join Chiefs of Staffs Chairman Martin Dempsey warned a Senate subcommittee. On the other hand, Sen. McCain has said, "Everything that non-interventionists said would happen in Syria if we intervened has happened."

Everything but one thing: No American has been killed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2993544 2013-04-01T14:02:50-04:00 2013-05-02T15:46:44-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
We have, after all, elected and re-elected an African-American President. President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage last year and it did not doom his re-election. Meanwhile, Republicans lost five Senate seats in 2010 and 2012 that they should have won because they nominated candidates who were way outside the mainstream, particularly on the abortion issue.

The immigration issue is likely to split the Republican Party wide open. Mainstream Republicans, terrified by what happened to them in 2012, will support a deal to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Tea Party Republicans, in thrall to "anti-amnesty" activists, will try to sabotage the deal.

Meanwhile, Republicans, led by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, are under pressure to cave in on the issue of same-sex marriage. If the next Republican platform drops its call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and woman, it will open up a split with the religious right.

Conservatives are taking their last stand on the gun issue. But that could become their Alamo. The pressure for new gun laws has been building since the Connecticut tragedy. President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are trying to build a grassroots counterweight to the National Rifle Association.

All those issues -- same-sex marriage, immigration reform, gun control, abortion rights -- have the same political profile. They are all supported by the New America coalition that elected and re-elected President Obama: African-Americans, young voters, working women, single mothers, gays, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Jewish voters, educated professionals and the unchurched (the one fifth of Americans who claim no religious affiliation).

For instance, a National Journal poll conducted in January reported that "the gun control debate in America has split along the same fault lines -- by age group, ethnicity, gender, even region -- that marked the 2012 presidential contest between Obama and Mitt Romney."

What's propelling the shift in public opinion? Two things. One is demographic change. The millennial generation -- born after 1980 -- is moving into the electorate. New minorities are growing in numbers. More Americans have college and graduate degrees. More women are working. The percentage of unchurched Americans has been going up. In every case, groups with a liberal orientation are getting larger.

At the same time, Americans are changing their minds. Opinion change is happening at different rates on different issues, and not always in a liberal direction. The clearest liberal shift is on the issue of same-sex marriage. The New York Times' Nate Silver estimates that "about half of the increase in support for same-sex marriage is attributable to generational turnover, while the other half is because of the net change in opinion among Americans who have remained in the electorate."

The key force driving opinion change on same-sex marriage is cultural, not political. More and more Americans say they have a colleague, close friend or relative who is gay or lesbian (44 percent in 2003 and 61 percent now, according to the New York Times-CBS News poll). That humanizes the issue. Politicians like Sen. Portman and Hillary Clinton are not shaping public opinion on the marriage issue. They are rushing to catch up with it.

On the other hand, politics is propelling the immigration issue forward. Specifically, the 71-percent support Latino voters gave President Obama last year. Latino leaders are demanding that President Obama make good on his failure to deliver immigration reform during his first term. Romney told a private fundraiser last year that if Republicans can't turn the Latino vote around, "It spells doom for us." He didn't, and it did.

Most Americans continue to support gun control measures short of a gun ban. Surprisingly, however, support for gun control has not been growing despite sensational incidents of gun violence. Still, the demographic outlook is looking favorable for liberals. The National Opinion Research Center reports a four-decade decline in the percentage of households with guns, from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 34 percent in 2012.

Each of these issues has its own dynamic, but the underlying demographic trend is clearly moving all of them in a liberal direction. Conservatives are becoming more and more isolated and defensive. In 1972, opponents hung the slogan "acid, amnesty and abortion" on George McGovern's presidential campaign. He was resoundingly defeated. Now the Cold War is over. Americans have become fed up with military interventions. The demographics of the nation have changed. And so, after 40 long years, the McGovern coalition has finally come to power.


]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2805686 2013-03-04T10:16:43-05:00 2013-05-04T05:12:01-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
When was the last time you heard a Republican talk like that? That was Virginia's Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling talking to the Washington Post last month about the state's persistent transportation crisis. Bolling has been elected to his position twice as a Republican (in 2005, when Virginia elected a Democratic governor, and in 2009 when the state elected the current Republican governor).

Bolling says he will decide by March 14 whether he will jump into the race for governor this year as an Independent, or what he calls an "Independent Republican." It could be the first battle in a Republican civil war resulting from Mitt Romney's unexpectedly decisive defeat last year. "It's just a challenging time for the Republican Party when a conservative, mainstream guy like me doesn't really feel comfortable with his party," Bolling told the Post. "The party has moved too far, and it's become too extreme and too ideological."

Case in point: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has become the champion of tea party and religious right Republicans. Last year, Cuccinelli supporters took over the Virginia Republican Party's central committee and switched the contest for the 2013 gubernatorial nomination from a primary to a convention. Bolling, who was planning a primary race, didn't stand a chance to carry a convention controlled by Cuccinelli activists. Bolling got out of the Republican race a few weeks after the presidential election in November, after waiting to see whether he would accede to the governor's chair if Romney won and appointed the current Republican governor to an Administration position.

Cuccinelli's a firebrand. He takes aggressively conservative positions on social issues like abortion, gay rights, contraception, immigration and climate change. He sued the federal government over the new health care law. He opposes a compromise deal on transportation funding supported by the Republican governor. He has called the Obama administration "the biggest set of lawbreakers in America."

Republicans have now failed to carry the national popular vote in five out of the last six presidential elections. Virginia voted Republican in every presidential election from 1968 to 2004. It has now gone twice for Barack Obama. Republicans are going through the same correction process that Democrats went through after losing three straight presidential elections in the 1980s. Remember the "neo-liberal" movement?

Virginia is ground zero in the Republican correction process. "I'm concerned that our party is headed in the wrong direction," Bolling wrote in an e-mail asking Virginia Republicans whether they would support an independent campaign, which he called "an opportunity to make history." Last month, Politico reported that two Virginia technology executives confronted Cuccinelli at a private party meeting and told him he was too polarizing to get elected. One of them -- a leading Romney fundraiser -- later told the New York Times, "Everyone is going to be focused on Virginia as an indication of the future direction of the party nationally. It is exceptionally important that the direction be a mainstream direction."

A recent Quinnipiac poll of Virginia voters shows a tight two-way race between Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Neither candidate is particularly well known in the state: 44 percent of Virginians have no opinion of Cuccinelli and 60 percent have no opinion of McAuliffe. With Bolling as an Independent, McAuliffe opens up a small lead over Cuccinelli (34 to 31 percent, with 13 percent for Bolling). Bolling believes that if he gets in, his support will immediately jump to 20-25 percent. He could win with just over one third of the vote, assuming he can raise $10-15 million to run a credible campaign.

A Cuccinelli defeat this year would break a pattern. In every election for governor since 1977, Virginia has voted for the party that lost the White House the year before. That's mainly because the electorate shrinks. The number of Virginia voters went from 3.7 million in 2008 to 2.0 million in 2009.

Virginia is also ground zero in the sequester debate. Federal spending accounts for nearly 20 percent of the Virginia economy. The Defense Department is planning to furlough nearly 90,000 civilian workers in Virginia this year, the most in any state. Economists are predicting that the sequester will drive Virginia into recession.

It is not clear which party voters will blame. Right now, voters nationwide blame Republicans more than Democrats for the sequester crisis. But when sequestration went into effect, President Obama's job approval rating dropped from 51 to 47 percent in the Gallup poll.

If Bolling runs and wins, it would be a powerful statement to both parties, but particularly to Republicans. A Virginia businessman told Politico that an independent like Bolling "could raise an enormous amount of money if he skillfully frames his candidacy around restoring moderation to politics." The businessman predicted, "Virginia's upcoming gubernatorial election could be cited as the battleground where this stand could be taken and won."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2758740 2013-02-25T10:26:05-05:00 2013-04-27T05:12:01-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Senate Democrats started worrying during the fiscal cliff negotiations in December. They warned President Obama not to offer a two-month postponement of the spending cuts as part of the deal to avert the fiscal cliff. Their reasoning: if the White House separated the tax hikes from the spending cuts, Democrats would lose leverage. And they did.

Every battle is about leverage. Democrats had the leverage in the fiscal cliff negotiations in December. If Republicans refused to make a deal, the Bush tax cuts would have expired and most Americans would have had to pay higher taxes. Republicans couldn't let that happen. So they agreed to let tax rates go up for the rich. They caved.

Republicans had caved twice before.

In August 2011, they allowed the nation's debt ceiling to be raised. If they hadn't, it would have endangered the full faith and credit of the United States and thrown world financial markets into turmoil. That threat gave the White House leverage.

In early 2012, the payroll tax cut was due to expire. President Obama wanted to extend it for a year. Republicans insisted that the tax cut extension be paid for with additional spending cuts. If there was no deal, payroll taxes would have gone up immediately. Republicans couldn't let that happen, especially in an election year. So they caved, again.

Now spending cuts are on the table. House Speaker John Boehner said last week, "Just last month, the president got his higher taxes on the wealthy, and he's already back for more. The American people understand that the revenue debate is now closed... Spending is the problem, spending must be the focus."

This time, if nothing happens, $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts will go into effect. Republicans seem unfazed by that prospect. The White House had calculated that Republicans would never allow the spending cuts to go into effect because the cuts would fall more heavily on the military. That turned out to be a miscalculation.

Because guess what? Most Republicans don't care. They are willing to take the meat axe to defense spending if that's the only way to get spending down. A few defense hawks are upset by that prospect -- Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham most prominently. But most Republicans are falling in line with the Tea Party: spending is spending.

The American public seems far less apprehensive about the sequester than they were about the fiscal cliff back in December. In the USA Today-Pew poll, only 27 percent said they were paying a lot of attention to the sequester debate. Back in 2011, 50 percent said they were paying a lot of attention to the prospect that the country could go into default if there was no deal on the debt ceiling. The public does not seem to be in a panic over the spending cuts, especially because most entitlement spending will not be affected. That, too, gives Republicans leverage.

The Pew poll gave people a list of 19 government programs and asked whether spending on each of them should be cut. Most Americans said no for 18 out of the 19 programs (all but foreign aid). But when asked whether the deficit should be reduced through "spending cuts" or "tax increases," nearly three quarters said it should be done mostly through spending cuts -- undefined.

That's precisely what the sequester is: undefined spending cuts. More leverage for Republicans.

The fact that the public is not in a panic over the sequester might have something to do with the words. "Default," "fiscal cliff" and "government shutdown" are scary words. They sound like doom. "Sequesters," not so much.

Given all that leverage, Republicans should win this political battle. But they may not. In fact, the White House is confident that it will win. Why? Because even though Republicans can make the case that they have a better message, Democrats have a better messenger.

The Obama administration is mounting a full-court press to warn voters about what could happen if the sequester goes into effect. They are rushing to define those undefined spending cuts. "Once these cuts take effect," the president said in his radio address on Saturday, "thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off ... These cuts will set back medical science for a generation."

Speaker Boehner wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "As the President's outrage about the sequester grows in coming days, Republicans have a simple response: Mr. President, we agree that your sequester is bad policy. What spending are you willing to cut to replace it?"

Whom do Americans find more credible? It's not even close. The percentage in the USA Today-Pew poll that approves of the job President Obama is doing: 51 percent. Approval of the job Republican leaders in Congress are doing: 25 percent. By an 18-point margin (49 percent to 31 percent), the public says Republicans would be more to blame than President Obama if no deal is reached before the March 1 deadline.

Certainly the president is taking a risk by campaigning against the sequester. His brand is that of a conciliator, not a warrior. When Americans see dysfunction in Washington, he is part of it. And the public may remain unfazed by the cuts. Unless they throw the country into another recession, in which case the president is likely to share the blame for it.

But whom have Republicans got to take on President Obama? John Boehner? Mitch McConnell? Marco Rubio? Paul Ryan? All either unknown or tainted by their association with a despised Congress. Republicans may have an argument, but President Obama is far more likable and believable. In politics, that goes a long way.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2661952 2013-02-11T10:16:32-05:00 2013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/ Twelve percent of the voters last year called themselves "None." They voted 70 percent for Barack Obama.

The unchurched were about equal in number to African-American voters (13 percent), larger than Latinos (10 percent) and much larger than either Mormons or Jews (each 2 percent).

The reason why Democrats don't talk about the unchurched is obvious. They don't want to advertise themselves as "the godless party." The United States is still a country where religion is a major force in both public and private life. That makes the U.S. unique among advanced industrial countries.

In October, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported that 58 percent of Americans claim that religion is very important in their lives -- far higher than in Britain (17 percent), France (13 percent), Germany (21 percent) or even Spain, once the land of the Holy Inquisition (22 percent). More Americans believe in God, heaven, hell, angels, Satan and the inerrant authority of the Bible than citizens of any other modern country.

That's because the United States was first settled by people seeking religious freedom, like the Puritans. They did not want to live under the authority of an Established Church that was not their own. The United States is not the only majority Protestant country in the world, but it is the only country where the dominant churches are dissenting churches. Many groups came to this country for religious reasons, and they have devoted themselves to preserving and advancing their religious heritage.

That's why the emergence of the unchurched is both surprising and little noted. It was noted by the Pew Forum, however, which came out with a report last year called "'Nones' on the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have no Religious Affiliation." One in five! To be precise, the Pew poll conducted last summer found 19.6 percent of Americans who described themselves as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular." That number has been slowly creeping up. It was 15.3 percent in 2007, 16.8 percent in 2009 and 18.6 percent in 2011.

Wait a minute. If the unchurched were 20 percent of all adults last year, why were they only 12 percent of the voters? Because the unchurched are disproportionately young and unmarried, characteristics associated with lower voter registration and turnout. But at 12 percent of the voters, they are no longer an insignificant constituency.

Do the unchurched become churchier as they get older and marry? Surprisingly, no. According to the Pew study, "Americans do not generally become more [religiously] affiliated as they move through the life cycle from young adulthood through marriage, parenting, middle age and retirement."

Like the exit poll, the Pew survey found the unchurched to be strongly Democratic (63 percent) and liberal. (Liberals outnumbered conservatives among the unchurched by nearly two to one, which is the reverse of the ratio among all voters.) One quarter of Democrats are unchurched, making them a larger Democratic constituency than Roman Catholics.

The emergence of the unchurched as a Democratic constituency is a response to the most important trend in American politics since 1980: the mobilization of religious voters by the Republican Party.

A personal story:

In the early 1990s, I held a post as visiting professor of American politics at a leading Jesuit university.

One of the perks of that position was an invitation to tea with the cardinal. After we exchanged pleasantries, the cardinal asked, "Is there anything happening in American politics that I should be aware of?"

"As a matter of fact, your eminence, there is," I answered. "Since 1980, religious Americans of all faiths -- fundamentalist Protestants, observant Catholics, even Orthodox Jews -- have been moving toward the Republican Party. At the same time, secular Americans have found a home in the Democratic Party.

"This is something new in American politics," I explained. "We have never had a religious party." Then I went a fateful step further, adding, "I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of a religious party in this country."

The cardinal pounced. "Well, I'm a little uncomfortable with an irreligious party in this country," he said.

My response: "I think I'll have more tea."

The consequences of this division were apparent in the recent showdown between President Obama and the nation's Catholic bishops over coverage of contraceptives under the new health insurance law. The bishops were outraged that the original law, passed in 2010, required employers to pay for free contraceptives for female employees as part of their insurance coverage. Only churches and explicitly religious organizations were exempted. "Increased access to birth control is a huge win for women," the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America told the Washington Post. The bishops demanded exemptions for Catholic schools and charitable organizations that serve and employ persons outside the faith.

Last month, President Obama offered a complex compromise that enables employees of such organizations to obtain contraception coverage through separate policies paid for by insurance companies. The bishops have rejected that compromise offer, claiming that self-insured religious institutions would still be forced to pay for contraceptive coverage. The bishops are also demanding exemptions for private employers who, for their own religious reasons, do not wish to pay for contraceptive coverage. The issue appears headed to the Supreme Court, where six of the nine justices are Roman Catholics.

Are the unchurched represented in Congress? Yes -- barely. Eleven members of the current House and Senate list their religious affiliation as "none" or "unspecified." That's two percent, not 20 or even 12 percent. But it's more than twice as many members with no religion than in the 2009-2010 Congress. In 1979-1980, there were none.

And by the way, every one of the members of Congress who profess no religion is a Democrat.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2550595 2013-01-25T12:18:15-05:00 2013-03-27T05:12:01-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
With that bloodless, analytical sentence from his second inaugural address, President Obama set off a firestorm of protest among conservatives. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the speech "unabashedly far-left-of-center." House Speaker John Boehner said the president's mission was to "annihilate the Republican Party."

"Good grief," Charlie Brown would say.

What Obama was doing was responding to the Reagan Revolution. The rallying cry of that revolution, delivered in President Reagan's 1981 inaugural address, was this: "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." That has been the reigning principle of American politics for 32 years. Even President Clinton reaffirmed it when he said in 1996, "The era of big government is over."

President Obama wasn't saying the era of big government is back. He was saying that Republicans have gone too far. They have been taken over by the Tea Party, which challenges the most consensual functions of government: providing security and ensuring opportunity. That requires -- the president dared to say -- "collective action." The term "collective action" gives Republicans a nosebleed. It sounds like collectivism. That's socialism!

Actually, it's the most basic function of government. This country has been debating strong government versus weak government for more than 200 years. The bias has always been in favor of weak government. Most people came here seeking economic freedom or religious freedom. They associated government with excessive power (King George III). The country's first governing document, the Articles of Confederation (1781), set up a central government that was so weak it was unworkable. It had to be thrown out and replaced by the Constitution in 1789.

For roughly the first century of American history, progressive forces favored weak government. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were intensely anti-government. That's because government was associated with economic power and social privilege. Jackson famously vetoed spending for internal improvements -- roads, canals, bridges -- because he believed it gave the federal government too much power.

Throughout the 19th century, the Democratic Party was the anti-government party. As the party of the left, Democrats represented the out-groups of society: working people, immigrants, the non-religious. Even Southern slaveholders, who suspected -- correctly -- that the federal government wanted to take away their property.

Those were the days before the federal income tax, which was not authorized until the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. Before that, the principal source of revenue for the federal government was not "internal revenue" (taxes) but external revenue -- tariffs. Sure enough, the debate over tariffs was the defining partisan issue. Democratic Party platforms in the 19th century called for "tariffs for purposes of revenue only." Meaning, don't spend government money for purposes larger than to keep the government running.

It's the same debate we have today over taxes. In his first speech to Congress in February 1981, President Reagan said, "The taxing power of government must be used to provide revenues for legitimate government purposes. It must not be used to regulate the economy or bring about social change."

Around the turn of the 20th century, the parties' positions on government began to reverse. Progressives discovered something radically new: that the power of government could be used to curb abusive economic power, which was rampant in the era of trusts and monopolies. Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt articulated the new progressive doctrine in a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1910. In order to curb the power of wealth and special interests, Roosevelt called for "a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had."

One hundred and one years later, President Obama opened his re-election campaign with a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, echoing the same themes. Obama said in 2011, "As a nation, we've always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed." In his second inaugural address, Obama said, "A modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce." So much for Andrew Jackson's hostility to internal improvements.

In the 1930s, the Democrats under Franklin D. Roosevelt figured out that the power of the federal government could be used to promote economic justice: the New Deal. They folded supporters of the Progressive movement into the Democratic Party. In the 1960s, Democrats figured out that the power of the federal government could be used to promote social justice: the civil rights movement. To be a progressive today is to be supportive of federal power.

Notice that the Democratic Party changed its ideology, from anti-government to pro-government. But the party did not change its allegiance. The Democratic Party remained the party of out-groups. Only now, those out-groups saw the federal government as their ally, not their enemy. Under President Obama, the Democratic coalition includes working and single women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, gay people, young people, Jewish voters, educated professionals, and the "unchurched" (the one-fifth of Americans who say they have "no religion").

That's the New America. For different reasons, they all see themselves as out-groups. They see the federal government as a force that protects their interests and promotes their values. They see the Republican Party as the party of entrenched wealth and privilege (i.e., Mitt Romney). What's changed is that the New America is becoming the nation's majority. Democrats have carried the popular vote in five out of the last six presidential elections. Democrats are even launching a plan to make the nation's iconic red state more competitive: "Battleground Texas."

Republicans feel threatened. And they should. Speaker Boehner says the goal of the Obama administration is "just shove us into the dustbin of history." Rep. Paul Ryan, the party's candidate for vice president last year, said this week, "Our party's value-add to the political system at the moment... is to help prevent a debt crisis." The debt issue is a pretext Republicans use to call for deep reductions in federal spending. If Republicans were really concerned about the debt, they would not be resisting any and all tax increases. Curbing federal spending is not a high priority for the New America.

The progressive vision that animates Obama's agenda ("collective action") is the same progressive vision that animated Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. "Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time," the President said on Monday. "But it does require us to act in our time." That's exactly what he proposes to do.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2048991 2012-10-31T09:05:10-04:00 2012-12-31T05:12:01-05:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
In 2000, most Americans accepted the Supreme Court decision for the same reason the Court felt compelled to make it: political necessity. In many countries, the narrow resolution of a disputed election on dubious legal grounds would have brought protesters into the streets, and possibly violence. It is a tribute to the American public's respect for the Constitution, and for the Supreme Court as the voice of the Constitution, that nothing of the sort happened. Al Gore set the tone when he told the country, "Let there be no doubt: while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it."

Polls showed most Americans did believe the Supreme Court justices were influenced by their personal political views in deciding the election. Nevertheless, nearly three quarters said they accepted the court's ruling as legitimate -- including two-thirds of Gore's supporters. The public wanted closure. "The Supreme Court follows the election returns," Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley once said. In 2000, the Supreme Court created the election returns. And the American public seemed more relieved than angry.

Things might not be so manageable this time.

For one thing, Republicans are angrier than Democrats. In last month's Fox News poll, 20 percent of Republicans described themselves as "angry" at the Obama Administration. Conservative anger is what sustains the talk radio industry. Liberals get angry too, but that's usually when there's an antiwar movement.

Even in 2000, Republicans were less willing to accept defeat. More than half of Bush's supporters that year said if Gore were declared the winner and inaugurated, they would refuse to accept him as the legitimate President. Only a third of Gore supporters said the same thing about Bush.

Conservatives have been raising the question of Obama's legitimacy ever since he got elected. That's what the birther movement was all about. Obama's enemies could not challenge the results of the 2008 election, so they challenged Obama's eligibility to serve as President. They demanded that he prove he was a native-born American. (He did.) They continue to associate the President with "foreign" ideas and "foreign" influences. Romney said this month that President Obama's policies are "foreign to anything this country has ever known."

If Obama carries battleground states by narrow margins, Republicans are likely to charge voter fraud. And demand investigations. In a Monmouth University poll this month, 51 percent of Republicans said voter fraud is "a major problem" in this country. Only 23 percent of Democrats called it a major problem.

Mark McKinnon, a former political strategist for President George W. Bush, told the Washington Post that if Obama is re-elected without carrying the popular vote, "the Republican base will be screaming that Romney should be President and Obama doesn't represent the country."

It could even set off a move to abolish the electoral college. In 2000, the electoral college was the real problem. But very few Democrats made an issue of it. Why not? One word: Florida. Democrats were so angry over the strange ballots and chaotic vote-counting in Florida -- with television fixated for six weeks on hanging chads -- that they failed to notice the larger electoral college problem. Measures were passed to fix the voting system (the Help America Vote Act). But no measure to change the electoral college ever came to a vote in Congress.

If we get another reversal in 2012, Republicans are likely to pressure for electoral reform. It would take a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. That would be a difficult process. But states can change the way they apportion electoral votes on their own. Two small states -- Nebraska and Maine -- already apportion their electoral votes based on who carries each congressional district. Some states have already considered dividing their electoral votes in proportion to the state's popular vote.

Eight states and the District of Columbia have signed a compact to cast their electoral votes for the national popular vote winner. But the compact will take effect only if enough states join to comprise a majority of electoral votes. So far, the compact includes less than half the electoral votes needed for a majority.

Reform will not be easy. The only thing we can say with certainty is that, if Obama is re-elected without carrying the popular vote, partisan warfare will escalate. And President Obama's honeymoon will be ruined.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1950829 2012-10-09T09:07:09-04:00 2012-12-09T05:12:02-05:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Democrats were enraged by Obama's performance. It was bloodless. He didn't show enough fight. Partisans expect their standard-bearer to be ruthless and aggressive. Especially if your opponent gets down and dirty, as Mitt Romney did. You're expected to do whatever it takes to win. Remember how Lloyd Bentsen humiliated Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate ("Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy")?

Obama represents the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It's dominated by educated upper-middle-class liberals. They don't like a lot of fighting. You could call them NPR Democrats. NPR is talk radio for liberals: All Things Considered. Conservatives do not consider all things. They consider what they damn well want to consider.

The Clintons represent the populist wing of the party. They get the support of working class white voters who like their politics bloody. Hillary Clinton was their champion in 2008. She ran as a fighter. "One thing you know about me is that I am no shrinking violet," she told her supporters. "If I tell you I will fight for you, that is exactly what I intend to do." Obama promised to end all the fighting. He argued that voters were not "looking for politicians to be calling each other names and acting with a lot of bluster."

Democrats got shellacked in 2010 because the populist wing of the party dropped off. White working class voters never trusted President Obama, and when he failed to deliver on the economy, they abandoned the Democrats. Obama is struggling to win them back. Bill Clinton helped with his speech at the Democratic convention last month. "The auto industry restructuring worked," Clinton told the cheering delegates. "It saved more than a million jobs." That was something President Obama neglected to mention during the debate.

Mitt Romney fought dirty. He made a lot of claims that were false or deceptive. Like when he said, "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." President Obama's response? "If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for -- $7 trillion, just to give you a sense, over ten years that's more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney's plan may work for you." Huh?

Romney claimed that "pre-existing conditions are covered under my [health care] plan." That was misleading. They're only covered in Romney's plan if you already have insurance. Obama's reply? "What your plan does is duplicate what's already the law, which says if you are out of health insurance for three months, then you can end up getting continuous coverage and an insurance company can't deny you if you've -- if it's been under 90 days." Technically correct, but how many people got that Obama was calling Romney a liar?

Romney fashions himself a turnaround artist. He used the debate to turn around his image, from a right-wing ideologue in thrall to the Tea Party to a reasonable and compassionate moderate. "Regulation is essential" ... "What we did [on health care] in Massachusetts is a model for the nation" ... "We care for those that have difficulties." Like the 47 percent of Americans who depend on government support that he denounced a few months ago at a private fundraiser? President Obama never protested any of Romney's claims.

Did conservatives object to Romney's newfound moderation? Not at all. They were full of praise for his debate performance. They want Romney to do whatever it takes to bring Obama down. They were delighted that Obama wouldn't fight dirty. In fact, he wouldn't fight at all, which is what drove Democrats crazy. In the next debate, Obama may not have much of an opportunity to fight back. It's a town hall, where the questions will be asked by undecided voters. Undecided voters are not partisans. They don't like a lot of fighting.

Obama's performance last week matched the stereotype of the weak liberal. That was the image created by George McGovern in 1972, who said he was "a thousand percent" behind his running mate before dropping him from the ticket. And Walter Mondale in 1984, who got pushed around by the special interests. And Michael Dukakis in 1988, who looked ridiculous riding in a tank. Democrats used to be tough guys. That was in the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys. If you dared to defy any of them, you paid a price.

In the 1932 campaign, FDR promised an audience in Pittsburgh that he would balance the budget while cutting back government by 25 percent. He did neither. Roosevelt's press secretary asked the President how he should respond if reporters asked him about that promise. "Tell them I've never been to Pittsburgh," FDR said.

President Obama needs to pick up some of that spirit if he wants to win this election.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1922959 2012-09-28T11:35:37-04:00 2012-11-28T05:12:01-05:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
In 2004, CNN polled viewers after every presidential debate and asked them who won. The answer, after all three debates: John Kerry. Voters were in agreement that Kerry was a better debater, and certainly more articulate, than George W. Bush. The debates did make the race closer, but Bush sustained a narrow lead. Most people don't vote for you for president because you're a better debater.

Debates have a tendency to do more harm than good. Richard Nixon was damaged in his first debate with John F. Kennedy in 1960. Nixon looked tired and unshaven -- he refused to use makeup -- against a youthful and vigorous Kennedy. Forty years later, Al Gore's condescending attitude, his theatrical sighing and his invasion of his opponent's space put voters off, in contrast to the chummy George W. Bush.

When it comes to unforced errors, nothing quite matches President Gerald Ford's premature liberation of Eastern Europe in a 1976 debate -- "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration." Michael Dukakis came close in a 1988 debate when moderator Bernie Shaw asked him whether he would favor the death penalty if his wife were brutally raped and murdered. Dukakis's response was shockingly dispassionate: "No I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I have opposed the death penalty during all of my life."

The first President Bush doomed himself at a 1992 debate without saying a word. At the first-ever town hall debate, the camera caught Bush looking at his watch. That shot confirmed a damaging stereotype of Bush -- that he was out-of-touch with ordinary Americans.

And who can forget the savaging Dan Quayle experienced at the hands of Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 vice presidential debate? "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Yet Quayle, not Bentsen, got elected. Which proves that when Americans cast their presidential ballots, they are not voting for vice president.

Ronald Reagan created a problem for himself in the second 1984 debate with his rambling and incoherent closing statement (something about driving down the Pacific coast and thinking about the "terrible destructive power" of nuclear weapons). It led the press to ask whether the president was getting senile. (Reagan eventually did develop Alzheimer's disease, long after he left office.) Reagan used the next debate to recover with a quip: "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

There are fewer instances where the debates clearly boosted a candidate. That may have happened with Kennedy in 1960. He remains the youngest president ever elected for the first time, and voters in 1960 had serious doubts about Kennedy's experience. Especially at the peak of the Cold War. Kennedy stood his ground in the debates against the far better-known and more experienced Nixon.

The most famous instance of a game-changing debate was the one and only debate in 1980 between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Voters were deeply dissatisfied with Carter, but also frightened of Reagan. They feared he might start a war or throw old people out in the snow. Reagan used the one debate -- less than a week before election day -- to recast the election as a referendum on the incumbent ("Ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago?"). And to prove to voters that he was not a monster ("There you go again"). After the debate, the floodgates burst. Millions of voters who did not want to reelect Carter but had serious reservations about Reagan suddenly felt free to vote for the Republican.

Typically, debates are more important for lesser known candidates like Kennedy in 1960 and Reagan in 1980. Standing on the same stage with an incumbent president or vice president gives the opponent presidential stature. That's why third party candidates are desperate to be included in the debates. The debates certainly helped Ross Perot in 1992. Instead of suffering the usual fate of third party candidates -- seeing their vote get squeezed down at the end of the campaign -- Perot saw his vote go up (to 19 percent).

Romney has the most at stake in the debates this year. He is the non-incumbent. Romney's problem is that the more people have gotten to know him, the less they like him. According to the Pew poll, Romney is the only presidential candidate of either party since at least 1988 to be regarded unfavorably by voters this close to the election. It's hard to see what Romney can do in the debate to make himself more likeable and trustworthy. Reagan did it, but he was an experienced actor.

Romney will have to rely on Obama to make an unforced error. This president has occasionally done that. Most recently in July, when Obama said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that." Republicans organized their entire convention in Tampa around the theme "We built it." Obama's remark was certainly unfortunate and inartful. But it doesn't seem to have done any lasting damage. Republicans got no bounce at all out of their convention this year.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1820049 2012-08-22T10:16:08-04:00 2012-10-22T05:12:07-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Election campaigns are driven by market research. The party out of power has to figure out what voters want that they are not getting from the incumbent. If the opposition campaign gets it right, they win. Examples: "Order" in 1968 (LBJ couldn't provide it, Richard Nixon ran on it). "Morality" in 1976 (Nixon couldn't provide it, Carter ran on it). "Empathy" in 1992 (George H.W. Bush didn't seem to have any, Bill Clinton felt your pain).

The opposition party can also get it wrong. In which case, it loses. Examples: "Fairness" for Walter Mondale in 1984 (didn't work in a year when it was "Morning in America"). "Competence" for Michael Dukakis in 1988 (no market for it when the economy was still strong). "Character" for Bob Dole in 1996 (the Lewinski scandal hadn't happened yet).

Is there a market for smaller government this year? Government has certainly gotten a lot bigger under President Obama. The federal budget deficit has nearly tripled. With passage of the Affordable Care Act, the country got a huge new federal entitlement program. Neil Newhouse, Romney's pollster, told the New York Times, "When you really probe, people are upset with spending, the deficit and the debt. It goes beyond jobs and the economy."

Actually, it doesn't. At least, not for most voters. Most Americans are dissatisfied with the way President Obama has managed the economy. Jobs are the big issue this year. Yes, some voters are really upset about big government ("spending, the deficit and the debt"). Who are they? The Tea Party.

The Tea Party does not represent the nation's most economically hard-pressed voters. It represents the nation's most ideologically hard-pressed voters. The Tea Party sprang into action as soon as President Obama took office because its supporters were enraged over the stimulus plan and government bailouts and health care reform. They saw Obama's agenda as ideological aggression -- their worst nightmare of big government.

If the Tea Party were really upset over the deficit and the debt, they would be willing to talk about tax increases, at least for the wealthy. Taxes have to be part of any realistic solution to the nation's long-term debt problem. Relatively modest tax increases were part of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles plan produced by the super committee on debt reduction last year. Paul Ryan was a member of that super committee. But he refused to sign on to the plan. He would not support any tax increases. And this is a guy who says he's worried about the national debt?

It's pretty clear that the Tea Party's real motive is to shrink government, not to reduce the debt. They want only spending cuts, and spending cuts only on domestic programs like Medicare and Social Security. Defense cuts, like tax increases, are off limits. All their wailing over the national debt is really a pretext. Reducing the debt opens the door to what they really want: less spending and smaller government. You have to reduce the debt their way.

The principal focus of the campaign is no longer jobs and the economy. It's Paul Ryan's budget plan and Medicare. That's not what Republicans should be talking about. Pushed by the Tea Party, Republicans are framing the debate as an ideological showdown over big government rather than a referendum on President Obama's stewardship of the economy.

After four years of Obama, are we seeing a surge of demand for smaller government this year? Americans always prefer limited government. It's part of our heritage. In the new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 55 percent say they would like a smaller government with fewer services. Only 40 percent want a larger government with more services. But those figures have hardly changed over the past 30 years.

The idea of big government is never popular, but the reality is OK. Nearly 60 percent of Americans want to keep Medicare the way it is. Three quarters think the federal government should regulate greenhouse gas emissions in order to help reduce global warming. Republicans aren't just attacking the idea of big government this year. They're rallying around a detailed plan to cut government spending -- the Ryan plan.

The basic difference between the parties is this: Republicans believe economic growth is sufficient. If the economy is growing, people can solve their own problems. Government should just get out of the way. Democrats believe economic growth is necessary but not sufficient. Government has to provide a safety net for people who are economically vulnerable.

If this campaign were a debate over economic growth, Obama would probably lose. Instead, Republicans are turning it into a debate over the safety net. Ronald Reagan was the first President to use the term "safety net." He promised to protect it. If the Romney-Ryan Republicans are now threatening to shred the safety net, they are very likely to lose. There's not a big enough market for that.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1739411 2012-08-03T16:48:35-04:00 2012-10-03T05:12:02-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
That just about sums up the message coming out of Washington these days. Is there reason to panic? Not really, because brinkmanship has become an essential part of the political process. It's the answer to gridlock.

American government is set up to fail. The Founders created a complex and ungainly system with two houses of Congress, three branches of government and competing centers of power in the federal government and the states. The idea was to limit power. The result is a constitutional system that works exactly as intended. Which is to say, it doesn't work very well at all. As president after president has discovered, there are many ways opponents can stop measures from getting passed, even if the president's party holds a majority in Congress.

The wonder is that it actually does work. It works when there is a crisis -- when an overwhelming sense of urgency overwhelms blockages and lubricates the system. Barriers fall away and things get done, sometimes with amazing speed and efficiency.

Rahm Emanuel was right when he said in 2008, just before President Obama took office in the midst of a financial disaster, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Politicians know that, which is why they are always hyping issues. They try to declare a drug crisis or an education crisis or an environmental crisis. Or they try to rally the country to fight a "war" on something -- a war on crime, a war on drugs, a war on poverty, a war on terror.

Hence the fiscal cliff. Sen. Olympia Snowe calls it an "artificially created crisis." She's exactly right. It was deliberately created by Congress last year to force action on debt-reduction. It came out of another artificial crisis last summer -- the showdown over raising the nation's debt ceiling. Congressional Republicans demanded huge domestic spending cuts. Democrats insisted on a balanced deal including military cuts and tax hikes for the rich. The predictable result? Gridlock. The solution? Create a supercommittee to figure out a deal.

The whole idea behind the supercommittee was to force a compromise. If a majority on the supercommittee refused to endorse a plan, or if Congress did not approve the plan, then painful cuts in defense and discretionary spending would go into effect (the dreaded "sequesters"). That's exactly what happened. The cuts are scheduled to go into effect in January unless Congress acts by the end of the year. "Now we gotta figure out how to avoid the train wreck which we put in there to avoid the first train wreck," Sen. Carl Levin told Politico.

Coincidentally, the Bush tax cuts and the payroll tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year unless Congress makes a deal to extend them. The combination of tax hikes and spending cuts will throw the economy back into recession. That's a given. Hence, the fiscal cliff.

The idea is to panic the American public. But so far, the public is not panicked. People know the crisis is an artificial one. It was created by Congress. And it will be ended by Congress. Congress is in a panic because they know that if they allow the country to go over the fiscal cliff, they will be the ones who pay the price. "How did this happen?" voters will ask. The correct answer is, "Congress made it happen."

Haven't we seen this movie before? Yes, we have. In 1985, Congress passsed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings "Emergency Deficit Control Act." If Congress failed to meet its deficit reduction targets, huge across-the-board spending cuts would go into effect. Just like now. But the sequesters never happened. What did happen is that the first President Bush raised taxes in 1990 and paid a bitter price for it. And the Republican Congress shut down the federal government in 1995 and paid a bitter price for it.

Now Republicans are desperately trying to stop the cuts in military spending. Sen. Lindsey Graham even asked Fox News to do an hour-long show on sequestration. (How's that for a ratings-grabber?) "Tell the public what happens to the finest military in the history of the world if we let this begin in January," Graham said.

Nearly three-quarters of House Republicans and 60 percent of Republican senators voted for the automatic cuts last year. Now they're falling all over themselves to disavow that vote. "It was the wrong vote!" Sen John McCain told Politico.

The blame game, the panic, the brinkmanship -- that's all part of the process. In the end, Congress will work out an eleventh-hour deal to avoid the tax hikes and the sequesters, just like they did last year to avoid default. Do you really think they will allow painful cuts and tax hikes to go into effect just when a president and Congress are taking office?

It's easy to see what the deal will look like. Congress will delay most of the tax hikes and the spending cuts to keep the economy from going south. And they will agree to let the nasty stuff happen later in order to avoid a debt crisis. Meanwhile, the American public will look on Washington with bewilderment and disgust, just as they did last summer. Why do we have to go through all this sturm-und-drang to get the deal done? It's the system, stupid.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1664606 2012-07-11T09:43:29-04:00 2012-09-10T05:12:03-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Some 65 non-partisan national polls have been taken since early February. Average the poll results every two weeks and what happens? Nothing. Obama's lead has bounced around from one point to six. No trend.

What about all those dramatic twists and turns so breathlessly covered by cable news? The showdown over contraception. The Romney campaign's "Etch-a-Sketch" moment. The impact? Nothing changed.

What about the disappointing jobs numbers? The Washington Post reported that "in the wake of the May jobs report, President Obama's economic job approval rating hardly moved at all, neither did his support in a contest with Romney." The Supreme Court's decision to uphold health care reform? CNN's poll at the end of May showed Obama 49, Romney 46. And CNN's poll at the end of June following the health care decision? Obama 49, Romney 46.

The polls have maintained a serene stability: usually Obama slightly ahead but never by a comfortable margin. The latest poll? That would be by ABC News and the Washington Post, July 5 to 8: Obama 47, Romney 47.

Oh my God, could 2012 be another 2000 with a disputed outcome? Yes it could. But the 2000 election was close for a different reason.

When an election is close, it gives the impression voters are deeply polarized. But a close vote can mean something else, namely, that voters can't make up their minds. They see things they like, and dislike, about both candidates. Pollsters know that when a poll question gets a 50-50 response, it can mean either that people are sharply divided or that they have mixed feelings and many are picking an answer at random.

Ask people which they would prefer, ice cream or apple pie, and you would probably get close to a 50-50 split. Not because the public is deeply polarized between pie and ice cream, but because most people like both and have trouble making up their minds. They choose at random.

Americans were two-minded about the 2000 election. In overwhelming numbers, they said it was the best economy of their lifetime. But in overwhelming numbers, they also thought the country needed a change of leadership after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hence, the excruciating closeness of the result.

This year is different. Americans are not exactly two-minded. They're divided. Half the country is of one mind and half is of another mind. About what? About President Obama, of course. Half the country loves him and half the country hates him. So far at least, nothing seems to change their minds.

The Gallup poll has a simple index to measure polarization: the difference between the job ratings given to presidents by supporters of their own party and supporters of the opposition party. For the six presidents before Ronald Reagan (Dwight Eisenhower through Jimmy Carter), the partisan difference averaged 34 points. From Reagan through George W. Bush, the average difference between Democrats and Republicans jumped to 55 points.

What is it now? A whopping 86 percent of Democrats approve of the job President Obama is doing. Among, Republicans, the figure is a paltry 11 percent. A 75-point difference!

Right now, the campaign is dominated by two prevailing perceptions. One is that President Obama is not up to the job. His rating for handling the economy in the Post-ABC poll is 54 to 44 percent negative. The other is that Mitt Romney is not very likeable. Voters call Obama "the more friendly and likeable person" by a huge margin, 63 to 26 percent. A lot of money is going to be spent -- maybe upwards of $2 billion -- trying to change those perceptions.

It has not worked so far, and it may not work without some major transforming events. A sudden spurt of economic growth? A "new Romney?" Don't count on it.

The alternative is to fire up your base. Both candidates have been doing that. Romney favors an indefinite extension of all the Bush tax cuts and opposes extending unemployment benefits. Obama has come out for same-sex marriage, for ending tax cuts for the rich and against the deportation of illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Firing up the base also means demonizing the opposition. The Post reports "the costliest blitz of early campaign advertising the country has ever seen." Much of it negative. "The Obama team and its allies have relentlessly attacked Romney's experience at Bain Capital," while "Romney and his supporters... have focused a considerable portion of spending on Obama's economic record."

So far this year, persuasion doesn't seem to be working. If you can't change people's minds, an alternative is to beat their brains out.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1630285 2012-06-27T10:15:45-04:00 2012-08-27T05:12:06-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
It is a great fiction, of course, that a president is in control of events. Presidents rarely are. The point is that a president has to appear to be in control. Otherwise the voters feel frightened and leaderless, at the mercy of forces that are out of control.

The challenge becomes particularly acute during natural disasters -- events that are beyond anyone's control. That is when people are desperate to believe that the situation is under control. President Bush faced that challenge when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Instead of immediately taking charge, President Bush appeared remote and passive -- a detached spectator viewing the damage from the air. A great American city was nearly destroyed. Over 1,800 people lost their lives. The president seemed powerless to do anything.

The same thing almost happened after 9/11. For several days, President Bush was hardly in evidence. Fortunately for terrified New Yorkers, they had a leader who seized the moment. Mayor Rudy Giuliani was in the streets, covered in ash, holding public briefings, offering reassurance, barking orders. Did he really have the situation under control? No. But Giuliani gave the impression for several terrifying days that he did.

Bush ultimately rescued his image when he showed up at Ground Zero three days later, grabbed a bullhorn and shouted, "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" The president offered what Americans desperately wanted in that awful moment: a show of defiance and resolve.

President Obama is not facing the challenge of a natural disaster or an attack. But he does appear to be at the mercy of forces beyond his control. The economy, first and foremost. Americans behave as if the president is commander-in-chief of the economy. He's not, of course. No one is. No one can command an economy of this size and complexity to do anything. But the president has to give that impression.

What exactly can the president do about the debt crisis and the intensifying recession in Europe? He acknowledged at the G-20 summit in Mexico, "Given that we don't have full control over what happens in Europe or the pace at which things happen in Europe, let's make sure that we're doing those things that we do have control over." Like what? He called on Congress to "act on a jobs plan that would put us on a path of creating an extra million jobs." There is not a chance Congress will do that. Meanwhile, the White House seems to be waiting breathlessly for the jobs numbers to come out every month, in the hope that they will deliver salvation.

Those numbers come out next week. This week the administration is waiting helplessly for the Supreme Court to pass judgment on its signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act. If that law is declared unconstitutional, Mitt Romney's argument that the Obama presidency has been a failure will get considerable re-enforcement.

When the Court issued its ruling on the Arizona illegal immigration law this week, Justice Antonin Scalia used the opportunity to express contempt for President Obama's executive order halting the deportation of illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. "Are the sovereign states at the mercy of the federal executive's refusal to enforce the nation's immigration laws?" Scalia asked disdainfully.

The president's enemies are gathering against him. Whenever President Obama complains about Congress's failure to act, he makes himself appear to be at the mercy of a hostile Congress. They are in control, not the president.

The same thing happened to President Bill Clinton after the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994. The Republican Congress seized the initiative. For a while, House Speaker Newt Gingrich looked like the head of government. Clinton reached his low point on April 18, 1995, when he was reduced to pleading at a news conference, "The President is still relevant here." One day later, the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed. That disaster gave President Clinton the opportunity to restore his image of leadership.

President Jimmy Carter was not so lucky. Carter appeared more and more hapless and ineffectual during the final year of his presidency. He was buffeted by forces beyond his control -- student radicals in Teheran, the energy crisis, inflation, recession, Soviet defiance. Carter's failure led to the election of Ronald Reagan, a man who probably could not have gotten elected in any other year. In 1980, however, Reagan's ability to project leadership and confidence gave the country exactly what it wanted.

What can Obama do? He has to appear unfazed and unrattled: "No drama Obama." His decision to issue a deportation stay was a political masterstroke that rattled his Republican critics, including Justice Scalia. Obama defied efforts by House Republicans to bring down Attorney General Eric Holder by claiming executive privilege. He has taken a series of small-scale initiatives, just as President Clinton did when he was on the ropes -- programs for mortgage relief, jobs for veterans, protections against dangerous invasive species like Burmese pythons and Asian carp, a port expansion in Florida, a pledge to keep a plant open in Ohio. It's Obama's way of keeping his pledge, "If Congress won't act, I will."

And if the Court strikes down the health care law? Obama has to step up immediately and say, "Don't be alarmed. We have other ways of doing this. We will not allow the Court to take health insurance away from fifty million Americans." In other words, everything is under control.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1567626 2012-06-04T10:04:48-04:00 2012-08-04T05:12:12-04:00

Bill Schneider http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/
Bush got reelected with a base strategy. He rallied conservatives with an "us versus them" campaign. Republicans demonized John Kerry and tried to discredit Democrats as soft on terrorism. It was an intensely divisive campaign that embittered the electorate.

The result was to drive up turnout, not just of conservatives, but also of liberals who were enraged by the Bush campaign. The strategy worked in 2004, but just barely. Bush got reelected with 50.7 percent of the vote.

In the end, the base strategy poisoned President Bush's second term. Social security reform, which was at the top of his agenda, got nowhere. Democrats got their revenge by taking over both houses of Congress in 2006.

In Wisconsin, the Democratic base was infuriated when Gov. Scott Walker terminated collective bargaining rights for public employees last year. For weeks, tens of thousands of protesters massed at the State Capitol and gathered enough signatures to force a recall vote. The showdown vote on Tuesday has rallied both parties in Wisconsin. National party leaders and outside labor activists have poured into the state. So has outside conservative money. Polls suggest that Gov. Walker may survive -- narrowly. Which may be one reason why the White House has not gotten involved in the campaign.

A defeat in Wisconsin would signal difficulty for Democrats. If the Democratic base can't prevail in Wisconsin -- a state with a progressive legacy that has voted Democratic for president in every election since 1989 -- how could the strategy possibly work in a conservative state like Virginia?

The core problem is simple. Conservatives outnumber liberals. Even in 2008, when Obama won by a comfortable majority, conservatives outnumbered liberals nationally by 34 to 22 percent. Rally the conservative base and you're two thirds of the way to a majority. Rally the liberal base and you're not even half way there.

What else can Obama do? Swing voters judge presidents by their performance. Democrats may have been hoping to run on the success of President Obama's recovery plan, but the latest economic figures undermine that argument. Instead, the jobs data invite Mitt Romney to run the campaign he's been hoping for -- one where he dismisses Obama as a failed president and claims it's time for professionals to take over.

Obama won the 2008 election as the leader of a political movement. A traditional campaign brings together a diverse coalition who agree on one thing: to support the party's nominee. They don't have to agree on anything else. Romney's campaign is based on that strategy. If you agree that Obama is a failed president, welcome to the campaign. No further questions.

Donald Trump's birther fantasies? No problem. Rush Limbaugh calling a female law student a "slut" and a "prostitute"? "It's not the language I would have used," Romney said. If Trump and Limbaugh oppose Obama, they pass the test. Asked his view of Trump's ravings, Romney responded fatuously, "I need to get 50.1 percent or more, and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."

In 2008, Obama promised a post-partisan politics of unity. He called it "a choice between a politics that offers more of the same divisions and distractions... or a new politics of common sense, of common purpose, of shared sacrifices and shared prosperity."

It hasn't quite worked out that way.

President Obama's style has not been divisive, but his policies were. In the first few months of his Administration, Obama proposed a stimulus plan, a mortgage rescue program, bailouts of failing companies and health care reform. Obama saw those policies as practical solutions to urgent problems. Conservatives saw a sinister ideological agenda. It was their worst nightmare of big government.

Conservatives don't care about unity. They want victory. Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party candidate who defeated Sen. Richard Lugar in the Indiana Republican primary, defined unity this way: "I think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view." Unity is a liberal value. Kum-ba-ya and all that. Conservatives prefer a combative style of politics. Conservatives are talk radio. Liberals are All Things Considered.

Unity has failed. So what's left for the Obama movement to rally around? Answer: progressive values. Tax the rich. End the war in Afghanistan. Denounce the Republican "war on women." Defend same-sex marriage. Offer young voters relief from the burden of student loans. Protect seniors from harsh entitlement reform. Those are the elements of a base strategy, and they require a good ground game. Republican Super PACS will dominate the air wars. Democrats are concentrating their resources on turning out grassroots supporters, just as Republicans did in 2004.

That's not "feel good" politics. It's "us versus them" politics. It was a good strategy for George W. Bush. But it's not who Barack Obama is. He has never appealed to voter anger -- which is the sentiment at the core of the recall campaign in Wisconsin this week.]]>