Before we get to the week that was, politically-speaking (and, with it, our final football metaphors of the season), we've first got to call another state in the Republican primary season race. Last week, we almost forgot to predict Nevada's race, and this column went out without containing such a prediction to many readers, for which we apologize (we had to quickly paste in an "Update" at ChrisWeigant.com, which smacks of last-minute-ism, we fully admit).
While many haven't even noticed it, the state of Maine will wrap up its caucuses tomorrow. If there has been any polling out of the state, we certainly haven't been able to find it, so predicting the outcome is a true gut-feeling exercise. From conversations with the Mainers we know, nobody seems to have a clue what the results will be.
One interesting comment: virtually no television ads have run in the state, from any of the candidates. Which just adds to the free-for-all nature of the race.
Based on absolutely nothing more than tossing a mental dart at the wall, I think Mitt Romney's going to win the Maine caucus. Mitt could certainly use some good news right about now, especially since the only contest in the next two-and-a-half weeks is the Northern Marianas (which I will predict right now will generate almost zero interest in the media). But folks in Maine are in Massachusetts' back yard (fun Maine trivia fact number one: the state used to be part of Massachusetts), so they likely have formed a pretty solid opinion of Romney by now. Also, Mainers are a down-to-earth bunch who are not as impressed by glitz (Gingrich, for instance) or fire-breathing (Santorum, perhaps) as voters elsewhere.
The biggest news out of the Maine caucuses will be that Ron Paul chalks up second place, after doing so decisively in Minnesota earlier in the week. I think Paul is the only candidate who actually bothered to visit Maine, which will pay off for him in a light-turnout caucus. Third place is anyone's guess, but I flipped a coin and it came up Santorum, so let's call third for Rick.
So, Maine prediction, in the following order: Romney, Paul, Santorum, with Gingrich barely even registering. Those are my picks, feel free to share yours in the comments, as always.
As for my record, I only did OK last Tuesday, although I did nail 3-for-3 in Missouri. Overall, though, I only chalked up 5-for-9 for the entire night (which I've belatedly decided to call "MinneRockyShowMe Tuesday"), which leaves my overall percentage at:
Total correct 2012 primary picks so far: 14 for 24 -- 58%.
Fun Maine trivia fact number two: Maine is the only state's name which contains only one syllable. But enough silliness, let's get on with the show....
In what can only be called the best-yet example of "How to Springboard Off Stephen Colbert," Nancy Pelosi branded her effort to pass a political financial disclosure bill as the "Stop Colbert" campaign. So far, we're pretty impressed at her grasp of hilarity. Here's Pelosi, from the video:
Stephen Colbert used to be my friend. I even signed the poor baby's cast when he hurt his hand. But since the day he started his super PAC, taking secret money from special interests, he's been out of control, even using his super PAC to attack my friend, Newt Gingrich. And if that weren't enough, I hear he doesn't even like kittens.
Heh. Love that part about Pelosi's "friend" Newt Gingrich. It's a serious piece of legislation, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it and get your message out as a direct result. For doing so, Pelosi wins at least an Honorable Mention this week.
But our Most Impressive Democrat of the Week winner was Senator Barbara Boxer, for being the woman leading the effort to provide political cover for the White House this week on the birth control controversy (much more on this later in this column). Perhaps we're biased, since we do reside in Boxer's home state of California -- there were some other Democrats out there in the media mounting a strong defense of the new policy, as well. But Boxer has made women's reproductive health one of her signature issues in the Senate, so it was her voice that carried the most weight in the debate from the Democrats' side.
For being a consistently-strong advocate of women's rights, and for stepping up to the plate this week on the birth control decision, Barbara Boxer wins the Most Impressive Democrat of the Week this week. Well done, Senator Boxer, well done.
[Congratulate Senator Barbara Boxer on her Senate contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]
Moving along, we have the "How Not to Springboard Off Stephen Colbert" category, it seems. Colbert apparently, right after the BP oil spill, proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" (on the you-broke-it-you-buy-it theory), as a joke. Mississippi state representative Steve Holland just introduced a bill in the state legislature which would do just that.
The only problem is, it's very easy to miss the fact that he's joking. After all, it wasn't that long ago our country's national legislators were spending their valuable time coming up with such neologisms as "freedom fries." So while Holland was shooting for some Colbert-inspired humor, he missed the mark for a lot of folks. We don't think this rises to the level of even a (Dis-)Honorable Mention, but we did at least think it was worth pointing out here.
In other news, the Obama White House had rather a bad week... but again, we'll get to that in a moment.
The disgrace of the Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week this week belongs to another state legislator, Bill DeWeese of Pennsylvania.
DeWeese has now been convicted of five out of six corruption charges against him. This will make him a convicted felon, once he is sentenced. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 24, which is the day Pennsylvania holds primary elections. In an astounding display of chutzpah, however, DeWeese is trying to move his sentencing back past the November election, so he can get re-elected. He is not just some backbencher, either, but the majority leader of the state house of representatives.
What he should be doing instead is writing his resignation letter. If he's sentenced as a felon, he will either have to step down or face the certainty that he's going to be kicked out. Rather than putting Pennsylvania voters through that disgrace, however, DeWeese should "take more time to work on my legal problems and my appeals" and resign his office.
For not immediately doing so -- and with golden "I'm Entitled to This Office, Dammit!" poison-ivy-leaf clusters -- Bill DeWeese is our Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week this week. Do the right thing, Bill. Resign.
[Contact Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions, even though he is not likely to pay the slightest attention.]
Volume 197 (2/10/12)
We're going to forgo enumerated talking points this week, to follow the White House's lead.
That was sarcasm, just for the record.
For the past week the political world (outside of the Republican primary race) has been consumed by a gigantic policy fight. Barack Obama and the White House were supposedly at the heart of this battle, but they were (for the most part) missing in action. This left the field for the opposition, who successfully framed the entire issue in their own terms -- which was very damaging to Obama, to say the least.
The issue, of course, was the administration's decision to require religious organizations who operate secular businesses such as universities and hospitals to provide health insurance for their employees (who are also secular, not religious employees) which fully covered birth control. Churches themselves would continue to be exempt from this requirement, but hospital workers would not.
This decision was announced a while back, and it was greeted with a full-scale attack by the Catholic Church and (once they realized what was going on) most Republicans. Inexplicably, the White House was caught flatfooted in their response.
No matter what you think of the administration's decision (agree, kind-of-sort-of agree, disagree), I think we can all agree that it was handled extremely badly from the get-go. This is not the way to roll out a contentious policy, guys and gals.
This policy has been a long time in coming. I first read about it last fall, when many on the left were predicting that Obama was going to cave in and give the churches what they wanted, rather than stand up for employee rights. This worried tone continued, with an article every few weeks on the immanence of the decision the administration faced. To put it another way: the White House had plenty of time to plan for this rollout. It seems they didn't bother to do so, or if they did plan for it, the person responsible should be fired immediately for rank incompetence.
The political implications should have been obvious. This is, after all, an election year. Catholics make up a large proportion of some very important swing states in the Midwest (such as: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan). Putting yourself in opposition to the bishops is going to have repercussions, in other words.
To be charitable, maybe the White House wanted to pick this fight. Maybe it was part of some multi-dimensional political chess where Obama could benefit from the backlash to the backlash. Birth control, after all, is a lot less contentious than gay marriage or abortion. Maybe it was some sort of attempt by the Obama team to create a wedge issue of their own, rather than fighting over the same old Republican wedge issues.
Even assuming this, however, you'd be a fool to say that it's been successful so far. If you're going to wage culture war, you have to get in there and strongly make the case for your side. If you're going to take a moral high road, you have to be aware that the other side is taking their own moral high road -- even if it's a different path than yours. You've got to plan for it and attempt to counteract it, by explaining your side of the story.
This, to be blunt, was noticeably absent. Once again, to be charitable, perhaps the White House was caught by surprise at the ferocity of the backlash, and has (instead of fanning the flames) been working diligently ever since to come up with a compromise. This compromise was announced this morning (which, incidentally, is why I'm ranting here instead of providing the talking points I had sketched out for today's column -- in support of the White House's position -- which are all now mostly moot).
But even this was handled badly. The bishops weren't on board, and may still fight back with everything they've got. If you hammer out a compromise, it would behoove you to make sure everyone's in agreement before announcing the compromise to the world.
The compromise itself didn't sound so bad, on the face of it. The women affected would still get the exact same thing: free birth control. Accounting hairsplitting may pass muster with the bishops, but the women affected won't care, because they're more concerned with managing their own health than in debating some "pinhead-dancing angels" theological conundrum.
Whether the bishops do agree to the new rule, or whether this is just the first round of attempting compromise remains to be seen, as of this writing. But no matter the outcome, the entire matter has so far been badly fumbled by the White House. They knew this was going to be a political decision -- just like their ruling on not offering the morning-after pill to women of all ages over the counter. If they intended on caving completely to the churches, they could have done so months ago and announced it at the same time as the morning-after pill decision -- before the presidential election really got going in full swing. If they intended to pick this fight as a political wedge issue, then they didn't just fumble, they fumbled the ball in the wrong end zone. OK, I know it's too late for bad football metaphors, but still.
If this was a political fight the White House was relishing, then there is a tried-and-true way to mount such an operation. You get everyone who will strongly agree with your decision completely on board. You coordinate with them, so they know when the decision is coming. You line up heavyweight members of Congress and have meetings with them so they're ready to be interviewed as well. Then, when everything's in place and everyone's on board, you call a press conference and roll the whole thing out to the media. Your supporters get on the news with their rehearsed talking points, while the other guys are left scrambling.
None of this, quite simply, was done. Democrats and other advocates didn't even have a fact sheet of handy things to talk about before they found themselves in the political firestorm. Even worse, the other side had done a superb job of preparation, and many otherwise-liberal pundits and media voices were -- from the very beginning -- saying what a horrible political misstep the White House had just taken. Democratic legislators began to peel off as well.
It was like watching a high school football team take on the Oakland Raiders (our next-to-the-last football metaphor of the season, promise). No matter what metaphor you choose, though, watching the whole thing was very disturbing to anyone who would like to see Barack Obama win a second term. We're in election season, folks. This isn't the time for rookie mistakes, or being caught so flatfooted. Granted, we've got quite a few months to go, but this isn't a good start for Team Obama.
The White House's political shop can be better than this, however. They can put this behind them and hone their skills for the upcoming race, but they've got to do so quickly. Because of this, and because we wanted to end on an upbeat note, we will close today with the full script of the outstandingly good Super Bowl ad featuring Clint Eastwood. The best thing Obama's re-election team could do right now is immediately hire whatever genius wrote this ad, and give him a free hand for the upcoming campaign. Because this is how it is supposed to be done, folks:
It's halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half.
It's halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they're hurting. And they're all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback. And we're all scared, because this isn't a game.
The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.
I've seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. And times when we didn't understand each other. It seems like we've lost our heart at times. When the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead.
But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one.
All that matters now is what's ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And, how do we win?
Detroit's showing us it can be done. And what's true about them is true about all of us.
This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.
Yeah, it's halftime America. And our second half is about to begin.
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Margie Omero: The Birth Control Debate That Isn't Happening
Obama birth control compromise distracts from issue of whether the ...
Obama calms birth-control furor with compromise - Carrie Budoff ...
Obama announces contraception compromise - CNN.com
Obama shift seeks to defuse birth-control fight | Reuters
Obama's birth control compromise: 'Still unacceptable'? - The Week
Santorum wants bright contrasts. He's going to win the Republican nomination, and then he's going to spend the remainder of his campaign trying to explain to women why they should appreciate being second-class-citizens on a pedestal.
Lemons to lemonade.
Today's RCP weekly poll shows +1.4 approval. Is it too soon to say that the contraception dustup is a net Positiev? Probably. This whole thing could go south if the right manages to re-frame the arguement into religious freedom instead of religious arrogance.
I think that too many have forgotten that while the disapproval rating includes people who are sympathetic to the republicans, it also includes people who are to the left of Obama. Assuming that most people who are favorable are not going to be influenced by anything short of the 2nd coming, standing up against a UCCCB push could easily end up being a net plus.
The University of Dayton, a Marianist institution has provided employees with Anthem/Blue Cross contraceptive coverage for years. Now the associate VP for communications reports that it is "unclear how UD came to cover contraceptives." What? Nobody took notes? Perhaps nobody bothered to tell the Bishops and Cardinals? Very odd indeed.
Anyhow, the Dayton Daily reports UD is "looking very seriously" at their mission as a Catholic University. I'll bet they are, and rather nervously. UD's president is reminding everybody that they don't just employ Catholics.
Anybody heard similar news from other Catholic educational institutions?
Gotta go, SNL is doing Eastwood Half Time in America parodies.
SNL was actually pretty funny this week, especially Weekend Update.
Ahem.
My question has been during all this: if this is such a honking big religious deal, then why hasn't the Vatican weighed in on the American Catholic institutions which are already providing such coverage? If there is a whopping big theological problem, then why hasn't it arisen before now? Is it just because Obama was the instigator? Inquiring minds want to know...
-CW
Perhaps Cardinal McConnell can enlighten us on the theological issues. For as Brother Huckabee hath said, we are all Catholics now.
I'm not looking forward to the lines at confession.
Watching the GOP fall on its back side was hilarious.
With the Religious Persecution meme gone, they are left with opposing something 99% of women use - contraception.
Brilliant.
If someone can't afford birth control then who the hell is going to be stuck with the bill for unwanted kids? That's right. YOU ARE.
And kids cost a heck of a lot more. the fiscal wing of the party was the group that **STARTED TITLE X**. I'm not kidding. None other than Republican RICHARD NIXON started the first contraceptive access programs TO SAVE MONEY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_X.
And the Congressional Budget Office says it was a brilliant move. Saving $4.02 for every dollar spent.
So they can wave their PR pom-poms all they want but the actual rank and file fiscal republican isn't penny-wise-pound-foolish to fall for it.
Now having the GOP flip out and demand concessions is going to happen no matter what he does. The POINT is to end up after making concessions at a good place.
The place we have ended up is just having every plan cover contraception, as it should. This gets coverage not just for workers and their spouses in mainstream America, not just for workers and their wives in religiously affiliated businesses, BUT ALSO for working women and the wives of men working directly for the church itself.
This is actually **to the left** of where we started.
Perfect.
If he'd started here they'd be hyperventilating over the access itself. But after whipping their dogs into a froth with the talking point "We don't oppose contraception, just making the church pay for it!!!" they can't suddenly object to the contraception access itself. The human mind can only take so much cognitive dissonance before going into meltdown.
Not just that, the independent audience will notice such high profile weasling and lose any sympathy they might have had if you switch gears and throw a temper tantrum over getting what you said you wanted.
This is the best I've ever seen him negotiate.
They are trying to hold up a JOBS BILL in the senate - transportation infrastructure - to tack on riders about contraceptive access.
In a world where John Q Public is worried about jobs and the economy the JOB is nominating rick santorum as their candidate for president and holding up infrastructure spending to argue about sex.
They are so doomed.
Pity the GOP doesn't.
OK, this is the first comment I've read disagreeing with me that made me think twice. You make a good case about negotiating, and where Obama starts and where he ends up. You're right, Obama has taken a lot of grief over this subject in the past (some of it from my keyboard, I honestly have to admit), but when you look at it from the viewpoint of where his starting position was and where his ending position (post-compromise) is, you make a pretty good case that he didn't give the store away this time.
I'm not 100% convinced, I'm still going to wait and see what the polling says in the next few weeks, but I just wanted to say that you make a good argument, here.
-CW
Bet a lot of their fanboys had no idea that the "secret Muslim" was appointing all these god-fearing Catholics to seats of power.
And it could never have worked if his PR machine had done it. The right would have called them catholics-in-name-only appointed as a clever ruse to hide his Muslim plans and insisted that he doth protest to much which just PROVES ... /rolleyes
But now its Fox touting their catholic creds:
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/02/10/president-obama-to-speak-on-contraception-mandate-today/
-------
Biden is among a string of Catholic administration officials who reportedly voiced concerns with the policy as it was being hashed out ...
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They just sundered the image they'd so painstakingly put forth for the last several years of Obama and his administration as a monolithic God-Hating secular/Muslim ( cause like, Muslim isn't a *real* religion Dont'cha know) out to burn down your church and steal your bible ... blah blah blah ...
Turns out you can't swing a cat in the oval office without hitting a faithful Catholic. Fancy that.
While it would have been sweet to get the Catholics to pay for it, that's aiming for the moon.
Obama To Reporters Asking About Contraception Issue: "Come On, Guys"
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/02/10/obama_to_reporters_asking_about_contraception_issue_come_on_guys.html
You got today's Maine election results exactly right! Its so strange to me that Paul can continullay loose elections and for him coming in 2nd is a good thing, and noone is pressuring him to exit the race. Nobody seems to think he can win. Yet, there he is still taking votes from the other candidates. Hmmm! Very interesting.
Yeah, 3-for-3! That'll improve my overall number a bit...
:-)
-CW
Recreational sex is a family value. Just try keeping a family together if the parents won't sleep with each other.
If the family in question is to poor to afford contraception - nevermind another child - then helping them get contraceptive access is working to strengthening American families in a real and tangible way.
I keep hearing politicians say they want to strengthen the family but their ideas never seem to involve anything nurturing or supportive. All they ever want to do is lecture and punish non-compliance. Or tear non-traditional families asunder.
This is not a constructive use of our time.
It's a flank attack on the Affordable Care Act.
The Constitution says that the government cannot make one religion THE RELIGION of the U.S. I really cannot find anything that says, people are allowed to break the law, just because it goes against their religion. If someone can point it out for me, I will be glad to have a look. Businesses are not allowed to discriminate, neither are schools, so why should a religious school or hospital, open to the public, be allowed to discriminate against me because of my beliefs? Please explain that one to me.
If the Church is allowed to ignore our laws, then we can all go out, start our own religion, with our own rules and start breaking the laws of the land, like having to pay taxes and murder.
This situation can open a big CAN OF WORMS just like the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United is doing now..
So in your gifted mind returning back to segregations is the answer to this dilemma? I'm hoping your a rare breed in America today, clearly your progressive minded.. SCOTUS has ruled so many times on Religous freedoms. The Last case was Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal 2006
Our Government Established Anti drugs laws needed to bow before religious freedoms in 2006. Our Constitution says Government can impose no harm or direction toward Religions regarding both their faiths and practices. That decision was unanimous.
The Catholic church, the Jews synagogue, and Islamic Mosque has long histories of practices established for over a thousand years before America was a nation. The first anti religious freedom via SCOTUS has to do with human sacrifices and Polygamy in 1878-9, Obviously its FORBIDDEN. Killing fetuses ... good luck selling that to SCOTUS... never going to fly
It takes extremely sick human beings to demand and or imply Re segregating America as a legal offense and or NOW a Constitutional right to inflict harm on other human beings with different ideologies other than your own.
In the Republican race it pushed Santorum forward and Romney back. The conservatives are now trying to convince the country that birth control is abortion. The USCCB has been spanked because they overreached and now will find it much more difficult to unite the different factions, that make up the church in America, to support their agenda.
Women are getting more energized because of the constant Republican attack on them.
Plus the President seems to be the more reasonable and willing to bend over backwards to make things work, which helps him with the middle.
What about the Personhood Amendment in MS? Lost by 13 points. In MISSISSIPPI? And you're worried about Michigan? With clips like what will be coming in the months ahead from Santorum, Gingrich or Romney, framing this issue as contraception rather than abortion should be easy.
We'll see.
It could be one of those things which causes a short-term drop in the polls, but a long-term rise.
When people hear the fury of the other side, they may buy into it initially, but over time either rethink the matter, or just be turned off by the level of the fury.
"How will it play in Peoria?" in other words, I guess.
As you said, we'll see...
-CW
---
It was a first class clusterfark, and (unfortunately) a perfect illustration of what's wrong with the Obama presidency.
It's not that the man isn't well intentioned. He is. But he's really just an amateur when it comes to the hardball game of politics. By doing what he did, he literally set himself up for a tremendous beating - both from the left and the right. He could have finessed the whole damn mess by starting out with the very proposal he arrived to after the women's rights groups and the religious rights groups had gotten all revved up.
Doing politics well - especially on the presidential level - is a high art. It's a chess game. It's machiavellian. It takes a certain mindset - either in the mind of the president himself (Nixon, Clinton) or in the mind of his advisors (Reagan, Bush 43).
Unfortunately, Obama is more like Carter than anything else - a good man, with good intentions, who's just out of his league when it comes to playing the big game - and who doesn't have world class political advisors, either.
It's painful to watch.
I think it was smart to make them ask for it and ask for it in a very public way. Now everyone knows that they don't think they need to follow the same rules.I remember when Kennedy ran against Nixon and the Republicans told everyone who would listen that if Kennedy were elected, the Vatican would be pulling the strings. My how times change.
Of course, it was nothing of the sort. When you do something that gets your own supporters (Chris Matthews, EJ Dionne, Senators Kerry and McCasskill, etc etc, etc) carrying water for the oppo, you've screwed up, royally.
Here's a quick question you can ask to determine whether it was a smart move or a dumb move: Did this help Obama or hurt him, when it comes to the upcoming election?
Is there even one more person who wasn't sure about voting for Obama who is now sure, because of this brou-haha? I'd guess not.
OTOH, are there undecideds - independents - who happen to be Catholic or even Christian - and will decide NOT to vote for Obama, or the down ticket dems, because of this? I'd guess that there are definitely going to be voter like that - and the oppo will do everything possible to cultivate them.
It was just dumb - and predictable.
Well, I don't know that I'd use such harsh terms, but thank you for addressing the main point of my rant. Whether you agree or not with Obama's decision, it was badly handled. The WH was caught flatfooted, when they should have been ready and waiting with their side of the story. The media battle was overwhelmingly one-sided, and it wasn't the WH side that was being presented. It wasn't even close to being even -- which has to be laid at the feet of the WH. They dropped the ball, and now they're hoping the whole thing will blow over. They may be right, but this is not a textbook case of how to fight a political battle, that's for sure.
-"Blogger" a.k.a. CW
"Of course using birth control is the right thing to do. The responsible thing to do. We aren't saying don't use birth control. We aren't trying to make you be catholic. We are just saying you can't make the catholic church "pay" for it."
They got everyone singing from the same hymnal. Birth control GOOD. Just don't make the catholics look at it. Its a dumb argument. Employee compensation belongs to the employee and they are no more paying for it than the would be if paycheck money is spent on it. They are paying for work and getting work. That is all.
But anywho, they got the chorus of "birth control good!" echoing from the rafters. Coming even out of bishops mouths. They stopped saying you shouldn't use it and supported the argument that it should be paid for out of the paycheck portion of employee compensation ... and you can't tell someone to buy it out of their paycheck **without telling them to buy it**.
Now he has "listened" to them and acceded to their "demands" and switched around how its paid for just like they said they wanted ... actually *expanding* access in the process to church employees themselves. But if they change tune now to "birth control BAD" they'll be laughingstocks.