Election Night Guide to the House
Four hundred thirty five House races are far too many to keep your eye upon, and there's really no need. As we've mentioned before, about three-fourths of those are safe, roughly half for each party--there will probably not be a single upset out of those 320 or so seats. Still, a hundred or more races are too much to keep track of (Nate Silver and 538.com promise to attempt to do so, and for a much more elaborate version of what I'm trying to do here, see this posting he made today.)
What we have here are 12 races where Democratic incumbents are struggling to hold their seats, and two where Republicans are in the same position. I have them collected into four groups below, corresponding roughly to time zones when the polls close. All fourteen of these are very close, ones where different observers differ about who is more likely to win, but they are not all 50-50, either; they represent different shades of pink or light blue (or grey). A majority in each group will indicate story lines in the evening: who takes the early lead, how far up the beach the wave will reach, and whether there will be a Western-state firewall preventing a Democratic rout.
Roughly speaking, you can consider each of these to represent three seats, and collectively the result will give a good indication over the range of likely outcomes in the House races: if the Democrats win all these, it would indicate something like the best-case, say a loss of 28 seats (there are about that many that are basically a lock for Republican pickups); then, for each Republican win below, add 3, until you get to the high end, a gain of about 70 seats estimated if they win all 14. The Republicans' target is a net gain of 39, which would be indicated here by winning four of the fourteen.
Two other sources (besides Silver's) I've consulted to include some other viewpoints on these races. One is Larry Sabato's "Crystal Ball"--he's predicting a 55-seat pickup for the Republicans. To his credit, he goes to one side or the other on every seat; to his discredit, he's basically picking Republicans in every race that's polled as a tie or near-tie. The other is the "Dashboard" on Huffington Post--they've utilized the services of Pollster.com to summarize polling results and predict outcomes. I'm not sure what they are planning to do Election Night, but I recommend their current material as being highly readable and not excessively partisan. Their current House forecasts: Democrats 157 safe, 38 leaning; Republicans 169 safe, 43 leaning; 28 tossups.
Early Indications
KY - 6; polls close 4 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time Kentucky should be the earliest state with readable results. Democrat Chandler has a fighting chance to hold onto a moderate district. This will also be a great indicator for the state's Senate race outcome; a big Democratic win for Chandler could mean a surprisingly tough night for Rand Paul, a must-win seat for Republicans' hopes to get control. HuffPost: Leans Dem; Sabato: Leans Dem; Silver: 52% chance for Dems to hold.
IN-9; polls close 4 p.m. MDT This is always a closely contested seat in the southeastern part of Indiana, currently represented by moderate Democrat Baron Hill. If the pendulum has swung strongly to the Republicans this time, this seat should be declared for them fairly quickly. HuffPost: LD; Sabato: LR; Silver: 69% R.
FL 8; closes at 5 p.m. MDT. A good indicator of whether the Democrats have lost the debate. One of the highest-profile House races, but also a good test for the fate of liberal Democrats in moderate districts (this one is a Republican-leaning district in the suburbs of Orlando, usually held by Republicans until 2008). Lots of money from the left for incumbent Alan Grayson, a very outspoken progressive Democrat; he's opposed by a right-winger (with huge inputs from national Republican-backing organizations) with the fortunate name of Dan Webster, who hasn't yet put his foot in it too badly, while Grayson has done it, more than once. Recent polls suggest that Grayson is an underdog. HP: LR Sabato: LR; Silver: 82% R
How Big the Wave?
These races will give a good indication how broad the danger to Democratic seats, beyond the obvious ones which have strong, built-in Republican advantages.
NH -2; closes 6 p.m. MDT A race I expect the Republicans to win, if it's to be a big night for House Republicans (i.e., picking up control of the House by more than 10-15 seats). New Hampshire has been a key swing state in recent elections, really the only one in the Northeast. The Democratic candidate, Mary-Anne Kuster, is a solid progressive; she seeks to replace another, Paul Hodes, who gave up this seat in the western half of the state to run for Senate (unfortunately, it seems that he will be unsuccessful). Kuster has picked up some national Democratic support and appears to have a very small lead in recent polling. HP: Toss Up (TO); Sabato: LR; Silver: 51% R
PA - 8; closes 6 p.m. MDT This seat in the Philadelphia suburbs is a closely balanced one. Patrick Murphy is the Democratic incumbent, running against a former Representative, Michael Fitzpatrick. The suburbs are a key component of the Republicans' resurgence, and this will be a test of their success in trying to recover a national majority. HP - TO; Sabato - LR; Silver: 71% Rep (52-48 projected outcome)
SD - At Large; closes 6 p.m. MDT Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is a moderate Democrat, the kind most endangered in this election, but has done well in past elections and has run a strong campaign, so she has hopes of holding this statewide seat in South Dakota. A big part of the Republicans' push is driven by a recovery of strength in the upper Midwest. HP: LR; Sabato: LR; Silver: 69% R
Pivotal Races
These are among the closest of the many close races in the middle part of the evening, when the majority of states' polling closes; I'm looking for these to be too close to call into the late night, but when they are called, their outcomes will be huge in deciding which way the national seesaw tips.
First, a possible Democratic pickup:
IL - 10; polls close at 6 p.m. This district is in Illinois' suburban North shore, and it has been vacated by Republican Senate candidate Kirk. In 2006 and 2008, none of the close races were breaking for the Republicans, and they weren't picking up any seats. This is not the highest probability Democratic pickup district (there are two more likely: one in Delaware and one in Louisiana), but this is exactly the kind of district that the Democrats need to have a chance to repel the Republican wave and hold onto the house. HP: TO; Sabato: LD; Silver: 67% Dem pickup.
IL - 17; 6 p.m. MDT Besides being a very close race, the symbolism of the candidates' names (Hare vs. Schilling) is irresistible: The obvious comment is that the Democrats are running zigzag like rabbits, trying to find cover, while the Republicans are pulling out big coin to buy the election. This is a gerrymandered-looking district sprawling along Illinois' western border with the Mississippi River (i.e., north of the St. Louis area). HP: LR - Sabato: LR; Silver - 62% R
TX - 23; closes 6 p.m. MDT This is a pure test in the Latino-majority portion of Texas. If Ciro Rodriguez loses, it will be a good indication that the Democrats have failed to keep the Hispanics' support, or at least failed to get them to turn out to vote. Indications are not particularly good. HP - LR; Sabato - LR; Silver: 57% R (49-48)
WV - 1; closes 5:30 p.m. MDT. This is an extremely close race for a seat being vacated, a swing district in an important state (West Virginia) for Democrats' hopes to hold onto the Senate -- close to a must-win for them. This is the district in the northern (industrial) part of state. HP: LD; Sabato: LR; Silver -60%R
Is There a Western Firewall?
Holding onto the West is critical if the Democrats want to hold onto the Senate; in the House, if the contest is still in doubt, these seats will be critical for them.
NV - 3; closes at 8 p.m. MDT Nevada has three Congressional districts (it will pick up another after 2010's census, unless the population has nosedived too much); one is solid Republican, one (within Las Vegas) solid Democratic, so this district, in the area around Las Vegas, is the swing district. The incumbent Democrat, Dana Titus, won narrowly last time and is fighting a terrible local economic condition--it may be trending away from her late, just as it seems to be doing for Sen. Harry Reid; a good result for her would probably portend this same for Reid in the single most high-profile Senate race. HP: TO; Sabato: LR; Silver - 61% R.
AZ - 8; closes at 8 p.m. MDT Gabrielle Giffords is a moderate in a diverse district centered in Tucson, Arizona. Compared to the battles around Phoenix, there is a more civil tone about the immigration brouhaha. She's trying to hold on, but Arizona is trending heavily Republican this year and a couple other seats in the state seem very likely to go over. HP: TO; Sabato - LD; Silver - 58% D (50-48)
CO - 3; closes at 7 p.m. MDT John Salazar, brother of Interior Secretary and former Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, represents a sprawling district in the western part of the state. Colorado is as critical in this election as any state; a big success for John Hickenlooper in the Governor's race, and a possible upset win by appointed incumbent Senator Michael Bennet, could together have positive coattails for Salazar, but outside of Denver, the state has swung strongly toward the Republicans. HP: ?; Sabato: LR; Silver - 78% R (52-47)
Finally, the potential tiebreaker:
HI - 1; polls close at 11 p.m. MDT? If it comes down to midnight and the control of the House is still undecided, this will become a focus, and because it's a possible Democratic pickup, the fact that the number of Republicans' likely pickups might have passed 39 could be deceiving. This is one of two districts in Hawaii, just Honolulu and its environs. Charles Djou is the Republican incumbent, but he's only been in office since this spring, when two candidates split the Democratic vote. Polls indicate this is extremely close but perhaps trending toward Democrat Colleen Hanabusa. HP: TO; Sabato: LR; Silver: 64% Dem.
As for the races here in New Mexico (closing time 7 p.m. MDT), they are all on Nate's chart, but they're not quite close enough to make mine. The 1st district (Albuquerque area) looks as though it will be held by the first-term incumbent Democrat, Adam Heinrich, by a margin of 5-10 points. In our 3rd district, the first-term incumbent Democrat, Ben Ray Lujan, should win by 10-20 points, though it isn't quite a walkover. The 2nd district, though, in the southern part of the state, is a classic prime Republican target for a pickup district held by a Blue Dog. The moderate-to-conservative first-term incumbent, Harry Teague, has done his best but is likely to give up this Republican-leaning district to the guy who held it for three terms before trying to run for the Senate. It'll be pretty close, but a Democratic hold would be a bigger surprise than any of the tossup or near-tossup races I've listed above.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Taking It Back...But How Far Back?
Posted on daily kos this morning.
A Scorecard for 2010 Reaction
How far back will the Tea Party-led Republicans take us? Here are some indicators with which to gauge the undertow from the wave of electoral folly. The higher the score, the further the reversion.
-20 points: The Republicans do NOT take back the House.
-5 points: Fox News can not announce the Republicans will control the House by 12 midnight EDT on Election Night.
+5 points: Boehner will be next Speaker; rise of the House of Orange.
+5 points: Alan Grayson (FL-8) loses to some guy pretending to be Daniel Webster.
+1 point: for every House member over 218 that the Republicans end up with.
+10 points: Russ Feingold loses. We lose our most progressive Senate party member.
+5 points: Joe Sestak falls in Pennsylvania to Wall St. muckymuck Pat Toomey.
+5 points: Michael Bennet falls to church-state separation denier Ken Buck.
+5 points: Rand Paul wins. "Don't Tread on Me" jettisoned as a Tea Party slogan.
+5 points: Alex Sink down the drain to the single most odious major candidate of the year, healthcare fraudster Rick Scott.
+5 points: Barbara Boxer loses to Carly "Outsource" Fiorina.
+20 points: We're bewitched: Christine O'Donnell wins.
+5 points: Sharron "Obtuse" Angle defeats harry Reid.
+25 points: Democrats lose control of the Senate (less than 50 Senators, not counting unreliable Joes Lieberman and Manchin).
We will review the votes of your predictions on Election Eve, then the actual final score (and estimated reversion date) once all the results are in.
Poll: Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine to....
o <0 points: 2012. Let the 21st century finally begin, and bring he/she/it/them on!
o 0-10 points: 2010. We can boldly muddle through this world.
o 11-20 points: 2002--mild nostalgia for Bushite Misrule will be celebrated with the ghost-written book release next week.
o 21-30 points: 1984--the Golden Age of Reaganite Cold War returns. Set the nuclear clock forward to 5 minutes to midnight.
o 31-40 points: 1955--Social wars? Never happened. Sarah Palin will reprise the role of the Attack of the 50-Foot-Woman (apologies, Mother Jones).
o 41-50 points: 1924--Dissipation, corruption, phony Prohibition, Florida real estate scams, gangland violence. What's not to like?
o 51-60 points: 1880--The Gilded age. Robber barons rule again!
o 61-70 points: 1852--Disraeli: Now there's a guy who could confuse voters' class interests.
o 71-80 points: 1500--Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, least of all those godless Communist Muslims.
o 81-90 points: 476 A.D. The Capitol in flames; barbarians run riot.
o 91-100 points: 8000 B.C. The Long Emergency: Survivalists and hunter-gatherers only at the luncheon counter.
o over 100 points: 1,000,000 B.C. Sarah Palin reprises the role of Loana in animal skins.
(My prediction is a score of +29.)
A Scorecard for 2010 Reaction
How far back will the Tea Party-led Republicans take us? Here are some indicators with which to gauge the undertow from the wave of electoral folly. The higher the score, the further the reversion.
-20 points: The Republicans do NOT take back the House.
-5 points: Fox News can not announce the Republicans will control the House by 12 midnight EDT on Election Night.
+5 points: Boehner will be next Speaker; rise of the House of Orange.
+5 points: Alan Grayson (FL-8) loses to some guy pretending to be Daniel Webster.
+1 point: for every House member over 218 that the Republicans end up with.
+10 points: Russ Feingold loses. We lose our most progressive Senate party member.
+5 points: Joe Sestak falls in Pennsylvania to Wall St. muckymuck Pat Toomey.
+5 points: Michael Bennet falls to church-state separation denier Ken Buck.
+5 points: Rand Paul wins. "Don't Tread on Me" jettisoned as a Tea Party slogan.
+5 points: Alex Sink down the drain to the single most odious major candidate of the year, healthcare fraudster Rick Scott.
+5 points: Barbara Boxer loses to Carly "Outsource" Fiorina.
+20 points: We're bewitched: Christine O'Donnell wins.
+5 points: Sharron "Obtuse" Angle defeats harry Reid.
+25 points: Democrats lose control of the Senate (less than 50 Senators, not counting unreliable Joes Lieberman and Manchin).
We will review the votes of your predictions on Election Eve, then the actual final score (and estimated reversion date) once all the results are in.
Poll: Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine to....
o <0 points: 2012. Let the 21st century finally begin, and bring he/she/it/them on!
o 0-10 points: 2010. We can boldly muddle through this world.
o 11-20 points: 2002--mild nostalgia for Bushite Misrule will be celebrated with the ghost-written book release next week.
o 21-30 points: 1984--the Golden Age of Reaganite Cold War returns. Set the nuclear clock forward to 5 minutes to midnight.
o 31-40 points: 1955--Social wars? Never happened. Sarah Palin will reprise the role of the Attack of the 50-Foot-Woman (apologies, Mother Jones).
o 41-50 points: 1924--Dissipation, corruption, phony Prohibition, Florida real estate scams, gangland violence. What's not to like?
o 51-60 points: 1880--The Gilded age. Robber barons rule again!
o 61-70 points: 1852--Disraeli: Now there's a guy who could confuse voters' class interests.
o 71-80 points: 1500--Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, least of all those godless Communist Muslims.
o 81-90 points: 476 A.D. The Capitol in flames; barbarians run riot.
o 91-100 points: 8000 B.C. The Long Emergency: Survivalists and hunter-gatherers only at the luncheon counter.
o over 100 points: 1,000,000 B.C. Sarah Palin reprises the role of Loana in animal skins.
(My prediction is a score of +29.)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
NBA Launch
In a couple of hours the NBA season will start. The first of the three games tonight features the two teams generally considered the favorites in the Eastern Conference, the supercharged Miami Heat, with their trio of superstars, vs. the Boston Celtics, the 2008 champions and last year's league runner-up. The two other games match the two-time champion Los Angeles Lakers against the Houston Rockets, who have Yao Ming returning after a year's absence, and two mystery teams, Portland and Phoenix.
In this year's campaigns there are a number of teams that have big question marks, and a few that are clear favorites. Miami, Boston, and the Lakers are the ones in the latter category. There are so many of the other group that I can't list them all.
In the East, Miami is the team everyone will be watching. League MVP Lebron James and top forward Chris Bosh have joined Dwayne Wade to make a team with instant title credibility and instant detestability, as well. The Celtics--their rivals tonight, and presumably in the Eastern Conference finals--will be trying not to tire out their aging stars, and they have a deeper bench than in their recent successful years. I would urge people not to forget about two other teams who could surprise both in the regular season and in the latter rounds of the playoffs: the Orlando Magic, headed by top center Dwight Howard, and the Chicago Bulls, who added reliable inside threat Carlos Boozer to a potent lineup featurning rising stars Derrick Rose and Joachim Noah.
The East has been thin in recent years; after the top few teams, there were desultory competitions among teams with losing records for the bottom three or four playoff spots, and those teams that made it into the playoffs usually departed quickly and quietly. The path to parity seems long and slow in the NBA, but I see some signs of revival for teams like the New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Wizards, who drafted the top college rookie, point guard John Wall. The Atlanta Hawks have already shown us something which they may be able to build upon.
In the Western Conference, there has been much more parity in the regular season; last year's regular-season end had a furious race for playoff positions of strong teams with very similar, winning records. Unfortunately, some of those teams seem to be falling back in quality, and the Lakers stand out quite a bit more. Contenders Denver, Phoenix, and Utah all look weaker, longtime force San Antonio's key players are yet another year older, and potential challenger Portland still seems dogged by frontcourt injuries. The Dallas Mavericks, who beefed up their team for last year's homestretch but fell out to San Antonio in the first round, and the rising Oklahoma City Thunder, who gave the Lakers a first-round scare, look like the likeliest candidates to make the finals against the Lakers.
I'll find myself in the usual position of rooting--probably futilely--for someone to beat the Lakers, and joining the new consensus against the Heat and for the Celtics--or for the Magic.
Dark Clouds Over 2011-2012
NBA Commissioner David Stern put a bit of a damper on the enthusiasm for the new season with his warnings, coming out of meetings with the owners and some preliminary negotiations, that the labor negotiations after the general contract ends after this season could be ugly.
Stern indicated that player salaries needed to be cut by 1/3--some $750 million--or that there would be "contraction"--some unprofitable teams being eliminated. Very ominous words, suggesting that the owners are looking for a fight, and may well be planning a lockout.
Stern's stake in the ground, or line in the sand, is what I used to call a "stake in the air", or "a line in the water". He's trying to set down a negotiating position, but those positions are indefensible. The NBA is a highly successful league with an enviable worldwide following, and a lockout would be like killing the golden-egg-laying goose.
No doubt there need to be improvements to make the weaker teams more financially viable, but I would suggest that the biggest problems the owners have are their propensity to give middle-level players, especially ones with a history of injuries, excessively large long-term contracts, and, secondly, a developmental issue. Too many players with long-term potential are being drafted too young for too much money--these developmental projects are often 3-4 years away from being valuable NBA players, and by that time the drafting team is already losing their rights to keep them (or they've long since traded them away). A key to success would be improving the "minor league" CBA, and figuring out how to better utilize it to bring those 19-year-old 7-footers up to NBA speed.
In this year's campaigns there are a number of teams that have big question marks, and a few that are clear favorites. Miami, Boston, and the Lakers are the ones in the latter category. There are so many of the other group that I can't list them all.
In the East, Miami is the team everyone will be watching. League MVP Lebron James and top forward Chris Bosh have joined Dwayne Wade to make a team with instant title credibility and instant detestability, as well. The Celtics--their rivals tonight, and presumably in the Eastern Conference finals--will be trying not to tire out their aging stars, and they have a deeper bench than in their recent successful years. I would urge people not to forget about two other teams who could surprise both in the regular season and in the latter rounds of the playoffs: the Orlando Magic, headed by top center Dwight Howard, and the Chicago Bulls, who added reliable inside threat Carlos Boozer to a potent lineup featurning rising stars Derrick Rose and Joachim Noah.
The East has been thin in recent years; after the top few teams, there were desultory competitions among teams with losing records for the bottom three or four playoff spots, and those teams that made it into the playoffs usually departed quickly and quietly. The path to parity seems long and slow in the NBA, but I see some signs of revival for teams like the New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Wizards, who drafted the top college rookie, point guard John Wall. The Atlanta Hawks have already shown us something which they may be able to build upon.
In the Western Conference, there has been much more parity in the regular season; last year's regular-season end had a furious race for playoff positions of strong teams with very similar, winning records. Unfortunately, some of those teams seem to be falling back in quality, and the Lakers stand out quite a bit more. Contenders Denver, Phoenix, and Utah all look weaker, longtime force San Antonio's key players are yet another year older, and potential challenger Portland still seems dogged by frontcourt injuries. The Dallas Mavericks, who beefed up their team for last year's homestretch but fell out to San Antonio in the first round, and the rising Oklahoma City Thunder, who gave the Lakers a first-round scare, look like the likeliest candidates to make the finals against the Lakers.
I'll find myself in the usual position of rooting--probably futilely--for someone to beat the Lakers, and joining the new consensus against the Heat and for the Celtics--or for the Magic.
Dark Clouds Over 2011-2012
NBA Commissioner David Stern put a bit of a damper on the enthusiasm for the new season with his warnings, coming out of meetings with the owners and some preliminary negotiations, that the labor negotiations after the general contract ends after this season could be ugly.
Stern indicated that player salaries needed to be cut by 1/3--some $750 million--or that there would be "contraction"--some unprofitable teams being eliminated. Very ominous words, suggesting that the owners are looking for a fight, and may well be planning a lockout.
Stern's stake in the ground, or line in the sand, is what I used to call a "stake in the air", or "a line in the water". He's trying to set down a negotiating position, but those positions are indefensible. The NBA is a highly successful league with an enviable worldwide following, and a lockout would be like killing the golden-egg-laying goose.
No doubt there need to be improvements to make the weaker teams more financially viable, but I would suggest that the biggest problems the owners have are their propensity to give middle-level players, especially ones with a history of injuries, excessively large long-term contracts, and, secondly, a developmental issue. Too many players with long-term potential are being drafted too young for too much money--these developmental projects are often 3-4 years away from being valuable NBA players, and by that time the drafting team is already losing their rights to keep them (or they've long since traded them away). A key to success would be improving the "minor league" CBA, and figuring out how to better utilize it to bring those 19-year-old 7-footers up to NBA speed.
Monday, October 25, 2010
View of the Lip
The stock market's rally in recent weeks suggests to me that Wall Street has caught sight of the lip of the Great Crater, meaning we may soon emerge from it. I suggested recently that the gravitational effect holding the Dow Jones Average down from escaping the 10,000 level it first crossed over a decade ago may be weakening, though whether the future curve is a parabola, a space shot, a hyperbola, or just hyperbole remains an entrail this oracle cannot foretell.
One thing that is definitely not worth cutting the goat open to find out about is this tripe that this recovery is "Wall Street pricing in a Republican Congress." If it is, then there is certain to be a steep retrenchment. Not that the Republicans will not gain control of the House of Representatives--one wouldn't bet against that without pretty steep odds (see my post soon on Intrade odds for the election)--but that is not control of Congress, for the Senate is very unlikely to go over.
Even if the Republicans could gain control of both houses of Congress, this explanation of the run-up would suggest that would have some positive impact on future business earnings. Simply put, there is no reason to believe that. First, if you believe Tea Partiers, they would allow companies to fail a lot more than the Democrats' strategic bailouts or the Bushites' cronyist porkmongering have done, and this risk alone should damper exuberance. Beyond that, don't believe the hype about repeal of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: there is a little thing called a Presidential veto which makes that totally impossible, at least for the next two years, and I would not even believe the more modest goal of repealing the mandates for (larger) employers to offer insurance or individuals to get it, weak as those mandates are. One should look similarly askance at the humpty-dumpth Congress removing the "excessive regulations" or "uncertainty" which some allege are holding back the recovery, let alone the possibilities of tax reform (which is unlikely under any political scenario, ever).
No! The recovery is real, it's underway, and though unemployment has not emerged from its cratering, the conditions are rapidly becoming propitious for some small but steady improvement in employment conditions. Government entities--Congress, the President, or agencies--will try to facilitate this through whatever measures they can come up with which will not directly increase the deficit, for which there is very little support of any kind.
There is one other interpretation of the rally, though, one less optimistic than a real recovery, but more substantial than trading on partisan belief in Republicans of any stripe. That would be the dollar decline theory: To reduce the real cost of the debt we have been incurring and to improve exports and reduce imports, the Fed, working with other economies, has been working to depreciate the dollar, and the US stock market is just treading water, maintaining its value by increasing at the rate the dollar declines. I can't really disprove or gainsay this theory; the test will be in part if the recovery outlasts the easy money strategy, in part if jobs--for whatever--begin to return to the economy. Though there is plenty of room for employment to increase, I have not changed my pessimistic long-term view that we are in a 10-20 year poor labor market.
One thing that is definitely not worth cutting the goat open to find out about is this tripe that this recovery is "Wall Street pricing in a Republican Congress." If it is, then there is certain to be a steep retrenchment. Not that the Republicans will not gain control of the House of Representatives--one wouldn't bet against that without pretty steep odds (see my post soon on Intrade odds for the election)--but that is not control of Congress, for the Senate is very unlikely to go over.
Even if the Republicans could gain control of both houses of Congress, this explanation of the run-up would suggest that would have some positive impact on future business earnings. Simply put, there is no reason to believe that. First, if you believe Tea Partiers, they would allow companies to fail a lot more than the Democrats' strategic bailouts or the Bushites' cronyist porkmongering have done, and this risk alone should damper exuberance. Beyond that, don't believe the hype about repeal of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: there is a little thing called a Presidential veto which makes that totally impossible, at least for the next two years, and I would not even believe the more modest goal of repealing the mandates for (larger) employers to offer insurance or individuals to get it, weak as those mandates are. One should look similarly askance at the humpty-dumpth Congress removing the "excessive regulations" or "uncertainty" which some allege are holding back the recovery, let alone the possibilities of tax reform (which is unlikely under any political scenario, ever).
No! The recovery is real, it's underway, and though unemployment has not emerged from its cratering, the conditions are rapidly becoming propitious for some small but steady improvement in employment conditions. Government entities--Congress, the President, or agencies--will try to facilitate this through whatever measures they can come up with which will not directly increase the deficit, for which there is very little support of any kind.
There is one other interpretation of the rally, though, one less optimistic than a real recovery, but more substantial than trading on partisan belief in Republicans of any stripe. That would be the dollar decline theory: To reduce the real cost of the debt we have been incurring and to improve exports and reduce imports, the Fed, working with other economies, has been working to depreciate the dollar, and the US stock market is just treading water, maintaining its value by increasing at the rate the dollar declines. I can't really disprove or gainsay this theory; the test will be in part if the recovery outlasts the easy money strategy, in part if jobs--for whatever--begin to return to the economy. Though there is plenty of room for employment to increase, I have not changed my pessimistic long-term view that we are in a 10-20 year poor labor market.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Final Pre-Election Preview, Pt. 4: The Rest
Now that we've completed our final election previews for the Senate the House, and the state governors' contests, we will move to a preview of the "all other" category. We will start with re-visiting the arcane but important question of Congressional redistricting, then move to important ballot referenda, and then to a pre- pre-view of The Main Event, which begins November 3.
Re-mystification of De-districting...or something like that...The 2010 Census, the raw data for which was completed this past spring, provides the Constitutionally-mandated basis for determining the state-by-state apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives. Although the official Census population reports will not come out until December, the outline of what is likely to happen in Congressional reapportionment for the period 2012-2020 is already known and reported.
It is possible this could change, but indications are that eight states will gain seats, six of them to gain one seat, but Florida getting two, and Texas four more. On the other side, ten states are expected to lose seats, with New York and Ohio losing two and the other states one each (there will be no net change in Congressional seats; the soonest that is likely to change is if Puerto Rico becomes a state, or Hell freezes over--the icecaps melting would surely be insufficient).
The states that gain or lose Congressional seats have major work to do to figure out the boundaries of the new Congressional districts. State legislatures are mandated to study and pass bills establishing the new boundaries; governors also have a voice through their veto powers. If there is no change in the number of seats, the states generally can leave district boundaries as they are, or they can choose to tinker with them. The state legislation is subject to challenge in the courts by aggrieved parties, but there is a long tradition of judges reluctant to meddle as long as some respect is given to reasonably similar populations among districts, and to geographical continuity within them.
Within those loose parameters, then, re-districting is a political process, one that the parties take a great interest in fixing for their interest. Let's take a hypothetical, but typical, type of case study to see how it works: assume that the state of Annesota has a 2010 Census population of 3 million, giving it a six-seat Congressional delegation, with some sort of change from the previous ten years--that basically necessitates a substantial revision, so we won't worry about the old boundaries. There are 1.8 million registered voters in Annesota, of which 1 million project to voting for party A and 800,000 party B in a typical Presidential election. These projections can feasibly be broken down at the county, municipality, or even precinct level, so districts can be adjusted to fit the desired distribution, as long as the resulting district maps are not too outrageous.
Re-districting is scientific, but not an exact science. Both parties would like to assure themselves of the maximum number of safe seats for their party (ones with projected votes 60-40, or 2-to-1, in their favor; those are the perennially safe seats), while giving themselves the chance to pick up one or two on the margin. So, a typical re-districting formula for Annesota, one that both parties might agree upon, might look like this:
This is the classic sort of incumbent-favoring formula, party A getting four seats and party B two. If party A has a safe majority in the state legislature and the governor from its party, party B might agree to this formula to avoid a battle which could work to its detriment.
If, on the other hand, party A gets greedy and wants a shot at five of the six seats, or if party B has a stronger position in the legislature or governor's mansion, they may want to try to get three of the six seats. In the first case, Districts 1 and 6 might be left as above, but Districts 2 through 5 could be arranged so each is 175,000 for Party A, 125,000 for Party B. This would be less stable, but give party A a real chance at five of the six seats, and party B would be expected to resist it by any and all means.
In the second case, party B could try to ram through something like this:
Here, despite being in the (projected) minority, control of the statehouse could allow Party B an extra, reasonably safe, seat in Congress--but there is a risk: their margins are smaller in all cases than those for Party A, so things could turn sour and they could lose one or more of those seats, while having little upside opportunity beyond those three. Again, we should expect Party A to resist such a formula fiercely, and in this case it might go to the courts for the second type of resolution: occasionally, when there is no legislative agreement possible (often when legislative control is split, or the governor is opposed to the party controlling the legislature), the courts have to decide between competing formulas, essentially proposed by the party organizations.
The key battles in re-districting are the ones for control of state legislatures, a subject far too deep and wide for me to tackle satisfactorily. There is a group called the DLCC, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is investing strategically in critical state legislature campaigns--I would encourage a modest contribution there. State governors are more of a firewall for stopping (or possibly facilitating) wild redistricting outcomes from the legislatures.
I hope this illustrates the redistricting battle, which apparently will come up in some 18 states, between now and 2012. Some of these will be settled in a very straightforward manner (some actually have legislation or state constitutional provisions which simplify the issue), while Texas, set to gain four seats, is certain to be a battle royal.
Ballot Initiatives
One story that might get a fair amount of attention on Election night, but which I don't care about at all, are a couple of Republican-leaning states which have ballot initiatives, either making laws or changes to state constitutions, aimed at preventing implementation of the Healthcare reform bill in some part. Generally, these are aimed at the mandate that all people should get health insurance, trying to set the stage for state courts to rule that the mandate may not be enforced.
The reason I don't care is that the concept of states nullifying Federal laws was pretty definitively shot down in the 1830's and, from a constitutional law point of view, is dead and buried. The Nullification battle between President Andrew Johnson and South Carolina Governor John C. Calhoun came when Calhoun tried to exempt his state from a national protective tariff and Johnson threatened military action. The chances that federal courts back such state initiatives and exempt states from the mandate are about the same as those that Calhoun will rise from the dead and begin eating the Capitol and its inhabitants. That is, it's theoretically impossible, but if it does happen, we're all doomed.
The largest number of initiatives relate to states' problems with balancing their budgets in the current economic difficulties. Some of them would make it easier for states to fill in revenue gaps, but many of them would make it harder, by taking away taxes approved by state legislatures or by reducing property taxes in the manner of California's infamous Proposition 19, passed some 25 years ago and still causing immense mischief. California has one addressing one other major impediment to state budgeting done by initiative: it has an initiative which would repeal the requirement that state budgets be approved by a two-thirds majority: This one has produced logjams year after year. Given the fact that most Americans think taxes are too high, and the contrary facts that most states' revenues are too low, their mandated expenses too high, and that they are required to have balanced budgets, the most likely outcome is huge short-term difficulties and, in some cases, locking in longer-term complication. So much for the practicalities confronting the idealistic notion of direct democracy.
Elections and political processes are the subject of several ballot initiatives. Two of the more interesting ones are in Florida and designed to take partisan considerations out of Congressional redistricting--the likely result, despite the good intentions, will be confusion. There's another one of these in California turning over redistricting to a non-partisan commission, but since California doesn't look to have any changes this time around, it probably won't be too keenly contested. There are a couple having to do with campaign finance in state campaigns. Several states have referenda on whether to call state constitutional conventions--I'm looking for a state-level movement to call for conventions to revise the US constitution (the second, never used, method of changing the Constitution), but that hasn't materialized yet. Illinois has one to allow for recall of the governor--a bit too late, this one.
The most significant ballot initiative area, though, is when petitions or legislative decisions give voters the opportunity to determine state laws. One huge one is in California, where voters will be asked if they want to suspend implementation of the state's innovative climate change law until such time as the economy recovers--this one will be a very good bellwether of the chances for any kind of national climate change-related laws while our economy is still suffering, and I would say our climate is not likely to fare too well under the circumstances.
Some of them are almost funny: four very red (-necked) states have proposals to add "the right to hunt and fish" to their state constitutions--as if those states would ever pass a law to prohibit that. Not so funny is a Colorado provision to have the state constitution define "personhood" as beginning at conception--if it happens, it could create some real conflict with the Federally-backed right of women to choose abortion.
There are the usual ones to authorize casinos--those pretty much always pass--and a couple more states authorizing medical marijuana--those usually pass, but the experiences of California and Colorado, where the implementation of those laws has allowed almost anyone to buy weed legally, may have a negative effect on that trend.
Finally, the Big Kahuna of initiatives this year is California's initiative to make marijuana for any adult legal, regulated, and taxed. This one is justifiably being watched everywhere to see if the tide is definitively turning in favor of legalization, not just tolerance in limited situations. There is also the thought that this one will bring out young voters--who generally have a low level of interest in this year's elections--which could be critical in the state's close races for governor, US Senate, and in several House districts.
Polls suggest the outcome of this ballot proposition could go either way. Similarly unclear is what would happen if the bill passes: the Federal government, which insists it wants to enforce national laws against all marijuana, could interfere with the peaceful rollout of this change in the law. This would seem to be a big mistake for the Obama Administration, so I suspect some accommodation will be sought to avoid a slow-motion train-wreck: perhaps something like revenue sharing, in which some of the (predictedly abundant) revenues would go to Federal anti-drug programs or something. The idea would be to try to re-draw the national policy around cutting out the Mexican drug cartels, accepting the notion of harm reduction, and doing more to separate the approach toward "soft" cannabis and hard drugs like meth, coke, and opiates.
Slouching Toward 2012
Like it or not, the 2012 campaign will start within days of November 2. This year's election results are the final piece of data required to get things going for both sides. 2010 will go down in history as the most expensive, ugliest, most wasteful campaign in history, but it is clear that nothing will change in the realm of campaign finance (it's even less likely with the Republican gains coming), so this year's bloat will be nothing compared to the colon blow of dirty money coming in 2012. The lesson for the Democrats will undoubtedly be to get down and dirty earlier, and it is extremely unlikely that the Republicans will see this year's results as anything but an endorsement of their sleaze.
Meteorologically or environmentally speaking, climate change looks like a dead issue, both for this year's lame-duck session after the elections and for the 112th Congress starting in 2011. Changing the political climate, though, will be a big topic in days to come, and, while it could conceivably get even worse, I think it is more likely that there will be some successful attempts to reduce its toxicity.
In the immediate short run, don't expect too much. The lame-duck session will have an attempt, led by some of the many Congressional Democrats about to be pushed out the door, to get a couple things done, but Republican Senators will make a determinative effort to run out the clock on anything that don't like. (There may be a surprisingly quiet accommodation on tax cuts, extending some or most for 2-3 years. ) This will be followed by a sharp, bitter battle in the first days of the new Congress for the Senate to revise its filibuster rules. The narrow Democratic majority will not be able to get its revisions, no matter how sensible and moderate, to the floor and they will quickly find they will have to concede and move on (the reverse would also apply if the Republicans somehow put together a majority).
At this point, I think, the Obama White House will reach out and try to combat dangerous local overheating. Calling in the leaders of both parties' caucuses from both houses of Congress will immediately reverse the Wall Street decline we can expect in early 2011 as the Golden Age of Tea suddenly reveals itself to be an ineffective, transitory fad. The good news will then come forward in a set of consensus-based initiatives to help private businesses feel better about investing in their businesses and get people back to work. (For the record, I expect Big Business to piss away most of their cash hoards in stupid merger and acquisition, rather than truly investing in business expansion, but there will be exceptions.) Some sort of budget compromise--for the short run, mind you--will be achieved. The big report on reducing structural deficits from Federal programs will come out, to less-than-universal acclaim, and the debate on those will start--not to be settled until after 2012. The short-term decision on moving forward in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be made at end of this year without too much fuss from either side.
I see this relatively favorable political scenario as being much more likely than the one of hard-right Republicans shutting down the Federal government. Tea Party successes in the 2010 election are not going to be so overwhelming that they will control the Republican caucus in either house of Congress, and the "adults" will retain direction over legislative strategy. I give them enough credit to think they will understand how that confrontational strategy backfired in 1995-96, and just as the Left has had to learn to accept some disappointments from President Obama, the Teabaggers will have to accept their representatives' limitations.
The environment, or the related issue of energy politics, could arise as a significant factor by 2012, though I would not expect it to do so until a date more like 2016. I believe that almost any event that would rise to the level of national politics would tend to favor the Democrats and hurt the Republicans: for example, a recurrence of something like the BP spill, or an oil embargo, or serious climatic disturbances, or a sudden technological development facilitating conversion to renewable energy or electric cars.
How does all this play out into the 2012 campaign? I expect the unemployment rate during the summer of 2012 to be somewhere in the 7-8% range (with many new entrants to the job market included)--"way too high", but still a great deal better than the present. Both the President and the Republican Congressional leaders will be ready to both claim credit for the improvement and blame the other side for the continuing problems.
Barring catastrophe, President Obama will be running for re-election, will not have serious competition for his party's nomination, and will have Joe Biden as his running mate. (The talk about Hillary Clinton and Biden switching jobs was interesting, but apparently had no foundation in reality.) So, I will skip any speculation contrary to that notion--with one caveat.
Apart from the general political climate, and the environmental and economic climate questions, then, the key questions which will frame the 2012 campaign are who will be the Republican nominee, and will there be a significant third-party candidate. Those two questions are interrelated, I think it's fair to say. There are three basic scenarios: 1) a Tea Party-type, or other extreme right-wing candidate, wins the Republican nomination and there's a fracture, with a moderate running; 2) an establishment Republican defeats the Teabaggers and right-wingnut candidates, and there is a third-party candidate running on the right; and 3) somehow, the Republicans all stick together around someone more or less in the center of the Republican tent.
The battle for the 2012 Republican nomination and control of the convention will be the determining factor in the struggle for the party: will the establishment co-opt the Tea Party, will the Tea Party complete its hostile takeover, will there be some sort of synthesis, or are they headed to Splitsville?
I would say that scenario 2)--the old-line GOP winning the battle, with some right-wing fragments splitting off--is the most likely one, and scenario 1)--the reverse-- the least likely. Scenario 3) is the most challenging one for Obama and the Democrats to run against; the history of Republican national politics would suggest it is the most likely outcome, but that would require a huge change, either within the insurgent movement or the party establishment.
There will be no shortage of Republican candidates. The candidates from within the party establishment--the likes of former Governor Mitt Romney, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota (though not all these may end up running)--are furiously working to establish goodwill with the more radical elements working within the party in this year's elections. The self-appointed leaders of the Republican insurgents who are thinking Presidentially are generally former office-holders: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former House Majority leader Dick Armey, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and, of course, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (and then there may be some longshots like former Colorado Rep. Tim Tancredo, or commentators Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck). The only current office-holders I can think of who might run with real Tea Party support are Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann (i.e., sure losers). Of the current crop of TP aspirants, future Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida stands out clearly as the cream from them, but I would suggest that 2012 is too soon for him to be trying for national office (of course, that didn't quite apply to junior Senator Obama).
Present officeholder excepted, the pattern in recent times has been for winning Presidential challengers not to be current office-holders (Carter, Nixon, Reagan being good examples) because it allows them to campaign full-time and separate themselves from current government policies (which are rarely popular). So, we should not think that former- or non-office holders cannot win.
Then, of course, there is the establishment candidate who is not currently in office: Mitt Romney. He will be the initial front-runner for the nomination, but he can easily be knocked off. One problem is that he is an underdog in the first showdown, in Iowa; another is that his signature governmental policy, the Massachusetts state healthcare reform he endorsed, is so similar to the national program approved this year. He will be a target of the insurgent candidates; can he somehow reach out past them to their membership and get their support?
I am thinking that he will not; that Palin or Huckabee will wound him in Iowa, then follow that up in another of the early primary/caucuses (probably not New Hampshire, but in South Carolina, Nevada, or Florida); then the questions will be whether Palin/Huckabee can be stopped? And will the party establishment want to stop him/her, at great cost to party unity?
Whoever the nominee, and whether or not the Republicans come out of it united, President Obama must at this distance be considered a strong favorite to win re-election. Of the 10 incumbent Presidents who have run for re-election since WWII, seven have won. I'd say that 70% is a good estimate of Obama's chances; they would go up if he is not seriously challenged by a Democrat for the nomination nor in the general election. This means that Obama must successfully stay in the middle of his party, something I would argue that he has done reasonably well with so far. Barring that kind of problem, his attitude toward the Republicans should be "Bring him/her/them on!"
Re-mystification of De-districting...or something like that...The 2010 Census, the raw data for which was completed this past spring, provides the Constitutionally-mandated basis for determining the state-by-state apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives. Although the official Census population reports will not come out until December, the outline of what is likely to happen in Congressional reapportionment for the period 2012-2020 is already known and reported.
It is possible this could change, but indications are that eight states will gain seats, six of them to gain one seat, but Florida getting two, and Texas four more. On the other side, ten states are expected to lose seats, with New York and Ohio losing two and the other states one each (there will be no net change in Congressional seats; the soonest that is likely to change is if Puerto Rico becomes a state, or Hell freezes over--the icecaps melting would surely be insufficient).
The states that gain or lose Congressional seats have major work to do to figure out the boundaries of the new Congressional districts. State legislatures are mandated to study and pass bills establishing the new boundaries; governors also have a voice through their veto powers. If there is no change in the number of seats, the states generally can leave district boundaries as they are, or they can choose to tinker with them. The state legislation is subject to challenge in the courts by aggrieved parties, but there is a long tradition of judges reluctant to meddle as long as some respect is given to reasonably similar populations among districts, and to geographical continuity within them.
Within those loose parameters, then, re-districting is a political process, one that the parties take a great interest in fixing for their interest. Let's take a hypothetical, but typical, type of case study to see how it works: assume that the state of Annesota has a 2010 Census population of 3 million, giving it a six-seat Congressional delegation, with some sort of change from the previous ten years--that basically necessitates a substantial revision, so we won't worry about the old boundaries. There are 1.8 million registered voters in Annesota, of which 1 million project to voting for party A and 800,000 party B in a typical Presidential election. These projections can feasibly be broken down at the county, municipality, or even precinct level, so districts can be adjusted to fit the desired distribution, as long as the resulting district maps are not too outrageous.
Re-districting is scientific, but not an exact science. Both parties would like to assure themselves of the maximum number of safe seats for their party (ones with projected votes 60-40, or 2-to-1, in their favor; those are the perennially safe seats), while giving themselves the chance to pick up one or two on the margin. So, a typical re-districting formula for Annesota, one that both parties might agree upon, might look like this:
District Projected Votes Party A Party B
1 200,000 100,000
2 200,000 100,000
3 100,000 200,000
4 200,000 100,000
5 200,000 100,000
6 100,000 200,000
This is the classic sort of incumbent-favoring formula, party A getting four seats and party B two. If party A has a safe majority in the state legislature and the governor from its party, party B might agree to this formula to avoid a battle which could work to its detriment.
If, on the other hand, party A gets greedy and wants a shot at five of the six seats, or if party B has a stronger position in the legislature or governor's mansion, they may want to try to get three of the six seats. In the first case, Districts 1 and 6 might be left as above, but Districts 2 through 5 could be arranged so each is 175,000 for Party A, 125,000 for Party B. This would be less stable, but give party A a real chance at five of the six seats, and party B would be expected to resist it by any and all means.
In the second case, party B could try to ram through something like this:
District Projected Votes Party A Party B
1 225,000 75,000
2 125,000 175,000
3 125,000 175,000
4 125,000 175,000
5 200,000 100,000
6 200,000 100,000
Here, despite being in the (projected) minority, control of the statehouse could allow Party B an extra, reasonably safe, seat in Congress--but there is a risk: their margins are smaller in all cases than those for Party A, so things could turn sour and they could lose one or more of those seats, while having little upside opportunity beyond those three. Again, we should expect Party A to resist such a formula fiercely, and in this case it might go to the courts for the second type of resolution: occasionally, when there is no legislative agreement possible (often when legislative control is split, or the governor is opposed to the party controlling the legislature), the courts have to decide between competing formulas, essentially proposed by the party organizations.
The key battles in re-districting are the ones for control of state legislatures, a subject far too deep and wide for me to tackle satisfactorily. There is a group called the DLCC, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is investing strategically in critical state legislature campaigns--I would encourage a modest contribution there. State governors are more of a firewall for stopping (or possibly facilitating) wild redistricting outcomes from the legislatures.
I hope this illustrates the redistricting battle, which apparently will come up in some 18 states, between now and 2012. Some of these will be settled in a very straightforward manner (some actually have legislation or state constitutional provisions which simplify the issue), while Texas, set to gain four seats, is certain to be a battle royal.
Ballot Initiatives
One story that might get a fair amount of attention on Election night, but which I don't care about at all, are a couple of Republican-leaning states which have ballot initiatives, either making laws or changes to state constitutions, aimed at preventing implementation of the Healthcare reform bill in some part. Generally, these are aimed at the mandate that all people should get health insurance, trying to set the stage for state courts to rule that the mandate may not be enforced.
The reason I don't care is that the concept of states nullifying Federal laws was pretty definitively shot down in the 1830's and, from a constitutional law point of view, is dead and buried. The Nullification battle between President Andrew Johnson and South Carolina Governor John C. Calhoun came when Calhoun tried to exempt his state from a national protective tariff and Johnson threatened military action. The chances that federal courts back such state initiatives and exempt states from the mandate are about the same as those that Calhoun will rise from the dead and begin eating the Capitol and its inhabitants. That is, it's theoretically impossible, but if it does happen, we're all doomed.
The largest number of initiatives relate to states' problems with balancing their budgets in the current economic difficulties. Some of them would make it easier for states to fill in revenue gaps, but many of them would make it harder, by taking away taxes approved by state legislatures or by reducing property taxes in the manner of California's infamous Proposition 19, passed some 25 years ago and still causing immense mischief. California has one addressing one other major impediment to state budgeting done by initiative: it has an initiative which would repeal the requirement that state budgets be approved by a two-thirds majority: This one has produced logjams year after year. Given the fact that most Americans think taxes are too high, and the contrary facts that most states' revenues are too low, their mandated expenses too high, and that they are required to have balanced budgets, the most likely outcome is huge short-term difficulties and, in some cases, locking in longer-term complication. So much for the practicalities confronting the idealistic notion of direct democracy.
Elections and political processes are the subject of several ballot initiatives. Two of the more interesting ones are in Florida and designed to take partisan considerations out of Congressional redistricting--the likely result, despite the good intentions, will be confusion. There's another one of these in California turning over redistricting to a non-partisan commission, but since California doesn't look to have any changes this time around, it probably won't be too keenly contested. There are a couple having to do with campaign finance in state campaigns. Several states have referenda on whether to call state constitutional conventions--I'm looking for a state-level movement to call for conventions to revise the US constitution (the second, never used, method of changing the Constitution), but that hasn't materialized yet. Illinois has one to allow for recall of the governor--a bit too late, this one.
The most significant ballot initiative area, though, is when petitions or legislative decisions give voters the opportunity to determine state laws. One huge one is in California, where voters will be asked if they want to suspend implementation of the state's innovative climate change law until such time as the economy recovers--this one will be a very good bellwether of the chances for any kind of national climate change-related laws while our economy is still suffering, and I would say our climate is not likely to fare too well under the circumstances.
Some of them are almost funny: four very red (-necked) states have proposals to add "the right to hunt and fish" to their state constitutions--as if those states would ever pass a law to prohibit that. Not so funny is a Colorado provision to have the state constitution define "personhood" as beginning at conception--if it happens, it could create some real conflict with the Federally-backed right of women to choose abortion.
There are the usual ones to authorize casinos--those pretty much always pass--and a couple more states authorizing medical marijuana--those usually pass, but the experiences of California and Colorado, where the implementation of those laws has allowed almost anyone to buy weed legally, may have a negative effect on that trend.
Finally, the Big Kahuna of initiatives this year is California's initiative to make marijuana for any adult legal, regulated, and taxed. This one is justifiably being watched everywhere to see if the tide is definitively turning in favor of legalization, not just tolerance in limited situations. There is also the thought that this one will bring out young voters--who generally have a low level of interest in this year's elections--which could be critical in the state's close races for governor, US Senate, and in several House districts.
Polls suggest the outcome of this ballot proposition could go either way. Similarly unclear is what would happen if the bill passes: the Federal government, which insists it wants to enforce national laws against all marijuana, could interfere with the peaceful rollout of this change in the law. This would seem to be a big mistake for the Obama Administration, so I suspect some accommodation will be sought to avoid a slow-motion train-wreck: perhaps something like revenue sharing, in which some of the (predictedly abundant) revenues would go to Federal anti-drug programs or something. The idea would be to try to re-draw the national policy around cutting out the Mexican drug cartels, accepting the notion of harm reduction, and doing more to separate the approach toward "soft" cannabis and hard drugs like meth, coke, and opiates.
Slouching Toward 2012
Like it or not, the 2012 campaign will start within days of November 2. This year's election results are the final piece of data required to get things going for both sides. 2010 will go down in history as the most expensive, ugliest, most wasteful campaign in history, but it is clear that nothing will change in the realm of campaign finance (it's even less likely with the Republican gains coming), so this year's bloat will be nothing compared to the colon blow of dirty money coming in 2012. The lesson for the Democrats will undoubtedly be to get down and dirty earlier, and it is extremely unlikely that the Republicans will see this year's results as anything but an endorsement of their sleaze.
Meteorologically or environmentally speaking, climate change looks like a dead issue, both for this year's lame-duck session after the elections and for the 112th Congress starting in 2011. Changing the political climate, though, will be a big topic in days to come, and, while it could conceivably get even worse, I think it is more likely that there will be some successful attempts to reduce its toxicity.
In the immediate short run, don't expect too much. The lame-duck session will have an attempt, led by some of the many Congressional Democrats about to be pushed out the door, to get a couple things done, but Republican Senators will make a determinative effort to run out the clock on anything that don't like. (There may be a surprisingly quiet accommodation on tax cuts, extending some or most for 2-3 years. ) This will be followed by a sharp, bitter battle in the first days of the new Congress for the Senate to revise its filibuster rules. The narrow Democratic majority will not be able to get its revisions, no matter how sensible and moderate, to the floor and they will quickly find they will have to concede and move on (the reverse would also apply if the Republicans somehow put together a majority).
At this point, I think, the Obama White House will reach out and try to combat dangerous local overheating. Calling in the leaders of both parties' caucuses from both houses of Congress will immediately reverse the Wall Street decline we can expect in early 2011 as the Golden Age of Tea suddenly reveals itself to be an ineffective, transitory fad. The good news will then come forward in a set of consensus-based initiatives to help private businesses feel better about investing in their businesses and get people back to work. (For the record, I expect Big Business to piss away most of their cash hoards in stupid merger and acquisition, rather than truly investing in business expansion, but there will be exceptions.) Some sort of budget compromise--for the short run, mind you--will be achieved. The big report on reducing structural deficits from Federal programs will come out, to less-than-universal acclaim, and the debate on those will start--not to be settled until after 2012. The short-term decision on moving forward in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be made at end of this year without too much fuss from either side.
I see this relatively favorable political scenario as being much more likely than the one of hard-right Republicans shutting down the Federal government. Tea Party successes in the 2010 election are not going to be so overwhelming that they will control the Republican caucus in either house of Congress, and the "adults" will retain direction over legislative strategy. I give them enough credit to think they will understand how that confrontational strategy backfired in 1995-96, and just as the Left has had to learn to accept some disappointments from President Obama, the Teabaggers will have to accept their representatives' limitations.
The environment, or the related issue of energy politics, could arise as a significant factor by 2012, though I would not expect it to do so until a date more like 2016. I believe that almost any event that would rise to the level of national politics would tend to favor the Democrats and hurt the Republicans: for example, a recurrence of something like the BP spill, or an oil embargo, or serious climatic disturbances, or a sudden technological development facilitating conversion to renewable energy or electric cars.
How does all this play out into the 2012 campaign? I expect the unemployment rate during the summer of 2012 to be somewhere in the 7-8% range (with many new entrants to the job market included)--"way too high", but still a great deal better than the present. Both the President and the Republican Congressional leaders will be ready to both claim credit for the improvement and blame the other side for the continuing problems.
Barring catastrophe, President Obama will be running for re-election, will not have serious competition for his party's nomination, and will have Joe Biden as his running mate. (The talk about Hillary Clinton and Biden switching jobs was interesting, but apparently had no foundation in reality.) So, I will skip any speculation contrary to that notion--with one caveat.
Apart from the general political climate, and the environmental and economic climate questions, then, the key questions which will frame the 2012 campaign are who will be the Republican nominee, and will there be a significant third-party candidate. Those two questions are interrelated, I think it's fair to say. There are three basic scenarios: 1) a Tea Party-type, or other extreme right-wing candidate, wins the Republican nomination and there's a fracture, with a moderate running; 2) an establishment Republican defeats the Teabaggers and right-wingnut candidates, and there is a third-party candidate running on the right; and 3) somehow, the Republicans all stick together around someone more or less in the center of the Republican tent.
The battle for the 2012 Republican nomination and control of the convention will be the determining factor in the struggle for the party: will the establishment co-opt the Tea Party, will the Tea Party complete its hostile takeover, will there be some sort of synthesis, or are they headed to Splitsville?
I would say that scenario 2)--the old-line GOP winning the battle, with some right-wing fragments splitting off--is the most likely one, and scenario 1)--the reverse-- the least likely. Scenario 3) is the most challenging one for Obama and the Democrats to run against; the history of Republican national politics would suggest it is the most likely outcome, but that would require a huge change, either within the insurgent movement or the party establishment.
There will be no shortage of Republican candidates. The candidates from within the party establishment--the likes of former Governor Mitt Romney, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota (though not all these may end up running)--are furiously working to establish goodwill with the more radical elements working within the party in this year's elections. The self-appointed leaders of the Republican insurgents who are thinking Presidentially are generally former office-holders: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former House Majority leader Dick Armey, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and, of course, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (and then there may be some longshots like former Colorado Rep. Tim Tancredo, or commentators Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck). The only current office-holders I can think of who might run with real Tea Party support are Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann (i.e., sure losers). Of the current crop of TP aspirants, future Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida stands out clearly as the cream from them, but I would suggest that 2012 is too soon for him to be trying for national office (of course, that didn't quite apply to junior Senator Obama).
Present officeholder excepted, the pattern in recent times has been for winning Presidential challengers not to be current office-holders (Carter, Nixon, Reagan being good examples) because it allows them to campaign full-time and separate themselves from current government policies (which are rarely popular). So, we should not think that former- or non-office holders cannot win.
Then, of course, there is the establishment candidate who is not currently in office: Mitt Romney. He will be the initial front-runner for the nomination, but he can easily be knocked off. One problem is that he is an underdog in the first showdown, in Iowa; another is that his signature governmental policy, the Massachusetts state healthcare reform he endorsed, is so similar to the national program approved this year. He will be a target of the insurgent candidates; can he somehow reach out past them to their membership and get their support?
I am thinking that he will not; that Palin or Huckabee will wound him in Iowa, then follow that up in another of the early primary/caucuses (probably not New Hampshire, but in South Carolina, Nevada, or Florida); then the questions will be whether Palin/Huckabee can be stopped? And will the party establishment want to stop him/her, at great cost to party unity?
Whoever the nominee, and whether or not the Republicans come out of it united, President Obama must at this distance be considered a strong favorite to win re-election. Of the 10 incumbent Presidents who have run for re-election since WWII, seven have won. I'd say that 70% is a good estimate of Obama's chances; they would go up if he is not seriously challenged by a Democrat for the nomination nor in the general election. This means that Obama must successfully stay in the middle of his party, something I would argue that he has done reasonably well with so far. Barring that kind of problem, his attitude toward the Republicans should be "Bring him/her/them on!"
Final Pre-Election View, Pt. 3: Gubernatorially Speaking
A great majority of states choose to have their governors elected in the Presidential midterm. This year there are 37 gubernatorial elections, which is apparently a record. Not that anyone planned it, but this year's intersection of large numbers of statehouse elections, the parlous state of many of the Midwestern and Southwestern state economies, and the upcoming political battles for Congressional redistricting coming out of the 2010 Census (see preview, Pt. 4),* makes this not such good timing for the Democrats, and this category will be an area of meaningful defeats for them this year. However, as we will see, there is also the possibility of some real bright spots, too.
Key Races
(likely change in number of Congressional districts in parentheses):
Florida (+2) Apart from Congressional re-districting, control of the statehouse can have a determinative effect, if only on the margin, in the Big Ticket itself, the Presidential contest for electoral votes. Just remember Jeb Bush in Florida in 2000--a Democratic governor in Florida then might well have allowed Al Gore to win the national election. Florida looks, once again, to be a critical swing state in 2012, but now with two more electoral votes.
The contest for control of Tallahassee has got to be the most important governor's race this year in all regards. There's the redistricting, the implications for 2012, but also there's a very close and very hot race. If she wins, Democratic nominee Alex Sink will be one of the brightest new lights in what could be a very dark evening. Her opponent, Rick Scott, is one of the most odious major candidates in a year filled with them: another of these super-rich, self-financed vampires, Scott made his bucks with his scumsucking Columbia/HCA company, which he split just before the company took a billion-plus dollar hit on fines for fraudulent medical insurance practices.
Sink currently has a small lead and apparently did well in a major televised debate last night. The money involved in this campaign is unreal, so don't get involved unless you're megabuckistically endowed, but if you've got a valid Florida voter registration, please show up for Sink!
Ohio (-2) When you're talking swing state, Ohio must come up. And please note, loss of Congressional seats is just as important for redistricting concerns as additional seats. Incumbent Democratic Governor Ted Strickland used to be very popular; with the economy and the state's budget problems, today that's true not so much. His opponent, former Rep. John Kasich, is smart, ambitious, and both fairly hard-right and a Bushite. In other words, the passing electoral fad. All I can say is, Ohioans, if you elect Kasich you'll be sorry, and you'll make us feel that way, too--once again. Strickland was pretty far behind, but has apparently closed the gap. There are several House races down-ticket who are hoping Strickland's resurgence will continue.
Texas (+4) Re-districting is a big war in which Texans engage, with gusto, every ten years,** and this time around should be no exception. 10-year incumbent Rick Perry is leading the charge for the forces of reaction (to what, you have to wonder) once again. The good news is that the Democrats have a real opponent for Perry in Mayor Bill White of Houston; he's run a great race against the odds and will at least keep it close. I see Perry winning one last time, and White perhaps getting another shot and winning in four years. Despite the perceived huge advantage of Republicans in the state, the legislature is very closely balanced (a lot of Blue Dogs), so the contest over the four additional seats will not actually be one-sided.
Illinois (-1) This normally reliable blue state has been put into political play this year by the excesses of disgraced ex-Gov. Blagojevich. Both the Senate and Governor's races have been tough ones for the Democratic candidates. Democrat Pat Quinn (promoted from Lt. Gov. on Blago's resignation) is nominally the incumbent but has none of the normal advantages; he trailed but has closed the gap.
Pennsylvania (-1) According to Nate Silver and 538.com, this is pretty much a safe takeover for Republican Tom Corbett--apparently, the Democratic candidate Dan Onorato had low statewide name recognition and has not broken through that barrier. Still, with the close race in the Senate (Sestak vs. Toomey) and the many close House races in the state, closing the gap in the top-of-ticket race will be very important strategically for the Democrats.
Georgia, South Carolina (each + 1) These are major uphill battles for the Democrats, with party registration working against them big-time. To their credit, the Democrats have nominated good candidates in each state, while South Carolina's Tea Party fave Niki Haley has run into problems with alleged extramarital affairs (not permitted in S.C., especially after the debacle with their current Gov. Sanford). Still, look for Republicans to get narrow wins and use legislative majorities to grab tightly onto the states' new seats.
Massachusetts (-1) Democratic control of the state was challenged in the Scott Brown Senate by-election. Gov. Deval Patrick was a big favorite to hold the job for the Dems, due to an independent candidacy splitting Republican leaners, but then that candidate (Tim Cahill) pulled out, and the race has closed--Patrick still favored.
States of Anger
These states are all trending heavily Republican this year:
Michigan (-1)This state is looking disastrous for Democrats, with incumbent Gov. Granholm term limited and unable to run again. Not only are they way behind this year, unless there's a sharp turnaround, the chances the Democrats can hold this state in 2012's Presidential election look grim. The good news is that the combination of plentiful fresh water, a favorable climate, and ample vacant real estate make Detroit a likely winner if/when global warming hits.
Arizona (+1) Janet Napolitano's going to the Department of Homeland Security keeps having negative repercussions for Democrats. Republican Lt. Gov. Jan Brewer ascended to the governor's office, where she was pretty much a non-entity until she endorsed the anti-immigrant bill; now she is cruising to election and carrying other Republicans with her (lots of close House races may be going against incumbent Democrats). The clear lesson of this is not to bring Democratic governors into the Cabinet if the Lt. Gov. is from the other side.
Nevada (+1) Given how unpopular Sen. Harry Reid has become in Nevada, and how bad the economy, it probably wasn't such a good idea for the Democrats to nominate his son for governor.
Utah (+1) I'm not sure what Utahans have to be angry about, but I'm sure they are (note the Republican primary voters knocking out incumbent Sen. Bennett for a Teabagger because Bennett was insufficiently a right-winger). At least the Democrats nominated someone.
States Somewhat Outlying
New York (-2) The antics of Carl Paladino have gotten all the attention, but Paladino is an also-ran candidate who never had more than a ghost of a chance, and that has disappeared. It will be good to get a Cuomo back as governor after Pataki and the Spitzer/Patterson debacle. Not that Albany--the state legislature--will be moved by any change in the occupant of the governor's office.
Arkansas (0) This is actually a red state with a Democratic incumbent who's winning big. At the same time, in the state's Senate race, Blanche Lincoln is heading for the biggest wipeout loss of any Democratic incumbent. I can only conclude Gov. Beebe must be doing something right--perhaps carrying firearms in public?
Iowa (-1) This is a race where the Democratic incumbent is losing big. What's unusual is that the person who's beating him is Terry Branstad, who was previously a four-term governor. So much for getting rid of the career politicians.
California (0) It seems amazing that, having so many Congressional districts (47), California is neither projected to gain or lose a seat, but that's the initial indication. Our most populous state is an outlier because it appears now that it may be a Democratic pickup--there are not going to be many (but see below for a couple other possibilities).
I was not expecting former Gov. Jerry Brown to win this race against multi-millionaire Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, but Brown has outperformed expectations even more times than he has been counted out, and he seems to be doing it again. Brown had about caught Whitman (despite the faux pas of calling Whitman a "whore" when he meant a "sell-out"), when the scandal hit Whitman. She has been a frequent denouncer of illegal immigration and policies that encourage it, but then it emerged that she had (probably knowingly) employed an illegal as a live-in housekeeper. Brown has now pulled noticeably ahead--though the Times' official rating is "toss-up", their blogger Nate Silver has Brown with a 82% probability of winning.
Worth Noting, Briefly
None of these states have changes projected for their Congressional delegations, but as blue (or blu-ish) states with close governor's races, they illustrate both the difficulties of Democrats this year and the variances between the national and local party orientations. The Times has an incredible 13 state governors' races officially still rated as tossups; Silver and 538.com are much more ready to push the balance toward one side or theother, but these are among the closest races in his ratings. (Silver's % probability of Democratic win in parentheses below)
Oregon (67%) Republican Chris Dudley is tall (6'-11"), handsome, a Yale graduate and former NBA player. He had a lead early on, but his positions are a little too plain-vanilla right-wing Republican for Oregon. And, as for basketball, I challenge him to a free-throw shooting contest, anywhere, anytime!
Vermont (54%) According to Silver, this is the closest to a 50-50 race of all the governors' races. Given the easy win here for Obama and being the state of former Gov. Howard Dean, one might be surprised to know that Vermont has had a Republican governor the last eight years (Vermont has elections every two years, so that's four elections retiring Gov. Douglas won).
Rhode Island (56%) Little Rhody's governor has been a Republican for 16 years! This year, though, the race's leader is a Democrat, closely followed by Lincoln Chaffee, a moderate who's left the Republican party and is running as an independent--the Republican candidate is running a distant third.
Colorado (81%) - Like Rhode Island, the Republican nominee has been displaced in the contest, but in this case it is right-wing extremist Tom Tancredo (you may remember his extremist unsuccessful run in the Republican primaries in 2008) who has marginalized a mainstream candidate (who had little name recognition). Denver Mayor Tom Hickenlooper, the Democratic nominee, had a large lead but Tancredo has closed and could pull off a huge state-depressing upset (he would do some borderline racist act like Ariz. Gov. Brewer did to make the state a pariah). There are some closely contested Colorado House races that may depend partially on Hickenlooper's success in holding onto this governorship.
Maryland (81%) This is a rematch of four years ago, when Democrat Martin O'Malley challenged the Republican incumbent, Robert Ehrlich. The race was extremely close, but in recent weeks O'Malley has pulled a few points ahead. Maryland, of course, is one of the most reliably Democratic states in national elections.
Maine (28%) This is a very confusing race, with four candidates drawing significant support. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates' projected vote percentages have been dropping in recent weeks and the percentage undecided increasing. The Republican candidate, the slight leader, has a fairly standard-issue right-wing Republican platform. This race may be a preview of the chaos quite likely to ensue in the next two election cycles if the two moderate Republican women Senators decide to run: they are likely to be challenged from the right and the left.
New Mexico (8%) And, finally, we get to my home state's race. Compared to some of the states above, its significance is hardly cosmic--no Senate race, no Congressional redistricting likely, all the House races settling into clearly likely outcomes (one very red seat to be lost), but there are a few important points to note.
First, along the lines of Arizona's race (see above), there are unintended consequences arising from President Obama's Cabinet decisions. When Gov. Bill Richardson's nomination for Commerce Secretary was scuttled in the midst of an investigation of a possible pay-for-play violation in his New Mexico administration (no one was charged, though the result was a less-than-total vindication), it meant that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish's ascension to the top job was cancelled. This has certainly made her campaign to win the office more difficult, as has Richardson's declining level of support and a general feeling of disappointment in the accomplishments of his eight-year tenure.
Second, kudos to the Republicans for coming up with a viable Hispanic woman candidate, District Attorney Susana Martinez, to run against Denish, thus cutting deeply into Denish's two most promising sources of majority support (women and Hispanics, the latter being some 40% of voters, by far the highest Hispanic percentage of any state). Martinez' candidacy has created a serious schism in the local Hispanic community, and we are seeing who is motivated by progressive issues or party loyalty (for example, our Hispanic Representative, Ben Ray Lujan, who is winning in a virtual walkover), who by familial and client relationships, and who by identity politics.
Denish is a good person, but has zero charisma and has found that the Lieutenant Governor position, second fiddle to a high-profile governor, is not such a good springboard to the governor's job, after all.
Martinez has a basic right-wing Republican agenda, and the only charge that has really stuck to her is that she is a transplanted Texan (ineffective down South but potent up here) and a tool of big-money Texan interests who have given heavily to her campaign. She is officially endorsed by Tea Party arbitress Sarah Palin, but has moved fairly successfully toward the middle in the general election campaign, among other things backing away from her primary-race support for education vouchers.
Denish led early, but Martinez caught her in mid-summer, and has moved to a ten-point lead. Martinez will win big in the South, may be edged in the Albuquerque area, and her expected loss margin in this district may be reduced by low turnout. A typical 2010 result.
Finally, for completeness sake, I list these states with projected changes in number of Congressional districts which do not have governor's races this year: Washington (+1), Louisiana (-1), Missouri (-1), and New Jersey (-1).
*For all references to projected changes in number of Congressional districts for states coming out of the 2010 Census, my source is an analysis by ESRI, a government contractor expert on geographical distributions of population, as reported in USA Today a few weeks ago. These are based on preliminary population estimates; the official Census reports and the resulting Congressional district numbers are expected in December.
**In the latter stages of the 2000 edition of these wars, several Texas Democratic legislators hid out here in New Mexico for months to deny their legislature a quorum, in an unusual approach to filibuster last decade's unjust redistricting scheme. I kid you not.
Key Races
(likely change in number of Congressional districts in parentheses):
Florida (+2) Apart from Congressional re-districting, control of the statehouse can have a determinative effect, if only on the margin, in the Big Ticket itself, the Presidential contest for electoral votes. Just remember Jeb Bush in Florida in 2000--a Democratic governor in Florida then might well have allowed Al Gore to win the national election. Florida looks, once again, to be a critical swing state in 2012, but now with two more electoral votes.
The contest for control of Tallahassee has got to be the most important governor's race this year in all regards. There's the redistricting, the implications for 2012, but also there's a very close and very hot race. If she wins, Democratic nominee Alex Sink will be one of the brightest new lights in what could be a very dark evening. Her opponent, Rick Scott, is one of the most odious major candidates in a year filled with them: another of these super-rich, self-financed vampires, Scott made his bucks with his scumsucking Columbia/HCA company, which he split just before the company took a billion-plus dollar hit on fines for fraudulent medical insurance practices.
Sink currently has a small lead and apparently did well in a major televised debate last night. The money involved in this campaign is unreal, so don't get involved unless you're megabuckistically endowed, but if you've got a valid Florida voter registration, please show up for Sink!
Ohio (-2) When you're talking swing state, Ohio must come up. And please note, loss of Congressional seats is just as important for redistricting concerns as additional seats. Incumbent Democratic Governor Ted Strickland used to be very popular; with the economy and the state's budget problems, today that's true not so much. His opponent, former Rep. John Kasich, is smart, ambitious, and both fairly hard-right and a Bushite. In other words, the passing electoral fad. All I can say is, Ohioans, if you elect Kasich you'll be sorry, and you'll make us feel that way, too--once again. Strickland was pretty far behind, but has apparently closed the gap. There are several House races down-ticket who are hoping Strickland's resurgence will continue.
Texas (+4) Re-districting is a big war in which Texans engage, with gusto, every ten years,** and this time around should be no exception. 10-year incumbent Rick Perry is leading the charge for the forces of reaction (to what, you have to wonder) once again. The good news is that the Democrats have a real opponent for Perry in Mayor Bill White of Houston; he's run a great race against the odds and will at least keep it close. I see Perry winning one last time, and White perhaps getting another shot and winning in four years. Despite the perceived huge advantage of Republicans in the state, the legislature is very closely balanced (a lot of Blue Dogs), so the contest over the four additional seats will not actually be one-sided.
Illinois (-1) This normally reliable blue state has been put into political play this year by the excesses of disgraced ex-Gov. Blagojevich. Both the Senate and Governor's races have been tough ones for the Democratic candidates. Democrat Pat Quinn (promoted from Lt. Gov. on Blago's resignation) is nominally the incumbent but has none of the normal advantages; he trailed but has closed the gap.
Pennsylvania (-1) According to Nate Silver and 538.com, this is pretty much a safe takeover for Republican Tom Corbett--apparently, the Democratic candidate Dan Onorato had low statewide name recognition and has not broken through that barrier. Still, with the close race in the Senate (Sestak vs. Toomey) and the many close House races in the state, closing the gap in the top-of-ticket race will be very important strategically for the Democrats.
Georgia, South Carolina (each + 1) These are major uphill battles for the Democrats, with party registration working against them big-time. To their credit, the Democrats have nominated good candidates in each state, while South Carolina's Tea Party fave Niki Haley has run into problems with alleged extramarital affairs (not permitted in S.C., especially after the debacle with their current Gov. Sanford). Still, look for Republicans to get narrow wins and use legislative majorities to grab tightly onto the states' new seats.
Massachusetts (-1) Democratic control of the state was challenged in the Scott Brown Senate by-election. Gov. Deval Patrick was a big favorite to hold the job for the Dems, due to an independent candidacy splitting Republican leaners, but then that candidate (Tim Cahill) pulled out, and the race has closed--Patrick still favored.
States of Anger
These states are all trending heavily Republican this year:
Michigan (-1)This state is looking disastrous for Democrats, with incumbent Gov. Granholm term limited and unable to run again. Not only are they way behind this year, unless there's a sharp turnaround, the chances the Democrats can hold this state in 2012's Presidential election look grim. The good news is that the combination of plentiful fresh water, a favorable climate, and ample vacant real estate make Detroit a likely winner if/when global warming hits.
Arizona (+1) Janet Napolitano's going to the Department of Homeland Security keeps having negative repercussions for Democrats. Republican Lt. Gov. Jan Brewer ascended to the governor's office, where she was pretty much a non-entity until she endorsed the anti-immigrant bill; now she is cruising to election and carrying other Republicans with her (lots of close House races may be going against incumbent Democrats). The clear lesson of this is not to bring Democratic governors into the Cabinet if the Lt. Gov. is from the other side.
Nevada (+1) Given how unpopular Sen. Harry Reid has become in Nevada, and how bad the economy, it probably wasn't such a good idea for the Democrats to nominate his son for governor.
Utah (+1) I'm not sure what Utahans have to be angry about, but I'm sure they are (note the Republican primary voters knocking out incumbent Sen. Bennett for a Teabagger because Bennett was insufficiently a right-winger). At least the Democrats nominated someone.
States Somewhat Outlying
New York (-2) The antics of Carl Paladino have gotten all the attention, but Paladino is an also-ran candidate who never had more than a ghost of a chance, and that has disappeared. It will be good to get a Cuomo back as governor after Pataki and the Spitzer/Patterson debacle. Not that Albany--the state legislature--will be moved by any change in the occupant of the governor's office.
Arkansas (0) This is actually a red state with a Democratic incumbent who's winning big. At the same time, in the state's Senate race, Blanche Lincoln is heading for the biggest wipeout loss of any Democratic incumbent. I can only conclude Gov. Beebe must be doing something right--perhaps carrying firearms in public?
Iowa (-1) This is a race where the Democratic incumbent is losing big. What's unusual is that the person who's beating him is Terry Branstad, who was previously a four-term governor. So much for getting rid of the career politicians.
California (0) It seems amazing that, having so many Congressional districts (47), California is neither projected to gain or lose a seat, but that's the initial indication. Our most populous state is an outlier because it appears now that it may be a Democratic pickup--there are not going to be many (but see below for a couple other possibilities).
I was not expecting former Gov. Jerry Brown to win this race against multi-millionaire Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, but Brown has outperformed expectations even more times than he has been counted out, and he seems to be doing it again. Brown had about caught Whitman (despite the faux pas of calling Whitman a "whore" when he meant a "sell-out"), when the scandal hit Whitman. She has been a frequent denouncer of illegal immigration and policies that encourage it, but then it emerged that she had (probably knowingly) employed an illegal as a live-in housekeeper. Brown has now pulled noticeably ahead--though the Times' official rating is "toss-up", their blogger Nate Silver has Brown with a 82% probability of winning.
Worth Noting, Briefly
None of these states have changes projected for their Congressional delegations, but as blue (or blu-ish) states with close governor's races, they illustrate both the difficulties of Democrats this year and the variances between the national and local party orientations. The Times has an incredible 13 state governors' races officially still rated as tossups; Silver and 538.com are much more ready to push the balance toward one side or theother, but these are among the closest races in his ratings. (Silver's % probability of Democratic win in parentheses below)
Oregon (67%) Republican Chris Dudley is tall (6'-11"), handsome, a Yale graduate and former NBA player. He had a lead early on, but his positions are a little too plain-vanilla right-wing Republican for Oregon. And, as for basketball, I challenge him to a free-throw shooting contest, anywhere, anytime!
Vermont (54%) According to Silver, this is the closest to a 50-50 race of all the governors' races. Given the easy win here for Obama and being the state of former Gov. Howard Dean, one might be surprised to know that Vermont has had a Republican governor the last eight years (Vermont has elections every two years, so that's four elections retiring Gov. Douglas won).
Rhode Island (56%) Little Rhody's governor has been a Republican for 16 years! This year, though, the race's leader is a Democrat, closely followed by Lincoln Chaffee, a moderate who's left the Republican party and is running as an independent--the Republican candidate is running a distant third.
Colorado (81%) - Like Rhode Island, the Republican nominee has been displaced in the contest, but in this case it is right-wing extremist Tom Tancredo (you may remember his extremist unsuccessful run in the Republican primaries in 2008) who has marginalized a mainstream candidate (who had little name recognition). Denver Mayor Tom Hickenlooper, the Democratic nominee, had a large lead but Tancredo has closed and could pull off a huge state-depressing upset (he would do some borderline racist act like Ariz. Gov. Brewer did to make the state a pariah). There are some closely contested Colorado House races that may depend partially on Hickenlooper's success in holding onto this governorship.
Maryland (81%) This is a rematch of four years ago, when Democrat Martin O'Malley challenged the Republican incumbent, Robert Ehrlich. The race was extremely close, but in recent weeks O'Malley has pulled a few points ahead. Maryland, of course, is one of the most reliably Democratic states in national elections.
Maine (28%) This is a very confusing race, with four candidates drawing significant support. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates' projected vote percentages have been dropping in recent weeks and the percentage undecided increasing. The Republican candidate, the slight leader, has a fairly standard-issue right-wing Republican platform. This race may be a preview of the chaos quite likely to ensue in the next two election cycles if the two moderate Republican women Senators decide to run: they are likely to be challenged from the right and the left.
New Mexico (8%) And, finally, we get to my home state's race. Compared to some of the states above, its significance is hardly cosmic--no Senate race, no Congressional redistricting likely, all the House races settling into clearly likely outcomes (one very red seat to be lost), but there are a few important points to note.
First, along the lines of Arizona's race (see above), there are unintended consequences arising from President Obama's Cabinet decisions. When Gov. Bill Richardson's nomination for Commerce Secretary was scuttled in the midst of an investigation of a possible pay-for-play violation in his New Mexico administration (no one was charged, though the result was a less-than-total vindication), it meant that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish's ascension to the top job was cancelled. This has certainly made her campaign to win the office more difficult, as has Richardson's declining level of support and a general feeling of disappointment in the accomplishments of his eight-year tenure.
Second, kudos to the Republicans for coming up with a viable Hispanic woman candidate, District Attorney Susana Martinez, to run against Denish, thus cutting deeply into Denish's two most promising sources of majority support (women and Hispanics, the latter being some 40% of voters, by far the highest Hispanic percentage of any state). Martinez' candidacy has created a serious schism in the local Hispanic community, and we are seeing who is motivated by progressive issues or party loyalty (for example, our Hispanic Representative, Ben Ray Lujan, who is winning in a virtual walkover), who by familial and client relationships, and who by identity politics.
Denish is a good person, but has zero charisma and has found that the Lieutenant Governor position, second fiddle to a high-profile governor, is not such a good springboard to the governor's job, after all.
Martinez has a basic right-wing Republican agenda, and the only charge that has really stuck to her is that she is a transplanted Texan (ineffective down South but potent up here) and a tool of big-money Texan interests who have given heavily to her campaign. She is officially endorsed by Tea Party arbitress Sarah Palin, but has moved fairly successfully toward the middle in the general election campaign, among other things backing away from her primary-race support for education vouchers.
Denish led early, but Martinez caught her in mid-summer, and has moved to a ten-point lead. Martinez will win big in the South, may be edged in the Albuquerque area, and her expected loss margin in this district may be reduced by low turnout. A typical 2010 result.
Finally, for completeness sake, I list these states with projected changes in number of Congressional districts which do not have governor's races this year: Washington (+1), Louisiana (-1), Missouri (-1), and New Jersey (-1).
*For all references to projected changes in number of Congressional districts for states coming out of the 2010 Census, my source is an analysis by ESRI, a government contractor expert on geographical distributions of population, as reported in USA Today a few weeks ago. These are based on preliminary population estimates; the official Census reports and the resulting Congressional district numbers are expected in December.
**In the latter stages of the 2000 edition of these wars, several Texas Democratic legislators hid out here in New Mexico for months to deny their legislature a quorum, in an unusual approach to filibuster last decade's unjust redistricting scheme. I kid you not.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Judge: Ask, Tell
The sound you may hear is the facade of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" crumbling. At this point, the rumble is only intermittent, and you can only hear it when the wind is blowing the right way.
Repealing "DADT", as it's come to be abbreviated, is one of the major pieces of unfinished business from President Obama's campaign promises. Gay activists, who are probably more interested in the war for legalizing gay marriage, have locked onto this one as a good battle they can win, one in which the Administration's position is less ambiguous.
DADT in the military is a law--it's not that people who are gay cannot serve in the military, it's that those who become known to be gay cannot stay. The policy, or law, then, stipulates that people's sexual orientation is not to be the subject of inquiry, but if it becomes known that a serviceman or servicewoman is gay, the military is required to take action to separate them from active duty.
Comes Federal District Judge Virginia Philips, responding to a challenge to the law from the Log Cabin Republicans, to rule that the law is an unconstitutional denial of free speech. I will say that this case perhaps gives LCR a reason to exist--though why any gay person would want to associate with the Republican party I will never understand--and, further, I'll say that the argument seems to have some merit on its face: the law is basically a limitation on speech.
The tricky aspect, though, is that here we are dealing with the military, which gets some extra wiggle room from the courts in many regards, and with a voluntary association people make when they enlist--that is, they should know what they are getting into and should have to live by the rules.
The Obama Administration's response, to appeal Judge Phillips' ruling, is puzzling at first glance: one might think that she is facilitating the change in policy that the Administration wants. The fact, though, is that the executive branch is required to enforce the law--at least, to attempt to enforce it--that's their job.
The response to the ruling, as the case works through the courts, has whipsawed policy and left gay servicepeople and those considering enlistment with whiplash. Within days, reports came out that the Pentagon had issued rules to its recruiters not to block enlistment of those who were openly gay. I would guess they also issued directives, probably secretly, to stop booting out those already in--and at the same time, out. Just about that time, though, the Administration's appeal succeeded in getting a stay in implementing Judge Phillips' ruling--thus canceling out those moves. The Pentagon now has had to release a new directive ordering the resumption of proceedings against those in the services who somehow have "told".
In the light of these lurches in conflicting directions, the advice to gay servicepeople should be clear: keep it under wraps for a while yet. Similarly, I'd advise patience to those who would enlist and are openly gay (including thousands who have been forced out and might be considering going back in). I feel the change will come, but not necessarily through this court case.
SCOTUS--to refer to The Nine as One--would seem most likely to choose to duck this one, allowing the stay on the ruling to stand, hoping that Congress, working with the military, will eliminate the need for a final judgment. If it came to it, a majority of the Supremes would probably give a judgment against justice, liberty, and in favor of whatever the Administration and the military want (though a top Clinton legal official suggests a new wrinkle in a Times editorial, suggesting they could argue to the Court that the law is, in fact, unconstitutional), something I imagine they'd rather not do.
So, the spotlight seems likely to go back to two other venues: Congress, and the military's report on the implications of changing the law. As for the latter, it's coming out--in December, supposedly--and the word is that the military is not afraid of the change and has some idea of what they'd have to do. With Congress, of course, nothing is ever simple: the House has already passed the enabling legislation--contingent on the military's report not being contrary.
As for the Senate, I saw some of the debate a few weeks ago, just before the Senate adjourned for the election recess, in the context of the military authorizations bill. It was somewhat unprecedented, but the Republicans' bloc prevented consideration of the military's essential bill because it didn't want to take on the issue just yet. Disregarding the fact that the legislation would only end DADT if the military got behind the change, they argued that it was premature to pass legislation before the military's stance was known. The fact was that this was a simple political power struggle--the Republicans were being blocked from offering amendments to the bill they wanted considered, so they said no dice on DADT for now.
This bill, and DADT, will certainly be considered during the lame-duck session of Congress after the elections, and I feel certain that, following soon after the Pentagon's position is out will come the rights of gay military to be such. After the Pentagon makes its position official, there probably won't even be much opposition in the Senate. Which is good, because there won't be much time left to debate it.
Repealing "DADT", as it's come to be abbreviated, is one of the major pieces of unfinished business from President Obama's campaign promises. Gay activists, who are probably more interested in the war for legalizing gay marriage, have locked onto this one as a good battle they can win, one in which the Administration's position is less ambiguous.
DADT in the military is a law--it's not that people who are gay cannot serve in the military, it's that those who become known to be gay cannot stay. The policy, or law, then, stipulates that people's sexual orientation is not to be the subject of inquiry, but if it becomes known that a serviceman or servicewoman is gay, the military is required to take action to separate them from active duty.
Comes Federal District Judge Virginia Philips, responding to a challenge to the law from the Log Cabin Republicans, to rule that the law is an unconstitutional denial of free speech. I will say that this case perhaps gives LCR a reason to exist--though why any gay person would want to associate with the Republican party I will never understand--and, further, I'll say that the argument seems to have some merit on its face: the law is basically a limitation on speech.
The tricky aspect, though, is that here we are dealing with the military, which gets some extra wiggle room from the courts in many regards, and with a voluntary association people make when they enlist--that is, they should know what they are getting into and should have to live by the rules.
The Obama Administration's response, to appeal Judge Phillips' ruling, is puzzling at first glance: one might think that she is facilitating the change in policy that the Administration wants. The fact, though, is that the executive branch is required to enforce the law--at least, to attempt to enforce it--that's their job.
The response to the ruling, as the case works through the courts, has whipsawed policy and left gay servicepeople and those considering enlistment with whiplash. Within days, reports came out that the Pentagon had issued rules to its recruiters not to block enlistment of those who were openly gay. I would guess they also issued directives, probably secretly, to stop booting out those already in--and at the same time, out. Just about that time, though, the Administration's appeal succeeded in getting a stay in implementing Judge Phillips' ruling--thus canceling out those moves. The Pentagon now has had to release a new directive ordering the resumption of proceedings against those in the services who somehow have "told".
In the light of these lurches in conflicting directions, the advice to gay servicepeople should be clear: keep it under wraps for a while yet. Similarly, I'd advise patience to those who would enlist and are openly gay (including thousands who have been forced out and might be considering going back in). I feel the change will come, but not necessarily through this court case.
SCOTUS--to refer to The Nine as One--would seem most likely to choose to duck this one, allowing the stay on the ruling to stand, hoping that Congress, working with the military, will eliminate the need for a final judgment. If it came to it, a majority of the Supremes would probably give a judgment against justice, liberty, and in favor of whatever the Administration and the military want (though a top Clinton legal official suggests a new wrinkle in a Times editorial, suggesting they could argue to the Court that the law is, in fact, unconstitutional), something I imagine they'd rather not do.
So, the spotlight seems likely to go back to two other venues: Congress, and the military's report on the implications of changing the law. As for the latter, it's coming out--in December, supposedly--and the word is that the military is not afraid of the change and has some idea of what they'd have to do. With Congress, of course, nothing is ever simple: the House has already passed the enabling legislation--contingent on the military's report not being contrary.
As for the Senate, I saw some of the debate a few weeks ago, just before the Senate adjourned for the election recess, in the context of the military authorizations bill. It was somewhat unprecedented, but the Republicans' bloc prevented consideration of the military's essential bill because it didn't want to take on the issue just yet. Disregarding the fact that the legislation would only end DADT if the military got behind the change, they argued that it was premature to pass legislation before the military's stance was known. The fact was that this was a simple political power struggle--the Republicans were being blocked from offering amendments to the bill they wanted considered, so they said no dice on DADT for now.
This bill, and DADT, will certainly be considered during the lame-duck session of Congress after the elections, and I feel certain that, following soon after the Pentagon's position is out will come the rights of gay military to be such. After the Pentagon makes its position official, there probably won't even be much opposition in the Senate. Which is good, because there won't be much time left to debate it.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Visibility for Israel
Israel's Ambassador to the US Michael Oren published an editorial in the New York Times on October 13 titled "An End to Israel's Invisibility". In it, Ambassador Oren plugged the Netanyahu government's new obsession, that everyone needs to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state. It is proposed that this be the basis of a loyalty pledge for all new immigrants to Israel; in this case, Oren echoes Netanyahu's call that the Palestinian Authority acknowledge it before Israel renews--even temporarily--its moratorium on settlements in the Occupied Territories.
Ambassador Oren's argument is fundamentally dishonest in two regards. First, he never mentions the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian Arabs, generally Muslims or of Muslim descent. To ignore this significant minority in this way is as though the US were to declare itself a White Anglo nation; we'd allow the 20% who are black or Hispanics to remain, but the law would require they be excluded from numerous privileges. Let's enshrine Jim Crow as law and make everyone recognize it! (sarcasm)
Second, while the PA might well be able to acknowledge the obvious fact that Israel is the "national home for the Jewish people", as Oren quotes the 1917 Balfour Declaration--at least that expression does not exclude the native Palestinian Arabs from considering it their home, too--Israel should then make the obverse declaration that the West Bank is not the Jewish people's national home. A clear statement of that fact should make things clearer to the Jewish settlers there who claim to be part of Israel and expect the protection of the state's military. Enough of this "Judea/Samaria" crap.
I originally wanted to write this as a letter to the Editor of the NYT; however, it is impossible to condense this to 150 words, as they require (I did try!). Of course, they never would've published this--even if I were to change "crap" to "nonsense" and take out the sarcasm.
Ambassador Oren's argument is fundamentally dishonest in two regards. First, he never mentions the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian Arabs, generally Muslims or of Muslim descent. To ignore this significant minority in this way is as though the US were to declare itself a White Anglo nation; we'd allow the 20% who are black or Hispanics to remain, but the law would require they be excluded from numerous privileges. Let's enshrine Jim Crow as law and make everyone recognize it! (sarcasm)
Second, while the PA might well be able to acknowledge the obvious fact that Israel is the "national home for the Jewish people", as Oren quotes the 1917 Balfour Declaration--at least that expression does not exclude the native Palestinian Arabs from considering it their home, too--Israel should then make the obverse declaration that the West Bank is not the Jewish people's national home. A clear statement of that fact should make things clearer to the Jewish settlers there who claim to be part of Israel and expect the protection of the state's military. Enough of this "Judea/Samaria" crap.
I originally wanted to write this as a letter to the Editor of the NYT; however, it is impossible to condense this to 150 words, as they require (I did try!). Of course, they never would've published this--even if I were to change "crap" to "nonsense" and take out the sarcasm.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tales of Two Allies
Big Society, Little Country
I saw a taped speech of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to his Conservative party on C-SPAN delivered on 9/27. It was a combination of a pep talk and a broad policy outline.
Except for the posh accent, Cameron makes for a viable centrist American politician; it would be great to have a few like him negotiating with the Democrats on domestic programs--and, who knows? maybe such will emerge after the catharsis of these midterm elections and the brief look at the abyss it seems likely to afford us all.
Britain is different from the US in many ways, but Cameron is dealing with the same issues--fiscal responsibility, government cutbacks, tax increases, getting past the culture of the bailout and out of the Great Crater to something like normalcy--that we are going to be confronting in the near future, and the terms in which he speaks already seem familiar.
As an example of how American he is, Cameron's "Big Society" puts devolution--a new British federalist division of powers between Parliament and local councils--at the center of his program. Britain has allowed some self-government to the outer regions--Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland--in recent decades, but both those regional bodies and the county and town councils throughout England have had powers which were nominal in most areas. Those outer regions will have heard it all before and will not be impressed, but they don't support the Conservatives much anyway--this particular dose of political seduction is aimed at England--beyond London.
Cameron's smart play is to talk of sacrifice for all, but to focus it on the British civil service, a body above mere politics with great power and job security through all administrations; Cameron seeks to make it the political equivalent of despised "Washington". Next, Cameron will seek initial sacrifices from those who have high incomes, who will lose tax credits for dependent children. Another move guaranteed to be popular, though it probably made a few of the assembled party bigwigs squirm a bit. Still, a great policy idea, and it amazes me that the Democrats have not been able to sell the equivalent--ending the tax cuts for the rich--to our electorate.
I noticed that Cameron never made a single reference to the support of the Liberal Democrats, upon which his majority depends. Their livers have clearly become chopped; they can grin and bear it--which will become progressively tougher to do--or walk out and face electoral doom, having never gained their referendum to bring them something more like representation proportional to their numbers among voters.
Tough Sell for Israelis
Perhaps it is exactly the difference that having something more like proportional representation makes, but when it comes to getting Israel to agree to continue their moratorium on new settlements in the occupied territories, Prime Minister Netanyahu's junior partners in the coalition, the right-wing religious parties, are the tail wagging the dog.
Or so the wily Netanyahu would lead people to believe: poor thing, he can not get them to agree not to start new settlements (the approved ones have been continuing to build throughout), it would bring down the government. The possibility of having a peace agreement, or alternatively the threat of losing this round of peace negotiations, is not sufficient incentive for them to tolerate this loss of "rights".
Apart from massive guarantees apparently on offer from the US just for extending this moratorium for a couple of months, Netanyahu claimed that he needed to toss them a very large bone: a bill approved by his Cabinet going to the Knesset that would require all new Israeli citizens to swear an oath of loyalty to "a Jewish state". This new law is a calculated affront to the critical (for peace, anyway) Israeli Arab (i.e., Muslim) population, some 20% (and growing) of the nation's total. But, although they vote, they are on the outside of this and every other Israeli government. Labor's ministers in the Cabinet voted against this proposal; unlike the right-wing parties, their support does not seem necessary for Netanyahu government policy.
It's not looking promising....
I saw a taped speech of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to his Conservative party on C-SPAN delivered on 9/27. It was a combination of a pep talk and a broad policy outline.
Except for the posh accent, Cameron makes for a viable centrist American politician; it would be great to have a few like him negotiating with the Democrats on domestic programs--and, who knows? maybe such will emerge after the catharsis of these midterm elections and the brief look at the abyss it seems likely to afford us all.
Britain is different from the US in many ways, but Cameron is dealing with the same issues--fiscal responsibility, government cutbacks, tax increases, getting past the culture of the bailout and out of the Great Crater to something like normalcy--that we are going to be confronting in the near future, and the terms in which he speaks already seem familiar.
As an example of how American he is, Cameron's "Big Society" puts devolution--a new British federalist division of powers between Parliament and local councils--at the center of his program. Britain has allowed some self-government to the outer regions--Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland--in recent decades, but both those regional bodies and the county and town councils throughout England have had powers which were nominal in most areas. Those outer regions will have heard it all before and will not be impressed, but they don't support the Conservatives much anyway--this particular dose of political seduction is aimed at England--beyond London.
Cameron's smart play is to talk of sacrifice for all, but to focus it on the British civil service, a body above mere politics with great power and job security through all administrations; Cameron seeks to make it the political equivalent of despised "Washington". Next, Cameron will seek initial sacrifices from those who have high incomes, who will lose tax credits for dependent children. Another move guaranteed to be popular, though it probably made a few of the assembled party bigwigs squirm a bit. Still, a great policy idea, and it amazes me that the Democrats have not been able to sell the equivalent--ending the tax cuts for the rich--to our electorate.
I noticed that Cameron never made a single reference to the support of the Liberal Democrats, upon which his majority depends. Their livers have clearly become chopped; they can grin and bear it--which will become progressively tougher to do--or walk out and face electoral doom, having never gained their referendum to bring them something more like representation proportional to their numbers among voters.
Tough Sell for Israelis
Perhaps it is exactly the difference that having something more like proportional representation makes, but when it comes to getting Israel to agree to continue their moratorium on new settlements in the occupied territories, Prime Minister Netanyahu's junior partners in the coalition, the right-wing religious parties, are the tail wagging the dog.
Or so the wily Netanyahu would lead people to believe: poor thing, he can not get them to agree not to start new settlements (the approved ones have been continuing to build throughout), it would bring down the government. The possibility of having a peace agreement, or alternatively the threat of losing this round of peace negotiations, is not sufficient incentive for them to tolerate this loss of "rights".
Apart from massive guarantees apparently on offer from the US just for extending this moratorium for a couple of months, Netanyahu claimed that he needed to toss them a very large bone: a bill approved by his Cabinet going to the Knesset that would require all new Israeli citizens to swear an oath of loyalty to "a Jewish state". This new law is a calculated affront to the critical (for peace, anyway) Israeli Arab (i.e., Muslim) population, some 20% (and growing) of the nation's total. But, although they vote, they are on the outside of this and every other Israeli government. Labor's ministers in the Cabinet voted against this proposal; unlike the right-wing parties, their support does not seem necessary for Netanyahu government policy.
It's not looking promising....
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
MLBP
No, it's not My Life Before Pilades, but Major League Baseball's Playoffs, which started about an hour ago as I enter this post.
I refer you to my previous in-depth review of the progress of baseball's season, which will in turn refer you to my preseason posting. As for the latter, suffice to say that I got five of the eight postseason teams correct, a pretty good result, though my pick for World Series champ (the Cardinals) didn't make the cut. I'm happy about that error, as well as the Tampa Bay Rays displacing the Boston Red Sox (or BoTox, as I generally refer to them). I'm less pleased that the Colorado Rockies did not repeat their dramatic finish of 2007: as in that year, they had the winning streak to get close, but then ran out of gas, cut the motor, and, coasting, fell back in the race. On the whole, I've enjoyed the main course regular-season and its results enormously and I'm looking forward to dessert.
Going forward, then, we have four first-round matchups, which I'll discuss briefly, then giving my preference and predictions. Then I'll assume I'm right and briefly predict the League Championship and World Series.
Rays vs. Texas Rangers: Rays are favored, based on better regular-season performance. They also have the great motivation (I think) of knowing their team is likely to be largely broken up after the season in an effort to cut salary expenses. I see it as basically even; the Rangers' mid-season pickup of Cliff Lee puts them in a good position to win games 1 and 4, which, of course, is two-thirds of the way there. Texas has never--ever!--won a postseason series (and that includes their limp predecessor, the second incarnation of the Washington Senators), while Tampa Bay had a dramatic run to glory in 2008 before losing in the Series and dropping out of the running last year. My preference would be the Rangers; my pick is the Rays, in five games.
Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees: Three things suggest the Twins can reverse the slave-master relationship that has prevailed between the two teams in recent years and the recent playoff history: 1) Twins have home-field advantage because they won their division, while Yanks are "only" the Wild Card; 2) the Twins arguably have the stronger three-man starting rotation, because the Yanks have had only one reliable starter through the year, C.C. Sabathia; and 3) regular-season record has the Yanks only one game better, so the teams are at least theoretically about equal. Unfortunately, I don't buy any of that; the games will be high-scoring but the Yanks will outslug them. My preference would be the Twins; my pick is the Yanks, in four (win one of two on the road and the two at home).
San Francisco Giants vs. Atlanta Braves:
The Giants won their division on the last day with a 3-0 shutout of the San Diego Padres, thus avoiding a four-way tie among contenders and a three-way playoff for two spots (the playoff would've been Giants/Braves/Padres; the fourth tied team would've been the Cincinnati Reds, who'd clinched their division). The winner of that crucial game was Matt Cain, who is only the second-best starter on the Giants (behind Tim Lincecum), and they have two-three other good ones. The Giants' outstanding starting pitching makes them heavy favorites over the Braves, who have a sentimental appeal in beloved Manager Bobby Cox's last year (and, apparently, future Hall of Fame reliever--or should be HOF'er--Billy Wagner's last). My preference would be the Braves (see below for the reason), my pick is the Giants, in four.
Reds vs. Philadelphia Phillies: This is, for me, the main event, and for most fans, it will be the most interesting. For one thing, the Reds' presence in the postseason is something new and exciting (first appearance in 15 years); for another, it's a great matchup between the Phillies' three-man power rotation (Halladay/Oswalt/Hamels) and the Reds' top-rated offense. Unfortunately for me (a devoted Reds fan), good pitching can usually close down good hitting. I also have some doubt about the Reds' starting pitching for the series, as selected by manager Dusty Baker: three righty starters against the Phillies' power-hitting lefties.
The Reds have to win one of the first three to get to their best shot to win, Travis Wood, who I would hope Baker will trot out in Game 4. The key to that is for the Reds to make a successful comeback using long relievers (other than Wood, preferably) and their hitting prowess, either wearing down at least one of the Phillies' starters or getting to their bullpen. Sounds pretty daunting, and the Phillies are indeed major favorites.
I decided a while ago that, while I was sympathetic to the Phils in their two previous pennant runs (2008 and 2009), I would root against them this year for their nearly-criminal preseason trade of Cliff Lee to the Mariners (from whence Lee was traded again to the Rangers). Then the Reds came along to clinch that feeling. My preference is clearly the Reds, and I will ignore logic to pick the Reds in five.
Future rounds: ALCS--Yankees and Rays: This has been a real good matchup in the regular season this year. I picked the Yanks to go to the World Series in preseason, but that's because I figured the main opposition would be BoTox. The Yankees are formidable but their pitching weakness pierces their air of invulnerability, upon which they rely so much. My preference and pick would be the Rays. (If one or the other doesn't make the ALCS, I'd pick the one that does, and if Minnesota-Texas, I'll go with the Twins.)
NLCS--Reds vs. Giants: I'm already satisfied with the Reds' making the playoffs, though naturally if they beat the Phils, I'll want more. The Phillies would be looking to make history with three straight NL pennants if they win in the first round (the last time it was done was by the Cardinals in 1942-44; I'm rooting--and betting--against. Preference--Reds; pick--Giants. (I'll even go with the Giants against the Phils, but I'd pick the Reds, or the Phillies, over the Braves.)
World Series--Giants vs. Rays: This would be a great one to watch, if it happens; a real change from the usual suspects. The Giants have not won the World Series since they moved west from New York in 1958 (they won a bunch there); the Rays have a short history, with one World Series loss. Warning, though: it might be very low-scoring, because if the teams get this far, their pitching staffs will have been effective. Preference and prediction: Rays.
It's too complicated to consider all the other 30 possible World Series matchups, so I'll oversimplify and generalize. Preference: NL team (in all matchups except Phillies vs. not-Yanks); Prediction: same, in six games.
I refer you to my previous in-depth review of the progress of baseball's season, which will in turn refer you to my preseason posting. As for the latter, suffice to say that I got five of the eight postseason teams correct, a pretty good result, though my pick for World Series champ (the Cardinals) didn't make the cut. I'm happy about that error, as well as the Tampa Bay Rays displacing the Boston Red Sox (or BoTox, as I generally refer to them). I'm less pleased that the Colorado Rockies did not repeat their dramatic finish of 2007: as in that year, they had the winning streak to get close, but then ran out of gas, cut the motor, and, coasting, fell back in the race. On the whole, I've enjoyed the main course regular-season and its results enormously and I'm looking forward to dessert.
Going forward, then, we have four first-round matchups, which I'll discuss briefly, then giving my preference and predictions. Then I'll assume I'm right and briefly predict the League Championship and World Series.
Rays vs. Texas Rangers: Rays are favored, based on better regular-season performance. They also have the great motivation (I think) of knowing their team is likely to be largely broken up after the season in an effort to cut salary expenses. I see it as basically even; the Rangers' mid-season pickup of Cliff Lee puts them in a good position to win games 1 and 4, which, of course, is two-thirds of the way there. Texas has never--ever!--won a postseason series (and that includes their limp predecessor, the second incarnation of the Washington Senators), while Tampa Bay had a dramatic run to glory in 2008 before losing in the Series and dropping out of the running last year. My preference would be the Rangers; my pick is the Rays, in five games.
Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees: Three things suggest the Twins can reverse the slave-master relationship that has prevailed between the two teams in recent years and the recent playoff history: 1) Twins have home-field advantage because they won their division, while Yanks are "only" the Wild Card; 2) the Twins arguably have the stronger three-man starting rotation, because the Yanks have had only one reliable starter through the year, C.C. Sabathia; and 3) regular-season record has the Yanks only one game better, so the teams are at least theoretically about equal. Unfortunately, I don't buy any of that; the games will be high-scoring but the Yanks will outslug them. My preference would be the Twins; my pick is the Yanks, in four (win one of two on the road and the two at home).
San Francisco Giants vs. Atlanta Braves:
The Giants won their division on the last day with a 3-0 shutout of the San Diego Padres, thus avoiding a four-way tie among contenders and a three-way playoff for two spots (the playoff would've been Giants/Braves/Padres; the fourth tied team would've been the Cincinnati Reds, who'd clinched their division). The winner of that crucial game was Matt Cain, who is only the second-best starter on the Giants (behind Tim Lincecum), and they have two-three other good ones. The Giants' outstanding starting pitching makes them heavy favorites over the Braves, who have a sentimental appeal in beloved Manager Bobby Cox's last year (and, apparently, future Hall of Fame reliever--or should be HOF'er--Billy Wagner's last). My preference would be the Braves (see below for the reason), my pick is the Giants, in four.
Reds vs. Philadelphia Phillies: This is, for me, the main event, and for most fans, it will be the most interesting. For one thing, the Reds' presence in the postseason is something new and exciting (first appearance in 15 years); for another, it's a great matchup between the Phillies' three-man power rotation (Halladay/Oswalt/Hamels) and the Reds' top-rated offense. Unfortunately for me (a devoted Reds fan), good pitching can usually close down good hitting. I also have some doubt about the Reds' starting pitching for the series, as selected by manager Dusty Baker: three righty starters against the Phillies' power-hitting lefties.
The Reds have to win one of the first three to get to their best shot to win, Travis Wood, who I would hope Baker will trot out in Game 4. The key to that is for the Reds to make a successful comeback using long relievers (other than Wood, preferably) and their hitting prowess, either wearing down at least one of the Phillies' starters or getting to their bullpen. Sounds pretty daunting, and the Phillies are indeed major favorites.
I decided a while ago that, while I was sympathetic to the Phils in their two previous pennant runs (2008 and 2009), I would root against them this year for their nearly-criminal preseason trade of Cliff Lee to the Mariners (from whence Lee was traded again to the Rangers). Then the Reds came along to clinch that feeling. My preference is clearly the Reds, and I will ignore logic to pick the Reds in five.
Future rounds: ALCS--Yankees and Rays: This has been a real good matchup in the regular season this year. I picked the Yanks to go to the World Series in preseason, but that's because I figured the main opposition would be BoTox. The Yankees are formidable but their pitching weakness pierces their air of invulnerability, upon which they rely so much. My preference and pick would be the Rays. (If one or the other doesn't make the ALCS, I'd pick the one that does, and if Minnesota-Texas, I'll go with the Twins.)
NLCS--Reds vs. Giants: I'm already satisfied with the Reds' making the playoffs, though naturally if they beat the Phils, I'll want more. The Phillies would be looking to make history with three straight NL pennants if they win in the first round (the last time it was done was by the Cardinals in 1942-44; I'm rooting--and betting--against. Preference--Reds; pick--Giants. (I'll even go with the Giants against the Phils, but I'd pick the Reds, or the Phillies, over the Braves.)
World Series--Giants vs. Rays: This would be a great one to watch, if it happens; a real change from the usual suspects. The Giants have not won the World Series since they moved west from New York in 1958 (they won a bunch there); the Rays have a short history, with one World Series loss. Warning, though: it might be very low-scoring, because if the teams get this far, their pitching staffs will have been effective. Preference and prediction: Rays.
It's too complicated to consider all the other 30 possible World Series matchups, so I'll oversimplify and generalize. Preference: NL team (in all matchups except Phillies vs. not-Yanks); Prediction: same, in six games.
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