Presidential politics: Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Poll update: Hillary in a walk over GOP oppnents

Max Brantley — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:22:41 -0600

I mentioned earlier that a UA poll on presidential politics would be discussed at the Clinton School at lunch today.

Here's the University release on the event, with this presidential finding:

Poll questions released Wednesday also covered the 2012 presidential election results, attitudes toward women in the workplace and hypothetical 2016 presidential election match-ups involving the possible candidacy of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The poll results showed Clinton with leads over former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (61 percent to 32 percent), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (61 percent to 30 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (58 percent to 34 percent).

These are national numbers, not Arkansas numbers. I suspect she'd do a touch better than Obama here, too. Don't ask me why they left out The Huckster.

The broader report was titled "Is There a War on Women? Attitudes about Women in the Workplace and Politics." Read it all here.

Short takes:
* About 1 in 4 Southern white men exhibit sexist tendencies based on answers to questions.
* Obama's national gender gap (disproportionate female support) did not appear in the South, with votes for him by men and woman about equal.
* There was a big racial gap in the South, with minorities favoring Obama heavily and vice versa. (But, please. Don't view the Jason Rapert anti-Obama speech to the Tea Party in that context whatsoever. It was NOT about race.)
* Most people surveyed believe they'll see a woman president in their lifetime.
* Hillary would cut into Republican votes among women. She's also enjoy broad edges among minority voters, black and Latino.

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Hillary's the one in 2016 — more polling coming today

Max Brantley — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 06:11:58 -0600

A former campaigner for George H.W. Bush writes in the Daily Beast that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a particularly dangerous opponent for Republicans in 2016, as evidenced by her popularity among voters in Texas and Kentucky over Republican candidates.

Although Obama lost among non-college-graduate whites by 19 points nationwide, his deficit among that same demographic in the Great Lakes was only in the single digits. Significantly, Ohio and Pennsylvania held for Obama in 2012, two of the states which Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

And that is where the GOP's problem begins. In addition to benefiting from Obama's ascendant coalition of younger voters, minorities, and women, Hillary connects with the white working class and would likely improve upon Obama's showing among this bloc. Instead of the forced optics of Obama sitting down to a beer with the prof and the cop, voters would likely be treated to moments of a relaxed Hillary knocking back a boilermaker in Youngstown or Dearborn.

Clinton could make a serious play in the South and build upon existing margins in the Midwest. North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas would be in play. Indeed, Hillary could reclaim the newest bloc of swing voters: America's wealthy.

LOCAL ANGLE: Further information is to be released at noon today at the Clinton School on a UA poll that delved into presidential politics. I think it will underscore the Daily Beast article with numbers favorable to Hillary, including in the South.

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Obama again won social media and the people who use them

Max Brantley — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 06:30:36 -0600

An interesting analysis in the New York Times on President Obama's apparent dominance - again - in 2012 in social media. Short version: Old white men watch cable TV. Younger people - particularly women and minorities, categories in which Obama dominated - use smart phones.

This is about more than media. The Obama campaign correctly understood that to reach certain cohorts most effectively it would have to move beyond traditional media to the media that most resonates with Hispanics, young women, African-Americans and even Asian-Americans. Consider Latinos. The 50.5 million Hispanics in the country have higher usage rates of mobile and social media than Anglos. African Americans and Hispanics have adopted Twitter at faster rates than whites or Anglos.

Consider women, too, of various ethnic backgrounds, who have embraced smart phones faster than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. More than three in five women who are of African American, Hispanic or Asian-American had a smartphone in 2011, compared to just one in three white women, according to Nielsen.

More than three in four Asian-American women believe that smartphones improve their lives, while just one in four is inclined to say the same thing about the most tried and trusted medium in American politics: Television.

This isn't just about tools and software, of course. It's about the changing ways people receive information.

All of this suggests not only that a key shift has long since gotten underway in demographics and media, but also that younger voters make decisions differently. They are constantly informed, messaged and reinforced by their deluge of text and Twitter messages — all coming from their friends, families and co-workers — hundreds if not thousands of times a day. While Obama lost a few points off his overall white vote, he still swamped Romney among all people under 30, the first and fastest adopters of social media, by 5 million votes (even though fewer younger voters turned out than in 2008). As if to underscore the Democratic edge, even after the polls closed in Virginia, the Obama campaign was still texting volunteers to make sure everyone in line stayed and voted.

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If Fox reports it, it must be so, right?

Max Brantley — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 09:13:13 -0600

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Landslides! For Obama; for Arkansas Republicans

Max Brantley — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 07:06:29 -0600

Well, here we go. I lift a commemorative Republican mug this morning to the GOP sweep of Arkansas congressional seats and the new Republican majority in the Arkansas Senate and, perhaps, though this is still distantly in doubt, in the House. (PS — I trust regular readers know I'm only congratulating, not celebrating.)

Though built on enmity toward Barack Obama, who'll lead our country for four more years thanks to an electoral college landslide, the GOP victory is no passing fancy. It is a cultural shift of Arkansas political leaning to align with the rest of the Deep South and likely to be with us for many years to come. I heard a first-time voter explain in a radio interview today that she voted Republican because that was her family tradition.

Rich irony: Many Republicans were elected on mailed pleas to defeat Democrats who'd voted to put a highway sales tax proposal on the ballot. The sales tax was overwhelmingly approved the same night many of those criticzed Democrats were turned out.

The night's results likely will be reflected in a still-divided Congress.

The Arkansas legislature will grow to more resemble Washington, beginning with a Senate controlled by a party different from that of the chief executive. Republicans rode to power on very specific promises on taxes and reduction in the size of government. They'll press those issues — as they should to keep their promises. They'll be understandably reluctant to work with a governor who spent $1 million to defeat them, often with personal dirt dug up in research of business, tax and criminal records.

Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, ultimately, must accede to the legislative majority in many things, because a simple majority can override a veto. The 75 percent vote requirement for most spending bills presents a challenge for both sides.

But will there be a Republican majority in both houses? The answer is not yet wholly certain, though it appears so.

If the Republican majority in both houses prevails, there'll be no constitutional impediment to a raft of social issue legislation, voter ID laws and other GOP agenda items already in place in neighboring states. Massive resistance will continue to expansion of Medicaid. The health institutions that will be harmed by this might bring some Republicans to their side, but a solid bloc of the new Republican majority truly means what it says about reducing the size of government (and employment and services by government).

There will be a lot to cover that's for sure in the brave new world.

Good news on the local scene was spotty, but there was some:

* BIG NEWS IN THE HOUSE: I gave up too soon last night and believed the bold and repeated cocky (and dramatically exaggerated) assertions of Republican pollsters and consultants that they were headed to a giant win in the House. The early trends didn't hold up as Democrats won a number of seats they were expected to lose. The Republican majority fell well short of the lofty heights predicted by Republican sycophants and putative polling experts. They talked of wins of high as 65, 70 seats. The scant 1-vote majority of 51 also came on the strength of very tight wins.

Here's where it stands this morning in the Arkansas House.

With tallies completed, the count: 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one Green candidate, Fred Smith, who once was a Democrat until the party sued to disqualify him from an earlier term on account of a theft conviction. He was succeeded by a Democrat himself ruled ineligible in a vote buying scheme.

That's a working majority — enough to elect Terry Rice as speaker over Democrat Darrin Williams and to turn over the House staff. (The Senate staff is likely in peril as well, though that new governing bunch isn't quite as mean and vengeful as the rising Republican House majority.) But ....

Roby Brock of Talk Business reports that L.J. Bryant, a Democrat from Augusta, who trailed Republican John Hutchinson of Harrisburg by 45 votes, will likely seek a recount and there may be ground for a change in this election. Talk Business quotes Bryant as saying some 200 provisional ballots are at issue in this race. A swing here would move the count to 50-49-1 and make Fred Smith a very important man.

The Senate currently is split 21-14, but this counts a very close race between Mike Akin and Eddie Cheatham in Southeast Arkansas as Democratic, where Democrat Cheatham has a 342-vote lead but a couple of precincts (in Democratic Chicot County) are unaccounted for. (UPDATE: Akin has now conceded.) This again falls short of the number which Republicans had publicly boasted they'd win.

* THE THREE REPUBLICAN STOOGES: David Kizzia of Malvern beat neo-Confederate Republican Loy Mauch of Bismarck; Harold Copenhaver of Jonesboro defeated another Republican slavery apologist and imnmigrant hater, Rep. Jon Hubbard, and James McLean beat the wacky former Republican Rep. Charlie Fuqua in Batesville. A flurry of last-minute publicity about these races (yes, it was driven by the Arkansas Times and this blog) helped Democrats immeasurably and tightened the final House count considerably.

* SO MUCH FOR RESUME PADDING: Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, a heavily funded, disciplined and energetic candidate with national backing scored the lowest of any of the Republican congressional winners Tuesday night, only about 55 percent of the vote in his district against a lightly funded, low-profile challenger. He suffered a sound loss in his home county of Pulaski, where he only got 44 percent of the vote. It's not a great start for a planned U.S. Senate race in 2014. Republican Tom Cotton, the big winner in the 4th Congressional District, may be a stronger Senate contender when all is said and done. I'm expecting Griffin also will lose his own voting precinct, as he lost his home county, to Democratic challenger Herb Rule. UPDATE: In fairness, Griffin eked out a win at the Fire Station in the Heights — 579-552 for the other candidates at one of the precincts there; 536-510 at the other.

* HUMAN RIGHTS: Talk about a bright spot. As the old folks die and younger people come forward, human rights advance. Maine voters made history, passing the first voter-approved marriage equality law for gay couples. Maryland voters affirmed the state's marriage equality law. A same sex marriage law won in the state of Washington, 52-48. Minnesota voters, by a similar margin, defeated a proposal to constitutionally ban same sex marriage. A four-state sweep on this issue would be a watershed, even if that mighty stream isn't going to roll down on Arkansas and the rest of the South anytime soon. Arkansan Chad Griffin, another proud product of Hope, Ark., is the leader of the nation's most important gay rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign. It mounted a smart and massive effort in behalf of these outcomes. A lesbian was elected to the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. Iowa voters refused to turn out more of the state Supreme Court justices who'd permitted same-sex marriage there. This was an unalloyed great night for sexual minorities, particularly when you add the president's re-election and his record in support of same-sex marriage, gays in the military and all the rest. More here from NY Times.

AND GETTA LOAD OF THIS: Mike Huckabee was quoted as saying yesterday was going to be a national show of support for Chick-fil-A and all those who endorsed its owners' work against gay rights. Say what?

* WOMEN'S CHOICE: Strident anti-abortion candidates were the reason the Republicans failed to make gains in the U.S. Senate. A majority in America is not ready to strip American women of choice or birth control pills, Jason Rapert's victory in the Conway-centered Arkansas Senate district over the valiant Linda Tyler notwithstanding. Will the new Republican majority, if it holds, really join Rapert in his bill to require forced vaginal probes of women seeking abortion in the earliest stages of pregnancy? We'll see.

Whatever else, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

PS — The ready assumption of Republicans and some others is that President Obama will remain an albatross to state Democrats in 2014, when statewide races will be on the ballot. I heard Jay Barth explain reasons that might not be so, beginning with hopes that an improved economy will change electoral dynamics tremendously. Obama didn't cost Democrats congressional seats. Lack of strong, well-financed candidates spelled defeat in two districts wiith potential to go Democratic. Obama didn't prove nearly the drag that Republicans expected on legislative elections. Their predictions for victory were exaggerated by 20 percent in the House and by 15 to 20 percent in the Senate. How Republicans govern in the next two years in tandem with a still-popular Democratic governor might give Democrats something to run with in two years. Dustin McDaniel or Bill Halter best hope so. Old Southern white men won't vote for Obama, no doubt about it. But the Arkansas variety of the species might still have enough memory of the recent past to cast some votes for Democratic candidates down ballot in two years. Tuesday night's outcomes — see state legislative races in the 1st District particularly — offered a little hope for that premise.

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Legal conflict awaits end of presidential election

Max Brantley — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 06:27:57 -0600

I predicted on the radio yesterday that President Obama would be re-elected if there's a fair election. I claim no insight. I also believe in climate change. The science of public opinion research favors Obama's re-election tomorrow just as science supports climate change. The margins are close, of course.

And that's where fairness becomes critical. Consider:

New York Times:

President Obama and Mitt Romney hunted for last-minute support on Sunday in a frenetic sprint across battleground states, even as their parties faced off in the first of what could be a growing number of legal disputes over presidential ballots and how they are counted.

* FLORIDA AGAIN: Republicans in Florida truncated early voting because they know it discourages Democratic voters who can more easily get to the polls on weekends than on a working day. A lawsuit was necessary to get polls open for early voters.

* CRITICAL OHIO: Republican vote suppression has been rampant there for a decade and it's back again.

Republican election officials will go to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials that critics say could invalidate thousands of provisional ballots by forcing voters to attest to the type of identification they provide.

* GREEN PARTY ALLEGATION: The Green Party promises a lawsuit today to demand removal of patches implanted on electronic vote count software. It says the process there has already been tainted by systematic disenfranchisement and computerized vote count rigging.

The Republican Party simply wants fewer voters, particularly the people who have a harder time getting to the polls and thus tend to be more receptive to the kinder view of government's role than the GOP holds. That's why voter ID laws. They'll fight to suppress votes until the polls close. They'll fight to count votes they suspect are unfriendly after they close. That's why I'm not wholly confident the science of measuring public opinion will predict the election outcome. Recounts are possible in key states. At the end of the line is a Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court that ignored state law and ended a recount once before because of its belief in the importance of keeping a Republican president in office.

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Jobs report positive as election day nears

Max Brantley — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:36:12 -0500

Better than a sharp stick in the eye (NYT) four days before election day.

In the last assessment of the job market before the presidential election, the Labor Department announced Friday that the nation’s employers had added 171,000 positions in October, as well as more jobs than initially estimated in both August and September.

The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 7.9 percent in October, from 7.8 percent in September, as more workers joined the labor force.

The report showed persistent but modest improvement in the American economy, and broad-based gains in every industry except the government. It was based on surveys conducted too early in the month to capture the work stoppages across the East Coast from Hurricane Sandy.

Stock markets opened up on the news.

Things are getting better, if slowly. Fox and the Republican Party of Arkansas will respin this for you shortly. They hate good news for America.

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Catholic bishop requires reading of anti-Obama letter

Max Brantley — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 08:57:00 -0500

The Catholic bishop in Peoria, Illinois has ordered priests there to read an anti-Obama letter from their pulpits. His required reading is factually challenged, Huffington Post notes.

By comparison, the heavy-handed political homily by Arkansas's Catholic bishop Anthony Taylor, though also deficient factually, seems pretty mild.

Catholic clergy involvement in this year's election has become so abundant that you wonder if it's been directed from higher up. Among the episodes are Huckabee-style threats of hellfire for those who don't follow the bishop's instructions:

Last week, Bishop David Laurin Ricken informed the 300,000-plus members of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wis., that voting for candidates whose positions contradict any so-called "non-negotiables" of Catholic teaching "could put [one's] soul in jeopardy," HuffPost blogger John Becker notes in his piece.

Those "non-negotiables" include abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage, according to a letter Ricken wrote and posted on the diocesan website. The letter was reportedly also emailed to the offices of every parish.

"Ricken has forgotten that we live in a republic, not a theocracy, as separation of church and state is clearly established by constitutional law," wrote the Green Bay Press Gazette's John Reiman in response to Ricken's letter. "Simply put, it is ethically wrong for the bishop to connect one’s salvation through participating in the civic act of voting, ostensibly, against church doctrine."

An old cartoon by Tom Toles seems appropriate to discussion of "non-negotiables." Don't they also include a definition of marriage, not only between man and woman, but for life?

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Republicans: Don't confuse us with facts

Max Brantley — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:45:16 -0500

I'd say this beats all. But, really, it's more of the same from the faith-based Republican dogma that distinguishes every campaign for office, from president on down. Facts don't matter. Faith alone will triumph, beginning with tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.

This is a familiar strategy by now. Don't like the polls? Say they're skewed. Don't like the improving employment numbers? Say they're rigged. Don't like a nonpartisan research group's blowup of Mitt Romney's tax plan math? Trash the people who did the arithmetic.

When independent agencies like the Congressional Research Service and the Tax Policy Center and the Bureau of Labor Statistics or distinguished climate scientists no longer have any credibility whenever they depart from Republican dogma, we will have reached the point that science no longer matters. Turn policy over to Grover Norquist and Rush Limbaugh. And pray.

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Obamacare is here to stay

Lindsey Millar — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:27:25 -0500

Arkansas Republicans may succeed in blocking the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, but the broader law is almost certainly here to stay regardless of what happens on Nov. 6. In the first place, and most obviously, a Romney victory without Republicans taking control of the Senate—which looks increasingly unlikely based on polling — takes "repeal and replace" and much of the broader Republican agenda off the table, as Talking Points Memo explains.

Without a Senate majority, Republicans can’t control the budget process. Which means they can’t cram their entire agenda into a reconciliation bill that’s immune from the filibuster. It means that even if they force votes on repealing the Affordable Care Act, they’ll need 60 votes — or about a dozen Democratic defectors. Not likely. President Romney would have to stymie implementation of the law from within the executive branch — a difficult task — and his tax agenda would be a non-starter. So would his plans for Medicare and Medicaid. He’d still be able to appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges, but Democrats would be able to block conservatives they deemed too objectionable.

Even if Romney and Senate Republicans overcome poll deficits, it would still be incredibly difficult to dismantle the law. As NPR's excellent health reporter, Julie Rovner, explained yesterday, Romney's promise to immediately grant waivers to states to opt out of the law would be halted by courts. Reconciliation takes forever and, crucially, parts of the law such as requiring insurers to accept patients with preexisting conditions would almost certainly require the same 60 votes from the Senate that were required to pass the law to undo it.

"There are waivers under the law, but not an across-the-board waiver," said Tom Miller, a lawyer with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. For the record, Miller is an avid opponent of the health law. But he's also a veteran of Capitol Hill and knows what can and can't happen.

"You can try anything under the law," he said. But in many cases, "a federal court will usually step in and say, 'You've gone a little bit too far.' "

In this case, the part of the law that allows the president to grant states waivers doesn't actually kick in until 2017. And even the waivers that are allowed require states to cover as many uninsured people as would be covered by the Affordable Care Act."

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OPEN LINE: Romney takes lies to a new level in Ohio

Max Brantley — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:32:24 -0500

A ton of attention is being devoted to the Romney campaign's bodaciously dshonest ads in critical Ohio, notably his mendacious advertising about Jeep leaving Ohio for China.

But what if they're right? What if, with enough money and enough lies, the Romney campaign can fool enough of the people enough of the time?

I'm already profoundly disconsolate that a tax-evading multi-millionaire who pays a lower income tax rate than I do has said directly and unequivocally on national television that he favors an end to taxation on unearned income — dividends and interest. Third-generation Waltons and fifth-generation Rockfellers, in Romneyworld, would pay NO income tax on monumental income from inherited wealth, much of it paid on appreciated assets like stock in Walmart on which no taxes have ever been paid. Estate taxes would end, too.

"Tax work, not wealth" was the snarky joke punchline of the Billionaires for Bush, a street theater parody troupe from the bad old days. Satire is now official Republican policy. And it is so unremarkable that it passes almost without comment. Of course Republicans want to end taxes on everybody but the poor and middle class moochers.

AND GO AHEAD AND MAKE THIS THE OPEN LINE, IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY

NEWS UPDATE: West Memphis judge has ruled that physical evidence isn't subject to the Freedom of Information Act in considering a case from parents of children slain in West Memphis who want to see the evidence in the closed case. No word yet if an appeal will be filed.

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Remember when Romney proposed to send FEMA work to the states?

Max Brantley — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 11:02:14 -0500

Mitt Romney is doing a Hurricane Sandy flipperoo today. His campaign is saying he didn't propose to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But that sure sounds like what he was suggesting on national television, during a debate. Do direct quotes and a film clip count? From Huffington Post:

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

Check back tomorrow for a new Romney position.

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Krugman: Romney win means 'savage cuts' to Medicaid

Max Brantley — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 06:40:29 -0500

Paul Krugman writes on the devastation that Mitt Romney will bring to Medicaid if elected.

Arkansas Republican advertising is trying to blunt this clear outcome by talking about attacking waste and being smarter with dollars. This is sheer nonsensical trivia against the sums involved. Voucherizing Medicaid to the states — after stopping the planned Medicaid expansion of the Obama administration — will require enormous cuts in poor states like Arkansas that receive huge benefits from Medicaid.

And, contrary to what Republicans want you to believe — that Medicaid is nothing but a program for a bunch of 47 percenter parasites — these cuts will deprive health care to children of working families (destruction of Mike Huckabee's great achievement) and end nursing home care for tens of thousands of parents of working Arkansans who'll suddenly find themselves the new caretakers of infirm relatives. Any Republican who tells you otherwise is not telling the truth. Krugman:

So, about coverage: most Medicaid beneficiaries are indeed relatively young (because older people are covered by Medicare) and relatively poor (because eligibility for Medicaid, unlike Medicare, is determined by need). But more than nine million Americans benefit from both Medicare and Medicaid, and elderly or disabled beneficiaries account for the majority of Medicaid’s costs. And contrary to what you may have heard, the great majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are in working families.

For those who get coverage through the program, Medicaid is a much-needed form of financial aid. It is also, quite literally, a lifesaver. Mr. Romney has said that a lack of health insurance doesn’t kill people in America; oh yes, it does, and states that expand Medicaid coverage show striking drops in mortality.

So Medicaid does a vast amount of good. But at what cost? There’s a widespread perception, gleefully fed by right-wing politicians and propagandists, that Medicaid has “runaway” costs. But the truth is just the opposite. While costs grew rapidly in 2009-10, as a depressed economy made more Americans eligible for the program, the longer-term reality is that Medicaid is significantly better at controlling costs than the rest of our health care system.

Ernie Dumas explained this in detail on the Arkansas level this week.

Medicaid, which serves 800,000 Arkansans and affects that many more family members, faces two big questions when the legislature gathers: (1) Can the state make up a $350 million to $400 million shortfall in state Medicaid match? (2) What will happen when Republicans block the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which carries some relief for the state's Medicaid crisis as well as insurance for the largest share of the state's uninsured?

Because the state has fared a little better than much of the country since 2006, lowering its poverty rate against the country as a whole, its matching share for Medicaid has risen from 25 to about 30 percent, but only theoretically. President Obama's stimulus act pumped $750 million into the state's coffers for Medicaid from 2009 through 2011, reducing the state's match to 20 percent. It produced state budget surpluses and let the state's Medicaid trust fund grow for two years. Now the trust fund is vanishing and the state will enter the 2013 fiscal year next July needing an extra $350 million or more to maintain nursing home care, the institutions and community services for disabled children and adults and hospital and physician care for low-income children.

The teabaggers vow to end this socialism. The human cost will be staggering against the dollars "saved."

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Employer coercion brought to you by Citizens United

Max Brantley — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 06:42:02 -0500

A new wrinkle of corporate personhood, thanks to the Republican Supreme Court bloc's Citizens United decision, is this, as reported in the New York Times:

Until 2010, federal law barred companies from using corporate money to endorse and campaign for political candidates — and that included urging employees to support specific politicians.

But the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has freed companies from those restrictions, and now several major companies, including Georgia-Pacific and Cintas, have sent letters or information packets to their employees suggesting — and sometimes explicitly recommending — how they should vote this fall.

What about it Arkansas? Are you getting electioneering at work? Threats of job loss? We know the Koch Brothers have already been at it here in Crossett and elsewhere.

Dave Robertson, the president of Koch Industries, sent an information packet and letter this month to more than 30,000 employees of a subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, a paper and pulp company. The letter attacked government subsidies for “a few favored cronies” as well as “unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses.”

The letter added, “Many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation and other ills.”

The Georgia-Pacific letter, first reported by In These Times, included a flier listing several candidates endorsed by the Koch brothers, the conservative billionaires, beginning with Mitt Romney, as well as opinion articles that the brothers had written.

Anybody else? I'd love to see any memos, e-mails, flyers, etc., you might have received. I'll protect your identity. The corporate politicking is, of course, intended to have a chilling effect, if not on votes themselves, on speech about the election.

The article mentions that the National Federation of Independent Business, a Republican front group, is also helping get the word out to businesses on influencing employees. If you're an Arkansas member, you can get your voter guide here.

Which reminds me, while watching TV last night, I saw that Arkansas NFIB Director Sylvester Smith, a former Huckabee staff member and still part-time media consultant to the former governor, now is host of a public affairs program on AETN. There's a public TV program even the DOG editorial page could love.

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New Yorker makes the case for Barack Obama

Max Brantley — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:14:27 -0500

The editors of the New Yorker have written a tour de force endorsement of President Obama's re-election, a lengthy and specific recitation of his strengths, weaknesses and actions and those of his opponent Mitt Romney.

To conclude:

The choice is clear. The Romney-Ryan ticket represents a constricted and backward-looking vision of America: the privatization of the public good. In contrast, the sort of public investment championed by Obama—and exemplified by both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act—takes to heart the old civil-rights motto “Lifting as we climb.” That effort cannot, by itself, reverse the rise of inequality that has been under way for at least three decades. But we’ve already seen the future that Romney represents, and it doesn’t work.

The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney—a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity. A two-term Obama Administration will leave an enduringly positive imprint on political life. It will bolster the ideal of good governance and a social vision that tempers individualism with a concern for community.

Every Presidential election involves a contest over the idea of America. Obama’s America—one that progresses, however falteringly, toward social justice, tolerance, and equality—represents the future that this country deserves.

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Polls: Obama won foreign policy debate

Max Brantley — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:58:37 -0500

Probably doesn't matter much, but the results seem uniform. President Obama bested Mitt Romney in last night's debate, though Romney's calculated decision to appear moderate and less of a war-monger might have been a smart move among critical swing voters.

* PUBLIC POLICY POLLING: Obama won 53-42.

* CNN: Obama won 48-40.

* CBS: "Decisive" win for Obama, CBS says, and this one is significant in that it theoretically tests only uncommitted voters. Obama won 53-23, with others putting it at a tie.

ALSO: Nate Silver says Obama unlikely to get big debate bounce, but even a small one would be important.

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Romney win would mean Republican victory in war on women's health

Max Brantley — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:28:26 -0500

The New York Times' editorial today on the consequences of the presidential election on women's issues is worth quoting:

If Mitt Romney and his vice-presidential running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, were to win next month’s election, the harm to women’s reproductive rights would extend far beyond the borders of the United States.

In this country, they would support the recriminalization of abortion with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and they would limit access to contraception and other services. But they have also promised to promote policies abroad that would affect millions of women in the world’s poorest countries, where lack of access to contraception, prenatal care and competent help at childbirth often results in serious illness and thousands of deaths yearly. And the wreckage would begin on Day 1 of a Romney administration.

Mr. Romney has pledged that, on his first day in the White House, he would reinstate the “global gag rule,” the odious restriction that has been used to deny federal money for family-planning work abroad to any organization that provided information, advice, referrals or services for legal abortion or supported the legalization of abortion, even using its own money.

Merely talking about abortion could cost groups not only federal money, but also useful technical support and American-donated supplies of contraceptives, including condoms for distribution in the communities they serve.

There's more. It is worth noting, to the extent possible, a Republican legislative majority in Arkansas would do every bit of the same sorts of things in Arkansas. Refusal of expanded Medicaid — which in turn would mean a drastic reduction in the existing Medicaid program and likely a reduction in the current health coverage for children (Mike Huckabee's great positive legacy, now in grave danger) — will be every bit as damaging and anti-woman and anti-mother. Among many others, Jason Rapert, if elected, will be back with his mandatory ultrasound bill for women seeking abortions. Health professionals have said it would require mandatory transvaginal probes in the earliest stages of pregnancy. Spread 'em, ladies.

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Look away Dixieland: Gallup's big lead for Romney

Max Brantley — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:35:09 -0500

Even Republican-friendly Larry Sabato, political quotomatic, says the latest Gallup poll with a 7-point Romney lead is an outlier.

Ezra Klein digs into it a little bit. It might be that in the popular vote Romney REALLY IS ahead 7 points among likely voters. That doesn't mean an electoral college win, however. You know it. It's on account of a crazy huge margin in the South, where none dare speak the name of race in evaluating the difference. Unfortunately, the wash-off down the ballot is going to put that crowd in charge, with all the baggage that entails. Writes Klein:

I think it’s fair to say that the election is, for the moment, close.

But not according to Gallup. Their seven-day tracking poll shows Romney up by seven points — yes, seven — with likely voters. But he’s only up by one point with registered voters.

It gets weirder: Dig into the poll, and you’ll find that in the most recent internals they’ve put on their Web site — which track from 10/9-10/15 — Obama is winning the West (+6), the East (+4), and the Midwest (+4). The only region he’s losing is the South. But he’s losing the South, among likely voters, by 22 points. That’s enough, in Gallup’s poll, for him to be behind in the national vote. But it’s hard to see how that puts him behind in the electoral college.

UPDATE: Nate Silver Twitter comment at 10:30 a.m.

National polls published in past 24 hours: Obama +3.2, Obama +3, Obama +3, Obama +1, Obama +0.6, Obama +0.5, TIE, Romney +7.

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Analyst warns: Be suspicious of poll 'bounce'

Max Brantley — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 05:53:04 -0500

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight gives a good analysis of swings in poll numbers, post-debate bounce and the like.

It seems safe, if obvious, to conclude that the electorate is almost evenly split. Also: A popular vote win powered by overwhelming Obama hatred in Dixie doesn't necessarily mean an electoral vote win.

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President Obama wins second debate

Max Brantley — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:58:03 -0500

Despite what the headline writer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette might seem to indicate, polls of undecided voters and comment from all but the blindest Republican partisans indicate that President Barack Obama won Tuesday's night presidential debate. The margin was not as decisive as Mitt Romney's triumph in Round One but it was a triumph all the same.

Debate odds and ends:

* POLLS GIVE EDGE TO OBAMA: Among them was CNN. Also, CBS and polling in swing states, Nate Silver notes and instantly analyzes:

Another complication is that it is possible — although by no means guaranteed — that there will be some reversion to the mean because of the first presidential debate, meaning that Mr. Obama will benefit from memories of Denver fading as much as any new ones that were forged in New York.

But if you want my best guess: Throughout this election cycle, you would have done very well by predicting that the polls would eventually settle in at an overall lead for Mr. Obama of about two percentage points. Whenever his lead has been larger than that, it has come back to earth. But Mr. Obama has also rebounded at moments when the polls seemed to suggest an even closer race.

* WHICH ROMNEY DO YOU BELIEVE?: Mitt Romney tried again last night, as the president pasted him on women's issues, notably Romney's failure to endorse the Ledbetter Equal Pay Act, to paint himself as a moderate on contraception. He's all for it, as long as women's insurance doesn't pay for it. With the anti-abortion Republican base demanding utter devotion to its no-abortion, no-birth control dictates, Romney is now trying to disinegenuously identify himself in advertising as somewhat moderate on the issue, even as his campaign is assuring the radicals that he's with them.

* ROMNEY: WRONG ON BENGHAZI: Republican apologists, unbelievably, are trying to defend Romney's meltdown on the question of what the president said the day after the attack on the Libyan ~~consulate~~ mission in Benghazi. In Fox Land, plain language doesn't mean what it says. Romney was simply and completely wrong about what the president said in the Rose Garden, whatever continuing confusion existed about the nature of the attack. The president's words:

‘‘No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. ... We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.’’

* WOMEN IN BINDERS: Romney's remark about women "in binders," a reference to his supposed effort to recruit women for jobs in Massachusetts when he was governor was another Romney lie. The Boston Phoenix explains:

What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct — and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

I will write more about this later, but for tonight let me just make a few quick additional points. First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about — and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about — budget, business development, etc. — went to women.

Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)

Third, note that in Romney's story as he tells it, this man who had led and consulted for businesses for 25 years didn't know any qualified women, or know where to find any qualified women. So what does that say?

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Obama's turn to Bill Clinton

Max Brantley — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 06:46:53 -0500

A major piece by John Heilemann in New York magazine examines the evolving relationship between President Obama and former President Bill Clinton and Obama's use of his considerable political skills. Hope he made a phone call about tonight.

Things have come a long way from the uncomfortable 2008 campaign, the article notes.

Today, Hillary Clinton is the most popular member of Obama’s Cabinet, and her husband is not only his greatest but most tireless political ally. This past September 11, the Y-chromosome Clinton was in Miami, ripping Mitt Romney a new one over Medicare. Since then, Clinton has campaigned for Obama in New Hampshire and Nevada, raised money for him in Boston and with him in Los Angeles—and there is more to come. A TV ad with Clinton making the case for Obama’s reelection has run 16,000 times in swing states across the country. Another, featuring a clip of Clinton’s address at the Democratic convention, almost gives the impression that he is Obama’s running mate. Then there is that speech itself, which another top Obama adviser tells me flatly is “the most important moment of the campaign so far.”

The Barack-and-Bill double act on display this fall marks a new and intriguing phase in a psychological entanglement so rich that if Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were alive, they would surely be squabbling over it instead of Sabina Spielrein’s hysteria. No one close to Obama or Clinton even bothers with the pretense that there is any real affection between them. But most concur with the assessment of a Democratic operative with tentacles deep in both worlds: that “the relationship today is totally transactional—and highly functional.”

What Obama stands to gain from the transaction is plain enough to see. The support of the political figure with the highest approval rating, 69 percent, of any in America. The suasive services of a surrogate who can talk the owls down from the trees. The imprimatur of a former president associated with a period of broad and deep prosperity, imbued with unparalleled credibility on matters economic, and possessing special traction with the white working- and middle-class voters whom Obama has always had a hard time reaching. What Obama stands to gain, in other words, is a healthy boost in his quest for reelection—one all the more invaluable in the wake of his dismal performance in the first debate.

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If Romney is elected, kiss Medicare goodbye

Max Brantley — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:08:33 -0500

Can we get real for a minute and talk about facts rather than style points?

From Talking Points Memo, quoting Jonathan Chait:

Let’s first imagine that, on January 20, Romney takes the oath of office. Of the many secret post-victory plans floating around in the inner circles of the campaigns, the least secret is Romney’s intention to implement Paul Ryan’s budget. The Ryan budget has come to be almost synonymous with the Republican Party agenda, and Romney has embraced it with only slight variations. It would repeal Obamacare, cut income-tax rates, turn Medicare for people under 55 years old into subsidized private insurance, increase defense spending, and cut domestic spending, with especially large cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs targeted to the very poor. Few voters understand just how rapidly Romney could achieve this, rewriting the American social compact in one swift stroke.

Oh, and seniors. Please note a new study from Kaiser says the Romney Medicare plan will likely increase seniors' premiums.

Oh, and does it matter to you that Romney has been lying about his tax plan — how he can reduce taxes without reducing revenue and without making the middle class pay for the additional sop for the wealthy? Of course not. It's style that's important, not substance. Don't interrupt the lying liars with reality-based comment.

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Republicans suppress candidate as well as voters

Max Brantley — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:01:16 -0500

The Republican Party, fearful of a Ralph Nader effect, are working to keep Libertarian Gary Johnson off the ballot. The GOP moves ever more inexorably to a world in which only their kind of people can either run for office or vote.

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Embassy security a complicated question

Max Brantley — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 06:00:07 -0500

The Republican Party, with little else with which to work and preferring not to answer questions about its tax/budget/safety net destruction plans, is working hard to make death of Americans in Libya and State Department security in general a defining campaign issue. It's a fair topic. But it doesn't readily reduce itself to yes/no, right/wrong answers, the sort of which the Republican Party is so fond of declaring.

Good illustration of that this morning in the New York Times.

Lost amid the election-year wrangling over the militants’ attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is a complex back story involving growing regional resentment against heavily armed American private security contractors, increased demands on State Department resources and mounting frustration among diplomats over ever-tighter protections that they say make it more difficult to do their jobs.

Add to this sovereignty of the nations that open doors to our embassies. We are not free to place unlimited numbers of troops, even if we could afford security worthy of, say, a U.S. airport.

We also have multiple locations in volatile countries. In Libya, for example, the requests for additional security focused mostly on Tripoli, not the Benghazi diplomatic compound 400 miles away where Americans were killed.

While it is unclear what impact a handful of highly trained additional guards might have had in Benghazi were they able to deploy there, some State Department officials said it would probably not have made any difference in blunting the Sept. 11 assault from several dozen heavily armed militants.

“An attack of that kind of lethality, we’re never going to have enough guns,” Patrick F. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, said at Wednesday’s hearing. “We are not an armed camp ready to fight it out.”

A senior administration official said that the military team, which was authorized by a directive from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, was never intended to have an open-ended or Libya-wide mission.

“This was not a SWAT team with a DC-3 on alert to jet them off to other cities in Libya to respond to security issues,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

Let the investigations continue. Does the U.S. provide enough security? How much security can it provide, both in terms of host countries' sovereignty and cost? What does creation of an armed camp signal host citizens? How high up the chain of command must staffing at the hundreds of U.S. installations worldwide be considered — mid-level State Department, secretary of state, vice president, White House?

The conclusion might be that the Libyan deaths resulted from clear shortcomings in threat assessment and staffing. Or it might be more complicated. Facts don't matter here to Republicans any more than they ever do. They have already decided that whatever the U.S. did abroad must be wrong and must be criticized — instantly, even, in the fog of confusion hours after a lethal attack in a country in turmoil. Our country — wrong or wrong. (If a Republican had been president, it would have been traitorous to do or say anything that wasn't construed as rallying around our leader and the flag.)

Please note that House Republicans, led by vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, have pushed for cuts in embassy security spending to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy.

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'Friday Night Lights' creator tells Romney to stuff it

Max Brantley — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:12:51 -0500

I was among the small but devoted following of "Friday Night Lights," the TV series that captured Texas high school football culture and lifestyle about as well as anything I've ever seen. (It also introduced me to lovely Connie Britton, now starring in "Nashville.")

So I was dismayed when I read and heard Republican Mitt Romney had cadged Coach Eric Taylor's motto for the fictional Dillon Panthers — clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose — for campaign purposes. Smash, Landry, Matt, Julie, Riggins or Tyra on Romney's team? Not likely.

I was not so dismayed as Peter Berg, creator of the TV series.

Peter Berg, the creator of the TV series "Friday Night Lights," sent Mitt Romney a letter on Friday expressing his displeasure with the Republican presidential candidate for co-opting the show's slogan, "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose."

"Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series," Berg wrote to Romney. "The only relevant comparison that I see between your campaign and 'Friday Night Lights' is the character of Buddy Garrity — who turned his back on American car manufactures selling imported cars from Japan."

Full letter in Hollywood Reporter.

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