Why We Can't Have a Serious Talk

Last night, I read an article in the Washington Post about the recent electoral embarrassments that have been handed to Barack Obama in Democratic primaries in West Virginia, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Obama, of course, is the incumbent, and he has drawn no serious opposition for the Democrats' nomination. Consequently, some people apparently believe, the Democrats in the primaries that are being held late in the process should line up like good Democrats and vote for the incumbent.

Even if they have objections.

But the voters in West Virginia, Arkansas and Kentucky have thrown Obama an off–speed pitch when he was looking for a fastball. About two–fifths of the Democratic voters voted for token opposition — in West Virginia, that meant voting for an inmate who is presently incarcerated here in Texas — rather than for the president, who long ago secured his nomination.

The Post's Chris Cillizza writes that many Democrats have a ready excuse for the political resistance they have encountered within their own party — they "ascribe the underperformance by the incumbent to a very simple thing: racism."

Most Democrats speak disparagingly of George W. Bush. And I have no fondness for him, either.

But this is a tactic those Democrats share with Bush and his supporters — and they have been every bit as gleeful in its use and in anticipation of its power to squelch serious discussions.

Sure, it was disguised differently when Bush was president. In those not–so–distant days, anyone who disagreed with Bush on anything was labeled unpatriotic.

End of discussion. Once you have been tarred with that brush, you might as well stop trying.

No matter how strongly you may feel about the issue, no matter how many legitimate concerns you may have, no matter how many hours you may have spent arguing with yourself about it, if the other side has labeled you a racist or unpatriotic, there is nothing you can say to reverse that conclusion, no logic you can offer, no facts you can provide.

But that doesn't mean the allegation is true.

Oh, to be sure, there are people today who do permit race (or religion or gender or sexual preference or anything else) to determine how they will vote, just as there have always been people who were racist (or sexist or homophobic or whatever). And there are people among us who are not patriotic Americans — they have always been with us, too.

That's one of the drawbacks of living in a free society.

But it's not so easy to know who the racists and unpatriotic citizens are. In my experience, they usually don't advertise the fact or leave tell–tale clues behind. They might share their views with like–minded individuals, but they don't usually tend to share them with strangers.

"The problem with that theory," Cillizza writes, "is that it's almost entirely unprovable because it relies on assuming knowledge about voter motivations that — without being a mindreader — no one can know."

It's true that Obama lost all three of those states in 2008, and it is quite likely that he will lose all three in 2012. I don't see a racial backlash in these votes. I see a repeat of a phenomenon I have seen many times in the past — when a candidate locks up his party's nomination, disgruntled voters in the late primaries are emboldened to vote for any alternative on the ballot.

It's an electoral protest, and it should be taken seriously. My experience tells me Democrats shouldn't be dismissive about it.

In 1980 (when another Democrat president was running for re–election), I was living in Arkansas. Gov. Bill Clinton was seeking his second two–year term as governor. He looked like a sure thing. He was young and charismatic, and his only opponent in the party primary was a 77–year–old retired turkey farmer who barely scraped up enough money to pay the filing fee.

Clinton's opponent had no campaign staff or finances to speak of, but he received more than 30% of the vote when the Democrats held their primary.

The governor's staff and supporters insisted that it didn't mean a thing, and, in Arkansas, it was generally accepted that it really didn't mean much. Arkansans, after all, had elected only one Republican governor since Reconstruction.

But they elected another one that November — narrowly.

Both political extremes use the term fascism almost casually in their references to each other, which I find to be alarming — as well as an appalling display of an absence of knowledge.

Neither side is truly fascist — at least, not yet. But, with their blatant use of what Adolf Hitler called "the big lie," it is clear that it probably wouldn't take much to push either one over the edge.

"Make the lie big," Hitler said, "make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."

It was a lie when Bush's supporters accused his detractors of being unpatriotic. It's a lie when Obama's supporters accuse his detractors of being racist.

It has a chilling effect on dissent, and that makes it one of the most anti–democratic (that's democrat with a lowercase d) assertions imaginable.

The Polarization of America

In 2009, Barack Obama made numerous, very public attempts to reach across the aisle and enlist the support of Republicans for his initiatives. His attempts at appeasement were fruitless.

At the very least, I think we are seeing that, even if Obama and the Democrats are successful in holding slim majorities in Congress this year, bipartisanship is not going to be a realistic goal for them to pursue in 2011 or 2012. That canyon the parties have created between them is too far for either to reach across.

America has been growing more and more polarized over the years. And, in spite of the protestations from Obama's supporters that he has been uniting the nation, I believe the opposite is true.

It isn't Obama's fault. The polarization of America did not begin with him. But I believe the situation has grown worse since he took office.

It isn't really surprising, I suppose. I mean, if one is a member of a political party, it is because that person has a very definite world view, and there seems to be less and less room for competing views in either party. It was not always this way. There was a time — a fairly lengthy time, actually — when there was a "liberal wing" of the Republican Party and a "conservative wing" of the Democratic Party.

Laugh if you will, but it's true.

In fact, the liberal Republicans exerted considerable influence in their party, as did the conservative Democrats. And each party had quite a few centrists as well.

But the Republicans ran off most of the liberals, and the Democrats ran off most of the conservatives.

Now, centrists are becoming an endangered species in both parties. One left the Republican Party because he believed he would be more welcome with the Democrats, but he lost the primary yesterday. Another has been forced into a runoff against a liberal, apparently MoveOn.org type — who probably will beat her in three weeks but then seems likely to lose in the general election.

Many centrists, including myself, have concluded that there is no place for them in either party today so the ones who wish to remain active in the political discourse are choosing to become independents.

But some centrists have insisted on sticking it out in their parties. I wish them well because I really believe that both parties need to move to the middle if they are to be acceptable to mainstream Americans. As things are now, both parties are positioned too far to either extreme to make consensus–building a genuine possibility.

And Tuesday's primaries just provided more proof (to me) that I am right:

• In Pennsylvania, for example, 30–year Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched parties last year (apparently, at least in part, due to speculation that he could not win a Republican nomination battle this year), lost the Democratic primary to Rep. Joe Sestak.
  
  Some of Sestak's supporters have characterized him as a centrist, but Specter was the real centrist in the race. In 2008, the ACLU gave Sestak a 91% rating. The American Conservative Union gave him a 0% rating. Meanwhile, Specter got a 43% rating from the ACLU and a 42% rating from the ACU.
  
  Ratings from other liberal and conservative groups were similar.
  
  So ideology trumped anything else that Specter brought to the table — seniority, for example — and now Pennsylvanians must choose between an extremely liberal Democrat and an extremely conservative Republican in November. Recent polls have shown the Republican, Pat Toomey, leading by a few points but still short of a clear majority.
  
  I guess, with Democrats and Republicans tending to favor their own by wide margins in polls, the independents will have to decide the winner — but which side will they choose? They've been gravitating to the center — but there's no one there.
  
  One thing that seemed clear from the results in Pennsylvania was that Obama's coattails are very short — if they exist at all. Actually, "coattails" probably isn't applicable in a midterm election since that is a term that generally refers to a president's influence on other races when he, too, is on the ballot. Technically, Obama won't have "coattails" until 2012.
  
  But the concept does seem applicable to a president's influence on races in which he becomes an active participant — although it seems to need a different name. And, when Specter switched parties, Obama pledged to support him this year in gratitude for Specter's support for Obama's agenda. Specter counted on Obama's influence with the Pennsylvania electorate to smooth over his transition.
  
  Apparently, though, Obama didn't help Specter any more than he helped Martha Coakley in Massachusetts four months ago — or the Democrats who sought the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia last November.
  
  I guess the big difference is that Coakley and the unsuccessful candidates in New Jersey and Virginia lost to Republicans, which is bad enough for a Democratic president. But Specter lost to a fellow Democrat, which raises questions about Obama's ability to influence the voters in his own party.
  
  Or does it?
  
  I suspect that the reasons for Specter's defeat are more complicated. He spent most of the last three decades in the Senate as a Republican — during which time he never really seemed to build a base of support in either party — and 2010 doesn't look like a good year for a Washington insider like Specter to try to reinvent himself in a different party.
  
  I'm guessing that any efforts he made to persuade lifelong, activist Democrats that he was one of them proved to be a mountain too high.
  
  Because of Specter's many years in the Republican Party, Obama's support for his unsuccessful campaign in a Democratic primary doesn't seem to be as politically devastating as was his support for a Democrat who lost Ted Kennedy's seat in a Massachusetts special election.
  
  But winning a party's nomination in Pennsylvania is not the same thing as winning the general election. When I was growing up in Arkansas, winning the Democratic nomination was tantamount to victory most of the time — but not anymore. I don't know if it was ever true in Pennsylvania.
  
  Anyway, for Sestak there is more work to be done. He is not a senator–elect yet. So, if I were Obama, I think I would have a chat with the vice president and tell him to cool it on that Sestak "will make ... a wonderful United States senator" talk.
  
  Meanwhile ...


• Remember Ron Paul, the Libertarian who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008? He is said to have the most conservative voting record in Congress in the last 73 years.
  
  Well, yesterday, the Republicans in Kentucky nominated Paul's son, Rand Paul, a noted Tea Partier, to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Bunning.
  
  Given Obama's recent track record, it doesn't surprise me that Paul told CNN today that he and his supporters are "licking their chops" at the thought of running against Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, particularly if Obama comes to the Bluegrass State to campaign for him.


• Finally, my home state of Arkansas, where Sen. Blanche Lincoln was hoping to avoid a runoff against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.
  
  Lincoln was widely regarded as the centrist in the race while Halter was seen as the liberal. But, instead of taking a majority of the votes, Lincoln narrowly finished ahead of Halter and must defeat him in a runoff in June. A conservative businessman also was in the race, but he finished third with about 14% of the vote.
  
  Last night, I observed the Facebook exchanges between my friends in Arkansas, many of whom are Democrats who support Halter. They rejoiced that there would be a runoff and gleefully anticipated that most of the third–place candidate's votes would go to Halter. The momentum, they all said, was with him.
  
  Actually, that brings me to something I wrote on Saturday. I theorized, in essence, that any voter who votes against an incumbent in a primary is more likely to oppose than support that incumbent in a runoff.
  
  And, if most of the third candidate's voters do vote for Halter on June 8, he will win the runoff. It's simple mathematics.
  
  Except it isn't so simple. I'm not completely sure about that momentum thing. And I know that participating in a primary does not compel someone to participate in a runoff as well.
  
  In fact, I know from my own experience of covering Arkansas primaries and runoffs that voter participation typically drops in a runoff.
  
  But this will be a good test for my theory, as I said the other day, because:

1. we don't know how many of the third candidate's supporters will be motivated to return to the polls;


2. we don't know if his supporters — who, it can be logically assumed, are conservatives — are particularly anti–Lincoln; and


3. if the third candidate's supporters are angry at Lincoln, are they angry enough to vote for a liberal instead of a centrist?

Well, anyway, there are a lot of factors at play here.

And I'm sure there will be a lot of attention paid to the Arkansas runoff in the next three weeks.

I don't know what will happen in Arkansas in June, but I think the centrist would have a better chance of beating the conservative there in November than the liberal would. The problem for centrists is that most don't seem to have a base in their own party.

Like Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, who got kicked out by a bunch of extremist delegates to the state's Republican convention. He's a conservative, but apparently not enough of one for Utah's red–meat right–wingers. Remember those ACLU and ACU ratings I mentioned earlier? In 2008, Bennett got a 14% from the ACLU and a 64% from the ACU (by comparison, his colleague, Orrin Hatch, got a 21% from the ACLU and an 80% from the ACU).

By Utah's Republican standards, I guess that makes him a centrist.

All of which leads me to conclude that incumbency isn't really the problem in 2010 — centrism is.

Counting the Votes

Political campaigns never really end in this country. As soon as one election is over, the parties start working on the next one.

Most elections are held in even–numbered years, but that is no guarantee of a respite. In some places, like Virginia, gubernatorial campaigns are held in odd–numbered years. And, when there is a vacancy to fill — because the incumbent was appointed to another post or died or whatever the reason — a special election may be held for that purpose.

Such is the case in New York's 20th Congressional District. The incumbent, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, was appointed by New York's governor to take Hillary Clinton's place as New York's junior senator so a special election was held last week to choose Gillibrand's successor. When the votes were counted, the Democrat (Scott Murphy) held a razor–thin lead over the Republican (Jim Tedisco), but officials had to allow some time for absentee ballots to arrive by mail.

Election officials are now in the process of counting those absentee ballots, and revised tabulations have Tedisco narrowly in front. More than 10,000 absentee ballots were mailed out prior to the special election, and nearly 7,000 have been returned, "including about 400 military and overseas ballots which cannot be counted until Monday," reports Thomas Dimopoulos in the Glens Falls Post–Star.

My understanding is that voters declare their party affiliations when they register to vote in New York. They can register as independents, but that means they cannot participate in party primaries. Much speculation apparently has centered on who has returned the absentee ballots, with the presumption being that those who are registered Democrats voted for Murphy and those who are registered Republicans voted for Tedisco.

Of course, people who are registered with one party have been known to vote for the candidate from the other party, so party affiliation is no guarantee. But logic suggests that a party's nominee is likely to perform well with his party's members.

The eventual outcome may hinge on which candidate does the best among the independent absentee voters, and both sides, naturally, are projecting that their candidate will emerge victorious. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the seemingly never–ending Senate campaign in Minnesota drags on, although some are saying that the writing is on the wall for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The head of Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party appears to be ready to "turn up the heat" on Coleman, and he isn't the only one.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes, at National Review Online, that Coleman "is likely to lose, unnecessarily deprive Minnesota of a second senator, end his political career seen as a sore loser, and hurt his party in a state that is eager for this fight to be over." Ponnuru concludes that "if he leaves now, he will get some points for grace. ... [T]his is ... the last moment where he can exit with some dignity."

Of course, there are Republicans who are urging Coleman to continue the fight and issue every ballot challenge he can. One of the senators from my state has threatened "World War III" if Democrat Al Franken is seated before legal challenges have been exhausted. And Coleman's legal team has vowed to appeal the final figures.

Clearly, the stakes are high. If Franken prevails, the Democrats will be only one seat away from the magical 60–seat, "filibuster–proof" majority.

And that seat could be picked up in Kentucky.

No ballots are being counted in Kentucky right now, but there is much speculation these days about the prospects for former major league baseball pitcher and current Sen. Jim Bunning, who is up for re–election next year.

A little background here — Bunning has never been a hugely popular candidate statewide in Kentucky. He was elected by less than 7,000 votes out of more than 1.1 million votes in 1998, then he was re–elected with a margin of less than 23,000 votes out of more than 1.7 million votes in 2004.

Recent polls suggest he would be vulnerable against several potential Democratic opponents, one of whom, Attorney General Jack Conway, announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination today. Conway is the second Democrat to announce his candidacy for Bunning's seat — Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who lost to Bunning in 2004, announced his candidacy in January.

That gives some ammunition to those Republicans who would like to have a different candidate carrying the GOP banner next year.

It's only April of 2009 — plenty of time for maneuvering before the voters go to the polls in Kentucky in 2010.

Where Did Hillary Go Wrong?

What is the most persistent barrier to success in America today?

Is it racism or sexism?

That seems to be part of the battle for the Democratic nomination this year. I've been thinking about it since my original choice for the nomination, John Edwards, announced his endorsement of Barack Obama last week.

And I've been thinking about it today, as the voters have been stating their preferences in the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.

I don't think there's any question that racism and sexism have been factors in the Democratic race this year.

No matter what some of the high-minded supporters of both candidates will tell you.

We haven't reached the phase of the campaign where the most popular parlor game for Democrats becomes the guessing game about the presumptive nominee's choice for running mate. The time for that will come later in the summer.

So, these days, the most popular parlor game in Democratic circles is trying to evaluate where Hillary Clinton went wrong.

Seven months ago, I was almost resigned to the belief that she would be the party's nominee. I wasn't alone. Most people seemed to assume that Clinton would be at the top of this year's Democratic ticket.

Tonight, even though Clinton has apparently won Kentucky by a wide margin (as expected) and has told her supporters that she will keep going in spite of "some pretty tough odds," I hear speculation about what went wrong for the Clinton campaign.

I've been hearing that kind of speculation for a couple of months now. And I've been giving it a lot of thought.

I've come to a few interesting conclusions.

I don't think you can blame her loss on any single thing.

Yes, I think she has run a poor campaign, one of the poorest presidential campaigns I've witnessed in a lifetime of watching presidential campaigns.

Yes, I believe she and her staff were convinced they would wrap up the nomination by "Tsunami Tuesday" in early February and failed to prepare for a campaign that would go on well beyond that point.

Yes, I feel she -- and her husband -- have repeatedly tried to "play the race card" to win white votes away from Obama.

And, yes, I'm convinced the American public has grown weary of the Bush and Clinton families and doesn't like the idea of political dynasties occupying the White House.

It goes against the grain. This country came into existence in part because the people who came to the New World didn't want to be ruled by a monarchy anymore. That desire still lives in the 21st century.

Democratic voters wanted to make it clear that no one was entitled, by bloodlines or marriage vows, to occupy the Oval Office.

And there's something else I've come to believe recently.

I've seen no exit polls that ask about this. I have no solid evidence backing it up.

And I'm not even sure people would answer the question honestly if asked.

But I believe that, deep down, Americans aren't ready to elect a female commander-in-chief in a time of war.

(They may not be ready for a black man to be commander-in-chief in a time of war, either. But I guess we won't find out about that until November.)

I don't know how significant that is as a factor in Americans' decision-making process. I don't know if it's the deal-breaker for Clinton.

But I believe, if most of the other factors are lining up against her in the voters' minds, it's the thing that could push many of them over to the opposition.

Today, we have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's always possible American troops could be engaged in another conflict -- in the Middle East or some other global hotspot -- before the next president takes office.

At a time when Americans are worried about escalating fuel prices and food prices, economics could trigger armed conflict in almost any part of the world.

That may not be the reason why the Democratic Party looked for leadership from a man and not a woman -- or even why Democrats apparently have chosen this man over that woman.

Both blacks and women serve in the military today. But Harry Truman desegregated the troops in time for the Korean War, and blacks have been serving alongside whites ever since.

Having women as part of the fighting force is a relatively newer phenomenon for Americans. I don't think women took on an active battlefield role until the Gulf War under George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

And, while no one will dispute that women have served ably and admirably, I don't think the majority of Americans are ready to see a woman take over as commander-in-chief and start making wartime decisions on Day One.

Does that mean a woman won't be elected president until the War on Terrorism has been resolved? I don't know.

What I do know is that America is at war in two countries tonight. And it appears, at this point, that Americans will be choosing between two men for president in November.

It could well be that Hillary Clinton cast the vote that doomed her presidential ambitions in 2002 when she joined 76 other senators in authorizing George W. Bush to use force against Iraq.

McConnell's a Target in 2008

CNN is reporting that Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Republican with four terms under his belt as well as experience as the Senate Majority Leader and a wife, Elaine Chao, who is Secretary of Labor and the only original member of George W. Bush's Cabinet who is still in office, is being singled out by Democrats in his home state.

It seems that Kentucky's Democrats feel emboldened by winning the gubernatorial race this year against scandal-plagued Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

But there are some significant differences, and Democrats needn't feel that the Senate seat is theirs for the taking, even though about 57% of the registered voters in Kentucky are Democrats. Beating McConnell will require a lot of effort -- and a lot of money.

CNN's report indicates that Democrats are short of charismatic candidates to challenge McConnell, and they're just as short of well-to-do donors who can help with the financial needs of such a campaign. And McConnell hasn't had to deal with the kind of scandals that doomed Fletcher's re-election bid.

McConnell, meanwhile, appears to be well supplied with campaign funds as he prepares to run for his fifth term in the Senate.

According to National Journal's rankings, McConnell is more moderate on social issues and more conservative on economic and foreign policy matters. That's not necessarily a bad thing in a state where more than two-thirds of its citizens have annual incomes of less than $50,000 and about 16% of its population lives in poverty.