Author: christian

Maybe Someone Needs to Go

If a football coach – say for the Dallas Cowboys – had the kind of season that the leader of House Democrats has had they would be looking for work. But, politics ain’t football, obviously.

Eight games into the season, the Cowboys tied the can to coach Wade Phillips. Someone had to be held accountable. This is the big time, after all. The final straw was the Cowboys’ 45-7 drubbing by the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Sorry Wade. You are the responsible party. It’s been nice knowing ya.

Nancy Pelosi suffered a loss just as lopsided, just as devastating to an historic franchise, but with no commensurate accountability. Pelosi’s decision to serve as House Minority Leader when Republicans take the majority in January is at once a testament to her determination as a political infighter and an indication of just how out of touch she is as a leader of a national party.

In fairness to Pelosi, she is going to get a demotion, but she’d be doing her party and herself a favor by stepping off the political stage entirely. For all kinds of reasons, Pelosi, the liberal Democrat from San Francisco, has become the unpopular face of Washington, D.C. Conservatives are rejoicing that she will stay as the party leader in the House. Her continuation in leadership will be both a distraction for Democrats and a gift to those who have succeeded in making her the principle issue in many races, including the First District of Idaho, where she served as a deadly drain on moderate Democrats.

I’ve been reading a fascinating new book – Churchill Defiant – by Barbara Leaming that focuses on the career of the great British Prime Minister after World War II. Churchill lost a crushing re-election campaign in 1945 just as the Allies had secured the long, hard victory over Nazi Germany. Churchill was badly hurt by the repudiation of the English people and, as anyone would, he took the defeat very personally.

Like the Minority Leader-in-Waiting, Winston insisted in staying on as leader of his party despite the opposition, some of it very open and nasty, of most senior Conservatives. Churchill’s health and even mental abilities, as Leaming carefully and sympathetically shows, were sharply in decline, but still the great man held on. Churchill, again like most of us, infused with basic human motivations, simply couldn’t abide the notion of stepping down. His wife wanted him to, his friends and political associates thought it best, but he held on.

In 1951, Churchill finally recaptured Downing Street, more because of the ineptness of the Labour Party than any other reason, but at age 77 he had become a shadow of what the British electorate and the world had come to expect. Leaming gives Churchill credit for being a fighter, but mostly he was fighting the inevitable decline of the British Empire and clinging to the idea of personal power no matter the cost.

Understanding basic human instincts, it’s easy to see why Nancy Pelosi wants to stay. She has been caricatured, at times in an unfair and truly vicious manner, as the Cruella de Vil of the Democratic Party and she clearly doesn’t want to be shown the door by her political enemies. She passed historic, if hugely controversial, legislation and understandly wants to protect it from the long knives of her opponents. And, while she will have a secure place in the history books as the first woman Speaker of the House, she simply can’t bring herself to walk off and leave the battle to others who will undoubtedly have a better chance to reconnect with the broad middle of the American electorate.

Nothing Winston Churchill did after his rejection at the polls in 1945 helped define him for the history books. Had he left public life at that moment, his enormous reputation, as arguably the greatest figure of the 20th Century, would have been secure. The famous Iron Curtain speech was made while Churchill was leading the opposition in the House of Commons. Had he delivered that speech as a private citizen it would have had just as much impact and who is to say that his warnings about Soviet domination of eastern Europe wouldn’t have had even more importance coming from a senior statesman with no personal agenda at stake.

Even the greatest leaders are driven by ego and the need for personal vindication. It is hard to known when to go.

The principled departure is something most American politicians have never embraced. It is a shame because it can have real power both for the person leaving and those left to carry on.

Winning and Losing

In the cold, grey aftermath of the drubbing Democrats received on Tuesday, President Obama is too reserved, too buttoned down and too cool to use, at least in public, the language of a long ago unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the California Legislature. But, he must be thinking what Dick Tuck once said.

Tuck was a political operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” who bedeviled Richard Nixon and once opened his own State Senate race with a speech in a cemetery. Dead people needed a voice in politics, too, he said.

After a Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960, Tuck paid an elderly women to approach Nixon and say: “Don’t worry, son. He beat you last night, but you’ll win next time.” Good stuff, but not as good as his classic quote.

After his State Senate loss in 1966, Tuck said at his concession, “the people have spoken…the bastards.” Obama must feel something similar, but his now well-established detachment – is that part of his problem – keeps him from expressing such sentiments and showing any genuine emotion.

As we total up the winners and losers from the Democratic debacle this week, the now profoundly challenged Obama heads the “L” column. As much as he has been tested by a controversial preacher, Hillary Clinton, a Great Recession and two wars, his political challenges are just beginning. Adversity can make or break a politician. This is Obama’s political test.

The best – and most successful politicians – have an knack for self reflection; an ability to check and recalibrate long held assumptions. Obama has a tendency to describe all circumstances he faces in terms of a policy choice, but what he faces is fundamentally a leadership challenge. We will see soon enough if he is up to the challenge.

Here is one suggestion. Before too much time passes, Obama should get Speaker-to-be John Boehner on the golf course. Seriously. Boehner loves the game – Golf Digest lists him as the 36th best golfer in Washington – and Obama loves to play, as well. It’s more difficult to talk past some guy you’ve played 18 with, even if he gives you strokes and then beats you. Seriously.

Closer to home a big winner this week is the once and future Governor of Oregon John Kitzhaber. With a deep red tide running nationally, Kitzhaber grabbed a narrow win, the first third term in Oregon history and a chance to make a mark on Oregon’s feeble economy. As noted here in the past, comebacks are hard – particularly for former governors, but Kitzhaber joins former and future Governors Jerry Brown in California and Terry Branstad in Iowa as some of the comeback kids in this cycle.

There are many, many Republican winners this week – Boehner, Haley Barbour, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Idaho’s Mike Simpson (new Appropriations and EPA oversight clout), Oregon’s Greg Walden (Boehner’s transition leader) and on and on, but in raw political terms there is no bigger winner among the many Democratic losers than Harry Reid.

Considering the dynamics of Reid’s race and the fact that he is loathed by many of his constituents, the fact that he survived against a Tea Party rival, even one as fundamentally flawed as a candidate as Sharron Angle, is remarkable. Steve Friess writes at The Daily Beast that Reid won the old fashioned way by running a dogged, determined campaign that left no detail unattended.

“By the time he strolled onto the stage on Tuesday arm-in-arm with wife Landra wearing a Cheshire Cat grin,” Friess writes, “all of Reid’s best-laid plans had gone perfectly and he had not only won but done so convincingly.”

But, back to that jokester Dick “The Voters Have Spoken” Tuck. Maybe we could use some of his mostly harmless good humor in our current polarized political culture.

Time magazine noted back in 1973 that Tuck briefly attached himself to then-Sen. George McGovern’s presidential campaign against Nixon, but as it turned out with limited success.

“McGovern did not seem to appreciate a good joke much more than Nixon,” Time reported. “When [Nixon] and some fat cats were about to pay a visit to [Nixon’s Treasury Secretary] John Connally’s ranch, Tuck proposed sending a Brink’s armored car to the scene followed by a Mexican laundry truck. But the McGovernites vetoed the suggestion.”

In place of the ultra-nasty political air wars we’ve all endured, we could use a few more clever, not mean, political pranks like Tuck’s. Humor in politics is a good thing.

Here’s wishing – for both winners and losers on Tuesday – that they find a way to add a little humor to the necessary post-election self reflection and that a healthy dose of modesty now replace the bombast and hyperbole. And, of course, no talking during the back swing.

A bitter election and the serious problems confronting the country now demand the best of all of this week’s survivors.

Commercials You Might Remember

Unlike the famous – or infamous – Daisy ad from the 1964 Lyndon Johnson – Barry Goldwater campaign, most political commercials today are cut from a predictable pattern. In the typical ad the opponent is rotten, the other guy is a genius. It is the rare commercial that breaks the mold and breaks through.

Political junkies know the story of the famous ad man Tony Schwartz who filmed the adorable little girl pulling the petals off a daisy with her innocent image ultimately fading into a nuclear blast and a mushroom cloud. The ad aired only once during a CBS Monday night movie in September 1964, but is generally credited with helping ensure Johnson’s landslide victory. The ad is famous enough that it was mentioned in the first paragraph of Schwartz’s obit when he died in 2008.

In my searching around, I’ve found nothing on par with the Daisy ad, but have identified a handful of ads worth remembering this year; mostly positive and one just a great example of raw, effective political propaganda.

The campaign of California’s comeback gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown, has actually produced two of the better ads of the season. This side-by-side mash up of soundbites from unpopular current Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and current GOP contender Meg Whitman is not only well done, but very effective. But, it is Brown’s closing ad reminding Californians what he had done as governor that likely seals the deal.

Republican Marco Rubio appears to be coasting to a Senate victory in Florida. His closing ad asking for the vote is one of the best I have ever seen. It’s long – two minutes – but the length allows him, in a very compelling way, to tell a story – his story. In the best tradition of some of the great Reagan ads, it is inspiring, aspirational and positive. Keep an eye on this guy.

Tom Barrett is the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin and the current mayor of Milwaukee. The polls indicate he is not likely to win, but his campaign gets points for a skillful and compelling spot featuring his wife as she talks about her husband getting attacked while trying to help a grandmother ward off an assault. The whole thing could have been awkward, even tacky, but it isn’t and like the Rubio spot tells the viewer a good deal about the candidate.

My final spot of note – the Chinese Professor ad – has already become an Internet sensation. Writing in The Atlantic, James Fallows says this spot will be the one we remember in 10 years. Could be. It has all the elements – a story, Chinese students in 2030 considering the demise of the United States economy; just enough truth to get you thinking and until the very end there is no hint that this is about policy and politics.

As Fallows says, as truth the ad is really good propaganda since the spot “has the Chinese (professor) saying that America collapsed because, in the midst of a recession, it relied on (a) government stimulus spending, (b) big changes in its health care systems, and (c) public intervention in major industries — all of which of course, have been crucial parts of China’s (successful) anti-recession policy.” Still, it wouldn’t be good propaganda were it not effective.

You know the Chinese Professor ad is effective because it has already spawned a parody that turns the original message on its head.

So few of the thousands of political ads are good enough to be memorable, its worth pausing to celebrate the handful that are. It is also worth noting that the really good ads, like this small collection, tell a compelling story and avoid talking down to the viewer. There is an element in each ad that says, in a way, we trust you to vote intelligently. A nice thought.

Dick Morris Surfaces in Idaho

Am I the only one who remembers that Dick Morris, the sputtering, chubby “political analyst” that seems to be the all-purpose pundit on any Fox News shows, is the same Dick Morris that once helped engineer Bill Clinton’s political comeback and is now running demonstrably false TV ads against a Democrat in an Idaho congressional race?

Oh yea, and there was that business with the call girl that caused him to have to resign from Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign and the unpaid tax bills that ABC News has reported on.

Just for the benefit of the historical record, Morris was on consecutive covers of Time magazine in 1996. Once for being the brilliant Rasputin who captured Clinton’s ear and created the so called triangulation strategy that allowed the President to claw back from the disastrous 1994 mid-term election. The second time – the headline was Skunk at the Family Picnic – was the story about a prostitute who allegedly listened in to Morris’ phone calls to Clinton. Morris resigned and one would have thought, maybe, that was the end of that story.

It is a testament to the short attention span of American politics that a fellow like Dick Morris has any credibility at all, let alone a national TV platform and a political action committee that claims to have raised more than $3.5 million to support GOP House takeover efforts. (Morris says he thinks a 100 seat pick up is possible.)

By the way, no picture of Bill Clinton on the Morris website, but Ronald Reagan is featured prominently. Morris never worked for Reagan, but you get the idea.

The trajectory of Morris’ weird career – in addition to Clinton, he worked for Jesse Helms, Ed Koch, Trent Lott and a bunch of foreign candidates – proves a powerful point: if you are audacious enough, not bothered by any notion of consistency (or perhaps loyalty), can’t spell the word shame and are willing to soldier on in this media age you can survive almost anything. Americans love to give a second chance. Just ask Eliot Spitzer.

Who would have thought a year ago that the disgraced former New York governor, forced to resign thanks to his own prostitution scandal, would be back. But, he is back and on CNN in a prime time cable show.

Stay tuned. There is hope for Mark Sanford, his poll numbers are up, now that he’s off the hiking trail. Tom Delay got his shot on “Dancing with the Stars” while waiting for his corruption trial to begin. That former New York Democratic Congressman Eric Massa who resigned after members of his staff went public about his sexual advances, it is only a matter of time.

We could go on and on and on proving F. Scott Fitzgerald, no stranger to scandal himself, wrong. The author of The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise famously said there are “no second acts in American lives,” but Fitzgerald, who died in 1940, obviously didn’t know about modern communications in the cable and Internet age.

The Dick Morris’ and Eliot Spitzer’s of this world get a second act simply because they are outrageous, shameless and literally live for the limelight. That doesn’t mean we need – or should – pay any attention to anything they say.

The better question is why anyone would send Morris their money or turn their dial to Spitzer. Maybe it has to do with suckers being born with some frequency.

The Second Oldest Profession

Mark Alonzo Hanna was a Cleveland industrialist and U.S. Senator from Ohio at the turn of the 20th Century and, more importantly perhaps, he was William McKinley’s campaign manager in both of McKinley’s successful presidential elections. Hanna was also, in many respects, the father of the modern political campaign. He mastered the art of political fundraising, hitting up his friends in big business, and he built a national political organization that carried his friend McKinley to two big wins over William Jennings Bryan.

To the extent that Hanna is remembered today by anyone other than a political history junkie it may be for his most famous quote.

“There are two things that are important in politics,” Hanna said. “The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.”

Raising money for political campaigns – and, yes, I plead guilty to having done it – may be the second oldest profession and in the election of 2010 it may have become almost as unseemly as the oldest profession.

Generally speaking, over the last 50 years or more, political parties have declined in importance in American politics and individual candidate fundraising and the shaking of the money tree by so called “independent expenditure” groups has been on the rise. Campaigns have gotten more expensive with most members of Congress and the Senate spending hours a week on nothing more important than raising cash for, as they say, “the next cycle.”

The media reports on this race for money often at the expense of what the candidates have done or pledged to do. Money – lots and lots of money – is firmly at the center of the American political system. Nothing new about that. It has been that way since Mark Hanna’s day, but there is something new and fundamentally different happening wit all the money in this cycle. Huge amounts of money aimed to influence political races is being secretly raised and spent in vast and unaccountable ways.

President Obama, suggesting that some of the cash originates with foreign sources, has called the new developments “a threat to our democracy.”

It is difficult to track all this cash, but one recent estimate puts the total haul at more than a quarter billion – with a B – dollars in independent expenditures this year, or roughly four times as much as was spent in the last mid-term in 2006. More than $3.5 million was spent by outside groups on one day last week in the fiercely contested Colorado Senate race.

As Politico reported yesterday, secrecy, as in who is giving the money (and why) to influence the outcome of mid-term elections, is at the very heart of what has happened in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5 to 4 ruling in the Citizen’s United case.

A group founded by, among others, former Bush Administration political guru Karl Rove, has received much of the attention surrounding the new secret money. That group, American Crossroads, started out saying it would disclose the source of its contributions, but when the money was slow to flow the direction changed and transparency ended. As Politico said, the group was against anonymous contributions before it was for them and when donors realized they didn’t need to disclose, the cash started flowing.

The Politico report goes on: “The success Crossroads has had in attracting anonymous donors highlights a broader trend on the right in which political activity has increasingly shifted to non-profit corporations that can conceal donors’ identities. Republican finance insiders…say it is easier to get major GOP donors to contribute when there’s no risk of having their identities disclosed and being subjected to either additional appeals for money from other groups, or to criticism from President Barack Obama and other Democrats.”

For his part, Rove, a student of history who knows all about Mark Hanna, has invoked the “they do it, too” defense. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Rove contended recently that some of Obama’s chief operatives have done the same kind of secret fundraising and spending in the past.

“Robert Gibbs (the White House press secretary), worked in 2004 for a group that ran ads and didn’t disclose its donors until after the primaries,” Rove contends. “(Obama’s) White House political director, Patrick Gaspard, came from the Service Employees International Union, which doesn’t disclose its campaign contributors and admitted earlier this week that it might be spending money from foreign nationals on this year’s elections. Are these two also a ‘threat to our democracy,’ to use the president’s words.”

Even granting Rove his larger point that everyone is guilty of this profligate subterfuge, the scope and scale of the secretly funded campaigning this year has been unlike anything in the past, recent or distant. As Eliza Newlin Carney points out at the National Journal, what is really different this year is the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s ruling that equated corporate and labor money with free speech.

“In fact,” Carlin writes, “plenty of secret campaign spending went on even before Citizens United, in the form of ‘issue’ advocacy that amounted to thinly-veiled campaign ads. The difference now is that politically active nonprofits, which are largely exempt from disclosure rules, may openly back or oppose candidates when they use previously-banned corporate and union cash. The ruling also emboldened big donors, particularly Republicans.”

Three things are certain from these new developments: Democrats will find a way to catch up and their efforts will be just as distasteful to the concept of full disclosure as what Rove and his crew are doing now; scandal is sure to follow, and with it a further decline in public confidence in, ironically, both politics and business.

Those with short memories may have forgotten that Watergate, the little “third rate burglary” that brought down a president, had its origins in questionable campaign funds secretly applied in the interest of doing anything in order to win. Montana Sen. Max Baucus has already called for an IRS investigation of the new campaign finance reality. Stay tuned for the scandal.

Even more seriously, our already broken political system will be in for another shock, as E.J. Dionne noted recently in the Washington Post.

Dionne asks us to, “Imagine an election in a Third World nation where a small number of millionaires and billionaires spent massive sums to push the outcome in their preferred direction. Wouldn’t many people here condescendingly tut-tut such a country’s ‘poorly developed’ sense of democracy and the inadequacy of its political system?”

It may not matter to many Americans, but this new level of non-transparency in our politics will look to many in the rest of the world a little like an election process in a Banana Republic or some less than perfect western democracy like, say, Italy, where Silvio Berluscini regularly manipulates the media empire he owns and controls in order to own and control an election.

This “new” system has a definite stench about it. In a perfect world, elections would be won, not bought. Even in an imperfect world we should know who is doing the buying.

Jesse Unruh, the one-time California State Treasurer and Assembly Speaker, may have been a latter day Mark Hanna. Jesse certainly understood the central role of money in politics. Unruh’s famous quote – “Money is the mother’s milk of politics” – has been a smiling justification for a lot of excess when it comes to money and politics. But even Unruh made that quip in a simpler time and in a time when full disclosure of the sources of political money had become widely accepted.

Without some much greater level of transparency, this political milk will sour and with it public confidence in our entire political culture. The smarter folks in both parties need to fix this – quickly.