Monday, February 16, 2009

Potential Impact Of Pres. Obama's Economic Stimulus

Christina RomerPres. Obama's economic stimulus bill gained final approval from Congress Friday after a final round of tough debate. White House Chair, Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer discusses the bill's potential impact on the economy on the PBS News Hour, "We know that the private sector is the engine of growth, and that's where we expect to see the vast majority of the jobs."

Listen to PBS News Hour's package covering the stimulus bill.


The White House has released a photo essay about the economic stimulus package showing Obama reaching out to Republicans during stimulus negotiations. In this photo taken on Jan. 27, 2009 House Republicans surround the President after his meeting with the G.O.P caucus. Many of them were seeking his autograph. Zero House Republican voted for the bill.

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Decade at Bernie’s By PAUL KRUGMAN - Like the duped investors who believed in Bernard Madoff’s scheme, America has thought it was rich in the first decade of the 21st century.
February 16, 2009

Failure to Rise By PAUL KRUGMAN - It's early days yet, but we're falling behind the curve. America just isn't rising to the challenge of the greatest economic crisis in 70 years.
February 13, 2009

The Destructive Center By PAUL KRUGMAN - President Obama’s pursuit of bipartisanship, and the cuts imposed by “centrists,” have led to an inadequate, insufficiently effective stimulus bill.
February 9, 2009

On the Edge By PAUL KRUGMAN - Washington has lost any sense of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.
February 6, 2009

Herbert Hoover Lives By FRANK RICH - HERE'S a bottom line to keep you up at night: The economy is falling faster than Washington can get moving. President Obama says his stimulus plan will save or create four million jobs in two years. In the last four months of 2008 alone, employment fell by 1.9 million. Do the math. The abyss is widening. Of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones industrial index, 22 have announced job cuts since October. Unemployment is up in all 50 states, with layoffs at both high-tech companies (Microsoft) and lo...
February 1, 2009

Health Care Now By PAUL KRUGMAN - Why has the Obama administration been silent about one of the key promises during the campaign the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?
January 30, 2009

Right-Washing the New Deal

This op-ed by Karl Frisch originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.

It's probably a good thing that cable news generally doesn't draw much of an audience from the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. Otherwise, history professors across the nation could very well be witnessing the undoing of their work to educate students about the dire economic climate the United States faced for much of the 1930s.

Those who have been watching cable news lately have undoubtedly noticed the litany of conservative media figures attempting to rewrite history by denigrating the tremendous successes of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies in what amounts to an orchestrated effort to derail the economic recovery plans of President Obama.

Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume recently called Roosevelt's policies "a jihad against private enterprise," just after claiming that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." That may be accurate if by "both sides of the spectrum" Hume is referring to the right and far-right over at Fox News.

Hume's own jihad against the facts, however, represents only a small portion of the historical misrepresentations passed off as reasoned debate about the New Deal.

Witness the day-break machinations of the crew over at MSNBC's Morning Joe. During a recent broadcast, Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski kicked off a string of attacks against the president's recovery plan, using the New Deal as their dubious weapon du jour. Mika said of Obama's plan, "I think we're going to have the same unemployment in three or four years, just like the New Deal." That just isn't true -- unemployment fell every year from 1933 through 1937.

Her buddy Joe didn't fare much better, cherry-picking data in telling viewers that unemployment was at "20 percent" in 1938, ignoring the downward trend in unemployment that occurred under the New Deal.

Joe isn't alone -- conservative columnists George Will and Mona Charen have played the same numbers game to falsely claim the New Deal failed to reduce unemployment, a contention disputed by historians and economists.

Don't take my word for it -- data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the unemployment rate in 1933 clocking in at 24.9 percent and falling each year thereafter (to 14.3 percent in 1937) until 1938 when it rose to 19 percent. Why the increase from 1937 to 1938? As Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has noted, it was a reversal of these very same New Deal policies, which had reduced unemployment, that actually led to recession and drove the numbers back up. It's worth noting, by the way, that these numbers do not include those in federal work-relief programs (at the time, BLS counted those employed by the New Deal's emergency work programs as unemployed). So, the unemployment numbers were actually lower than reported in these years.

The strengthening of the social safety net during the 1930s stimulated the economy while also providing assistance to those waiting to feel the economic recovery for themselves. That's perhaps why Fox News' Bill O'Reilly saw fit to lambast portions of the president's plan aimed at assisting those most in need during these difficult times, claiming last week on his television show that increased funding for programs like food stamps has "nothing to do with stimulating the economy." Though his ego will never let him admit it, O'Reilly is dead wrong.

Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf and former McCain campaign economic adviser Mark Zandi have both said that extending food stamps does, in fact, stimulate the economy. Zandi stated last year that "extending food stamps [is] the most effective [way] to prime the economy's pump," while Elmendorf noted in congressional testimony just last week that "[t]ransfers to persons (for example, unemployment insurance and nutrition assistance) would also have a significant impact on GDP."

Faced with the prospect that history will again demonstrate that government spending and investment are important tools in confronting an economic crisis, it is now clear that conservatives are engaged in a misinformation campaign to mislead the public.

So, when radio host Rush Limbaugh, whom former President Ronald Reagan reportedly called the "Number one voice for conservatism" and House Republicans named an honorary member of Congress in 1994, recently said of Obama, "I hope he fails," it makes one wonder if he might not be speaking for all of his pals on the right.

If Limbaugh and conservatives truly want the president to "fail," rewriting the history of the New Deal may very well be the first salvo in a long war to defeat Obama's agenda for America.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center based in Washington, D.C.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Voter Relationship Management

The art of relationship management is not new and can be found in many forms, addressing specific constituency relationships like business to customer, non-profit service organization to donors and political parties and candidates to voters. In the business world customer relationship management (CRM), focuses on business success by maximizing an organization's ability to identify and track customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them.

In the sphere of politics and non-profit organizations a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM), similarly focuses on electoral success by maximizing a party’s or candidate’s ability to identify and track voters' views and behaviors in order to develop a relationship with them and motivate them to vote. Just as Customer Relationship Management has been automated through software systems over the last two decades, Constituent Relationship Management has also been automated through software systems.    Constituent Relationship Management is sometimes alternatively identified as Voter Relationship Management (VRM).

Just as Customer Relationship Management systems help businesses better interact and communicate with customers, a VRM system can help a candidate or party better interact and communicate with the electorate. A VRM system can help candidates more effectively craft and communicate their campaign messages to selected voters in targeted geographic areas to solicit support, contributions and ultimately votes.

The most successful political campaigns of the past several election cycles assemble and use many pieces of information about the electorate from many different sources. Increasingly, candidates and political parties are using computerized VRM systems to manage, analyze and efficiently utilize the information consolidated in their VRM database. VRM analytical functions help utilize the data to better communicate with and mobilize supporters and voters. Candidates and campaign strategists can comb through the data to obtain a holistic view of the electorate to identify supporters, solicit campaign contributions and pinpoint geographic areas (neighborhoods) for increased canvassing and GOTV efforts.

Democrats were successful in the 2006 and particularly the 2008 election cycles because they began utilizing information about the electorate, just as Republicans have for the last decade. Over the last two election cycles Democratic candidates gained an edge against their Republican opponents because they use technologically advanced VRM web portals to more effectively connect with the electorate.

Today's VRM web portals are increasingly designed and build by political IT experts to function as a multi-media communication and voter outreach channel with a social network, chat rooms, newsgroups, discussion forums, blogs, voter canvassing and advocacy tools, e-mail campaigns, e-newsletters, and more -- all aimed at actively facilitating calls to political action.

VRM analytics can yield a broad understanding of not just of a voter's voting history, but also the profile of the household in which the voter lives and the ability to predict each household member's likelihood to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure, contribute financially or volunteer.

VRM analytics have also allowed voter communication campaigns to evolve from generic blasts of snail mail or e-mail into highly targeted, personalized outreach to each individual voter.

Democrats who were actively organizing during the 2008 election cycle will recognize the data management and VRM systems used by the Democratic Party affiliates and the OFA campaign:

VAN –– The Voter Activation Network was built by a private Boston-based company of the same name with partner Blue State Digital, another Boston-area company founded by veterans of the Dean campaign. At the foundation of VAN system is a national database of voters’ voting history and contact information that was originally populated with data from Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, data from legacy DNC DataMart and Demzilla voter files and other voter history data sources. VAN is primarily a database with a web front-end that provides data sorting, searching and reporting functions to slice and dice the data. VAN, now in its fourth major generation, does not yet provide analytic capabilities. VAN is available to Democratic Party affiliates in all fifty states as the DNC’s VoteBuilder web application.

VoteBuilder –– VoteBuilder is the DNC's branded version of the VAN data access web application for data sorting, searching and reporting slice and dice functions. The DNC makes VAN data available to all 50 state party affiliates, local democratic candidates and national Democratic candidates through the VoteBuilder web application.

PartyBuilder –– PartyBuilder is the DNC's social networking system designed to offer most of the functions found in commercial social networking systems such as MySpace and Facebook.

Catalist –– Catalist, a private data company run by Harold Ickes and Laura Quinn, maintains detailed information on 280 million Americans, nearly every registered voter and eligible voter in the United States. The Catalist database includes information on how people vote, how often they vote and what motivates them to vote. More than 90 groups subscribed to Catalist data in 2008, including the Obama campaign.

Catalist appends a unique identifier to each name as it flows through its master national file -- and this allows the various data silos to be synced and in effect "talk to each other."

Strategic Telemetry –– Ken Strasma's firm used data from a variety of sources to set targets and create the likely voter model used by the Obama campaign. The exact composition of that set of analytics and statistical model is a closely held secret by the company and Obama’s most senior advisors.

MyBarackObama.com –– MyBO was developed as the web portal of the OFA campaign and functioned as the volunteer social networking mobilization and fundraising hub of the campaign. MyBO provided the communication channel and organizing tools seen and used by campaign staff, field organizers and volunteers, In January 2009 MyBO was handed over to the Organizing for American organization as a subsidiary of the DNC.

The Obama campaign integrated Facebook “friends” data, supporter and volunteer data captured in MyBarackObama.com, Strategic Telemetry data, Catalist data and VAN/VoteBuilder data for analysis. All data sources were being updated in near real-time, particularly the VAN data, which was constantly updated by Obama’s own campaign volunteers plus Democratic Party affiliates in all 50 states down to the county level precincts. (MyBO’s 13 million email ids are held separately.)

The Obama campaign and Strategic Telemetry processed all this collected data through Strategic Telemetry’s analytics and statistical model software system to track the electorate’s key issues and create targeted persuasive messages for the campaign and the candidate to communicate back to the electorate.

Obama Makes VAN's Database 10 Times Larger
Credit: Technology Review / Thursday, December 18, 2008.

One side effect of Barack Obama's Webcentric presidential campaign is that it helped turn the Democratic National Committee's voter database--information on the political leanings and interests of millions of U.S. citizens--into a far more potent political weapon. In the final two months before Election Day, 223 million new pieces of data on voters accrued to the database, and the DNC now holds 10 times as much data on U.S. voters as at the end of the 2004 campaign, according to Voter Activation Network (VAN), a company based in Somerville, MA, that builds front-end software for the database.

Such information could prove vital for future elections in that it shows where to allocate resources most effectively--particularly when it comes to voters who are wavering between parties--and what kinds of messages will appeal to specific voters. While some of 223 million pieces of data added in the final stretch of the campaign are not particularly useful (it includes canvassers' or callers' notations that a voter "refused to talk" or "wasn't home"), overall, it's a gold mine, says Mark Sullivan, co-founder of VAN.

"The data collection in 2008 was a quantum leap from where we were in 2004," Sullivan says. "It also means that we start the 2010 cycle with vastly more knowledge about who voters are, and how we can best communicate with them, rather than feeling like we have to start all over again." This information could perhaps even help Obama govern if the DNC decides to ask average Americans to contact members of Congress about specific policy efforts related to, say, energy, health care, or the Iraq War.

The VAN database--Sullivan would not describe its exact size, but there are about 170 million registered voters in the United States--can be used by all Democratic candidates in national or state elections. In the case of primary campaigns, new data collected by a Democratic combatant is kept by the candidate and added to the national database after a winner emerges.

While most campaigns add something to the database, the biggest contributor this year was, of course, the Obama campaign. For example, tens of thousands of times, volunteers logged in to Obama's social-networking site, my.barackobama.com (MyBO), and downloaded small batches of voter names and phone numbers, dialed them up, and followed various scripts. The aim was to learn their political and issue leanings, encourage people to vote for Obama and to ask supporters to make sure they go to the polls. These responses were recorded by the volunteers using a Web interface, adding to the database instantly.

In the final four days of the campaign alone, four million such calls were made through MyBO, says Jascha Franklin-Hodge, cofounder and CTO of Blue State Digital, which built MyBO as well as the interface to the VAN voter list. "This was just using our tools in that short window of time--never mind what the actual field organization was doing on the ground," he says. MyBO was hardly the only source: the DNC, local campaign offices, traditional phone banks, and canvassers also added data in various ways.

Beyond the data gathered on voters, the Democrats and Obama also have access to a network of willing volunteers who can be used to recontact voters. "They've got a whole volunteer structure that gathered all this information that can be put to used in the 2010 midterms, and can hopefully be available for a reelection [of Obama]," Franklin-Hodge says. "There is a tremendous amount of data mining and analysis that goes on within the party and political organization that allows a better understanding of how people vote and how they make decisions."

This approach--"micro targeting" voters based on their feelings toward specific issues--was once the domain of the Republican National Committee. But even leading Republican figures now acknowledge that the days of GOP voter-data dominance have ended. "For decades, the RNC has had a significant advantage in their voter file, and in their ability to identify and turn out voters," says Mike Connell, founder of New Media Communications, an Ohio-based Republican new-media firm. "With the Obama campaign and the efforts over the last couple of years, [the Democrats] have made significant strides and have caught up."

A key reason for the DNC's data advance was a decision by DNC chairman Howard Dean to improve data sharing among Democratic organizations at the state level. "Four years ago, Howard Dean 'got it,'" Connell says. "Not a lot of people give him credit, but he made a transformation."

Since then, the DNC and VAN have steadily improved the database interfaces. This year, the newest tool in the arsenal was a Google Maps application developed by VAN that makes it far easier to chop up lists of voters in specific precincts for canvassers to personally visit. In the new application, called "turf-cutter," voters' homes are displayed as icons on a map. A few clicks of a mouse allow organizers to draw boundaries around clusters of voters' homes and print out the resulting list for volunteers.

In the past two months, Sullivan says, activists from all Democratic campaigns have used this application 948,000 times, saving thousands of hours of man power, compared to manually figuring out how best to chop up a given district and dispatch volunteers in the most efficient manner. "Probably, on average, for each precinct, they would work with maps and highlighters," says Sullivan. "I hear all the time, 'That was a 45-minute job,' and now they go in here and it takes a minute or two. It was the biggest bottleneck."


In this video Peter Leyden from the Next Agenda project gives a talk to the staff at YouTube on the technology-driven paradigm shift that is transforming politics in the 21st Century. If you have an hour, the video is well worth the watch.











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Friday, February 6, 2009

600,000 Jobs Gone In Jan. - Most In One Month Since 1974

Obama warns lawmakers that 'catastrophe' looms
By David Lightma
McClatchy Newspapers


President Barack Obama warned lawmakers Thursday that the economic crisis could become a "catastrophe" unless they stop bickering and act, while the Senate's Democratic leader predicted that the president's economic-stimulus package will pass. » read more

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. job losses accelerated in January as 598,000 were slashed, the most in 34 years, and the unemployment rate soared to a 16-year high [of 7.6 percent.] more

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led Senate will try again on Friday to pass a $937 billion stimulus package aimed at boosting the battered economy as some of the worst unemployment data in decades boosted political pressure for a deal. more

Today, the Labor Department reported that the economy lost 598,000 jobs in January, the worst monthly jobs loss since 1974. 1.8 million jobs have been lost in the last three months. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts Obama's infrastructure stimulus spending plan would create up to 3.6 million jobs through year 2010, but even as millions of Americans have already lost their jobs and millions more are likely to lose their jobs in 2009 Republican Senators say, "what's the hurry, slow down" (YouTube)
  • LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): We need to slow down, take a timeout, and get it right.
  • ROGER WICKER (R-MS): Let’s not rush into doing this the wrong way.
  • JOHN ENSIGN (R-NV): It’s still time. There is no hurry.
  • TOM COBURN (R-OK): There’s no reason for us to hurry up, number one.

Both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) have also voiced their staunch opposition to Obama's $819 billion stimulus plan. “I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News. Senator Hutchison told the Plano Chamber of Commerce that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion non-stimulus package at a Jan. 23rd luncheon meeting. Both Texas’ senators are positioned to filibuster Obama's economic stimulus package.

Even as both Texas' Senators oppose Obama's stimulus spending in favor of the usual G.O.P tax cuts, Obama's legislation could help cushion Texas against expected job losses over the next two years. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Bernard L. Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas said, "It appears the 286,000 jobs might just offset the anticipated losses over the next two years."

Also in contrast to Senators Hutchison's and Cornyn's opposition to Obama's infrastructure spending approach to stimulating the economy, the The Texas Department of Transportation is lobbying for the stimulus spending legislation and for Texas' share of the infrastructure spending provided in the bill to repair Texas' roads and aging bridges.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman explains stimulus spending vs. tax cuts on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Video here - The meat of the discussion starts just after time mark 4:00. mark


Thursday, February 5, 2009

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized For Pancreatic Cancer


NPR reports:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently serving on the nation’s highest court, underwent surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City on Thursday for removal of a cancerous tumor from her pancreas.

"White House sources say that the president's top legal aides have already begun compiling lists of potential replacements in the event that any of the justices retire this year. And even before the news broke about Ginsburg, speculation focused heavily on potential female candidates. "

Related NPR Story
According to the court’s statement:
According to Dr. Murray Brennan, the attending surgeon, Justice Ginsburg will likely remain in the hospital approximately 7-10 days.

Justice Ginsburg had no symptoms prior to the incidental discovery of the lesion during a routine annual check-up in late January at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. A Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) Scan revealed a small tumor, approximately 1 cm across, in the center of the pancreas.
Ginsburg, who will turn 76 yrs of age in March, has served on the court since 1993. She was treated for colon cancer 10 years ago.

It's good that Justice Ginsburg’s pancreatic cancer was discovered early, in the course of a routine annual screening, and we wish Justice Ginsburg a speedy recovery and good health, but medical literature says even in this circumstance, a patient’s five-year survival chances range from 10 to 30 percent. Barack Obama will perhaps turn out to be the "just in time President" on this front too.

36 G.O.P. Senators Vote For All Tax Cut Stimulus

demintplan.gif
36 Republican Senators, including both both Texas’ Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, voted for Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) G.O.P. “American Option: A Jobs Plan That Works” alternative stimulus plan amendment, that replaces all of Obama’s stimulus spending with a series of G.O.P. tax cuts.

To emphasize the point, that means all but four Republican Senators are perfectly happy to scrap the core assumption of the president's plan. The four Republican Senators are: Susan Collins (ME), George Voinovich (OH), Arlen Specter (PA), and Olympia Snowe (ME).

The Senate GOP’s alternative “plan” will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, more than 3.5 times the cost of Obama’s, according to a Think Progress Wonk Room analysis.

Not surprisingly, the Senate GOP’s alternative plan consists of permanent tax breaks for corporations and for the wealthy.

As Paul Krugman says on his blog,
"If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate, it’s that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines. Democrats believe in something more or less like standard textbook macroeconomics; Republicans believe in a doctrine under which tax cuts are the universal elixir, and government spending is almost always bad. Obama may be able to get a few Republican Senators to go along with his plan; or he can get a lot of Republican votes by, in effect, becoming a Republican. There is no middle ground."
Speaking at the Energy Department on Thursday Feb 5, 2009, President Obama issued a strong critique of the GOP's dogmatic adherence to supply-side tax-cutting Reaganomics as a "cures-all" economic strategy:
"In the last few days, we've seen proposals arise from some in Congress that you may not have read but you'd be very familiar with because you've been hearing them for the last 10 years, maybe longer. They're rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government
doesn't have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough; that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges -- the crushing cost of health care, the inadequate state of so many of our schools, our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

So let me be clear: Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed. They've taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they've brought our economy to a halt. And that's precisely what the election we just had was all about. The American people have rendered their judgment. And now is the time to move forward, not back. Now is the time for action."
Obama's stimulus plan could create as many as 286,000 jobs in Texas, according to an estimate released by the White House. The legislation could help cushion Texas against expected job losses over the next two years. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Bernard L. Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas said, "It appears the 286,000 jobs might just offset the anticipated losses over the next two years."

Related:

The Action Americans Need

Washington Post
By Barack Obama
Thursday, February 5, 2009

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis. . .

. . .In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. . .

. . .So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. . .

The writer is president of the United States.

Read President Obama's full editorial in The Washington Post
The President's Weekly Address
From CNNMoney:
In a sign that job loss is felt in every corner of the nation, unemployment rates rose in 98% of metropolitan areas across the country in December, according to a recent government report. The Labor Department reported that the unemployment rates in 363 of 369 metropolitan areas rose in December 2008, compared to the same month in the prior year. In November, 364 of 369 areas reported higher unemployment rates. According to the report, 168 areas reported jobless rates of at least 7%, compared to just 33 a year ago, and 40 areas reported rates that were higher than 10%.

Call both both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) and tell them you do not agree with their stand to filibuster (vote no on the cloture motion to end debate and allow a floor vote) President Obama's economic recovery plan!

Senate Democrats Don't Have Votes for Stimulus Package

Washington Post: "Senate Democratic leaders conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill. . . "

Meaning that 41 Republican Senators have merely said they would vote against any cloture motion to end debate and allow a floor vote on Obama's stimulus bill.

The way that Senate rules work is that a mere threat of a no vote on any cloture vote motion by 41 Senators amounts to a stealth filibuster. Democrats in the Senate do not seem ready to make Republicans actually stand on the Senate floor and publicly filibuster in front of the Senate cameras.

Neither do Democrats seem ready to threaten the "nuclear option," to eliminate filibustering from Senate rules, as Republicans did against Democrats when the G.O.P controlled the Senate.

So far the new era of bipartisanship in Washington is more uni-lateral that bi-lateral. Obama's stimulus package passed the in the U.S. House, but with zero Republican votes. Obama, who had hoped for a widely supported bill, got stonewalled despite doing three things for Republicans:
  1. fashion roughly 1/3 of the package out of tax cuts, which the GOP loves;
  2. went to the House Republican caucus and asking for their input; and
  3. pulled provisions from the bill that Republicans didn't like
Obama kindly offered Republicans a bipartisan olive branch and extended them a place at the table of ideas. House Republicans acknowledged President Obama's olive branch and thanked him, then trash talked Democrats and voted in mass against the bill anyway. Forty-one Republican Senators have now effectively filibustered Obama's stimulus package too.

Attempts at bipartisanship may be futile. As Paul Krugman says on his blog,
"If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate, it’s that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines. Democrats believe in something more or less like standard textbook macroeconomics; Republicans believe in a doctrine under which tax cuts are the universal elixir, and government spending is almost always bad. Obama may be able to get a few Republican Senators to go along with his plan; or he can get a lot of Republican votes by, in effect, becoming a Republican. There is no middle ground."
Republican obstructionism on President Obama's proposed stimulus spending seems less than a principled stand, considering a G.O.P congress was complicit not just in reckless and massive deficit spending by the Bush Administration, but also the creation and collapse of the mortgage bubble that now imperils the nation. We should not forget that a Republican controlled congress was in full partnership with President Bush as he presided over the biggest annual growth rates in discretionary spending in the last 45 years. Now Republicans call themselves "fiscal watchdogs" as they oppose President Obama's stimulus bill - PLEASE, are they serious!

The story of how the mortgage bubble caused a near collapse of the American financial system and was the catalyst for the end of a period of sustained global economic growth is at once insanely complex and, by now, almost too familiar. We now know that dereliction of duty ran rampant in the Bush Administration and the Republican controlled congress as they stubbornly and naively adhered to their conservative ideology of tax cutting and "unfettered free market" deregulation. The failures are owned by every conservative in Congress who championed and rubber-stamped conservative deregulation and the conservative philosophy of governing. Repeat: It was a Republican president with the aid of a Republican Congress implementing Republican policies that got us into this economic mess. The truly compelling story of this decade is one that conservatives want to ignore and forget – the rapid and dramatic failure of conservative government.

Yet, even in their reduced numbers in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House they continue to demand that the nation must follow their conservative ideals of government. They reject President Roosevelt's Obama's approach to economic recovery through stimulative government spending and support only tax cuts, as they have since Hoover Reagan was President. The conservative approach to government has failed the nation and it's time to move on - as the citizens of America mandated on November, 4, 2008!
From Talking Points Memo:

Behind all the back and forth over the Stimulus Bill is a simple fact: the debate in Washington is rapidly moving away from any recognition that the US economy -- and the global economy, for that matter -- is in free-fall. The range of outcomes stretches from severe recession to something closer to a replay of the Great Depression, though that label is perhaps better seen as a placeholder for 'catastrophic economic collapse' since the underlying place of the US economy in the world economy is very different from what it was in 1929. This reality was palpable in the political debate until as recently as a few weeks ago. But Republicans are using a strategy of conscious denial to push it off the stage.

Take stock of the last few weeks and you can almost visualize the two conversations -- path toward economic calamity and debate over Stimulus Bill -- diverging.

The other key into the current debate is that the Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It's true that macro-economics doesn't make controlled experiments possible. And economists can't speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don't believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it. If the GOP successfully bottles this up or kills it with a death of a thousand cuts, Democrats will have a good argument amongst themselves that Republicans were responsible for creating the carnage that followed. But the satisfaction will have to be amongst themselves since as a political matter it will be irrelevant. The public will be entirely within its rights to blame Democrats for any failure of government action that happened while Democrats held the White House and sizable majorities in both houses of Congress.

--Josh Marshall
Should the Democrats Change the Senate Filibuster Rule to make it more difficult for Republicans to stall Senate business in the 111th congress as they did in the 110th congress?

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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Texas Senate Expected To Take Up Voter ID Bill Early

The Texas Senate on Wednesday, 14 January 2009, voted 18-13, along party lines, to exempt voter identification legislation from the longstanding “Two-Thirds” Rule. The two-thirds rule requires that 21 senators must support a measure before it can be brought to the floor for debate and a vote. The vote was to exempt any bill brought forward in the Texas Senate that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls before being allowed to vote.

Under the change, voter ID legislation can be brought up for a vote on the Senate floor with the approval of only 16 senators, not the 21 required under the customary two-thirds rule. Democrats could have blocked voter ID legislation under the usual two-thirds rule — as they did two years ago. Debate over voter photo ID in 2007 paralyzed the State Senate for weeks before the bill was rejected.

State Sen. Troy Fraiser (R-Horseshoe Bay) has already filed a Voter ID bill that the Senate is likely to take up early in this legislative session. Governor Perry (R) has also declared voter ID legislation is one of his priorities for this session in his State of the State address.

The Texas Democratic Party today (04Feb09) sent out an email encouraging folks across the state to call their state Senator and let their voices be heard on Voter ID. Democrats might as well start calling their representatives in the Texas House too, as the bill will most likely pass in the Senate. If the bill passes in the Senate, as it likely will, the Texas House is the only place that Democrats might be able mount a successful fight to block the measure. But, it will be a tough fight!

With the Texas House made up of 74 Democrats and 76 Republicans, after the 2008 election, the Voter ID bill will face a tougher fight in the Texas House this year than it did in 2007 when it passed. Republican Joe Straus will likely allow the voter ID bill to go the House floor for debate and an eventual vote given his comment to reporters on Friday, 16 January 2009, that he favors Voter Photo Identification:
Straus, who voted for the Voter ID bill in 2007, stated he thinks another examination of whether photo IDs are needed to combat voter fraud is appropriate. He said he does not yet know whether there are sufficient votes in the House to pass a bill.

The Voter ID bill, introduced in the House during the 2007 legislative session, (HB 218) passed by a vote of 76 to 69 when the House was made up of 69 Democrats and 81 Republicans. Two Republicans, who returned for the 81st legislative session, voted against HR 218 in 2007. The voter ID bill introduced in the Senate during the 2007 legislative session was successfully blocked from advancing in the Senate by Senate Democrats.
Straus, who is consider to be a somewhat more moderate conservative, took over the Speaker's Chair from hard right-winger Tom Craddick for the 2009 legislative session with the support of of every Democrat in the Texas House.

Locate your Collin County legislative district representatives in the House and Senate District here. Your Texas Legislative House and Senate District Numbers can be found on your Voter Registration Card. Check your voter registration card information online here.

Any claim that voter fraud is rampant in Texas is false.

Organizing for America's First Call To Action

Updated Wednesday February 4, 2009 at 9:00 AM CST

President Obama was interviewed by the five major television news outlets in a broad effort to sell his stimulus package to the American public. The president discussed his stimulus package and other issues in the Oval Office with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX News on Tuesday afternoon. The interviews come amid a media blitz by the GOP to talk down his stimulus package as a "spending bill." As documented by Think Progress, Republican lawmakers are appearing twice as many times as their Democratic colleagues on cable news programs to lobby against Obama's stimulus plan, which has skewed the stimulus debate. President Obama is also asking people through 'Organizing for America' to host or attend a Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.
Last month, conservatives jumped on a Congressional Budget Report (CBO) “analysis” that said, “it will take years before an infrastructure spending program will boost the economy.” It turns out that “analysis” was not actually a comprehensive analysis of Obama’s plan. The CBO’s comprehensive report on Obama's plan, that Republicans as a whole are working very hard to ignore, says 78% of the Stimulus Bill will fuel the economy over two years.

Obama's $819 billion stimulus plan could create as many as 286,000 jobs in Texas, according to an estimate released Tuesday by the White House. The legislation could help cushion Texas against expected job losses over the next two years, according to economists. Texas created 153,600 jobs in 2008, but State Comptroller Susan Combs said recently the state can expect to lose about 111,000 nonfarm jobs during the first nine months of 2009.

According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Bernard L. Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas said, "[Comptroller Combs] was probably being optimistic. It appears the 286,000 jobs might just offset the anticipated losses over the next two years."

The two Congressmen in the U.S. House that represent Collin County Residents, Sam Johnson (R) and Ralph Hall (R) both voted against Obama's stimulus plan last week. Both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) have also voiced their staunch opposition to Obama's $819 billion stimulus plan. “I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News. Senator Hutchison told the Plano Chamber of Commerce that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion non-stimulus package at a Jan. 23rd luncheon meeting. Both Texas’ senators are positioned to filibuster Obama's economic stimulus package.

President Obama has more in his communication tool kit than just scheduling interviews with the the five major television news outlets.


On January 15th Barack Obama announced the formation of a new group known as Organizing for America as the "Obama 2.0" legacy successor to his campaign organization.

"As President, I will need the help of all Americans to meet the challenges that lie ahead," Obama said in a video message, "That's why I'm asking people like you who fought for change during the campaign to continue fighting for change in your communities."

Organizing for America, which is now housed within the Democratic National Committee, has sent its first call to action emails asking people to support the president's recovery package. Organizing for American has roughly 13 million e-mail addresses and two million active volunteers who were asked in the call to action emails to host or attend a house party to organize support for the White House-backed economic recovery package. Those who volunteer to host a house party will likely be sent a plan for action to discuss with those who attend the parties.


Two emails have been sent so far; One over Organizing for America Director Mitch Stewart's name and one over President Obama's name asking people to host or attend a Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.

In his weekly address video, President Obama urged the swift passage of his Recovery Plan.



From Organizing for America Director Mitch Stewart:


--

Last year, America lost 2.6 million jobs. This week, some of our biggest companies announced plans to cut tens of thousands more.

The economic crisis is deepening, but President Obama and members of Congress have proposed a recovery plan that will put more than 3 million Americans back to work.

You can learn more about how the plan will help your community by organizing an Economic Recovery House Meeting.

Join thousands of people across the country who are coming together to watch a special video about the recovery plan. Invite your friends and neighbors to watch the video with you and have a conversation about your community's economic situation.

The economic crisis can seem overwhelming and complex, but you can help the people you know connect the recovery plan to their lives and learn more about why it's so important.

Sign up to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.

The President's plan passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But if it's going to move forward, we need to avoid the usual partisan games.

That's why supporters are opening their homes to talk with neighbors and friends about how the plan will work -- and what it means for their community.

The video will outline the basics of the plan and how it will impact working families. It will also include answers to questions from folks across the country. Invite your friends and family to watch the video, discuss the plan, and help build support for it.

Don't worry if you've never hosted a house meeting before -- we'll make sure you have everything you need to make it a success.

Take the first step right now by signing up to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting:

http://my.barackobama.com/recoveryhost

Time and again, you've demonstrated your commitment to change. Now you can help America move in an important new direction.

Please forward this email to your friends and family, and encourage them to get involved as well.

Thank you for your hard work,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

From President Barack Obama:
The economic crisis is growing more serious every day, and the time for action has come.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will jumpstart our economy and put more than 3 million people back to work.

I hope to sign the recovery plan into law in the next few weeks. But I need your help to spread the word and build support.

It's not enough for this bill to simply pass Congress. Americans need to know how it will affect their lives -- they need to know that help is on the way and that this administration is investing in economic growth and stability.

Governor Tim Kaine has agreed to record a video outlining the recovery plan and answering questions about what it means for your community. You can submit your questions online and then invite your friends, family, and neighbors to watch the video with you at an Economic Recovery House Meeting.

Join thousands of people across the country by hosting or attending an Economic Recovery House Meeting this weekend.

The stakes are too high to allow partisan politics to get in the way.

That's why I've consulted with Republicans as well as Democrats to put together a plan that will address the crisis we face.

I've also taken steps to ensure an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability. Once it's passed, you will be able to see how every penny in this plan is being spent.

You can help restore confidence in our economy by making sure your friends, family, and neighbors understand how the recovery plan will impact your community.

Sign up to host or attend an Economic Recovery House Meeting and submit your question for the video now:

http://my.barackobama.com/recovery

Our ability to come together as a nation in difficult times has never been more important.

I know I can rely on your spirit and resolve as we lead our country to recovery.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that President Obama’s recovery package, priced at roughly $819 billion, is too expensive and GOP Senators believe that they have a “very robust” alternative “American Option: A Jobs Plan That Works.” stimulus plan at a cheaper price.

The Senate GOP’s alternative “plan” will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, more than 3.5 times the cost of Obama’s, according to a Think Progress Wonk Room analysis.

Not surprisingly, the Senate GOP’s alternative plan consists of permanent tax breaks for corporations and for the wealthy.

Monday, February 2, 2009

GOP Continues To Say, "It's My Way Or No Way!"


On Face the Nation on Sunday Feb. 1, Mitch McConnell says the GOP is going to require sixty votes for the stimulus bill to pass, but doesn't want to call it a filibuster.

Since the Democrats always allowed cloture votes (stealth filibusters) and never actually made Republicans stand on the Senate floor and publicly filibuster in front of the Senate cameras in the 110th congress, McConnell's "sixty vote" statement is not surprising.

Transcript:
Schieffer: If it came to it, would Republicans filibuster this bill if it was not to your liking?
McConnell: Well that term is thrown around a lot. In the Senate it routinely takes sixty votes to do almost everything. It doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to slow a bill down. But a super-majority is required for virtually everything in the Senate and certainly for something close to a trillion dollars for a spending bill, it will.
It certainly did not routinely takes sixty votes to do almost everything in the Senate during the years Republicans were in the majority and controlled Senate business.

Both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) have voiced their staunch opposition to Obama's $819 billion stimulus plan. “I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News. Senator Hutchison told the Plano Chamber of Commerce that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion non-stimulus package at a Jan. 23rd luncheon meeting. Both Texas’ senators are positioned to filibuster Obama's economic stimulus package. Hutchison, Cornyn and Republicans as a whole ignor the CBO's report that says 78% of the Stimulus Bill will hit the economy over two years.

Remember when Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate they accused Democrats of being obstructionists for just mentioning the word "filibuster" in response to Republicans pushing very partisan legislation through congress during the Bush Administration years? Ranking Republicans in the G.O.P controlled U.S. Senate, threatened the "nuclear option," against Democrats, which would have eliminated filibustering from congressional rules leaving Democrats with no voice in the Senate - period. The threat worked - Senate Democrats dropped their talk of filibuster allowing Republicans to pass very partisan legislation and confirm extreme right-wing judges, effectively unopposed. Ultimately, this left Democrats with no voice in the Republican controlled Senate anyway!

Republicans were singing a different tune after they became the minority party in the 110th Congress. The number of cloture votes (stealth filibusters) forced by Senate minority Republicans skyrocketed in the 110th Congress following the Democratic takeover of the Senate in Jan. 2007.

So, before Republicans were for using the filibuster, they were against it - A clear flip flop!

The Senate voted on 112 cloture vote motions (stealth filibusters) in the 110th congress controlled by Democrats, exactly double the number (56) of cloture votes in the 109th Congress, when Democrats were in the minority and Republicans were in control. The 110th congress cloture motions were two-and-a-half times as many as the average number of cloture votes (44) over the previous nine Congresses. Of these cloture motions, 51 were rejected, meaning that Republicans succeeded in filibustering an up-or-down vote because at least 41 Republican Senators merely said they would vote against ending debate to allow a floor vote. On the 61 cloture votes to ending debate that passed, defeating the stealth filibuster, Republicans at the very least successfully stalled for time.

With the Republican minority numbers slipping to just 41 Senators for the 111th Congress (assuming Al Franken D-MN is seated) Republicans seem prepared to use the threat of filibuster (cloture vote motions) to stall legislative business. Republicans forced the legislative pendulum to the far right during the Bush years and they are determined to do everything possible to keep it there.

Should the Democrats Change the Senate Filibuster Rule to make it more difficult for Republicans to stall Senate business in the 111t h congress as they did in the 110th congress?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Ms. Magid Goes To Washingtion

By Linda Magid

I worked on a local Democratic campaign here in Texas last election. My candidate lost, but Obama won. I was so thrilled that I committed to going to the Inauguration and raised money to do it. Here is my account of my trip. Enjoy living the moment again - victory is sweet, ain’t it?

I arrived on Sunday and my girlfriend, Mary, picking me up. I wish I had gotten in earlier and attended the concert on The National Mall - that was definitely the mood I was in. Dancing, hollering, hugging strangers…a party. Not that I had much choice about it. I wouldn’t realize until the actual Inauguration how serious the ceremony is. Mary, James and I had dinner and then they put their two girls to bed. I sat in the kitchen and read emails, surfed the web. It was so nice to spend an entire evening with nothing to do. In those quiet moments, the word “vacation” came to mind. “So this is what a vacation is like!” I thought.

I made plans with Caroline, my other friends from college who lives in the D.C. area, for the next day and went to bed. Caroline met me in Adams Morgan for a day of MLK Day events.

We picked a walking tour called “From Slavery to Freedom,” teaching us about the history of slavery in D.C. through the man who owned the land and his slaves.

It seemed very loosely structured at first - anyone who knew anything about history of the area could come up and talk. This freestyle lecture style was the only thing “loosey goosey” about the event.

The level of research this group conducted was outstanding. It really made me feel so far from any kind of academia. We got a list of the entire family of slaves associated with the land and how much the owner was paid after emancipation (a law was set in D.C. to pay the slave owners once slaves were emancipated). This information is almost 150 years old! Ends up that this whole walking tour is meant to build awareness about important landmarks in Adams Morgan that the citizens are fighting the government to save, like a cemetery with 7,000 graves that is now a city park. Of course, I gave to the cause.

Once that was done, Caroline and I went to eat lunch and found a delightful Turkish restaurant.

(But not before running across this funny poster and a cool kiosk).

The Turkish restaurant was very swank, not kitsch, and had awesome food. I love cities!

After lunch, we headed to the National Cathedral for an MLK Day concert. This is the cathedral where MLK jr. gave his last sermon before going to Memphis, where he was assassinated. A rapper was the MC (lead us in a vicious rap, too. It was great!), we heard three spoken-word poets, a sixteen year old hip-hop violinists and a hip-hop choir. The crowd was dancing, singing, celebrating. A couple of times I wanted to burst into tears from joy, but I felt embarrassed. It would have been the kind of sobbing that you do with your face in your hands. I couldn’t allow myself to do it, though.

The concert lasted 2 hours. Caroline and I were pretty spent so we grabbed some coffee before heading back home. I used her phone to call Mary and check in when I got the news: Mary got a new ticket in the purple section so I got her ticket in the silver area!! I was holding out for a miracle and it happened. This meant that I would be in a secure area with a controlled number of people. That night Mary and I picked up the tickets (given to us by her friend, the Chief of Staff for a North Dakota Representative), and mine looked more like an invitation - including an official seal. I had a chance to thank our benefactor in person - he didn’t think it was such a big deal, but he works in D.C. He didn’t realize I was representing all of you as well!

At 4:45am on January 20th, I arose and got ready for our day. Mary and I caught the 5:30am commuter train, which was not at all crowded. This train has fewer stops and you have to take the exact train on your ticket.

I got off at L’Enfant Station, which was closest to the Silver ticket gate, and Mary moved on to her stop near the Purple ticket gate. Here’s a photo of the dark streets, blocked off from all traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles.

(I found out later that the parking lot of Metro station near Mary’s house was already full by 5am.)

People were everywhere. I knew that 2 million were coming but I couldn’t imagine what 2 million people looked like up close. It looked like a mob scene.

Eventually I found the Silver ticket line and met up with three college women. We stuck together the whole time, linking arms as we weaved through the crowd. Our line wasn’t much of a line, as you can see in the photo.

10,000 people were given silver tickets. I didn’t want to believe it when I was told, but the number of people rushing toward the gate gave me a wake up call. Our little group moved through security and ran into the open area where we planted ourselves. It was 8:30am.

I was in the back part of the Silver area, but once they opened up the gate to let more people in front, our group made a run for it.

That is how we got close to the reflecting pool. It is funny because we moved around a lot, trying to get a decent view of the capitol bldg while also being able to see a jumbotron screen.

That is why that tree is blocking the building in the photo and also how we ended up surrounded by a seriously raucous group. (The second photo below is a close up view of the capitol steps blocked by the tree.)

They knew who everyone on the screen was. . .

When Joe Lieberman come up on the screen we booed. When Ted Kennedy came up on the screen, we cheered and chanted his name. Judge Thomas got booed, and someone yelled, “Hold on, everybody. We still got Scalia!” and people cracked up. It was like being in the Coliseum!

We cheered for all of the Democratic Presidents, of course Clinton getting most of the love.

We sang, “Hey, Hey, Good-bye” when Cheney showed up in his wheelchair, and I admit I sang it loudly. (Some might say that is disrespectful, and, well, I have to say I agree. Which, basically, is why I did it.)

As you all know, when the Obama family was shown, the crowd went wild. When Obama himself was on the screen, when he walked out of the Capitol building, we went out of our minds. We all laughed at the Oath Gaffe because we thought he messed it up due to the sound delay. And when the Oath was done, the crowd simply erupted. For days I was waiting to weep but when the time came we all just screamed our heads off. I hugged everyone in the area. It was pure joy. I stayed for the rest of the Inauguration but it was hard to hear because people were leaving.

When it was done, I moved along with the crowd back to the edge of the Mall, and in a final moment of victory, I got to see George Bush ride off to Texas in his helicopter. We waved and sang that same “Goodbye” song with great satisfaction.

The moment went quickly, that public acknowledgment of Obama becoming our President. I wish we could have had a band there to dance in the streets. Instead 2 million people wandered the streets near the Capitol Building looking for food and a place to warm up. It got a little scary when I didn’t think we would find either but eventually Mary and I got our bearings straight and got what we needed.

People were generally helpful but certainly everyone was taxed. I saw several people who needed medical attention (and got it) and the police walked through a building calling out for a missing 9 year old girl (don’t know if or when they found her). The city wasn’t prepared for us as evidenced by the garbage all over the city - not all of it was simply dropped in carelessness. They didn’t have enough garbage cans. That was sad. However, we waited in line patiently and made room on the floor to rest. We smiled at each other knowing that we shared a special moment together even though we are strangers.

And when 5:15 came, Mary and I made our way back to our train and rode home tired, chilled and gratified. Our country did the right thing and we were there to witness it.

Linda Magid was Tom Daley's campaign manager when he opposed incumbent Sam Johnson in the 2008 election for the Texas 3rd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The New Communications Channel For Politics

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There have been a few of times in American history when forces align to create an explosion of political innovation and transformational change. In these periods the politics of the older era quickly breaks down and a new mode of politics quickly emerges as Americans of that era step up and rise to the occasion.

Obama's campaign solidified an era of new politics that is based on the new technologies of the internet and the new media of the web to activate a new era of progressive constituencies like the young Millennial Generation.

In parallel with, or perhaps because of the Obama campaign, the internet emerged in 2008 as the leading source for news, surpassing all other media except television as the preferred communication channel, according to a Pew Center research report released on December 23, 2008.

The Pew Center survey found that for the first time more people rely on the internet (40%) than newspapers (35%) for news among all age groups. Television continues to be cited most frequently as a main source for among all age groups, but for young people the internet now rivals even television as a main source of all news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online. This mirrors a trend seen throughout 2008 in campaign news consumption.

In an October 2008 Pew Center survey the percent of people who say they look to the internet for their political campaign news tripled among all age groups from 10% in October 2004 to 33% in October 2008. Among younger Americans ages 18 to 29, however, more people (49%) mention the internet as mention newspapers (17%) as a main source of election news. Nearly half of all Americans (46 percent) say they regularly received news about political campaigns, share political views or mobilize others to action using the internet and cell-phone text messaging.

Further, substantial numbers of those younger than age 30, particularly those ages 18-24, say they received campaign and candidate information from social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook during 2008. This age demographic also heavily relied on online video streaming and video posting sites to watch campaign debates, speeches and commercials. Over half of people under age 30 watched at least one form of campaign video online during 2008.


In this video Peter Leyden from the Next Agenda project gives a talk to the staff at YouTube on the technology-driven paradigm shift that is transforming politics in the 21st Century. If you have an hour, the video is well worth the watch.

Why People Don't Vote Down Ballot

This country saw a huge increase in voter registration this year, and even bigger increases among younger voters, people of color, non-college voters, as well as college students, and unmarried women. These groups of newly registered voters are politically progressive and disproportionately Democratic. The problem progressives faced in 2008, just as in prior election years, is that not all of this energy was transferred to down ballot races.

A recent EMILY's List survey conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group shows that 65 percent of younger people believe whoever is elected President will make "a lot of difference" in their lives; this number drops to 32 when asked about Governor and 26 percent when asked about Congress.

Nationally, approximately 15 percent of voters fail to complete their ballot. In recent research, GQR looked at drop-off ballot voters, voters who indicated they may not finish the ballot. They accounted for 13 percent of the electorate, but this number increased sharply among younger voters, African Americans, lower income, and less educated voters. In fact, 59 percent were either Democratic or lean-Democratic voters. What this means is that from one-fifth to one-quarter of the most progressive voters regularly do not mark their down ballot races. This is a problem that Democratic Candidates face in Collin County as well as nationally.

Here is the EMILY's List study report:

In order to understand why voters drop-off, and also to test possible messages to encourage down ballot voting, EMILY's List commissioned two pairs of focus groups among newly registered voters in North Carolina. These groups included African American and Caucasian young people who were screened to only include those who registered to vote this year and identified as either Democrats or Obama voters. As is always the case with focus group research, the results are qualitative and not statistically significant. Nonetheless, the results, in concert with other quantitative data, provide real learning on how to engage newly energized voters to vote down ballot.

In this research, EMILY's List measured the potential impact of various approaches to encourage down ballot voting including (1) linking other candidates to Obama, selling them on the notion that every leader needs a "team" behind him, (2) probing their support for straight party ticket voting, and (3) exploring more comparative approaches where the message attacked Bush and his down ballot allies and remind these voters that Bush may be gone, but his ideas and policies could outlive his administration. Generally speaking, this messaging was tested as potential Internet and television ads, rather than a message battery, an approach that better reflects how voters experience political messaging in the real-world. The study used story-boards rather than fully produced advertising.

Main Findings

  1. Disengagement with the down ballot among some voters is real. These young people impressed us with their ability to recall very specific details about Barack Obama and his plans for the country. For example, several participants could recite his plan for dealing with student debt and his plans for the economy, energy and education. They knew all about his background and all of them watched the convention speech. But they knew almost nothing about candidates running for other offices. Less than half could identify who was running for Senator and Governor; fewer knew who was a Democrat and who was a Republican. Most details on what issues and themes the statewide candidates advocate in their campaigns were lost on them entirely. What is striking about this outcome is that several of these candidates have been up on television for several weeks prior to these groups.
  2. People resist the idea of casting an uninformed vote. Consistent with other research that we have conducted among young people and other under-represented groups, such as unmarried women, the disincentive to vote down ballot is less about "my vote won't matter" or "this office does not matter," than the concern they will vote for the "wrong" candidate. It may not be enough, even for these strong Democratic and pro-Obama groups, to simply know the party label of down ballot candidates. Importantly, their threshold for "knowing" a candidate was fairly modest. One participant recalled walking into the polling station during the primary and talking to a candidate running for school board. This woman noted only that she was a teacher. For this young person, that was enough and she completed the primary ballot.
  3. Straight party ticket voting is not attractive for many in the groups. In some states, one obvious solution to the down ballot problem is "pulling the party lever." However, young people in both groups resisted the straight-ticket option emphatically. It violated their own sense of autonomy and would mean voting for someone they do not know anything about, which is the reason why they resist voting down ballot in the first place.
  4. Young people do understand that the other offices are important and have a greater direct impact on their lives. However, this is not a top-of-mind perception among many participants in our groups. As noted above, they know almost nothing about other candidates running for statewide office. When reminded of the importance of some of these other offices, not only to a would-be Obama administration, but also to their own lives, there is a bit of an "oh yeah" moment. This is something that needs to be reinforced.
  5. Young people understand implicitly that Barack Obama needs a "team" and needs allies down ballot to change the country. To state the obvious, transferring top-of-the-ticket energy down ballot should involve specific references to the Democratic nominee. In stopping drop-off among progressive targets, candidates need to be linked to Obama. The concept of a "team" is powerful, but it is also important to understand that this is not simply about partisanship. For many newly registered voters, electing a "Democratic team" is less appealing than electing a team that will address their issues and concerns.
  6. There are some risks associated with using the Obama brand. These risks emerged in reactions to some of the advertising where young people found the linkage to Obama either disrespectful in some cases or irrelevant in others.
    • Obama's standing as the head of the ticket needs to be respected. In one treatment, the ad asked young people to vote for the candidate for senator, governor and then, President. Participants noted the order and found it off-putting that Obama was identified last.
    • The link between Obama and down ballot candidates needs to be explicit. One treatment began with an image of Obama, but the copy and rest of the ad focused more on down ballot candidates. Some in the groups accused the ad of a "bait and switch," enticing them to look at an "Obama" ad that was really about other candidates.
    • Also, reflecting the Obama campaigns field efforts, the Obama image and likeness is ubiquitous in the lives of young people and people of color. This is particularly true online. Many say they get an e-mail from the Obama campaign or one of his allies just about every day. While the image and standing of this nominee represents a very strong brand, it is also a bit over-exposed.
  7. As is obvious for anyone dealing with many new registrants and newly energized voters, reaching these voters is very difficult. They are less likely to watch network television, do not really read their mail and one quarter of young people do not have a land-line telephone. Unmarried women are more likely to move. People of color are less likely to have a consumer history that puts them on consumer lists. The media environment is also noisy and crowded. Young people in particular live under a riot of stimuli from television, the Internet, PDA's and cell phones. They are online all day, rely on texting to communicate with their friends and spend hours on social networking sites.

    This leaves the Internet as the best option for reaching many of these voters, but progressives need to understand its limitations. Almost everyone in the groups belongs to a social networking site, mostly "Facebook," and "MySpace," but they tend to ignore ads on the sites. Only a handful ever recall clicking on an ad or even seeing an ad on a social networking site. Most of these ads, they say, are about mortgages and dating sites that do not have anything to do with them.

There is no perfect solution to reaching some of these voters. It will likely require some combination of television and Internet advertising. In terms of message, there are approaches in the groups that worked well and others that did not work well.

What Worked

Speaking to the issues and priorities of newly energized voters. Republicans who complain about the "celebrity" appeal of Barack Obama just do not get it. Many voters, of course, are drawn to Obama's sweeping language, his history and powerful oratory, and what his election means for this country socially. In the end, however, he also speaks to their issue concerns. Young people are consumed with their acute economic vulnerability. In a recent (August) Greenberg Quinlan Rosner/Democracy Corps survey of young people, we found that 80 percent described paying off their debts as a very important goal in their lives, a higher number than getting married, having children or even getting a good job. Polling shows similarly acute economic anxiety among unmarried women and people of color, as well as college students, who will have degrees and debt, but limited job aspects.

This research suggests that the approach needs to be substantive. Among the most successful treatments tested in the groups was an ad called "Challenges" where young people in the ad recounted some of the issues they were facing and the plans of Obama and down ballot candidates for addressing those issues.

Using images that remind people of themselves. Young people are drawn to images of other young people -- people who look like them, not the traditional image of older politicians or older voters. One of the most successful images was an young woman with an American flag in the background. This treatment was used in a separate test where we asked participants which ad they would most likely click on after being shown several difference images. In contrast, another ad poked fun at the older (conservative) generation ("Stick it to the Man"); the groups liked this message, but many admitted they were unlikely to click on an ad featuring an older bald man that is "probably trying to sell me a mortgage."

Empower people to research down ballot candidates. In testing spots, young people like to see spots that featured web sites they could to go to learn more, though this is not just about going to the campaign websites or other partisan sources. Rather it is about Wikipedia and "youtubing" and other "independent" sources of information. In testing materials for registration efforts among other groups, we have similarly seen positive reactions to efforts making it easier for voters to learn more. The young people in the groups demonstrated considerable skills at researching candidates online. Moreover, in terms of language, they use the word "research" intentionally, rather than "learning about" or "educating themselves."

What Worked Less Well

Avoid approaches that are overly cute. Voters are in a serious mood and believe this is a historic election. Approaches that seem too trite fall short. One ad that we had high hopes for featured a decked out Duke University fan and a decked on University of North Carolina fan. (While they "disagreed on lot of things, they agreed on the importance of coming together and voting for Democratic candidates. . . ") Young people understood the concept, but found the analogy of a sports rivalry to this historic election somewhat inappropriate.

At this same time, avoid images that are visually boring. The most important test of any outreach here is simply getting noticed. Advertising that looks flat on the screen will not get noticed.

For people of color, avoid race-specific appeals. In one of the more striking findings of the groups, African American young people resisted treatments that seemed "too black" to them. In fact, some of these treatments offended them. They much preferred treatments that showed a diversity of voices, Caucasian, Hispanic and African American young people talking about common problems and common solutions.

This finding goes to the heart of what Obama represents for people of color. While these young people convey obvious pride in the Obama's accomplishment, for many young people, Obama represents a celebration of the diversity of America. He is not their presidential candidate, but our presidential candidate. The young people in the groups spoke, often quite movingly and in considerable detail, about what Barack Obama could do for "my country."

Why do a third of Americans fail to vote? The answer, says Pennsylvania State political scientist Eric Plutzer, may stem from habit: If people don't start voting as young adults, they may never get comfortable doing so. Conversely, if people start voting young they likely remain habitual voters for live - a good omen for the Democratic party after Obama motivated so many young people to vote in the 2008 election cycle.

About 30 percent of adults are habitual voters according to Plutzer. Plutzer says, "They vote in presidential elections, midterm elections, school board elections. They vote even when elections are not expected to be close."

A second group—some 35 percent of us—are registered to vote. These "periodic voters" generally vote in presidential elections but may not hit the polls for other elections. A third group, also about 35 percent of adults, aren't registered to vote.

Says Plutzer, "Most young citizens aged eighteen to thirty fall into the unregistered group." Using data from several dozen nationwide voting surveys, Plutzer has tried to figure out why some young adults mature into habitual voters, others become periodic voters, and some never develop the voting habit at all.

"Young Americans may relocate for college, their first job, or their first mature love interest," Plutzer notes. "When young people move into an apartment, they make sure they have electricity, phone and internet service, and cable. Registering to vote isn't at the top of their to-do list.

"For many, voting is an unfamiliar task: They don't know where the polling place is, they may have no idea who represents them in the state legislature, and they're unlikely to have strong feelings about local issues such as school taxes or zoning." Voting for the first time may loom as an unpleasant experience. "They imagine they'll walk out of the voting booth bewildered as to whether they've cast intelligent votes for county sheriff, state representative—even U.S. senator."

Low civic involvement among younger Americans isn't new. A presidential commission appointed by John F. Kennedy discovered that young citizens registered a disturbingly low turnout rate during the 1960 election. "That generation is now mostly retired," notes Plutzer, "and they show a high voter turnout rate today." In the same way, today's civically detached generation probably will "make the transition from abstainers to habitual voters," Plutzer says.

His research has focused on factors that help speed up or delay that transition. The single most important factor is coming from a politically active family. Says Plutzer, "If your parents are habitual voters, the chances of you voting before age twenty-five are much higher." Other factors include attending college ("College graduates are better able to absorb and understand political information, link it to their own values, and come to believe their vote can make a difference") and living in a stimulating political environment.

Research by Penn State graduate student Julie Pacheco has found that young people in highly competitive, "battleground" communities or states tend to vote earlier in their lives. "They're exposed to many political stimuli," says Plutzer, "and are more likely to be personally contacted by a political organization." Unfortunately, the number of battleground states has dwindled as our nation has become increasingly politically polarized and as partisan gerrymandering of Congressional districts has reduced the number of competitive elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. "If young adults don't see their votes as meaningful," Plutzer says, "they're much less likely to vote."

Plutzer concludes that people learn about the political world "by participating, not reading." Simply bombarding young adults with information won't throw the switch. Says Plutzer, "The informational approach is like telling my six-year-old daughter that she shouldn't play baseball until she understands the 'infield fly rule.' But if she goes ahead and participates in baseball, she'll gradually learn the rules, the terminology, even the trivia.

"It's the same with politics. Convince a young citizen to vote, and he or she will read the newspaper differently, recognize the names of people on the ballot when they're mentioned on television or by a neighbor, and eventually become highly informed. Get them to the polls once, and they will likely vote again and again."