Government Executive - Authors - Reid Wilson

A Decade After McCain-Feingold, Election Spending Spikes

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 09:44:01 -0400

A decade after Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold spearheaded sweeping campaign finance reform legislation, a series of judicial and legislative setbacks have derailed any hopes its original sponsors had of curbing the influence and amount of money spent on politics.

Instead, the incredible explosion of money in federal elections demonstrates McCain-Feingold was a speed bump, at best, on the way to a dramatic growth curve that suggests next year's federal elections will cost nearly $3.5 billion.

All told, candidates running for a seat in the House of Representatives spent more than $923 million in 2012, while candidates running for Senate seats dished out $587 million, according to new data compiled for the new edition of Vital Statistics on Congress. That's more than eight times the amount House and Senate candidates spent in 1980. Senate candidates spent twice what they did a decade ago, in 2002.

The average member of Congress spent $1.59 million to win his or her seat, the data show. That's more than double the $753,274 the average winning candidate spent in 1986, in 2012 dollars. Senate candidates spent 61 percent more, $10.3 million, than they did in 1986, again adjusted for inflation.

Even those numbers understate the amount of money it takes to win a competitive election. The vast majority of members of Congress win re-election easily, given partisan gerrymandering that limits the number of truly competitive House districts around the country. Eliminate members in non-competitive races -- Texas GOP Rep. Sam Johnson spent $972,000, while Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson spent $554,000; both received 100 percent of the vote -- and the amount spent on contested races inches higher. The average incumbent who won with less than 60 percent of the vote spent $2.25 million in 2012, according to the data, while the average incumbent who lost a re-election bid dished out $3.1 million. A challenger spent an average of $1.52 million to get elected in 2012.

Candidates running in each of the five most expensive races last cycle spent a combined total of more than $10 million, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Two of those House seats, held by Florida Democrat Patrick Murphy and Connecticut Democrat Elizabeth Esty are likely to be battlegrounds again next year. House Speaker John Boehner qualifies as a top spender; his campaign spent a total of $21 million last year, though all but a tiny fraction went to help other Republican candidates. An independent candidate spent $7.5 million of his own money in an effort to oust Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman in a strongly Democratic California district, while Rep. Michele Bachmann's decision to retire will actually help Minnesota Republicans keep her seat.

A key element of the McCain-Feingold reforms that was aimed at reducing the amount of money in politics, a ban on unregulated so-called "soft" money, hasn't slowed either party. In 2002, the last cycle in which parties could raise and spend soft money, the three largest Democratic committees raised a total of $576 million, while their Republican counterparts pulled in $657 million. In the 2012 cycle, limited only to hard-money contributions, Democratic committees raised $631 million and Republican committees pulled in $697 million.

Before McCain-Feingold, parties were allowed to spend unlimited amounts of soft money on party-building activities like registering voters and maintaining their facilities. Most of the $32 million it took to build the Democratic National Committee's headquarters building, just a few blocks from the Capitol, came from the DNC's soft money coffers. Haim Saban and Steve Bing, two big-money Democratic donors, wrote one check each totaling a combined $12 million just months before the ban on soft money went into effect after the 2002 elections.

Since the ban, though, the six major party committees -- the DNC, the Republican National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- have dramatically increased the amounts they spend on federal races.

In 2002, the last cycle before the ban took effect, the three Democratic committees spent just $6.4 million on independent advertising and advertising coordinated with the candidates they backed; in 2012, those same Democratic groups dropped $127 million on their candidates. The top three Republican committees went from spending $21.8 million in 2002 to $107 million in 2012. Four of the six committees raised more in 2012, from a more regulated pool of money, than they did in 2002, from the broader, partially unregulated pool (Only the NRSC and the NRCC raised less in 2012 than they did in 2002).

Even when soft money was legal, donors funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to candidates through political action committees. As far back as 1984, PACs contributed more than $100 million to federal candidates. But since the ban on soft money was put in place in 2002, PAC contributions have jumped as well. In 2012, PACs gave $425 million to federal candidates, double the amount they gave in 1998, according to the figures.

The real explosion in political spending, though, comes from outside groups not technically affiliated with either party. Those independent expenditures have boomed in the wake of Supreme Court and U.S. District Court decisions over the last several years that have permitted unlimited, and at times undisclosed, money to flow into the political process.

At the time it was being debated, opponents of McCain-Feingold warned that eliminating soft money would handicap the two political parties. The new data show they had a point: As late as 1998, outside groups spent just $9.9 million on independent expenditures advocating for or against a candidate. In 2012, outside groups spent $198 million on House races alone, and a staggering $259 million on Senate races. That means outside groups spent $22 million more on Senate races than both political parties spent on all federal races combined.

All told, candidates spent more than $1.5 billion running for the House and Senate last year, organs of the Democratic and Republican parties raised another $1.3 billion, and non-party independent expenditures totaled just over $457 million, for a total of $3.25 billion. If the tremendous growth rate in political spending continues, the perpetual battle to elect a new House and Senate could begin to positively impact the economy.

Keep your checkbooks handy, 2016 is right around the corner.

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Congress has outsized influence over Obama's Cabinet

Reid Wilson, Technology Daily — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 10:19:42 -0500

Robert Bork's 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court, and the uproar over his ideology that ultimately led to his defeat, forever changed the process by which the Senate confirms judges. In the 25 years that have followed Bork's nomination, the two parties have fought increasingly bitter battles over high court picks in an effort to tilt the third branch of government their way. In 2002, the Oxford English Dictionary added the verb "to bork" -- to systematically defame or vilify a person, especially in the mass media -- to their lexicon.

Now there are signs that amid a growing atmosphere of poisonous partisanship, what happened to Bork, who died last week at the age of 85, is beginning to bleed into fights over other nominees.

In just the past two weeks, President Obama's first choice to head the State Department after Hillary Clinton retires has withdrawn her name from consideration, while the candidate most likely to be named Secretary of Defense is left twisting in the wind, his impending nomination losing momentum fast.

There has long been a general consensus on Capitol Hill that, barring a nominee's significant legal, ethical or moral pothole, a president should be able to run his administration with the personnel he chooses. But as he builds a team for his second term, President Obama has allowed Congress to influence his choices.

While Supreme Court nominees now must undergo all but guaranteed political fights, Cabinet nominees have rarely had to sweat out a close Senate vote. And almost none have had to overcome a filibuster; even arch-conservative Republican John Ashcroft, picked to become George W. Bush's attorney general, avoided a filibuster and won confirmation with just 55 votes. In American history, before Obama took office, only seven Cabinet appointees have been rejected, and another thirteen have been withdrawn before the Senate turned them away.

But the pace is picking up; seven of those unlucky 20 nominees have occurred under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. Clinton tried four times to pick an attorney general after his first choice, Zoe Baird, withdrew just five days after she was nominated; his second and third picks demurred even before they were officially nominated. Anthony Lake, Hershel Gober, Linda Chavez, Bernie Kerik, Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle all pulled the plug on their own nominations.

The increasing frequency of a president's personnel picks who can't win confirmation could be a symptom of an increasingly partisan Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome more common filibusters, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution and The George Washington University.

"The pattern of challenging would-be nominees is consistent with Republicans' willingness to exploit their procedural rights across the president's agenda," Binder said. "When the parties aren't so polarized, it's easier to find a nominee acceptable to your own party and to some centrist members of the opposition. When the parties polarize, it's not so easy to find acceptable nominees, particularly if senators are willing to flex their parliamentary muscles."

As Clinton prepared to leave her perch in Foggy Bottom, all signs suggested Obama was leaning toward appointing Susan Rice, his ambassador to the United Nations, to take over. But Rice's misinformed comments in the immediate aftermath of the attack on a consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens made her a target for Republican senators angry at the administration's handling of the situation. Rice's own abrasive style hurt her relations with those senators -- personal meetings with Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte and even moderate Susan Collins failed to assuage their concerns. After initially defending his potential nominee, Obama ultimately accepted her decision to withdraw from consideration in the face of an almost-certain filibuster.

And with Leon Panetta preparing to leave the Pentagon, Obama appeared set to tap former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Republican Vietnam veteran who left the Senate in 2008. But Hagel has come under assault for his past comments about what he termed the "Israel lobby" and for his comments about an openly gay nominee he opposed in 1998. But the White House has left Hagel's not-yet-nomination twisting in the wind as President Obama delays a final decision. And the opposition, from gay rights activists and Israel's closest allies in Congress, has gone from a whisper to a roar. A once-certain nomination now looks tenuous at best, and dead in the water at worst.

In both cases, the nominees-in-waiting have come under fire for their ideology and public positions, rather than for any personal sins. Susan Rice does not have an undocumented worker for a nanny, and Chuck Hagel is current on his taxes, as far as anyone can tell.

In both cases, it's not simply Republicans standing in the way of President Obama's nominees. Some on the left began to question Rice's tenure overseeing African affairs during Bill Clinton's administration, a time when the United States stood by while dictators and militias hacked a bloody path through their countries. And the harshest blow to Hagel's potential nomination came Sunday, when New York Democrat Charles Schumer pointedly refused to endorse his old colleague's nomination on NBC's Meet The Press.

And in both cases, a qualified alternative who has his or her own allies in Congress has waited in the wings. With Rice out of the picture, Obama turned to Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who won praise from McCain, Graham and other colleagues even while Rice looked like the more likely pick. And if Hagel isn't Obama's pick, he would likely turn to Michele Flournoy, the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, who has her own fans on Capitol Hill and within the defense and military communities.

Whether by dint of an unwillingness to fight for his nominees, because he has other priorities or because he sees more important fights coming down the pike, President Obama is allowing the personnel moves that will become critical in forming his foreign policy legacy to be influenced -- even decided -- by Congress. But unlike Baird, or Kerik, or Daschle, Rice and Hagel are in trouble for their policy views, not their personal sins. The borking, in other words, is no longer confined to the Supreme Court.

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Analysis: Stopping gun violence starts with Obama

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:22:10 -0500

This morning, children – young children – were killed in their elementary school by a gunman in quiet, suburban Connecticut. Three days ago, holiday shoppers were killed in a mall in suburban Portland. Two weeks ago, an NFL linebacker murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself at his team’s stadium.

Each of these tragedies has spurred calls for a national conversation on America’s culture of guns and violence. It’s a conversation that inevitably never takes place, and it’s one that only President Obama can make happen.

The White House on Friday said it was too soon to talk about gun policy. “There is, I’m sure, will be, rather, discussion of the usual Washington policy debates,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “But I don’t think that day is today.”

Yet Washington, and Obama, have had other days. After Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, killed a woman and then himself on Dec. 1, calls for a renewed gun control discussion came from Jason Whitlock, who writes for Fox Sports, and sportscaster Bob Costas, who cited Whitlock's column on NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast the next day. They did not, notably, come from Obama.

Obama has been given several sad opportunities to address gun violence. In Tucson, he spoke of "a national conversation" commencing, "not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system." After an attack on a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee, Obama said similar events "are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul-searching to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence."

But that soul-searching did not happen in Obama's first term. And before Friday’s shooting in Newtown, few thought Obama would devote political capital to any sort of serious push for new gun-control legislation. Though the National Rifle Association's power has waned from its peak, Republicans remain firmly on the NRA's side while Democrats remain deeply scarred by the gun-rights group's success in ousting pro-gun-control legislators. It will be days before we know whether a massacre at an elementary school will be enough to force Obama and Congress to act.

"We're optimistic about what we have the potential to accomplish,” Dan Gross, who heads the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said before Friday’s shooting. “We do think, in order for change to occur, there needs to be stronger leadership on this issue out of the White House."

With the stark exception of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who funded a super PAC this year that took on some pro-gun members of Congress, few make the case for gun control on the national stage.

"President Obama has called for commonsense measures that protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and improve public safety by keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them under existing law," White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said, also before Friday’s shooting. "But the president has also been clear about the need to address the problem of violence not just in the wake of high-profile tragedies and not just in terms of gun laws or the role of government, but by working in a comprehensive way with local officials, schools, parents and communities."

There's a reality gap in the president's rhetoric. Better enforcing existing laws — say, against a felon purchasing a handgun — requires closing loopholes and establishing a better background check system. In other words, it will take new laws to get the old laws working.

Obama avoided gun control at virtually every turn during the 2008 campaign. On those rare occasions when he has had to confront the issue, Obama has said he supports an assault weapons ban and stricter enforcement of laws already on the books — but not before he takes pains to begin with a dependent clause reiterating his own fidelity to a broad reading of the Second Amendment.

"We're a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment. We've got a long tradition of hunting and sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect themselves," Obama said this year during a town-hall-style debate on Long Island, when asked what he had done to limit the availability of assault weapons. "[M]y belief is that, A, we have to enforce the laws we've already got, make sure that we're keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. We've done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we've got more to do when it comes to enforcement."

When he talks about enforcing existing laws, Obama can point to his administration's record of forcing "more thorough and complete" background checks on anyone hoping to buy a gun, Lehrich said. And the administration can claim some success — violent crime has fallen every year Obama has been in the White House, according to FBI statistics.

Gun sales have spiked during Obama's first four years in office, prompted by fears that the president will take steps to restrict future purchases or, in the minds of conspiracy theorists, orchestrate some plot to rob Americans who still cling to their guns and religion. The ironic truth is that the administration hasn't done anything to justify those fears.

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House speaker expects 'bridge' on fiscal cliff

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:23:56 -0500

"Lame ducks aren't noted for doing big things. And frankly I'm not sure that lame ducks should do big things. So the most likely outcome would be some type of a bridge," Boehner said in an interview with National Journal Sunday, aboard a campaign bus taking him around Ohio in a final sprint before Election Day. "But the impact of the election is certainly going to have an impact on how this plays out."

"Fixing the tax code has to happen. Solving our debt crisis and our entitlement crisis, that has to happen. I would argue that fixing our regulatory environment in America has to happen. But I frankly believe all these things are going to happen regardless of who wins the election. The outcome of the election will have a big impact on what those fixes look like," he added.

Boehner said he spoke with President Obama briefly in September, and that he keeps lines of communication open with some Democrats in Congress. He has spoken to Democratic members of the Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of senators who met recently at Mount Vernon to discuss a solution. But Boehner sounded skeptical of any chance at a successful resolution coming out of the Gang's discussions.

"I've talked to those guys. I don't know how they fit into this process," he said. "They've got the same challenge in the Gang that we have. It's just a matter of people getting serious."

Boehner said he still has hope for some kind of grand bargain, even if Congress has to punt it to the 113th session that begins in January. He said he maintains a "solid" relationship with both Democratic leaders and with President Obama. But he said the ball is in Democrats' court.

"The House has done its job. We passed a bill to replace the sequester back in May. It's sitting over in the Senate. We passed a bill in July to extend all the current tax rates. It's sitting over in the Senate. You know, at some point, the Senate can't just keep ducking and hiding. The Senate's got to produce something. I guess we'll have to see what they're able to produce," he said.

Some Democrats, notably Sen. Patty Murray, have suggested going over the fiscal cliff as a way to better the party's political hand. Boehner said Sunday that Congress could hypothetically fix the Bush tax cuts and sequester retroactively, but that time is short -- and the window for action is narrowing.

"There isn't a whole lot of time," he said. "One thing that nobody's quite recognized yet is that the AMT relief for this tax year has not been extended. That means instead of 4 million people getting hit by the AMT, alternative minimum tax, you're going to have 30 million Americans hit by the alternative minimum tax. And they're going to start filing by the end of January. The IRS is going to have to give them some forms. I don't know how that issue is dealt with."

In negotiations last summer over an increase in the debt ceiling, Boehner said he had put some of his party's sacred cows on the table.

"A year and a half ago, the president and I had long negotiations. I was willing to put revenue on the table in exchange for fundamental reform of the entitlement programs. And I don't mean trimming around the edges, I mean fundamental reform. If we're going to go solve this problem, let's go solve it. If we're going to rip the Band-aid off, let's rip it off," Boehner said.

But, he added: "I think it's important that we avoid the fiscal cliff, but that doesn't mean I'm interested in raising tax rates and killing jobs."]]>

Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:26:00 -0400

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A few days ago, I sat down with Rob Jesmer, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Jesmer is usually tight-fisted about his polling; he doesn't share it with members of the media when the numbers are good for his candidates, which avoids the inevitably uncomfortable dilemma when the numbers are bad for his candidates. But he wanted to open his books, if only for a peek, to demonstrate a phenomenon happening across the political spectrum these days: His polls look nothing like polls Democrats are conducting.

It's a constant refrain from both sides these days. The two parties, the outside groups that are playing such a big role this year, and even some candidates themselves are so dubious about their own numbers that they are employing two pollsters for one race, using one to double-check the other. What flummoxes them even more is that their own party's pollsters are getting similar results, while the other side is offering a completely different take.

Whether it is the presidential contest or battles for critical Senate and House seats, the smartest pollsters in the business have spent the past three weeks looking at exactly the same data and coming to dramatically different conclusions.

That can be explained, in part at least, by the volatile history of the last three election cycles. The nearly decade-long erosion of trust in government, the economic recession, the collapse of the housing bubble and the partisan brawls in Washington are all factors that contributed to three straight wave election cycles. Elections in 2006 and 2008 overwhelmingly favored Democrats. The 2010 midterms overwhelmingly favored Republicans.

This year, there's no wave cresting the week before Election Day, meaning Tuesday's results will reflect the will of a deeply and bitterly divided nation, roughly the same thing we saw in 2004. We're about to see the new political normal -- but after six years of dramatic waves, no one really knows what normal is supposed to look like.

Democrats argue that history shows an inexorable march toward a larger and more diverse electorate. In every election since 1992, the electorate has grown. Bill Clinton won when 83 million people cast a ballot in 1992; 100 million were cast in 2000; and 129 million ballots were cast in 2008.

And while voters tell pollsters they hate politics and politicians, their actions don't tell the same story. One prominent Democratic pollster suggested a counterintuitive cause: The explosion of cable news channels means politics is available all the time; the constant, unceasing news cycle keeps people engaged; the increased polarization of the electorate means voters identify more closely with their party, their team; and the proliferation of absentee ballots and early voting access makes it easier than ever to vote. That which voters say they hate most may actually be what's keeping them engaged.

In every cycle since 1992, the number of African American and Hispanic voters has gone up as a share of the electorate. In 1992, exit polls showed 83 percent of the electorate was white. By 2008, white voters made up just 74 percent of the electorate.

There's no question that President Obama's 2008 campaign, which focused on turning out new low-propensity voters in minority communities, helped inflate non-white voters' influence in the electorate. In Virginia alone, the non-white share of the electorate spiked from 21 percent in 2006 to 30 percent just two years later, a virtually unprecedented leap. The question is how many of those voters come back to the polls in 2012.

Republicans and Democrats alike believe the African American vote is unlikely to change between 2008 and 2012. But they differ dramatically on the number of Hispanic voters who will show up at the polls -- a key factor in critical battleground states like Colorado and Nevada. Republicans believe turnout will be down, depressed by Obama's failure to pursue immigration reform during his first term. Democrats think the booming number of Hispanic residents means their share of the electorate will only increase.

The same argument happens over younger voters. In 2008, 18 percent of the electorate was made up of voters between 18 and 29 years old. That's higher than the percentage has been in recent presidential years, when the youth vote has made up around 15 or 16 percent. Republicans believe the younger share of the electorate will slide slightly, and that Obama will win fewer of those voters anyway.

The manifestation of these disagreements is evident in polling weights. Most Republican pollsters are using something close to a 2008 turnout model, with the same percentage of white, black and Hispanic voters as the electorate that first elected Obama. Most Democratic pollsters are a little more bullish on minority turnout, which helps explain some of the difference between the two sides.

Add in a population that's changing its habits and pollsters have to contend with additional confusing factors. The number of Americans without land line phones is growing, particularly among younger voters. Those voters are much more difficult to convince to complete a poll, surveyors say.

What concerns Republicans most is the fact that media polls seem to track more closely with Democratic internals than with the GOP's numbers. Internal surveys conducted for candidates like George Allen inVirginia, Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Josh Mandel in Ohio draw much rosier conclusions than polls conducted for their Democratic counterparts Tim Kaine, Joe Donnelly and Sherrod Brown. And media surveys, at least in Virginia and Ohio, show Kaine and Brown winning (restrictive Indiana laws make polling prohibitively expensive there).

Republicans say their party is a victim of media bias -- but not in the standard Lamestream Media sort of way. Pollsters on both sides try to persuade public surveyors that their voter turnout models are more accurate reflections of what's going to happen on Election Day. This year, GOP pollsters and strategists believe those nonpartisan pollsters are adopting Democratic turnout models en masse.

Regardless of the cause, strategists on both sides acknowledge the difference in their internal polling. Republicans believe Democrats are counting far too much on low-propensity voters and a booming minority turnout that isn't going to materialize on Election Day. Democrats believe Republicans are hopelessly reliant on an electorate that looks far more like their party than the nation as a whole. The day after Election Day, somebody's pollsters are going to be proven seriously wrong.

Deep down, both parties secretly worry it's their side that is missing the boat.

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Obama, Romney convention speeches could set course for next four years

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:19:00 -0400

In a year in which the White House race has revolved less around those policy specifics and more around the food fight over social issues, taxes, bank accounts, and how the candidates treat their dogs, the party conventions in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., stand out as moments for President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney to stand before tens of millions of Americans and actually tell them what they would do with the most powerful office in the world. However stage-managed and made-for-television they may be, the conventions offer the eventual winner a moment he will need to define himself and his agenda and to ask for the nation’s buy-in.

Given the challenges the country faces, from the so-called fiscal cliff looming at year’s end to longer-term structural dilemmas facing entitlement programs to an economic recovery that continues to creep along, the winner will be in desperate need of a mandate.

Romney’s decision to select Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as his running mate hinted that the presumptive nominee was reaching for a mandate. “I certainly expect to have a person that has a strength of character, a vision for the country that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country. I happen to believe this is a defining election for America, that we’re going to be voting for what kind of America we’re going to have," Romney said in an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd.

And yet, an election that is shaping up to be a choice between two evils, decided by an evenly divided electorate, seems unlikely to produce a mandate for either side. Romney’s choice of Ryan allowed Democrats to attack his budget proposal -- the very thing that gave Ryan his “vision for the country” -- while Obama has yet to articulate a real agenda for a second term that isn't a direct contrast to Romney.

Even with a clear majority for one candidate or another, the gridlock of the 112th Congress isn't likely to change. Republicans are highly likely to hold the House, even if Obama wins another term. Democrats keeping control of the Senate is an even-money bet, and Republicans won't get anywhere near the 60 votes they need to cut off filibusters even if November brings a GOP landslide.

But it is essential that both Obama and Romney lay out their visions at the conventions -- essential not just to their campaigns, which will produce slick videos, soaring speeches and scathing attacks, but to their presidencies.

History argues that a successful president uses his campaign to establish a clear vision for the future, something voters can ratify. Democrat Bill Clinton established the foundation for his second term in his 1996 convention speech, in which he pledged to build a bridge to the 21st Century. Republican Ronald Reagan’s 1980 convention speech called for a “rebirth of the American tradition of leadership at every level of government and in private life as well,” a theme that echoed across his eight years in office.

For presidents without a mandate, the consequences can be severe. Republican George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 by campaigning against his opponent as much as for his own vision of the country. His second term began with a proposal to overhaul Social Security, an issue that hadn’t been litigated during the campaign. It failed, virtually grinding Bush’s second-term domestic policy agenda to a halt.

Obama has had trouble with the mandate voters handed him in 2008. His entire campaign of hope and change gave way to an economic disaster that no one saw coming, a quagmire that forced Obama to sideline much of his own domestic agenda in order to forestall a full-on depression. But as the recovery began, Obama shifted focus to revamping the health care system, which led to partisan bickering over an individual mandate -- a practice he had pledged to stop over a program he had specifically campaigned against when it served as the centerpiece of presidential rival Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

Claiming a mandate that doesn’t exist can be as politically toxic as misreading or mishandling a mandate that does. The last three cycles have all delivered mandates against a party in power, rather than for the ascendant party. In 2006, voters cast ballots against Bush, rather than for Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. In 2008, voters again kicked Republicans out of office, as much for the change as for the hope. By 2010, voters tired of health care debates and angry at the slow pace of recovery punished Democrats and brought Republicans back to power.

It will be tempting to dismiss the stagecraft in Tampa and Charlotte as the dying vestiges of conventions that really mattered, made-for-television productions that amount to little more than hour-long commercials for either side.

But the conventions matter: Even if the events don’t move poll numbers, Obama and Romney will have their last unadulterated chance to make their pitches. Whether the next president seizes a mandate or spends the next four years fighting with Congress could depend on what they say.]]>

Analysis: You vote what you eat

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:32:00 -0400

That deeper connection is one of the reasons that comments by Chick-fil-A's chief executive struck such a chord, both with liberals who took issue with Dan Cathy's opposition to same-sex marriage and with conservatives who lined up for a chicken sandwich on an appreciation day organized by evangelical leaders like former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

Consumer researchers have found a strong correlation between our spending, eating, and drinking habits and our political actions. If you eat at Chick-fil-A restaurants, Cracker Barrel, or Arby's, you're more likely to vote for Republicans, according to consumer data. Democrats are much more likely to get their chicken from Popeyes or Boston Market, shop at Whole Foods, and grab sliders from White Castle.

"The same factors that explain partisanship and voter turnout explain consumer behaviors in general," says Will Feltus, a marketing expert who has worked on Republican campaigns for years. Put another way: The brands we prefer, whether for a quick takeout meal or for sipping while we watch our favorite football team on Sunday, are a function of our shared experience: We tend to drive, eat, and drink what our friends drive, eat and drink, and we tend to shop where our friends shop.

People "choose to live around people who are like them, think like them, act like them, and that's reinforced when different stores and restaurants choose to locate in those areas," says Ken Strasma, a Democratic micro-targeting expert. Some corporations are more closely connected to specific communities. Chick-fil-A, which is closed on Sundays and has long cultivated its image as a Southern company with traditional Christian values, is one of those corporations. So when it finds itself under attack, its fans tend to believe their very way of life is being threatened.

Politicians can take advantage of those correlations to send a message about their own identities. It's no accident that, in the days that followed calls to boycott Chick-fil-A, conservatives such as Sarah Palin showed up for supportive photo ops, or that Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz served the chain's signature sandwiches at his election-night victory party. "Chick-fil-A people vote at a higher rate, which means they're going to pay attention to somebody who's dragging their favorite fast-food restaurant into a political tug-of-war," Feltus said.

Some of those correlations are becoming an integral part of the way both political parties identify and target voters. In 2004, George W. Bush's campaign ran advertisements on networks that fed into gyms, where they could reach fitness-minded voters on the treadmill. This year, President Obama's campaign is running spots on such shows as Judge Judy, which reaches a disproportionate number of stay-at-home mothers and Hispanics. A local candidate can find more high-propensity voters at an upscale shopping center than they would at a strip mall.

It's no surprise that many correlations fit with stereotypes that already exist: Americans who drive Jaguars are very likely to turn out to vote, and when they do, they cast Republican ballots. Those who own hybrid vehicles or Subarus are highly likely to be Democratic voters. It wasn't a coincidence that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus spotlighted Caribou Coffee when he blasted Obama administration officials for taking meetings with lobbyists outside the White House campus, meetings that weren't disclosed on visitor logs. Our deep ideological divisions have become intertwined with our daily lives, to the extent that a fast food-restaurant can become a rallying point for heated political debate, or a stereotype to easily pigeonhole an opponent as a "latte liberal."

A corporation's understanding of its own customer base drives decisions about where to locate new stores, helping explain some of the divide between red brands and blue brands. David Wasserman, of the Cook Political Report, has called the 2012 election a contest between Whole Foods and Cracker Barrel, two outlets whose customers largely represent opposite sides of the political divide.

In 2008, President Obama carried 81 percent of the counties that have a Whole Foods outpost. He won only 36 percent of the counties that have a Cracker Barrel, according to Wasserman's figures. Just 60 counties in America have both a Whole Foods and a Cracker Barrel. Most of the Cracker Barrel counties Obama won also have a Whole Foods outlet.

"Corporations, even those that try to steer clear of politics, still need to know the partisan structure of their consumer base," Feltus said. That means Whole Foods is more likely to locate its new stores in wealthier, more urban or suburban settings, while Cracker Barrel is more likely to choose exurban or rural areas along a major interstate, in order to best find their target demographics.

Many of the habits we develop appear to shed light on our cultural divide. Feltus and his firm, National Media, based just outside Washington, have crunched reams of consumer data to build fascinating profiles of voter behavior. Democrats tune in to such sitcoms as 30 Rock and The Simpsons, or news programs such as 60 Minutes and 20/20. Republicans dial in to football or crime dramas such as NCIS and Bones. Democratic beer drinkers prefer Miller High Life, Milwaukee's Best, Corona, Heineken, and Tecate — a mix of beverages favored by Hispanics and hipsters. Republican tipplers most often reach for Michelob Ultra and anything described as "light," beers one might drink while watching a football game.

"I've spent a long time trying to figure out, why is Heineken Democratic? Because when I went to college years ago, the only guy who could afford to buy Heineken, his daddy owned the Dallas Cowboys," Feltus said. "Heineken is now a cool beer that competes with Corona for the twentysomethings that have an extra buck for a beer."

In 2004, an Illinois state senator named Barack Obama burst onto the national scene with an inspiring call for unity at the Democratic National Convention. "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America," Obama said. "There is the United States of America."

He was wrong. If anything, the country is more divided than ever — ideologically, politically, culturally, and even over chicken sandwiches.]]>

Former GAO chief could be third-party presidential candidate

Reid Wilson, National Journal — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:14:00 -0500

As if juggling simultaneous campaigns in more than a dozen swing states wasn't complicated enough. Now, top strategists for President Obama and the eventual Republican nominee will have to contend with a new variable: The possibility that a third-party candidate will attract voters interested in a new way of doing business.

That's the goal of Americans Elect, the independent organization that hopes to nominate a third-party candidate through an internet convention. The group has prepared for their eventual nominee, gaining ballot access in 17 states and gathering signatures or awaiting certification in 18 more. Those include some of the most important swing states in the country -- Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Michigan, Ohio and New Mexico have already certified Americans Elect's spot, while certification is pending in North Carolina.

So who's going to benefit from Americans Elect's work? And could they be putting their thumbs on the scale for one of their own?

First, a note on the group's process: Anyone who wants to seek the nomination must declare their candidacy, submit a statement of candidacy, a biography and a platform. A Candidate Certification Committee will make sure any declared candidate checks the requisite boxes (Spokeswoman Ileana Wachtel made sure to note that committee is checking over "an objective set of qualifications" and that a majority of delegates can override that decision).

Delegates to Americans Elect's online convention can also draft a candidate who hasn't declared an intention to run. The top six vote-getters will advance to the convention.

One of those candidates might have ties to Americans Elect itself. Members of the board of directors are not permitted to run and must stay neutral, but members of the board of advisors have no such restrictions. Wachtel said any member of the board would have to meet the same requirements as a non-board candidate.

And the group has, at times, promoted those advisors. A recent release focused on board member David Walker, the former head of the Government Accountability Office.

"Walker has front-line experience in connection with the many challenges and partisan gridlock in Washington that literally threaten our nation's and our families' futures," says the release, which otherwise contained no immediate news.

"Advisors are permitted to become candidates, but AE would be absolutely neutral on their candidacy and the Advisor would be prohibited from improperly using AE resources," Wachtel told me. But the release sure sounds like something a candidate would put out.

"This nation has faced great challenges in the past, and it's always risen to successfully address those challenges. It's time to do so again," the release quotes Walker saying. "Americans Elect is providing the American people with more choice and competition in connection with the nation's two highest offices. It offers an opportunity to break the partisan gridlock and to bring to life the first three words of the U.S. Constitution - 'We the people.'"

I wrote back in December that President Obama's advisors are unusually well-versed in Americans Elect's rules and procedures. "What's clear is they will be on the ballot in most states," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at the time. "And that's just something we have to deal with."

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DISCLOSE Act will get second look

Reid Wilson — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Senate Democrats plan to bring up a campaign finance measure once again, according to the bill's supporters who hope to win cloture by wooing key GOP senators.

The DISCLOSE Act, which could not clear Senate hurdles when it came up just before the Aug. recess, will head back to the floor for a vote when the Senate returns next month, according to spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the bill's lead sponsor.

The measure would implement strict disclosure laws on campaign ads, require corporate leaders to appear in ads much like candidates and severely restrict foreign-owned companies and those that do business with the government. Advocates cast it as a positive response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling, while opponents say the bill would freeze corporate speech.

Senate Democrats and their reform-advocate allies are targeting Sens. Scott Brown, R-Mass., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and Susan Collins, R-Maine, all of whom voted against cloture last month. The three GOPers said the bill was rushed in an attempt to influence the '10 midterms on Dems' behalf.

Now, though, reform advocates believe they have removed that most significant objection all three Republicans had. If the measure is passed in late September or early October, it would not go into effect until after the midterms.

"The negotiation that we hope will be able to break the filibuster is the mere fact that this will no longer apply to the 2010 elections," said Craig Holman, a top lobbyist at Public Citizen, which backs the bill. "It will only apply to 2012 and beyond, and we hope that will be enough to make Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Scott Brown vote to end the filibuster."

Public Citizen is running grassroots campaigns in Massachusetts and Maine aimed at pushing the three Republicans toward the bill. The Republicans are getting pressure from Schumer, too, who will be lobbying his colleagues to switch their votes.

Senate leaders have told their House counterparts that they will bring the bill up again, and that they may let Republicans block it one more time in order to score political points. But after the bill fails, reform groups and senators who back the DISCLOSE Act will try to convince potential GOP allies to join them in passing the bill so it might be implemented after the midterms.

Still, Snowe, Collins and Brown will face pressure from their leader even after it becomes clear the bill wouldn't impact the midterms. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been a vocal opponent of the DISCLOSE Act, labeling it a ploy to benefit Democrats. McConnell has been successful in keeping his conference together on most controversial votes, making the bill's prospects uncertain.

Democrats also have to deal with Sens. Dianne Feinstein , D-Calif., and Frank Lautenberg , D-N.J., both of whom are opposed to a carve-out that exempts the NRA from certain disclosure provisions. Holman said there is an understanding that the two Democrats would vote for cloture, getting Democrats over the 60 votes required to move the bill to final passage, but then Lautenberg and Feinstein could vote against the final package. Lautenberg and Feinstein both voted for cloture when the bill first came up on July 27.

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