Steve Green:  “If there really was a Party Of No, I would so join.”

Indeed.

via Glenn Reynolds

Glenn Beck has a plan.  Actually, the Plan.  Which he reveals on his website.

Today, I have stopped looking for a leader to show us the way out because I have come to realize that the only one who can truly save our country…is us. To change America’s course we need to change ourselves, our expectations and our willingness to accept the unacceptable. When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic. When we insist that no one is too big to fail, we will be able to learn from our mistakes, and when we demand that we are self-reliant, we will ensure that others can rely on us, not the government.

[...]

- Education is key, and not just for our children. To that end, we will be conducting a series of conventions. These will be full-day experiences where you will be immersed in learning about topics ranging from self-reliance, community organizing, the economy and how to be a political force in your own neighborhood and country. The first one will be in Orlando at UCF Arena on March 27th. You will also be able to vote to have a convention in your region by clicking here.

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

- On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

The Soviets and Chinese Communists were famous for Five Year Plans that Americans used to make fun of.  Beck, apparently, figures that their flaw wasn’t the hubris of planning the next five years but stopping 95 years short.

Apparently, the plan has yet to be hatched.  It’s intriguing to announce a 100 year plan but tell people they’ll need to wait nine months and a week to get the details.

If nothing else, Beck has intrigued NYT correspondent Brian Seltzer and a few bloggers. Seltzer reports that Beck “emphasized that while candidates may align themselves with the values and principles that he espouses, he would not take the next step to endorse them.”

Mr. Beck is not the only media firebrand trying to mobilize Americans disaffected with a Democratic-controlled government. The radio host Laura Ingraham is inviting candidates to sign a 10-point pledge on her Web site. Sean Hannity, on his afternoon radio show and prime-time Fox News program, is promoting “Conservative Victory 2010,” his name for the map on his site that will spell out questions for candidates. And the former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has a show on Fox News, has steered viewers to his Web site, where they can contribute money to his political action committee in support of conservative candidates.

Pundits have used their media stages to encourage political action before, but people like Mr. Beck and Mr. Hannity are taking on outsize roles now, political experts and conservative commentators say. One reason, they say, is the weakened state of the Republican Party.

Beck’s strangeness aside, the idea of reshaping the American political system from the bottom up is interesting.  But while I rather like the idea of pressuring the Republican Party to get back to its small government roots — even by challenging it with a libertarian oriented third party — there’s precious little evidence that there’s anything close to majority support for that as a style of governance.   Like it or not, the Republicans became a Big Government party in recent years because that’s what the people have demanded.

I still see enthusiastic small government types calling for dismantling the Department of Education and other bits of leftover rhetoric from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.  But I doubt that even twenty percent of Americans are in favor of such a move.

The two parties and their constituent interest groups have done a superb job of poisoning the well.  Republicans have virtually ensured that we’ll never have anything short of a massive defense budget and we’ll never have the sort of confiscatory tax brackets for high earners that they have in Europe and we had here as recently as John Kennedy’s administration.  And Democrats have made it a virtual certainty that we’ll not only not cut back on the social safety net but that it will incrementally increase and periodically boom.   The “compromise” solution is massive deficit spending.

While we occasionally get Ross Perot types calling attention to the unsustainability of that approach, the excitement quickly fades.  While all of us can find big chunks of the budget we’d pare, there’s not enough overlap to get anywhere close to majority support — let alone the sixty votes necessary to get much of anything through the Senate.  And those who would face cuts to their subsidies care more and are better organized than those who want the cuts.

Dave Schuler likes to point out that things which are unsustainable will not be sustained.  But the nature of the American political system guarantees we won’t do anything until an absolute crisis forces us to.

A CNN poll released today finds that “opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting.”  According to the survey, “38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country’s current economic problems. That’s down 15 points from May, when 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May. Twenty-seven percent now say both parties are responsible for the economic mess.”

Similarly, the Gallup tracking poll has President Obama dipping below 50 percent approval for the first time, with 49 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing as president.

None of this is surprising, really.  While we may technically be out of the recession, unemployment is now in the double digits for the first time in many Americans’ memory and trending upwards.  Obama’s sitting in the White House and, rightly or wrongly, he gets the blame.

It’s actually rather remarkable that he’s doing as well as he is.   I credit Bush Fatigue.  People were so glad to see his predecessor leave office that Obama still seems good by comparison.

But that won’t last forever.

As longtime readers know, I believe presidents get far, far too much credit for good economic circumstances and far, far too much blame for economic downturns.  But that’s the nature of the game.

Pollster Glen Bolger (a founding partner at my wife’s firm) looks at the data in the Virginia governor’s race and concludes that Barack Obama hurt Democrat Creigh Deeds.

At the end of tracking, we added some questions paid for by the Republican National Committee specifically to measure the Obama effect.

[...]

The dominant national issue at that time (and still) is health care. Only 44% of likely voters support the Obama plan, while 50% oppose it. Intensity is strongly against — 29% strongly favor/42% strong oppose. The question was worded:

“As you may have heard, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are preparing a plan to change the health care system. From what you have heard about this plan, do you favor or oppose Obama and the Democrats’ health care proposal?”

We also asked a message question that was stunning for two reasons. One, it was stunning in its rejection of the notion of the Democratic wave of 2006-08 is any lasting move, and it was stunning for how close it was to the final election margin:

“I’m going to read you two statements, and please tell me which one comes closest to your opinion.

Some/Other people say it is more important to elect a Governor who will help President Barack Obama implement his agenda.

Other/Some people say that it is more important to elect a Governor who will serve as a check and balance to President Barack Obama.”

Voters opted for the check and balance by a 55%-35% margin. Independents (who voted for Obama by one point in 2008 in Virginia) opted for a check and balance by an overwhelming 58%-25% margin. Throughout our tracking, we regularly found open-ended comments from Independent voters saying they wanted to balance the overwhelming power that the Democrats have in Washington. Given the absolute power the Dems have in DC, that is a very strong message for GOPers running in 2010.

We tested the impact of the Obama endorsement — 24% said they were more likely to vote for Deeds, while 32% were less likely. The minus eight increment on that can not be encouraging to the White House.

Finally, we tested a simple agree/disagree: “Creigh Deeds’ policies are too close to the policies of President Barack Obama.” Fully 52% agreed and only 30% disagreed. By intensity, 30% strongly agreed and only 9% strongly disagreed. Revisionists on the left are blaming Deeds for not embracing Obama enough, but Virginia voters did not agree. Among Independents, it was 52% agree/28% disagree.

His bottom line is that Obama’s “policies have put fiscal and economic messages back into play for Republicans.”

Presumably, by 2010, it will be even harder for Democrats to run against George W. Bush or the Republican Congress of 2006.  The degree to which Obama will be an asset or a liability to his party will, of course, depend on intervening events.  If we’re still looking at 10 percent unemployment next November, it’ll almost certainly be the latter.

Jodi Rell, the “Republican” governor of Connecticut, has announced that she will not seek re-election.

In a surprising announcement, Mrs. Rell, 63, did not immediately give a specific reason for her decision, saying only, “At some point, you know inside that it is time to begin a new chapter in life.”

Her announcement came during a news conference at which she first thanked people who had helped in a food drive over the weekend.  “Second, I would like to share with you the news that — after much soul-searching and discussion with my family — I have decided not to seek re-election next year,” Mrs. Rell said. Her family was standing nearby during the announcement, The Hartford Courant reported.

The news left the Republicans without a candidate possessing big statewide name recognition and the Democrats with an opportunity to push for the governorship in 2010.

Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, a Republican, has said that he might run for governor if Mrs. Rell decided not to seek re-election. Other Republicans, including the House minority leader, Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk, and the Senate minority leader, John McKinney of Fairfield, also have expressed interest.

Among the Democrats, Ned Lamont, a businessman who unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate three years ago, has expressed an interest in being governor.  “I salute the governor for her service to Connecticut, her civility, and her integrity,” Mr. Lamont said in a statement Monday evening. “Now is the time for a fresh start.”

Mrs. Rell, a former lieutenant governor, has been governor since 2004, when Gov. John G. Rowland resigned. He served 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to corruption charges. Mrs. Rell was elected in her own right in 2006.

Mrs. Rell’s job approval numbers have dipped in recent Quinnipiac University polls, mostly because of the state’s budget problems. A Sept. 16 poll showed that 59 percent approved of how she had handled her job, while 34 percent disapproved — the lowest approval rating during her tenure.

Those numbers are sustainable, however — certainly not enough in and of themselves to signal an uphill fight. So, it may well be that she just decided to move on to something else.  She and her husband have also had health problems of late, although she dismissed that explanation when asked.

The state GOP will not miss Rell, even if her decision makes it harder to retain the seat.  She’s not ideologically conservative, of course, but that’s pretty typical of Nutmeg State Republicans.  But she’s not at all popular with insiders, having developed a reputation for putting her own interests above her party’s.

The House passed a trillion dollar bill that will force Americans to buy health insurance, force even small businesses to provide health coverage, and require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  (The last, as I have previously argued, makes it something other than “insurance.”)

Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray for WaPo:

Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to “answer the call of history,” the House hit an unprecedented milestone on the path to health-care reform, approving a trillion-dollar package late Saturday that seeks to overhaul private insurance practices and guarantee comprehensive and affordable coverage to almost every American.

After months of acrimonious partisanship, Democrats closed ranks on a 220-215 vote that included 39 defections, mostly from the party’s conservative ranks. But the bill attracted a surprise Republican convert: Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, who represents the Democratic-leaning district of New Orleans and had been the target of a last-minute White House lobbying campaign. GOP House leaders had predicted their members would unanimously oppose the bill.

Democrats have sought for decades to provide universal health care, but not since the 1965 passage of Medicare and Medicaid has a chamber of Congress approved such a vast expansion of coverage. Action now shifts to the Senate, which could spend the rest of the year debating its version of the health-care overhaul. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to bring a measure to the floor before Thanksgiving, but legislation may not reach Obama’s desk before the new year.

[...]

The House legislation would for the first time require every individual to obtain insurance, and would require all but the smallest employers to provide coverage to their workers. It would vastly expand Medicaid and create a new marketplace where people could obtain federal subsidies to buy insurance from private companies or from a new government-run insurance plan.

Though some people would receive no benefits — including about 6 million illegal immigrants, according to congressional estimates — the bill would virtually close the coverage gap for people who do not have access to health-care coverage through their jobs.

Carl Hulse and Robert Pear for NYT:

Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

[...]

Democrats were forced to make major concessions on insurance coverage for abortions to attract the final votes to secure passage, a wrenching compromise for the numerous abortion-rights advocates in their ranks.

Many of them hope to make changes to the amendment during negotiations with the Senate, which will now become the main battleground in the health care fight as Democrats there ready their own bill for what is likely to be extensive floor debate.

Democrats say the House measure — paid for through new fees and taxes, along with cuts in Medicare — would extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a government health insurance program. It would end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they become ill.

[...]

Some Democrats said they voted for the legislation so they could seek improvements in it. “This bill will get better in the Senate,” said Representative Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who has been outspoken in his criticism of some provisions of the bill but decided to support it. “If we kill it here, it won’t have a chance to get better.”

[...]

The House legislation, running almost 2,000 pages, would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face penalties — an approach Republicans compared to government oppression.  Most employers would have to provide coverage or pay a tax penalty of up to 8 percent of their payroll. The bill would significantly expand Medicaid and would offer subsidies to help moderate-income people buy insurance from private companies or from a government insurance plan. It would also set up a national insurance exchange where people could shop for coverage.

This measure barely passed the House, where Democrats enjoy a solid majority in which most Members are Gerrymandered into uncompetitive seats.  And there are many Jim Coopers among the Yeas: People who would have voted Nay if they were not so confident the Senate would produce a much less radical bill, ensuring any measure that reaches the president’s desk will be less mild.  I’m pretty sure they’re right.

Still, this is a rather staggering measure passed by the House.  If this became law, the poor would be significantly poorer and small businesses would be even less competitive with the big box stores.  During a very weak economy with an unemployment at ten percent, no less.  Oh, and insurance rates will go up for the rest of us, too, as companies amortize the cost of absorbing people who have costly illnesses — who will by definition be a net drain on the pool from Day 1 — by passing it on to the rest of us.

Presumably, the rationale behind these moves is to wreck the current system entirely, making a government system the only alternative.  Certainly, it’s not a good faith measure to improve the current system.

I get that the status quo is far from perfect.  Young, healthy people often can’t afford health insurance.  (I went without during my graduate school days, for example, unable to justify spending $250 a month out of a $750 stipend to cover the incredibly unlikely event of getting seriously sick.)  The poor clog up our emergency rooms.  People are stuck at their job because they’d lose coverage at an otherwise preferable job.  Dealing with insurance companies can be a nightmare.

This bill helps address some of those problems, at least at the margins.  But it exacerbates others.

Moreover, this plan does nothing to address the fundamental problem with the status quo:  The unsustainable skyrocketing in health care costs.    If the Senate were to somehow pass the identical bill, we’d cover more people — a good thing in and of itself — but at a higher per unit cost.  That means an even greater share of GDP would go to health care from the beginning with no additional constraints on the escalation of costs.

The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor’s office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates.

I would, however, resist the temptation to see these contests as a referendum on Barack Obama’s presidency and the Democratic Party, much less a harbinger for 2010 and beyond.

Glenn Reynolds has an op-e in the NY Post titled “The Obama Magic has Faded.”

All politics is local, they say, and Tuesday’s off-off-year elections certainly had their local angles. Jon Corzine has been a terrible governor even by the undemanding standards of terribly governed New Jersey. Creigh Deeds, though he looked good to Democratic Party recruiters not long ago, turned out to be an undistinguished campaigner, more driven by the concerns of Washington Post editorialists than of Virginia voters. And NY-23 Republican nomineee Dede Scozzafava was a bizarre choice, bizarre enough to inspire a seemingly quixotic third-party run by Doug Hoffman.

But these local angles weren’t enough to keep the Obama administration out of the races. President Obama barnstormed Virginia and New Jersey — and pumped money and Joe Biden into NY-23 in support of Democratic candidate Bill Owens. (One suspects Owens would have preferred more money and less Biden.)

And — until it started looking as if they might lose — the Obama people were suggesting that these races would seal their mandate and encourage congressional wafflers to toe the line on health-care reform. Not so much, as it turns out.

Now, this is right, so far as it goes.  Exit poll analyses by both ABC and CBS show Obama remains personally popular but that people are extremely worried about the economy and the direction of the country.  The reality has set in that Obama’s a politician, not a messiah.  While many retain high hopes, most of the irrational exuberance has faded.  And, clearly, he doesn’t have coattails when he’s not on the ballot.  Then again, neither did Ronald Reagan.   Recall that Republicans lost 27 House seats in 1982.

A stronger case is made by Dan Balz in an “analysis” piece at WaPo titled “Contests serve as warning to Democrats: It’s not 2008 anymore.”

Neither gubernatorial election amounted to a referendum on the president, but the changing shape of the electorates in both states and the shifts among key constituencies revealed cracks in the Obama 2008 coalition and demonstrated that, at this point, Republicans have the more energized constituency heading into next year’s midterm elections.

The most significant change came among independent voters, who solidly backed Democrats in 2006 and 2008 but moved decisively to the Republicans on Tuesday, according to exit polls. In Virginia, independents strongly supported Republican Robert F. McDonnell in his victory over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, while in New Jersey, they supported Republican Chris Christie in his win over Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

For months, polls have shown that independents were increasingly disaffected with some of Obama’s domestic policies. They have expressed reservations about the president’s health-care efforts and have shown concerns about the growth in government spending and the federal deficit under his leadership.

Tuesday’s elections provided the first tangible evidence that Republicans can win their support with the right kind of candidates and the right messages. That is an ominous development for Democrats if it continues unabated into next year. But Republicans could squander that opportunity if they demand candidates who are too conservative to appeal to the middle.

This is exactly right.  Independents, by their very nature, are fickle.  When thing are going well, they’ll stick with the party in power and when they’re not, they’ll vote for change.

So, if unemployment is still high and we’re still mired in a mess in Afghanistan a year from now, the Republicans will have an opening to make major gains in the House and Senate.  But they’ll need candidates who won’t alienate independents.

I followed the Virginia race with some interest given that I live in the Commonwealth.  It wasn’t a race about Obama or national issues at all.  Deeds was the surprise winner of the Democratic primary, with the well-financed and well-known Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran killing each other off and leaving Deeds standing.   He was a moderate Democrat with appeal to rural Virginians who had narrowly lost to McConnell four years earlier when the latter got 323 more votes for attorney general.  But when the Washington Post went on attack against McDonnell for an old master’s thesis and some rather unprogressive statements about women and homosexuals, Deeds decided to run a nasty campaign hammering at those points.  It backfired, as McConnell turned the other cheek and came across as a decent, reasonable man.  (As an aside, I should note that Republicans easily won the lieutenant governor and attorney general races in landslides, too. )

In New Jersey, Corzine is personally unpopular and his state is in bad shape.  I posited on last night’s OTB Radio that it was all downhill after the motorcade incident, which was the first time I realized what a jackass Corzine was, but I don’t follow Garden State politics closely enough to know for sure.   At any rate, Chris Christie was perceived as a reasonable alternative even in a Democrat-leaning state.  Corzine’s genius advisers decided their best course was to double down on the jerk factor, campaigning on the theme that Christie was too fat to be governor.  Oddly, it didn’t do the trick.

Regardless, these races demonstrate that Republicans can win — even with all the damage to the brand suffered in recent years — given both an opening and a solid candidate.

The special election to fill New York’s 23rd Congressional District seat vacated by the appointment of Republican John McHugh as Secretary of the Army has taken yet another bizarre twist.  Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend, causing great celebration on the part of Republicans like Michelle Malkin, who termed her “radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava” and chortled “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”  Earlier, Malkin had explained why, in her view, “the GOP should be ‘purged’ of left-wing saboteurs.”

Well, now Scozzafava has endorsed Democrat Bill Owens over Conservative Doug Hoffman in a press release.

I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same.

It’s not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh’s lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress. John and I worked together on the expansion of Fort Drum and I know how important that base is to the economy of this region. I am confident that Bill will be able to provide the leadership and continuity of support to Drum Country just as John did during his tenure in Congress.

In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He will be an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York. Bill understands this district and its people, and when he represents us in Congress he will put our interests first.

Hoffman’s campaign dubbed her a “turncoat” and said “This afternoon Dede Scozzafava betrayed the GOP.”   But, um, Hoffman split from the GOP and was running against its candidate!

Malkin, happy a day earlier to purge the likes of the radical leftist Scozzafava from the GOP thinks she’s being ungrateful.

Hey, how did that six-figure RNC donation to the NRCC plus $85,000 to the New York GOP plus nearly half-million-dollar investment in advertising and other independent expenditures on behalf of radical leftist Dede Scozzafava work out?

She repaid the GOP by endorsing Democrat candidate Bill Owens. Some gratitude, eh?

But why should she be grateful for the humiliation of having out-of-state Republicans calling her names and openly campaigning for a third party candidate against the duly nominated candidate of their own party?

While I’m a Big Tent guy who thinks the Republican Party needs to accept the fact that winning seats in the Northeast will require backing candidates who would be considered “liberal” in Mississippi, I fully understand the thinking of people like Malkin who prefer an ideological party.  At some point, having an “R” after a candidate’s name doesn’t mean much if they’re going to work against your leadership.   But you can’t have it both ways.  Either the GOP accepts people like Scozzafava as candidates in liberal districts or it runs them off to become Democrats.

Nate Silver calls the race “nearly impossible to forecast.”

Special elections, with their low turnout, are intrinsically pretty difficult to predict. So are multi-candidate races. And certainly, races where there are substantial late-breaking developments — such as the Republican candidate dropping out four days before the election and endorsing her Democratic rival — present especial difficulties for forecasters. Here, you have all three of those circumstances, producing a perfect storm of uncertainty. Not only will I not be surprised if either Democrat Bill Owens or Conservative Doug Hoffman wins on Tuesday — I will not be surprised if one of them wins by a substantial, possibly even double-digit margin.

His gut says that it helps Owens (but then his heart is pulling for Owens).

Owens is probably in a better position than he was 48 hours ago. Endorsements don’t usually matter very much, but with Scozzafava’s exit from the race, you suddenly have as much as 30 percent of the electorate up for grabs and undoubtedly feeling very, very confused. Plus, the endorsement was unexpected (although perhaps it shouldn’t have been, since Scozzafava is much closer ideologically to Owens than to Hoffman), which might make it more impactful.

At least one poll — which Silver “respects” because of its good showing in recent races — shows Hoffman with “a commanding lead.”

In a three way contest with Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava Hoffman leads with 51% to 34% for Owens and 13% for Scozzafava. In a head to head contest with Owens Hoffman holds a 54-38 advantage.

Polling the race was a little haphazard in a weekend with many twists and turns but Hoffman showed a similar lead at all junctures. In interviews conducted before Scozzafava announced the suspension of her campaign Hoffman led Owens 49-31 with 17% going to Scozzafava. Poll respondents Saturday afternoon/evening and early Sunday afternoon were informed that Scozzafava had dropped out but that her name would still be on the ballot. During that period of time Hoffman led Owens 51-34 with Scozzafava’s share going down to 12%. After Scozzafava announced she was endorsing Owens the remaining Sunday respondents were informed of that and the race showed a little tightening with Hoffman up 52-38 on Owens and Scozzafava’s share dropping to 7%.

If Hoffman was at 51% with Scozzafava running, he’ll almost certainly win.  I’d guess almost all of those supporting the Republican candidate will wind up voting Conservative or staying home.  And I’d guess that, in a race where turnout will be extraordinarily low, Hoffman’s True Believers will be far more likely to actually show up.

But, as Silver says, with so many late-breaking developments, prediction is “nearly impossible.”

UPDATE:  Not shockingly, perhaps, but the WSJ editorial board sums up my thoughts exactly:

The voter revolt ought to be a lesson to the GOP’s backroom boys, especially in New York state, where the old Al D’Amato insider club has led the party to irrelevance. GOP state chairman Joe Mondello, now thankfully retired, and Beltway bigs misjudged public dismay against the Democratic agenda in Washington. Nominating a candidate who “can win” in the Northeast does not have to mean someone whose voting record is more liberal on taxes and unions than that of most Blue Dog Democrats.

But that lesson will be for naught if conservatives conclude that their victory is reason to challenge any candidate who doesn’t agree with them on every issue. The truth is that some conservatives are as bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos. A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host. Some of those voices prefer having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings.

Democrats did themselves no favors by driving Joe Lieberman out of their party, and conservatives will do their cause no good by forcing GOP candidates in Illinois, California and Connecticut to sound like Tom DeLay. If conservatives now revolt against every GOP candidate who disagrees with them on trade, immigration or abortion, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will keep their majorities for a very long time.

Striking that balance isn’t easy.  But it’s essential.

A new Pew survey shows a rather steep “Partisan Knowledge Gap,” with Republicans and Independents generally better informed than Democrats.

Mary Katharine Ham finds this quite amusing and also notes that, “if the polling had gone the other way, the NYT would shout it from the rooftops.”  She provides examples of the mainstream press doing just that on previous occasions.

We’d need a more wide-ranging set of questions and more replication over time to make any definitive conclusions about the relative knowledge of various partisans.   This does, however, seem to belie the recent White House-approved meme that Fox News and its ilk aren’t really news outlets.   The fact of the matter is — and this has been borne out over time — that people who listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity are among the best informed people out there.   It’s not that those hosts are unbiased — Lord knows, they are — but because they draw an audience that’s much more interested in the news than most Americans.

CNN’s current business model is straight news, with the opinion shows pushed to their sister HLN.  But people actually watch Fox.

IOZ (whose identity is apparently a mystery) sums up a recent debate that’s been brewing on several of the blogs I frequent:

When Kerry Howley made the irrefutable and yet quixotic point that any proper concern with liberty, whether practical or, ahem, merely philosophical, must grapple with the strictures of cultural mores and social conventions, for they affect the lives and freedom of those individuals with whose liberty libertarianism supposedly concerns itself equally to and sometimes more than the official acts and proscriptions and promulgations of the government-même, I made no comment, because honestly, this again? I like and respect Kerry. She is probably smarter than I am. I am sure she looks better in heels. Her efforts along these lines are perhaps noble, but nonetheless doomed.

It is not so much that they lack merit–on the merits, she is correct–as that they make a sort of category error. The problem is not that many libertarians are unwilling to consider the broader implications of their philosophy, but rather, that libertarianism is not a philosophy, not even a “political ideology,” as the more careful bet-hedgers might have it.

It is instead a lame, purely American third-party movement that sometimes appropriates the trappings of ideology in order to justify self-perpetuation in the face of a plurality-takes-all electoral system wholely inimical to minor parties. In reality, it is no more an ideology, let alone a philosophy, than is “Democrat” or “Republican.” It is moderately more consistent than either major American political party because it has no constituency. In the absence of a coalition, coherence. This is nothing to brag about.

That about covers it.

While a majority still supports criminalization, more Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according the latest Gallup survey. Lydia Saad (a family friend) provides the analysis:

Gallup’s October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but acceptance jumped to 31% in 2000 and has continued to grow throughout this decade.

The question wording is interesting here.  It would be cleaner and less confusing to ask “Do you think the use of marijuana should be illegal?”  But, since marijuana use is and has been illegal, one can understand the negative wording.  Also, they’ve been asking the question the same way over time, which at least allows untainted comparison over time.  We’ve seen a thirty point drop in the number thinking it should be illegal over the past 40 years and a 32 point rise in those thinking it should be legal.  And, allowing for a +/-3 margin of error, the trend has been rather steady.

Saad continues:

The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78% are in favor. In contrast, 72% of conservatives are opposed. Moderates are about evenly divided on whether the use of marijuana should be legal, although they tilt against it (51% vs. 46%). Somewhat milder differences are seen according to political party, mainly because of the tempered support of Democrats relative to that of liberals. However, a solid 70% of Republicans — similar to the rate seen among conservatives — are opposed.

Essentially, virtually all Republicans self-identify as “conservative” whereas many Democrats think of themselves as “moderate” or even “conservative.”  While this is partly a function of the greater size and therefore diversity of the Democratic coalition at the moment, it’s also the power of branding.   Liberal has been a dirty word for decades, despite views considered ultra liberal in my boyhood now being moderate, if not conservative.

Saad adds:

Public mores on legalization of marijuana have been changing this decade, and are now at their most tolerant in at least 40 years. If public support were to continue growing at a rate of 1% to 2% per year, as it has since 2000, the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years.

Perhaps true.  But here’s the thing: A sizable percentage of those who will privately tell a pollster that they think marijuana should be legal would be unwilling to make that statement publicly, owing to pressure from their church group, social circle, and so forth.  Conversely, those who favor criminalization are likely to be quite vocal and highly organized. We’ll need more than a slight majority supporting decriminalization to actually achieve it.

Olympia Snowe and other wayward Republicans will be subject to strong persuasion but no punishment from the caucus, Senate Republican leaders tell Politico.

Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe's decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill. Photo: AP

Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe’s decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill.

That’s about all they can do.

“My job as whip is not to twist her arm but to bring all the information that we can bring to bear on the issue and hope that people vote the way we would like to see them vote,” said McConnell’s No. 2, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Kyl said a heavy-handed approach “doesn’t work.”

And indeed, it could backfire — not just with Snowe but with other Republicans who’ve indicated that they could cross over to help Democrats pass some of President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy initiatives.

In an op-ed in The New York Times over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested that he’s open to supporting a Democratic climate change bill. And in an interview published this week in POLITICO, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said he was willing to try to find common ground with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on rewriting the rules for Wall Street.

Republican leaders know that if they crack down hard on Snowe, they risk pushing her and other wavering Republicans into the arms of the Democrats. So, instead, they’ll lobby their own intensely in order to keep the GOP united and force the Democrats to find 60 votes by themselves.

Shelby has assured Republicans that he won’t cross over on his own. He told POLITICO on Wednesday that he would “never support something as the lone Republican.”

But the same can’t be said of Snowe or Graham. Snowe was the only Republican on the Senate Finance Committee to vote for the Democrats’ health care bill Tuesday. And over the summer, Graham was the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Shelby was twice elected to the Senate as a Democrat, switching parties when the GOP won the majority in 1994.  Still, he and Graham aren’t going anywhere unless pushed very, very hard.  But Northeastern Republicans like Snowe and Susan Collins would likely improve their positions by becoming Democrats, so treading lightly is McConnell’s only sane choice.

Lamar Alexander, who is in charge of the Senate GOP’s message, said that “our conference does not dictate policy to individual senators” and that opinion among Republican senators is “rarely unanimous.”

On Wednesday, Snowe said she’s not worried about being on the receiving end of any backlash within her caucus. And she dismissed reports that supporting a Democratic health care reform bill could cost her a chance at moving up to the top GOP slot on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. “I have no reason to believe that,” she said.

Back when Arlen Specter was a nominal Republican instead of the nominal Democrat he recently became, I opposed having him chair the Judiciary Committee.   That wasn’t as punishment –I ‘d have given him another powerful chairmanship — but rather because confirming judges is one of a small handful of issues where party unity truly matters.   Surely, Science, Transportation, and Commerce shouldn’t be divided along party lines on most issues.

We’re a continental country with extraordinary diversity.  Senators from Maine are not going to see eye-to-eye on most issues with their counterparts in Kentucky.  Insisting otherwise is a surefire recipe for minority status.

Erick Erickson is angry at liberal Republican Olympia Snowe’s announcement yesterday that she’d sign on to the Baucus version of health care reform in exchange for a seat at the negotiating table.

Olympia Snowe has sold out the country. Having been banished to our world after Aslan chased her out of Narnia, Snowe is intent on corrupting this place too.

So we should melt her.

What melts snow? Rock salt.

I’m going to ship this 5 pound bag of rock salt to her office in Maine. It’s only $3.00. You should join me.

It is a visible demonstration of our contempt for her. First she votes for the stimulus. Now this.

When I saw the post this morning, following a link from memeorandum, it struck me as a monumentally silly idea but not interesting enough to bother to write about.  After further consideration, though, I’ve changed my mind.

First, as John Cole points out, Erick is not only urging readers to send rock salt to a United States Senator but to do it via an Amazon affiliate link that nets money for RedState!  (I wonder if this violates the new FCC disclosure rules?)

Second, as Duncan “Atrios” Black observes, “sending large quantities of a white somewhat powdery substance to Senate offices” might be a tad problematic.

Third, he’s having readers send said salt to a suite in Maine rather than to her Capitol Hill office.

Fourth, Steve Benen correctly notes that the scheme makes no sense to begin with:

A right-wing blogger who isn’t a Snowe constituent has sent rock salt to a Senate office — a package that the senator will never see — even if sent to a district office in Maine.* He wants others, most of whom will also not be Snowe constituents, to do the same. None of these packages will ever actually reach Snowe.ss

And then what? The Republican senator will be vaguely aware of the fact that right-wing activists don’t approve of her moderation? I’m pretty sure she knows that already. Is this supposed to influence Snowe’s issue positions? Is she likely to think, “Well, I was going to vote for this bill, but some folks outside Maine sent me rock salt so perhaps I’ll reconsider”?

Indeed, an intrepid commenter points out “Sen. Snowe can probably make a lot of her constituents happy by distributing free bags of rock salt this winter. Thus boosting her re-election prospects.”

Sending her bags of salt is going to befuddle her, perhaps, but it’s not going to change her mind.  The bottom line is that Snowe is a liberal Republican who’s superbly attuned to her constituency.  Maine isn’t a Red state and few of its residents read Red State.

It’s conceivable, even somewhat likely, that Snowe’s voting with the Democrats will further alienate her from her caucus. Perhaps she’ll even be stripped of key committee assignments. In which case she’ll join Arlen Specter in bolting to the Democratic Party.  Which, given the unlikelihood of the Republicans regaining the majority soon, might be in her interests, anyway.

Is it frustrating that Snowe and perhaps Susan Collins will vote with the Democrats and make it easier for Obama to pass a bill that’s anathema to most other Republicans?  You betcha.  But unless we’re going to become a permanent minority party, we’re going to have to be able to win some seats in the Northeast.  That’ll mean accepting something less than lockstep party discipline on issues where there’s serious regional disparities in viewpoint.

Paul Krugman continues to demonstrate that brilliance in one field doesn’t necessarily translate into sound insights into others. He’s upset that some Republicans took pleasure in President Obama’s embarrassment in not landing the Olympics for his adopted Chicago and their cynicism in positioning themselves as the defenders of Medicare in order to fight his health care reform proposals. His explanation for both: “the G.O.P. opposes anything that might be good for Mr. Obama.”

But that’s rather silly. The Olympics matter was one of schadenfreude. I know plenty of people who voted for and continue to support Obama who nonetheless question his hubris and the cult of personality that surrounds him. And the Medicare issue is one of tactics, choosing a politically expedient means to an end.

Moreover, Krugman continues this to Friedmanesque extremes.

How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern. Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? And let’s not even talk about the impeachment saga.

Reagan won landslide victories and was still opposed by Democrats at every turn, often in vitriolic terms. Who can forget the late Teddy Kennedy’s vicious harangue against “Robert Bork’s America”? And goodness knows, George W. Bush wasn’t exactly treated with kid gloves. Our politics have taken a nasty turn this generation — hardly unprecedented in our history but magnified by a changed media climate — and now it’s Obama’s turn to feel the heat.

The only difference now is that the G.O.P. is in a weaker position, having lost control not just of Congress but, to a large extent, of the terms of debate. The public no longer buys conservative ideology the way it used to; the old attacks on Big Government and paeans to the magic of the marketplace have lost their resonance.

Only because the Democrats have long since embraced the same rhetoric, forcing the Republicans to either adopt extreme positions or be “Me Too.” They’ve done some of both.

Yet conservatives retain their belief that they, and only they, should govern.The result has been a cynical, ends-justify-the-means approach. Hastening the day when the rightful governing party returns to power is all that matters, so the G.O.P. will seize any club at hand with which to beat the current administration.It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America’s real problems has to understand.

Again, this has been equally true of Democrats when they cycle out of power. It requires blindness or sheer partisan hackery to think what Obama’s facing now is any more ruthless or impolite than what Bush did during his eight years.

A NYT/CBS poll finds that President Obama’s approval remains strong but support for his handling of key policy issues is dipping. The Republicans are not, however, gaining much ground.

At 56 percent, his approval rating is down from earlier in the year but still reasonably strong at this point compared with recent presidents.

More Americans are starting to credit his stimulus package with having helped to revive the economy. And Mr. Obama retains a decided advantage with the American public over Republicans on prominent issues, starting with health care.

The poll found that an intense campaign by Mr. Obama to rally support behind his health care plan — including an address to Congress, a run of television interviews and rallies across the country — appears to have done little to allay concerns. Majorities of respondents said that they were confused about the health care argument and that Mr. Obama had not done a good job in explaining what he was trying to accomplish. [...] But the poll suggests that Mr. Obama is in a decidedly more commanding position than Republicans on this issue as Congressional negotiations move into final stages. Most Americans trust Mr. Obama more than Republicans to make the right decisions on the issue; 76 percent said Republicans had not even laid out a clear health care plan. And by a lopsided margin, respondents said that Mr. Obama and not Republicans had made an effort to cross party lines and strike a deal that has the support of both parties. Two-thirds of respondents said they wanted Congress to come up with a bill supported by both sides.

At the same time, there has been a slip in confidence in Mr. Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan. There is tepid support for maintaining troop strength there, much less increasing it, as his top commander in Afghanistan prepares to submit a request for additional forces. A majority of Americans do not want troops there for more than two years.

[...]

The percentage of people who approve of the way he has dealt with Afghanistan has dropped to 44 percent from 56 percent in April. The percentage of Americans who approve of his handling of the economy, at 50 percent, has dropped from 61 percent since April. In April, Mr. Obama had a 43-point advantage over Republicans in terms of who would make the right decisions on the economy; that has dropped to a 26-point advantage. Americans think the economy is on the mend, and there has been a 15-point increase, to 36 percent, in the percentage of Americans who said Mr. Obama’s stimulus package has improved the economy.

Congressional Republicans have an overall favorable rating of 30 percent, within the margin of error of where it has been all year (32, 29, and 28 in the previous surveys) in this poll. Congressional Democrats at at 47 percent which, again, is within the margin of error of where it has been all year (48, 50, and 47 in the previous surveys). So, the decline in Obama’s approval numbers (which are quite consistent with other recent presidents at this point in their first term) isn’t redounding to the benefit of the opposition party.

Republicans are making modest gains on issue areas but are still leagues behind the president. Again, though, that’s pretty typical: A president has to be doing a lousy job, indeed, to fall behind Congress in these things. Congress tends to be viewed with an esteem on par with used car salesmen.

Interestingly, those of us who think Obama is overexposed, making too many public appearances, are in a decided minority (35 percent) with 58 percent saying he’s making “the right number.” Only 4 percent think he’s making too few. (Interestingly, the Obama overexposed and Obama fatigue memes have been around since last summer’s campaign.)