Citizens United and Corporate Boards

Adam Bonica writes:

Although Citizens United has routinely been interpreted as a favorable development for Republicans, the ideological positions of board members suggest this assessment is premature and might prove incorrect. Although the survey of corporate boards is incomplete, liberals appear to control as many boards as conservatives do.

Insiders, Outsiders, Economics, Optics, and Martha's Vineyard

Overall, the president's approval numbers are not good, as USA Today reports:

Only 41% of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45% Monday

And other numbers do not bode well, as Reuters reports:

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, government data showed on Thursday, underscoring a weak labor market and the fragile economic recovery.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 in the week ended July 31, the Labor Department said. That was the highest level in claims since early April.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims dipping to 455,000 from the previously reported 457,000 the prior week, which was revised modestly up to 460,000 in Thursday's report.

"The bottom line is that any recovery in employment is going to be very slow. It's likely that we're still at 9.5 percent unemployment or awfully close to it by the end of the year," said Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis.

In the short run, he cannot do much to ease economic troubles. But he can at least avoid errors that make his political situation worse. And so, his choice of a vacation spot is a bad mistake, as Susan Estrich explains:

I'm from Massachusetts. I was in my 30s the first time I ever set foot in Martha's Vineyard. Elite. Fancy. Expensive. Hard to get to. The Estrich family from Lynn considered Nantasket Beach exotic. Martha's Vineyard might as well have been an island off of Spain.

I don't begrudge the president a nice vacation. But having already spent time in Maine this summer, a second vacation to a place other than the hard-hit Gulf is an invitation for people to think what too many of them already think: The president just doesn't get it.

He doesn't understand what's happening out there, out here. People still don't have jobs, home values still haven't recovered, and 401(k)s are still in a slump. The only signs of recovery are a lot of highway projects, which, as we are told every day when the traffic slows, are being paid for by us.

The danger for Democrats is that if people keep thinking the president doesn't get it (and that's what I am hearing, particularly when those golf course shots hit the front page), the easiest way for them to send him a message, since he's not on the ticket, is to vote against the Democrat who is.

In the New York Daily News, Andrea Tantaros writes of even more bad optics:

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Missouri Vote

On July 6, The New York Times reported:

For some in President Obama’s White House, Missouri remains the state that got away, nearly two years after his election.

Mr. Obama was the first Democrat since 1964 to win Indiana and the first since 1976 to win North Carolina. But his loss in Missouri by the narrowest of slivers (fewer than 4,000 votes) was of special disappointment.

After all, the state has sided with the winner of the presidential race in nearly every election in the past century. Who would wish to be remembered for breaking that sort of trend?

Now, even as President Obama juggles a barrage of dire matters, relatively calm Missouri seems to continue to carry some particular attention for the White House. This week, Mr. Obama will be in the state again, raising money in a competitive Senate campaign in a challenging political season for Democrats.

It will be Mr. Obama’s fifth trip here since his election. White House officials say the president has traveled to other swing states nearly as often, but there may be no state he lost that has seen more of him (aside from Louisiana, thanks to the oil spill disaster.)

Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat who won his first term as Mr. Obama lost here and was the state’s longtime attorney general, said he senses strong interest in the state, in part because of the memory of that slim loss in 2008.

“It intrigues him,” Governor Nixon said last month, ticking off by memory the visits Mr. Obama has made. “I think the complexity of the state intrigues him, too, as a microcosm of the country.”

This morning, the Times reports:

Missouri voters on Tuesday easily approved a measure aimed at nullifying the new federal health care law, becoming the first state in the nation where ordinary people made known their dismay over the issue at the ballot box.

The measure was intended to invalidate a crucial element of President Obama’s health care law — namely, that most people be required to get health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Supporters of the measure said it would send a firm signal to Washington about how this state, often a bellwether in presidential elections, felt about such a law.

Michael Tanner writes at National Review Online:

According to preliminary results, just under 668,000 Missourians voted in favor of Proposition C. Only 578,000 Republicans voted in their party’s primaries. Another 40,000 voters appear to have cast votes on Proposition C without voting in either the Republican or Democratic primaries. So, even if you assume that every single Republican voted for the initiative and every person who didn’t vote in a primary voted for it, at least 40,000 Democrats — more than one in every eight Democratic primary voters — voted against the centerpiece of President Obama’s health-care plan. And these aren’t just any registered Democrats; these are the party activists, the Democratic base.

Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 46

From an interview with Harry Smith of CBS:

"Nobody thinks that Afghanistan is gonna be a model Jeffersonian democracy," Mr. Obama said. "What we're looking to do is difficult, very difficult, but it's a fairly modest goal, which is, don't allow terrorists to operate from this region; don't allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impunity.

"That can be accomplished," he said. "We can stabilize Afghanistan sufficiently and we can get enough cooperation from Pakistan that we are not magnifying the threat against the homeland."

"As we end July it's the most deadly month for U.S. troops since the war began in 2001," said Smith. "For the families of the men and women who are being sent to Afghanistan, can you promise those families that the sacrifice of their loved ones is worth the fight?"

"If I didn't think that it was important for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan, then I would pull them all out today," the president said. "Because I have to sign the letters to these families when a loved one is lost."

"If I didn't think that it was important for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan, then I would pull them all out today," the president said. "Because I have to sign the letters to these families when a loved one is lost."

To date, neither ABC nor the White House has posted the transcript of his appearance on "The View," at least on the free Internet:

CA: Spending in the Governor's Race

Some media takes on campaign spending in California:

Capital Notes:

"What I have designed is a campaign that is designed to win."

That was Meg Whitman last week on ABC's Good Morning America, when asked about her high spending campaign for governor. She's used variations on that theme in the past when asked the same question. Tonight, we've got a new glimpse at what Whitman designed: an effort funded by a colossus of cash that may break even some national records for a non-presidential effort.

Today's filing with the Secretary of State's office (PDF) shows a total of $100.3 million spent by the former eBay leader's gubernatorial campaign since she launched the effort in 2009, and $80.8 million of that total spent in the first six months of 2010.

On the contributions side, Whitman has self-funded her effort so far to the tune of $91 million. As of June 30, she had $10 million left in the bank.

"Meg doesn't owe anyone anything," said spokeswoman Sarah Pompei in an emailed statement. "She is running a smart, strategic campaign designed to win and has invested the necessary resources to ensure California voters know the truth about her plans…"

Los Angeles Times:

GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman was spending more each day on her campaign by early summer than her Democratic rival, Jerry Brown, had spent all year, according to disclosure statements filed with the state Monday.

The reports, which cover the candidates' expenditures in the five-week period ending June 30, show that Whitman spent $19.7 million in that short span, or $531,378 per day — most of it after the June 8 primary election. Brown, who had no major opposition in the primary, has spent $377,000 since the beginning of the year.

San Jose Mercury News:

GOP candidate for governor Meg Whitman outspent Democratic opponent Jerry Brown by 86-1 in a five-week period ending June 30, according to financial reports filed Monday with the secretary of state.

Whitman spent an average of about $4 million a week during the period to secure her June 8 victory against Steve Poizner, her GOP primary challenger, and launch an early offensive against Brown for the general-election campaign.

Alarm Among Dems at Independent GOP Efforts

Tom Hamburger reports at The Los Angeles Times:

One report circulating among Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill last week estimated that more than $300 million has been budgeted for the campaign by a group of 15 conservative tax-exempt organizations.

"A commitment of $300 million from just 15 organizations is a huge amount, putting them in record territory for groups on the right or left," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions. "With control of Congress hanging in the balance, this kind of spending could have a major impact."

The money's power is magnified because it will be concentrated in a relatively small number of swing states and districts. Of the 435 House and 37 Senate seats at issue in November, about 100 House seats and 18 in the Senate are considered competitive.

The conservative fundraising commitment has stunned Democrats.

"It's raising the alarm bell," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent $177 million in all of 2008 for congressional races.

See also a Mother Jones piece on corporations in the post-Citizens United world.

Unloved Govs

Elise Viebeck reports in The Hill:

According to a new poll out Friday, governors nationwide tend to face the lowest approval ratings when compared with President Obama and the senators from their states.

In 52% of states examined by the latest Public Policy Polling survey, the governor ranked lowest of the four in popularity. In another 12%, they ranked second-to-last.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has the highest unfavorables among his peers, at 71-19. The survey notes that his popularity has sunk eight points in the last two months.

The exceptions to the rule include New Hampshire Governor John Lynch (D), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R), Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe (D), and Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (D).

See also:

• Andy Barr on Jan Brewer
• SurveyUSA reports
• Schwarzenegger gets lowest approval in 50 years of Field Poll