Churchill, Newsom, Cows, and Tigers

At Governor Brown's State of the State today, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom tried quoting Winston Churchill but did not get it quite right.  Here is the actual Churchill passage, from his last political speech on September 29, 1959:

Among our Socialist opponents there is great confusion. Some of them regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. [Here WSC made the motion of milking a cow with his hands.] Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong and willing horse that pulls the whole cart along.

Kashkari and TARP

Neel Kashkari has announced that he is running for governor of California.  His official bio reads:

Neel’s interest in public policy and service took him to Washington, D.C. in 2006, when President George W. Bush appointed him to the Department of the Treasury. His initial work brought together experts from across the government and private sectors to craft policies to encourage alternative energy sources that would enhance both national security and environmental sustainability. When the housing downturn started, Neel led the Department’s work with non-profit organizations, congressional leaders, and financial institutions to help distressed homeowners avoid preventable foreclosures.

Neel was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 2008. As the financial crisis erupted, Neel negotiated with congressional leaders of both parties to write and pass landmark legislation to prevent a widespread economic collapse. The program he implemented not only has recouped all the money spent, but also has made a $13 billion profit for taxpayers to date. For his leadership, Neel received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department’s highest honor.

That "program" was the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

At Bloomberg, Michael Marois and James Nash report on the reaction from the camp of incumbent Jerry Brown.

Brown’s supporters already are using Kashkari’s job running TARP against him with voters who viewed the rescue as a bailout of the banking industry. 

“It’s hard to imagine why someone with such a thin resume would think he’s qualified to be governor -– he’s rarely bothered to vote, and his one public policy act was handing $700 billion to Wall Street banks,” said Dan Newman, a Brown campaign adviser. “There’s absolutely no rationale for Kashkari’s candidacy.”

The Bully Pulpit is Getting Creaky

The bully pulpit is overrated -- and seldom useful at all during a second term.  Pew reports the latest example:

President Obama’s speech on Friday outlining changes to the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and internet data did not register widely with the public. Half say they have heard nothing at all about his proposed changes to the NSA, and another 41% say they heard only a little bit. Even among those heard about Obama’s speech, few think the changes will improve privacy protections, or make it more difficult for the government to fight terrorism.

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that overall approval of the program has declined since last summer, when the story first broke based on Edward Snowden’s leaked information.

Today, 40% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 53% disapprove. In July, more Americans approved (50%) than disapproved (44%) of the program.

George H.W. Bush's 1988 Victory

Today is the 25th anniversary of George H.W. Bush's inauguration as president.

Often we forget how impressive his 1988 victory was.  (Declaration of interest:  I worked in the 1988 Bush campaign.)

In 1988, Bush got a higher share of both the popular vote and the electoral vote than any candidate since then, including Barack Obama in 2008:

	Bush 1988	Obama 2008
Popular Vote %	53.37%	52.86%
Electoral Vote%	79.20%	67.80%

Obama won under more favorable circumstances.  The other party had been in power for two terms and was presiding over the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Bush was the vice president of an administration that had been in power for eight years, so the "time for a change" mentality worked against him.  No sitting vice president had been won the White House since Martin Van Buren. The economy was growing and the Cold War was winding down, but Bush had to deal with the aftermath of the 1987 market meltdown and the Iran-Contra scandal.  For a long time, many thought that he would lose.

In May 1988, E.J. Dionne reported at The New York Times:

Michael S. Dukakis is capitalizing on deep public doubts about Vice President Bush and the Reagan Administration's handling of key issues and has emerged as the early favorite for the Presidential election in November, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Mr. Dukakis, the probable Democratic nominee, ran ahead of Mr. Bush, the almost certain Republican candidate, by 49 percent to 39 percent among 1,056 registered voters.

The survey, conducted May 9-12, represented a significant advance for Mr. Dukakis since a Times/CBS News Poll in March when Mr. Bush had 46 percent and Mr. Dukakis had 45 percent.

In the latest poll, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts led in all regions, but he ran especially well in the Northeast and Middle West. The poll found Mr. Dukakis with very substantial advantages over Mr. Bush among women, union members, Roman Catholics and blacks/

A couple of months later, the Times reported:

In the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention, the party's nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, has expanded his lead among registered voters over Vice President Bush, the probable Republican nominee, according to a Gallup Poll.

This was among the findings of a national public opinion poll of 948 registered voters conducted late last week for Newsweek magazine by the Gallup Organization. The telephone interviews took place on July 21, which was the last night of the convention, and on the night after that.

Fifty-five percent of the 948 registered voters interviewed in the poll said they preferred to see Mr. Dukakis win the 1988 Presidential election, while 38 percent said they preferred to see Mr. Bush win. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

In the end, however, Bush not only won comfortably, but he carried states that we today consider to be deep blue, including California, Illinois, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont.  

Democratic Advantage in the Electoral College

Dan Balz writes at The Washington Post that the GOP will struggle to assemble 270 electoral votes.

For perspective, I asked William H. Frey, a demographer and census expert at the Brookings Institution, as well as Republican and Democratic strategists of past campaigns, for their assessments of trends in the battleground states, based on demography and internal politics.

Frey analyzed nine states and found little good news for the Republicans. He found five — Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — definitely moving toward the Democrats because of their growing diversity. Obama won all but North Carolina in both of his presidential races.

Frey cited Ohio as one state that could become more hospitable to Republicans, because aging white baby boomers continue to make up a large part of the population there. Noting that candidate quality can make a difference, he wrote in an e-mail, “Democrats would have to be lucky and much more pro-active with blue collar whites to continue success there.”

He sees some glimmers of hope for Republicans in Michigan and Pennsylvania, if the GOP can find the right candidate. But he also envisions potential problems for the party in states such as Arizona and Georgia, which he said could be toss-ups by 2016 and could lean Democratic in the long run.

Frey said three states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin — probably will continue to be toss-ups, in large part because of smaller minority populations. But none can be said to be moving in the GOP’s direction.

The underlying problem for the GOP is that it has carried the popular vote only once since 1988.  Al Gore actually had a popular-vote plurality in 2000.  George W. Bush did win the popular vote in 2004, but by a very narrow margin.

After the 2012 election, some suggested that the Democrats have built a structural advantage in the electoral college.  If a uniform national shift in the popular vote had given Romney a 2-point margin, Obama still would have carried the electoral vote. The trouble here is that one cannot really extrapolate from a single election. Obama had unique strengths (e.g., an ability to inspire high black turnout) that the next candidate won't replicate, so voting patterns will be different.

Neel Kashkari Needs a Vulnerability Study

Investment banking executive Neel Kashkari may run for governor of California as a Republican.  If so, he will need to do a serious vulnerability study.

Josh Richman writes at The San Jose Mercury News:

Kashkari is a fiscal conservative, but supports abortion rights, pro-gay marriage and is a gun owner who says he doesn't object to background checks for all firearm purchases -- stances that might have sunk him in a traditional GOP primary. Yet thanks to the state's new top-two primary system, he won't have to toss red meat to the right-wing Republican base and take positions that damage him in a general election in which a growing number of independent voters usually pick the winner.

Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a fellow moderate, dropped out of the race Thursday., and the only other GOP candidate is Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, who is best known for being an anti-illegal-immigrant activist and staunch gun-rights defender.

Whether his general-election opponent is Donnelly or Kashkari, Jerry Brown is a heavy favorite to win. But Kashkari would be more competitive than the eccentric Donnelly, who would  probably lose in a landslide. Democrats want such a landslide in order to help their downballot candidates. And so expect them to carrry out serious opposition research on Kashkari, in the hope that Donnelly will outpoll him in the primary.  They executed a similar strategy in 2002, taking down Richard Riordan in the GOP primary, leaving them the opponent they wanted:  William Simon -- an intelligent, nice person but a weak candidate.

Kashkari needs to anticipate such attacks by doing a vulnerability study, that is, opposition research on himself.  As much as possible, he should address his weaknesses and preempt attacks.

 

Not-Great Public Opinion Numbers for Democrats

Gallup reports:

More Americans, 42%, say they are financially worse off now than they were a year ago, reversing the lower levels found over the past two years. Just more than a third of Americans say their financial situation has improved from a year ago.

These results come from Gallup's annual "Mood of the Nation" poll, conducted Jan. 5-8. Gallup has found that Americans' economic confidence, self-reported consumer spending, and perceptions of job creation improved in 2013. Despite Americans' more positive views of the overall U.S. economy in 2013, nearly two-thirds believe their personal financial situation deteriorated or was stable over the past year.

Though down from mid-2013, the percentage of Americans saying they are financially better off than a year ago is nearly in line with the historical average (38%), spanning 1976-2014. On the other hand, the share of Americans saying they are financially worse off compared with a year ago is, by historical standards, high -- eight percentage points above the average. The record high of 55% occurred in May and September 2008, the year (and, in the latter case, the month) of the global financial meltdown.

Gallup also reports from the same survey:

Americans are now more satisfied with many issues than they were 13 years ago, but they are significantly less satisfied with the economy and the role the U.S. plays in world affairs. The 40-percentage-point drop in Americans' satisfaction with the economy, along with a 21-point drop in the world affairs issue, contrasts with gains in satisfaction on issues such as the position of gays and lesbians in society, taxes, the nation's military strength, and race relations.