A Very Silly Idea

At The New York Times, columnist Joseph Nocera praises an idea from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz:

In effect, Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians. “The fundamental problem,” he said, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.” Schultz wants his countrymen — big donors and small; corporations and unions — to stop making political contributions in presidential and Congressional campaigns. Simple as that. Economists like to talk about how incentives change behavior. Schultz is proposing that Americans give Washington an incentive to begin acting responsibly on their behalf. It’s a beautiful idea.

The last comment is true only if you see beauty in silliness. The idea would work only if most contributors went along, which they won't. Too many people and organizations have a stake in giving campaign money, either for reasons of principle or material interest. And to the extent that advocates of bipartisanship and compromise leave the field, they yield that much more influence to hard-line partisans on both sides.

The whole thing makes no sense.

Pawlenty, Winnowed

The winnowing has started. Romney has the Republicans who want executive cred and a record of winning in a blue state. Bachmann and Perry have the true believers. Pawlenty went after both and got neither. ABC News reports:

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is dropping out of the Republican presidential contest, after a disappointing third place finish in the Iowa Straw Poll yesterday.

“We needed to get some lift to continue on and have a pathway forward,” Pawlenty said this morning in an exclusive interview on “This Week.” "That didn’t happen, so I’m announcing this morning on your show that I’m going to be ending my campaign for president.”

Pawlenty finished with 2,293 votes, giving him 14 percent of the total ballots cast – more than 2,500 votes behind winner Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who finished with 28 percent of the vote, and runner-up Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who was close behind with 27 percent.

Bachmann Up, Perry In

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Michele Bachmann captured the famed Iowa Straw Poll in Ames Saturday, reaching a high-profile benchmark in her meteoric rise to a top-tier presidential candidate.

Bachmann made history, as well, becoming the first woman to win the event. She received 4,823 votes out of the almost 17,000 votes cast. The turnout was a significant leap over four years ago but didn't approach the record of more than 23,000 votes cast back in 1999.

The Minnesota congresswoman narrowly outpaced libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, who had 4,671 votes, and whose red t-shirt-wearing supporters flooded the campus of Iowa State University, and packed the arena when Paul spoke. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished third with 2,293, a showing that keeps him in the game for next year’s Iowa caucuses, but had to come off as slightly disappointing.

Winnowing Starts Tonight

CBS reports:

Saturday's Iowa straw poll "the biggest test so far" for many of the Republican presidential wanna-bees taking part, but the results are non-binding and the contest "really doesn't tell us anything about their national standing," says CBS News correspondent Norah O'Donnell.

Still, she added on "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," the straw poll "does say a lot about the campaigns' organization and strategy."

CBS News political analyst John Dickerson said, "It doesn't pick winners, but it can be a graveyard for candidacies.

"In 1999, (Tenn. Sen.) Lamar Alexander made a big effort and then didn't do very well in the straw poll, and that was the end of it for him. He dropped out of the race. (Former Health and Human Services Secretary and ex-Wis. Gov.) Tommy Thompson, in 2007 -- the same thing happened to him.

"So, it doesn't tell us who the winner is, but Iowa doesn't really do that as much as it tells you what the field's going to look like going forward. It winnows out candidates, so this may be the last place for some of these campaigns. They may disappear after the ... straw poll."

The Ames Debate

Before this weekend's straw poll in Ames, the Republican candidates debated on Fox last night. Some observations:

Mitt Romney showed coolness and gravitas. He deflected some questions, which frustrated reporters but denied ammo to opposition researchers. At one point, though, he lapsed into a small bit of economic demagoguery, referring to trading partners as "opponents."

Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann sniped at each other, leaving neither looking presidential.

Gingrich was fluent and passionate, but history was not his friend. He said that this weekend is the 30th anniversary of President Reagan's signing of the Kemp-Roth tax bill. Alas, how many voters know what Kemp-Roth was? In response to a question about divided government, he cited his experience in dealing with President Clinton -- but that experience was generally not a happy one.

Jon Huntsman still has work to do. (One small but important thing: he kept putting his head down, not a gesture of strength. Jaw out, governor!) Rich Galen writes:

Huntsman - PRE: Got off to a shaky start and hasn't altered the trajectory of his campaign since. This is the first "big" event since his announcement and he has to show potential donors and supporters he is up to this. His laid-back style might work, but being Perry Como on a stage with the Rolling Stones will present difficulties for him to show his stuff.

POST: Answered the questions easily, but without passion. Move over, Mr. Como.

As for gay issues, The Advocate reports:

Jon Huntsman stood by his support for civil unions and Rick Santorum expressed concern for gay rights in Iran, but for the most part, the Republican presidential debate unfolded as anticipated on Thursday as candidates opposed marriage equality.

"I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to equality,” said Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, in response to Fox News Channel anchor Chris Wallace, who asked whether his more moderate stance puts him in the “wrong party.” Still, he said that he believes in “traditional marriage” and, when pressed on whether his support for civil unions in the states makes him “right” while the other candidates and majority of Republican Iowa caucus goers polled are “wrong,” the candidate, who is not competing in the straw poll or the Iowa caucus next year, said, “They are not wrong.

...

In perhaps the most surprising twist of the debate related to LGBT rights, Santorum, who pledged to fight against marriage equality at home, criticized Iran during the foreign policy portion because it “tramples the rights of gays.”

Obama's Base: Pundits v. the Public

Liberal columnist Matt Miller writes:

In conversations with folks across the center-left in recent days, everyone’s basically had it with the president. I’ve had policy frustrations before: Obama’s never aimed high enough on school reform and he’s failed miserably to advance a real jobs agenda, to name just two. I’ve said repeatedly that we need a third party to shake things up. But at the same time a part of me has always cut the president some slack — after all, look at the mess the man walked into! Yet somehow the debt-ceiling fiasco and the downgrade, punctuated by these horrific jobs numbersand stock market gyrations, has made something in me (and, I suspect, millions of others) snap.

It’s the sound of confidence in Obama’s leadership breaking

At The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, columnist regrets backing Obama over Clinton:

So here we are almost 2 1/2 years into his presidency. We're still in Iraq, still in Afghanistan. The economy is still in the Dumpster. U.S. credit has been downgraded. We've got a half-baked health care reform law that is being challenged. The middle class is still getting crushed.

Why has Obama not lived up to the promise? He is clearly intelligent. For some reason, though, he was not ready for the rough and tumble of national politics.

Maybe his background is the reason. He went to a private prep school in Hawaii and then Columbia University, and Harvard for law. These were white-majority schools, to be sure, but also places with educated, enlightened people who were happy to see a black kid succeed. That is, I suspect, a big thing. Nobody ever wanted to see him fail until he became president.

Hillary had been tested. Eight years in the meat grinder. She'd have been a better president.

But the Pew Research Center reports:

Despite speculation that the Democratic base has become increasingly disillusioned with Barack Obama, rank-and-file Democrats are not eager to see other candidates challenge him for their party’s nomination in 2012. Just 32% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would like other Democrats to take on Obama for the nomination, while 59% say they would not.

There has been little change in Democrats’ views about whether Obama should face a nomination challenge since last fall. In November, shortly after the midterm election, 38% of Democrats and Democratic leaners favored a primary challenge to Obama while 59% were opposed.

Coordination, Super PACs and the Presidential Race

Earlier posts discussed how national party committees have used "micro sites" as a lawful way of supplying message guidance to outside spending groups. The Democratic National Committee has now set up a "macro site" with oppo on the GOP presidential candidates: http://www.democrats.org/news/gop-extreme

Who will use it? Outside spending groups supporting the president. And they are getting under way, as Politico reports:

A super PAC created to advance Mitt Romney’s campaign for the GOP nomination raised $12.2 million in the first half of the year. One set up to help President Barack Obama spent $97,000 on ads attacking Romney. Supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s dark horse Republican bid are using a super PAC to pay for $6,000-worth of billboards and print ads ahead of the Ames straw poll. And one of the half-dozen super PACs established to bolster Texas Gov. Rick Perry in his yet-to-be-declared campaign for the GOP nomination is airing ads in Iowa calling him “a better option for president.”

“You can be sure that we haven’t seen the last of these things, whether it’s this cycle or some future cycle, unless the legal climate changes,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan group that tracks political fundraising data and trends. “You can’t expect candidates not to take advantage of something like this when their opponents are.”