Sunday Question for Liberals

At this point: how much, if any, do you trust Barack Obama on national security issues? I'm talking here about trust, not about whether you support or oppose his stated policies...in other words, if there's incomplete information, do you give him the benefit of the doubt, or not?

Good Use of an Endorsement

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg endorsed Barack Obama today, citing the issue of climate change.

How many votes is that worth to Obama? Well, we have here the mayor of the nation's largest city. On top of that, he's an independent (of sorts), and has even been a Republican, so that makes it newsy. Also, his issue preferences are very popular among a very noisy segment of the press, so it's apt to be amplified quite a bit (not to mention the whole Bloomberg News thing).

So add up all that, and how many votes will it affect? Counting his own?

Yeah.

Look, endorsements aren't apt to matter very much in general elections. I was going to do a post on this back when the Des Moines Register went from Mitt Romney recently. The logic of it is pretty straightforward; you just need to follow the causal chain on endorsements. How many people are going to even hear about the endorsement? Of those, how many support the endorser? Of those, how many are actually undecided voters? Of course, the intersection of those three groups (pay enough attention to the new to hear about the endorsement, like the endorser, undecided voter) is tiny -- remember, most true undecided voters in presidential general elections don't pay all that much attention to politics.

However, that doesn't mean that Bloomberg is wasting his time! By linking his endorsement to a specific issue -- climate -- he does two things. First, he gives a pretty effective issue advertisement on the subject; Bloomberg would likely be able to get the cameras on him at any rate right now, but doing it in the context of a presidential endorsement is more effective than simply repeating what he's said in the past on the issue.

Second, he's essentially lobbying the president on this issue. Remember, votes don't speak for themselves; politicians must interpret what votes mean. In that, they tend to interpret through their own experiences on the campaign trail; that is, if they've been talking about an issue a lot, they tend to believe that those who voted them must have endorsed that position. Most of us can't do much about that, although perhaps more than we think -- volunteer for a campaign, or if you have the means donate money, and you'll get at least someone's attention. But if you have a very large megaphone, you can do more, and that's what Bloomberg is accomplishing here. Barack Obama probably knows that Bloomberg isn't bringing any votes, but the next time he's tempted to think that no one ever care enough to actually vote for Democrats because of climate, he'll know for sure that at least one prominent supporter did so.

(Note: I took a break from writing this to find that Ezra Klein was tweeting up a storm with the same idea. If it becomes a post, I'll go back and link to it).

Now, will Bloomberg's endorsement change the politics of climate? Of course not. It's one act. Nor will Sandy change everything...it doesn't work like that. Some of the opposition to action on climate is partisan, and there's nothing that anyone outside the GOP can do about that; some of it is interest-based, and that's not going away. But if you happen to be Mike Bloomberg and you're planning to endorse, this is almost certainly the way to get the most bang for your buck.

I'd say one other thing about it. Obama's record on climate hasn't been one that particularly impressed environmentalists. It is, however, clearly better than where Romney and the Republicans are from their perspective. Bloomberg's choice demonstrates the value of signing up, as opposed to walking away. Which was going to give him a larger voice on these issues in a second Obama term: making this endorsement now, or opting to sit on his hands (or to support the Green candidate)? I think it's almost certain that it's the former, not the latter. The truth is that even if you're Mike Bloomberg, you're probably more influential if you're on the president's team than if you're an outsider. And that probably only gets amplified if you have a much smaller megaphone.

Catch of the Day

He wasn't responding to me, but Jonathan Chait demolishes a point I made last night -- that what Mitt Romney was doing in being misleading about his own programs was unusual. Chait points out that George W. Bush's defense of his tax plan in 2000 was almost identical to what Romney was up to last night.

I'm not going to go through the transcripts, but I think my point would be saved a bit by the rest of it. I don't recall Bush being particularly dishonest on his education plan, or his faith-based initiative. Of course, all candidates spin their proposals to put them in the best possible light; there's nothing unusual, or even bad, about that. Nor is it unusual for candidates to avoid taking any position at all. What seemed weird to me about Romney is that he's taking positions, but then lying about them.

And if I'm right about Bush on the other issues, then Romney is still unusual in that he's doing this more or less across the board -- it's on health care, and spending, and deficits, too.

Or maybe not. At any rate: nice catch!

The 1980s: A Distant, Distant Era

I don't have time before sunset to do a proper takedown of Marc Theissen's incredibly weak defense of his idea that it's very, very, important that Barack Obama mostly uses written instead of oral daily security briefings, following fact-checker Glenn Kessler's thorough demolishing of the Theissen's original piece, which has been updated to reflect the latest from Theissen. Kessler was, shall we say, not impressed. Nor was Alex Pareene.

See, the problem for Theissen is that it turns out that most presidents preferred written to oral briefings, including Ronald Reagan. Which is a bit of a problem, since Reagan was perfect in every way, right?

Anyway, other than advising everyone to be very careful any time anyone says that "everything changed" on September 11, 2001 -- or the even more ludicrous idea that the threats facing George W. Bush and Barack Obama after that date were more serious than what Cold War presidents faced -- and laughing at the idea that somehow George W. Bush's national security habits are somehow self-evidently what anyone should be emulating -- I only really have one serious thing to say about it. Which is to marvel at the idea that, according to Theissen, Reagan and Richard Nixon served during "an era when advanced technology consisted of electric typewriters." I mean, I realize that it must be tough to be assigned the tough challenge of explaining why it's a disaster for Barack Obama to use a Ronald Reagan method instead of a George W. Bush method, but Theissen really should have stuck to the all-purpose howler about 9/11 changing everything. The guy is making Bob Woodward look good.

For the record: no, the primitive state of technology in the 1980s, 1970s, or 1950s, during which time presidents communicated via tin cans with strings and "surveillance" meant asking people to pose for Matthew Brady-style photographs, did not slow the pace of foreign affairs to the extent that "The volume, speed and complexity of intelligence has changed dramatically in the intervening decades — and with it the need for interactive briefings." I think anyone who has even a vague appreciation of, say, the Cuban Missile Crisis would just laugh at that idea.

Bottom line is that if the main evidence that oral briefings work best for giving the president the best intelligence is the record of George W. Bush, I'd certainly hope that subsequent presidents figure out a different way of doing things.

Sunday Question for Liberals

Same question that I asked conservatives; same good opportunity to link to a new article from John Sides about debate effects. So for those who support Barack Obama:

Looking forward to the debates, or fearing the debates?

Democrats Day 3

I wrote about Barack Obama's speech over at PP. Enough about that. And I'm exhausted from two weeks of convention-watching, so instead of a proper post it's notes-style time. My apologies to twitter followers who may have heard some of these earlier. Let's say I'm inspired by the laundry list first half of Obama's speech...

1. I saw a few people who were surprised that the Democrats did an excellent job at the stagecraft of conventions. I think that's faulty memory. I'd say the Democrats have pretty much run good-to-excellent conventions every year from 1984 on. Before that, not so much. And of course there are some missteps in there, but mostly they do a very professional job. Plus, over that era, the Democrats have for whatever reasons had the edge in orators -- Jackson, Cuomo, Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama are or were top-tier convention speakers, and Republicans haven't had much since Reagan (although, yes, they debuted a few promising contenders this year).

2. Similarly, it's nothing new for Democrats to wear their patriotism and gung-ho "for the troops" sentiment on their sleeves. That's been going on since at least 1988.

3. Anyone who really believes that the reason Democrats don't have a thriving lowest-common-denominator talk show culture mainly because liberals are too sophisticated and so there's just no demand for it really should watch Jennifer Granholm's speech this afternoon. No, it wasn't Rush, but it was at least halfway to the spirit of that sort of thing, and the delegates loved it.

4. Six days of conventions, no more than 15 great TV minutes: Eastwood, and Gabby Giffords. I'm sorry, one more: Ted Kennedy, from the grave, debating Mitt Romney. Probably the next-best TV moment from the two weeks were the people Mitt Romney helped personally, but there's no way that was a great TV moment. Other than than the Kennedy tribute, all the videos were average at best.

5. Sarah Palin showed up, in a clip from her convention speech, in a "look back to 2008" video at one point this afternoon. And we had one mocking reference to her later...was it in John Kerry's speech? I certainly didn't hear every speech over the six days, but those are the only two times I remember.

6. Speaking of which: who would have guessed in 1984 that Gerry Ferraro would get a such a brief, uninspiring memorial video (unless my attention slipped, without any introduction or attention drawn to it)?

And that's all for now. I can't imagine what it's like for those at the venues; I'm exhausted from just watching it on TV. Remember: based on previous schedules, we're well under three years to the first nomination debate, and if Romney looses were just under three years away from Ames. So I need a little rest.

Catch of the Day

How about one for Steve Benen, who heard Chris Wallace on Fox claim that Democrats had a sixty vote supermajority in the Senate during the entire 111th Congress and wasn't exactly thrilled. As Benen details, Democrats in fact the 60 vote supermajority was quite short-lived.

Benen gives the full rundown of changes during 2009 and 2010, but just to keep it simple: Democrats reached 60 when Al Franken was sworn in on July 7. They fell below that when Ted Kennedy died on August 25. They reached 60 again when Paul Kirk replaced Kennedy on September 24, and then fell short for good when Scott Brown was sworn in on February 4.

However, as Benen further points out, for at least most of the first (July-August) stretch, Kennedy was unable to vote; Robert Byrd was also in failing health that year, and was not always available either both in the summer and then during the longer stretch in the fall. It's probably also worth mentioning for whatever it's worth that Scott Brown was actually elected on January 19, and Republicans immediately contended that it would be entirely illegitimate for the Senate to do anything before he was seated, so the dates when Republicans considered a 60 vote supermajority to be there should probably be through only January 19.

So depending on how you count things, it's six months, or five months, or four months...it certainly isn't two years.

(I should point out Benen did get one thing wrong, although it doesn't affect his main point at all; after Byrd died and temporarily dropped the Democrats down to 58 Senators, they got back to 59 when Byrd's replacement Carte Goodwin was sworn in a couple of weeks later).

Of course, that also misses the point that up until January 2009, the majority party didn't need 60 votes for quite a bit of it's normal business (until January 1993, filibusters were relatively rare altogether). And that 60 Democrats in the Senate certainly doesn't mean that Barack Obama could do whatever he wanted. But just on the basic facts: no, it wasn't two years of 60 votes.

Nice catch!

Catch of the Day

To Matt Yglesias, on monetary policy and the Obama Administration:

This is a Fed full of Obama appointees pursuing a disastrous policy trajectory that's creating all kinds of problems for Obama. But I've never read any repoting indicating that the Obama economic team is upset about monetary policy, I've never heard any discontent with monetary policy from administration officials on or off the recod, and Obama's allies on Capitol Hill have basically never called publicly or privately for more expansionary monetary policy. Rather than someting as simple as an error, there seems to be a totally comprehensive systematic  blunder in which Democrats simply ignore the most powerful tool for bolstering aggregate demand while Republicans call for a disastrous tight money agenda. 

Yup.

I do have a slightly different interpretation of the Fed's actions than Yglesias does...I guess where he tends to emphasize how little they've done, I would tend to put a little more stress on how they've at least avoided rushing to tighten any time there's mild good news about the economy. And so I'd overall talk more about a weak or suboptimal policy, rather than a disastrous one. But, you know, his interpretation has a lot going for it, too.

And yup -- it's bizarre. This isn't fiscal policy, where there's Congressional obstacles to action and where Keynesian deficits were are counterintuitive for a whole lot of people. If Barack Obama had appointed a Fed Board full of wild-eyed irresponsible inflation-mad economic expanders, the truth is that no one would have noticed. Except for the effects, that is. I mean, Ron Paul would be very upset, but not noticeably more upset than he is already; the same, pretty much, for the Always 1979 crowd. Now, of course, if Fed policies actually produced serious inflation, you would get some real complaints about that, but presumably it would have accompanied a lot less unhappiness about economic growth and jobs, and that's a trade-off Obama should want. Unless he and the administration generally believes that different monetary policy really wouldn't help...but there's really no sign of that, either.

As Yglesias says, the attitude seems to be one of indifference -- they're neither happy nor upset about it. Which just doesn't make any sense to me, but of course things don't always have to make sense. I sure would like to hear more about it, though.

And: great catch!

Sunday Question for Liberals

Still thinking State. If Barack Obama is re-elected, he'll presumably have to fill an opening for Secretary of State. Do you have a candidate? Anyone you really don't want to see?

Also: if she would take it, Hillary Clinton for Treasury? What do you think?

Q Day 5: Obama 2016?

Karl asks:

If President Obama lost to Romney in November, do you think there would be any possibility down the road for him to pull a Grover Cleveland and win the presidency again? He is a relatively young man and still the most charismatic Democrat at a national level. Could he plausibly win again down the road or would the narratives of him as a defeated one-termer and party pressures make it too much of a challenge?

That's a fun question, isn't it?

Let's see. The defeated (or early retirement) presidents since the two-term limit were Johnson, Ford, and Carter. What do they have in common? Johnson resigned in the face of a nomination battle; Ford and Carter barely managed to get themselves renominated. So none of them is really a good comp for a defeated Barack Obama. Going back before the 22nd amendment...Truman, too, was hardly a lock for the nomination had he chosen to run in 1952.

I don't really know anything about Hoover's renomination in 1932, but of course his defeat in November was  a wipeout. Coolidge presumably wanted to stay retired. Wilson couldn't have had the nomination in 1920 even if he wanted it (which he probably did). Nor could Taft, I assume, if he had tried in 1916.

That gets us back to the closest thing to Cleveland's comeback, the Teddy Roosevelt effort in 1912. And before that...well, I guess before that is Cleveland himself.

So there's really nothing at all similar. The defeated or retired presidents in the 20th century either had serious opposition within their party or lost a blowout or really wanted to be retired. There's no way of knowing whether Obama would want a comeback, but assuming the presidential race remains close, he would pass the other two tests.

On the other hand. Michael Dukakis didn't do that badly, but I think Democrats were pretty united against inviting him back. The same is probably true, although not quite as definitely, about John Kerry and Al Gore; it's hard to tell how much of their choice not to run again was personal and how much was a calculation of the politics. Hubert Humphrey came close, but didn't quite win the 1968 nomination. There's also, for whatever it's worth, the Democrats' habit of nominating first-time candidates (in every recent open nomination except for VP Gore and former VP Mondale, and Mondale hardly ran in 1976). So there's at least a bit of evidence that the post-1968 Democratic Party doesn't like retreads.


Put it all together, and the obvious answer is: who knows? I wouldn't entirely rule it out, though. Presumably the conditions that would make it most likely would be a very close loss in November, perhaps even one with some controversy involved, followed by a further economic downturn; it's hard to see Obama as a strong 2016 candidate if the economy does well for President Romney (of course, it's hard to see any Democrat winning in that case).
I suppose it's also worth mentioning that he wouldn't necessarily have to do it in 2016, when he'll be 54. In 2028, he'll just be a little bit older than Mitt Romney is now. But presumably his best chance would be losing a close election this fall, then Romney winds up an unpopular president, and then running next time.