The largely symbolic move, made at the group’s meeting in Miami, puts the N.A.A.C.P. in line with President Obama, who endorsed gay marriage a little over a week ago. Given the timing, it is likely to be viewed as both a statement of principle as well as support for the president’s position in the middle of a closely contested presidential campaign. All but two of the organization’s board members, who include many religious leaders, backed a resolution supporting same-sex marriage, according to people told of the decision. Borrowing a term used by gay rights advocates, the resolution stated, “We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” In a statement, Roslyn M. Brock, chairwoman of the 64-member board, said, “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.” A spokesman for the group declined to discuss a breakdown of how the board members voted. Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and former chairman of the N.A.A.C.P., said that Mr. Obama’s recent support for same-sex marriage was “a tipping point” for many board members. He said the vote debunked the myth that the black community is uncomfortable with same-sex marriage. “This proves that conventional wisdom is not true,” Mr. Bond said. The practical implications of the N.A.A.C.P.’s decision are unclear. Several of its leaders have already expressed support for same-sex marriage, and local branches have repeatedly opposed measures to ban such unions, most recently in North Carolina, where voters just passed a referendum against marriages and civil unions for gay people. The strongest opposition to same-sex marriage within the black community has come from church leaders, whose opinions may not be swayed by the N.A.A.C.P. In its resolution, the board appeared to be sensitive to those objections, reaffirming its support for religious freedom. The N.A.A.C.P. has been grappling with the issue for several years. Among religious figures on the board, the issue was especially fraught with meaning. Maxim Thorne, a former high-ranking official with the organization, said that “for certain people, it was a very long evolution and a very long process of reconciling their faith with this, and coming to a very civil rights understanding of marriage equality versus a theological understanding of marriage.” The group’s endorsement could potentially bolster support for Mr. Obama with a key constituency: black Democratic voters who remain skeptical of same-sex marriage. Black and white Americans are divided on same-sex marriage in similar numbers, according to the results of four aggregated polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News over the past year. Yet there is greater opposition among black Democrats than white Democrats. Sixty-one percent of white Democrats supported legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, compared with 36 percent of black Democrats, while 35 percent of black Democrats opposed any legal recognition, compared with 18 percent of white Democrats.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Cuomo Picks Syracuse Mayor Miner and Assemblyman Wright to Lead N.Y. Democratic Party
Mr. Cuomo’s nominees are Mayor Stephanie A. Miner of Syracuse and Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright of Manhattan, who is also chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party. They are expected to be approved by the State Democratic Committee early next month. “Mayor Miner and Assemblyman Wright are outstanding leaders both for our party and our state,” the governor said in a statement. “They have been dedicated community leaders and champions of the key missions of the Democratic Party.” Ms. Miner and Mr. Wright would succeed Jay S. Jacobs, who was installed as party chairman in 2009 by Gov. David A. Paterson. Mr. Jacobs announced his plans to resign last week, a few months ahead of the scheduled end of his term in September. At a meeting in Albany this week, the state party planned to propose an amendment to its bylaws to allow the party chairmanship to be split between two people. The party would then consider the nominations of Ms. Miner and Mr. Wright on June 5. In a phone interview, Mr. Wright said he intended to stay on as Manhattan chairman. “The only plan that I have is to elect as many Democrats as possible and to make sure that the state goes in the Barack Obama column, and with Senator Gillibrand carrying on for six more years,” he said, referring to Kirsten E. Gillibrand, who is running this year for a full term. Mr. Wright added that he had never met Ms. Miner, but said, “I’m told she’s an absolutely dynamic woman.” Ms. Miner, who once worked as a regional representative for Mr. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, said that having two leaders would help ensure that the perspectives of Democrats from all corners of the state were represented. “I think it’s important for upstate voices to be represented,” Ms. Miner said in a phone interview, adding, “The more voices we have represented, the better off we’re going to be.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Obama Defends Attacks on Romney's Work at Bain
5:11 p.m. | Updated CHICAGO — President Obama said that he considered attacks on Mitt Romney’s experience at Bain Capital to be fair game, declaring that the former chief executive’s claims to being a strong business leader made his background at the private equity firm worthy of a serious debate.
“This is not a distraction,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference at the end of the NATO summit in Chicago on Monday, referring to Mr. Romney’s Bain record. “This is what this campaign is going to be about.”
The president has come under criticism from some of his Democratic allies for the Bain attacks. On Sunday, Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, and a top supporter of Mr. Obama, called the president’s attacks on Bain a “nauseating” part of negative campaigning on both sides.
Mr. Booker said the attacks on Bain Capital in campaign advertisements were unfair, though he later issued an about-face on Twitter and in a video, during which he said that Mr. Romney’s record at Bain was actually fair game.
Mr. Obama refused to concede that the attacks were unfair or unjustified, saying that Mr. Romney’s limited experience buying and selling companies for profit leaves him with little understanding of the job that a president needs to do.
“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about,” Mr. Obama said, stressing the words “this job” in his answer.
“It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity,” Mr. Obama added. “But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”
Mr. Obama said he views private equity firms like Bain Capital as a “healthy part of the free market” designed to “maximize profits.” He said there are “folks who do good work” in that line of work.
But he made clear that he views those who work in private equity — and Mr. Romney in particular — as limited by a view of the economy that prioritizes profits above all else. The president said that view was too limited at a time of economic struggles in the country.
“Their priority is to maximize profits, and that’s not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers,” he said.
Referencing the videos his campaign has released in the past two weeks that featured workers laid off by Bain companies, Mr. Obama said: “I’ve got to think about those workers in that video just as much as I’m thinking about folks who have been much more successful.”
“The reason why this is relevant,” Mr. Obama said, “is Romney’s main calling card for why he should be elected is his business experience.”
Mr. Obama’s advisers insist that their full-throated assault on Bain Capital, now in its second full week, is intended as a critique of Mr. Romney’s claims to be a jobs creator. But much of the commentary on Mr. Obama’s behalf describes Mr. Romney in highly personal and unflattering ways.
That approach has begun to have consequences. On Sunday, Mr. Booker said both campaigns should stop the “crap” they have been offering the public.
“This, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with,” Mr. Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.
A few hours later, Mr. Booker released a three-minute video backing off his criticism and trying to draw a distinction between personal attacks and legitimate criticisms of Mr. Romney’s time at Bain. In the video, he said it is “reasonable” for Mr. Obama’s campaign to examine his rival’s business record.
Mr. Booker’s first instinct may have been influenced by his ties with Wall Street executives, many of whom are his supporters. Other Democrats who have criticized the Bain attacks — like Steven Rattner, Mr. Obama’s former auto czar — are also close to the private equity world.
But the episode involving Mr. Booker suggests that Mr. Obama is walking a fine line as he tries to make Bain Capital a central issue in the presidential campaign. Both candidates are eager to attract independent voters who may be turned off by attacks they think cross a line of decency. And Mr. Romney has jumped at the chance to argue that the president has done just that.
Last week, Mr. Romney said the Bain attacks from Mr. Obama were intended to suggest that “I’m not a good person, or a good guy.”
The Republican party sought to stoke the issue further on Monday, using video of Mr. Booker’s “Meet the Press” comments to raise money with an e-mail that says, “I Stand With Cory.” The Republican National Committee also launched an “I Stand With Cory” petition drive and began using the #StandWithCory hashtag on Twitter.
And Mr. Romney’s campaign produced a video alleging that Mr. Obama’s supporters have “had enough of President Obama’s attacks on free enterprise.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign has dismissed that criticism, saying its Web site — RomneyEconomics.com — is an effort to describe how the values Mr. Romney pursued at Bain would color his actions as president.
“This is not about private equity or how Romney ran his company,” Stephanie Cutter, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama, told reporters recently. “It’s about whether his business experience there qualifies him to be president.”
But the campaign advertisements and conference calls are frequently platforms to question Mr. Romney’s personal qualities.
A video released Monday by Mr. Obama’s campaign highlights an office supply company whose workers were fired when it was bought by a Bain company. In the ad, the workers deride Mr. Romney’s personal ethics.
One says that Mr. Romney “did not care about us as workers.” Another says that Mr. Romney “takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich. He’s just the opposite of Robin Hood.”
A third says flatly: “You can tell by the way he acts, the way he talks. He doesn’t care anything about the middle-class or the lower-class people.”
In another ad, set at a Kansas City, Mo., steel plant, Joe Soptic, a former worker there, says that as president, Mr. Romney “would be so out of touch with the average person in this country.”
“How could you care? How could you care for the average, working person if you feel that way?” Mr. Soptic says.
He went even further in a conference call with reporters, saying that Mr. Romney “is only worried about one group of people, and that’s people like him, people at the top.”
The personal criticisms of Mr. Romney also come directly from Mr. Obama’s campaign officials. In the conference call with Mr. Soptic, Ms. Cutter said the issue was Mr. Romney’s personal values.
“Romney didn’t care about rewarding hard work or responsibilities,” she said. “It’s absolutely on the table as an indication of Romney’s values.”
That message is being echoed in “super PAC” advertisements on the campaign’s behalf. An ad by Priorities USA Action concludes with a worker saying that Mr. Romney “promised us the same things he’s promising the United States. He’ll give you the same thing he gave us. Nothing. He’ll take it all.”
To be sure, Mr. Romney’s campaign has been aggressive in describing Mr. Obama in personal ways. Mr. Romney repeatedly says that the president “doesn’t get it,” painting Mr. Obama as a kind of slow-learning neophyte in the Oval Office. His campaign often describes the president as a liar, saying he personally broke promises he made to the American people.
And the Republican super PACs have targeted Mr. Obama personally. The Times reported last week on a plan by one of them to link Mr. Obama to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr..
The question may be whether either campaign is making progress with voters by making the race more about the candidates and less about the policies they pursue.
Mr. Booker said on “Meet the Press” that the trash talk was crowding out more serious conversations about the economy and other issues. And in his video clarification, he continued to urge the candidates to stay away from the personal attacks.
“My concern is we are about to go into a significant political campaign that will affect the destiny of our nation,” he said. “I am, indeed, upset. I am, indeed, frustrated. But I believe the American public, working together, we can begin to more and more denounce this type of campaigning.”
“Ultimately,” he added, “my hope is that this election will not therefore be about the small things, will not be about divisiveness, will not be about denigrating, will not be about painting with a broad brush.”
Bain Capital issued a statement Monday in response to the new video from Mr. Obama’s campaign. Charlyn Lusk, a spokeswoman for the firm, said it has always tried to grow businesses.
“Our control of Ampad ended in 1996, fully four years before it encountered financial difficulties due to overwhelming pressure from ‘big box’ retailers, declines in paper demand, and intense foreign price pressures,” she said. “During Bain Capital’s ownership, revenues grew in 80 percent of the more than 350 companies in which we have invested.”
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 21, 2012
An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to Cory A. Booker. He is the mayor of Newark, N.J., not the mayor of New Jersey. It also misspelled the name of President Obama's former auto czar. He is Steven Rattner, not Stephen.
It’s Their Party
Other possible subjects were: The Facebook phenomenon and why does its board of directors look like a reunion tour of the Backstreet Boys and their managers? Or: The new sensation of dancing dogs on TV talent shows and how many of them do you think were ever made to ride on the roof of a car? But, no, I think we should go with the conventions. The Republicans are having theirs in Tampa, Fla., in August and then the Democrats will be in Charlotte, N.C., at the beginning of September. The presidential nominees have been chosen, but there’s still a lot to look forward to. The speeches! The funny hats! And, um ... Little-known factoids about the upcoming conventions: • The Democrats have an official barbecue sauce. Actually, three. You can buy them on the official Web site, along with a bunch of T-shirts and a very fetching oven mitt. • The Republican National Convention says that it is expecting 13,000 to 15,000 members of the news media, which would make it “the single largest media event in the world except for the Olympic Games.” The convention should try to use this Olympic theme more extensively, perhaps decking out all the potential vice presidential nominees in Speedos and recounting heartwarming stories involving ailing family members who are rooting for them back home. • The governor of Florida has rejected Tampa’s attempt to ban the carrying of concealed weapons downtown during the Republican convention. I guess this is one way to ratchet up excitement, but I’d prefer Donald Trump nominated for vice president. • You, the taxpayer, are paying the bill. Yes! Back in the 1970s, after a Watergate scandal involving lobbyists who traded huge donations to the Republican convention for special favors from the Nixon administration, Congress passed a law providing federal funding. Indexed for inflation, it’s now about $18 million per. “It’s the one part of the public funding program both parties seem more than happy to accept,” said Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College and an expert on the financing of political conventions. (Isn’t it reassuring that there are people struggling to get the country worried about presidential nominating convention finances? It reminds me of the year I was in charge of making it fun to read about the New York City Charter Revision Commission.) The parties swear, when they take the cash, that they won’t solicit additional contributions. But in American politics, when there’s a law against raising money you want to raise, the answer is: A) Break the law. B) Find a crazy billionaire. C) Form a committee. Option C wins! The cities that want to be a convention site create committees, which promise to raise copious cash if chosen. The host committee in Charlotte, for instance, is pledged to raise $36.65 million. This is turning into something of a struggle, particularly since the Democrats, in a little-noted reform effort, prohibited the host committee from accepting donations above $100,000, or money from lobbyists or corporations. (The Republicans will pretty much take anything from anybody.) Instantly, like a daffodil in spring, a new committee popped up in Charlotte, called New American City. Its mission is to “showcase all that the city and region has to offer” during the convention and, of course, it has none of those irksome limitations. While they were banning corporate contributions, the Democrats also reduced this year’s convention to three days from the usual four. However, the eliminated day will be turned over to a celebration at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, during which viewers will have the opportunity to note the close ties between the Democratic Party and Nascar dads. And since it is happening before the official opening gavel, it can be paid for by New American City. Do not tell me that this country has lost its capacity for innovation. In a sane world, the conventions could run one day and $18 million would be plenty. They could skip almost everything but the speeches by the candidates, and President Obama will actually leave the convention to make his at Charlotte’s unfortunately-named Bank of America Stadium. Why do they stretch it out? Well, there are a lot of politicians out there yearning for a chance to address an empty auditorium at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. And our public officials have to deal with an endless line of really irritating people who are impossible to make happy. A convention is a mound of favors they can do for their special interests — a party invitation, a seat in the vicinity of Joe Biden, or just the opportunity to mingle on the floor with the South Dakota delegation. (Good hats!) If it wasn’t for the need to treat the monied troops, the Republicans could hold their convention at Mitt Romney’s vacation house. Which I hear is much more pleasant than Tampa in late August.
Obama on the High Wire
Is the Democratic party the tribune of the underdog or the slave of special interests?
For much of his first three years in office, President Obama has struggled to maintain the loyalty of the liberal wing of his party. Suddenly, in 2012, he has put on a full court press.
The president’s policy shift in favor of same-sex marriage, for example, has allowed him to win back the hearts, minds and wallets of the gay rights community, a crucial source of Democratic support.
On another front, no week goes by without one or more events designed to secure and deepen Obama’s advantage among women. On May 14, he pointedly gave the graduation address at Barnard, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia (his alma mater), informing graduates:
After decades of slow, steady, extraordinary progress, you are now poised to make this the century where women shape not only their own destiny but the destiny of this nation and of this world.
From Barnard in upper Manhattan, Obama traveled downtown to ABC and an appearance on “The View,” to tell Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, “I like hanging out with women.”
In an effort to revive the strong margin of support he received from young voters in 2008, Obama has stressed his support for legislation keeping the student loan interest rate at 3.4 percent, instead of allowing the scheduled increase to 6.8 percent. Loan burdens, especially on recent graduates struggling to find work, are a major issue for voters under the age of 30 – voters Obama must mobilize this year.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are also taking up similar themes. The Senate passed what would normally be routine legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, but with added provisions to protect those in same-sex relationships from abuse — a pro-gay rights amendment anathema to House Republicans.
Individually, these and other steps taken by the administration and Democratic legislators to build support among diverse constituencies have varying degrees of popular support. In and of themselves, they would not create political problems.
Democrats have paid a higher price for policies favoring their constituencies, especially the poor and minorities, than Republicans have paid for doing the same thing on behalf of the rich.
The difficulty for the Democratic Party and its candidates arises when voters perceive that elected officials are granting special, non-universal privileges or preferences for political gain. With some regularity over the past four and a half decades, many voters — moderates and conservatives in particular — have demonstrated an aversion to contemporary liberal public policy that provides benefits and protections to groups defined by race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.
The volatility of this issue can be seen in the current controversy in Massachusetts over the Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s past description of herself as of indigenous American descent, which prompted opponents to accuse her of using that status to gain special consideration in hiring and promotion decisions.
“For years, Harvard has claimed special minority status for Professor Elizabeth Warren as a member of a Native American tribe and their first minority hire,” declared Jim Barnett, who is managing Senator Scott Brown’s re-election campaign.
That Warren allowed Harvard to hold her up as an example of their commitment to diversity in the hiring of historically disadvantaged communities is an insult to all Americans who have suffered real discrimination and mistreatment, and Warren should apologize for participating in this hypocritical sham.
Some evidence that Obama must walk a fine line as he seeks majority backing can be found in the May 15 CBS News/New York Times poll, which showed that 67 percent of respondents said Obama came out for same-sex marriage “mostly for political reasons,” while just 24 percent said he made the decision “mostly because he thinks it is right.”
These numbers do not mean that two thirds of the public oppose same-sex marriage; in fact, the public is fairly evenly split. What the numbers do reveal is that a majority of the electorate believes that political calculation, rather than moral principle, drove the president’s decision.
In an equally troublesome finding for Obama, the Times poll recorded a dramatic drop in the level of support for Obama among women, with Romney actually pulling ahead, 46-44. Obama’s support among female voters has fallen from 49 to 44 percent over the past two months, while Romney’s rose three points.
Stephanie Cutter, deputy manager of the Obama campaign, has challenged the accuracy of the Times poll, arguing that the methodology – calling people who have been previously surveyed, known as a “panel back” — resulted in “a biased sample.”
But even if the poll findings can be reasonably disputed, they still suggest that Obama’s aggressive bid to strengthen his support among women may be backfiring. Separate polling by Marquette Law School in Wisconsin shows Obama holding a strong, but declining advantage among women voters. In February, Obama had a 21 percentage point lead among women, 56-35; by mid-May, his margin among women had fallen to 9 points, 49-40.
The roots of Democratic Party vulnerability on affirmative action and other forms of group-based “preferences” lie in the social, cultural and moral revolutions of the 1960s and 70s – revolutions that have been the source of contemporary liberalism’s strengths and liabilities.
This is perhaps best illustrated in the following chart, created by two political scientists, Christopher Ellis of Bucknell and James Stimson of the University of North Carolina.
Courtesy of James StimsonThe chart tracks the percentage of the electorate that identifies itself as liberal. There is an abrupt and steep drop in self-identified liberals in the mid-1960s, which coincided with the emergence of the rights revolution – including civil rights, women’s rights, and the right to sexual privacy – as well as the anti-war movement. The Democratic Party and liberalism were increasingly identified with these movements.
Ellis and Stimson write that from 1963 to 1967, “the ranks of self-identified liberals fell by 10.5 points – about one fourth – and never recovered.” They argue that the shift resulted from “the new clientele of liberalism”:
The New Deal had for clients the working people of America. In one phrase it was “the common man.” Thus liberalism was conjoined with pictures of workers, often unionized, hard-working people, playing by the rules, and trying to get ahead…. With the coming of the Great Society there was a new clientele of liberalism, the poor – and the nonwhite. The focus of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty was the underclass of people whose usual defining characteristic was that they did not work. And although there were – and are – more poor white people than black people, the image of poverty from the very beginning was black.
Successful Democratic presidential candidates – especially Bill Clinton and Obama – have been acutely aware of these liabilities.
Many of the strategies undergirding the campaigns of 1992, 1996 and 2008 were explicitly designed to mute or eliminate perceived liberal vulnerabilities. Clinton famously promised to “end welfare as we know it,” to reward those “who work hard and play by the rules.” He also went out of his way to demonstrate his support for the death penalty as Arkansas Governor by rejecting clemency for convicted killer Ricky Ray Rector, who was executed in Arkansas during the 1992 campaign despite serious brain damage resulting from a self-inflicted wound.
In 2008, Obama confounded liberal supporters when he praised a Supreme Court ruling overturning a Washington, D.C. ban on handguns, endorsed a proposed wiretap law and spoke favorably about applying the death penalty to those convicted of raping a child.
One of the interesting phenomena demonstrated in the Ellis-Stimson chart above is the ebb and flow of liberal self-identification after the drop in the mid-1960s. While never rising to previous levels, liberal self-identification increases during Republican administrations (Nixon-Ford-Reagan-Bush) and decreases when Democrats take over the presidency (Carter-Clinton). The sole exception is the increase in liberal self-identification in the latter years of the Clinton administration, likely a negative response to the Republican take-over of the House and Senate in 1995, the ascendance of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican attempt to impeach Clinton in 1998.
A second interesting political development in recent decades is that Democrats have paid a higher price for policies favoring their constituencies, especially the poor and minorities, than Republicans have paid for doing the same thing on behalf of the rich.
Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush won approval, soon after winning election, of tax policies decisively favoring the affluent, and both went on to win re-election.
The relative invulnerability of the Republican Party in recent years to backlash after pushing through regressive tax policies is even more surprising because a plurality of the public, 46 percent, believes the rich are rich as a result of their connections, not their hard work, according to Pew surveys. In other words, while voters are hostile to policies benefiting those seen as the “undeserving” poor, they are more tolerant of policies benefiting the undeserving rich:
Part of this difference is rooted in the power of race in American politics. Some of the most controversial policies supported by Democrats, including civil rights generally, affirmative action and busing, have alienated a portion of white voters, especially those in the South and in northern working-class communities.
At the same time, part of the tolerance of policies that favor the rich comes from the fact that voters place a much higher value on increasing opportunity than they do on decreasing inequality.
Gallup reported in December that 70 percent of survey respondents said it was “extremely” (29 percent) or “very” important to increase the equality of opportunity for people to get ahead,” while 46 percent said it was “extremely” (17 percent) or “very” (29 percent) important to “reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor.”
In the same survey, Gallup found that 52 percent described “the fact that some people in the United States are rich and others are poor” as acceptable, while 45 percent said it is “a problem that needs to be fixed.” The percentage answering “acceptable” actually grew seven points, up from 45 percent in 1998, despite the efforts of the Obama administration and the Occupy Wall Street movement to make inequality a more salient issue.
Perhaps most fascinatingly, a majority of Americans, 58 percent, identify themselves as “haves” while 34 percent say they are “have nots,” according to Gallup. A person identifying him or herself as a have is more likely to see a threat to their own assets in redistributive government policies.
As the 2012 election progresses, there is every sign that Republicans will seek to strengthen the perception of the Obama administration as dependent on constituencies that are often disadvantaged or that have been previously marginalized. They will gleefully label their advocates “special interests.”
The conservative columnist Jay Cost wrote last week:
You, me, and almost everybody else in this country wants to talk about jobs, the deficit, national security, but the Democratic party simply does not listen to us. It is not responsive to what we want, but rather only to the special interests that now dominate it. Organized labor, the environmentalist left, the feminists, big city machine politicos, and all the rest – they hum the tune to which the party dances. If you are lucky enough to be in one of those groups, then the Democrats will be happy to hear what you have to say. If you aren’t, then you’ll be lucky if they don’t hang up on you!
The campaign will require Obama to reinvigorate support among core constituencies – minorities, single women, the young, “knowledge workers” and “creatives”– without antagonizing moderates. It will not be easy.
There is one factor helping Obama to negotiate this political minefield on the path to Nov. 6: the taint of racial or anti-gay prejudice that clings to some Republican initiatives. It can all happen very quickly. The disclosure by the Times of a plan under consideration by a conservative super PAC to run tough, racially-freighted ads using the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to attack Obama, forced the super PAC to back away from the proposal.
Republicans and Democrats are aware that attack ads can prove highly counterproductive if voters see them as divisive and intolerant. Both parties and their candidates run the risk of putting a foot wrong and slipping off the tightrope.
Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the book “The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics,” which was published earlier this year.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
'Birthers' fume, defend Bennett
The first message left on my voice mail over the weekend came from the president of the Confederate States of America, which should have told me what I was in for.I didn't write down his message. It didn't seem all that important, given that that whole Confederacy thing was settled in, you know, 1865.Or, as it turns out, was it?Mr. President was among a hundred or so people who called or wrote in to spring to Secretary of State Ken Bennett's defense as he continues his quest for truth, justice and Barack Obama's birth certificate.It seems they didn't appreciate my Saturday column lamenting the laughter headed our way when the state's chief elections officer picks up the "birther" battle cry and charges off into looneyland."You're another indoctrinated, university-educated -- I assume -- person, and it's people like you that have our nation in the trouble we're in," one caller said."You're an Obama hack," another said.Then there was Jim, who, like the others, has made a serious study of this whole matter of Obama's birth."There is no real birth certificate from Hawaii," he said, "because the people born at the same time at the same hospital have a different birth certificate and if you would get off your ass and do some real reporting, you would see that. But instead, you decide to drink the Kool-Aid and walk in lockstep with the rest of the Democratic Party. When are we going to have some real reporters, because it doesn't seem like we have them anymore. That's why I get my information from the Internet."Given that, I would guess that Jim is fuming today over reports that Obama is eyeing a spot on Mount Rushmore, but I digress.I'd be happy to get off my posterior if it involves a trip to Hawaii, Jim. Feel free to bring it up to the boss. I just don't know what I would find there. About Obama's birth, that is.Hawaii doesn't release copies of birth certificates, but state officials have repeatedly said that Obama was born there. Last year, they made an exception and released a copy to Obama, who then posted it on the Internet. Hawaii's Department of Health even provides a link on its website."I have seen the original records filed at the Department of Health and attest to the authenticity of the certified copies the department provided to the president that further prove the fact that he was born in Hawaii," Hawaii Health Director Loretta Fuddy said at the time.That isn't good enough for the birthers -- or for Bennett, who, at their urging, contacted Hawaii eight weeks ago. Last week, Bennett said it was "possible" that the president's name would be left off Arizona's ballot this fall if Hawaii doesn't comply with his request and verify Obama's birth. (Again, that is.)Would Bennett really follow through on that?"It's a good question," his spokesman, Matt Roberts, told me Monday. "I think we'll cross that bridge when we get there."Actually, I think Bennett already leaped into the chasm."If Hawaii can't or won't provide verification of the president's birth certificate, I will not put his name on the ballot," Bennett wrote in an April 27 e-mail to the birthers, who are delighted to find someone in officialdom willing to take up their cause.Two things I've discovered about the birthers: They have no sense of humor and, if you don't buy into the grand conspiracy, you're a communist or, worse, a liberal Democrat."You might want to get out of Obama's tank and into the real world, a world with real, honest-to-goodness, God-fearing, moral people who believe in good over evil, not those who appear to worship Obama as if he were the Messiah," wrote Kandy of Scottsdale."The only ones laughing at Arizona are all of you gullible White liberal commies," said Jerry, in a voice message. "True Americans are of a mind that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. ? By the way, when did you become a criminal investigator? Do you have a staff of people that can find the truth or are the arse-kissing owners and managers of this rag sheet that you work for still bowing down to the Black Jesus?"Then there was this woman, who didn't leave her name: "We need to question where Barack Obama comes from because I think he's a narcissist and I don't think he's honest," she said.By that measure, most of Congress might be foreign-born.Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Posted
Primary Challenge to Rangel Turns Into a War of Endorsements
The incumbent, Representative Charles B. Rangel, and his most prominent primary opponent, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, have been engaged in a duel of endorsements in recent weeks, inviting reporters to City Hall, Harlem and the Bronx to hear their newest pledges of support. Endorsements, analysts say, do not make much difference to voters, but the frequency of the announcements points to the peculiar dynamic in this race. Mr. Rangel, 81, who has been in Congress since 1971, is trying to signal to donors, the news media and the city’s political class that despite health issues and ethics concerns he is still going strong; Mr. Espaillat, in turn, is trying to show that Mr. Rangel has lost influential support. “For Adriano, his endorsements are meant to show that he is getting traction, he’s building momentum, and that he himself is able to snatch away support from Charlie,” said Basil A. Smikle Jr., a political consultant who is not working for either candidate. “For Charlie, it’s more of, ‘I still have support in this community, and the institutions that have been around, that people know, still support me.” The endorsements also serve to remind the news media and voters that this year’s primary for federal offices is unusually early in New York: June 26. Mr. Rangel and Mr. Espaillat are both Democrats, and they will face each other in the primary, along with several other candidates. The district, which runs from Harlem to the northwest Bronx, is overwhelmingly Democratic, so the winner of the primary is expected to go on to win the general election in November. John Gutierrez, an instructor in Latin American and Latino studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, described the endorsements as mostly “inside baseball” that would have little effect, unless they came with significant money and organizational support. But he suggested that, for Mr. Rangel, the stream of announcements might serve as a substitute for more laborious campaigning that, because of his age and serious back problems, is more challenging this year. “He’s not going to be at train stations, he’s not going to be visiting senior centers, he’s not going to be doing all of the retail politics that Adriano is, frankly, very, very good at,” Mr. Gutierrez said, adding, “Maybe for Charlie the endorsements sort of serve as an ‘in lieu of’ for campaigning.” Mr. Espaillat has gathered the endorsements of, among others, two former Bronx borough presidents, Fernando Ferrer and Adolfo Carrion, Jr.; Councilman G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx; a former congressman, Herman Badillo; and a state senator, Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx. Mr. Rangel has been endorsed by the current Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz, Jr.; a Bronx congressman, Jose E. Serrano; and several members of the State Senate, the Assembly and the New York City Council. On Wednesday, Mr. Rangel was endorsed by Adam Clayton Powell IV — an endorsement rich with symbolism, because Mr. Rangel had unseated Mr. Powell’s father, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in 1970, and the younger Mr. Powell had himself run against Mr. Rangel twice. On Friday, Mr. Rangel is expected to be endorsed by Assemblyman Guillermo Linares of Manhattan, whose support is significant because he, like Mr. Espaillat, is Dominican-American. Conspicuously, some prominent officials who have endorsed Mr. Rangel in the past appear to be sitting this year’s race out. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who taped campaign messages for Mr. Rangel two years ago, said recently that he had not yet made up his mind whether to get involved. And the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, when asked whether President Obama supported Representative Rangel, said “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” He did not. Asked on Wednesday about the significance of endorsements, Mr. Rangel recalled some of the endorsements that he had received in recent years, including some in 2010, when he was under scrutiny for ethical lapses. “In recent years, it has been a campaign that’s been endorsed by the mayor, the comptroller, the governors, and outstanding public officials from across the country,” he said. “The endorsement announcements have highlighted a significant different in resources between the campaigns. Wherever Mr. Rangel appears, a crowd of supporters materializes to hold signs and chant his name. When he announced the endorsement by Mr. Diaz, two dozen people stood behind him on courthouse steps, holding an arc of red, white and blue balloons. And when he was endorsed by Mr. Serrano, a group of men arrayed behind him on the City Hall steps responded defensively when a blogger asked an unwelcome question about Mr. Rangel’s house in the Dominican Republic. “Charlie Rangel is the man! Charlie Rangel is the man!” they began chanting, drowning out further questions. Mr. Espaillat, by contrast, is usually accompanied by only a few aides. A news conference in the Bronx on Monday to announce his endorsement by Councilman Koppell was so sparsely attended that it took place in a restaurant booth.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Political thorns emerge for Democrats in N. Carolina
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — CHARLOTTE, N.C. Once a bright spot for President Barack Obama, North Carolina is now more like a political migraine less than four months before Democrats open the party's national convention in Charlotte.The causes are plenty.Labor unions, a core Democratic constituency, are up in arms. Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue isn't running for re-election; Democrats say she was likely to lose. The state Democratic Party is in disarray over an explosive sexual-harassment scandal. Voters recently approved amending the state Constitution to ban gay marriage, a position that runs counter to Obama's. And unemployment in the state remains persistently high."Nobody can sugarcoat the fact that we got problems here," said Gary Pearce, a former Democratic consultant who was an adviser to former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt. Pearce was referring specifically to state-party woes but could have been talking about any of the troubles here for Democrats.But, he added, "I think the greatest strength that the party has is President Obama. And he's the thing that people will rally around."It wasn't supposed to be like this -- at least that was the hope -- when Democrats chose Charlotte to host the national convention, where Obama will formally accept his party's presidential nomination for a second time Sept. 4-6.When Democrats announced the choice in February 2011, they said selecting the Southern city signaled Obama's intent to fight hard for the conservative-leaning state like he did in 2008. They also highlighted the economic transformation in the state and in Charlotte -- from tobacco, textiles and furniture making to research, energy and banking. Party leaders noted the state's strong political leadership and expressed hope that a Perdue re-election bid would get a boost from the attention that would be lavished on the convention.Now traditional Democratic Party groups are threatening huge protests, in part because they're deeply uncomfortable that the convention is being held in one of the least union-friendly states. And thousands of Democrats across the country are calling for the convention to be relocated because of the gay-marriage vote.Democrats say that won't happen."Charlotte is going to host a great convention," insisted Mayor Anthony Foxx, who pushed to bring the event to North Carolina's largest city.Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, said, "The convention is staying in Charlotte."Republicans point out the obvious."North Carolina is a mess for the Democratic Party and for President Obama," said Matt Connelly, Republican National Committee spokesman.Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Posted
Sunday, May 27, 2012
A Drop in Fund-Raising for the Obama Campaign
President Obama’s campaign took in $25.7 million in April, a significant drop from March, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday afternoon.
The drop-off — Mr. Obama raised $10 million more in March — signals a lull for the president as his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, has effectively locked down the Republican nomination and begun aggressively fund-raising for the general election campaign.
The Democratic National Committee, which Mr. Obama also raises money for, took in $14.4 million during April, less than it did in March. That brings Mr. Obama’s combined haul to about $40.1 million, not including money paid by the party’s joint committee for fund-raising expenses.
Mr. Romney’s campaign said this week that Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee, which have a similar joint arrangement, had also raised about $40.1 million. His campaign had not filed detailed disclosures with the F.E.C. as of Friday evening. The candidates are required to file by midnight on Sunday.
The Romney campaign confirmed that Mitt and Ann Romney put their own money into the 2012 campaign, giving $75,000 each to Romney Victory Fund, a joint initiative between Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee.
Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama are seeking to raise at least $750 million for their respective campaigns and parties this cycle, goals that make it likely that neither candidate will accept public financing for the general election. But Mr. Obama, who faced no primary challenge, is much further along: his campaign has raised over $233 million so far and reported more than $115 million in cash on hand at the end of April.
A spring slowdown is not unprecedented: in 2008, April and May were Mr. Obama’s weakest fund-raising months.
Presidential Race Pits Government Against Business
An Obama campaign video shows the president’s national political director, Katherine Archuleta, tearfully crediting Mr. Obama with having saved her daughter’s life. She portrays the president as a hero of government whose health care law assures her daughter, a cancer survivor, insurance coverage forever. A video by a political committee backing Mr. Romney follows a nearly identical tack: evocative music and a tearful description of Mr. Romney as “the man who helped save my daughter.” But the testimonial, from a former partner at Bain Capital, depicts Mr. Romney as a hero of business who once shut down his firm to aid search efforts until the partner’s missing teenager was found. Those competing stories are rooted in more than the biographies of the Democratic incumbent, a former professor and community organizer, and his Republican challenger, a onetime financial industry titan. They also reflect the divergent ideologies and core constituencies of the two parties. Mr. Obama champions government as a linchpin of future economic growth and the average American’s protector from the excesses and failures of the free market. Mr. Romney condemns government as a menace whose excesses and failures imperil the free market’s ability to enhance individual opportunity and make the nation prosperous. Each has more negative than positive material to work with. Their back-and-forth is a clash between institutions reduced to equal levels of public disdain after years of economic weakness, Wall Street’s collapse and bailout, high unemployment levels and shifting election outcomes. A Pew Research Center poll found in February that only 22 percent of Americans rated the federal government as having a positive effect on American life — precisely the same proportion who rated banks and other financial institutions positively. “It’s clearly a standoff,” said Pew’s pollster, Andrew Kohut, though one involving coalitions of different shapes. Blacks and Hispanics were twice as likely as whites to rate government positively, for example, and nearly four times as likely as white evangelicals. Mr. Obama’s argument draws stronger support from single women, Mr. Romney’s from white men and married women. The contours of the partisan debate have grown familiar since Ronald Reagan called government the problem, not the solution, and the 2000 election established how closely it divides the nation. But each side sees an opening for a breakthrough in November. For the Romney team, it is the juxtaposition of a Democratic incumbent struggling with hard times against a Republican candidate uniquely suited to extend the arc of conservative ascendancy that began with Reagan’s antigovernment campaign in 1980. “We haven’t had a candidate that’s been as successful from a business standpoint as Romney has been,” said Carl Forti, a strategist for the pro-Romney “super PAC” that produced the advertisement featuring his business partner. As hostile as swing voters may be toward Wall Street and big corporations, he added, “they absolutely know government’s worse.” For Mr. Obama’s advisers, the opening lies in their ability to tie Mr. Romney to the market’s generation-long failure to deliver rising living standards to average Americans. “The country tried everything Romney says, and it brought the economy to the brink of collapse,” said Mr. Obama’s pollster, Joel Benenson. “The American people know our country has a big role to play in investing in education, in R&D to produce new industries and in infrastructure.” That explains the Obama campaign’s recent attack on Mr. Romney’s record at Bain Capital. An Obama campaign video with sorrowful former steelworkers cast Mr. Romney as a corporate “vampire” who with his partners bought a Missouri manufacturer, siphoned away profits for themselves and bankrupted it. Mr. Obama’s defense this week of his campaign’s Bain attacks underscored the ideological clash. The president asserted that pursuit of private-sector profits was insufficient preparation for service as chief executive of government, who is obliged to consider the interests of all constituents, including workers. The Romney campaign answered that tale of villainy with one of heroism. Its ad highlighted a different company that “Mitt Romney’s private-sector leadership team” helped start, creating 6,000 jobs. “If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is,” a grateful worker concluded. The route to the American dream sketched by Mr. Obama involves critical assistance from the government. In an interactive Obama campaign graphic, the fictional character “Julia” benefits from programs like Head Start, small-business subsidies and the new health care law. The campaign recently spent $1 million on a targeted mailing to women in swing states trumpeting benefits they would lose if Mr. Romney won a repeal of the health law. Mr. Romney dismissed the “Julia” device as an illustration of the centrality of government to Mr. Obama’s vision. He said at a rally this year, “If you’re looking for free stuff you don’t have to pay for, vote for the other guy.” Mr. Obama promotes the two-year-old financial regulation law as protection against the depredations of Wall Street, with all the more urgency after JPMorgan Chase’s recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. Mr. Romney insists that the law inhibits private-sector-led growth and supports its repeal. He takes the same view of the government’s involvement in bailing out auto companies, saying it rewarded unions friendly to Democrats at the taxpayers’ expense; his campaign’s new Web video features nonunion workers complaining that Washington had not helped them. Mr. Obama says the government bailout saved the industry. Both sides supplement philosophical arguments with practical ones. Mr. Romney casts the administration’s interventions as simply ineffective; Mr. Obama’s campaign says Mr. Romney failed to deliver on jobs and government-slimming promises as governor of Massachusetts. Yet they consistently offer voters a fundamental contrast of outlook. Mr. Obama wants government to enhance opportunity and temper inequality through investments in education, research, infrastructure and new energy technologies — paid for with help from higher taxes on the wealthy. Mr. Romney, speaking in Des Moines last week, articulated the opposite view. “The private sector is by far the most efficient and cost-effective” at generating economic growth, Mr. Romney said. “As President Obama and old-school liberals absorb more and more of our economy into government, they make what we do more expensive, less efficient and less useful.” “They make America less competitive,” he concluded. “You do not owe Washington a bigger share of your paycheck.”
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Mitt Romney declining to disclose names of campaign bundlers
WASHINGTON – More than a month after becoming his party's presumptive presidential nominee, Republican Mitt Romney has not publicly identified most of the fundraisers helping him collect the millions of dollars he needs to win the White House, even as he promises them special access perks.
By Evan Vucci, AP
President Obama has released his fundraiser list every three months during this campaign. His most recent disclosure, in mid-April, identified more than 530 individuals and couples who have raised at least $106 million. He reports their fundraising in broad ranges only.Lawyers and law-firm employees account for about one out of every four Obama fundraisers, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. The list also is sprinkled with famous names, including director Spike Lee and actress Eva Longoria.These fundraisers, known as "bundlers" for their ability to bundle together contributions from family, friends and business associates, are crucial to campaigns racing to amass cash to pay their aides and fund commercials and get-out-the-vote efforts.Romney is seeking contributions of up to $75,800 per person to be split among his campaign and joint fundraising accounts with the Republican National Committee and several state parties. His campaign said those joint efforts brought in $40.1 million in April, nearly on par with the amount raised that month by Obama and the Democratic Party.Campaign-finance watchdogs have pressed for Romney to disclose his bundlers. "Should he be elected, these people will be first in line seeking benefits from the new administration and the public won't even know who these people are and whether they are being rewarded for their role in getting Romney elected," said Taylor Lincoln, a research director at Public Citizen.Romney campaign officials did not respond to several interview requests this week. Last year, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told USA TODAY that Romney discloses "the information about our donors as required by law."Federal rules enacted after the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal require candidates to report fundraising by federal lobbyists. Altogether, 25 lobbyist-bundlers have collected more than $3 million for Romney's campaign, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.Patrick Durkin, who lobbies on behalf of Barclays, an international banking firm, has raised the most — more than $927,000. He did not return telephone calls.A widely circulated campaign document shows Romney is offering perks to his biggest fundraisers, including access at the party's convention in Tampa, a weekend retreat next month in Park City, Utah, weekly campaign briefings and a "dedicated Romney Victory Heaquarters" staff member.Bundlers who raise $250,000 will be designated Romney "Stars." Those who collect $500,000 join the "Stripes" category and earn additional benefits, including access to presidential debates.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
By Evan Vucci, APMitt Romney is bucking the practice of other GOP candidates and not naming bundlers of large amounts of campaign money.
By Evan Vucci, APMitt Romney is bucking the practice of other GOP candidates and not naming bundlers of large amounts of campaign money.
Romney is not required by law to disclose the identities of his fundraisers with the exception of those who work as federal lobbyists. Releasing the names of bundlers, however, has been standard in presidential campaigns for more than a decade.Republican George W. Bush established the pattern in the 2000 election, revealing the names of fundraisers who collected at least $100,000. He repeated the practice in 2004. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee four years ago, had disclosed his fundraisers by this point in the 2008 campaign, releasing a list of 106 bundlers on April 18 of that year.Romney's last serious challenger for the nomination, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, ended his campaign April 10.President Obama has released his fundraiser list every three months during this campaign. His most recent disclosure, in mid-April, identified more than 530 individuals and couples who have raised at least $106 million. He reports their fundraising in broad ranges only.Lawyers and law-firm employees account for about one out of every four Obama fundraisers, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. The list also is sprinkled with famous names, including director Spike Lee and actress Eva Longoria.These fundraisers, known as "bundlers" for their ability to bundle together contributions from family, friends and business associates, are crucial to campaigns racing to amass cash to pay their aides and fund commercials and get-out-the-vote efforts.Romney is seeking contributions of up to $75,800 per person to be split among his campaign and joint fundraising accounts with the Republican National Committee and several state parties. His campaign said those joint efforts brought in $40.1 million in April, nearly on par with the amount raised that month by Obama and the Democratic Party.Campaign-finance watchdogs have pressed for Romney to disclose his bundlers. "Should he be elected, these people will be first in line seeking benefits from the new administration and the public won't even know who these people are and whether they are being rewarded for their role in getting Romney elected," said Taylor Lincoln, a research director at Public Citizen.Romney campaign officials did not respond to several interview requests this week. Last year, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told USA TODAY that Romney discloses "the information about our donors as required by law."Federal rules enacted after the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal require candidates to report fundraising by federal lobbyists. Altogether, 25 lobbyist-bundlers have collected more than $3 million for Romney's campaign, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.Patrick Durkin, who lobbies on behalf of Barclays, an international banking firm, has raised the most — more than $927,000. He did not return telephone calls.A widely circulated campaign document shows Romney is offering perks to his biggest fundraisers, including access at the party's convention in Tampa, a weekend retreat next month in Park City, Utah, weekly campaign briefings and a "dedicated Romney Victory Heaquarters" staff member.Bundlers who raise $250,000 will be designated Romney "Stars." Those who collect $500,000 join the "Stripes" category and earn additional benefits, including access to presidential debates.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Obama, Dems raise $43.6M in April; short of March haul
WASHINGTON - President Obama and the Democratic Party raised a combined $43.6 million last month for his re-election, a drop from his March haul and another sign that he is likely to fall well short of the $1 billion mark in his re-election effort.
By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP
Obama's April figures don't include a new round of presidential fundraisers in recent weeks that have taken the president to New York City and Los Angeles. Obama raised an estimated $15 million at a single event last week at actor George Clooney's home.Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney had collected just $12.6 million in March but has yet to release his April fund-raising totals. In recent weeks, Romney has begun collecting campaign money with the Republican National Committee and is attending a round of fundraisers in Florida this week. His supporters say Romney and the RNC aim to collect a combined $800 million.On Wednesday, RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski sent out an email slamming Obama as "fundraiser in chief."
By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, APPresident Obama speaks at a fundraiser hosted by singer Ricky Martin and the LGBT Leadership Council in New York on Monday.
By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, APPresident Obama speaks at a fundraiser hosted by singer Ricky Martin and the LGBT Leadership Council in New York on Monday.
Obama and his Democratic fund-raising arms would have to take in nearly $60 million a month between now and Election Day just to match the $745 million he raised as a candidate in 2008. The $53 million he raised in March for himself and the party was his best fund-raising month of the year."One of the most important things we can do is get arms around the fact that this election is going to be close, given the historic challenges the nation faced when the president first came into office," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a video to supporters Wednesday. He said more than $57 million in negative ads targeting Obama have already aired and more are on the way.The campaign announcement came as Crossroads GPS, a non-profit group linked to Republican strategist Karl Rove, announced it would spend $25 million on advertising slamming Obama on the economy and federal deficit. Crossroads GPS and its super PAC, American Crossroads, have pledged to spend $300 million to oppose Obama and congressional Democrats.Messina said 169,500 donors gave to Obama for the first time in April, putting the campaign within reach of nearly 2 million contributors. He said the money paid for building the campaign infrastructure and boosting get-out-the-vote efforts in key battleground states, including opening 42 new field offices in April and registering 15,000 new voters in North Carolina. In 2008, Obama won the state by a mere 14,000 votes.In a conference call Wednesday, deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said the campaign feels "pretty good" about its fund-raising and the ground operation that "will decide the election."Obama's April figures don't include a new round of presidential fundraisers in recent weeks that have taken the president to New York City and Los Angeles. Obama raised an estimated $15 million at a single event last week at actor George Clooney's home.Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney had collected just $12.6 million in March but has yet to release his April fund-raising totals. In recent weeks, Romney has begun collecting campaign money with the Republican National Committee and is attending a round of fundraisers in Florida this week. His supporters say Romney and the RNC aim to collect a combined $800 million.On Wednesday, RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski sent out an email slamming Obama as "fundraiser in chief." Contributing: Aamer Madhani
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Obama Wins Contests in Arkansas and Kentucky
President Obama easily won two more Democratic primaries on Tuesday, earning victories in largely uncontested contests in Kentucky and Arkansas, where he nevertheless faced a challenge from a perennial candidate.
The president has already secured the Democratic nomination, but continues to remain on the ballot as the party’s process winds toward a conclusion.
In Arkansas, Mr. Obama took 60 percent of the vote, with 40 percent going to a Tennessee lawyer, John Wolfe, who has run unsuccessfully several times for Congress and other posts in Tennessee. In Kentucky, Mr. Obama received about 58 percent of the vote, with the balance going to “uncommitted.”
Mr. Obama did not campaign in the states, both of which are considered solidly Republican in the general election. Earlier this month, an incarcerated felon won 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia’s Democratic primary.
Mitt Romney, who has all but secured the Republican nomination, also won his party’s primaries in the two states, earning 68.3 percent of the vote in Arkansas and 66.7 percent in Kentucky.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Reaching Catholics
In 2012, once again, Catholics should be the swing voters of a presidential race. They’re one of the country’s most divided and complex voting blocs, too. One third of Catholics are staunch social conservatives who view abortion as a litmus test when choosing a candidate, but Gallup polling finds the rest of Catholics slightly to the left of the country on most “values” issues.
Recent events have highlighted these divisions. After Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Catholic, said he was “entirely comfortable” with same-sex marriage in early May, President Obama reportedly accelerated his announcement endorsing it. Church leaders condemned Obama, while 68 percent of Catholics — five points higher than the country as a whole — support legal gay and lesbian relationships, and 51 percent support same-sex marriage.
In February, the Obama administration thought it had come to an understanding with the United States Council of Catholic Bishops over a federal mandate compelling Catholic institutions to pay for health care plans that cover birth control. But in the end the bishops rejected an “unjust and unlawful” deal, which Mitt Romney called an “attack on religious tolerance.” Fifty-eight percent of Catholics — including 62 percent of Catholic women — sided with the Obama administration, three points more than the rest of country.
Then there is the Hispanic vote. At 50 million, Hispanics are the fastest growing bloc in the country, solidly Catholic, and focused on the politics of immigration. In 2001, Karl Rove said that increasing the Republican share of the Hispanic vote was his mission, but the 2012 Republican Party doesn’t seem to be paying attention to that line of thinking. Mitt Romney promised to veto the Dream Act, a proposed law that would provide a pathway to legal status for children of illegal immigrants, provided they serve in the military or attend college.
Catholics are up for grabs this year. A Gallup poll from April has President Obama and Mitt Romney tied among Catholics, 46 percent each. At nearly 20 percent of the population, Catholics have roughly mirrored the popular vote in the last eight elections. They voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but switched to Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. In 2000, Catholics, like the country, went under 50 percent for George W. Bush; but against John Kerry, Bush took 52 percent; by 2008, they’d flipped to Barack Obama, 54-45.
It’s unclear whether the Obama campaign will specifically organize Catholic supporters or try to persuade moderate ones. This Monday, the campaign hired Michael Wear as its faith vote director. That’s an excellent first step, and Wear’s experience organizing faith-based outreach for Obama in 2008 and in the White House indicates that the Obama campaign is taking people who make their faith a priority seriously. Wear might have too much on his plate, however — the campaign Web site groups Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Southern Baptists and Muslims under a one-size-fits-all “Voters of Faith” outreach program. It’s a mistake to treat the Catholic vote just like the rest.
A series about the complexities of voters and voting.Perhaps no presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy has been able to unite this disparate flock. But President Obama’s task isn’t that tough. The key to winning the Catholic vote is to understand its composition — litmus-test abortion voters, moderates, women and Hispanics — and to aim to carry persuadable Catholics by healthy margins in crucial swing states. Failure to deliver them could cost the president re-election.
Recent events suggest that these vast groups of Catholic voters (again: women, moderates, Latinos) are now more open to a progressive faith-based message than they have been perhaps since Kennedy-Nixon. The Obama campaign should tread lightly, however, and resist any poll-driven urge to drive a wedge between the faithful and official church positions on women’s issues or same-sex marriage. Divisive messaging probably won’t fly among most Catholics, who may grumble about their religious leaders’ positions, but don’t seek overt separation from them. I can’t say that there’s any scientific evidence to support this theory, but it comes from my observations over a lifetime in the Catholic community.
The Obama campaign’s message should unequivocally stand with the church and Jesus Christ’s humble message of social justice, equality and inclusion. These are distinctly Catholic themes that draw sharp contrasts for Catholics who have tired of a Republican Party with less room for those who are not straight, male, white and self-sufficient.
Mitt Romney’s embrace of Representative Paul Ryan’s budget bill, replete with radical cuts to social-safety net programs, is a good place to start. The budget which Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, put together, and which the House passed, was rejected by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said that the plan failed a “basic moral test.” Some 90 members of Georgetown’s faculty wrote a letter to Ryan that read, in part, “your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The letter went on:
We would be remiss in our duties to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few.
For its part, the White House protested that the Ryan budget imposes “a particular burden on the middle-class and the most vulnerable.” This argument should form the bedrock of Obama’s faith-based appeal to persuadable Catholics.
A broad, upbeat theme of social justice will be enough for Obama to reach persuadable Catholics, who can interpret the message in concert with their beliefs. The president might quote Pope John Paul II, who once said, “Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.” They must hear the message often and at least 15 percent of the time in Spanish.
Newly available data show the Obama campaign exactly where to target persuadable Catholics. On May 1, the United States Religious Census published a survey detailing where Catholics live on a county-by-county basis across the country. It was not terribly surprising. They heavily populate the Northeast, the upper Midwest, south Florida, southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, and California. In other words, there are a lot of Catholics in crucial swing states.
Separate, openly available county-by-county demographic data identifies where moderate or progressive voters, from a variety of backgrounds, live.
Overlaying a map of densely Catholic counties on top of a map of persuadable voters shows that the Obama re-election team has a unique chance to focus its social justice message on prized areas: heavily Catholic, moderate counties within swing states.
This strategy prescribes very specific Catholic outreach efforts. The re-election campaign should target the west side of Cleveland through the Indiana state line, but shouldn’t waste resources on conservative Catholics in east-Cleveland suburbs. Northern Wisconsin is in play, but certain Milwaukee suburbs aren’t. Greater Pittsburgh is likely to reap higher returns than Philadelphia. The campaign should run up the score with Hispanic voters in Colorado and New Mexico. In total, there are approximately 200 counties nation-wide that should end up on the campaign’s list.
What would a Catholic voter outreach program look like? The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t exactly let political operatives walk in the front door and set up shop, but there are several progressive Catholic organizations — Catholics United, Catholics in Alliance, Catholic Democrats — that the campaign could engage first to build a volunteer corps. Within each district office, the campaign could identify Catholic precinct captains to recruit Catholic door-knockers to reach out to their friends from church. Then there’s advertising. It would be more difficult to construct this architecture from scratch, but however it’s done, it’s a must: a positive social justice message could be what tips the balance toward re-election for the president.
As a moderate Democrat and a Catholic, I disagree with my party when I say that I believe life begins at conception or that abortions should be performed only in cases of rape, incest or when a pregnancy threatens a mother’s life. In another era, those beliefs might have made me a Republican target. But I’m a Democrat, in part, because of the party’s deep belief in social justice: We’re the ones who make equality and inclusion central to our very being; we stick up for the little guy; we don’t believe everyone should fend for themselves all the time. That’s what Jesus said, and that’s the society President Obama wants to build.
Jim Arkedis is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.
Tight Race Seen in Swing-State Polls
Poll results in three swing states show President Obama and Mitt Romney in tight races in Florida and Virginia, and the president with a six-point advantage in Ohio.
In surveys conducted by NBC News/Marist from May 17 to May 20, voters in all three states said the economy outweighed social issues by a wide margin in deciding whom to vote for. And again, in all three states, voters are divided on which candidate would do a better job handling the economy.
Ohio voters support Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney by a slim margin, 48 percent to 42 percent. More voters there say Mr. Obama understands the problems of people like themselves, and the president has a 50 percent favorability rating, compared with 39 percent of voters who have a favorable impression of Mr. Romney.
Ohio voters are split over which candidate comes closer to their view on social issues, and 48 percent say Mr. Romney would do a better job of reducing the nation’s debt, while 38 percent say Mr. Obama would.
In the Ohio Senate race, the Democratic incumbent, Sherrod Brown, has a 14-point lead over the Republican challenger, Josh Mandel, the state treasurer, 51 percent to 37 percent.
In the Florida poll, 48 percent of registered voters support Mr. Obama, compared to 44 percent for Mr. Romney. Even when Mr. Romney is hypothetically paired with Senator Marco Rubio or former Gov. Jeb Bush as a running mate, voters are still divided.
The poll also showed a tight Senate race in Florida, with 46 percent of voters supporting Bill Nelson, the Democrat incumbent, and 42 percent supporting Connie Mack, a Republican congressman.
Among registered voters in Virginia, Mr. Obama has 48 percent support compared to 44 percent for Mr. Romney.
In the Senate race there, former Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, has a slim lead, 49 percent to 43 percent, over George Allen, the Republican former governor who lost his Senate seat to Jim Webb in 2006.
NBC News/Marist College conducted telephone surveys of 1,103 registered voters in Ohio, 1,078 voters in Florida, and 1,076 voters in Virginia, all with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Chefs lead fight against Calif. ban on foie gras delicacy
Erika Ramos, 26, feeds the ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y. In a feeding process called gavage, corn is force-fed to the ducks which helps expand their livers for foie gras.By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAYSAN FRANCISCO – Diners are lining up to get their last bit of foie gras at Santa Monica's Mélisse restaurant, where chef Josiah Citrin is offering a "Foie for All" five-course tasting menu.
By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAYDucks drink water at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y., one of the nation's few foie gras producers.
By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAYDucks drink water at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y., one of the nation's few foie gras producers.
"We're super busy," maitre d' Matthew Greenberg says. "About 30% of our guests are ordering foie gras."Other California restaurants are also seeing a rise in orders of the gourmet duck liver, a delicacy that will become illegal to sell in the state on July 1.Critics object to how the ducks and geese are raised: Three-month-old birds are force-fed by inserting a tube in their throat and pouring in grain. Over the two- or three-week feeding period before slaughter, the birds' livers enlarge from 3 ounces to about a pound and a quarter. More than a dozen countries ban the practice.California chefs haven't given up hope that they can keep dishes such as Mélisse's "foie gras flan with blood orange gelée" on the menu. More than 100 have submitted a petition urging the Legislature to lift the ban.The group, which calls itself the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards (CHEFS), is proposing new rules that would require farmers to raise geese and ducks in a cage-free environment, minimize stress and use feeding methods that do not harm the birds' esophagus or beak.The chefs need a two-thirds vote in both the state Assembly and Senate to overturn the ban.Animal rights activists say there's no humane way to force-feed ducks and geese."Shoving a pipe down a duck's throat three times a day to force him to eat far more than he would eat on his own is just inhumane," says Paul Shapiro, who leads the farm animal protection division at the Humane Society of the United States. The ducks "have difficulty even walking by the end of the process," he says.It's just part of life and death on the farm, chefs say — and worth it. Foie gras is rich and luscious, tender when served hot, and when cold, "it's like eating really delicious salted, duck-flavored butter," says Daniel Scherotter, executive chef at Palio d'Asti here.
By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAYAbout 8,000 ducks a week are grown for foie gras in the United States and Canada. Hunters have always known that geese and ducks gorging themselves on grain before flying south for the winter developed fat livers — in French, foie gras.Farmers as far back as Greek and Roman times began to deliberately overfeed geese, which eventually developed into a method of force-feeding geese and ducks called gavage. Ducks, the farmers note, have a strong, insensitive esophagus that allows them to swallow fish whole.Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, N.Y., is one of the USA's few foie gras producers. "We let hundreds of people on our farm to see the process," operations manager Marcus Henley says. The company has posted YouTube videos in the belief that if the public sees the actual process, people will understand that it's not damaging to the birds.Foie foes are naive, Scherotter says. "It attracts the kind of loony-left animal rights activists who are urban and suburban white people who are unaware of how food is produced, so when they actually see it they're grossed out by it. Rural people don't have these issues."John Burton, who introduced the original legislation in 2004 when he was Senate president pro tempore, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I'd like to sit all 100 (chefs) down and have duck and goose fat — better yet, dry oatmeal — shoved down their throats over and over and over again."Chef Mark Pastore, owner of Incanto restaurant in San Francisco, condemned what he called Burton's "use of violent rhetoric" in an opinion piece in the Chronicle on May 10 and asked for a public apology.Burton, now chairman of the state Democratic Party, says the chefs had seven years to work out a plan. "There was a deal cut" to give California's only producer, Sonoma Foie Gras, time to "either figure out how to do this right or figure out how to make money doing other stuff," he says. "Nobody heard a peep out of anybody" until now. "The effect of the ban is the closing of a successful family business," Guillermo Gonzalez, owner of Sonoma Foie Gras, said via e-mail. "Our farm is being forced to close its doors at the end of June, and the most unfortunate fact is that science has not been given a chance to play a role in this debate."
By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAYMarcus Henley, Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm's operations manager, holds one of the baby ducks.Foie gras is "an integral part of gourmet cooking," and the ban could lead to a black market, says Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for the chefs' group. "If you have smugglers and bootleggers who are willing to risk criminal prosecution to sell foie gras in California," he says, no one will be able to watch over how the ducks are raised because it will be happening in secret.He says that when Chicago passed a foie gras ban in 2006, "chefs started selling $25 croutons and giving away the foie gras for free." The Chicago ban was overturned in 2008.Banning foie gras "knocks California down a peg as a culinary destination," Ballard says. That, he suggests, could lead to fine diners bypassing the Golden State for the restaurants of Las Vegas.Burton isn't convinced. "Right," he says sarcastically. "California has wineries, Disneyland, but … 'They don't have foie gras — let's go to South Dakota instead.' "For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Liberal Donors’ Plan Worries Top Democrats
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and other officials conveyed concern that Democratic candidates could be at a disadvantage if the contributors, many of whom had stayed on the sidelines of the 2012 campaign until now, decide not to spend money on television ads that push back against a torrent of attacks from conservative “super PACS” in the presidential election and Congressional races. The views highlighted concerns about being outgunned by outside groups raising huge amounts of money to back Republicans, and suggested a rift between Democratic leaders and some liberal donors. “The idea that these progressive groups are essentially re-creating the wheel is perplexing and troubling,” said David Krone, the chief of staff to Mr. Reid. “Why go off and build a redundant grass-roots and get-out-the-vote organization that the Obama campaign is clearly invested in?” The Democratic officials were responding to an article in The New York Times on Tuesday that the financier George Soros and other major donors had decided to avoid a head-to-head confrontation in television advertising by pro-Republican groups and would instead spend money registering new voters and building stronger turnout organizations. Mr. Krone, who is not involved in super PAC operations that are trying to keep the Senate majority in Democratic hands, and other advisers said television advertising was the most powerful way to win races. Democratic strategists have spent months trying to lure Mr. Soros and other donors into the fray of election spending. “Why would they rule out this tried-and-true medium?” Mr. Krone said on Tuesday. “I can guarantee the Republicans are covering all bases and will have a coordinated plan.” The criticism from Mr. Reid’s top adviser, which was echoed in interviews with party leaders, highlighted the lingering tensions and frustrations in the Democratic Party over the influence of outside money on the campaign and the inability of Mr. Obama’s supporters to raise substantial sums for a pro-Obama super PAC. Wealthy Republicans have made contributions at record-setting levels, while many wealthy Democrats have shied away from giving. The decision by Mr. Soros and like-minded donors to help finance independent Democratic groups drew disdain from several Democratic officials. A senior party leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating the donors, said: “They don’t get it. What they are doing makes no sense.” Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declined to comment on Mr. Soros’s plans. But many liberal donors, including Mr. Soros, have raised objections to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which opened the door for super PACs and unlimited campaign spending. They say they did not believe they could match the Republican groups, so they wanted to try a different approach and back several liberal groups rather than put their financial muscle behind a single effort. A spokesman for Mr. Soros, Michael Vachon, said financing the grass-roots groups made more sense because liberal groups could not compete with the “floodgates to special interests’ paying for political ads.” The acrimony among the Democrats — Mr. Soros and many party leaders, including Mr. Obama, are often at odds — could have a real effect on the campaign. Democratic candidates at all levels have expressed concerns about not having the firepower to respond to conservative groups like Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity. And the decision by Mr. Soros and other donors to direct their money to grass-roots efforts revived memories from the 2004 presidential campaign when the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort was largely outsourced and widely seen as ineffective. The Democratic infighting, which is likely to intensify, comes as Mr. Obama’s campaign is spending $25 million this month to broadcast his first major television advertising campaign. Mr. Vachon, the spokesman for Mr. Soros, declined to comment on the criticism from Mr. Reid and other Democrats. But aides to some of the liberal groups that will receive some of the $100 million dismissed the criticism and said the Obama campaign and party leaders simply wanted to have control over donors.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Re-Election Tricky for House Republican Freshmen
“I’ve got butterflies,” Mr. Schilling, Republican of Illinois, said as he walked into a news conference about a bridge that has needed renovation for years, one that Democrats have accused him of abandoning by backing a Republican ban on setting aside federal money for such home-state projects. “If Durbin is here,” he said, referring to Senator Richard J. Durbin, the state’s senior senator, “I’ll give it right back.” He looked around and saw that Mr. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a man unafraid of a partisan confrontation, was absent. “Whew,” he said. “Makes things smoother.” During his 2010 campaign, Mr. Schilling, a pizza parlor owner and political novice, labored to persuade people that a Republican deserved a chance in a seat that Democrats had held for almost three decades. Now, like scores of other Republican freshmen across the country who triumphed that year in a Republican wave, he must prove he should be permitted to stay. For Mr. Schilling and roughly two dozen other Tea Party-backed Republican freshmen who now find themselves in districts where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, a re-election campaign is a remarkably tricky task. They are the subject of constant attack ads, assailing them for votes on a budget that would change the Medicare system, accusing them of trying to curtail protections for women and criticizing their support for earmark bans that could impede local projects. But they are also scrutinized by conservative activists who were crucial to their election and want to make sure they do not stray too far from Tea Party orthodoxy in pursuit of a second term. Republican freshmen like Chip Cravaack of Minnesota, Robert Dold of Illinois and Ann Marie Buerkle of New York are among those eager to prove that they are more than flukes who rode in on a wave only to paddle back out to the sea of one-termers. It is one thing to run as an outsider taking aim at Washington dysfunction; when you are the incumbent, with Congressional license plates and a voting record for all to see, it is a whole new ballgame. “Here’s the problem,” Mr. Schilling said. Colleagues in highly Republican districts “put up bills that make them look tough back home,” he said, “and that makes for tough votes.” He recalled another freshman lawmaker, from a safe district in Indiana, who criticized him for “voting like a Democrat.” “I said, ‘I’ve got to vote my district, thank you very much!’ ” said Mr. Schilling, who punctuates most of his sentences with a blinding smile, a hearty laugh and “Oh, my goodness!” Nice try, local Democrats say. “He is out of step with the district,” said Steve Brown, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Illinois. “I don’t know what he puts forth to voters that would make them retain him.” Mr. Brown said Mr. Schilling’s challenger, Cheri Bustos, a onetime alderwoman from East Moline and former baby sitter to Mr. Durbin’s children, would return the district to the Democrats. In recent months, in part to curry favor with crucial independent voters who wish for more comity in Congress, some freshmen in closely contested districts have worked to be more bipartisan. They have spoken out against their party’s bill for long-term transportation funding and voted for measures that they had originally campaigned against. “When it came to the debt ceiling vote, I once said, ‘Oh, I’d never do one of those,’ ” Mr. Schilling said. “But when you came down to the reality of what would happen if we didn’t, and I talked to local businesses about that,” the need to vote yes became clear, he said. At a series of public stops on Monday, he bragged repeatedly about his work with Representative Dave Loebsack, Democrat of Iowa, to pester Illinois for money to fix the aforementioned bridge, which links their states and districts. But Mr. Schilling and other Republicans, perhaps believing that their message will be embraced by swing voters worried about the budget deficit, still dish out plenty of tough talk against Democratic lawmakers and President Obama. “They are very anti-capitalist,” Mr. Schilling told a dozen female Republican volunteers, who call themselves the Old Glories because all are over 70, during a recess trip home. Responding to one woman who asked whether he thought Mr. Obama had campaigned in 2008 with a strategy “to make America fail,” Mr. Schilling said of the slow economic recovery, “A lot of people think this is being done on purpose.”
For Three New York Lawmakers, Falls From Grace After an Attempted Coup
They were state senators from New York City, Democrats who threw the upper house of the Legislature into chaos after the 2008 election, at a time when Democrats should have been celebrating winning control of the chamber for the first time in more than four decades. Instead, the amigos — a term they bestowed upon themselves — gleefully posed before camera crews and loudly courted both sides of the aisle for perks, power and patronage. Two of the amigos, Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate, even briefly allied with the Republican caucus in 2009, orchestrating a coup that for a time paralyzed the state government. Ah, karma. Now, two amigos — Mr. Monserrate and Carl Kruger — are headed to prison, and the fate of a third, Mr. Espada, is in the hands of a jury after a federal corruption trial. Jurors said Wednesday that they had reached an impasse, but the judge, Frederic Block, instructed them to continue deliberating. Few of their fellow Democrats are sorry to see them gone from Albany. “Three are gone,” Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, said with a broad smile on Wednesday, before walking into the legislative chamber. Senator Diane J. Savino, a Staten Island Democrat, said: “You almost want to say, I don’t have any sympathy for you. But I’m human, and I don’t wish anybody ill. It’s so frustrating; we were kneecapped by the four of them after Election Day.” One amigo remains in office: Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister who is one of the Legislature’s most outspoken social conservatives, is unrepentant about their rebellion. “Never in the history of New York State has there been something so exciting,” Mr. Díaz said. “Never, never, never. That was history. That will go down in the book of history.” The amigos stole the spotlight in 2008, right after the Democrats won control of the Senate. Only a day after the election, the four lawmakers shocked their colleagues by refusing to commit to backing a member of their own party to lead the chamber. Three of the four lawmakers are Hispanic, and their stated reason for rebelling was that Latino lawmakers needed a greater voice in government. “We have a black president, a black governor, and we have a concern that we have to be sharing power,” Mr. Díaz said at the time. Mr. Espada, with his well-tailored suits and unflappable style, seemed particularly to enjoy playing to the cameras. He would tell reporters he was leaning toward supporting a Democrat for leader, then mention he was having dinner with Senator Dean G. Skelos, leader of the Republicans. Eventually, the amigos agreed to back a Democrat, but for a price. Mr. Kruger was named head of the Senate Finance Committee, and Mr. Espada was made a vice president of the Senate and given the chamber’s top housing post. That was not enough for him. By the following summer, he and Mr. Monserrate had orchestrated a coup by briefly joining with the Republicans. After Mr. Monserrate returned to the Democrats, the chamber was evenly split and rudderless, culminating with both sides holding dueling sessions at the same time, in the same chamber. Mr. Espada eventually returned to the Democratic fold and claimed the lofty title of majority leader, if not all of that title’s traditional powers. “What they did is take what should have been a real moment of celebration and turned it on its head, and quite frankly we never recovered from it,” said Ms. Savino, now part of a new splinter group, the Independent Democratic Conference, that has allied with Republican lawmakers. The fate of the amigos has taken a considerable turn in recent weeks. This month, Mr. Monserrate pleaded guilty to improperly using public money to finance a failed political campaign, acknowledging that he was guilty of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy. He was ousted from the Senate in 2010 after a conviction for domestic assault. In April, Mr. Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison by a federal judge; he had been accused of accepting more than $1 million in bribes from two hospital executives, a lobbyist and a health care consultant. Mr. Espada faces charges of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit health care network to support his lavish lifestyle. And he was recently ordered to pay $80,000 worth of fines and restitution by a legislative ethics commission, which said he had violated state law by hiring his uncle to join his official staff. Mr. Díaz remains bitter about Mr. Espada’s fate. He says he believes that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, when he was still attorney general, overreached in corruption cases that he brought against Mr. Espada. “I think that Pedro Espada was targeted,” Mr. Díaz said. “Why would Andrew Cuomo accuse him of stealing $14 million? Why? Because it was a vendetta.” Of the other two amigos, he said, “I will continue being a friend and praying for them, and anything that they need, I will be there for them.” Senator Neil D. Breslin, an Albany Democrat, said: “Neither Democrats nor Republicans should have embraced Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate. We all share in the guilt of doing that. Shame on us.” But Senator Eric L. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, was more forgiving. “Our caucus, unlike the Republican caucus, we don’t look alike, sound alike; it’s extremely diverse,” he said, alluding to the fact that the Republican caucus is exclusively white. “I don’t think they hurt our conference; they added flavor to our conference, a flavor that’s missing from the guys across the aisle.”
Mosi Secret contributed reporting.
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