Column: Obama takes aim at Romney

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

Today:Obama takes the stage

Bob: Gallup reports that Mitt Romney had the smallest polling increase from any presidential convention since 1984. Romney's address to the GOP convention in Tampa, according to Gallup, was the least well-received speech since Bob Dole in 1996. Romney wanted this election to be a referendum on Barack Obama, but because Romney failed to close the sale on his own candidacy, he's given Obama an opening to make Romney an issue.

Cal: Nice try at those DNC talking points, Bob. Here in North Carolina, where I am spending the week with your political brethren, the new Elon University/Charlotte Observer Poll shows Romney leading President Obama 47% to 43% in the state. But enough about polls. Last week, we agreed on what Romney needed to say to the GOP convention and those watching on TV. Now, what do you think the president should say in his speech tonight?

Bob: In his acceptance speech, Romney did not harshly attack the president, which I thought was a good strategy. He let others, including Paul Ryan, do his dirty work for him. Speaker after speaker at the Democratic convention has attacked Romney for proposing warmed over policies from "the last century" and his running mate as radical and dangerous. Obama should do something similar, and to the extent he mentions Romney, it should be to compare the president's policies, popular or not, with Romney's lack of a single new idea.

Cal: The "last century" with its economic booms and defeat of communism in Russia and fascism in Germany is looking better all the time. I agree the president has a record. I anticipate the "failure" of the Democratic convention will be that Democrats will offer more of the same failed solutions. The president made some spectacular promises four years ago, few of which he has kept. It's going to be very difficult to defend that record, given the high expectations he generated, especially on unemployment, which he pledged the stimulus would hold to under 8%. Even Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley admitted to Bob Schieffer last Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation that America is no better off today than it was four years ago.

Bob: My cardinal rule in politics is to effectively manage expectations. The goal of any campaign should be to keep expectations in the right place so the candidate's strengths can exceed expectations and in the process minimize his weaknesses. If any president has ever suffered from high expectations, it's Barack Obama.

Cal: That was not the Republicans' fault. He almost single-handedly created those expectations with all of that lowering of the oceans business and other messianic talk.

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In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

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Bob: I agree. Obama has himself to blame after raising expectations during his extraordinarily effective campaign in 2008. He made promises that were nearly impossible to fulfill, particularly about changing the tone in Washington. He did not expect to be facing a Republican Party that had moved radically to the right and had no interest in working with President Obama.

Cal: Whatever happened to the Democratic Leadership Council, which Bill Clinton headed? These were moderate Democrats who were willing to compromise to move the ball forward. Look at the convention lineup of speakers. There isn't a pro-life, smaller-government, lower-taxes, less-spending, traditional-marriage speaker among the lot. The Democratic Party is now ruled exclusively by the hard left, and yet there are many Democrats who favor some, or all, of these moderate-to-conservative issues. Do you think the president in his speech tonight will have anything to say to these Democrats?

Bob: The DLC was a Clinton-driven organization that left the scene when he did. If you like radical speakers, Tampa was full of them last week. Back to the president's speech. I think Obama must address the expectations issue, and I know some people around him agree. As he told a CBS reporter, he failed "to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism."

Cal: It's a little late for that, don't you think?

Bob: No, I don't. For all his formidable skills as a campaigner and orator, Obama failed to tell the country why he was embarking on new directions in health care and why his stimulus package was necessary. He never sought to downplay the expectations of 2008 when he knew full well that they could not be met. Therefore, I think Obama needs to do a bit of mea culpa in his speech to let the voters know that he knows he hasn't met all their expectations, but that he is making every effort to do so.

Cal: A mea culpa doesn't fit his personality and will seem disingenuous. It would be like Madonna suddenly advocating modest dress. The public is cynical enough about politicians in both parties. The late comedian George Burns is supposed to have said, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made." Given the public's growing distrust of government, it is increasingly difficult to "fake sincerity." You've been a strategist. Should he attack Romney, or ignore him?

Bob: As I've mentioned, a little of both. When Obama talks about Romney, he should avoid talking about Bain Capital and Romney's refusal to release more of his tax returns. Those issues have been covered in his advertising and by others. Rather, Obama should point out that Romney is quick to raise all the problems facing America and has yet to offer solutions to solve them.

Cal: That's a fair point. As for Bain, Deroy Murdock wrote last week in the New York Post, "Bain's private-equity executives have enriched dozens of organizations and millions of individuals in the Democratic base — including some who scream most loudly for President Obama's re-election." So lay off Bain, Mr. President, and tell us if we're in for more of the same policies if you are re-elected.

Bob: Speaking of policies, even TheWall Street Journal panned Romney's speech because he offered no new policies beyond cutting taxes, increasing defense and, in a break with his running mate, Romney said he will protect Social Security and Medicare. This adds up to massive deficits and perhaps taxes on the middle class. It's no wonder so many economists laugh at Romney's warmed over trickle-down policies.

Cal: With the national debt climbing past $16 trillion, I'm glad you are suddenly concerned with debt, which is caused by overspending, not under-taxing. More and more voters don't trust either party to do what it says, but I think they'll give Republicans one more chance to rescue us from this financial sinking ship. If they fail, as we have written in a previous column, voters will keep tossing out incumbents until they get leaders who will do the necessary things to repair the economy.

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Column: Artur Davis shows hypocrisy in switching parties

Every time the political pendulum makes a big shift, there are politicians who go over to the other side.

AP

Davis: Ex-congressman of Alabama.

AP

Davis: Ex-congressman of Alabama.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

Back in the 1960s, after President Johnson signed a series of civil rights laws into effect that ended the Jim Crow era, a legion of Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party. When the 2008 election gave Democrats control of the White House and veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress, then-Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate Pennsylvania Republican, returned to the Democratic Party that he had deserted in 1966.

So, it came as no surprise to me when Artur Davis, a former Democratic congressman from Alabama, announced that he was switching to the GOP. His decision comes as Republicans enjoy a sizable majority in the House and threaten to seize control of the Senate and the Oval Office in November.

Davis' stroll over to the GOP side was a pretty short trip, given the position he has occupied along this nation's ideological spectrum. He was a right-of-center Democrat who, for example, voted against the Affordable Care Act, which the Supreme Court upheld last Thursday.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Failed race for governor

In his 2010 bid to become Alabama's first black governor, Davis refused to openly court the state's top African-American political organizations and ended up losing the Democratic primary in a landslide to Ron Sparks, the state's agriculture secretary. Sparks, who is white, even won the overwhelmingly black 7th congressional district that Davis represented at the time.

So when Davis — who attended Harvard Law School with Barack Obama and seconded his nomination at the 2008 Democratic convention — announced that he was cutting his ties to the Democratic Party, it was not a surprising move for someone who had rolled the political dice — and lost badly.

But the thing that distinguishes Davis from so many others who have changed party labels is the level of his hypocrisy.

Criticized a colleague

Back in 2009, when Rep. Parker Griffith, D-Ala., defected to the Republican Party, Davis could hardly contain his contempt for his old colleague.

"He leaves a party where differences of opinion are tolerated and respected to join a party that in Washington, marches in lockstep, demands the most rigid unity, and articulates no governing philosophy beyond the forceful use of the word 'no,' " Davis said.

Instead of bolting, Davis said, Griffith should have remained in the Democratic Party, just as Sen. Howell Heflin and Rep. Bud Cramer, two of Alabama's more prominent conservative Democrats, had done. (Heflin retired in 1997, and Cramer stepped down in 2009.)

At the time, Davis said those two Democrats understood that "fiscal conservatism, robust advocacy for our fighting forces, and a defense of our best national values are not partisan principles."

But now, after the folly of his gubernatorial campaign, Davis sees a different political landscape. "Wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities," he said.

Davis talks of resurrecting his political career by moving to Virginia and possibly running as a Republican for the state senate, or competing for one of the Old Dominion's seats in the House.

"If that sounds imprecise, it's a function of how uncertain political opportunities can be," he wrote in a May blog posting.

What it sounds like to me is the double talk of a man who's trying to convince himself that he has made the right decision.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Column: Enthusiasm of black vote key to White House

NEW ORLEANS – Valerie Jarrett knew she was walking a tightrope when she met here with a small group of black columnists.

AP

Jarrett: Senior adviser to Obama.

AP

Jarrett: Senior adviser to Obama.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

A senior adviser to the president, she was in the Big Easy to wave the Obama administration's flag at the annual gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists. The convention is a way station for presidents, Oval Office seekers and their surrogates. At the group's awards dinner Saturday night, Jarrett touted her boss' accomplishments and decried Republican obstructionism that has kept Obama from getting more done.

Earlier that day, in a meeting with members of the Trotter Group, an organization of black columnists, she was peppered with a broad range of questions about the president's handling of issues from the environment to foreign trade. But the question she had to know was coming — the one that put her on the tightrope — was about race.

Facing the question

The race question first started dogging Obama in 2008, when he went from an also-ran to a serious presidential contender. Back then, while some blacks asked whether Obama, raised by his white mother and grandparents, was black enough, some whites questioned whether his connection to the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright made him too black.

More than three years after becoming this nation's first black president, race still haunts his presidency. Outraged by his presence in the White House, a surprising number of white public figures have treated him with great disrespect. Republican radio host Barbara Espinosa recently called him a "monkey"; conservative commentator Pat Buchanan referred to him as a "boy," a term widely used during the Jim Crow era to emasculate black men.

So, it's not surprising that Jarrett winced a bit when the race question came up. Asked whether Obama could turn around his declining support among white voters, she said: "He views everybody as getable. He's going to work hard to persuade everybody that where he's trying to move the nation is the right direction."

Needs broad coalition

Obama's best path to re-election is to recreate the broad coalition of voters that swept him to victory in 2008. But this time, that might not be good enough without a significant increase in black voter turnout in the swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

To do this, Obama supporters need to unabashedly trumpet what the president has done for blacks — such as increased funding for education, universal health care, and a sharp reduction in the sentencing disparity for possession of crack cocaine instead of powder, all things that Jarrett said have disproportionately benefited them. And to drive black voters to turn out in record numbers on Election Day, the president's supporters must work blacks into a frenzy by harping on the disrespect and racist comments that have been heaped upon Obama by right-wingers.

Understandably, Jarrett doesn't want to stir the racial cauldron. But if Obama is going to get the black turnout he needs, somebody's got to constantly remind them of the race-baiting language supporters of Republican Mitt Romney are using to mine votes for him.

The truth is that for Obama, some voters are not "getable." The presence of a black president in the White House is an immutable offense to a hard core of Obama's opponents. To overcome this racism hurdle, the president's re-election campaign must find a way to get blacks — the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency — to the polls in droves on Election Day.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Column: Democrats cede human rights

Are Democrats ceding the human rights mantle to Republicans? The recent spectacle of a blind Chinese dissident being whisked by wheelchair from our embassy in Beijing suggests that the issue of human rights still has the ability to command Americans' attention. In fact, it might be one of the few foreign policy issues where daylight remains between the two presidential candidates.

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Consider the following: A recent survey by the political scientists Josh Busby, Will Inboden and Jon Monten found that Democratic foreign policy specialists were less likely to identify human rights as a "very important" policy priority (about 50%, compared with nearly 85% of such Republican specialists). Indeed, on this issue the Democratic Party has shifted to the center.

Republicans, meanwhile, have continued their embrace of neoconservatism, which places greater weight in the sanctity of U.S. force to protect human freedom abroad (Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is stuffed with such dewy-eyed conservatives).

The reasons for this shift are manifold: Progressive Democrats might feel that human rights have been co-opted to serve other interests and no longer have faith in Washington's ability to promote them with integrity. They may associate the cause with the failed democracy-promotion agenda of Obama's predecessor. Or perhaps the party has strategically softened its stance to project a more macho air on national security and win over undecided voters. Still, the survey suggests progressive Democrats could be at risk of abandoning, or at least de-prioritizing, deeply held principles of human rights that have guided the party from its inception.

Obama's spotty record

Take Obama's own spotty record. He balked at granting the Dalai Lama an Oval Office invitation and didn't press the issue of human rights on his visit to China. He punted on his campaign promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison. And his administration has tried to block the a measure that would freeze assets and deny visas to Russian officials guilty of human rights abuses. Perhaps most controversially, Obama has stepped up the use of drone strikes abroad, killing undisclosed numbers of civilians.

Obama has also been a reluctant interventionist, preferring a hands-off approach to the Arab Spring and protests in Russia, Iran and other authoritarian states. While accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Obama preached the importance of "just" interventions. "To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism," he said, "it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Yet, his speak-softly stance has drawn fire from his Republican opponent, particularly Obama's policy toward Iran and Syria. "President Obama's lack of leadership has resulted in a policy of paralysis that has watched (Bashar) Assad slaughter 10,000 individuals," Romney said recently.

Shifting sands

Part of the shift from human rights is a function of today's Democratic elite, Obama included. While the Baby Boom generation's world view was shaped by Vietnam, the new elites' formative years were the 1980s and 1990s. This era included intervention successes, notably Iraq in 1991, but also disasters (Lebanon in 1982-83 and Somalia in 1993). As Peter Beinart noted in his 2006 book, The Good Fight, the party of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman has traditionally focused on U.S. legitimacy abroad and self-improvement at home. Democrats from Obama's generation understand America's moral fallibility, as well as the importance of international institutions. In the political scientists' survey, Democrats were much more favorable toward strengthening institutions such as the International Criminal Court than Republicans were.

Yet, liberalism has also been about promoting America's core values, especially human rights, on the world stage, both through international institutions and, at times, military intervention. Democrats cannot allow the failures, dramas and expenses of the latter to deter them from supporting the full spectrum of U.S. tools, including force, when necessary to support their ideals.

When a Pakistani doctor is tried for treason for assisting American forces or the Syrian government slaughters thousands of its own citizens, these are moral issues that should not come at the expense of U.S. strategic concerns with Islamabad or Moscow. There are times when hard-won principles such as the responsibility to protect have to trump pragmatic interests.

Human rights, of course, involve trade-offs and prioritization — not every crisis should command U.S. intervention. And some notable progress on this front has been made by this administration. Burma's release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and our intervention in Libya top this administration's list of achievements. Obama also deserves kudos for launching the Atrocities Prevention Board, a government panel to appraise the threat of mass killings, and for enacting tougher sanctions against governments' use of technology to trample human rights.

But as we disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the fight against global jihad recedes, human rights should return to the forefront. No, the issue is not expected to top voters' concerns this election season, but by ceding the moral high ground on this issue to their opponents, Democrats do themselves, and their intellectual forefathers, a disservice.

Human rights are the last issue the White House should be seen as "leading from behind."

Lionel Beehner is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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Column: In ethnic pandering, Obama can't top Reagan

It's a good bet history will remember this presidential election as one in which a candidate, faced with polls that showed the contest was too close to call, shamelessly pandered to one of his party's constituencies to boost their turnout and his chances of victory. History will recall that, in a widely covered speech, this guy sounded as though he had less concern for the law of the land than the arch of his political ambition. And it will conclude that in the wake of that grossly political moment, he showed no contrition for his hurtful act.

By Alex Wong, Getty Images

Obama: Discusses DREAM Act Friday.

By Alex Wong, Getty Images

Obama: Discusses DREAM Act Friday.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

It's also probably a good bet you don't realize I'm talking about Ronald Reagan— not Barack Obama.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Though his Republican critics claim that President Obama's decision to stop the deportation of young people — most of them Hispanics — who entered this country illegally as children was a crassly political action, what Obama did last week doesn't compare with Reagan's action in 1980.

A temporary reprieve

In a White House Rose Garden speech Friday, Obama used his executive authority to order an immediate stop to efforts to return these young people to countries many of them left before they even learned to speak. Instead, they will get a temporary reprieve until Congress enacts a badly needed immigration reform law.

"It seems the president has put election-year politics above responsible policies," Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement released by his office.

But while the president's action is clearly intended to court Hispanics, whose votes in the battleground states of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina could tilt the election to Obama, it was as much an act of compassion as politics.

The same can't be said for what Reagan did. Shortly after the 1980 GOP convention, Reagan went to Philadelphia, Miss., scene of one of the civil rights era's most brutal crimes, to launch his campaign to unseat President Carter. In his speech, Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights," which, then and now, are buzzwords for those who want to undo the civil rights gains blacks made in the 1960s.

Race-baiting tactic

In 1968, Republican Richard Nixon used a race-baiting "Southern strategy" of appeasement of Southern racists to help him win the presidency. It also turned the party of Abraham Lincoln into the party of Strom Thurmond. But in 1976, Carter reversed that gain when he won every state of the old Confederacy except Virginia and put the White House back in the Democratic Party column.

What Reagan did in 1980 to defeat Carter far exceeds what Obama has done to court Hispanic voters in a race with Republican Mitt Romney that many analysts say is too close to call.

Obama's suspension of the deportation of children brought into this country illegally is as much a humanitarian act as a political gesture. It doesn't sit well with right-wingers, I suspect, because they are more concerned with who is allowed to migrate into this country than with whether they got here legally.

They want to slow the arrival of the day, projected to be around 2050, when minorities in the U.S. will outnumber non-Hispanic whites. This is what they mean when they say, "I want my country back."

This is the view of America that Reagan emboldened with his states' rights speech.

And it is the antithesis of the message of inclusion that Obama sent when he announced a decision that's not only, for him, good politics — but also is good public policy in this nation of immigrants.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Column: Democrats discover pot's political power

Two of the most well-known and politically savvy Democrats in the country —New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel— recently came out in favor of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. Gov. Cuomo stated his support for a bill that would end the widespread practice of arresting New Yorkers for possessing small amounts of marijuana in public view, and Mayor Emmanuel is supporting a local ordinance to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a ticketable rather than arrestable offense. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly quickly got in line with the governor.

By Tim Roske, AP

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., earlier this month. Cuomo is proposing the decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view.

By Tim Roske, AP

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., earlier this month. Cuomo is proposing the decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

In both New York and Chicago, while whites, blacks and Latinos possess and use marijuana at roughly equal rates, the people arrested for possession of pot are overwhelmingly black and Latino. The proposed changes would make an enormous difference in communities of color and in the lives of thousands of others. They would no longer face life-altering, dream-killing criminal charges for conduct that more than 40% of Americans have engaged in at one point in their lives.

But the larger significance of Cuomo's and Emmanuel's stance lies in what it says about the direction of the Democratic Party, national politics and mainstream acceptance of marijuana reform.

Andrew Cuomo is widely regarded as one of the most politically astute Democratic politicians of his generation. He very likely has his eye on a presidential run in 2016. Everything he does can be (and is, by those who pay close attention to these things) viewed in that light. When Cuomo staked out a position last year in favor of same-sex marriage, and went to the mat to make it happen in New York, it was seen as clear evidence that the national political tide had shifted on that key issue, at least for Democrats. No Democrat will ever again be able to secure the party's nomination for president while opposing marriage equality.

Rahm Emmanuel is also known as a savvy politician, who as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 led the Democrats to a 31-seat pickup that gave them back control of the House. He is nothing if not mindful of how the political winds are blowing. In fact, as President Obama's chief of staff, he was criticized by many on the left as being too conservative and cautious in his approach on a range of issues facing the administration.

So Cuomo's and Emmanuel's positions on marijuana decriminalization have a weather vane-like quality: they demonstrate that the national tide has turned on marijuana reform. If they have decided there is no political downside to decriminalizing marijuana, the debate has shifted significantly, and likely permanently.

To see the press that followed Cuomo's announcement, you'd think that the issue had never been controversial in New York (trust me, it was). The New York Daily News, not known as liberal on criminal justice issues, immediately editorialized in support of the reform and urged Senate Republicans to "get with the program."

Around the country, similar change is afoot. In a recent, hotly contested Democratic primary for Oregon attorney general, the state's medical marijuana law was a defining campaign issue. The candidate who supported the program and argued that marijuana enforcement should be a low law enforcement priority in general won big over a more traditional law-and-order candidate endorsed by prosecutors and sheriffs. In Texas last month, a first-time congressional candidate who endorsed marijuana legalization defeated an eight-term incumbent in El Paso's 16th congressional district.

Republicans remain more conservative on marijuana reform — at least in public (privately, many will say they think marijuana should be completely legal). But Americans in general have shifted on this issue: For the first time, support for marijuana legalization topped 50% nationwide last year, according to Gallup, and a recent Mason-Dixon poll found that 67% of Republicans believe that the federal government should get out of the way and let states enforce their own medical marijuana laws, rather than prosecute people complying with state law. And in another telling example of "weed-is-the-new-gay," young people, likely including Republicans as well as Democrats, overwhelmingly support complete marijuana legalization. As marijuana reform becomes a mainstream position, Republican candidates and elected officials will find it is less and less of a political third rail. Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Emmanuel are showing them the future.

Jill Harris is managing director of strategic initiatives for Drug Policy Action, the political arm of the Drug Policy Alliance.

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Column: New form of Christian civic engagement

Three decades ago, the evangelical faithful was galvanized by public debates over abortion, the size of the federal government, the future of the traditional family, and religious liberty. Many responded by following divisive leaders into the culture wars with the promise that voting for "moral" leadership would end abortion, protect traditional marriage and put our country on the right track.

By Guy Lyons

The new wave: Students pray together at a conference in New Mexico.

By Guy Lyons

The new wave: Students pray together at a conference in New Mexico.

On Religion
Faith. Religion. Spirituality. Meaning. In our ever-shrinking world, the tentacles of religion touch everything from governmental policy to individual morality to our basic social constructs. It affects the lives of people of great faith — or no faith at all. This series of weekly columns — launched in 2005 — seeks to illuminate the national conversation.

How did that work? Not so well, it turns out. Today, abortion remains legal, divisions over same sex rights linger and we're still debating religious liberty. The federal government continues to expand, the economy is struggling and millions of Americans divorce each year. Christian Millennials are now coming of age and recognizing the flawed strategies and broken agendas embraced by their forebears. They've seen how the religious right (and the religious left, for that matter) has used the Bible as a tool to gain political power and reduced the Christian community to little more than a voting bloc — and they are forging a different path.

"We are seeing head-snapping generational change," notes conservative columnist Michael Gerson. "The model of social engagement of the religious right is increasingly exhausted."

Thank God. A distinctive way of being Christian in the public square — a softer, less partisan way — is emerging. And this cultural change could be the very thing our faith needs to survive.

Shifting priorities

Three primary shifts are occurring:

•From partisan to independent. Christians of yesteryear saw the two-party political system as an indispensable mechanism for promoting their values, but young Christians recognize the limitations and pitfalls of partisan politics.

For example, a 2001 study of young evangelicals by Pew Research Center found that 55% were self-described Republicans. When the study was repeated in 2007, only 40% remained in that category. Only one-fifth of the group who left the Republican Party migrated to the Democratic Party. The rest now describe themselves as "independents" or "unaffiliated."

Last month, at the Q Conference, a gathering of more than 700 young Christian leaders in Washington, a participant survey found that 61% of participants claim they don't affiliate with either the right or left.

•From a narrow agenda to a broader one. An earmark of the culture wars was a tightly defined agenda, focused almost exclusively on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and, occasionally, religious liberty. There is no longer a strict hierarchy of arrangement in the minds of the emerging faithful, but rather a broad range of issues to which Christians must attend.

I've spoken with hundreds of young Christians, and one of the common denominators I encountered was the wide array of issues that enlivened them — caring for the environment, protecting the poor, waging peace, advocating for immigrants and, yes, protecting the unborn.

•From divisive rhetoric to civil dialogue. Americans in general are weary of the reactionary, angry, polemical language that stymies progress and the common good. Two-thirds of Americans believe we have a major problem with civility. More than seven in 10 agree that social behaviors are ruder than in the past.

Abandoning coarseness

Christians are awakening to the ways in which our cultural coarseness has affected their own community. They've heard their leaders resort to extreme rhetoric, insults and name-calling, whereby those who disagree with Christians are accused of being unpatriotic, pagans, baby-killers and anti-God. They recognize that this trend has led to 70% of non-Christians ages 16 to 29 saying Christians are "insensitive to others," according to the Barna Institute.

So Christians increasingly long for a substantive change in tone. This desire has led to efforts such as conservative Christian and Romney adviser Mark DeMoss' Civility Project and liberal Christian Jim Wallis' Civility Covenant, which was signed by more than 100 Christian leaders and denominational heads. Today's Christians are not seeking ways to "divide and conquer" but to "partner and achieve." Unafraid to collaborate with those they may disagree with on other issues, young Christians and their leaders are showing up throughout the public square and working on common-ground agendas.

One can only imagine how Christian culture warriors such as Richard Land, Tony Perkins and James Dobson must feel as these shifts gain traction and their power wanes. In response, some have decried the shift while others deny it is even occurring.

As Andrew Sullivan noted in a recent Newsweek cover story, organized religion is in decline, and Christians exercise far less influence over society than even a decade ago. As Sullivan and others rightly argue, this trend is due, in part, to Christians' partisan, divisive and uncivil engagement in the public square. So I say bring on this new brand of political engagement. Because crucifying the culture war model could be the only hope for resurrecting American Christianity in a new century.

Jonathan Merritt is author of A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars. He has published more than 350 articles in outlets such as USA TODAY, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Postand CNN.com.

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Column: Edwards the victim of political Puritanism

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Back in 1925, a trial in Dayton, Tenn., a far-more sanctimonious part of the Bible Belt than this place, transfixed the nation.

By Gerry Broome, AP

Edwards: Former Democratic presidential candidate.

By Gerry Broome, AP

Edwards: Former Democratic presidential candidate.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

In that farce of a legal proceeding, John Scopes, a high school instructor, was convicted of teaching his students the theory of human evolution. The so-called Monkey Trial was more a tug of war between backers of a scientific explanation of the beginning of life and fervent believers in the literal word of Genesis, than it was a search for justice.

John Edwards, the former U.S. senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate, is now on trial here ostensibly for violating federal campaign-finance rules. And as with Scopes, the charges against Edwards have the rank smell of political Puritanism.

A widely kept secret

The essence of this case is undeniable, even if the charges against Edwards suggest otherwise. The onetime golden boy of North Carolina politics cheated on his wife and tried mightily to keep that moral failing from being publicly exposed. Edwards' dalliance with Rielle Hunter was, for a time, a syndicated secret. His wife knew about it. And so did Andrew Young, the former chief political aide to Edwards, and his wife. Young is now the star witness against Edwards.

An admitted liar and lawbreaker, Young has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony. That's more than a bit ironic because it was Young and his wife, Cheri, who received and doled out nearly $1 million from two wealthy donors to help Edwards conceal his extramarital affair. Some of those funds — all of which went into a bank account controlled by Young's wife, not Edwards' presidential campaign — were used to help build a house for Young's family. The money that Rachel Mellon, a wealthy philanthropist, and Texas attorney Fred Baron gave Young's wife far exceeded the $2,300 any single donor can give in federal campaigns.

Campaign law violation?

Using that money to keep his adultery secret during the 2008 presidential campaign meant that the funds served a political purpose, prosecutors argue, and thus constituted a violation of federal campaign-finance laws.

Still, only Edwards has been charged with a crime.

Attorneys for Edwards contend that the money was used to keep his wife from learning that he had not ended his relationship with Hunter as promised and that the relationship had produced a love child.

Usually, the government leaves something this sordid to a husband and wife to resolve. It's not a matter for a federal judge and jury to sort out. But Edwards faces charges that could send him to prison for 30 years.

The decision to prosecute Edwards makes the Justice Department lawyers look more like morality police than defenders of the American political system. The stretch they are making to link the money from Mellon and Baron to Edwards' presidential campaign seems to be a thinly veiled effort to criminalize the adultery of a high public figure — for no good reason other than moral outrage.

It's easy not to like Edwards. Only 3% of respondents in a recent CBS News/New York Times poll said they have a favorable view of him. Thirty percent said the first thing that comes to mind when they think of him is that he cheated on his wife, who died in 2010 after a long, public battle with cancer.

But my gut tells me that the case against Edwards springs from the worst intentions of Puritanism, rather than the best values of the American legal system.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Column: Palin attacks on Obama lack a grasp of facts

In a not-so-swift swift-boat attack on Barack Obama, Sarah Palin tried to link the Secret Service sex scandal to the president's ability to manage this nation's affairs. But she succeeds only in demonstrating how fuzzy her knowledge is of the government she came close to being a heartbeat away from running.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Palin: Cites Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Palin: Cites Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

Palin told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that the Secret Service agents' inappropriate contact with Colombian prostitutes was "a symptom of a government run amok" and Obama's "poor management skills." Then Palin offered up this bit of nonsense as proof of her contention: "The No. 1 thing that he is responsible for is … violating Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution in not having a budget."

What she's talking about is the section of the Constitution that spells out the responsibility of Congress, not the president, to appropriate money spent by all branches of the federal government. That clause of the Constitution does not mandate creation of a federal budget. It doesn't even use the word "budget."

Failure of Congress

The president is required by the 1921 Budget and Accounting Act to submit a budget to Congress — and that's exactly what Obama has done every year since taking office. That Congress hasn't passed any of his budgets is a failing of both Republican and Democratic legislators on Capitol Hill, not the man who occupies the Oval Office.

Blaming Obama for Congress' failure to pass a budget might be good politics for the former Alaska governor, but it's bad civics.

It has been "over 1,000 days with no budget, no blueprint to run our federal government," Palin told Van Susteren. Under Article 2 of the Constitution, which deals with the president's responsibilities, Obama has a duty to ensure that laws are "faithfully executed." But to meet that test, he only needs to make sure the money his administration spends is authorized by Congress. And though this may be news to Palin, Congress has spent merrily during Obama's presidency through the use of appropriations, continuing resolutions and the budget reconciliation process.

Palin choice for veep

To say that Palin ought to know better is to expect too much enlightenment from someone who says Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., tops her list of candidates to be the GOP's vice presidential candidate. West recently pandered to the fears of some of his right-wing backers when he irrationally proclaimed that 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party are members of the Communist Party.

Palin is a captain in the swift-boat fleet — the same type of smear tactic used against John Kerry in 2004 — that Republicans have launched against Obama. Her mission is to inflict as much damage on him as possible — and to do it in any way she can. Back in December, she got off an early salvo when she criticized the president for sending out a Christmas card that showed his dog in front of a fireplace decorated with a holiday wreath, bulbs and ribbons. It was "odd," she said, that the card had no overt religious symbols or emphasis on "family, faith and freedom."

Of course Palin saw nothing wrong with the religious symbols-free holiday card Republican President George W. Bush sent out shortly after she and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were defeated in the 2008 presidential election by Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. That's because neither logic nor good sense has anything to do with her swift-boating attacks on Obama.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Column: Obama, Biden duck; Perry steals show

For 127 years, the sitting president or vice president usually has had the last laugh at closing remarks at the annual fancy white-tie Gridiron dinner, where press and politicians spoof each other.

By Ralph Barrera, AP

About 600 of the USA's top journalists, politicians and business leaders attend. But last Saturday night at the downtown Renaissance Hotel, neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden showed up. Why?

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The president was in South Korea meeting with world leaders. But the vice president was at his home base in nearby Wilmington, Del.

Clearly, the administration didn't want either of its two top guys to take part in the fun and games in an election year.

Ironically, the Gridiron is where then-U.S. Sen. Obama of Illinois really captured the attention of the press when he gave the Democratic Party speech at the 2006 affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the designated closer subbing for President Obama, was pretty gentle on everybody. His closest thing to a jab was when he said: "DoD (Department of Defense) recently completed a 65-year project to develop a cutting-edge robot. Initial testing wasn't good, but Mitt Romney's performance is improving."

With neither of the two top Democrats present this time, Republican presidential also-ran Gov. Rick Perry of Texas stole the show as his party's speaker. He mostly made fun of himself by quoting from some of his campaign goofs.

"My problem was saying stuff that wasn't right. Mitt's problem is saying stuff that is," Perry joked. Examples: "I would say stuff like 'Solyndra is a country' or 'the voting age is 21.' Mitt says things like his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs or his pals own NASCAR teams."

If Perry had learned to loosen up like that while he was a candidate, he might still be in the race.

Feedback: Other views on the Gridiron

"When an organization's been around 127 years, we don't get overly concerned about a scheduling problem one year. We look forward to welcoming President Obama and Vice President Biden — or their successors — back next year."

—George Condon, president, the Gridiron Club

"Obama had a genuine scheduling conflict, but Biden's no-show was a sign of the Gridiron's declining prestige. The club needs to evolve, especially by televising the dinner on C-SPAN."

—Robert McCartney, columnist, The Washington Post

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