Small Shift in Numbers Gives House Democrats a Fresh Shot at Relevance

Joe Straus became the speaker of the Texas House in 2009, when Democrats and Republicans had nearly even numbers in that body.

Every deal had to be brokered. Party lines were soft.

Republicans clobbered the Democrats in the 2010 elections and ran over them in Mr. Straus’s second term as speaker. They had a supermajority, and they acted like it.

As a bloc of votes, the Democrats were broken. Demoralized, they never coalesced behind any particular leader. They had a caucus head in Representative Jessica Farrar of Houston. And they had a brawler, Representative Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio. But the Democrats did not show up as a unified force in 2011.

Now they get to choose between cooperation and resistance, and you can find Texas Democrats in both camps. The trick for their leaders is to figure out where they want to go. In Mr. Straus, they have a speaker who is probably less of what they fear from the right than any of his would-be replacements might be.

If Republicans who don’t like Mr. Straus are right, he is more moderate than the rest of the party. And if that’s the case, how could the Democrats do better? On the other hand, they are Democrats: any Republican successes weigh against them, and some would prefer to oppose Straus and Company no matter what.

Some important things have changed since the last time around.

The 2010 election left Republicans with the idea that they didn’t need to compromise on anything, what with a supermajority and the national mood coming out of those midterm elections. Moderate Republicans mostly stuck with their party even when they didn’t like what was being served, because the alternative was a potentially risky primary in 2012 with a more conservative Republican at home.

Two years ago, the governor was putting together his bona fides for what turned out to be a presidential run. Remember that list of “emergency issues” at the beginning of the session two years ago? Sanctuary cities, photo identification for voters, state-mandated pre-abortion sonograms and eminent domain protection were all tailored to please Republican primary voters.

The formula is different this time. Republicans don’t have a supermajority in either chamber of the Legislature, and the governor hasn’t declared anything worthy of emergency status that must be handled in the first two months of the session.

The Democrats are also in a better place. They have recovered from the spurning of 2010. Their overall numbers still stink, but not as much as before. Republicans suffered some lumps in the presidential race. The party’s urgent designs on Hispanic voters — spurred by the presidential results — has made some Republican lawmakers more interested in dealing with Hispanic lawmakers of either party.

Instead of Republicans pillaging and looting in 2011 in a Texas House that had previously been evenly balanced, this session finds Democrats seeking a way back into power and Republicans trying to woo Latinos and also needing alliances with Democrats on some votes.

The early days of a legislative session are marked with warm and optimistic feelings, so it’s hard to tell how the relationships will go. But even if the parties hated each other, they would have to work together on some things.

It’s a Republican room — 95 members versus 55 — but some things require 100 votes or more. The Republicans can’t get there alone, but members from both parties wonder whether anyone can pull together a regular Democratic voting bloc.

The Democrats started the session by electing Representative Yvonne Davis of Dallas to lead the caucus. She is not known as a great orator. You are unlikely to see her very often on television — she doesn’t particularly like having her picture taken. But she is one of the best in the House at working members and votes on the floor, putting deals together, and she can raise money for the caucus.

And Mr. Martinez Fischer, who heads the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, which includes 37 of the 55 Democratic members, is still around.

Last week, he was part of a bipartisan group working to restore some of the education cuts made last session. Ms. Davis was working the floor on a linked appropriations bill.

Mr. Straus and the others are in there, too, wondering if it will be different this year. Will anyone follow the leaders?

View the original article here

Democrats Bet on Shift in Hispanic Numbers to Win Arizona Race

Mr. Carmona, 62, is an untested candidate of vast experiences with a made-for-Hollywood biography. He was a high school dropout, born into poverty in New York City to Puerto Rican parents who struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse. He served in Vietnam, earning Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts and other combat decorations, and attended medical school before his eventual rise to surgeon general under President George W. Bush.

He is running for public office for the first time, challenging a six-term congressman, Jeff Flake, 49, a Republican. Both are vying for the seat held by another Republican, Senator Jon Kyl, who is retiring. Though there is little reliable polling in the contest, both camps acknowledged that the race is closer than they expected in such a heavily Republican state.

Beyond the balance of power in the Senate — enough states are in play that Republicans could regain the majority — the race carries enormous significance for Arizona, whose shifts in demographics threaten to upend its role as a Republican stronghold.

Mr. Carmona was handpicked by President Obama to run for the Senate because of his résumé and his ethnicity, which could help galvanize the state’s Latino voters. The Democratic Party then cleared the field for him, sparing him primary attacks but depriving him of the chance to test his skills before the big fight.

Mr. Flake, in the meantime, waged a feisty primary contest against Wil Cardon, a wealthy businessman who spent a small fortune on his campaign but lost by a considerable margin. Unlike Mr. Carmona, who often refers to himself as a “street kid,” Mr. Flake was raised on a ranch in Snowflake, a northern Arizona town named in part for his great-great-grandfather, the Mormon pioneer William J. Flake.

Mr. Flake says he is “for limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility and free trade,” tenets that have earned him staunch support from the Tea Party movement. He has also embraced issues of particular significance to rural voters, like environmental rules that he says have curbed the operation of coal plants, leaving many people unemployed and “devastating small-town economies.”

From his campaign headquarters in Phoenix on Tuesday, where he was surrounded by young volunteers polling voters on the phone, Mr. Flake said, “I’m fighting to have some rational policy,” singling out the Forest Service and the Environmental Protection Agency as agencies that “need to be reined in.”

Outside groups have been pouring money and resources into the state as the race has tightened. On Wednesday, FreedomWorks for America, a “super PAC” linked to the Tea Party, opened an office in Mesa. The operation at the heart of Mr. Flake’s base in suburban Phoenix will organize volunteers to solicit votes, said its executive director, Russell Walker, who flew in from Washington.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee bought $526,000 in airtime on behalf of Mr. Carmona, its first direct expenditure in the contest. (The committee had previously given $500,000 to the state’s Democratic Party to help pay for the campaign’s field offices, among other things.) The National Republican Senatorial Committee has donated $500,000 worth of ads to the Flake effort.

Mr. Carmona, a longtime independent, is running as a Democrat. That is not because the party is “a perfect fit,” he said, but because “I was forced to pick a position, and when I looked at where the Republicans were, especially in this state — immigration, women’s issues — I chose the Democratic Party.”

He has nonetheless tried to stitch together what he has taken to calling “a coalition of reasonable people” to carry him to victory. He has focused on constituencies long believed to be Republican stalwarts, like veterans, who make up roughly 15 percent of eligible voters in the state, and seniors, many of whom dislike the Medicare plan proposed by Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Carmona has also appealed to women who are unhappy about the state’s attempts to curb reproductive rights.

All along, though, Mr. Carmona has courted Latino voters. He released his second Spanish-language commercial on Tuesday, which introduces him as “uno de nosotros” — one of us — while highlighting Mr. Flake’s vote against the Dream Act, which would have given certain immigrants brought to the country illegally as children a path to legalization.

Mr. Flake has begun to make his case to Latinos as well. He has started running his first Spanish-language ad on television and radio, trying to tap into whatever anti-Obama sentiment there is in that community by referring to Mr. Carmona as “el hombre de Obama” — Obama’s man.

A combination of factors, including the state’s legislative push to curb illegal immigration and the presence of a Hispanic candidate like Mr. Carmona in the race, — have been galvanizing among advocacy groups in Arizona, triggering the largest Latino voter registration efforts in memory.

Still, Tara Blanc, a lecturer at the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University who has studied Latino voting patterns in the state, said Latinos tended to be poorer, younger and less educated than the rest of the population. Those factors generally contribute to low turnouts, she said, so “whether they’ll go to the polls is anybody’s guess.”

Their transformative power lies, most likely, in the future. By 2030, Latinos are expected to make up 25 percent of all registered voters in Arizona, up from 15 percent in 2010, according to an analysis by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State.

Chip Scutari, who runs a bipartisan political consulting firm in Phoenix, said a Latino on the ballot could be “the tipping point for the Latino vote.” But, he added, the state has “a lot of conservative, pro-life Latinos,” who are more likely to vote Republican.

“To say the Latino vote will automatically go to Democrats,” Mr. Scutari said, “is oversimplifying the situation.”

View the original article here

Obama Approval 41 Percent; Democrats Laugh at Creative Job Numbers (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Amid Obama's growing avalanche of woes, Gallup released the latest approval numbers for the struggling president. He has hit an entirely new "all time low" of 41 percent. The Economic Confidence Index has plummeted to -40. Americans aren't buying the "I inherited this mess" story anymore. Bloomberg's latest poll shows 61 percent of respondents think 2012 will mark Obama's responsibility line in making the economy "substantially better." Only three out of 10 say they will vote for him. While the November primaries are over a year away, Obama is in serious trouble.

In 2008, Louis Farrakhan said that when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking," according to World Net Daily. Today, the Nation of Islam leader believes "that's a murderer in the White House." While the opinions of Farrakhan have fallen the full measure between heaven and hell, even his most enthusiastic supporters of three years ago seem to languish the depths of purgatory.

As discussed in my recent article, "Obama Re-Election Chances Reaching Terminal Velocity," Obama is facing some serious heat. From low poll numbers and the public's offense to his disconnected humor in their suffering to being sued by Congress for his debacle in Libya and leaving the Puerto Rican people $1 million shorter and legislators angry by his hype and change, the man touted as "the smartest guy ever to become president" appears aware but oddly unconcerned by how fast the ice is thinning beneath his feet.

During Obama's recent appearance at a rally in Miami, Fla., the Associated Press reported that even the president is lamenting how "It's not as cool to be an Obama supporter as it was in 2008, with the posters and all of that stuff." What the AP portrayed as an "intimate gathering of donors" could be more accurately described as a 2,200 seat venue where only 980 people were willing to purchase a ticket.

The fact that the president's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, felt it necessary to step forward and reassure fans that it's still "cool," reports RealClearPolitics, to be an Obama supporter shows their awareness of how deeply the rock of doubt has sunk within their base.

During Obama's speech at a DNC event, mention of his imaginary creation of 2.1 million jobs drew ("Laughter") from his fellow Democrats, which was marked by the event stenographer into the original transcript at the punch line. However, the White House version shows (Applause). Drudge Report discovered that the White House Press secretary issued a memo for "Immediate Release" to change the "(Laughter)" to "(Applause)." Politico reports that the White House has declined to comment on the matter, but an event official said, even though she heard laughter, the stenographer must have accidentally hit the "laughter" key.

Making matters worse for himself, Politico reports that the leaders of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) are angry that Obama has skipped their annual conference for the past three years, even though he promised he would return after they helped elect him to the presidency.

"It is getting harder and harder for the president to go into a venue where he is confronted by Latinos because he is in a jam," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), NALEO member and one of Obama's earliest yet newly embittered Hispanic supporters. "In front of a group like NALEO, blaming Republicans for their intransigence on immigration reform and not addressing what the president's own administration is doing to immigrants would not wash."

Seeming to ignore the rise of disappointments and loss of support in the Hispanic voting base, White House Spokesman Luis Miranda said the administration has shown "unprecedented" work and outreach on issues important to Hispanics. Of course, Florida representative and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz also predicted, by reminding them of the few things Obama did in the past on their behalf, the "outreach" to women would be equally "unprecedented." However, the Washington Times reported that the moment they tried plucking that string, the moderator at the Netroots Nation conference said, "Frankly we're a little sick of hearing about that one."

Compared to the swell of many demographics that lifted Obama to the White House in 2008, his support among black Americans was a virtual tidal wave. While it may not be cause for immediate alarm, an April Gallup poll revealed an unexpected drop among Blacks of 7 percent in March. The recent report by CBS News of the staggering new unemployment numbers among black Americans may be enough to tip wavering black supporters over the edge and erode Obama's favorability numbers even further.

While the national unemployment level hovers around 9.1 percent, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reported that unemployment among Africa Americans is now at "Depression-era levels." The latest figures show joblessness among African Americans at 16.2 percent and black males at 17.5 percent. Earlier this month, CBS revealed the national unemployment rate for teens stands at 24 percent overall. This week, the outlet reported the unemployment rate for black teens is approaching an astounding 41 percent.

Coincidentally, after Obama's trip to Puerto Rico in a disastrous effort to boost his faltering poll numbers among Hispanics, the president chose to have his wife and children make the trip to South Africa. Unfortunately, the Telegraph has reported that South African President Jacob Zuma decided he was "not available" to meet Michelle. Obama's folly in Libya is to blame.

"We strongly believe that the (UN Security Council) resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation," Zuma told parliament the day after Hillary Clinton's speech calling for support from African leaders.

Agence France-Presse reported that, according to the White House, the purpose of the First Lady's visit is to "emphasize to the first family of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle, which President Obama has called his first political cause." Additionally, we are told that the president has periodic telephone calls with former president Nelson Mandela.

Perhaps with the lengthy and ever growing list of "top priorities" of which CBS has been keeping track -- securing the southwest border, recovering and rebuilding from a recession, free trade, energy security, hurricane preparedness and about a dozen others -- perhaps Obama doesn't have enough time to "emphasize to the first family of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle" regularly or to remind them it was his "first political cause" himself.

Of course, tornado and flood preparedness didn't even make it on the "top priorities" list, as to leave plenty of room for throwing another White House party or fundraiser, going on another family vacation and setting the world record for rounds of golf played by a sitting president.

Sources:

"Election 2012", Gallup

Julianna Goldman, "Obama Gets 30% of Americans Certain to Support Re-election in Economy Poll", Bloomberg

"Farrakhan on Obama: 'The Messiah is absolutely speaking'", World Net Daily

"Minister Farrakhan: "That's A Murderer In The White House!"", YouTube

Patricia Campion, "Obama Re-Election Chances Reaching Terminal Velocity", Yahoo!News

Patricia Campion, "Puerto Rican Legislators Unimpressed by Hype and Change", Yahoo!News

Douglas MacKinnon, ""Historians" For Obama", Town Hall

Yahoo!News, "Analysis: Passion for Obama not like 2008", Associated Press

Patricia Campion, "Obama and Fellow Liberals Heckled -- by Other Liberals", Yahoo!News

"CX: Not 'laughter,' 'applause'..." Drudge Report

"Remarks by the President at a DNC Event", The White House

"Axelrod Assures Admirers: "It's Cool To Be An Obama Supporter", Real Clear Politics

Julie Mason, "President Obama no-show miffs Hispanics", Politico

Dave Boyer, "Obama slammed at liberal conference", Washington Times

"Obama Approval Slips Among Blacks, Hispanics in March", Gallup

Ailsinn Laing, "Jacob Zuma snubs Michelle Obama during First Lady's South Africa visit" The Telegraph

Yahoo!News, "Michelle Obama visits S.Africa with family", Agence France-Presse

Michelle Miller, "African-American unemployment at 16 percent", CBS News

Mark Knoller, "How Many "Top Priority" Issues Does Obama Have?", CBS News

View the original article here