Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: US Politics

Bobby Jindal, Dan Quayle and Socialist Health Care →

Bobby Jindal has "seen enough" and Dan Quayle thinks President Obama needs to "tame the left wing of his party." Perhaps it is time to give the Republican Party some credit for consistency, if not exactly relevancy or accuracy. Dan Quayle, who has gracefully made the transition from boy wonder vice president to elder statesman of his party without pausing along the way to actually accomplish anything, and Bobby Jindal, who seems to have succeeded in combining the politics of Ronald Reagan with the earnestness and credibility of Ronald McDonald, seem to agree that the biggest threat to the country is that President Obama will pass health care reform and lead the country irrevocably down the road to socialism.

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Sonia Sotomayor and the Real Meaning of Republican Talking Points →

The problem with reading Republican talking points as your questions at confirmation hearings is that sometimes the racism comes through pretty strongly. Senator Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) comment to Sonia Sotomayor "You have suggested that a judge's background and experience will impact their decision, which goes against the American ideal that a judge will be fair to every party, and every day when they put on that robe they will put aside their personal prejudices," reveals the extent to which Sessions seems to believe that the real American backgrounds do not include those of people like Judge Sotomayor.

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Sarah Palin, John Edwards and the Way We Choose our Vice Presidents →

The vetting process for vice presidential candidates is clearly quite different than that for the people on the top of the ticket. Vice presidential candidates must face a series of, presumably, difficult interviews from the nominee's team and provide information on their background to the candidate, but that is about it. Not only is there no way of knowing whether or not the vice presidential nominee is being entirely forthcoming, but the vice presidential candidate does not have to face any test from voters or the media until she, or he, is already on the ticket.

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Barack Obama and the Future of Democratic Unity →

It was not that long ago, after all, when the Democratic Party seemed about to be torn apart due to a rift pitting affluent liberals and African Americans on one side and Latinos and working class whites on the other. There also was great concern over whether white women would still remain loyal to the party after the harsh treatment they perceived Hillary Clinton as facing during the 2008 primary season. All that, of course, seems very much like ancient history now.

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Now is Not the Time for Delay →

President Obama's recent remarks to a largely gay audience at a White House event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that he believes that after his term in office, gay people will be pleased with his work were a combination of strange, hopeful and, not least, puzzling. Obama's comments indicate he is clearly aware of the frustration many people feel because of his inaction on a number of important issues such as repealing the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy, failure to take on the ill-conceived Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and to take a stronger position on marriage equality, or at the very least on expanding more benefits to the partners of gay federal employees.

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The Political Stakes in the Battle for Health Care →

There is a great deal at stake in the upcoming battle over health care reform, in some respects more than we might think. Reforming our cumbersome and costly health care system and finding a way to ensure that all Americans have adequate health care has been a major goal of progressives for decades. If a good health care bill gets passed millions of Americans will see almost immediate and tangible improvements in their lives. The US will no longer stand out among advanced industrial countries for its failure to meet this basic need.

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Time for Obama to Start Spending Political Capital →

Political capital is not, however, like money, it cannot be saved up interminably while its owner waits for the right moment to spend it. Political capital has a shelf life, and often not a very long one. If it is not used relatively quickly, it dissipates and becomes useless to its owner. This is the moment in which Obama, who has spent the first few months of his presidency diligently accumulating political capital, now finds himself. The next few months will be a key time for Obama. If Obama does not spend this political capital during the next months, it will likely be gone by the New Year anyway.

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Democrats and Democracy in New York →

The Democratic Party in New York, because it really is almost everything to almost everybody, has no ability to enforce party discipline in the senate, or to defeat candidates who do not represent the views of the party. Excessive ideological rigidity is not a great situation either, but without some discipline, parties are almost meaningless.

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Barack Obama's Real Problem with the Jewish Vote →

Now that the Democratic Primary is finally and definitively over, we will probably begin to hear even more about Barack Obama's relationship, even his problem, with Jewish voters. Barack does have a problem with Jewish voters--there aren't enough of them. Lost in all the noise about Obama's supposed problems winning Jewish support, is that the latest polls show him winning this group by a margin of almost 2-1. If this constitutes a problem, Obama should wish for such problems with Christian and other voters as well.

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Supreme Courts and Party Politics

While the decision by the California Supreme Court upheld a discriminatory ballot initiative, it should not have been a surprise. The vote by the California Supreme Court was not even close as Proposition 8 was upheld by a 6-1 majority. The lone dissenter was Justice Carlos Moreno. Much of the coverage of the decision overlooked the important point that the vote was on, excuse the pun, straight party lines. All six judges who voted in the affirmative had been initially appointed by Republican governors. Moreno is the only Supreme Court justice in California appointed by a Democrat.

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Dick Cheney-The Republican Gift that Keeps Giving →

Cheney's presence on the current political scene seamlessly blends unpopular and unsuccessful policy approaches with an unpleasant demeanor in a way that amounts to an enormous political gift to an already extremely popular president. Every smirk and hostile aside from the former Vice-President makes President Obama's job just a little bit easier. As long as Cheney continues to loudly, and bellicosely defend the previous administration, the American people will not forget just how bad things were when Bush was in office. The belligerence, accusations that any disagreement over any aspect of the Global War on Terror was at best undermining our safety and at worst close to treason, unwillingness to question the efficacy of any of Bush policy and overall hostility towards questioning and debate which continue to characterize Cheney's public statements serve as almost daily reminders to the American people of why they were so ready for a change last November.

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Marriage Equality and the New Faces of the Republican Party →

As President Obama prepares to make his first Supreme Court appointment, the religious right appears to be shifting gears away from focusing on abortion rights and turning their attention more to the question of gay marriage. This reflects a broader strategy on the part of the Christian Right to make fighting against marriage equality the top issue on their agenda.

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Arlen Specter and the Peril of Democratic Party Dominance

Arlen Specter's recent decision to switch parties was viewed by many Democrats as a great victory. It moved the Democratic Party closer to the magic number of 60 Democratic senators which would mean a filibuster proof majority. It also further demonstrated that the Republicans have not yet finished the downward spiral which really began with the 2006 midterm elections. If a center right Republican like Arlen Specter feels compelled to leave the party because he believes it has been taken over by the extremists, then the Republicans still have a ways to go before becoming relevant again.

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Rebranding Will Not Be Enough for These Republicans →

The quandary in which the Republican Party now finds itself is not due to a public relations problem, but stems from being strongly identified, and not without good reason, with the Bush administration. The Bush administration is broadly viewed as a failure, not because it didn't present itself well, but because it mishandled both the economy and foreign policy to disastrous effect. Additionally, some of the ideas which have been foundation of the Republican Party have, in the cases of radical social conservatism and unregulated financial sectors, become the views of an increasingly small minority of Americans. Other bedrock Republican views, such as fiscal conservatism and a realist based foreign policy, were abandoned altogether by the Bush administration and the Republican Party in the last decade. These are problems are profound and go to the core not just of the party's image, but to its vision, message and raison d'etre.

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The First 100 Days: A Whole That Is Greater Than Its Parts →

Placing Obama's first 100 days in context is important because for the first 100 days, at least, the whole outweighs the sum of its parts. Not only have Obama's first 100 days been by far the best of any president of my lifetime, but they began not a day too soon. The country was reeling economically, directionless in foreign policy, losing credibility and support abroad and suffering a crisis of confidence at home when Obama became president. Obama has begun to turn all of this around. Moreover, even though Obama has not been a constant optimist in the White House he has restored confidence both abroad and domestically as most Americans believe our new president is, for the most part, leading us in the right directions. There have also been a range of less high profile issues including stem cell research, national service, allowing science back into policy and, frankly, bringing a sense of normalcy back to Washington, for which Obama also deserves credit. Ultimately, what stops Obama from getting an A is his approach to addressing finance and banking issues, so his final grade is A-.

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Obama's Dilemma-Torture, Accountability and Partisanship

The information that is being released now regarding interrogations of suspected terrorists conducted by the US during the last several years makes it clear, for those who did not yet understand, that America does not torture, except of course when it does. The treatment of prisoners during the Bush years is a stain on the moral standing of the US which the rest of the world will not easily forget. These policies have undermined our credibility and ethical position while doing little to ensure our safety.

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What Both Parties Can Learn from New York →

The mayoral election of 2009 does not look like it will be as exciting as any of those great campaigns. Instead incumbent mayor Michael Bloomberg will likely get reelected for a third term without much difficulty. While we New Yorkers can lament that we are not getting the great drama we like to see in our mayoral election, there might be a broader message in this election for both major parties. Bloomberg, while registered as an independent, has been an on and off Republican since he first ran for mayor in 2001, and will be that party's nominee again this year. New York is, of course, a heavily Democratic city, but if Bloomberg wins, for the first time in our history, we will have five consecutive terms of Republican mayors. To look at it another way, the last time the city elected a Democratic mayor was 1989 a year when Barack Obama was a law student; the Soviet Union still existed; and a blackberry was a fruit. Further, there have been not one, but two terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center since a Democrat was last elected mayor of New York.

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Threats of Recession and Other Recent Republican Rhetoric →

Why then are Republicans willing to talk about revolution, secession and other ideas that would destabilize our country and our democracy. One hopes that most of this can be simply chalked up to a party that is weak, defeated, directionless and out of ideas, but it may not be that simple. Perhaps the demonstrators and, more significantly their leaders, feel that for some existential, and undoubtedly irrational, reason the Obama presidency is a profound threat to their worldview, values and vision of the US. If that is the case we can only hope that these people remain on the margins. This is likely to occur as Obama's worldview, values and vision not only reflect those of a huge plurality of Americans, but will likely to continue to become more, not less, accepted over time.

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Anti-Terror Strategy after the War on Terror →

Rudy Giuliani seems to have joined Dick Cheney among the ranks of political has beens who still think President Obama will make us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he prefers a more thoughtful approach to the bluster and fear tactics upon which the previous administration relied. While Giuliani's comments, specifically his arguments that, based on Obama's address to the Iranian people, "terrorists will say, we can take advantage of the guy (Obama)," and attack the US, should not be taken too seriously, they offer an interesting insight not just into a man whose moment has come and gone, but into how political epochs come and go. The ridicule which greeted Cheney's comments and the comparative silence that greeted Giuliani's indicate that the War on Terror is over. President Obama's decision to abandon the term only underscores this.

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Obama and the G-20 →

The story is not, for many reasons, quite as simple as this. The G20 Summit is occurring in the midst of a global economic crisis of historic proportions, one which raises important, although far from identical, problems for all of the countries participating in the summit. Due to the impact of the downturn in the US and the effect on the rest of the world of the American bubble bursting, Obama is forced into a very strange position, one that is part rock star and part Dr. Doom. The American president whose personal story and style exudes optimism will be, to a substantial extent, playing the role of pessimist, or realist, at the summit, as he must not seek to minimize the seriousness of the economic problems we all face.

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