Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: US Politics

Sarah Palin's Non-Candidacy Candidacy →

Palin, however, lives in a different political world than most politicians even within her party, primarily because she has a different set of incentives and motivations. While there is reason to believe that Palin has interest in the presidency, she does not treat it is not a quest that should be pursued rationally and systematically, as might be the case for Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and other possible Republican candidates for 2012. It seems that, for Palin, the presidency is something that she will pursue if it makes sense, but she will not permit that pursuit to distract from her broader agenda of generating as much money and attention for herself as possible.

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Is This the Beginning? →

The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, and several others including a nine year old girl, in Arizona is a tragedy. Jared Lee Loughner, the obviously disturbed and possibly politically motivated 22-year-old man, took the life of five people including a child and possibly made two other young children motherless. Some people lost their lives and others had their lives permanently changed. The parents of Christina-Taylor Green, the nine-year-old girl who was killed, will likely relive the horror of Saturday every day for the rest of their lives. Mark Kelly, Giffords' husband, has to explain to his two young children why their mother is not coming home tonight, or perhaps ever again.

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Issa's Investigations →

In an alternate universe in which Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the new Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee were a rational person with his country's best interests at heart, the news that he was going toaggressively pursue investigations would be welcome. Issa is interested in investigating a range of issues including corruption in the war in Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Food and Drug Administration. The American people deserve to know whether or to what extent corruption has become a problem in the war in Afghanistan, how a security lapse allowed WikiLeaks to get the documents it recently leaked and just how government agencies contributed to the mortgage and economic crises. This kind of accountability in essential to the functioning of a democracy; and investigations of this kind can be an important means of ensuring that accountability.

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Progressives Should Anticipate Another Frustrating Year →

It is unlikely that 2011 will be less frustrating than 2010 for progressives or that Obama will begin to be more responsive to progressive voters who played such an important role in his 2008 victory. This is partially due to the president's understanding of reality in Washington, including his party's defeat in November of this year, but is also influenced by the evolving national political environment. While there has been some talk of a challenge from the left in the Democratic Primary in 2012, Obama's political team seems to understand that this is very unlikely to occur and even more unlikely to be a significant challenge if it were to occur. Regardless of whether or not Obama, in some abstract sense, deserves this challenge, it is hard to imagine a situation where a progressive candidate mounts a serious challenge to the Democratic Party's first African American president. Obama still has strong support among African American voters who would almost certainly rally around the president in the face of this type of challenge. With little support from African American voters, any challenger would have a very difficult time running a serious campaign, especially as most of the party's leadership, regardless of ethnicity, would probably continue to support the president.

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Partisanship is Only One of the Problems →

More bipartisanship might make our politics more pleasant, but probably would not solve any of the major problems facing the country. Bipartisanship is essentially legislators of opposing parties treating each other civilly and occasionally compromising on key pieces of legislation. In the latter respect, perhaps surprisingly, President Obama has an extraordinary record of bipartisanship, tirelessly reaching across the aisle to incorporate key Republican ideas into his legislation.

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Obama, Clinton and Selling the Tax Deal →

Obama turned to Clinton to help sell his compromise on the Bush tax cuts, which is extremely unpopular among much of Obama's progressive base. While Clinton still has formidable political skills, he is not the president. This was not at all obvious last week at the White House as Obama left Clinton alone to finish the joint press briefing. Obama did not seem to understand that voters wanted to hear the current president explain his thinking, not to be spun by a former president.

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Obama and the Compromise Fallacy →

For Obama, however, compromise seems to have taken on a bigger meaning. Rather than view compromising as an important tool, but only one of many that is at his disposal, Obama has treated it as an ends, and goal, in itself. Compromise, however, is only a valuable tool if it is one of several, such as strong-arming recalcitrant legislators or building popular support for a position and is backed up by a credible threat to end negotiations, attack the other party or something else. Since taking office, Obama has seemed reluctant to view compromise this way.

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The Republican Party and the Future of the Democrats →

The Republican victory in the midterm election has once again placed that party firmly at the center of American politics. They are no longer the not-entirely-relevant, occasionally entertaining and often frightening sideshow that they were in late 2008 through much of 2009, but are again the driving force in national politics. This creates a frustrating dynamic for the Democratic Party because their ability to forge their own future is somewhat limited. Instead, to a substantial extent, their future depends on the direction taken and decisions made by the Republican Party.

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The START Treaty and Partisan Politics

For many years the notion that partisan politics ended at America’s shores contained a smattering of accuracy with a healthy overlay of propaganda. There have been too many exceptions over history for that phrase to contain more than a kernel of truth. Partisan disputes about entrance into World War II, Cold War strategy and the Vietnam War were just some of the times that the American political leadership was divided on key foreign policy questions during the time when this framework was allegedly at its strongest. Since the Vietnam War era, disputes over foreign policy from Central America to the Middle East have been a constant presence in our political life.

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Full Body Scanners, Pat-Downs and Democracy →

This is now changing in the US. The recent expanded security procedures at most airports have changed from being a time consuming inconvenience to being invasive and almost certain to make most citizens uncomfortable. Regardless of the intent, the result of these new procedures is that all travelers are now treated like suspects, with the assumption of guilt until proven otherwise. The cost of booking an airplane ticket now includes being treated like a criminal by the TSA. While Americans are still legally free to travel, they can no longer travel either at home or abroad, without confronting these invasive and offensive searches because, presumably, every traveler might be a terrorist. The act of traveling is now enough for the authorities, or semi-authorities, to be suspicious.

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After the Shellacking

The excitement, hope and sense of history which accompanied the early period of Obama's presidency now seem like distant memories even to many who counted themselves among the President's most ardent supporters. Obama's presidency has long since become just another presidency, now it is one that is struggling to stay afloat and to reassert a leadership role in American political life. Unless Obama is able to reclaim the political initiative, the new Republican leadership in the House will continue to fill political vacuum that has been created by an increasingly difficult Obama presidency.

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From the Audacity of Hope to Timid and Kvetchy

Since 2009, Obama has become a president who seems to have lost this understanding of the American people which helped make his candidacy possible. Instead of offering hope, he has offered mediocre legislation and bristled when the import of this legislation has been challenged. It is strange that a candidate who was able to read voters so well has become a president who seems to think citizens simply want legislation. Voters don't care about legislation; they care about outcomes. If the outcomes are not good, a president must offer understanding and demonstrate that he understands the worries, concerns and troubles of the American people. As president, Obama has been unable to do this.

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Will the Election Change Obama's Foreign Policy?

The election results, however, may have an effect on American foreign policy, but this will probably not be as significant as some might think. The new Republican members of congress will focus likely continue to focus their attention on domestic issues. Moreover, many of these people have very little experience on foreign policy and know very little about it. Of course, this is true regarding domestic policy as well, but lack of experience and knowledge tends to be more of a barrier in the making of foreign policy.

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What Really Happened Tuesday Night →

It is tempting, for people on both sides of the aisle, to see this election as a paradigm shift or a new development in American politics, but there is also much about this election that is not new at all and that fits neatly into patterns that have characterized our political history for at least a few decades. Every midterm election for more than half a century the president's party has lost seats in congress; the only exceptions were 1998 and 2002. This is a natural part of politics that occurs even when presidents are viewed relatively successful, even during periods of peace and prosperity.

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What Is the Democratic Party Base? →

Having a better sense of who represents the party's base is important for strategist and for the party once it is in office. In 2008, for example, the only groups who voted for Obama by a margin of 2-1 or better, a good measure of a true demographic base, were African Americans (95%), Latinos (67%), voters under 29 years old (66%), Jews (78%), gays and lesbians (70%). Interestingly, union members only voted 60% for Obama, meaning that among white union members it was probably closer to 50%.

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Get Ready for the Most Political World Series in History

It is probably the most politically polarizing World Series in history as one team’s most famous fan and former owner is former President is George W. Bush while the other team plays in the country’s most left of center major city and has long been probably the most progressive franchise in the game. The “Let Timmy Smoke” signs and t-shirts, referring to Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum’s marijuana bust would fit in as about as well at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington as prominent Republican politicians would at AT&T Park, or anywhere else in San Francisco. Somehow this is fitting for the first World Series that, should it go to six or seven games, will be the first to be concluded after Election Day.

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The Tea Party and the Republican Party Are the Same →

As the election approaches there is growing reason to believe that the Tea Party is neither distinct from, or even a part of, the Republican Party. Instead the two have, to a large extent, become the same. Some within the Republican Party may differ in style and presentation from Tea Party Republicans, but that is where the distinction ends. Few Republicans have spoken out about rhetorical excesses of the Tea Party, and when they have, they have turned their attention to individual actions or gaffes -- Rich Iott's Nazi outfits and the like -- rather than to positions or views on major issues. Even the most bizarre claims that have gotten good traction in the Tea Party movement, such as those asserting that President Obama is not a citizen, have rarely been soundly refuted by others in the Republican Party.

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Looking Back at the Arkansas Senate Race →

Nominating a more conservative candidate because she or he is the more electable Democrat is sometimes necessary, but nominating more conservative Democrats who can't win anyway is pointless. This is not just an abstract point, because candidates like Blanche Lincoln, even if she were to win, often stand in the way of successfully passing legislation once they are elected. Therefore, if they are not more electable in November, there is very little strategic reason to nominate these types of candidates in primaries.

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The Republican Party After the Election →

Being the party of voter anger has proven to be a surprisingly effective short term political strategy, but it is a terrible governing strategy. What was left of the more thoughtful, if still conservative, leadership of the Republican Party after the Bush years has been completely defeated in the almost two years since Obama took office. The checks on the party's fringes are no longer there, so people who like to dress up as Nazis, advocate abolishing all public education, want to end Social Security and believe that any economic policy to the left of Ayn Rand is synonymous with Stalinism have emerged as the new face of the Republican Party.

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Rahm Emanuel's Legacy

This interpretation, however, would be wrong. Emanuel, to the extent he has been tough at all, has been tough on Obama's most natural and important allies, the liberal Democratic leadership of congress. These people were more often the targets of Emanuel's hostility and contempt than the Republicans who were in most cases responsible for stalling or stopping the president's agenda. The toughness of Rahm Emanuel was always something of a myth embraced by a somewhat unquestioning media who happily mistook bluster and machismo for toughness and strength, and mistook a proclivity for colorful profanity for dedication and brilliance.

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