Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: US Politics

What Happens to the Democrats if Obama Loses? →

The years from 1996 through the present have been a period of unusually strong unity for the Democratic Party. The deep divisions between north and south and the liberal and conservative wings of the party which defined much of Democratic politics in the second half of the 20th century have been considerably less visible during the last 15-20 years. Even the presidential primaries in the Democratic Party, which were competitive in 2000 and very competitive in 2008, were primarily driven by personal and demographic differences rather than substantive disputes over vision or ideology.

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Romney Lost That Debate, but Not Last Night →

A consensus is emerging that President Obama did much better in the second presidential debate than in the first one a few weeks ago. With his strong showing on Tuesday night, Obama has again solidified his position as the frontrunner and moved another step closer to reelection. Despite his tendency to talk over the moderator and the president, and at times to bully the former, Republican hopeful Mitt Romney did not perform terribly in the debate. He made a respectable effort to answer the questions, provide some specifics and criticize the President's record.

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Could Georgia Be 2012's October Surprise

It is possible that the Georgian election will go smoothly and will not be news in the U.S., but that is becoming less likely every day as fines, harassment and efforts to prevent the opposition from campaigning become even more frequent in Georgia. It is, therefore, likely that the Obama administration will be faced with this all-too-foreseeable October Surprise from Georgia. A year ago, there was much the U.S. could have done to make elections better in Georgia. The window for doing that is rapidly closing, but in the next few weeks the U.S. should do whatever it can to effect at least some change for the better.

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Mitt Romney Unhinged →

The slow collapse of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is good news for supporters of President Obama, but it is, nonetheless, at least on the surface, strange. In a period of about a week, Romney has made two statements, one regarding attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Libyaand the other regarding his views of people who receive government benefits that between them paint a picture of somebody who is deeply out of touch with the country he seeks to govern and, more significantly, suggest that he does not have even a basic understanding of how foreign policy or domestic programs work.

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Don't Blame Romney if Obama Wins →

The Republicans not only draw their votes from a relatively narrow slice of the electorate, but Republican candidates, activists, operatives and strategists are also drawn from that same small segment of the electorate. While the Democrats have candidates representing all of America, the Republican candidates are still overwhelmingly white, Christian and straight. This necessarily limits the party's ability to recruit candidates and cedes much of the political talent to the Democrats. Obviously, not all Republican candidates, leaders and senior officials are straight white men, but the overwhelming majority are. A brief comparison of the crowds at the two recently completed conventions demonstrates this. The challenge the Republican Party faces is that to expand their appeal in anything other than a symbolic way, they will have to remake the party, not by seeking, for example, to win Latino votes by cursory appeals to Latinos as businesspeople or social conservatives, but by genuinely signaling that the party is inclusive, accepts America's diversity and has no room for bigots. This will not be easy, but will be necessary for the Republicans if they want to not just win elections, but to remain a truly national party.

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Hey You Kids, Get Off the Republican Party's Lawn →

Although it may not be what the convention organizers wanted, the image of an older white man rambling often nonsensically about politics, President Obama, and, at times, nothing in particular, while responding to every heckler, and recycling lines from movies from a generation ago, is pretty fitting for today's Republican Party. Eastwood's speech underscored that the biggest problem facing the Republican Party is not Mitt Romney's obvious weakness as a candidate, Paul Ryan's tenuous relationship with the truth or even the presence of candidates like Todd Akin who offer a toxic combination of misogyny and ignorance. Rather, the biggest problem facing the Republican Party is that they are a backwards looking party in a country that has always been oriented toward the future.

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Romney's Not So Bold Choice →

Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate was, in many respects, consistent with, and a reflection of, Romney's political views and political style. Romney's decision to put Ryan on the ticket is being heralded as a bold move by much of the conservative media. The main reason this is such a bold move appears to be because the media keeps repeating it. Putting Paul on the ticket is not so much a bold move as a coward's idea of courage, or more charitably a timid candidate's idea of risk taking. A bold move for Romney would have been to put a liberal Republican who might have infuriated some of the Republican base, but given the ticket a better chance of winning centrist voters in November on the ticket.

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Mitt Romney's Short Strange Trip →

Mitt Romney recently traveled abroad to try to demonstrate his foreign policy credentials, because we all know a few staged meetings with leaders of key U.S. allies is enough preparation to serve as president. Romney, however, was unable to pass even this extraordinarily easy test. Instead, his foreign trip served to reinforce what many people already believe about him -- that despite some strengths, he is an extremely bad candidate. This trip will be remembered more for Romney's insulting comments about the London Olympics and the quick and profane temper of his aid, Rick Gorka than for anything Romney did to demonstrate statesmanship or even an understanding of the world outside the U.S.

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Romney's Tax Returns Are Only the Beginning →

Until Romney releases these tax returns, it is not possible to know what the most damaging thing in them will be; and to some extent it doesn't matter if there is any one specific thing that is very damaging. It is, however, a certainty that Romney's tax returns will continue to tell the story of Romney as an extraordinarily wealthy man whose financial life is very different from those of ordinary Americans, and who has engaged in the kinds of wealthy-person financial shenanigans which, while not illegal, will raise more questions about Romney and his wealth.

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Unexpected and Expected Surprises in the Campaign →

The general election is now less than four months away. The election itself has taken on the predictable rhythm of many presidential elections. The primaries were less contested than usual as the Democratic incumbent had no challengers, not even a protest candidate of some kind; and the Republican challenger did not have any serious opposition throughout much of the race. Not surprisingly, the main issue in the race remains the economy as President Barack Obama is seeking to make the argument that while the economy still has its problems, due to his policies, it is moving in the right direction. Republican challenger Mitt Romney's campaign is arguing that the economy is still in terrible shape and that only the magic of more tax cuts can turn it around.

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What if the Republicans Lose in 2012 →

Should Obama win, Republicans could blame the nominee, regardless of who it is -- Mitt Romney for being insufficiently conservative, Michele Bachmann for being too amateurish or frighteningly right wing, Tim Pawlenty for being too boring, or whoever else ultimately wins the nomination for some other flaw. This, however, will be an exercise in avoidance allaying responsibility for a Republican defeat at an imperfect, even weak, nominee and it obscures other significant questions. The real questions Republicans should ask themselves if they lose in 2012 is how they managed to lose a presidential election during a time of poor economic conditions with the country embroiled in at least two, and possibly three, wars. The corollary question they will need to ask is whether their strategy of attacking President Obama nonstop for four years while offering few useful solutions and giving in to the party's most extreme and ugly elements was really the wise decision. If the answer to the last question is no, the Party will have to determine how and why they allowed that to happen.

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Chief Justice Roberts' Smart Vote on Health Care →

Only Chief Justice John Roberts can know why he decided to vote to form the majority on the recent court case seeking to overturn health care legislation. Nonetheless, his decision was enormously important in determining what health care will look like in the U.S. for years to come, as well as for political reasons which will shape the environment for this election and beyond. For far right activists, however, Roberts' decision must have felt like a punch in the gut. Perhaps when they recover from that initial shock they will also see it, at least partially, as a wake-up call.

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The Increasingly Monolithic Republican Party →

American politics is increasingly defined by a two party system where one party, albeit imperfectly and generally not easily, reflects the racial, ethnic and other diversity, tensions and strength that is central to 21st century America, while the other is increasingly simply a party of white, heavily Christian Americans. Today Americans who are non-white, non-Christian or non-straight are far more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. This is true at the level of ordinary voters, grassroots activists and elected officials.

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How This Election Will Keep Us Polarized →

The presidential election is less then five months away and is shaping up to be among the most predictable in American history. Once the noise around new technologies, Tea Parties and Romney's extraordinary wealth is stripped away, it is not difficult to understand this race as being between a Democratic incumbent and Republican challenger, both of whom faced either no, or only nominal, opposition in their efforts to win their party's nomination. Moreover, both of these candidates have positions and even ideology that is comfortably in the mainstream of their parties' of the last half century or so.

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The Bad News for Labor from Wisconsin →

The defeat of the effort to recall Scott Walker from his post as governor of Wisconsin is less of a victory for the Republican Party, or even a defeat for the Democratic Party, as it is a defeat for the labor movement. Walker, after all, has been a particular anathema to organized labor as his radical anti-union policies have drawn attention and opposition from labor unions and their supporters across the country. For progressives, recalling Walker would have been a major victory, but for labor, the stakes were even higher.

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Worley's Anti-Gay Rant and Comparisons to Hitler →

Comparisons to Hitler are too common in our political discussions as assertions that, for example, President Obama's health care policy is comparable to Nazism, are ridiculous. However, in this particular case comparisons are appropriate. Worley's ideas regarding gays and lesbians are not similar to Hitler's -- they are the same as Hitler's. The idea of putting gays and lesbians into concentration camps and killing them is not something out of Worley's distorted imagination, but is something that actually happened during World War II as gays and lesbians were rounded up along with Jews and others and sent to death camps.

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Why Is the Republican Party Still Trying to Define President Obama? →

There is a significant faction in the Republican Party that still appears to believe that Barack Obama would never have become president if the American people knew the "truth" about him. This is why issues like Obama's place of birth, alleged connections to radicals of various political stripes and plans to destroy America never quite go away. Those holding these views might be on the fringe of the Republican Party, but it is a big, and surprisingly influential fringe. Moreover, no major Republican official, least of all Romney, has stood up to this group within the Republican Party. Until Romney does that, he can expect characters like Ricketts with equally destructive ideas for how to go after President Obama to keep appearing during this campaign.

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A Win on Marriage for Obama →

President Barack Obama's statement that he believes in marriage equality could have been sooner and could have been stronger, but it is still significant. While Obama may have been slightly behind the curve on this statement, it is also a reminder of how quickly public opinion has changed for the better on marriage equality. It was only 16 years ago when the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, announced his support for the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Clinton was also in the midst of a reelection campaign, but was in a better position regarding the election in 1996 when he made that decision than Obama is now. Nonetheless, outside of the LGBT community and a few other liberals, nobody was too upset about Clinton's decision.

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Romney's Weakness as a Candidate →

Over the course of the primary, another more significant problem regarding Mitt Romney, one which is potentially much more serious, emerged. As Romney has campaigned for president, it has become increasingly clear that while he is smart, well-spoken, looks presidential and has an attractive family, he is also not a strong campaigner with little ability to build connections with people or inspire excitement from supporters.

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Romney Had It Easier When He Had a Primary →

Romney has been free for almost a month now to campaign against Barack Obama in the general election. Not surprisingly, campaigning against a gifted and experienced politician like President Obama has proven more difficult than debating Rick Santorum or trying to raise more money than Newt Gingrich. While Romney may now have more time to shake up his Etch A Sketch and reintroduce himself to the American people, he also must work hard to keep himself and his campaign in the news. Other than speculation about who Romney will choose as his running mate, there is almost nothing about the Romney campaign now which will generate interest from the media. This is a contrast with Obama, who is still president, and so is able to generate news and media coverage very easily.

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