It's simply a fact that anyone occupying a sufficiently powerful office will occasionally be targeted with death threats.  And, as I'm sure you know, that's especially the case for the presidency.  Indeed, it's doubly the case for a controversial president, and orders of magnitude the case for a black president.  And with Barack Obama's inauguration only two days away, law enforcement officials are paying special attention to white supremacist groups around the country (CNN.com):

The inauguration of the nation's first minority president increases any potential threat, "particularly stemming from individuals on the extremist fringe of the white supremacist movement," said a recent intelligence assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

But law enforcement has the appropriate resources to respond if needed, Persichini said.

"We have seen a lot of chatter," Persichini said. "We have seen a lot of discussions. We have seen some information via the Internet. But those are discussions. We look at the vulnerabilities and whether or not the groups are taking action.

[...]

Anger, violence and interest in racist ideology did increase in the hours and days after Obama was elected president in November, hate groups experts said.

Three New York men were indicted on charges of conspiracy to interfere with voting rights -- accused of targeting and attacking African-Americans in a brutal crime spree soon after Obama was declared the winner on November 4.

And interest in racist ideology was so high right after the election that computer servers for two White supremacist Web sites crashed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

Predictably, spittle-flecked Confederate apologist conservative Robert Stacy McCain has a problem with monitoring unreconstructed racists and assorted other cranks:

Notice, however, that CNN and the "experts" they consult seem completely oblivious to the scenario of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the president of the Great Satan. That's because al-Qaeda is Muslim, and fostering fearfulness of Muslims is "hate." The media want you to worry about a relative handful of tinfoil hat kooks, rather than about the bloodthirsty terrorist enemies who want to kill us all.

The simple fact of course, is that "the media" wants you to worry about "a relative handful of tinfoil hat kooks" because that handful was - prior to the 9/11 attacks - responsible for the most deadly terrorist attack in American history.  What's more, those kooks (who only five decades ago were a solid majority of the American public) were responsible for killing another remarkable young black man, and prior to that, routinely terrorized and murdered - in gruesome, terrible ways - black citizens around the country.  You wouldn't know it from reading McCain, but white supremacists have killed more Americans than our "bloodthirsty terrorist enemies" could ever dream of.  In short, our history suggests that when it comes to domestic terrorism and prominent black people, we have a lot more to fear from our own homegrown "tinfoil hat kooks" than we do from anyone abroad.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by McCain's complaints, after all, this is someone who once argued that Emmett Till (a 14-year old boy killed by a bloodthirsty racist mob in 1955) had it coming.

cross-posted at my blog

I basically agree with DymaxionWorldJohn's argument that there was never a moment where the United States had any real "primacy" (at least militarily) in the international scene.  Yes, after the Cold War, the United States was in a position of absolute military supremacy relative to the rest of the world.  But looking at the 1990s, it's not terribly clear to me that the United States was much successful at using military force to attain its foreign policy goals (the only metric that really matters).

This actually is a good time to expand on something I've been thinking about lately.  I recently finished Andrew Bacevich's "The Limits of Power," and he spends a lot of time emphasizing that it was a belief in absolute American primacy which drove the Bush Administration to pursue wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Indeed, Bacevich takes care to note that for many folks in the Bush Administration, Iraq was only the beginning; neoconservatives in the administration intended to use Iraq as a starting point to transform the Middle East through the application of American military power.  That is, frankly, a pretty terrifying prospect.  Imagine if Iraq was successful; there is a very real chance that we would have been embroiled in conflicts across the Middle East, from Damasacus to Tehran.  Instead, the fact of our failure in Iraq - our inability, as the world's sole superpower, to pacify a relatively marginal "third-world" nation - has prompted us to at least on a very small scale reevaluate the efficacy of American power.

To borrow from Matt Yglesias, we can't continue stumbling from failure to failure, if only for the simple fact that it will diminish American power to the point of near-worthlessness.  If Iraq forces us to reevaluate our use of military force, to make us more cautious about using said strength, to aim for attainable foreign policy goals (this does not include "establishing democracy"), and most importantly, to rid of us of this belief in absolute American primacy.  Then I think that it's worth considering the idea that our failure Iraq was - in a very broad sense - a good thing for the United States.

cross-posted at my blog

Matt is (rightly) annoyed by all of the talk about supporting a third-party candidate, in light of Obama’s moves to the right:

All of this makes me a bit peeved when I see this tribute to Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, the Green Party candidates. There are all the usual arguments about not being afraid of spoiling, actually supporting candidates whose ideas you agree with and what not. But there’s no real way to get around the central problem with supporting left-wing third party candidates - it’s taking away votes from Democrats, it’s a de facto vote for McCain and will do very little to move Democrats to the left.

I think that all of this hand-wringing, and talk about supporting third-party candidates can be traced to one particular mistake a lot of left-liberals seem to be making.  Namely, they don’t seem to understand that in a two-party system neither party is ideologically pure.  The Democratic and Republican Party’s are “big tents” and every sense of the tired, overused phrase.  Each party contains a wide diversity of interests and groups - some even opposed to others - which vote together only because of a few shared convictions.  Yes, it’s possible to move a party to the left or right, but on the whole, it will still be a fairly marginal push.  Obama, for example, is more liberal than most Democrats, but still falls squarely within the mainstream consensus, and it’s important for left-liberals to understand this.  In fact, I actually find it kind of silly to criticize presidential candidates for not being liberal/conservative enough, because (and especially for Democrats) at that level, it should be a given that the candidate will tend towards the center; ideological orthodoxy doesn’t win primaries, much less actual elections.  In fact, I’m certain that if Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader were a major party nominee, they would compromise and equivocate just as much as Obama or McCain, because that’s the nature of major party politics.  Third-parties are ideologically pure more out of circumstances - they aren’t particularly influential - than conviction.

But, if you’re intent on voting for a third-party, that is your right.  Keep in mind though, that if you’re out to effect some sort of change on the party system, your vote - or even a couple hundred thousand of votes - won’t have any real impact on the direction of the party you want to punish.  Keep in mind that it wasn’t Nader which pushed the Democratic Party a bit to the left, it was the concerted effort of activists to change the party at the local and grassroots level.  As Matt said, if you’re really upset with the party’s direction, you’re focus should be on mounting primary challenges to Democrats you feel are insufficiently liberal.  Because, even if you lose, you will have gained enough influence to force a change in the Democrat’s position.  And if you win, you will have done your part to move the party a little bit in your favored direction.

Cross-posted from The United States of Jamerica

The New Republic (like almost everyone else, at this point) wonders why Obama has pulled ahead in the national polling:

These days, McCain’s every utterance about foreign policy seems to arrive packaged in an embarrassing slip (sorry, Senator, Pakistan doesn’t border Iraq); his crowds are paltry, and his campaign’s stage-managing of events (see the cheese-aisle press conference) is downright, well, JV.

Yet, somehow, despite all this, McCain remains in the game. This is not easy to explain–and it should cause a great deal of introspection at Obama headquarters. For all the many ways that the stars have aligned for Obama, he has yet to take full advantage of what historically has been a great opportunity. Of course, we speak of the economy. These are the type of painful times when voters invariably turn to Democrats. So why aren’t they turning to Obama in greater numbers?

Actually, it’s not terribly difficult to understand why Obama hasn’t pulled ahead in the polls; despite the fact that the national mood leans towards Democrats, it’s still the case - as it has been for the past eight years - that the electorate is basically evenly divided between the two parties.  After all, despite running in the in the aftermath of 9/11 (and in the midst of two wars), Bush only won reelection with a hair-thin margin of 2.4 percent (50.7/48.3).  When an electorate is this polarized, it should be a given that both candidates will be evenly matched for most of the election season.  We won’t see any real movement until the fall, when more people begin tuning into the campaign, and the various events swirling around (the economy, the war, etc.) begin to make an impact on each campaign.  Until then, please, chill out everyone.

(cross-posted from The United States of Jamerica)

As much as I agree with both Matt and Ta-Nehisi’s assessments about the desirability of black Republicans - namely that it would benefit African-Americans and the country as a whole if there were more black Republicans* - I think that Matt might be understating the degree to which history does play a significant part in the African-American community’s commitment to the Democratic Party.

Not only are black people aware that it was the Democratic Party which supported the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, but they are very aware of the fact that it was the Republican Party which embraced segregationist Democrats, and which has actively stoked racial resentment as a means to win elections.  I’m willing to wager that many black people who otherwise would vote Republican don’t, because of the perception that voting Republican would be essentially rewarding the GOP its use of tactics which, if not racist, were dangerously close to crossing the “racist” line.

That said, I don’t see the current ratio of black Republicans to black Democrats changing any time soon, especially since Obama is the Democratic nominee.  If Obama wins the presidency, then the Democratic Party will have essentially “renewed its contract” with African-Americans, and will almost certainly continue to receive an absurdly high percentage of the African-American vote in presidential elections.  But, there still might be room for growth in local and congressional elections; I think many black people would vote for a black Republican if that candidate approached the black community with real respect, and a real desire to build a dialogue and solve problems.

And yes, I realize that having more Republicans in Congress would damage the Democratic agenda, but as Paul Frymer shows in his book Uneasy Alliances, the kind of electoral “capture” that the Democratic Party has over African-Americans leaves the later too vulnerable to being taken advantaged of by the former.  Moreover, just as having more women in Congress has increased the importance of women’s issues on both sides of the aisle (they are actually debated as opposed to being dismissed), I think having more black Republican congresspeople will encourage Republicans to think seriously about the impact of their policies on African-Americans.

There are two obvious question though: when will that happen?  And how many black Republicans will it take for that to happen?  As it stands, because Republicans literally have nothing to lose with regards to the black vote, they’re more comfortable taking advantage of racial resentment and pursuing policies which have a disproportionate negative impact on African-Americans (like the War on Drugs, for example).  As long as that is the case (and as long as Democrats continue to pursue policies which are at least somewhat beneficial to African-Americans), few black people will run as Republicans, and fewer black people will vote for Republicans**.

*I’ve actually mentioned my desire for more black Republicans before, in this post.

**This is another reason why Ross and Reihan’s attempt to broaden the Republican commitment to working class voters is important; doing so opens up the opportunity for making real inroads into the African-American community.

***And because I quoted a verse, here is the actual song, “Black Republicans” - Jay-Z & Nas.”

Over at The American Scene, Reihan Salam argues that we’re seeing the beginnings of a Republican revival:

A few strange things have been happening — voters now believe that energy policy is more important than Iraq Sununu is catching up with Shaheen in New Hampshire; Norm Coleman has a solid lead over his Democratic challenger in Minnesota, though that race is likely to change shape; and, most significantly, John McCain has been gaining in Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota, despite his extreme crankiness and not-always-effective messaging.

This looks like the beginning of the two-party system righting itself — in the Feiler Faster spirit, we’re slowly getting back to 50-50. The mix of issues that are keeping Republican heads above water is different from what we’ve seen during the Bush era, and more attractive in some respects: spending restraint is making a rhetorical comeback, and pushback against environmentalists is taking the place of pushback against social liberals. Given mre straitened economic circumstances, this makes sense. Social issues — for liberals and conservatives — tend to be voting issues for the relatively affluent. If the goal is to move blue collar voters, job impact is what counts.

I think Reihan might be missing the forest for the trees, and looking at individual polls without taking the broader picture into account.  Let’s not forget, in New Hampshire, the polling has generally stayed within the 41-43 percent range for incumbent Republican John Sununu, and within the 48-50 percent range for challenger Jeanne Shaheen.  And in Minnesota, Norm Coleman probably owes his current resurgence to the advantages of incumbency, and the various controversies surrounding Al Franken’s candidacy.  Besides, the race has been close all year, and a single poll isn’t indication of any trend.  This goes too for recent polls showing McCain catching up with Obama in several key states.  John Sides at The Monkey Cage points out that “in 2 of these 4 key states, there has been no meaningful change, given the inherent sampling error in polls. In both Michigan and Wisconsin, McCain’s share is unchanged; Obama’s is down 2 points.”  The only place where there’s been sustained growth in McCain’s numbers is Colorado, and even then, Colorado is a traditionally Republican state, having gone Democratic only twice in the past twelve presidential elections.

When you take all of that into account, there doesn’t really seem to be the beginnings of much of anything.  Instead, what we see is that the electorate still pretty evenly divided, and that with few exceptions, most of the contested races are fairly close (including the presidential one). 

cross-posted from The United States of Jamerica

At Too Sense, One Drop makes a point that I tried (unsuccessfully) to in my post on Senator Obama’s and Senator Clinton’s FISA vote:

The problem with the FISA situation is not really that Obama changed his mind and voted for a compromise bill that did less than he wanted it to do. The problem is more fundamental than that, and can be summed up as follows:

Presidents do not relinquish power. [...]

What we do not see, in reviewing American history, is any instances of Presidents refusing to wield the powers that were asserted by their predecessors. An executive power, once claimed, is forever more in the arsenal of the President, unless explicitly stricken by the Supreme Court. The Executive Branch is like any living organism: job one is survival, job two is growth, job three is reproduction. Growth of the Executive Branch is seen in the constant process of pushing the boundaries of Article II powers, stretching things as far as possible. Reproduction is seen in the endless spawning of new federal agencies, new cabinet posts.
Even assuming that Obama is elected, there is nothing in the historical record to suggest that he is likely to repeal any of the powers claimed by President Bush. That has never happened before with any of the 42 Presidents that have succeeded George Washington. We can hope for greater discretion on Obama’s part, more self-restraint, sounder judgment, but it is not realistic to believe that he will set out to purposely diminish the power of the office he holds.

It’s terribly unrealistic to expect any executive to willingly relinquish new powers; and that’s precisely the reason why we have a legislative branch.  It’s supposed to act as a check on the executive’s inevitable attempts to accumulate power.  Unfortunately, for the past decade or so, the legislature has refused to exercise it’s power as a co-equal branch of government.  In my eyes, Congress bears more responsibility for the surveillance state than the Bush administration does; a bit of institutional parochialism is probably all it would have taken to stop Bush from overreaching.  As we saw, the Republican Congress was all too eager to roll over for the Bush Administration, and unfortunately, I expect that a Democratic Congress will do the same for a President Obama (though, if Hillary Clinton’s actions and statements are any indication, she might be interested in taking back power for the Senate). 

Though, it’s certainly understandable as to why Congress tends to be deferential towards the White House.  For one, the decisions Congress should make - the ones dealing with national security and defense issues - are difficult.  There often isn’t a clear answer, much less a right one.  It’s far easier to simply let the executive decide, and deal with the fallout.  Moreover, with partisanship at a relative high (which for the record, I don’t think is a bad thing), with the state-level parties becoming more akin to subsidiaries of the national party, and with the legislature becoming more parliamentary in style (straight party-line votes are the norm these days), it seems that there is a lot more congruence between the interests of congressional leadership and the White House, then there was before.  In that kind of atmosphere, you couldn’t possibly expect Congress to oppose the executive, especially when they come from the same party (again, the Republican-controlled Congress played lapdog to the Bush administration).

At this point, there simply isn’t any advantage to acting in ways contrary to your own party, especially on an issue which is seen as important (for whatever reason).  If we want our legislators to stand up for themselves, or if we want our executives to think twice about claiming a new batch of powers, we (i.e. ordinary people) need create incentives for them to change.  Otherwise, we should expect more of the same.

cross-posted from The United States of Jamerica

At the Corner, Rich Lowry wonders if either Barack Obama or John McCain can connected to working-class voters:

It’s odd how the loser in the primaries, Hillary Clinton, would be better-suited to the current political environment than either John McCain or Barack Obama. Neither of them are connecting with working-class voters or persuasively speaking to economic anxieties at this extraordinary moment when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the edge of collapse. In 2000, John McCain was the feisty—angry even—crusader against Washington and the status quo. The trouble was that it wasn’t the ideal message for a Republican primary audience at that time, but now that voters desperately want that kind of candidate, McCain can’t quite find his old 2000 mojo.

Lowry should probably pay more attention to polling data.  Contrary to what the primaries may have suggested, Obama is doing better than expected among voters with a high school education or less (which usually correlates with being low-income):

Since March, Obama has become increasingly competitive with McCain among men and women with less formal schooling, as well as among white and nonwhite voters who did not attend school beyond 12thgrade.  Among each of these subgroups of voters, the Obama-McCain gap has moved 6 or 7 points in Obama's favor over the past four months.

Gallup does kind of skew things a bit.  Lowry is mostly referring to lower-income white voter, and Gallup didn’t disaggregate their results by race, so it’s not clear what those numbers would be if it was only lower-education white voters being polled.  Here comes political science to the rescue!  In his 2006 paper “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas,” Larry Bartels shows that Democrats have historically taken a significant portion of the lower-income white vote:

Since 1976, Democratic presidential candidates have received 50% of the votes from the lower-income segment of Frank’s white working class, 43% from the middle-income segment, and 35% from the upper-income segment. (The corresponding Democratic vote shares from the lower, middle, and upper thirds of the white electorate as a whole are 51%, 44%, and 37%.)

The pattern of income polarization in Figure 3 is consistent with Stonecash’s (2000, 118) finding that “less-affluent whites have not moved away from the Democratic Party and that class divisions have not declined in American politics,” and with McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal’s (forthcoming, chapter 3) finding that income has become an increasingly strong predictor of Republican partisanship and presidential voting since the 1950s. In the white working class, as in the electorate as a whole, net Republican gains since the 1950s have come entirely among middle- and upper-income voters, producing a substantial gap in partisanship and voting between predominantly Democratic lower income groups and predominantly Republican upper income groups.

The voting behavior of Frank’s white working class in the 2004 election suggests that, if anything, the partisan divergence between its richer and poorer segments is continuing to increase. John Kerry received 49% of the two-party vote in the poorest third of Frank’s white working class, virtually identical to the 50% received by previous Democratic candidates over the preceding three decades. However, his support fell to 40% among middle-income whites without college degrees, and to 30% among those in the top third of the income distribution. Thus, insofar as Kerry’s performance reflects a continuing erosion in Democratic support among Frank’s white working class, that erosion continues to be concentrated among people who are, in fact, relatively affluent.

If this holds true, then Barack Obama shouldn’t have any more of a problem gaining lower-income/education white votes than any other Democrat.

(Cross-posted at my blog, The United States of Jamerica)