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