Freedom vs. the Cult of the GOP

Let's face it, there are really two reasons why Republicans want to put up significant obstacles to voting, The first is the obvious one that everyone knows: faced with an ever-shrinking demographic base, Republicans want to even the playing field by keeping Democratic voters away from the polls. If you ever doubted that one, then consider Texas' onerous voter ID law, which recognizes gun licenses as valid voter identification, but not a college ID card.

The second is similar, but more cultish. It's the Tea Party's rationalization for voter suppression. Like the first, this reasoning has it that too many Democrats vote, but this one tries to argue that making it harder to vote is a good thing, since then only the people who really want to vote will make it to the ballot box. These people worry about the "low information voter" (LIV), who -- if they only took the time to listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the Blessed Electronic Gospel Box -- would understand all and see the Starry Wisdom of the Tea Party Way. It's ironic, since the people who think this way are actually the LIVs they worry about. They're factually wrong about pretty much everything, but reject any disagreement as heresy and even as some sort of mental defect. In any case, the result of this cult-thinking is the same as that of the more reality-based suppressors' thinking -- weeding out Democratic voters. Only the reasoning behind the suppression effort is different.

Of course, there's a third reason and it's the stated reason: that democracy is at risk from voter fraud. But that's the excuse, it's not the reason why. When it comes down to why Republicans introduce laws to restrict voting, one of those two reasons are at the heart of it. Voter fraud is just the lie they tell as cover.

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Stolen Seats, Unresponsive Government

Good news, at least one poll shows that Democrats are poised to take the House of Representatives and with it John Boehner's gavel. In an eight point landslide. There are few outcomes that would be better for America. After all, it's Boehner and his willingness to be led around by the nose by Tea Party Republicans that most stands in the way of progress in America. It's they who believe that up is down, that black is white, and that undermining demand at every opportunity is good for the economy. No wonder Americans reject them.

There's one little hitch: the poll is a bit optimistic and even if it's merely close to being correct, Republicans have so rigged House elections that it wouldn't be enough.

ThinkProgress:

According to a Quinnipiac poll released today, if the election were held today 43 percent of the electorate would support a Democratic U.S. House candidate, as opposed to just 35 percent who would back a Republican. That 8 point lead for Democrats is significantly more than the GOP’s margin of victory during the 2010 Republican wave election (6.6 percent) and even more that the Democratic margin of victory during the 2006 wave (7.9 percent) — when Democrats were bolstered by both an unpopular Republican president and a failing war in Iraq.

And yet, if Democrats succeed in maintaining this substantial lead through next year’s congressional election, they will likely emerge with a tiny majority of just 5 seats.
Last January, the Republican Party published a triumphant report bragging that “Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.” The report touts the role GOP gerrymandering played in enabling Republicans to keep the House despite losing the popular vote, citing states like Michigan, where “Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.”

See, that's why I always call Republicans shameless. When you're actually bragging about how great a job you did of stealing elections, no other description fits quite so well.

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Why Republicans are Terrified -- And Why That Should Worry You

Last month, Nate Silver took a look at Republican chances to win a majority in the Senate. The verdict: maybe, but probably not. Of course, it really is hard to say with any certainty this far in advance, but this assessment does not say good things about the party overall. If all things were equal, Republicans would be the clear favorites. The vast majority of Senate seats being contested in 2014 are held by Democrats -- 21 of 35 -- meaning the Republican Party can use most of their resources working to gain seats, while Democrats will be forced to spend mostly on holding them. And out of all those 21, Republicans need a mere 6. In other words, they could lose all those races at a rate in the neighborhood of 3:1 and still come out on top -- but they probably won't even reach that paltry level of success.

Today Republicans get more 2014 bad news. Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg writes that Democrats will likely pick off a few governorships that cycle.

While the fight for the House of Representatives will take center stage next year, another battle could be almost as important for the two parties: control of a handful of big-state governorships.

Republicans like to point out that while they lost the presidency and seats in both chambers of Congress in 2012, their party continues to hold governorships in 30 states, including nine of the country’s 12 largest states.

But most of those governors — 23 to be exact — were elected in 2010, a great GOP year that doesn’t reflect the nation’s (or many states’) political fundamentals. (That number includes Utah’s Gary R. Herbert, who ran in a special election in 2010 and again in 2012.)

In congress, the big Tea Party wave turned into the one term Tea Party anomaly. And it's looking like that will likely hold true at the state level, as well. It's at this point that Democrats and liberals will need to pay close attention. You'll notice that these races where Republicans are expected to do poorly -- governorships and the senate -- are all statewide races. That means these races can't be rigged by gerrymandering. Not only is that why Republicans can expect to have a bad year, but it's why it's the year Republicans are most likely pull out the stops on dirty tricks to win elections. You see, if things turn out as predicted, the GOP will be royally screwed.

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Old Jim Crow, Back for an Encore

Take a moment and consider how unlikely this headline would be:

WEALTHY WHITE VOTERS FORCED TO STAND IN LINES FOR HOURS TO VOTE.

Doesn't seem like much of a danger, does it? And that tells you all you need to know about the continuing necessity of the Voting Rights Act, currently under attack by the right and the conservative members of the Supreme Court. America has moved on, they argue. There is no polling place discrimination anymore. Racism has been solved.

Yet in Florida, early voting lines were hours long in many places. And for many, early voting isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. Contrary to conservative rhetoric, minority voters work. And most workers don't get to set their own hours. Being able to vote when they have the time off is the only way they can vote. The crooked Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, refused to reverse changes he'd made to election rules and, when told of the long lines, tried to spin it as the consequence of a vibrant democracy; "People are getting out to vote," he said. "That's what's very good."

People having to wait hours to vote is not "what's very good," it's what's very bad. And -- surprise! -- my headline about the travails faced by the intrepid with rich fella doesn't apply here. Reality is pretty much the opposite case.

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Defending Our Most Basic Freedom

It's one of the most sacred rights you have. They should make it as painless as possible.
-Miami-Dade resident Jonathan Piccolo.

It's not the "right" to own a military assault-style weapon that Piccolo is talking about here, but rather the right from which all our other rights spring. It's our most basic freedom and our most powerful form of liberty. It's the ability to bloodlessly change government and to influence the course of our nation's history. The right to vote is the great equalizer -- no one, no matter how rich or powerful -- has a vote any more powerful than yours. Since the Supreme Court determined that money is speech, they may be able to speak louder than you can, but your vote is still equal to theirs. If you're in line behind an ex-president or a Wall Street tycoon, they get one and you get one. Democracy is the freedom we should guard the most fiercely, because democracy is the way we keep all the other ones and even earn new freedoms. There is no free nation that doesn't allow its citizens to vote. There is no free nation that's a sham democracy with a rigged vote. People without democracy are -- by definition -- not free people. Which is why I always say that the enemies of democracy are the enemies of freedom. There aren't many facts I'm as sure of as that.

Which means there's a right side and a wrong side to a battle shaping up in this country -- and one party is staking out the "enemies of democracy" position. Which would make the other the good guys.

New York Times:

With studies suggesting that long lines at the polls cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes in November, party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier, setting up a likely new conflict with Republicans over a deeply polarizing issue.

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Why National Dems May Wind Up Thanking Wisconsin Recallers

As a resident of this state, I really do believe there aren't many good things you can say about Wisconsin Governor Scott "Divide and Conquer" Walker. He's not particularly smart and he's not particularly honest. He's also not particularly courageous.

And courage is something he got some credit for. After his big unionbuster, Walker took a lot of heat. But I'd argue that this was heat he was unprepared for. The scale of the reaction scared the starch out of his drawers and left him obsessed with his own political survival. After all, this is a man a former high-level GOP legislative staffer described as a "giant fiery ball of ambition" -- and ambitions die when the career dies. He's gone from Tea Party Hero to a Romney-like weathervane, pointing in whatever direction the political winds are blowing at the moment. And, while Republicans control the State assembly and senate, this is the result of gerrymandering more than anything. The problem for Scott Walker there is that you can't gerrymander a statewide office. No creatively drawn district lines will save him from overreach and the ground looks very bad for him right now. At a time when Republicans would very much like to see him strike while the iron is hot and return to hard partisanship, Walker's survival instincts push him toward centrism. Rock no boats, make no waves, curb all overreach.

Steve Benen caught a whiff of Walkers newfound political cowardice moderation, this time on the issue of a slow, bloodless coup attempt being waged by the GOP.

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GOP Election-Rigging and Our Broken Government

In terms of votes cast for candidates to the House of Representatives this year, my home state of Wisconsin was close to evenly split. The edge went to Democrats, which is what you'd expect from a state that went for Obama. In the end, the total popular vote from all congressional races went Democrat -- 50.8%-49.2%. And here's where the math starts to get fishy: Wisconsin sent five Republicans to the House and three Democrats. This is a Republican controlled state and the congressional districts have been rigged through gerrymandering.

Wisconsin is a robbed electorate, but we aren't the worst off. That dubious award seems to go to Michigan. In that state, Democrats won the total house vote with a clear majority, 52.7%-47.3%. But they sent only five Democrats to Washington, while electing nine Republicans.

Republicans seem have Democracy bass-ackward and believe it should work the way the filibuster works in the Senate -- i.e., the side with the least votes wins. But I say "seem to" because it's pretty clear that Republicans believe democracy shouldn't work at all and that the most skillful cheater and vote-rigger deserves the office. That is, so long as they're a Republican.

Princeton University's Sam Wang, an election modeller who outperformed Nate Silver in the 2012 presidential election, has been investigating gerrymandering and finds that it's a largely Republican-caused problem.

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GOP Hired the Right Crook for the Voter Suppression Job

It should be a scandal eclipsing Mitt's 47-percent comments -- but it's not.

Raw Story:

The Republican National Committee fired a voter registration firm owned by a paid consultant to the party’s presidential candidate Mitt Romney Thursday, after Florida officials traced more than 100 possibly fake registration forms back to the company.

NBC News reported that the RNC cut ties with Strategic Allied Consulting (SAC), run by party strategist Nathan Sproul, had been paid $2.9 million this year to register voters in five swing states before being dismissed.

Sproul is also the founder and managing partner of another company, Lincoln Strategy Group, which records show was paid by the Romney campaign paid to do “field consulting.”

The Romney campaign told NBC News, "We used this vendor for signature gathering services during the primary but have not used them since 2011." The question should be why Romney or the RNC hired Sproul at all. The man should be washed up and unemployable in the voter registration business -- or in anything to do with elections.

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Voter ID and How the Media is Failing Democracy

Here's some bad news; American democracy just took another hit.

New York Times:

A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to grant an injunction on a new voter identification law that Democrats say could harm President Obama’s re-election chances by unfairly targeting minorities, college students and others in a key swing state.

The decision by Robert Simpson, a commonwealth court judge, clears the way for Pennsylvania to require voters in the Nov. 6 general election to produce photo identification before they are allowed to cast ballots.

This isn't entirely bad news -- or, at least, not as bad as its being presented. The odds of this affecting the election outcome are slim to none. Pennsylvania's RealClearPolitics polling average is Obama +7, with the most recent poll putting the president up 11 points. At this moment, to call Pennsylvania a "swing state" -- as so many are doing -- looks like an abuse of the term. Romney's looking pretty doomed here and voter ID can't possibly disenfranchise enough people to make the difference for him (Nate Silver estimates the law would skew results 2.4%).

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Iowa Caucuses Aren't Even Representative of Iowans, Let Alone the Nation

`What IS a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

`Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.' (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, `But who has won?'
-Lewis Carrol, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"

Yesterday, a mini-tempest in a micro-teapot came up over something NBC's Andrea Mitchell said in regard to the Iowa caucuses. "The rap on Iowa: It doesn’t represent the rest of the country, too white, too evangelical, too rural," she said. It is, apparently, a terrible thing to make a demographic observation that is true and wingnut bloggers responded to it with their usual "Help, I'm being oppressed!" histrionics.

But the fact of the matter is that the caucuses are barely even representative of Iowans, let alone the rest of the nation.

Politico:

The 2012 Republican presidential caucuses begin at 7:00 p.m. on Jan. 3. Iowa Republicans who wish to participate may locate their caucus site using the Iowa Secretary of State’s poll location tool. Republican caucuses for the state’s 1,774 precincts occur in public buildings, schools and homes, and some precincts share caucus space with other precincts. Every precinct in Adair County, for example, will caucus at Greenfield’s Nodaway Valley High School next Tuesday night.

So, if you can't blow an hour of your night precisely at 7:00, you're out of luck. If you want to vote absentee, you're out of luck. And then things get even dumber:

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GOP's Own Data Proves Voter ID Laws are About Suppressing the Vote

For years, the right has argued that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. The argument is deeply flawed, in that it's an "apples exclude oranges" statement. A republic is a structure, democracy is a system. To say that one rules out the other is like saying a grilled cheese sandwich is not grilled, but a sandwich. The United States is a constitutional republic that uses the system of democracy. To say anything else is simply to lie. We vote people into office, who in turn become professional voters. There's democracy all over the damned place.

I'd always assumed that Republicans made this argument as a matter of simple rhetorical dishonesty; Democrat = democracy, Republican = republic. If the United States was founded as a republic only, Republicans -- by virtue of their party's name -- could convince the weak-minded and logic-challenged that Republicans were closer to the founders' original vision. Not the best or most rational argument, but -- let's face it -- the GOP doesn't waste a lot of time on outreach to brainiacs. Think back to the Tea Party protests for examples of the deep thinkers the party attracts.

But there's a darker reason for the argument; Republicans aren't big fans of democracy. Here's the co-founder of the rightwing Heritage Institute and the Moral Majority, the late Paul Weyrich:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome -- good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

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A Last Chance to Vote?

I get to vote today. I don't really see it as a duty -- although I believe it is -- but as a privilege. I get to vote today.

I confess that I'm still torn on my choice for mayor here in Madison. Between Paul Soglin and Dave Cieslewicz, I'm having a hard time imagining myself disappointed with an outcome -- which may be bad news for incumbent Mayor Dave. The Capital Times endorses Soglin, Wisconsin State Journal endorses Cieslewicz. That alone may be enough to finally seal the deal for me -- when in doubt, go with TCT.

But you don't care about that. There's only one reason for anyone outside this state and this city to give a crap about this particular election -- the state Supreme Court race between JoAnne Kloppenburg and David Prosser. There's more than just Scott Walker's union-buster at stake here -- conservatives hold a one seat majority on the court -- but also the fact that you get to vote. Like the union-buster, a voter ID bill (still in the works at this point) is headed for the state's highest court. This is an absolute guarantee. In other words, if Wisconsinites don't vote in this election, they may find it harder to vote in the next.

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The Absurdity of Corporate Personhood

The Citizens United ruling can be boiled down to one simple and crazy idea; that this...



...is virtually indistinguishable from this:



I'm guessing you don't really see the resemblance. Neither do I. In fact, Bank of America has more rights than Skeezix here, by virtue of being an adult. Apparently, corporations are born into full adulthood -- another obvious difference we're all supposed to ignore.

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Auction House Democracy

You've probably heard the name, now meet the Koch Brothers, as introduced by Jane Mayer on NPR's Fresh Air (Video courtesy of Crooks and Liars):



OK, so a couple of rightwing nutjobs are giving money to the GOP -- who else would these days? There are two possible intentions in giving a political donation and it always pays to keep this in mind. People will give to candidates or parties because they agree with them, which only makes sense. If candidate Bob believes what you believe, you're going to want him to win. So you're going to do what you can to help him.

The other intention is as a legal bribe. If candidate Bob is sort of squishy on your issues, then maybe a big campaign contribution will give him an incentive to be a little more solidly on your side. Where the first intention is the political system as it was meant to operate, the second is corruption -- and there's a very fine line between the two. Unfortunately, both are legal. Which only makes sense, since it would be nearly impossible to distinguish between the two with any level of certainty.

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The GOP's Job-Killing Agenda and the Poll Tax

"I'd like to vote, but I can't afford to."

Any society in which that statement can be made has no business calling itself a democracy. Yet, if Republicans in Wisconsin have their way, it'll not only be possible to make that statement, but -- in some places -- common.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Republicans plan a two-pronged approach to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, with the quick passage of a bill followed by an attempt to amend the Wisconsin Constitution that would make it difficult to undo the ID requirement.

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GO VOTE!

It's the big day. Like Superbowl Sunday, only important. This is going to be a short one. I'm still waiting to hear back from Wisconsin Democrats, but I'm afraid I might've signed up too late to get a slot on a phonebank today. He who hesitates is lost, I guess. Luckily, I've still got a blog with some reach, so you people GO VOTE!!

Normally, I plan out my morning post beforehand, but today I'm winging it. All I really want to do is get you out that door and into the polling place. GO VOTE!!

Did I mention yet that you should GO VOTE? I hope so, because you should definitely GO VOTE!!

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Get Out The Vote

This is my last long form post before election day and my last report on phonebanking for Wisconsin Democrats. Right now, I'm watching Rep. Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, defend his prediction that dems will retain their majority in the House of Representatives on MSNBC. But Van Hollen is engaging in punditry -- there's little evidence to back up his claim, other than stronger than normal turnout among Democrats in early voting. But that higher early turnout is to be expected. News that the GOP-supporting business groups had planned a $75 million dark money push in the final days of the campaign caused Democrats to push early voting -- i.e., "vote now, before a wave of attack ads change your mind." Because of this last-minute push, Republicans didn't want people to vote early -- or, at least, not as badly as they might in another cycle. Still, it might make the difference in many races.

Gallup reports that "52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot -- depending on turnout assumptions." And everyone agrees that turnout is the key. The danger of lower turnout here is not only a Democratic concern; some Republicans may be so convinced of the inevitability of the "big Republican wave" that they think they needn't bother. Call it the "Tortoise and the Hare scenario." This also may make a difference.

Yesterday, I spent a couple hours on the phone at the teachers' union hall here in Madison. My contacts were mostly positive and the campaign is focusing on Get Out The Vote efforts. If turnout is the key, then turnout is the top job. Democrats seem to feel that a 4% increase in projected turnout in key districts will be enough to pull it out for both incumbent Senator Russ Feingold and gubernatorial hopeful Tom Barrett. My guess on which districts these are: Madison and Milwaukee. Wisconsin Democrats have a larger team of volunteers than in any other state, thanks in part to efforts by MoveOn.org.

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The White Party

Way back in August of 2008, with presidential campaign in full swing, then DNC chair Howard Dean accidentally told an interviewer at NPR what he really thought. "If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party," he said, "because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups." Of course, calling Republicans the "white party" was the worst thing ever.

"Howard Dean's comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong," responded Dean's GOP counterpart, Mike Duncan. "His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nation's citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue."

Yeah, about those "efforts to divide Americans":

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One Hispanic News Source Defends "Don't Vote" Ad -- Meet Fox News Latino

Yesterday, I wrote about the Republicans' never-ending search for people to hate. About a month and a half back, it was all about hating the Muslims. This started to get a little out of hand, so undocumented immigrants became the new group to hate -- a frequent target earlier this year. But this is starting to cost them voters, so now they seem to be in search of a new scapegoat. Without an internal US enemy, Republicans find it difficult to operate.

For now, the target is still illegal aliens. And, since this is costing them voters in the Latino community, they've come up with what might be the most painfully obvious voter suppression scheme ever devised -- beg Hispanic voters not to vote.

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Driving Elections While Hammered on Foreign Money

Imagine a world much like our own. In this world, drunk driving is just as illegal as it is here. Everyone agrees that intoxicated drivers are a menace and the world would be a much safer place without them. But, in this world, it's also illegal to pull a driver over and check to see if they're intoxicated. People who aren't crazy argue that this check would be essential to enforcement and we ought to start doing it, while people who are crazy argue that enforcement is unnecessary -- after all, drunk driving is illegal, so no one will do it, right? If someone's weaving all over the road, they probably have a good reason and pulling them over to see what that reason is would be an invasion of their privacy. Drunk driving has been eliminated by making it illegal and, if you need proof of that, then just look at the record -- no arrests ever. Success!

This alternate reality may strike you as a little on the stupid side, but welcome to the world of American politics post-Citizens United v. FEC. Foreign money in federal elections is still illegal, but there's no way to pull a candidate over to find out if they're soused on foreign money. Candidate X may be positively hammered on Bahraini dinars or Russian Rubles, but -- by the easiest money-laundering scheme in the world -- there's no way to prove it, because there's no way to check.

That's what we're beginning to see play out with the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chambers is running millions of dollars worth of attack ads across the nation and no one can find out for sure where the money comes from.

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