Archive for the Republican Party Category

The Chamber’s Campaign is For the Senate

Posted in Congress, Democratic Party, Lobbying, Organized Labor, Republican Party, regulation on October 24, 2008 by John Stodder

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is defying the Democratic tide, perhaps at the business community’s peril, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel.  Starting from the assumption that Obama will win the presidency, the chamber

has, for months, been defending the 60-vote wall, fully engaged in nearly every competitive Senate race. It may well spend $40 million this cycle, or double its 2006 effort. In many Senate races, the Chamber is proving the only outside help to underfunded Republicans.

The “60-vote wall” refers to the number of senate votes required to stop a filibuster; in this case, a filibuster against anti-business policies a Democratic supermajority would presumably sponsor.

In Kentucky, the group has blasted Democratic candidate Bruce Lunsford for his antienergy stance. In Minnesota, it is beating on Al Franken for failing to carry workers’ comp coverage for his employees. It has tagged New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen as a “taxing machine.” It has praised Oregon Republican Gordon Smith for his work on health care.

It also unveiled the season’s most humorous ad, entitled “Meet Bill.” It features real-life union boss, Bill, caught assaulting a cameraman (“I’m gonna’ take this camera and stick it somewhere you don’t want it!”). It points out that it would be Bill who, under card check, would get to monitor votes in a union drive.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D.-NY) has blasted the chamber’s involvement in these campaigns, claiming the officially non-partisan organization is acting like “a wing of the GOP.” He promises unfriendly legislation in revenge.  But the chamber’s Bill Miller, head of political efforts, isn’t fazed.  He tells Strassel:

“What if we became lambs instead of lions? Would the legislative agenda be less beholden to trial lawyers and labor unions? Maybe this is a shot at K Street, but the lobbying mentality of too many is to go up and be solicitous, and hope to get some crumbs from the table. That is not our deal. Our deal is to be the last line of defense for the business community. And while we always work collaboratively, that’s what we’ll continue to be.”

Whether or not there will be 60 Democrats in the next Senate, you have to figure not all 60 would be liberals.  The party’s growth has mostly been at the expense of moderate Republicans dragged down by their association with the Bush Administration and the social and religious right. There are likely to be many “blue dog” Democrats in the Senate next year whose votes will be available to the business community at some price.

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And it fails! Bloggers react.

Posted in Congress, John McCain, Mortgage/Housing Crisis, Republican Party, Wall Street with tags , on September 29, 2008 by John Stodder

Thirteen votes short.  There will be no revote today because of Rosh Hashanah.

Some initial blog reactions, in no particular order:

From the much-admired left-wing blogger Digby:

The Republicans are saying that many of their members had promised to vote for the bill until they heard the Democrats being too mean in their speeches. It was inappropriate. So they voted against it at the last minute out of pique. Apparently they think this is some kind of excuse.( Of course that won’t last. The Republicans will ultimately spin this as an act of fiscal integrity.)

Amazing. Pelosi brought it to the floor with the promise that the Republicans would deliver and they didn’t. I swear to God, if there’s a way to get punk’d, the Democrats will find it.

From Digby’s right-wing counterpart, Michelle Malkin:

It’s official. The MOAB has failed.

Yeah, a lot of Chicken Littles are running around screaming about the Dow dropping.

It’s dropped less than 5 percent.

Apocalyptics said it would be down 20-30 percent.

The bailout failed.

The world survives.

Malkin’s post also has the complete list of who voted for the bill and who opposed it.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air says this:

What does this mean?  The Senate can always initiate their own version of the plan and re-send it to the House, but that will take some doing.  Can Republicans change their votes after taking this kind of stand?

If it stands, it will be a repudiation of the leadership in both House caucuses and the Bush administration.  Pelosi couldn’t hold her caucus together, and Boehner, Cantor, Blunt, and Putnam will find themselves in the minority of theirs.

Update:  I guess this puts lie to the notion that an agreement existed before John McCain went back to Washington.  They got more Republicans today than they had last Wednesday, and it still didn’t pass.

Morrissey also posts this video, which he claims “probably killed the agreement” by putting a partisan twist on what was supposed to be a bipartisan, hold-your-nose vote:

The New Republic blog The Plank’s Eve Fairbanks thinks Republicans are a bunch of babies:

The Republicans are blaming Nancy Pelosi’s “partisan” speech for the failure of the bailout bill. “The speaker had to give a partisan voice to it, and it caused a number of members we thought we could get to go south,” said John Boehner at a press conference. “Right here is why I believe this bill failed,” added GOP Rep. Eric Cantor, waving a copy of the text. “This is an instance where you see Pelosi’s failure to listen, failure to lead …”

This sounds like spin to divert blame from the GOP for the failure of the bill, but two Republican staffers I know were themselves surprised by the outcome — they had expected more GOP votes, and minority whip Roy Blunt claimed their whip count showed at least 12 more votes going in, which would have saved the bill.:

But if it’s true … give me a break! No matter what you thought of the details of the bill, is that not the most immature thing you’ve ever heard? To vote against the biggest bill of the year — to let, as President Bush put it, the sucker go down — because the Speaker insulted your feelings?

National Review Online’s Jim Manzi seems to agree with her:

Well, apparently the House Republicans have decided to run a neat little experiment to test the actual odds of the current financial crisis turning into another Depression in the absence of a bailout plan.  What alternative do they propose that could realistically be enacted?  How long do they think this would take, and what risks would we run during the period of uncertainty, even if it were successful?

I have no visibility into the current machinations on Capitol Hill, but I’m with Noah Millman: as far as I can see, if I were a senior Democrat right now, I’d introduce a Democratic alternative tomorrow and pass it on a party line vote.

I sure hope House Republicans are holding some cards they haven’t yet revealed.

Others on that site see this vote as disastrous for John McCain.  He was supposed to deliver the House Republicans.  He bragged that his intervention had done so.  Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner cited his efforts. So, he needs to explain what happened.

More later.

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Blaming Fannie and Freddie…and the Democrats *(corrected)

Posted in Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Democratic Party, History, John McCain, Lobbying, Mortgage/Housing Crisis, Republican Party with tags , , , , on September 22, 2008 by John Stodder

A much-discussed, much-praised, much-reviled column by Bloomberg columnist Kevin Hassett states unequivocally that the source of the rot in the mortgage-backed securities was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who he claims were protected by congressional Democrats. An excerpt:

Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.

Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

Hassett then describes what happened to a Fannie/Freddie reform bill proposed in the wake of Greenspan’s comments:

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

I would point out, however, that in 2005, Republicans were in charge of the Senate, albeit with a bare minority.  They should not be excused either.  Congress has access to some very big microphones, but apparently did not use them.  And while President Bush was already suffering from Iraq-related unpopularity, he could have lobbied for the bill if it was so obviously important.

I’m not trying to be falsely even-handed here.  There are a lot of Democrats with much to answer for.  And, as Hassett points out, John McCain was a co-sponsor of the Fannie/Freddie reform bill in question, so he should get  credit for that — or at least immunity from being attacked on the issue by Barack Obama.  But there are sins of omission as well as commission.  The Republicans didn’t put up much of a visible fight for the bill.  They didn’t try to convince moderate Democrats that their party-first approach was mistaken.  That’s neglect of duty, and they should pay a political price for it, along with the Democrats.

*(Correction:  In 2005 the Senate was GOP 55, Dems 44, Ind. 1. Thanks to commenter NYOD for pointing out my mistake.)

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Stock-Market Wealth Through Gridlock

Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economic Statistics, John McCain, Republican Party, Wall Street with tags , on September 12, 2008 by John Stodder

If John McCain holds onto his slight lead until Election Day, and if Democratic majorities return to Congress, history suggests the stock market will be pleased, says Donald L. Lusken, chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today.

However, prospects for the market would be even rosier if  Republicans staged a congressional upset, Lusken wrote.  And even better if Obama was the president during this unlikely GOP resurgence:

It’s Congress that makes the laws. The president just signs them. Based on congressional control, the study results look very different. Under Republican Congresses, stocks have averaged a 19% return, while under Democratic Congresses only 11.9%. Real GDP growth, lagged two years, has averaged 3.7% under Republican Congresses, and only 3.2% under Democratic ones.

Then there are the various party mixes between the president and Congress. If John McCain wins and we have a Republican president and a Democratic Congress, history leads us to expect an average 10.3% total return from stocks and 3.3% real GDP growth. If Barack Obama wins, and we have a Democratic Congress too, then according to history stocks will average 13.8%, and real GDP growth 3.3%.

But that’s no argument for voting for Mr. Obama. Vote for Mr. McCain — but vote for Republican senators and representatives too. When Republicans have controlled the whole government, it blows away anything Democrats can do. Stocks have averaged 17.5% and real GDP growth 3.3%.

By the way, as fond as Democrats are of saying how poorly stocks have performed under George W. Bush, here’s a sobering fact: Stocks averaged 14.1% return in those Bush years when Republicans controlled Congress — and when Democrats got in there and mucked things up, the average has been a loss of 8.9%. That’s not even including 2008 year-to-date, which doesn’t look so pretty.

If the electorate were really smart, it would elect a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. Under that deal, stocks have averaged a 20.2% total return, and real GDP averaged 4%.

That last scenario reigned during the last six of Bill Clinton’s eight years, the era of “irrational exuberance” that many investors would gladly endure again.

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Does It Feel Like 1952 a Little?

Posted in Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Democratic Party, History, Joe Biden, John McCain, Republican Party, Sarah Palin with tags , , , , on September 6, 2008 by John Stodder

I wasn’t born yet but I seem to have an embedded memory of an election that also took place amid an unpopular war.

The GOP nominated this man.  A famous war hero. Notably bipartisan, he won the nomination after besting the right wing of his party.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

His vice-presidential nominee was someone from the west, much younger, someone Ike hardly knew, someone known as a hard-charging partisan who specialized in slashing attacks:

Richard M. Nixon

Richard M. Nixon

Over on the Democratic side, the party found an inspiring yet cool and cerebral intellectual from Illinois:

Adlai Stevenson

Adlai Stevenson

He was joined on the ticket by a U.S. Senate insider of long tenure:

John Sparkman

John Sparkman

Familiar?

One big difference. In ’52, the incumbent was a Democrat, Harry S Truman. Eisenhower’s victory was predicated on the need to change parties and clean house. He had to run an above-partisanship campaign because then, as now, the Republican “brand” was damaged by the previous Republican president, in this case Herbert Hoover, to whose disgraced memory Democrats tied Republican presidential candidates for decades.

That difference might be enough to put the 2008 version of the Illinois “egghead” over the top this time. Stevenson was stuck with the baggage of Truman’s failed presidency (or so it was perceived at the time), but Eisenhower managed to escape the Hoover curse, the only Republican to do so from 1932-1968. John McCain is carrying the burden of Bush’s failures, while Barack Obama can point to the good-time era of his Democratic predecessor’s reign.

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Too Connected To Be A VP’s Wife?

Posted in Barack Obama, Ethics, John McCain, Lobbying, Republican Party with tags , , on August 20, 2008 by John Stodder

Susan and Evan Bayh are a quintessential Power Couple.  He’s a U.S. Senator, a former governor, the bearer of a respected Indiana name and on the short list for Barack Obama’s vice-presidential pick. She’s a lawyer for the health insurance behemoth Wellpoint, and serves on the boards of directors for Emmis Communications, E*Trade Financial and five others.

According to Bloomberg News, the parallel worlds of Susan and Evan Bayh are colliding. The story raises questions about whether, as a senator, Evan Bayh aided Wellpoint get part of a federal grant, and whether, as a board member, Susan helped Evan get his memoir published.  And whether these conflicts could be used against a hypothetical Obama/Bayh ticket.

“When you’re vetting a vice president and his wife is on seven boards, that is a serious question of conflict of interest on a whole variety of issues,” said James Thurber, director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington.

Evan Bayh has gone “above and beyond what is required under Senate ethics rules” to prevent possible conflicts, forbidding his staff to communicate with lobbyists for companies where his wife is a director, Bayh’s spokesman Eric Kleiman said.

“There is a wall preventing any and all lobbying contact,” and Susan Bayh isn’t a lobbyist, Kleiman said. “Spouses of public servants deserve the opportunity to pursue success in their chosen fields of endeavor.”

Yes, but would Ms. Bayh have the opportunity to pursue the same levels of success if she was married to Evan Jones, high school basketball coach?  To be fair, Bloomberg’s Timothy Burger points out that two other prominent Democratic spouses have careers that raise similar questions.

Susan Bayh, 48, isn’t the first spouse to face political questions about corporate boards. Michelle Obama, who made $101,000 in 2006 as a director of TreeHouse Foods Inc., quit the suburban Chicago company’s board last year. TreeHouse’s biggest customer is Wal-Mart Inc., a target of criticism from labor unions. New York Senator Hillary Clinton was on Wal-Mart’s board when her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor of Arkansas.

Is anyone willing to make the argument that politicians’ close spousal ties to major corporations serve the public’s interest?

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