September/October 2010 Issue

Read also: The rest of this special report and MoJo’s daily political coverage.

When it comes to corporate donors, Democrats and Republicans may be closer than you think.

The Senate: Lawyers, Drugs, and Money

The Senate

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS

Finance, insurance, and real estate  57

Lawyers and lobbyists  25

Health  5

Agribusiness  3

Labor  2

Energy and natural resources  2

Miscellaneous business  2

Communications and electronics  1

No money raised  3

Total seats | 100

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) Terms: 2 (9 in House) Total raised: $62.2 million, 27% from finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) Top donors: A major defender of Wall Street interests before the crash, Schumer has netted more big bank money than any member of Congress who hasn’t run for president.	Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) Terms: 1 Total raised: $17 million, 7% from FIRE Top donors: In the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Brown’s biggest donors were Fidelity Investments, Bain Capital (Mitt Romney’s old firm), and Credit Suisse. But—whoops!—he voted for the financial regulation bill.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Terms: 5 Total raised: $37.2 million, 14% from FIRE Top donors: The top Senate Republican’s most generous contributors have been US Smokeless Tobacco—now part of Altria, née Philip Morris—and Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel’s. Cheers!	Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Terms: 4 (2 in House)Total raised: $35.4 million, 17% from lawyers and lobbyists Top donors: 5 out of the majority leader’s top 10 lifetime donors are casinos or gambling interests. The industry has bet more than $1.7 million on him, plus $1.3 mil on fellow Nevada Sen. John Ensign.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Terms: 3 (5 in House) Total raised: $75.3 million, 7% from lawyers and lobbyists Top donors: Boxer is Hollywood’s favorite member of Congress (aside from Sen. John Kerry). Her second-biggest donor is Time Warner; Disney is sixth.	Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) Terms: 2 (4 in House) Total raised: $31.8 million, 12% from agribusiness Top donors: The ranking member of the ag committee has never met a federal farm subsidy he didn’t like. He just happens to be Congress’ second-most bountiful recipient of agribusiness cash.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) Terms: 4 (4 in House) Total raised: $16.2 million, 13% from energy and natural resources Top donors: Inhofe, who’s declared that “man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith,” has received more money from Koch Industries than any other company. The oil firm has given nearly $25 million to climate-change denial groups.

The House: Big Labor vs. Big Money

The House

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS

Labor  159

Finance, insurance, and real estate  159

Health  26

Agribusiness  23

Lawyers and lobbyists  20

Miscellaneous business  18

Energy and natural resources  10

Defense  7

Transportation  6

Communications and electronics  4

Construction  1

Unfilled seats  2

Total seats | 435

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) Terms: 21 Total raised: $10.8 million, 21% from labor Top donors: The chair of the appropriations committee and a subcommittee with oversight of labor matters, is the House’s second-biggest recipient of union cash. Obey’s retiring in the face of a challenge from Real World star Sean Duffy.	Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Terms: 12 Total raised: $11.9 million, 19% from FIRE Top donors: Sure, her husband is a major real estate investor, but the biggest all-time donor to the speaker (who has her own Napa vineyard) has been California wine giant E&J Gallo.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) Terms: 5 Total raised: $17.3 million, 24% from FIRE Top donors: The top donor to the GOP whip, a leading opponent of cap-and-trade legislation, is Dominion Resources, a Virginia power company.	Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) Terms: 1 Total raised: $6.4 million, 25% from FIRE Top donors: The freshman rep, a former Goldman Sachs veep, now collects campaign checks from the firm—more than any other House member. Financial regulation vote: Yes.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) Terms: 7 Total raised: $50.5 million, 3% from FIRE Top donors: GIs, meet geeks. The small-government libertarian’s biggest givers are members of the military, followed by Google and Microsoft employees.	Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) Terms: 13 Total raised: $17.2 million, 19% from energy and natural resources Top donors: Barton, who decried the “shakedown” of BP, has watched the cash flow from Anadarko Petroleum, owner (PDF) of 25% of BP’s Deepwater Horizon well.
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) Terms: 17 Total raised: $8.3 million, 17% from defense Top donors: The Armed Services Committee chair is—surprise!— Congress’ top recipient of defense-industry cash.

Previous: Who Owns Congress? Special Report

Next: The Top 75 Corporate Sponsors

Are Democrats Really Doing Better?

Oct 4 2010, 5:18 PM ET

Are Democrats doing better? Are they closing the enthusiasm gap? Why are Republicans exuding less confidence about the Democratic Party’s scheduled root canal on November 2?

There is some obvious perception-framing here. Republicans want to make sure that a 45-seat pick-up is seen as a “win” for the party, particularly when pundits like Charlie Cook talk about a landscape with more than 70 seats in play. (Of course, Cook knows that Democrats will win many of the seats, but when people hear 70, they expect 70). Precisely because the 2010 election is not a vote of confidence for Republican leaders in Congress — it has become in so many races the opposite — if Republicans win, they will need to claim a mandate. It won t appear. Expectations must be managed.

By the same token, nothing will hurt Democratic turnout more than a Democratic Party that telegraphs losses. If the election seems more competitive than it is, more Democrats will vote. If it seems as if their votes will be wasted, if Republicans are simply going to win regardless, then they won’t. This is basic political psychology, but it always seem to kick in in early October.

Secondly, the Republicans have succeeded in defining their party in a way that is helping Democrats get clarity about the stakes of the election. This is to be expected in an era of intense polarization. It is why the national Democratic Party is not running for something; it is why they are running against the Palin-O’Donnell-Beck-Paul Ryan-Austerity party.

Thirdly, news coverage of the midterms has increased. People are paying more attention. Republicans have been paying more attention for a while, and now everyone else is. That, in and of itself, will bleed into the likely voter screens. Races that are naturally tight but don’t appear that way because of the attention gap will suddenly seem tight. This is an artificial (but welcome) momentum booster for Democrats.

All of the above is mechanical.

Most of the major prognosticators are forecasting a two-to-one Republican sweep of the marginal districts, which is about right for a wave election. But importantly, Democrats are keeping these races, many of them they are certain to lose, competitive. The party has enough money to keep these races in play. It does not have to publicly abandon House races because, with about a dozen examples, their candidates are either within a few points of the Republican candidate, are tied, or are leading.   

In 1994, Democrats did not see the wave until it was right under their noses. In 2010, Democrats saw the eddies being generated before the wave was, and fortified their candidates with as much nutrition as possible. A lot of Democrats were able to escape bad votes — with the permission of the Speaker — because they’d face tough races. The Rahm Emanuel-recruited frosh class of Democrats is benefiting from the “sophomore surge” phenomenon.

It’s time for a concluding anthropomorphic synecdoche. Democrats are hanging in there. By this point in 1994, they’d already fallen off the cliff.   

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Democrats will hold the House and Senate

For Democrats, it’s Rove time: Rally the base and save Congress

posted on September 30, 2010, at 5:55 PM

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Maybe I’m wrong.

In fact, maybe I’m really, really wrong, which is the reaction I hear when I dare even to broach this notion to commentators and political strategists in both parties. So let me state it plainly: I now think the Democrats will hold the Congress—yes, the House as well as the Senate—and turn back high-profile Republican challengers in California and elsewhere.

The GOP strategy of “no” worked to slow the recovery, stoke fears about fictions like death panels in the health-reform bill, and persuade voters to strike out in frustration against Democrats. The trend peaked in August, a month Democrats probably wish they could abolish given the dog days they suffered then, in 2009 as well as 2010.

But with the onset of autumn, there are signs that the Republican tide is receding. Karl Rove would understand—the same dynamic was the key to George W. Bush’s narrow re-election in 2004, when the GOP base showed up to vote in numbers that defied the polling models. This time, it’s the Democratic base that’s stirring—and finally engaging—and the survey research is registering the shift. In the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the Republican advantage in the ballot for Congress has declined from nine points to three. The explanation: African-Americans and Hispanics are re-entering the likely electorate.

Obama can change the political weather by a few degrees. That might be enough.

California is a prime example. The GOP covets a comeback in the state that produced Nixon and Reagan before turning a deep navy blue after the party scapegoated immigrants and scorned Hispanics. But Democrat Jerry Brown has pulled ahead of eBay mogul Meg Whitman, who’s bid $119 million and counting for the governorship (and yes, her paid consultants are counting fast and furious). Whitman never managed to open up a real lead even when she had California’s expensive airwaves to herself; now, after immigrant-baiting during the primary, she can’t afford for the electorate to expand.

Similarly, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is pulling away from Republican Carly Fiorina, an ex-CEO renowned more for corporate failures than successes. Whitman comes across as stilted; Fiorina is the job-exporting equivalent of Cruella De Vil. As unappealing as her profile is even in a low-turnout election, it looks even worse as the likely voter pool grows.

Elsewhere, incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray has strengthened her position in Washington state. And across the country, the Tea Party is the gift that keeps on giving—from Nevada to Delaware, where the unelectable Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell has become a national punch line. The tea-imbibing Republicans are a twofer for Democrats: They scare mainstream voters and motivate the Democratic base, too. Thus in Pennsylvania, the ultra-conservative Pat Toomey, riding the currents of economic discontent, has suddenly hit troubled waters as people learn that his idea of reform is to privatize Social Security and “abolish corporate taxes altogether.” Discouraged blue-collar Democrats now have something to vote against other than the president’s failure to turn things around fast enough. Toomey’s margin over his Democratic opponent Joe Sestak is shrinking—first down to five points in a late September Suffolk University poll, and subsequently to three points in the latest Susquehanna numbers. A race that was written off is winnable.

Then there’s the Senate contest in incarnadined Kentucky, where from the start Democrats have defected in big numbers during the age of Obama. He lost the state decisively in 2008. This fall, Democrat Jack Conway’s making his case for them to come home. Or perhaps Rand Paul is making it for him. The fringe GOP nominee from the tea-precincts has seen his 13-point margin in the Survey USA poll cut to two points as Democrats recoil at notions like Paul’s proposed $2,000 deductible for Medicare. “That’s crazy,” a Kentucky senior says in Conway’s latest ad.

(Note: I’m dispensing in every race with the riotously Republican Rasmussen surveys, which are the psephological counterpart to the Laffer Curve on a cocktail napkin.)

So I believe the Senate’s safe. But what about the House? There is, of course, a spillover effect from statewide races and the nationwide distaste for extremist tea. The change in the makeup of the electorate can close the gap in the generic vote and let the Democrats inch ahead—but the base has to continue tuning in and then it has to turn out. That depends on President Obama—and on progressive Democrats deciding that right now the stakes in this campaign are more important than the reflex instinct to complain.

The Obama of 2008 has returned with a message and a mission. Although the Blue Dogs are slinking away—in some cases toward their own defeat—he’s carried the cause of tax fairness straight into the district of Republican House Whip Eric Cantor. While the NBC/Wall Street Journal findings show a close to even split on extending the lower rates for the highest income, a presidential push can change that by posing a stark choice—tax cuts for the middle class versus the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. And this can animate a larger theme that will mobilize the party’s natural base: that Democrats fight for you, while Republicans are for the few, the comfortable, and the privileged.

The president’s also back on campus again—this week at the University of Wisconsin, where 26,000 came out to cheer him as he told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to show up in November. He’ll have to sound that appeal again and again. In the NBC/Wall Street Journal data, only 35 percent of young voters express high interest in the midterm election; they haven’t yet followed Hispanics and African-Americans into the likely voter column.

Obama can change the political weather by a few degrees—and that might be just enough. In the process, he has to inspire and not just scold disappointed progressives. But he has a point when he says that it’s “inexcusable” for Democrats to skip the midterms: “People need to buck up.”

They do, for the hopes they rallied to in 2008 are now in their hands as much as his.

Those who think the stimulus was too small—that Paul Krugman was right—need to remember that according to the Economic Policy Institute, the recent GOP “Pledge” would destroy 1 million jobs. They need to realize that the Republican plan is to drag out or destroy the recovery—and then they need to vote.

Those disappointed by the failure to enact a public option should think about the Republican commitment to “repeal and replace” health reform—and the reality that “replace” means placing the health insurance industry back in charge.

Those who are dissatisfied with the slow pace of progress on gay rights, global warming, or Guantánamo should ask themselves whether they are prepared to allow the enemies of equality, the environment, and civil liberties to take control.

Those angered by the Obama decision to persist in Afghanistan—while setting a deadline—surely do not prefer the advocates of endless war. How could they permit them to capture the Congress?

The president’s out there—finally. The Congress will soon be out of Washington—thankfully. The polls are moving—gradually—as the likely voter sample shifts. By defining the stakes, Barack Obama can accelerate that movement. There’s just enough time, assuming Democrats, especially the young, are sensible enough to understand that we are past the excitement of 2008. There is more to achieving change than standing, cheering, and voting for it once, and then standing aside.

It’s Rove time for Democrats. Rally the base—and save the Congress.

I hope he is right, but I am not sure about his past history of being right … .

Jann Wenner reports in Rolling Stone today that after his recent interview with President Obama was over, Obama returned briefly to the Oval Office and tacked on a coda, speaking “with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger”:

It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we’ve got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

….If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we’d better fight in this election. And right now, we are getting outspent eight to one by these 527s that the Roberts court says can spend with impunity without disclosing where their money’s coming from. In every single one of these congressional districts, you are seeing these independent organizations outspend political parties and the candidates by, as I said, factors of four to one, five to one, eight to one, 10 to one.

We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that’s what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we’ve got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.

If you’re serious, now’s exactly the time that people have to step up.

Well, that’s not going to be popular with Obama’s lefty critics, though obviously you’d expect a mushy sellout like me to agree with him. And I do! But I’d also make a distinction. If you’re, say, Glenn Greenwald, I wouldn’t expect you to buy Obama’s defense at all. All of us have multiple interests, but if your primary concern is with civil liberties and the national security state, then the problem isn’t that Obama hasn’t done enough, it’s that his policies have been actively damaging. There’s just no reason why you should be especially excited about either his administration or the continuation of the Democratic Party in power.

On the other hand, if your critique is the broader and more common one — that Obama has moved in the right direction but has been too quick to compromise and hasn’t accomplished enough — then I think you should take his defense of his record way, way more seriously. It’s all too easy, like Velma Hart, to convince yourself that he could have waved a magic wand and gotten a bigger stimulus and a better healthcare bill and stronger financial regulation and a historic climate bill. But honestly, you have to buy into some pretty implausible political realities to believe that (Olympia Snowe would have voted for a trillion-dollar stimulus, there were Republican votes for a climate bill if only it had been a bigger priority, healthcare reform could have been passed via reconciliation, Harry Reid could have unilaterally ended the filibuster, etc.). The votes just weren’t there and the president’s leverage over centrist Dems and recalcitrant Republicans just wasn’t very strong. Maybe he could have done better, but the evidence says that, at best, he could have done only a smidge better.

And the alternative? Well, if the prospect of ripping apart healthcare reform, shutting down the government, deep sixing START, slashing social spending, and reliving the glory days of investigations over Christmas card lists isn’t enough to get you motivated, I guess I’m not sure what is. I wish I got more warm and fuzzies from Obama too, and I wish, like Mike Tomasky, that his ”fetish of not kowtowing to public opinion” were a little less ostentatious. But letting Darrell Issa take over the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform doesn’t seem like a very good way of getting that message across.

OK then. I think I’ll go donate a hundred bucks to someone. Who do you think it should be?

Jann Wenner reports in Rolling Stone today that after his recent interview with President Obama was over, Obama returned briefly to the Oval Office and tacked on a coda, speaking “with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger”:

It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we’ve got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

….If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we’d better fight in this election. And right now, we are getting outspent eight to one by these 527s that the Roberts court says can spend with impunity without disclosing where their money’s coming from. In every single one of these congressional districts, you are seeing these independent organizations outspend political parties and the candidates by, as I said, factors of four to one, five to one, eight to one, 10 to one.

We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that’s what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we’ve got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.

If you’re serious, now’s exactly the time that people have to step up.

Well, that’s not going to be popular with Obama’s lefty critics, though obviously you’d expect a mushy sellout like me to agree with him. And I do! But I’d also make a distinction. If you’re, say, Glenn Greenwald, I wouldn’t expect you to buy Obama’s defense at all. All of us have multiple interests, but if your primary concern is with civil liberties and the national security state, then the problem isn’t that Obama hasn’t done enough, it’s that his policies have been actively damaging. There’s just no reason why you should be especially excited about either his administration or the continuation of the Democratic Party in power.

On the other hand, if your critique is the broader and more common one — that Obama has moved in the right direction but has been too quick to compromise and hasn’t accomplished enough — then I think you should take his defense of his record way, way more seriously. It’s all too easy, like Velma Hart, to convince yourself that he could have waved a magic wand and gotten a bigger stimulus and a better healthcare bill and stronger financial regulation and a historic climate bill. But honestly, you have to buy into some pretty implausible political realities to believe that (Olympia Snowe would have voted for a trillion-dollar stimulus, there were Republican votes for a climate bill if only it had been a bigger priority, healthcare reform could have been passed via reconciliation, Harry Reid could have unilaterally ended the filibuster, etc.). The votes just weren’t there and the president’s leverage over centrist Dems and recalcitrant Republicans just wasn’t very strong. Maybe he could have done better, but the evidence says that, at best, he could have done only a smidge better.

And the alternative? Well, if the prospect of ripping apart healthcare reform, shutting down the government, deep sixing START, slashing social spending, and reliving the glory days of investigations over Christmas card lists isn’t enough to get you motivated, I guess I’m not sure what is. I wish I got more warm and fuzzies from Obama too, and I wish, like Mike Tomasky, that his ”fetish of not kowtowing to public opinion” were a little less ostentatious. But letting Darrell Issa take over the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform doesn’t seem like a very good way of getting that message across.

OK then. I think I’ll go donate a hundred bucks to someone. Who do you think it should be?

Apparently Bill Maher really doesn’t want to see the Republicans back in office any more than I do. Maher channeled his inner “Barry Whitehouse” and reminded everyone why as aggravated as many of us might be with the Democrats right now, we don’t need to be putting the Republicans back in office and had a bit of fun while doing it.

“Maher: Why can’t the Democrats get props for what they’ve achieved? Oh, I know… I know. Obama’s black. He’s used to being denied credit. And there’s nothing wrong with being hard on him. He’s the president and it’s our job to keep him honest.

But when it comes to voting, when we only have two choices, you’ve got to grow up and realize there’s a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That’s what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they’d be your relatives.

But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter “D”? Because it’s a grade that means good enough, but just barely.

You know why the Republican symbol is “R”? Because it’s the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark.

The truth is the Democratic base is still way larger than the Republican base. The reason why they’re losing is something called the enthusiasm gap. Yeah. And the voters that Obama and the Democrats have really lost are the women. Women like Velma Hart are just not getting enough love from the president.
So tonight I thought I’d try to make their fantasies come true and speak to you as Barack Obama’s alter ego, Barry Whitehouse.”