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History > 2014 > USA > Politics > Midterm elections (I)
The Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years
NOV. 11, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The abysmally low turnout in last week’s midterm elections — the
lowest in more than seven decades — was bad for Democrats, but it was even worse
for democracy. In 43 states, less than half the eligible population bothered to
vote, and no state broke 60 percent.
In the three largest states — California, Texas and New York — less than a third
of the eligible population voted. New York’s turnout was a shameful 28.8
percent, the fourth-lowest in the country, despite three statewide races
(including the governor) and 27 House races.
Over all, the national turnout was 36.3 percent; only the 1942 federal election
had a lower participation rate at 33.9 percent. The reasons are apathy, anger
and frustration at the relentlessly negative tone of the campaigns.
Republicans ran a single-theme campaign of pure opposition to President Obama,
and Democrats were too afraid of the backlash to put forward plans to revive the
economy or to point out significant achievements of the last six years. Neither
party gave voters an affirmative reason to show up at the polls.
The states with the biggest turnouts tended to have well-publicized and
competitive races, but even competition was no guarantee that voters would show
up. Georgia and North Carolina, which had two highly contested Senate races, did
only slightly better than the national average for turnout. Some of that is
because of regional differences; northern states generally have higher turnout
than southern states, as they did this year, because voting tends to correlate
with education and income levels.
In northern states, there was a lack of interest, too. The overall vote total
dropped by 42 percent compared with 2012, and the decline was particularly acute
among younger voters, who made up 13 percent of this year’s electorate compared
with 19 percent two years ago. The turnout among young and minority voters was
slightly higher than it was in the 2010 midterms, perhaps reflecting new
organizing efforts, but the number remained far too low. (Republicans have
continued their effort to suppress the turnout of young, poor and minority
voters, although it was hard to make a definitive link between those laws and
Democratic losses this year.)
There was one useful lesson: When voting is made easier, more people vote.
Colorado switched to a mail ballot system this year, and it had the
fourth-highest turnout in the nation, substantially larger than in 2010. (It had
a highly competitive Senate race, but did much better than many states with
equally hot races.) Oregon, which also votes by mail, had the fifth-highest
turnout, and Washington State, with a similar system, did better than the
national average, though it had no major statewide races.
Early voting — which tends to be more popular among Democratic voters than mail
balloting — also did well this year, despite Republican efforts to curb it. In
North Carolina, early voting increased by 35 percent from 2010, even though
Republican legislators cut the number of early-voting days to 10 from 17.
Showing up at the polls is the best way to counter the oversized influence of
wealthy special interests, who dominate politics as never before. But to
encourage participation, politicians need to stop suppressing the vote, make the
process of voting as easy as possible, and run campaigns that stand for
something.
A version of this editorial appears in print on November 12, 2014, on page A26
of the New York edition with the headline: The Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years.
The Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years, NYT,
11.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html
America’s Broken Politics
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist
Let’s face it: The American political system is broken.
The midterm elections were a stinging repudiation of President Obama, but
Republicans should also feel chastened: A poll last year found Congress less
popular than cockroaches.
So congratulations to those members celebrating election victories. But our
democratic institutions are in trouble when they can’t outpoll cockroaches.
Which didn’t even campaign.
“Politics is the noblest of professions,” President Eisenhower said in 1954, and
politics in the past often seemed a bright path toward improving our country.
President Clinton represented a generation that regarded politics as a tool to
craft a better world, and President Obama himself mobilized young voters with
his gauzy message of hope. He presented himself as the politician who could
break Washington’s gridlock and get things done — and we’ve seen how well that
worked.
I’m in the middle of a book tour now, visiting universities and hearing students
speak about yearning to make a difference. But they are turning not to politics
as their lever but to social enterprise, to nonprofits, to advocacy, to
business. They see that Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach for America in her dorm
room at Princeton University, has had more impact on the education system than
any current senator, and many have given up on political paths to change.
A national exit poll conducted by Edison Research found that a majority of
voters disapproved of Republicans and Democrats alike, and only 20 percent trust
Washington to do what’s right most or all the time.
President Obama is licking his wounds in the White House, and he doesn’t seem to
accept that the election is a judgment on his presidency. I’m sorry. When
Democrats lose in Colorado and struggle in Virginia, when voters say they’re
sending a message to the White House, it’s time for Obama to shake up his staff,
reach out beyond his insular circle of longtime aides, and recalibrate.
Critics are right that he should try harder to schmooze with legislators,
although I’m skeptical that Republicans are that charmable. After all, some
polls have shown more than a third in the Republican Party said he was born
abroad and about one-fifth suspected that he could be the antichrist.
Yet it’s not just Obama who is looking ragged today. The entire political system
is. Political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal have
charted the attitudes of the political parties back to 1879, and they found
party polarization in recent years to be greater than at any time since their
charts began.
That’s partly because Democrats have become more liberal, but mostly because
Republicans have become more conservative — indeed, more conservative than at
any time since 1879.
Politicians have also figured out what works for their own careers: playing to
their base, denouncing the other side, and blocking rivals from getting credit
for anything. Since many politicians are more vulnerable in a primary than in a
general election, there’s not much incentive for compromise.
After Obama took office, Republicans assiduously tried to block him, even
shutting down the federal government. Republican governors prevented their own
citizens from getting health insurance through federally financed Medicaid. I
see that as obstructionism, but it paid off in these midterms.
Bravo to Obama’s comments Wednesday about trying to cooperate with Republicans
on issues including early education. But I’m not holding my breath. Incentives
today militate against bipartisan cooperation, and that’s one reason the current
Congress is on track to be the least productive in the post-World War II era.
(Maybe we taxpayers could save money by paying members of Congress not by salary
but by the piece, so much for each enacted law?)
One bright spot in the midterms was voter action on ballot measures. They did
actually break the gridlock. Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia
legalized marijuana in some situations. Five states supported an increase in the
minimum wage. Washington State approved universal background checks for gun
purchases. California reduced prison sentences.
So even if politicians are stalemated, voters managed to get things done. Yet we
also get the national government we deserve, and that’s an indictment of all of
us.
I find America’s political dysfunction particularly sad because I’ve spent much
of my journalistic career covering people risking their lives for democracy, and
sometimes dying for it — from Taiwan to Ukraine, Congo to South Korea. It was 25
years ago that I saw people massacred near Tiananmen Square for demanding
political change. They risked their lives because they dreamed that democracy
would improve their lives and give them greater freedom and dignity.
For those of us in the United States it was easy. We painlessly inherited
democracy, yet I’m afraid we’ve botched it.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 6, 2014, on page A31 of the
New York edition with the headline: America’s Broken Politics.
America’s Broken Politics, NYT, 6.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/opinion/
nicholas-kristof-americas-political-dysfunction.html
The Midterms Were Not a Revolution
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
By FRANK LUNTZ
ON election night 1994, as Republicans recaptured the House for
the first time in 40 years, I stood in the audience and watched my client Newt
Gingrich, who would soon become speaker of the House, declare the beginning of
the “Republican revolution.”
I knew immediately that the smartest man I had ever worked for was making the
worst rhetorical blunder of his career. Nobody voted Republican to start a
revolution. They did so because they were fed up with a Democratic president
overreaching on health care and a government seemingly incapable of doing even
the smallest thing effectively. We all know what happened when Mr. Gingrich
tried to turn his rhetoric into action.
Sound familiar? No one is quite saying “revolution” this week, but Republicans
across the country, in their glee over Tuesday’s elections, are coming
dangerously close to making the same mistake.
True, there will now be more Americans under Republican representation than at
any time in decades. And the re-elections of G.O.P. governors in blue states
like Michigan and Wisconsin are certainly a validation of their policies. It was
a tsunami; someone needs to get the Democrats a towel. But that anti-Democrat
wave was not the same as a pro-Republican endorsement. In many races that went
from blue to red, Republican success was hardly because of what the G.O.P. has
achieved on Capitol Hill. In fact, if Americans could speak with one collective
voice — all 310 million of them — this is what they said Tuesday night:
“Washington doesn’t listen, Washington doesn’t lead and Washington doesn’t
deliver.” Purple states tossed out their Democratic senators for being too close
to Washington and too far from the people who put them there.
The current narrative, that this election was a rejection of President Obama,
misses the mark. So does the idea that it was a mandate for an extreme
conservative agenda. According to a survey my firm fielded on election night for
the political-advocacy organization Each American Dream, it was more important
that a candidate “shake up and change the way Washington operates.”
I didn’t need a poll to tell me that. This year I traveled the country listening
to voters, from Miami to Anchorage, 30 states and counting. And from the reddest
rural towns to the bluest big cities, the sentiment is the same. People say
Washington is broken and on the decline, that government no longer works for
them — only for the rich and powerful.
They voted out those who promised to do more in favor of those who said they
would do less, but do it better. That’s why the Democratic candidates for
governor who condemned their opponents for spending too little on education,
transportation and programs for the poor and unemployed still lost. The results
were less about the size of government than about making government efficient,
effective and accountable. Our election night survey showed that 42 percent
chose their Senate candidate because they hated the opponent more. One
pre-election poll had over 70 percent willing to throw everyone out and start
fresh.
Winning on Election Day is not the end. The objective can’t be just to bide time
for the next election; that’s a losing strategy. The mission has to be a
restoration of confidence in the future. The question is: What can Republicans
at all levels do to make this happen, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the
past?
First, hold Washington accountable. From the cover-ups of veterans dying while
being denied care to using the I.R.S. to target conservative groups, recent
scandals highlight the chasm between hard-working taxpayers and Washington. But
this also means holding your colleagues accountable. No turning a blind eye to
broken promises. If you’re truly different, act truly differently.
Second, make the people’s priorities your priorities. In our survey, the top
priorities were making the government more efficient and controlling spending.
So tackle deficits and the national debt, and root out the waste and abuse of
government programs. Reduce the crippling red tape and regulations that are
strangling small businesses. As the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said,
show that a Republican Congress has both the wisdom to listen and the courage to
lead.
Third, stop blustering and fighting. Americans despair of the pointless
posturing, empty promises and bad policies that result. Show that you are more
concerned with people than politics. Don’t be afraid to work with your opponents
if it means achieving real results. Democrats and Republicans disagree on a lot,
but there are also opportunities of real national importance, like national
security and passing the trans-Atlantic trade deal.
Aside from a small activist constituency, Americans are not looking for another
fight over same-sex marriage or abortion. This isn’t to say that voters want
their leaders to co-opt their convictions. People are simply tired of identity
politics that pit men against women, black against white, wealthy against poor.
More than ever, they want leadership that brings us together.
This isn’t about pride of ownership regarding American progress; this is about
progress, period. Americans don’t care about Democratic solutions or Republican
solutions. They just want common-sense solutions that make everyday life just a
little bit easier. But they can’t get their houses in order until Washington
gets its own house in order.
Frank Luntz, a communications adviser and Republican pollster, is president of
Luntz Global Partners, a consulting firm.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 6, 2014, on page A31 of the
New York edition with the headline: The Midterms Were Not a Revolution.
The Midterms Were Not a Revolution, NYT,
5.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/opinion/
the-midterms-were-not-a-republican-revolution.html
Obama to Seek Congressional Backing
for Military Campaign Against ISIS
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER
and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Wednesday that he would seek
specific authorization from Congress for the military campaign against the
Islamic State, opening the door to a lengthy, potentially contentious debate
over the nature and extent of American engagement in Iraq and Syria.
Mr. Obama’s announcement, at his post-election news conference, was not wholly
unexpected. But it represented a significant shift from his earlier position
that while he would welcome congressional backing, he had legal authority to
take military action under existing statutes.
Administration officials said Mr. Obama still believed he had that authority,
but with the elections over, he concluded that the time was right to petition
Congress for more explicit authority.
“The world needs to know we are united behind this effort and that the men and
women of our military deserve our clear and unified support,” Mr. Obama said,
adding that he would begin a dialogue with congressional leaders when they come
to the White House on Friday.
He also increased the pressure on Iran’s leaders ahead of a deadline this month
to reach a nuclear deal, saying that the United States has now “presented to
them a framework that would allow them to meet their peaceful energy needs,”
without leaving Iran the ability to “break out and produce a nuclear weapon.”
The president suggested that he was now waiting for a political decision in
Tehran about whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would accept
that framework.
While Mr. Obama gave no specifics, he appeared to be referring to a plan under
which Iran would ship much of its uranium stockpile to Russia, where it would be
converted into fuel for the country’s single nuclear plant.
Iranian officials dismissed the report without fully denying it, but American
officials have said they suspect a struggle is underway within the Iranian
government on the wisdom of reaching an accord. “They have their own politics,
and there’s a long tradition of mistrust between the two countries,” Mr. Obama
said.
The president was guarded about the progress of the military operation against
the Islamic State. He said it was too soon to say whether the United States and
its allies were winning, noting that it would take a long time to upgrade Iraqi
forces to the point where they could reclaim territory now held by the
militants. He was even more circumspect about Syria.
“Our focus in Syria is not to solve the entire Syria situation, but rather to
isolate the areas in which ISIL can operate,” he added, using an alternative
name for the Islamic State.
That statement appeared somewhat at odds with a recent memo sent to the White
House by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in which he criticized the
administration’s Syria policy for failing to connect the campaign against the
Islamic State to the broader struggle against President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr. Hagel wrote that unless the United States clarified its intentions against
the Assad regime, it would fail to enlist allies like Turkey and France for the
battle against the Islamic State in Syria, since those countries are intent on
ousting Mr. Assad. Other officials said that in internal debates, Mr. Hagel has
not advocated taking a strong line against Mr. Assad, and in fact has echoed the
Pentagon’s resistance to going to war with the Syrian government.
That will be one of the issues likely to come up in a congressional debate over
authorization. Before the election, Congress passed limited authorization to pay
for the training and equipping of Syrian rebels. Now the White House is seeking
an authorization to use military force that would be tailored to a prolonged
fight against ISIS.
Until now, the White House had justified its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria under
two existing laws: a 2001 authorization passed after the 9/11 attacks, which Mr.
Obama has invoked to carry out drone and missile strikes against suspected
terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, and a 2002 authorization sought by President
George W. Bush for the Iraq war.
“The idea is to right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides
to suit the current fight rather than previous fights,” Mr. Obama said. “We now
have a different type of enemy.”
Lawmakers welcomed the announcement, even as they noted it would set off
complicated political crosscurrents in both parties. Many lawmakers were
privately relieved that the White House did not petition Congress before the
midterm elections.
“This is an extended military campaign and it has nothing to do with the 9/11
authorization,” said Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont. “It is
expensive, long term, and it’s not clear where it’s going. You’re going to see a
complicated debate in Congress.”
Among the issues he predicted would come up would be the deployment of American
ground forces, which Mr. Obama has ruled out but which Mr. Welch said would
almost certainly be needed to root out the militants.
Still, he added: “In some ways, it will probably be a better debate. People will
have more latitude to consider it on the merits than they would have before the
election.”
In part because the battle with the Islamic State is likely to last beyond Mr.
Obama’s presidency — and soak up resources he wanted to commit elsewhere — there
is an increasing sense that the White House is more eager than ever to strike
even an agreement in principle with Iran by the Nov. 24 deadline for the end of
negotiations.
Mr. Obama seemed intent on answering critics who have said he wants a deal too
much. “Whether we can actually get a deal done, we’re going to have to find out
over the next three to four weeks,” he said, suggesting that the “framework”
given to Iran was essentially an effort to determine the sincerity of the
country’s insistence that it was simply looking for a reliable way to produce
fuel for nuclear reactors.
A version of this article appears in print on November 6, 2014, on page A12 of
the New York edition with the headline: Obama to Seek Congressional Backing For
Campaign Against Islamic State.
Obama to Seek Congressional Backing for
Military Campaign Against ISIS,
NYT, 5.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/world/middleeast/
obama-to-seek-congressional-backing-for-military-campaign-against-isis.html
Mr. Obama’s Offer to Republicans
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
President Obama refused on Wednesday to submit to the Republican
narrative that his presidency effectively ended with the midterm elections.
He said he will not agree to the repeal of health care reform, as many
Republicans demand. He will not sit around doing nothing while they look for the
courage to enact immigration reform. He will continue to demand a higher minimum
wage and new spending on public works, and expansion of early education
programs.
“Obviously, Republicans had a good night,” he said, a quiet admission that his
party got drubbed, losing control of the Senate, as well as at least 14 House
seats. But he said he hopes to meet regularly with Republican leaders and work
on areas where there is mutual agreement.
The tone of the questions at his post-mortem news conference suggested that that
wasn’t enough. There were demands that he take personal responsibility for the
Democratic losses, or exhibit public contrition, or describe exactly where he
plans to give in to Republican demands. He was right to ignore all of that, and
instead he got directly to heart of Tuesday’s message from the public:
“What’s most important to the American people right now, the resounding message
not just of this election, but basically the last several is: Get stuff done,”
he said. “Don’t worry about the next election. Don’t worry about party
affiliation. Do worry about our concerns.”
Republicans ran on no message except that Mr. Obama was always wrong, and voters
on Tuesday said they were angry with the country’s direction and political
gridlock, taking their fury out on the president’s party because he is in
charge. (As he noted, two-thirds of eligible voters didn’t even show up.)
Under those circumstances, Mr. Obama was justified in sticking with what he
called “the principles that we’re fighting for,” which got him elected twice:
creating job opportunity by expanding the economy, the top issue on the minds of
most voters. There is no need to backtrack on goals like a higher minimum wage
or expanded health insurance when most voters say they want those things.
But Mr. Obama said there were several areas where he thinks agreement could be
reached with Republicans, and several of them were the same ones outlined by
Senator Mitch McConnell, who will be the new majority leader, in his
post-election news conference. One is a trade agreement with Pacific nations,
which he said would help open those markets to American goods. (Though it needs
to include strong labor and environmental regulations.) Another is corporate tax
reform that would eliminate many deductions and breaks, though unfortunately
Republicans continue to insist on applying any revenues generated toward
reducing corporate tax rates rather than using that revenue on federal projects
that would create new jobs.
Mr. Obama also said he would request $6.2 billion to fight the spread of Ebola
and would ask Congress to formally authorize the military action against the
Islamic State. Mr. McConnell seems open to cooperation on these issues, saying
he would work with the White House on trade and corporate taxes and wants to
hear its requests on Ebola and the Islamic State.
Immigration is a different story. Mr. Obama said that, if Republicans continued
to block a reform bill, he would take executive action to improve the
immigration system before the end of the year. Mr. McConnell warned that any
such action would “poison the well” for legislation.
Mr. McConnell also promised continued divisiveness over regulations on business
and the energy industry through demands made in spending bills, and he vowed to
take action against big pieces of the health care reform law, including the
individual mandate.
Mr. Obama said he would never agree to end the mandate, which would gut the
health law, and there is no reason he should. Voters said they wanted the two
parties to stop bickering and work harder, not erase the progress made in the
last six years.
A version of this editorial appears in print on November 6, 2014, on page A30 of
the New York edition with the headline: Mr. Obama’s Offer to Republicans.
Mr. Obama’s Offer to Republicans, NYT,
5.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/opinion/mr-obamas-offer-to-republicans.html
After Election,
President Vows to Work With,
and Without, Congress
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
and PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — President Obama shook off an electoral drubbing on
Wednesday and said he was eager to find common ground with Republicans during
the final two years of his presidency, but he swiftly defied their objections by
vowing to bypass Congress and use his executive authority to change the nation’s
immigration system.
In a sign of how he intends to govern under a new political order with ascendant
Republican leaders, Mr. Obama renewed his commitment to act on his own to allow
millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.
His remarks, at a news conference in the East Room of the White House, were
meant to put the vitriol of the campaign behind him — he responded to
disaffected Americans by saying that “I hear you” and that his election mandate
was to “get stuff done.” But his promised action on immigration underscored the
profound partisan disagreements that persist in Washington.
Republicans quickly accused the president of reaching out to them with one hand
while slapping them with the other.
President Obama said he looked forward to the Republicans putting forward their
governing agenda after they regained control of Congress in the midterm
elections.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a Republican who is in line to be the
majority leader in the new Congress, warned Mr. Obama in a news conference in
Louisville not to act on immigration on his own.
“It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull,” Mr. McConnell said.
The back-and-forth came on a grim day at the White House after an election that
cost the Democrats the Senate and called into question the president’s capacity
to accomplish much of substance in his remaining time in office.
For all the talk of cooperation, Mr. Obama confronted the reality that gridlock
may still rule Washington, curtailing his legacy and frustrating his lofty
ambitions.
Mitch McConnell, who will most likely become majority leader in
the Senate next year, said the two sides in the Senate would work together but
also warned of partisan divisions.
Video by Associated Press on Publish Date November 5, 2014. Photo by Todd
Heisler/The New York Times.
Mr. Obama seemed determined not to let the setback consume what is left of his
presidency. Relentlessly cheerful during his afternoon news conference, Mr.
Obama congratulated Republicans on their election success and offered words of
conciliation. But he volunteered little regret or a sense that he needed to
change course.
“It doesn’t make me mopey. It energizes me, because it means that this
democracy’s working,” Mr. Obama said of his party’s defeat. He struck a
carefully upbeat tone, declining to “read the tea leaves” of the election or to
be baited into giving it a name, along the lines of the “shellacking” he said
his party had taken in the 2010 congressional elections.
Still, he noted that Republicans had had a “good night,” and conceded that he
was responsible for allaying the concerns of Americans who have become convinced
that Washington is dysfunctional and unresponsive to their needs.
“As president, they rightly hold me accountable to do more to make it work
properly,” Mr. Obama said.
The Republicans took control of the Senate on Tuesday, picking up at least seven
seats, and expanded their majority in the House. Their victory in the Senate was
significant but not the largest historically — though it could rank among the
top five election year swings since 1946.
OPEN Graphic
The ultimate lesson of the election, he said, was that both parties should do
more to work together. He called on Congress to quickly pass an emergency
request for funding to combat Ebola, and announced that he would seek
congressional authorization for his military campaign in Iraq and Syria.
He also said he would seek compromises in the coming months on trade deals, tax
changes, infrastructure spending and an immigration overhaul. He offered no
details.
“But what I’m not going to do is just wait,” he said of action on immigration.
“I think it’s fair to say I’ve shown a lot of patience and tried to work on a
bipartisan basis as much as possible, and I’m going to continue to do so. But in
the meantime, let’s see what we can do lawfully through executive actions to
improve the functioning of the system.”
In Louisville, Mr. McConnell signaled that he wanted to find compromise on key
issues and make the Senate “work again” by changing the rules in the chamber. He
flatly promised that Congress would not shut down the government or default on
the national debt in disputes about the nation’s finances.
“When the American people choose divided government, I don’t think it means they
don’t want us to do anything,” Mr. McConnell told reporters. “We ought to start
with the view that maybe there are things we can agree on to make progress for
the country.”
But he, too, foreshadowed disagreements ahead, saying, “We will certainly be
voting on things as well that we think the administration is not fond of.”
The new political landscape continued to take shape on Wednesday as the
Republican majority in the House neared modern records and Republicans closed in
on another Senate seat, this one in Alaska.
Alaskans were still counting thousands of ballots, and the state is not likely
to certify a winner until next week at the earliest. But Dan Sullivan, a
Republican, led Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat, by about 8,000 votes, a small
number but an edge of nearly four percentage points in a sparsely populated
state.
Democrats were able to eke out wins for governor in Colorado and Connecticut,
and they vowed to fight to protect the thin lead that Senator Mark R. Warner,
Democrat of Virginia, held in his surprisingly tight race. But Gov. Patrick J.
Quinn of Illinois conceded defeat in a re-election effort that included a visit
by the state’s once-favored son, Mr. Obama.
As members of Mr. Obama’s party sifted through the wreckage, the president was
determined to find something positive. He made a surprise appearance at the
daily White House staff meeting, telling exhausted aides who had spent the
previous night watching losses far more crushing than they had anticipated that
he was eager to get to work and squeeze every last moment out of his remaining
time in office.
It was a sign of a president now liberated from the political strictures that
have bound him over the past year, when Republicans spent hundreds of millions
of dollars attacking him and his policies and Mr. Obama felt constrained from
defending himself, worried about the potential harm it could do to vulnerable
Democratic candidates.
But it also reflected a president unwilling to play what he considers the
Washington game of self-flagellation after a political defeat.
Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, who fired Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld the day after the 2006 midterm elections, Mr. Obama made no personnel
changes, and aides said they did not expect any.
White House officials say that Mr. Obama values Denis R. McDonough, his White
House chief of staff, who seemed unflustered by the setback and flashed a broad
smile in the minutes before the news conference began.
The president, for his part, made a point of showing off his good cheer in
defeat — “I’m having a great time,” he said at one point during the news
conference — and even of challenging his image as an aloof executive unwilling
to engage in the rituals that power compromise in the capital. He said he would
like to have a glass of Kentucky bourbon with Mr. McConnell.
“If the ways that we’re approaching the Republicans in Congress isn’t working,
you know, I’m going to try different things, whether it’s having a drink with
Mitch McConnell or letting John Boehner beat me again at golf,” Mr. Obama said,
referring to the House speaker.
Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on November 6, 2014, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: After Election, President Vows to Work
With, and Without, Congress.
After Election, President Vows to Work With,
and Without, Congress,
NYT, 5.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/us/politics/
midterm-democratic-losses-grow.html
Negativity Wins the Senate
NOV. 5, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Republicans would like the country to believe that they took
control of the Senate on Tuesday by advocating a strong, appealing agenda of job
creation, tax reform and spending cuts. But, in reality, they did nothing of the
sort.
Even the voters who supported Republican candidates would have a hard time
explaining what their choices are going to do. That’s because virtually every
Republican candidate campaigned on only one thing: what they called the failure
of President Obama. In speech after speech, ad after ad, they relentlessly
linked their Democratic opponent to the president and vowed that they would put
an end to everything they say the public hates about his administration. On
Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee released a series of
get-out-the-vote images showing Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate candidates next
to this message: “If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.”
The most important promises that winning Republicans made were
negative in nature. They will repeal health care reform. They will roll back new
regulations on banks and Wall Street. They will stop the Obama administration’s
plans to curb coal emissions and reform immigration and invest in education.
Campaigning on pure negativity isn’t surprising for a party that has governed
that way since Mr. Obama was first sworn in. By creating an environment where
every initiative is opposed and nothing gets done, Republicans helped engineer
the president’s image as weak and ineffectual. Mitch McConnell, who will be the
Senate’s new majority leader, vowed in 2009 to create “an inventory of losses”
to damage Mr. Obama for precisely the results achieved on Tuesday.
Mr. McConnell was assisted in this goal by the president’s own second-term
stumbles — most notably the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act last
year, an indecisive foreign policy, and revelations of domestic surveillance and
improper veterans care. Republicans were also able to exploit nativist fears
about immigrant children crossing at the southern border and some initial
troubles in responding to the first domestic cases of Ebola.
In some races, missteps by the Democrats helped Republicans. In Iowa,
Representative Bruce Braley may have cost himself the race by making a
belittling comment about farmers. In Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes didn’t
establish a reputation for candor when she refused to discuss her previous votes
for president.
Virtually all Democratic candidates distanced themselves from Mr. Obama and
refused to make the case that there has been substantial progress on jobs and
economic growth under this administration.
But Republicans also had little to say about reviving the economy, and their
idea of creating jobs seems to be limited to building the Keystone XL oil
pipeline, cutting taxes further and crying “repeal Obamacare” at every
opportunity.
In theory, full control of Congress might give Republicans an incentive to reach
compromise with Mr. Obama because they will need to show that they can govern
rather than obstruct. They might, for example, be able to find agreement on a
free-trade agreement with Pacific nations.
But their caucuses in the Senate and the House will be more conservative than
before, and many winning candidates will feel obliged to live up to their
promises of obstruction. Mr. McConnell has already committed himself to opposing
a minimum-wage increase, fighting regulations on carbon emissions and repealing
the health law.
“Just because we have a two-party system doesn’t mean we have to be in perpetual
conflict,” Mr. McConnell said in his victory speech. As the new Senate leader,
he must now prove those are not empty words.
A version of this editorial appears in print on November 5, 2014,
on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Negativity Wins the
Senate.
Negativity Wins the Senate, NYT, 5.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/opinion/negativity-wins-the-senate.html
Riding Wave of Discontent,
G.O.P. Takes Senate
Election Results:
Republicans Win Senate Control
With at Least 7 New Seats
NOV. 4, 2014
The New York Times
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
and ASHLEY PARKER
Resurgent Republicans took control of the Senate on Tuesday
night, expanded their hold on the House, and defended some of the most closely
contested governors’ races, in a repudiation of President Obama that will
reorder the political map in his final years in office.
Propelled by economic dissatisfaction and anger toward the president,
Republicans grabbed Democratic Senate seats in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa,
West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and South Dakota to gain their first Senate
majority since 2006. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a shrewd Republican
tactician, cruised to re-election and stood poised to achieve a goal he has
pursued for years — Senate majority leader.
An election that started as trench warfare, state by state and district by
district, crested into a sweeping Republican victory. Contests that were
expected to be close were not, and races expected to go Democratic broke
narrowly for the Republicans. The uneven character of the economic recovery
added to a sense of anxiety, leaving voters in a punishing mood, particularly
for Democrats in Southern states and the Mountain West, where political
polarization deepened.
The biggest surprises of the night came in North Carolina, where the Republican,
Thom Tillis, came from behind to beat Senator Kay Hagan, and in Virginia. There,
Senator Mark Warner, a former Democratic governor of the state, was thought to
be one of the safest incumbents in his party, and instead found himself clinging
to the narrowest of leads against a former Republican Party chairman, Ed
Gillespie.
Those contests were measures of how difficult the terrain was for Democrats in
an election where Republicans put together their strategy as a referendum on the
competence of government, embodied by Mr. Obama.
House seats where Democrats had fought off Republican encroachment for years
were finally toppled. Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was easily re-elected in
Wisconsin, a state that voted twice for Mr. Obama. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott,
once considered endangered, finished the night on top. And states that had
seemingly been trending Democratic, like Colorado and Iowa, fell into Republican
hands.
With at least a nine-seat gain and most likely more, House Republicans will have
close to 245 seats, the largest Republican majority since the Truman
administration.
“Barack Obama has our country in a ditch, and many of his lieutenants running
for the Senate were right there with him,” said Reince Priebus, chairman of the
Republican National Committee. “The punishment is going to be broad, and it’s
going to be pretty serious.”
The breadth of the Republican victories also reset the political
landscape ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign. And it left Mr. Obama with a
decision to make: Will he move toward Republicans in his final years in areas of
common interest, such as tax reform and trade, or will he dig in and hope
Republican overreach will give his party a lane for a comeback?
“Just because we have a two-party system doesn’t mean we have to be in perpetual
conflict,” vowed Mr. McConnell, in a victory speech.
White House officials accepted the overture and said Mr. Obama had invited the
bipartisan leadership of Congress to the White House on Friday.
For Republicans, the victories piled up, winning not only Senate Democratic
seats they were expected to take — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and
Arkansas — but also in states that were supposed to be close. Representative
Cory Gardner, a Republican, crushed Senator Mark Udall in Colorado. In Georgia,
the Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, was widely
expected to force David Perdue, a Republican businessman, into a runoff for the
Senate seat of Saxby Chambliss, a retiring Republican. Instead, Mr. Perdue won
more than half the vote to take the race outright.
Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, also fended off the independent
challenger Greg Orman, who just weeks ago appeared headed to victory.
And for Democrats, it could get worse. Votes were still being tallied in Alaska,
where Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat, was trying to hold back the wave. Senator
Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana was able to force her strongest Republican foe,
Representative Bill Cassidy, into a Dec. 6 runoff. But the combined vote of the
top two Republicans in the race easily eclipsed hers.
“I think it’s a message from the American people about their concern about the
direction of the country, and the competency of the current administration,”
said Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, vice chairman of the National Republican
Senatorial Committee. “Most people have voted to end the dysfunction and to get
back to legislating on issues that will help them and their families, and I
think that’s something that both parties need to listen to.”
And in the panhandle of Florida, Gwen Graham, daughter of a former Democratic
senator and governor, defeated Representative Steve Southerland, a Tea Party
favorite.
But those high notes were swamped by the lows for the president’s party. In
Arkansas, Representative Tom Cotton, a freshman Republican and an Iraq War
veteran, defeated Senator Mark Pryor, despite the efforts of former President
Bill Clinton.
In Colorado, Mr. Udall tried to replicate the storied ground game that helped
propel his Democratic colleague, Senator Michael Bennet, to an unexpected
victory in 2010. He was not even close, and drew further criticism for running a
campaign that some felt was too focused on abortion rights and contraception.
And in West Virginia, Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, won the
Senate seat long held by Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, to become that state’s
first female senator and the first Republican elected to the Senate from West
Virginia since 1956. In Iowa, Joni Ernst also made history by becoming the first
woman to be elected in that state’s congressional delegation.
Two years after handing Democrats broad victories, voters again seemed to be
reaching for a way to end Washington inertia. Yet the results on Tuesday may
serve only to reinforce it. Voters appeared unsure of just what they wanted,
according to surveys. Among those who voted for a Democrat, only one out of
eight expressed an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Republican
voters were more conflicted; among those who voted Republican, one of four
viewed the party unfavorably.
Mr. Obama is left with the prospect of finding a new path to work with
Republicans, something for which he has shown little inclination, and
Republicans must find a way to demonstrate they are more than the party of “no.”
Even though a record $4 billion poured into the election — from the campaigns,
parties and outside groups for advertising and other candidate support — the
money did little to stir enthusiasm as the campaign set a more dubious mark for
its low levels of voter interest.
Even the president conceded the steep climb his allies faced.
“This is possibly the worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight
Eisenhower,” Mr. Obama told a Connecticut public radio station on Tuesday.
“There are a lot of states that are being contested where they just tend to tilt
Republican.”
Democratic midterm losses during the Obama presidency now rival those of both
Richard M. Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1994 as the most destructive to his
party’s political standing in Congress in the post-World War II era. It was a
stunning reversal for the president, who was the first Democrat since Franklin
D. Roosevelt to twice win a majority of the national vote.
“The top issue is not jobs and the economy; it’s ending gridlock in Washington,”
said Mr. Portman. “Second, there is a desire to hold the administration
accountable for incompetence on issues like ISIS and Ebola. I don’t think those
goals are inconsistent.”
With the political climate and the electoral map playing to their decided
advantage, Republicans were determined not to relive the elections of 2010 and
2012, when infighting between establishment Republicans and Tea Party insurgents
damaged the party’s brand and elevated candidates who could not win.
From the beginning, party officials decided to take sides when fierce primary
challenges emerged. The party establishment crushed challengers to Mr. McConnell
in Kentucky, and to Senators Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar
Alexander in Tennessee.
The establishment also sent reinforcements to help Senator Thad Cochran eke out
a runoff victory against a Tea Party firebrand in Mississippi; cleared the
Republican field for Mr. Gardner in Colorado; and backed winning primary
candidates in Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Alaska.
Democrats tried to distance themselves from the president’s health care law and
economic policies, despite signs that both may be working. In Colorado, Mr.
Udall relied on the playbook that propelled his Colorado colleague and
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman, Senator Michael Bennet, to
victory in 2010, speaking almost exclusively about abortion rights and
contraception. That cost him the endorsement of The Denver Post, which
castigated him for an “obnoxious, one-issue campaign.”
Lost was Mr. Udall’s work in the Senate opposing Mr. Obama’s policies on
security surveillance and privacy.
In Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes, considered a strong challenger to Mr.
McConnell, lost some support when she refused to say whether she voted for Mr.
Obama, and ran a risk-averse campaign.
But mainly, Democrats were working off a map heavily tilted toward Republicans
in states like West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, Arkansas and Alaska, in a
year when disengaged, frustrated voters and Mr. Obama’s low approval ratings
were inevitably going to be a millstone.
Correction: November 4, 2014
An earlier version of a slide show that appeared with this article on the home
page and politics section of NYTimes.com misstated the office of Jeanne Shaheen.
She is in the Senate, not the House. An earlier version of this article also
misstated the location of a town where one woman voted. It was Salem, N.H., not
Salem, Mass.
A version of this article appears in print on November 5, 2014, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: G.O.P. Takes Senate, Riding Voter Anger.
Riding Wave of Discontent, G.O.P. Takes
Senate, NYT, 4.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/us/politics/midterm-elections.html
Cancel the Midterms
NOV. 2, 2014
The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributors
By DAVID SCHANZER and JAY SULLIVAN
DURHAM, N.C. — By Tuesday night about 90 million Americans will
have cast ballots in an election that’s almost certain to create greater
partisan divisions, increase gridlock and render governance of our complex
nation even more difficult. Ninety million sounds like a lot, but that means
that less than 40 percent of the electorate will bother to vote, even though
candidates, advocacy groups and shadowy “super PACs” will have spent more than
$1 billion to air more than two million ads to influence the election.
There was a time when midterm elections made sense — at our nation’s founding,
the Constitution represented a new form of republican government, and it was
important for at least one body of Congress to be closely accountable to the
people. But especially at a time when Americans’ confidence in the ability of
their government to address pressing concerns is at a record low, two-year House
terms no longer make any sense. We should get rid of federal midterm elections
entirely.
There are few offices, at any level of government, with two-year terms. Here in
Durham, we elect members of the school board and the county sheriff to terms
that are double that length. Moreover, Twitter, ubiquitous video cameras,
24-hour cable news and a host of other technologies provide a level of
hyper-accountability the framers could not possibly have imagined. In the modern
age, we do not need an election every two years to communicate voters’ desires
to their elected officials.
But the two-year cycle isn’t just unnecessary; it’s harmful to American
politics.
The main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has been to weaken the
president, the only government official (other than the powerless vice
president) elected by the entire nation. Since the end of World War II, the
president’s party has on average lost 25 seats in the House and about 4 in the
Senate as a result of the midterms. This is a bipartisan phenomenon — Democratic
presidents have lost an average of 31 House seats and between 4 to 5 Senate
seats in midterms; Republican presidents have lost 20 and 3 seats, respectively.
The realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend almost two years
selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less than two
years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples that same
president’s ability to advance that agenda.
These effects are compounded by our grotesque campaign finance system. House
members in competitive races have raised, on average, $2.6 million for the 2014
midterm. That amounts to $3,600 raised a day — seven days a week, 52 weeks a
year. Surveys show that members spend up to 70 percent of their time
fund-raising during an election year. Two years later, they’ll have to do it all
again.
Much of this money is sought from either highly partisan wealthy individuals or
entities with vested interests before Congress. Eliminating midterms would
double the amount of time House members could focus on governing and make them
less dependent on their donor base.
Another quirk is that, during midterm elections, the electorate has been whiter,
wealthier, older and more educated than during presidential elections. Biennial
elections require our representatives to take this into account, appealing to
one set of voters for two years, then a very different electorate two years
later.
There’s an obvious, simple fix, though. The government should, through a
constitutional amendment, extend the term of House members to four years and
adjust the term of senators to either four or eight years, so that all elected
federal officials would be chosen during presidential election years. Doing so
would relieve some (though, of course, not all) of the systemic gridlock
afflicting the federal government and provide members of Congress with the
ability to focus more time and energy on governance instead of electioneering.
This adjustment would also give Congress the breathing space to consider
longer-term challenges facing the nation — such as entitlement spending,
immigration and climate change — that are either too complex or politically
toxic to tackle within a two-year election cycle.
To offset the impact of longer congressional terms, this reform might be coupled
with term limits that would cap an individual’s total congressional service at,
say, 24 years, about the average for a member of Congress today. This would
provide members enough time to build experience in the job, but also limit the
effects of incumbency and ensure the circulation of new blood in the system.
The framers included an amendment process in the Constitution so our nation
could adjust the system to meet the demands of a changing world. Surely they
would not be pleased with the dysfunction, partisan acrimony and public
dissatisfaction that plague modern politics. Eliminating the midterm elections
would be one small step to fixing our broken system.
David Schanzer is a professor of public policy and Jay Sullivan is a junior at
Duke.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 3, 2014, on page A31 of the
New York edition with the headline: Cancel the Midterms.
Cancel the Midterms, NYT, 2.11.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/opinion/cancel-the-midterms.html
A Bigger Midterm Election Turnout
SEPT. 14, 2014
The New York Times
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The Opinion Pages | Editorial
Staying home on Election Day carries a heavy cost.
In Ferguson, Mo., where only 12 percent of voters showed up in the last city
election, the cost of nonparticipation was a City Council wholly
unrepresentative of the town’s population. On the national level, Democrats and
independents — most of whom did not vote in the 2010 midterm Congressional
elections — were swamped by Republicans who voted in much larger proportions.
The result was a Republican House dominated by the hard right, which over four
years became the largest impediment to economic growth and equality. The same
thing has happened in many statewide elections.
It’s now seven weeks from the midterms. Will voters realize that decisions made
on Nov. 4 will reverberate in laws not passed, roads not built and jobs not
created?
The biggest prize at stake in November is the Senate, where Democrats are in
serious danger of losing control to a Republican Party determined to roll back
much of the social progress of the last six years, and to block as many of
President Obama’s judicial appointments as possible. There is little chance that
Democrats will win back the House this year, in part because of Republican
redistricting, but many statehouses and governorships that control districting
and voting regulations are also in the balance.
All of that makes it imperative that the demographic groups that turned out in
relatively large numbers during the last two presidential elections show up at
the polls this year. According to Catalist, a data analysis company, the groups
with the biggest declines in turnout between 2008 and 2010 were voters younger
than 30, down nearly 35 percentage points; black and Hispanic voters, down 27
points each; and single women, down 26 points. Those groups have historically
been the most resistant to the right’s message of lower taxes, sharply reduced
spending on social programs and job creation, and tighter restrictions on
women’s reproductive rights.
No one expects a midterm turnout to approach that of a presidential year, which
generates more excitement and interest. For decades, turnout rates in midterms
have been 10 or more percentage points below those of presidential elections.
Democrats say their focus group interviews show that two-thirds of those not
planning to vote this year don’t even know that an election is being held. And
voters historically turn against the party of the president elected two years
before.
But there are ways to increase voter participation this year, and some are being
tested on a broad scale:
BETTER USE OF DATA Both parties are using sophisticated techniques to identify
new voters or those who participated in 2008 and 2012 but are unlikely to vote
this year. They are focusing not only on ethnic and socioeconomic groups but
also on smaller subgroups like new students at politically active colleges or
people from blue-collar neighborhoods who have lost their homes.
MORE PAID WORKERS AND VOLUNTEERS Research has found that broadcast ads and
robocalls are far less effective at motivating people to vote than the personal
touch: face-to-face, door-to-door reminders that there is an election coming up,
in a direct conversation that discusses the high stakes. The Democrats’ turnout
effort, known as the Bannock Street Project, is spending $60 million on both
technology and carefully trained workers to mobilize individual voters. One
technique — based on findings that social pressure is one of the best motivators
— asks voters to fill out a reminder card about the election, which the party or
a campaign mails back to them shortly before the vote.
Single women (who have a poor midterm track record) are a particular target, and
Democratic groups are making a special effort to remind them about Republican
opposition to pay equity, abortion rights, education spending and a higher
minimum wage.
BIG REGISTRATION DRIVES Georgia, where a highly competitive Senate race is
taking place, has about 900,000 black, Hispanic and Asian residents who are
eligible to vote but are unregistered. Getting even a fifth of them to the polls
could make a major difference. (Mr. Obama lost the state by 205,000 votes in
2008.) The New Georgia Project, an effort to register hundreds of thousands of
minorities, young people and single women, has already put 85,000 new names on
the registration lists. This has infuriated Republicans, including the highly
partisan secretary of state, Brian Kemp, who has accused the group of fraud and
begun a trumped-up investigation.
REDUCING VOTING BARRIERS In state after state with competitive races,
Republicans have scrambled to reduce turnout with voter ID requirements,
cutbacks on early voting, insufficient polling places in dense urban areas and
restrictions on registration. Many legal advocates, often joined by the Justice
Department, have fought these measures in court and should continue to do so on
every front. Voters who don’t participate in state legislative elections need
constant reminders that cynical politicians want them to stay home.
Over time, the best way to build a stronger democracy is to make voting a habit
instead of a difficult chore. This year could be the one when that habit begins.
A version of this editorial appears in print on September 15, 2014, on page A22
of the New York edition with the headline: A Bigger Midterm Election Turnout.
A Bigger Midterm Election Turnout, NYT,
14.9.2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/opinion/
a-bigger-midterm-election-turnout.ht
|
