Hillary v. Rudy

Via TNR's Plank, here's a quote about a prospective general election matchup between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani:

While recent national polls show Clinton matching up well against every potential Republican competitor, the picture looks very different in Republican and swing states. Says a purple-state Congressman who is nervous about holding onto his seat if Clinton is the nominee: "She certainly will get Republicans riled up. They will not only go out and vote against her--they'll stop off at their neighbors' house along the way and drag them to the polls."

A late-October Quinnipiac University survey underscored this point. Nationally, it showed Clinton being edged out by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 45% to 43%, within the margin of error. In red states, however, she ran behind him, 49% to 40%, and she trailed, 47% to 41%, in the purple ones. By comparison, Illinois Senator Barack Obama beat Giuliani by a single percentage point (43% to 42%) nationally but held that same margin in the purple states and came within 6 points (45% to 39%) in the red ones.

TNR's Issac Chotiner responds by saying, "So, in essence, Clinton runs up her margins on the coasts and lags everywhere else. Eeek. You could argue that Obama will decline in purple and red states as he gets better known; at the same time, he'll probably rise in blue states. Still, this is not a heartening picture..."

Actually, the situation seems a bit more complicated. I looked at the Quinnipiac results mentioned in the Time article and compared them to the Bush-Kerry margin in the same Blue, Red, and Purple states. Here are the results:

Bush-Kerry Giuliani-Clinton
Blue 44-56 38-50
Purple 50-50 47-41
Red 59-41 49-40

In Blue states (those that Kerry won by more than 5 points), Clinton runs about as well as Kerry did--both winning by 12 points. In the Purple states (states decided by a margin of less than 5 points), Clinton does significantly worse than Kerry. Instead of a 50-50 split, she loses by 6 points. On the other hand, Giuliani seems to have real trouble in the Red states (those that Bush won by more than 5 points). Bush won them by 18 points, but Giuliani is only winning them by 9 points.

For Clinton, she needs to shore up her support in the battleground states. On the other hand, Giuliani has some problems with his Republican base. On the whole, Clinton's problem is a bigger one. Giuliani can run worse than Bush in the Red states since they will likely go Republican anyway, albeit by reduced margins. But if Clinton runs even a few points behind Kerry in the Purple states, she could end up losing the 68 electoral votes that he won there in 2004.

In Your Heart, You Know He's Wrong

In a recent column, Pat Buchanan bemoans conservatism's lack of unity. He looks back on the golden days:

Sixty years ago, Robert A. Taft was the gold standard. Forty years ago, it was Barry Goldwater, who backed Bob Taft against Ike at the 1952 convention. Twenty years ago, it was Ronald Reagan, who backed Barry in 1964.

There are a couple of problems here. First, Goldwater backed Ike, not Taft. In fact, he was an Eisenhower delegate to the 1952 convention. Second, while Reagan did famously support Goldwater in 1964, the man from Arizona did not return the favor four years later. As former Nixon speechwriter Buchanan should remember, Goldwater endorsed Nixon for the nomination.

Buchanan looks back at the Reagan years as a time of unity for conservatives and Republicans. At best, he oversimplifies. In 1982, Reagan changed course on fiscal policy and backed the largest peacetime tax increase in history. Many GOP lawmakers resented the move. Then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (Ga.) even said that he was “trying to score a touchdown for liberalism.”

Know Nothings in the 2008 Election

Americans often tout our country's diversity and how the ancestors of most Americans came here from somewhere else seeking a better life. When I was a kid, the Smithsonian hosted an exhibit called "A Nation of Nations" which sums us up about as well as our national motto of "E Pluribus Unum" or "One Out of Many."

On the other hand, Americans don't often tout our history of nativism which has a long if undistinguished pedigree. The anti-Catholic Know Nothings rode high in the 1850s, founding the ironically named "Native American Party". Former President Millard Fillmore carried Maryland on an anti-immigrant ticket in 1856. I guess the people forgot that the Colony of Maryland had been founded as a Catholic refuge and named for a Catholic Queen.

America is currently going through yet another of its cycles of high immigration followed by nativism. Although his presidential campaign is going nowhere fast, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo has managed nonetheless to attract a few headlines with his extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric:

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country," Tancredo said.

Less widely reported is that Tancredo received a standing ovation at the Family Research Council so-called "Values Voters Summit" in DC this past weekend when he tried out the same line according to someone I know who attended. The right-wing National Review bloggers seemed to miss that particular sound bite though they discuss other glorious moments in Tancredo's speech here and here. Suffice it to say that it is a good thing Mary and Joseph didn't look for shelter in Tancredo's manger.

While Tancredo will not get far in his quest to be the next Millard Fillmore, the Washington Post reports that the desperate Republicans are likely to turn to anti-immigration as a theme in the 2008 elections. They've certainly done it before. Pete Wilson won reelection as governor of California in 1994 by running against illegal immigrants. His campaign commercials showed immigrants sneaking over the border with the voiceover saying "They keep coming and coming."

Pete Wilson won one more term but alienated Latinos permanently. The share of Latinos registering as Republicans dropped to near zero and California Latinos became a loyal Democratic voting bloc. In contrast, at the same time, the Republican governor of another state with a large Latino population reached out to Latinos and dramatically increased his share of the Latino vote. His name? George W. Bush.

Of course, as President, Bush did not choose to act on immigration under his popularity was in the toilet and he couldn't get immigration reform through Congress. Even so, Bush is positively progressive on the issue compared to many of his fellow partisans. My guess is that this is one aspect of the Bush legacy that Republicans will choose not to embrace.

Immigration doesn't just roil American politics. There were riots in the capital of Switzerland (yes, really) over this question during their recent election campaign. The Swiss People's Party has gradually risen from the fourth to first largest party in the land by combining opposition to the EU with opposition to immigration. Their election propaganda in the recent campaign showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off of a Swiss flag.

Efforts to make it easier for people to naturalize have failed in Switzerland. In 2003, a major of Swiss voted against making it simpler for third-generation Swiss who resided legally in the country to gain Swiss citizenship. Over one-fifth of Swiss residents are not Swiss citizens so the high number of non-citizens remains a bit problem.

Perhaps we should be thankful that the 14th Amendment, which says that all people born in this country are citizens of the United States by right, prevents immigration from being a multi-generational nightmare here. While only a relatively slim majority of Latinos are citizens, over four-fifths of Latinos under age 18 are citizens. Latinos are also the fastest growing group of voters in the country. Republicans should consider that fact before they turn 2008 into our big immigrant bashing election.

(Cross-posted on Maryland Politics Watch)

John McCain, Recycler

John McCain is a believer in recycling, especially when it comes to his own jokes. We’ve all heard the one about the former drunken sailor resenting the comparison to Congress. Yesterday, he told another joke:

Republican John McCain said Thursday that as president he would appoint Alan Greenspan to lead a review of the nation’s tax code — even if the former Federal Reserve chairman was dead. “If he’s alive or dead it doesn’t matter. If he’s dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’” McCain joked. “Let’s get the best minds in America together and fix this tax code.”

He used the same line eight years ago. According to a 1999 report in Salon:

Asked if he agreed with Forbes, McCain said that as president he would not only reappoint the chairman but “if Mr. Greenspan would happen to die — God forbid —
I would do like they did in the movie ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’: I’d prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and keep him as long as we could.”

California and the Electoral College

An effort to change California’s method of allocating electoral votes has collapsed. Shortly after sponsors began gathering signatures for a ballot measure to adopt a district system, the major players suddenly quit. "The levels of support just weren't there," a fundraiser told the San Francisco Chronicle

California has been trending Democratic since the 1980s. The current winner-take-all system means that the Democratic nominee can usually count on the state’s 55 electoral votes. Under the now-defunct measure, candidates would have gotten one electoral vote for each California congressional district that they carried. (The statewide winner would have an additional two votes.) A Republican could thus win 20 or more electoral votes in California even if the Democrat won the state.

Democrats saw the measure as a threat, citing a Field Poll showing it with 47 percent support. They need not have worried. When a California ballot measure starts with less than a majority, strong opposition can usually beat it. And California Democrats enjoy a big edge in finance, organization, and morale. Republicans, by contrast, face money woes and ideological divisions.

The measure would have been a much stronger money magnet for Democrats than for Republicans. The Democrats were angry about the measure, and anger is a powerful tool for political fundraising.

Had the measure remained alive, Democrats would have focused their fire on Peter Singer, a New York billionaire who had provided much of the seed money. Singer back Rudy Giuliani, so they could have portrayed the measure as a Giuliani plot.

Also, it might have backfired in November. If Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, he might carry the state. But under the district plan, he would still lose dozens of California electoral votes.

Reforms of the electoral process have often disappointed partisan hopes. Democrats thought that the 18-year-old-vote would sweep Nixon out of the White House. Instead, he carried 49 states. They had great expectations for the “motor voter” law in the 1990s, but the GOP kept control of Congress. In the first election after the latest campaign finance law, President Bush beat Senator Kerry.

Ironically, the early demise of the electoral college initiative is probably good news for the GOP.

Stuck on Stupid

Some of my fellow Republicans are stuck on stupid.

Last week, the University of California at Irvine withdrew its offer to make Erwin Chemerinsky the dean of its new law school. The reason: pressure from local Republicans who did not want a vocal liberal to get the job. Their opposition was self-defeating. Had they succeeded, they would have undercut the moral standing of conservatives to fight political discrimination in academia. But thanks in part to conservatives who vouched for Chemerinsky's ability and integrity, UCI reinstated him.

Today, The Politico reports: "New York Rep. Peter King, a prominent House Republican, said there are `too many mosques in this country' ... When asked to clarify his statement, King did not revise his answer, saying `I think there has been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community.'" It's perfectly valid to criticize support for radical Islam, but the "too many mosques" line will blur the issue by inviting charges of bigotry.

Stigler's Scoop

In today's New York Times, one headline reads: "In Turnaround, Industries Seek U.S. Regulations."

Turnaround? Actually, it's just a new chapter in an old story. In a landmark article 36 years ago, George Stigler wrote: "as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit."