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With the midterm elections looming closer, those of you who live in areas with especially competitive races as I do are starting to see the first skirmishes in what will become an all-out ad war by September. This will be the nastiest, all-out, highest-spending off-year election in American history.
The GOP is banking (literally) that they will cripple the Obama Presidency, perhaps even dealing enough of a blow to make Barack Obama a one-term President. Meanwhile the Democrats are merely hoping to hold serve (been watching too much tennis) preventing the usual midterm leakage that often happens in the first term of a new Presidency. Their fears have a strong basis in fact.
Midterm Disasters
The history of midterm disasters for Democratic Presidents is not very encouraging. Bill Clinton swept into the White House after a decade of Republican rule with a determined progressive agenda that, like Barack Obama’s, featured health care reform. We all know what happened to that. It has become a textbook case of political miscalculation.
Less well-recognized is what happened to Bill Clinton after getting hammered in the famous 1994 midterm that swept Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America into Congress and left Clinton facing an opposition that was even willing to shut down the government to get their way. Gingrich believed the midterm results constituted a mandate that entitled them to do whatever they thought was necessary to forward their agenda. It was the beginning of what I have termed the Era of Bad Feelings.
Meanwhile, with Clinton facing the Gingrich vitriol, the President began the era that has become known by its strategy–triangulation. History–and the Democratic Party–are still divided over whether Clinton triangulated too much over issues such as welfare reform and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act.
Whatever you think of triangulation, it is clear the midterm results seriously altered the Clinton Presidency and the Democratic Party. It wasn’t only Clinton who began to triangulate, Democrats began running as fast as they could from any association with the word “liberal.” Many of them started sounding like “Me-Too Republicans,” a movement that would lead Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone to utter the famous retort that he represented the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
If you review the recent history of midterm losses they more often than not have provided a clue to the fate of the incumbent or his party. Dwight Eisenhower lost 61 seats, including a modern record thirteen Senate seats, in 1958. We all know who won in 1960. Lyndon Johnson lost 51 seats in 1966 and decided not to run in 1968. Gerald Ford lost 53 seats and the White House. George W. Bush lost 36 seats in 2006.
The only exceptions to this rule have been Harry Truman who lost 57 seats in 1946 and came back to win that famous 1948 close election by running against the “Do Nothing Congress” and Bill Clinton who turned the tables on Gingrich, taking his strategy directly from Harry Truman. The other interesting exception is Jimmy Carter, who only lost 18 seats (one less than Eisenhower during his first term) and yet failed to get reelected. This history is why the GOP hopes to inflict a painful defeat to Barack Obama and return to the White House.
The Green Party
There is also a lesser-known statistic about midterm elections–and most recent elections–and it concerns money. Call it the Green Party. The conventional wisdom since the very first congressional election is that money helps buy elections, but research shows the issue is a bit more complex. In a study on the impact of money on elections for Americans for Campaign Reform, Daniel Weeks observed:
But the true picture of campaign spending and its implications for electoral success is more nuanced than the vote-buying hypothesis suggests. Simply put, campaign dollars are not created equal. The force of the first dollar spent in terms of its vote-getting effect for the candidate is considerably greater than that of the millionth.
Weeks found that except in the costliest districts, once House race campaigns spend over a million this additional spending “means almost nothing at all.” In essence Weeks concluded:
So long as otherwise qualified candidates obtain sufficient resources for the voters to learn who they are, additional spending by themselves or their opponents does not measurably impact the chances of their success.
Note the qualifier, which has big implications for the upcoming election: “obtain sufficient resources.” Weeks translates this into his major finding which is that where money makes a difference is for those challenging incumbents. In short, “the more money challengers have to spend the better able they are to communicate their message and give voters a reason to prefer them over the incumbent.” Money is the great equalizer to the well-known incumbent advantage.
Other studies have narrowed this even more saying that early money is especially important for success. This seems logical since many times someone running against an incumbent is lesser known so getting information out early helps to negate that advantage. A team of researchers found that early money donors tend to come from business. The authors believe:
These early money donors have become de facto gatekeepers narrowing the scope of choice presented to the American public- a far cry from the American notion of democracy, and a fact often overlooked in normative discussions of democratic accountability.
The study reviewed 721,196 contributions to over 1,500 candidates to reach its conclusions. Their biggest finding is that corporations contribute 44% of all early money provided by interest groups, trade associations 31% and labor 19%. Assuming the trade associations are largely corporate that adds up to a whopping 75% of all early money being provided by big business!
So here is the equation concerning campaign contributions: there is a cap beyond which additional money does not help, money is especially important to those challenging incumbents, early money is the most important, most early money comes from corporations and corporate-related groups (trade associations).
Enter the Supreme Court
As many of you are aware, recently the Supreme Court sent a shock wave through American politics. The January a 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ranks as one of the most far-reaching, controversial and ultimately damaging opinions issued by the Court in its long history.
Some of you Hillary Clinton supporters may remember what sparked the case, a 2008 blistering pseudo-documentary produced by an anti-Clinton group that called itself Citizens United. In the movie an all-star cast of right wing commentators including Ann Coulter, Bay Buchanan, and Robert Novak were brought in to do what was essentially a hatchet job on Hillary Clinton.
Some language from a web site promoting a New York showing of the so-called documentary provides a flavor of its content:
The Queen of Mean had grown comfortable pulling the lever of personal destruction, and no one in her political circles was willing to put a check on her Evita Peron style of governing.
When word leaked out about the film it sparked outrage, especially since Citizens United was trying to claim it wasn’t a political ad but a documentary. A district court and the Federal Elections Commission disagreed, ruling that it was a campaign ad and subject to the rules governing such advertising.
Citizens United took the case to the Supreme Court. Arguing for the government was none other than Supreme Court nominee and Solicitor General Elena Kagan. Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal points out:
In abandoning a central rationale for the 1990 opinion, Ms. Kagan may have made the conservatives’ job easier. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his concurring opinion, seized on Ms. Kagan’s concessions to justify overruling the 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
Richard Hasen, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, who supported the voided law in Citizens United, said Ms. Kagan’s gambit failed because it let Chief Justice Roberts off the hook. This bungling is one reason I oppose the Kagan nomination. It also is a clue to what I consider her conservative perspective.
The Court’s overruling of Austin decision that had governed corporate campaign contributions came in plain language this Court does not often use:
Austin is overruled, and thus provides no basis for allowing the Government to limit corporate independent expenditures.
Read those words again because they will play a VERY big role is this midyear election. There is “no basis for allowing the Government to limit corporate independent expenditures.” The opinion goes on to say:
Prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions.
Antonin Scalia’s concurring opinion is one of his worst, full of disingenuous logic like the following:
It is far from clear that by the end of the 19th century corporations were despised. If so, how came there to be so many of them?
But typical for Scalia his ending is designed to rub salt in the wound:
Indeed, to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate.
Justice Stevens–who will be deeply missed given what we may be getting as his replacement–authored the dissent. Zeroing in on the Court’s apparent willingness to overrule precedent he wrote:
Even more misguided is the notion that the Court must rewrite the law relating to campaign expenditures by for-profit corporations and unions to decide this case.
Lacking one vote, the Court’s opinion in Citizens United now stands. It also profoundly changes the playing field for the upcoming election.
The Impact of Citizens United
Let us go back to our election “equation.” If the Republicans are to alter the balance of power in this midterm election to do so they must defeat enough incumbents to either win back power or severely cripple the Democrats’ ability to operate. The blueprint is the 1994 election.
The equation says that in order for a challenger to defeat an incumbent they must have a heavy insurgence of early money. Without this the challenger faces an uphill fight. Based on the study cited above, the major contributors of early money are corporations. With the Citizens United decision that influence is multiplied even more.
The expectation is that corporations will pour a lot of early money into these Congressional races now that Citizens United gives them the ability to do so. And that is exactly what is happening.
In May the Washington Post reported an interesting shift in donations from corporate PACS. During the Obama campaign corporate PACS gave 58% of their contributions to Democrats. This year they have given only 48%. The Post goes on to note this shift is “unusual.”
The last time corporate PACs made such a dramatic shift to the Republicans was in 1995, after the GOP’s rout of the Democrats in the 1994 midterms. This time, corporations have switched sides before the election.
And guess where those contributions are coming from? The Post notes:
The health industry is the most striking example of the corporate shift to the GOP. Last year, the PACS of health and medical companies gave Democrats 61 percent of their $31.5 million in political contributions.
As noted earlier on this blog with the heath care debate, health contributions to Republicans, especially those in key committee roles increased. Their contribution were heavily weighted towards the Republicans attending Obama’s health care summit.
Guess who else has been pouring money into this campaign? None other than America’s favorite villain, BP. An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that committee members enjoying the most campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry were most likely to comment on the alleged failures of the Obama administration’s cleanup effort. And guess which party those members represented?
BP and the health care industry aren’t the only corporate big spenders. At the top of the list are the firms targeted by the recently passed financial regulation act. In a hard-hitting and eye-opening investigative report The Center for Responsive Politics notes these firms in essence bought themselves a watered down bill. Its report, “Crossing Wall Street,” should be required reading for all Americans. Lawrence Baxter, a law professor at Duke University whose research focuses on regulation of financial services, stated:
It’s amazing how some industries can stay in the game when common sense says they clearly need to be regulated. But then you look at their campaign contributions and you understand why. Campaign contributions are very effective at slowing down reforms that need to be done from a public interest perspective.
Complete with charts and spreadsheets, the Center details how the financial services industry succeeded in making what had been an acceptable bill into a mediocre one.
This Fall
There seems little question that given the open door the Supreme Court has provided with Citizens United, corporate America is out to throw its muscle around in the coming election. That muscle is designed to aid GOP candidates. Given what we already know about the impact of early contributions, this means GOP, challengers will have a decided advantage.
According to a recent National Public Radio Poll that is exactly what is happening. Their survey of sixty House seats that are likely targets was not encouraging for Democrats. Republican Glen Bolger who along with Democrat Stan Greenberg conducted the poll spun the results this way:
When you look at the generic ballot for Congress in the Democrat-held seats, the Republican is up by 5 [points]. But among those who rate their interest as 8 to 10, you know, the high-interest voters, the Republican leads in those Democratic seats 53 to 39.
All Greenberg could say in response was:
What I’m hoping that this poll brings about is that the Democrats are running with a much more effective economic message, which talks about who they fought for, and what they are engaged in now.
Bolger predicts the Republicans will pick up at least 30 seats. If they pick up ten more they are in power once again in the House. Given the Blue Dog Democrats’ tendency to vote with the GOP as much as they vote with their own party, thirty could be enough to realign the House.
Who Do You Want Running America?
Right now the Democrats seem dazed and disorganized, like a prize fighter who has taken a hard blow and is trying to recover while the referee counts to ten. It is time for them to get back on their feet and fight. Press releases and other materials coming from the Democrats currently lack any coherent message other then the need to support the President.
Given the NPR poll findings that in those sixty districts Barack Obama is not very popular this does not seem to be a winning message. But is that lack of popularity real or the result of corporations trying to frame the debate? The midterm elections will swing on the answer to that question.
The data gathered by the Center for Responsive Politics–which BTW is nonpartisan–all but hands the Democrats an issue on a silver platter: they need to run against the impact of Citizens United. Using the data from the above reports they need to raise an outcry against the growing influence of corporate America on legislation and on events like the BP oil spill.
Polls show that people are not happy with the health care bill or the financial bill, mainly because they feel both do not go far enough. The health care bill, for example, watered down the preexisting condition section. The financial bill watered down the notorious “too big to fail” provisions that in part have produced this financial mess. As the above studies show, that watering down did not come from the White House but from corporate money bags.
Here is a bold prediction: How that is framed will decide the winners and losers in this coming midterm election. If the Republicans can convince the American people that the failures in health care, financial reform and the BP fiasco are the fault of the White House they will win their 30-plus seats. On the other hand, if the Democrats can get the truth out–that these bills were watered down by big business and its Republican allies–they will accomplish two major goals: first, they will again position their party back where it needs to be as a defender of the American people against corporate lobbyists and second, they will minimize their loses and might even surprise some people.
Anyone could write the campaign commercial: shots of corporate big wigs testifying before Congress, maybe some Michael Moore-type videos of lobbyists leaving the offices of Republican politicians, a few of the graphs from the Center study and one question: Who do you want running America?
That statement would not merely be campaign rhetoric, but the truth. This midterm election is really about the power of corporate America to control this country. If their money succeeds in swinging this election a year from now they will be expecting their payback.
Well, the time has come for payback time for the American people. It is time to pay back for what happened to the health care and financial bills. It is time to pay back BP. Minnesota’s Tarryl Clark showed it can be done when she hit right wing radical and BP apologist Michelle Bachmann with a series of hard-hitting ads targeting Bachmann’s support for BP.
Coda
In a little-noticed ruling the Federal Election Commission ruled that Citizens United did not have to disclose its contributors. Expect more hit jobs from them like the one they tried to do on Hillary Clinton. But also just because the FEC does not require them to disclose who is funding their vitriol does not mean we cannot demand it.
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