Democracy Corps

If Obama Moves Right He Loses Everybody - And Everybody Loses

Richard Eskow — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:22:20 -0500

The latest Democracy Corps/Campaign For America's Future poll on jobs and the economy has a clear message for the President and his party: Stand up for jobs, and protect Social Security and Medicare. The results couldn't be clearer. Yet it's still rumored that the President's State of the Union will emphasize deficit reduction over job creation, and the White House has refused to assure worried Democrats that the President won't also propose cuts to Social Security.

How many polls will it take to convince the White House that this is political suicide? How many expert analyses will it take to persuade them that its premature to make deficits the priority when the country desperately needs jobs and economic growth?

The latest poll is based on interviews with 1,480 people who voted in 2008, and was conducted January 9 - 12. It strongly reinforces the findings of earlier polls: Voters overwhelmingly want their government to emphasize job creation and economic growth over deficit reduction, and they are opposed to cutting Social Security or Medicare. The bottom line? The President's in danger of moving in a direction that will lose everybody he needs. Literally every demographic group he and his party needs will be alienated by a right-leaning set of policies.

Voters Today

Here's how the picture looks today, by demographic group:

Young voters will be considerably less eager to support Barack Obama in 3012, except in the unlikely event that his opponent is Sarah Palin. While he wins 64% to 29% of the youth vote in a matchup against Palin (which tellingly isn't even as great as his poll showing against McCain), he only wins 54% of the youth vote against Mitt Romney, who hasn't even begun to campaign.

Support for Congressional Dems among young voters is plunging, as the 63-18% difference drops to 50-39% in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. And these numbers don't capture the lost intensity of support, either.

After the 2008 election, the Obama team boasted that it had built an independent, youth-based team around its Internet lists that it could mobilize to win future elections. But the number of young voters plunged by more than half in 2010. 51 percent of voters aged 18-29 showed up in 2008, and that number plummeted to 20.4% last November. That's even fewer than voted in 2006. The party's lead in union households, another Democratic stronghold, has dropped from 37 points to 18 points.

The President and the party still have some very strong relationships: suburban voters, unmarried women, and African Americans are still very solid. And the President's negatives have dropped sharply since the election. But two core constituencies, the young and union members, are crumbling.

The picture's even bleaker among key groups of swing voters. Congressional Democrats are trailing by 23 points among white non-college voters, and Obama's losing them to Sarah Palin by 22 points (and to Romney by 21). Obama's losing white seniors to Palin by 8 points, to Romney by 25 points, and other Democrats are losing them by 16 points. Congressional Democrats are losing rural non-South white voters by 31 points, and Obama trails both Palin and Romney (losing to Romney by 26 points).

So the question becomes, what should the President and Congressional Democrats do - and what shouldn't they do - to improve their electoral chances?

The Way Out

The answer, as it turns out, is: The right thing. The rumored priorities for the State of the Union are exactly the opposite of voters' priorities. When asked to name the two biggest problems right now, the overwhelming answer was "jobs and the economy." Unemployment and outsourcing ranked first and second, with a total of 74% of respondents placing them in the top two. "Deficits" were included by only 18%, 18% said "wages have not kept up with the cost of living," and 17% said "the economy is not growing." The total blend of answers paints the picture of a country devastated by job loss and economic setbacks.

In a similarly-structured question, 46% said Congress' top priority should be "economic recovery and jobs," 34% said "protecting Social Security and Medicare," and only 15% said "reducing the size of the budget deficit." Another 14% included "investing in new infrastructure and new industries" as one of their two top priorities.

Should Social Security benefits be cut? White seniors said no, by 48% to 36%, and the "don't cut" voters felt much more strongly about their position. White non-college voters said "don't cut" by 55% to 35%. Voters in districts that turned Republican in 2010 opposed cuts by 57% to 34%. Even suburban voters were oppoed, 60%-34%.

The voters were strongly in favor (57 percent) of "a plan to invest in new industries and rebuild the country over the next five years." By contrast, only 52 percent approved of "a plan to dramatically reduce the deficit over the next five years," and with less intensity of support than expressed by those who wanted investment.

Other ideas sound good to voters until they're told what's involved: They liked the idea of adopting the recommendations of a "bipartisan deficit commission," supporting it 56% to 19%. But when they were told what the recommendations were, they opposed them by 54% to 34%. 55% were opposed to raising the retirement age and 57% were opposed to reducing benefits for people now entering the workforce.

Would this be a "move to the middle"? 52% of independents and 55% of Republicans oppose raising the retirement age. People under 50 oppose it by a 22-point margin, women oppose it by a 19-point margin, suburbanites oppose it by a 14-point margin, and people in districts the GOP picked up last year opposed it by 14 points. For other benefit cuts the opposition was even greater. The margins were 25 for under-50's, 27 points for women, 26 points for suburban voters, and 23 points in GOP pick-up districts.

So why are we still talking about this?

Warning Signs

These poll results show that a rightward move at the State of the Union would be disastrous, yet the signs are ominous. Robert Gibbs has indicated several times that deficit reduction will be a major theme of the speech. Now Christina Romer, a former Administration economics official, is pushing the deficit line. In a New York Times op-ed called "What Obama Should Say About the Deficit," Dr. Romer writes today that "My hope is that the centerpiece of the speech will be a comprehensive plan for dealing with the long-run budget deficit."

Romer continues: "The recommendations of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that the president created are a very good place to start." That's wrong on two counts: The bipartisan Commission never issued recommendations - it couldn't reach the required majority - and the recommendations of its' two co-chairs are harmful, anti-growth, and (as the polling has showed) extremely unpopular.

This is the same Christina Romer who wrote another op-ed only ten weeks ago, also in the Times, called "Now Isn't the Time to Cut the Deficit." Is this reversal the sign of some internal Administration shift? Now Dr. Romer says that "the need for such a bold plan is urgent -- both politically and economically. Voters made it clear last November that they were fed up with red ink." (No, they didn't, as this and many other polls have shown. This was a protest vote, more than anything else.)

Why are deficits "urgent" economically? Dr. Romer explains: "At some point -- likely well before 2035 -- investors would revolt and the United States would be unable to borrow."

Jobless Americans might be stunned to learned that a possible investor revolt sometime within the next quarter-century, based on hypothetical scenarios, is more "urgent" than they are. Many economists would be equally surprised to learn that Dr. Romer doesn't consider economic growth an effective way to cut the deficit.

Many of the President's advisors will argue that there's a new political calculus and that he no longer has the horsepower to get spending measures through Congress. They'll also point out that voters say they want cooperation and civility. Okay. But why can't you explain what you believe will work? And since when did articulating an economic policy or defending Social Security become "uncooperative"?

The Moment Before

If the President moves to the right in this way, it would be a deeply cynical strategy - one that sacrifices his party and everything it's represented for 75 years in order to win on celebrity likeability and post-partisan "branding." Worse, from his point of view, we now know it probably wouldn't work. The numbers aren't there. He would be proposing the wrong policies, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.

And if the President's advisors think that a deal on Social Security or deficits would give him the same boost that the tax deal did, they'd be sadly mistaken. The tax deal, whatever its flaws, put money in everybody's pockets. Social Security cuts and austerity economics would take money out of those pockets. Sure, Republicans would cut a deal. Then they'd use it against him in 2012. Large segments of his base would turn away from him, or just stay home. Swing voters would register their disapproval of the deal by turning on him, as the public face of the "grand compromise."

We're in a strange historical moment. The President's about to give a speech that will define the future of his Presidency - and our own personal futures - yet nobody knows what he will say. That's odd and disturbing. For those who want to see the Administration defend Social Security and strive to rebuild the economy, Washington seems to be moving in slow-motion. It's like the scene in a science-fiction movie right before a world-changing event. You know the scene I mean, the one where the sky grows dark and the wind rises and everything becomes silent.

You don't know exactly what's coming. But you know that afterwards nothing will ever be the same.

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This post was produced as part of the Strengthen Social Security campaign.

The Voters' Message: Manufacturing a Solution

Leo Gerard — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:13:46 -0500

No doubt voters sent a message last Tuesday. Deciphering it correctly is crucial.

Republican cryptographers interpreted the election results that gave the GOP control of one house of Congress as a directive to demolish everything produced over the past two years – health care reform, Wall Street re-regulation and economic stimulus. In fact, like the Blues Brothers, they believe they’re on a mission from God. Unlike Jake and Ellwood who set out to save an institution, Republicans intend to crush the President, and if a crippled leader means the nation suffers, well, too bad.

Republicans got it wrong. The electorate wants construction, not destruction. Voters want cooperation, not gridlock.

President Obama properly decoded the message and reached across the aisle, inviting Republicans to a White House summit. At that meeting, he will attempt to collaborate with politicians bent on his annihilation, which is like trying to navigate a mine field. But in these negotiations, there is a safe zone. That is manufacturing. The electorate wants American manufacturing restored to greatness. Voters know industrial revitalization would create good, middle class jobs, strengthen national security and improve the economy.

Some Republicans already have shown a willingness to cooperate on this issue. Just before the midterm recess, 99 Republicans voted with Democrats to pass by 348 to 79 the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, which would enable the Commerce Department to impose import tariffs to offset the detrimental effects of manipulated currencies. This is vital in places like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania where manufacturing has been decimated by Chinese exports sold at artificially low prices. Products from several Asian countries are falsely cheap because the governments intervene in the market to suppress the value of their currencies against the dollar.

Voters know that punishing currency manipulators, dealing boldly with violations of international trade rules like forced technology transfer and copyright abuse, and ending tax incentives to outsource jobs would help reverse the decline of American manufacturing.

Americans have been saying for months that they support these measures and that they’re serious about reviving domestic manufacturing. That’s what likely voters told pollsters for the Alliance for American Manufacturing in April, when the unemployment rate had risen to a high 9.9 percent. They said creating jobs and, specifically, generating manufacturing jobs, as well as strengthening manufacturing in America were by far their top three concerns, significantly outpacing issues like health insurance reform, reducing the federal deficit and reforming the financial system.

They sent President Obama and Democrats a warning when 63 percent said the Administration and Congress had spent too much time bailing out Wall Street and too little time worrying about working people who make things for a living. Sixty-six percent said manufacturing is critical to the U.S. economy and 78 percent said developing a national manufacturing strategy is crucial.

Those results were echoed in a Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps poll of midterm voters taken on Election Day, when unemployment remained high at 9.6 percent. Eighty-nine percent of voters polled said America needs a clear strategy to encourage domestic manufacturing, restore U.S. economic competitiveness and resuscitate the middle class.

Eighty percent of those polled, including Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Tea Partiers, said the United States needs a five-year strategy to revive manufacturing, provide incentives for domestic industries, end tax breaks for off-shoring jobs, enforce Buy America provisions on government spending, and counter unfair trade and currency manipulation.

Democrats in Congress began passing legislation to support American industry late last summer under a “Make it America” banner. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer described the need for the program this way: “our manufacturing decline—which hit particularly hard during the Bush administration, when America lost nearly a third of its manufacturing jobs—is one of the reasons why middle-class families are finding it difficult to make it in America today.”

Several “Make It in America” bills became law. These cut taxes and created loans for small businesses, sped the patent process and lowered costs of raw materials. The package of bills included the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, which awaits a vote in the Senate. Although a majority of House Republicans supported it, all three of their principals – Minority Leader John Boehner, Whip Eric Cantor, and Conference Chairman Mike Pence – opposed the measure that would preserve American industry and jobs.

The slow but steady progress of the “Make It in America” program failed to satisfy voters. They want action now. They want, for example, an immediate industrial retrofitting program to create good green jobs updating buildings and industries with energy-saving equipment. The unemployed, the underemployed, their relatives who are helping support them, their employed friends and neighbors who are working excessively hard because corporations won’t hire all sent a message in the midterm election. They’re fed up and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Aggressive support for American manufacturing seems obvious to them. Switching tax breaks from corporations that off-shore to those that create jobs in the U.S. seems like a no-brainer. To them, stopping currency manipulation so that falsely under-priced Asian imports don’t bankrupt American manufacturers falls in the “get ‘er done” category.

In the Campaign for America’s Future-Democracy Corps poll, voters sent another message, one that Boehner, Cantor and Pence might note. Ranking a close second to the “Make it in America” sentiment was this: “The country needs leaders who will work together across party lines on the economy and jobs, deficits, health care and energy and do the right thing.” Eighty-seven percent of voters endorsed that message.

President Obama heard it. He offered to negotiate with Republicans. The first issue on the electorate’s agenda for that meeting is repairing U.S. manufacturing. Republicans who intend to do nothing more than eviscerate Democratic achievements and follow the Tonya Harding strategy of cutting their opponent off at the knees mangle the message delivered to them on Nov. 2. Voters are furious about political fighting because it fails to provide the nation with jobs and economic recovery. They want politicians to manufacture solutions.

Why Are Dems Talking About Trade Lately?

David Sirota — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:22:29 -0500

Why, in the last few weeks, have Democratic presidential candidates been intensifying their critique of America's failed trade policy? The forgotten poll result on page 8 of this CAF/Democracy Corps poll from December 2006 offers some clues. Specifically, the swing voters who considered voting Democratic but ended up voting GOP named support of unfair trade policies as their top doubt about continuing to vote Republican. Peeling these voters away from Republicans, therefore, has a lot to do with having a bold, populist message on trade.