The Same Old Republican Tactics

The Washington Republican Party issued the following press release on Friday:

This week, Rep. Rick Larsen became the latest member of the state's Democratic congressional delegation to pledge support for a presidential candidate.

Some may question Larsen's late in the game support for the politician rated "most liberal U.S. Senator in 2007" by the non-partisan National Journal magazine. But meanwhile, ultra-liberal Rep. Jim McDermott and his Eastside protégé, Darcy Burner, remain silent about who they're supporting for the nomination. The question that should be asked: why the bashfulness from Burner and McDermott?

Responding to McDermott and Burner's "don't tell/don't tell" policy on their favored presidential hopeful, Washington State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser issued the following statement:

"Could it be that neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are liberal enough to suit Darcy Burner and Jim McDermott?" asked Washington State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser. "By May of a presidential year one would expect an elected leader (or candidate for office) to make up their mind about who they are supporting for the most important political office in the country. Unless of course, they are ashamed to have their views known publicly."

Does Luke Esser really think that? Seriously? No other possibilities?

It is interesting to get some insight into the tactics Republicans and Reichert will be using this election cycle from such a press release. First of all they once again refer to the National Journal's rating of Barack Obama as the "most liberal U.S. Senator in 2007". However, they fail to also mention the National Journal's rating of Dave Reichert as the most conservative U.S. Representative in 2007 on foreign policy issues. Indeed, one might even say Dave Reichert is an ultra-conservative representative, or even ultra neo-conservative on foreign policy issues, but they don't really want you to know that.

As for painting Darcy Burner as Jim McDermott's "Eastside protégé", that's a humorous stretch. While Burner has a clear plan to get us out of Iraq, her positions are very much in line with the socially diverse and fiscally conservative 8th District she would represent, as you would expect from a successful businesswoman with her educational background.

I don't know why Jim McDermott hasn't declared his endorsement of a candidate, although I suspect it is because he would have supported Clinton, not Obama, and like many Clinton supporters has been sitting on the fence. I guess he could have done like Dave Reichert and openly supported a loser like Rudy Giuliani, only to see the candidate crash and burn. That was a political miscalculation on Reichert's part which will diminish his standing in the eyes of the McCain campaign.

As for Burner, I see no reason why she would indicate her preference publicly given the state of the Democratic race. She is not a super delegate, and so she has nothing to gain by declaring a favorite, and a silly press release statement from a loser with a pattern of lying isn't going to goad her into doing so.

Obama Takes Super Delegate Lead

Well it finally happened: enough super delegates have endorsed Obama that he now has more super delegate endorsements than Clinton does.

According to numbers at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch, Obama now has 274 super delegates to Clinton's 270.5, with 251 still uncommitted. In the past week he has picked up 26, and she has picked up just 1.5.

This race is over. The super delegates were Clinton's only chance to win, and they're leaving her, not joining.

We get it Hillary, you have a lot of support, except just not as much as Obama has. That's life, deal with it. Kentucky and West Virginia won't change a thing. Those primaries won't demonstrate any point other than the fact that the Democratic party still has a lot of people unable to vote for a black man in it. Tell us something we don't already know.

The thing is, it is high time that things change, and electing an African American as president is just the kind of cold water wake up call this nation needs, and a lot of people agree on that point.

Earth To Clinton: Concede Already!

Oh my god! The pundits have spoken - Clinton should concede!

Forget the fact so many have been saying so for a couple of months already.

Perhaps they've finally just got sick of their own mindless 24-hour "analysis" of this race - despite Wolf Blitzer's lame attempts to suggest even last night that it isn't over.

Hillary's out of money, again yet she wants to keep up this hopeless campaign of hers. Seriously, if making another huge loan to her campaign at this point doesn't represent bad judgement I don't know what does.

It is time to move on, it is time to get on with the general election campaign against John McCain without further distractions within the Democratic party. It is time for Hillary to concede.

Clinton Fails To Change The Equation

Obama wins North Carolina big and Hillary does nothing to show that she should continue to waste this nation's time for her blind ambition to be president.

Which is why she'll keep going despite it all, because why not keep wasting our time, why not keep chasing the impossible?

Democrats Pick Up House Seat in Louisiana

A sit up and take note election happened yesterday in Louisiana. I'll let the Votemaster at electoral-vote.com explain the significance:

In LA-06, centered around Baton Rouge, state representative Don Cazayoux (D) defeated former state representative and local newspaper publisher Woody Jenkins (R) in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Richard Baker (R), who resigned from the House to become a lobbyist. Cazayou got 49% of the vote to Jenkins' 46% in a race with major national implications. LA-06 is a heavily Republican district with a PVI of R+7 that has been in Republican hands for 33 years. President Bush got 59% of the vote here in 2004.

Both the DCCC and NRCC advertised heavily here. The NRCC referred to Don Cazayoux (a Cajun name) as "Don Tax You" and claimed he is a "liberal," which is a big insult in rural Lousiana. They also tried to tie him to boogeyman Barack Obama and boogeywoman Nancy Pelosi. The whole nine yards. At this point, the Republicans assume Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee and LA-06 was a field test of their November strategy to paint him as a big-government, high-tax, arugula-eating, orange-juice-drinking, Ivy League, out-of-touch liberal. Only it didn't work, even in a very conservative area. The next field test is scheduled for May 13, when Travis Childers (D) dukes it out with Greg Davis (R) in a runoff for Sen. Roger Wicker's old seat in MS-01.

By tomorrow every Republican in the House is going to be thinking "There but for the grace of God go I." If a well-known strongly conservative GOP candidate with 28 years experience in the state legislature can't win an open seat in a heavily Republican district that the GOP has held since 1975, what is going to happen in the many open seats and marginal Republican districts in November? To make matters worse for the GOP, the DCCC has $44 million in the bank (of which it spent $1.2 million on this race) to the NRCC's $6 million (of which they spent $500,000 in LA-06).

Obviously, this is a good omen for Darcy Burner against Dave Reichert in WA-08.

The Truth Behind Reichert's Voting Record - Part 2

On Sunday I wrote the first of what will be many postings looking at the truth behind Dave Reichert's voting record.

In Part 1 I explained how Reichert has been manipulating his votes to shore up his "moderate" image, and how he has been quite successful in that regard given how unquestioned his claim as a moderate has been by the mainstream media.

A recent Seattle Times article provides us with yet another example of how the media parrots the claim despite the evidence to the contrary:

Reichert, the former King County sheriff, is in his fourth year in Congress and has worked to secure a reputation in line with the moderate voters of the Eastside's 8th Congressional District.

Reichert "has worked to secure a reputation in line with the moderate voters". The lack of any other comments about that suggests that the reputation is secure, and unquestioned.

The problem is the facts don't back up the claim.

Twenty-five times in the past 17 months Reichert has taken safe throwaway votes in favor of Democratic measures after voting against the same measures at every step of the way prior to the final passage vote. Seventeen of those times he seemingly "broke" from his party to do so. Except he wasn't breaking from his party at all, he had been given the green light "to vote a certain way" by Republican leadership.

I've gathered those votes in a detailed table that clearly shows the pattern, and in this ongoing series of postings I plan to focus on each set of bills Reichert has voted this way on.

Today I look at the third such case, H.R.6, the "Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act", passed on Thursday, January 18, 2007 (roll calls 34 through 39).

There were seven votes that related to the passage of the bill - and they pitted all the Democrats against all the Republicans:

- Republicans, including Reichert, first attempted to block the day's proceedings by making a motion to adjourn. Perhaps they also felt like it was already the end of the work week after having worked their previously typical two days that week. The motion was defeated 184-233.
- Democrats then voted on bringing House Resolution 66 to a vote by ordering the previous question. That passed, 231-194, with unanimous Republican opposition.
- The resolution was then voted on, and again it passed, 230-194, again with unanimous Republican opposition.
- A motion to then consider the bill passed, 228-193, yet again with unanimous Republican opposition.
- Republicans then tried to kill it with a motion to recommit it with instructions. That failed, 194-232, despite near unanimous Republican backing. Only Nebraska representative Lee Terry defected from the Republican side.
- Republicans then tried one last time to block the measure:

1/18/2007 5:40pm:
Point of order raised by Mr. Blunt on the content of the measure. Point of order overruled by the Chair.
1/18/2007 5:42pm:
Mr. Blunt appealed the ruling of the chair. The question was then put on sustaining the ruling of the chair.
1/18/2007 5:42pm:
Mr. McDermott moved to table the appeal of the ruling of the chair.

- The motion to table the appeal of the ruling of the chair passed 230-195, again with unanimous Republican opposition.
- Finally, the bill came up for a final passage vote and passed 264-163, with 36 Republicans voting for the bill, including Dave Reichert.

So how was it reported by the Seattle Times? In their regular "How your U.S. lawmaker voted" feature they wrote:

Oil-company taxation: By a vote of 264-163, the House on Thursday agreed to repeal tax breaks designed to spur extraction of fossil fuels and use the savings of $14 billion over 10 years to open a Strategic Renewable Energy Reserve for developing renewable fuels and energy efficiencies.

Voting yes: Inslee, Larsen, Baird, Dicks, McDermott, Reichert, Smith.

Voting no: Hastings, McMorris Rodgers.

Yup, Dave Reichert went down as having supported this bill, even though he voted to obstruct it every step of the way there.

Even more ridiculous was that they ignored the added fact that the day before Americans for Tax Reform put out a press release against the bill. They wrote:

The newly formed, Democrat-controlled House will force a vote TOMORROW, within its first 15 days, to raise taxes on domestic energy production, increasing America's dependence on foreign oil and subsequently lowering the value of millions of Americans' retirement funds.

Supposedly the bill violated the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, signed by 197 House members and 43 Senators, who had pledged to their constituents to "oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates." The pledge was only signed by the minority party Republicans, because they opposed the movement of tax dollars away from propping up Big Oil and their already record profits, and instead toward alternative energy production.

Oh, and the signatories included Dave Reichert, who once again wanted to be on both sides of an issue, by pledging he was against a bill that he ended up voting for. How does he explain that?

These votes on H.R.6 were classic Reichert, and yet the mainstream media was duped, or they were simply too lazy to look closely at the votes. Reichert has gone on to take 22 similar flip-flop votes since then, but none of them has been reported in the press.

However, since my first post a couple of prominent Web sites have made reference to them with regards to the question of Reichert's "moderate" credentials. First yesterday at firedoglake, and then today at Politico. So perhaps people are finally paying attention to the data I've been presenting. At the very least it's a start.

In Part 3 of this series I will take a look at the January 31, 2007 votes on H.J.RES 20 ("Further Continuing Appropriations for FY 2007"), which almost exactly matched the pattern on H.R.6. Look for that in the week ahead.

Reichert's Broken Image

Dave Reichert has a shiny new congressional Web site.

Unfortunately not everything is quite there yet:

You'd think they'd get that biography page photo working correctly at the very least.

Oh well, perhaps that's symbolically appropriate for Reichert: a broken image to go along with his broken voting record.

Gas Prices: Clinton Panders, Obama Doesn't

This is about as substantive a political ad as I've seen in a while:

Too bad so much of the rest of the campaign season has been bogged down by Clinton hijinks, flag pins, and the Wright sideshow.

Eyman Loses Dunmire Backing

Looks like Tim Eyman will have to work a little bit harder this time to fund his yearly initiative campaign.

Legislation by initiative is not how any government should be run, and Tim Eyman has been abusing the system the entire decade. For once, he won't have Michael Dunmire to finance his initiative business.

Eyman is free to mortgage his own future and his home, but not Washington's future.

Obama Closes In On Super Delegate Lead

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the super delegate race and shows how elected officials have edged Obama back to parity, while Clinton clings to her network of party official supporters.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Among elected officials, Sen. Obama leads in endorsements from governors and senators. He is behind among House members by one, but both camps expect him to pull ahead unless he does badly in next Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries. If he doesn't stumble, enough elected Democrats are expected to back Sen. Obama after the last primaries June 3 to give him the delegate majority needed for nomination.

Furthermore, the contention that anything other than the pledged delegate count is going to sway super delegates is unlikely:

Bob Mulholland, a longtime California party official, says he "absolutely" will remain uncommitted until after June 3, so voters speak first. Then the candidate with the most delegates "is going to be in very good shape to get the superdelegates."

Many superdelegates increasingly seem to share the view that ultimately they should support the candidate with the most pledged delegates. Almost certainly that will be Sen. Obama. "They argue that if the party insiders took this away from the winner of the voters' process, that could be disastrous for the party. And I agree with that," says Mr. Achepohl, the Nebraska Democratic chairman.

You can follow the progression of super delegates updated weekly at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch.

The Truth Behind Reichert's Voting Record - Part 1

As we close in on the 2008 general elections, November 4th being just over six months out now, this is intended to be the first in a series of postings I will be writing that look to dispel an ongoing myth: that Dave Reichert is a moderate.

This is something that I've written about on numerous occasions previously, so what this series of postings intends to do is get specific, because obviously the facts seem to be hard for some in the media to follow.

As I've mentioned numerous times before, there is a pattern to Reichert's voting record that is not being reported where he opposes legislation from being considered or coming to a vote, seeks to amend and change it, tries to table or kill it, before flipping his vote and voting for it on final passage.

In the 110th Congress alone he has done this 25 times, 17 times casting a final passage vote that seemingly "broke" from party ranks.

I've gathered together the votes on these 25 bills in a single detailed voting table for easy reference, and I'm making it available publicly for the first time. I will be updating it as new votes emerge that follow the same pattern.

The table shows how Reichert voted as compared to a couple of Washington Democrats in Congress, Jim McDermott and Jay Inslee, and as compared to John Boehner, the Republican Minority Leader in the House. It also provides links to the full roll call and legislation details, as well as to the vote results.

In addition I maintain some statistics at the bottom of the page and highlight key votes (typically "On Passage" votes) where the majority positions of the two parties differed.

Now let me make a point clear here: the issue isn't that Reichert votes with his party. You would expect a Republican to vote with Republicans, just as we expect Democrats to vote with Democrats. At first blush that appears to be what is mostly happening. The point however is that Reichert is trying to portray himself as a moderate, someone who votes independently from his party, and the media has parroted that claim. Yet, when you look at these votes, that's not what we see. Instead, what we see is that many of the votes Reichert would like to use to bolster his claim as a moderate, have in fact been backed by his own opposition to the very bills he claims to support.

In effect just as John Kerry was accused by Republicans as having flip-flopped on the Iraq war, Reichert has flip-flopped multiple times on the same bill on the same day!

So what is going on?

Well, I think that's very clear, despite the difficulties of the media to report on this. Reichert is on record as saying that party leadership tells him "to vote a certain way". These votes are what he is talking about. As one of a number of endangered Republicans this election season, Reichert is clearly taking self-preservation votes on these bills because his vote won't decide the outcome and is therefore expendable. Party leadership has essentially given him the green light to break ranks for political expediency because the bill will be passing anyway, as all off these bills have.

Vote ratings like the ones by The National Journal are affected by these calculated flip-flops. For example, 7 of the 44 key votes on economic issues used in the National Journal's ratings were these calculated flip-flop votes. That's enough to seriously change his rating from a more conservative one and skew the results. As it is, his solid pro-Bush Iraq policy stance is already enough to make him the most conservative in the House on foreign policy issues according to the National Journal.

So why should we care?

Well it comes down to the fundamental question: what does Reichert really stand for, and what are his guiding principles? When he's opposing legislation through his voting, and then taking politically expedient self-preservation votes seemingly in favor of it, how is a constituent to know? The voting record may not tell the whole story, but it tells a good deal of the story regarding a congressman's positions, but without diving into the background votes, instead of just the "On Passage" votes, constituents are faced with a false sense of Reichert's positions.

We already know he voted against stem cell research before voting for it. That he voted for drilling in ANWR before voting against it. That he voted against raising the minimum wage before voting for it. These more obscure votes just add to the cloudy picture of who Dave Reichert really is, who he really represents, what he really supports.

This is all core to this race because of the nature of the district as a swing district that is trending Democratic. Reichert needs to convince people he is a moderate so that he remains appealing to voters in the 8th who have otherwise rejected colleagues in his party that they've deemed too conservative. So he's pushed the "moderate" characterization, and it has been repeated in the media unquestioned. Why that is, in the face of his actual voting record, I don't know, but it comes at a great disservice to voters.

To kick things off, in what I apologize in advance is likely to be a very boring series of postings to read, I'm going to revisit a couple of the first bills that were part of the new Democratic majority's First 100 Hours push last year (roll calls 14 through 18).

On January 9th, 2007, the House passed H.R.1, Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007. Republicans attempted to recommit the bill. That motion failed 198-230, with Reichert voting to recommit. However, the final passage of the bill was swift, passing 299-128, with 68 Republicans, including Reichert, joining all voting Democrats in favor of the bill.

The following day the Fair Minimum Wage Act, H.R.2, came to the floor. The bill raised the federal minimum wage to $7.25 by early 2009. As I wrote back then, the final passage of the vote came after Republican attempts to recommit the bill, and an appeal vote. Dave Reichert placed his vote with Republican opposition against a vote to table the motion to appeal, which passed 232-197, and then in favor of the motion to recommit, which failed 144-287. He finally voted with 82 other Republicans and all Democrats in favor of the bill which passed overwhelmingly 315-116.

Next up in the series the H.R.6 votes from January 18, 2007.

Pick a Candidate Dwight!

So Dwight Pelz wants the super delegates to make up their minds and choose a Democratic candidate for president:

"It's time for us to end this."

"Us" includes you Dwight! It is time for you to end this and pick a candidate. Enough lollygagging around already!

Hoosier Hysteria

So let me get this straight. Hillary, who had made light of Obama primary and caucus wins in "red" states, is seeking to demonstrate her strength by beating Obama in a red state, Indiana.

We're supposed to believe that a state that will surely vote for John McCain in November should be decisive in this Democratic nomination race?

That's pretty messed up.

Electoral Strength and Weakness Cuts Both Ways

So Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary by a bit over 9% of the vote. My prediction was 6%. Not a big difference, but the Clinton camp is happy enough they didn't lose more of their 20 point lead of six weeks, and for the Obama camp that means things are far better than they were looking not long ago. Once again we've seen that the better known Clinton has an early advantage at the polls, but as Obama campaigns and people get to see him, his polling numbers improve.

On the delegate count side of things the totals are still not in from enough congressional districts to have a final count, but maybe Clinton picks up a dozen delegates out of 158 as I predicted. Still to be determined.

Pundits are latching on to the Clinton camp's questioning of Obama's November electability when he can't win in Ohio and Pennsylvania. However, a look at the results map in Pennsylvania shows that Clinton got most of her support in the less populous counties, while Obama excelled in places like Philadelphia. Sound familiar? It should because that was the pattern in the last presidential election, when Bush won in rural areas and Kerry won in urban areas. Clinton has been claiming Obama has been winning in so-called "Red States", yet hers is the campaign that has been weak in the urban Democratic strongholds.

How weak?

Well, just look at Philadelphia County's presidential election result from 2004 as compared to today's Democratic primary.

As of this writing, Obama received 279,921 (65%) votes and Clinton got 149,657 (35%).

In 2004, John Kerry got 542,205 (80%) and George Bush got 130,099 (19%).

I should note that in the 2004 primaries, which by that time were meaningless, Kerry got 94,072 (71%) to Howard Dean's 20,317 (15%), and for what it's worth, in that same primary Bush received more votes 26,759 than were cast for Republican candidates today.

These numbers reveal a number of things beside the fact Republican support looks to have dwindled.

Firstly, Democratic turnout was a far greater than in the past, and counted for 79% of the total of voters that voted for Kerry in the 2004 general election. The Pennsylvania primary was a closed primary, so only registered Democrats could vote for Obama or Clinton, and November 2007 registration numbers suggest that there are at least 749,652 registered Democrats in Philadelphia County, making today's turnout around 57%.

More importantly though is that Kerry crushed Bush in 2004 in Philadelphia County, so how can Clinton claim she will be the better Democratic candidate when she can't win in such an urban Democratic stronghold?

If she wants to make the argument that voters in Republican states are meaningless, then the corollary must hold true that the voters in Democratic urban strongholds, particularly in swing states, must be vital voters to win.

Yet she hasn't been able to, not in Philadelphia, and not in many other cities around the country.

At the end of the day, this is a fruitless exercise that will not change the math and the reality of the primary. Obama is within reach of clinching the nomination and Clinton still trails by 130 or so delegates. That gap will surely grow when North Carolina weighs in and Indiana is also looking like a state Clinton can't count on gaining delegates in. Yet Hillary will forge on because she in this for herself, and has little regard for what's best for the Democratic Party. That's a shame. She only sullies herself in the process.

Pennsylvania Predictions

It is hard to predict the delegate count outcome for the (very) long awaited Pennsylvania Democratic primary because of the complicated means in which the 158 pledged (i.e. non-super) delegates are determined.

However, everything starts with the outcome of the statewide vote count and the congressional district vote counts, so I'll start my prediction there.

As expected, we've seen much the same pattern in Pennsylvania as we did in Ohio, where Obama was able to significantly reduce the gap in the polls. In Ohio Obama didn't close the deal and Clinton won the popular vote 54% to 44%. Yet she only picked up 9 delegates more than Obama for her efforts. In Pennsylvania, Obama was 15% to 20% behind in the polls six weeks ago, but has narrowed that number to somewhere between 5% and 10%. I'm going to predict a 53%-47% margin for Clinton in the statewide vote.

So now to the delegate count.

103 pledged district-level delegates will be elected on Tuesday. These delegates will come out of 19 different congressional districts, each with only between 3 and 7 delegates, making for little ability for either candidate to make big delegate count gains because a 53%-47% win in a 7 delegate CD will result in a 4-3 split.

An additional 35 pledged at-large delegates will be chosen by the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee in proportion to the statewide primary vote. That same 53%-47% win would produce a 19-16 split.

Finally, 20 Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs) will make up another proportionally split set of delegates based on the statewide primary vote. A 53%-47% win would produce a 11-9 split of PLEOs.

So, with that said, I'm going to predict that Clinton wins 85 delegates and Obama wins 73, giving Clinton only a 12 delegate gain, far short of the 130 to 150 delegates she need to draw even with Obama on that count.

I'll also predict that Clinton will not drop out after this primary, despite what will be a relatively disappointing narrow win given her large lead in the polls in Pennsylvania just last month. However, she will be pressured to win in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th, or else drop out at that time, but given her stubborness so far I doubt that she will even drop out then.