Home > Thinking Right
Popularity doesn’t always transfer well
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In 1938 a popular president came to Georgia and urged the defeat of incumbent U.S. Sen. Walter F. George, who’d broken with him over his efforts to pack the U.S. Supreme Court. FDR’s involvement probably assured George’s re-election.
A presumably wiser President-elect Barack Obama has sent his voice instead. Smart move. The odds are against Georgians giving Obama what he wants — another U.S. senator to support his agenda, especially one who could be the decisive vote in blocking filibusters against court-packing or aggressive expansion of government.
Getting too closely associated with the Jim Martin campaign involves real political risk for Obama. Better to send the surrogates for appearances and his voice for radio commercials, as he did in the week just ended. One of those surrogates, former President Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to carry Georgia, knows the inability of popular political figures — including those headed to the White House — to transfer popularity.
Clinton won Georgia in 1992 and came here to campaign for incumbent Democrat Wyche Fowler, who had been drawn into a runoff by State Sen. Paul Coverdell. Though Fowler led by 35,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast, Coverdell won the runoff by 16,000 votes of about 1.2 million cast despite Clinton’s efforts.
A relevant difference between then and now is that blacks were 22 percent of registered voters in 1992 and about 30 percent now. The latter number is particularly significant.
Three Republican members of the Georgia House of Representatives lost to Democrats on Nov. 4. They included Steve Tumlin of Marietta, John Heard of Lawrenceville and Allen Freeman of Macon. In 2004, Tumlin’s district was 26.4 percent black; this year it was 30.9 percent. Heard’s was 21.3 in 2004 and 29.9 this year. Freeman’s was 32.9 in 2004 and 36.5 this year. A fourth, Republican incumbent Robert Mumford of Conyers, conceded a district where the black percentage of registered voters had gone from 32.4 in 2004 to 48.9 in 2008.
White Democrats, meanwhile, are disappearing in districts where the percentage of black registered voters is below 30. Two of them, the veteran Jeanette Jamieson of Toccoa and Charles Jenkins of Blairsville, lost to Republicans this year.
Without question, Martin’s chances hinge on black turnout and primarily black turnout in three counties in Metro Atlanta. Obama won Fulton 272,000 to 130,000 for John McCain. He won DeKalb by 255,000 to 65,000 and Clayton by 83,000 to 17,000.
On Nov. 4, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss got about 1,000 fewer votes than McCain in Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton. But Martin got 23,000 fewer than Obama in Fulton, 21,000 fewer in DeKalb and 7,000 fewer in Clayton — meaning more than 50,000 Obama supporters didn’t bother to vote for Martin while they were standing in the voting booth. Those three counties accounted for more than one-fifth of the votes cast in the U.S. Senate race.
The Democratic base in the state is probably about 40 percent; maybe slightly more. Blacks turning out for Obama clearly boosted the entire Democratic ticket. Obama ran about 6 percentage points better than John Kerry did four years ago; blacks accounted for most all of it since exit polls indicated that he’d run slightly less well among whites than did Kerry.
The uncertainty is whether their passion for Obama inspires them to return to the polls on Dec. 2 to vote in a runoff that features two obscure races ( a runoff for a seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals and another for a seat on the Public Service Commission) and a Democratic candidate who doesn’t stir the masses.
In 1992 Georgia still had a solid state Democratic Party network controlling the state House, Senate and governor’s office and an immensely popular Democratic U.S. senator in Sam Nunn. That advantage no longer exists. Obama has about 25 field offices around Georgia, but that’s not the same.
What it all adds up to is this: Long-term, Republicans have a serious concern. With black registration at 30 percent, the stars could soon align for a charismatic Democrat running statewide. That Democrat most likely is not Jim Martin. He has a high and steep mountain to climb getting voters who were inspired by somebody else to return three weeks later to vote for him.
Permalink | Comments (77) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Tobacco money, Bailout Window, Eric Holder
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Advocacy groups are making their annual claim that Georgia should be spending more on anti-smoking efforts. Yet Georgia is at precisely the national average and smoking by adults here has declined from 22 percent to 19 percent in three years. This line of argument — that dollars should be thrown at programs on the basis of a formula or the availability of free money (the tobacco industry settlement) — is something the governor and legislators really have to resist. The tobacco settlement dollars, amounting to $1.42 billion over 10 years, should be put into the state’s General Fund and spent according to competing needs, advocacy groups and phony report cards notwithstanding.
Hurry. The Bailout Window is closing. Or it is fervently hoped. “Printing billion-dollar sums of cash each time an industry faces turmoil is not an economic solution; it is a moral hazard,” declared U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell). He’s five words short, though. Insert “or state or local government” between “industry” and “faces.”
The likely new Attorney General in the Obama administration, Eric Holder, is the Clinton administration retread who essentially green-lighted the Marc Rich pardon in the last hour of Bill’s term of office, prompting a national outrage. Two questions here: Could a Republican get away with doing that? And, on a somewhat related matter, will it be a scandal if U.S. attorneys are fired? It was when Democrats found campaign-value scandal in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys two years ago.
Anybody surprised at the report by state auditors that the halls of fame created across Georgia are unlikely to be self-sufficient by July 1, the deadline set by the General Assembly? The Golf Hall of Fame in Augusta and the Aviation Hall of Fame in Warner Robins are required to be self-sufficient by that date. Macon’s Music Hall Fame has a 2011 deadline; its Sports Hall of Fame, 2012. John Abbey, who heads the performance audit division, told legislators that without dramatic increases in fund-raising or attendance, they’ll have to stay on the subsidy dole past the deadlines, according to a Morris News Service account by Brandon Larrabee.
A pro-life advocacy group runs a radio commercial that describes Senate candidate Jim Martin as the leader of a “one-man effort” to kill legislation to ban partial birth abortions. If the effort had no followers, how do we know he led? On the campaign trail, the photos accompanying news accounts of “rallies” usually show a few staffers, a few reporters and some stragglers trying to get in out of the cold. Is it a rally if nobody rallies?
Spend no time trying to make sense of campaign commercials. I watched the one that accused Saxby Chambliss of supporting the FairTax and a 23 percent increase in the sales tax that never once mentioned that it would eliminate the income tax and do away with the IRS. Unimportant, I suppose.
President-elect Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain met and agreed to cooperate on issues like global warming, illegal immigration and others. No surprise here. They sometimes sounded alike on the campaign trail.
Headline: “Auto bailout stuck in neutral.” That is the proper gear.
A trade association representing owners of dry cleaners claims a Florida-based gas marketer, Infinite Energy, exploited the panic of Hurricane Katrina to lock them into long-term contracts at inflated prices. How is this possible? Nobody knows the future of energy prices. Gamble on the future and somebody wins and somebody loses. Case closed.
New-housing construction dropped 4.5 percent last month to the lowest level since 1959. If over-building produced excess inventory, as it did, the market necessarily adjusts, as it’s doing. Too many of anything on the market and somebody wins (buyers) and somebody loses (sellers). Another case closed.
Quote of the week from Jim Martin to Bill Clinton: “You have left us a great legacy.”
Permalink | Comments (76) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Change needed in D.C. and Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While pondering the question of what “change” President-elect Barack Obama represents — he sound like Al Gore on global warming, while recycling the Clintonistas back into positions of power — we look elsewhere today for an example of what’s wrong with government.
At issue is, or was, the question of whether automatic cost-of-living raises amounting to 3 percent per year should be given to retired teachers. A proposal put forth by Gov. Sonny Perdue would have required the Board of Trustees to vote on whether to grant the COLAs and if so, by how much. Beneficiaries naturally objected, as they do nationally when any less-attractive proposal surfaces as part of an effort to fix Social Security.
The teachers so intimidated politicians like Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter that they immediately buckled, urging the board to do nothing to change the system, despite the fact that automatic COLAs were never built into the funding mechanism for the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia.
Under pressure, even Perdue tried to pull his proposal. The board capitulated and voted to continue the automatic-COLA practice.
The lesson here is that politicians can’t stand up to beneficiaries, especially to beneficiaries who are well-organized public employees. The need, therefore, is to change the model — to get politicians out of the post-employment benefits business. The way to do that is to eliminate defined-benefit plans for future employees, including teachers, and to switch to defined-contribution plans where, at the end of every day, the employee and the employer are even. The employee owns his retirement account and takes the cash with him when he moves to other employment.
The current system is an invitation to politicians to pander. It incentivizes employees and retirees to game the system for higher benefits than those their financial contributions warrant.
We’ve seen in Washington that politicians never change. The change has to come, therefore, in the structure of the programs. Build a firewall between beneficiaries and politicians with Retirement Savings Accounts, 401(k)s, Health Savings Accounts and others that give control to individual beneficiaries.
Permalink | Comments (60) | Post your comment |
And then there were two…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrats are now within two of having the filibuster-proof Senate that will allow them to shove through anything they want. News from Alaska is that the pork-barreller and convicted felon Ted Stevens has been defeated by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who will be the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate in almost three decades.
Two figures in the Stevens story highlight the Republican Party of the past and its promise of the future. Alaska voters should have kicked Stevens out. Had his defeat given Democrats the 60 votes they need in the Senate to run roughshod over the opposition, I’d not have objected. Too bad he didn’t have the grace to resign after he was convicted of lying about accepting home improvements without paying for them.
He’s the past. One of the GOP’s rising stars, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, stood tall in moving to expel Stevens from the GOP conference and stripping him of choice committee assignments on Appropriations and on Commerce had he won. Until the absentee ballots from Anchorage were counted, it appeared he had.
DeMint held off at the behest of colleagues who urged him to wait until Stevens had actually been reelected before sanctioning him. Now he’s gone anyway. Good riddance.
DeMint is as conservative as Barack Obama and Joe Biden are liberal, according to the National Journal. Obama ranked #1 and Biden #3 as most liberal in 2007. DeMint ranked #1 as most conservative.
Before conservatives can sell their ideas they have to first establish their credibility. Being just another ethically-challenged politician out to loot the treasury for the home crowd — the Ted Stevens model — doesn’t fly anymore. That’s the model that grows and corrupts government.
Permalink | Comments (86) | Post your comment |
Bailout goes from necessary to nightmarish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bailout goes from necessary to nightmarish
That $700 billion financial sector bailout that I supported — and do still, but with an exit strategy — is a nightmare in the making.
Look what’s happened since the first of the month:
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, smelling a bailout handout, joined the mayors of Philadelphia and Phoenix in asking the federal government for money. In a three-page letter to U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Franklin said the city is facing a $50 million budget shortfall, due of course to the global financial crisis.
MARTA “sold” track and rail cars purchased with federal money and then leased them back for 20 to 25 years, a clear ruse to borrow about $110 million from the future for current consumption. The Internal Revenue Service subsequently disallowed the scheme. From taxpayers’ standpoint it was an immoral transaction because what MARTA sold to banks and investors was tax avoidance. Lenders could depreciate the rail cars. MARTA needs relief because the failed insurance giant AIG guaranteed lease payments and without the guarantee, the cost to MARTA and other transit agencies that did the same thing soared. Transit agencies, including MARTA, want the federal taxpayers it tried to hoodwink with the depreciation scheme to replace AIG in guaranteeing payment.
This should be a warning to Republicans tempted to “sell” public property — freeways or other roads, for example. Anything purchased or built with public money should never be used as a gimmick to sell tax loopholes to the private sector. Nor should it be used to steal the quality of life of future taxpayers by forcing double payment — once now and once later — for the same public property.
Fulton County was discovered, too, to have grossly mismanaged a federal housing program for at least the last eight years. As reported by the AJC’s Spotlight reporter Alison Young, some 60 percent of the $10.5 million given to Fulton since 2000 has been challenged by federal auditors.
Young’s report on the Fulton “affordable” housing disaster is timely. And fair warning. Local governments and housing organizations across Georgia will have $153 million to spend under the $700 billion federal financial sector bailout’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. It’s another of those efforts to push money out the door with the lack of oversight and effectiveness that Fulton has established.
The money can be used for adventures that include buying bad loans, managing the repairs and leasing or selling homes. It puts local taxpayers in the position of doing something at the city and county level that those governments are perfectly incapable of doing or managing. Reporter Alison Young has given us a preview of the future. It’s not pretty.
DeKalb County Commissioners are deciding today whether to accept the $18.5 million the bailout bill makes available. They’ll take it, of course, because it’s free money. “We could be getting our citizens into some quicksand we will never get out of,” says Commissioner Elaine Boyer. “The long-term consequences of a program like this could be a nightmare.”
And then there’s the proposed $25 billion bailout of the Detroit-based automobile industry now before a lame-duck session of Congress. Rather than take the $25 billion already allocated as a loan to the industry to develop fuel-efficient cars, Democrats want another $25 billion from the bailout package.
That package, said White House press secretary Dana Perino, “was never intended by Congress to assist automakers or other sectors of the economy. It was solely intended to deal with what is an ongoing credit crisis in our financial sector.”
While it was essential to contain the panic in the financial sector, the consequences of the $700 billion will bedevil this nation for decades to come. It’s a gigantic opening for politicians to meddle, to pick winners and losers, and to create the social programs that nobody can or will hold accountable.
From a fiscal conservative’s standpoint, that necessary intervention by a Republican administration to save the financial system has opened a door that conservatives lack the numbers and perhaps the will to close. We are seeing a disaster in the making, a blending of social policy and incompetence and a mingling of public and private sector business in a way that puts their risk on our tab.
I fear there’s no stopping what the bailout has started.
Permalink | Comments (92) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Latest comments
Looking at the campaign ads on tv turns my stomach. Republicans seem to think the only solution to economic downs is to cut taxes, because I seldom hear anything else from this Chambliss guy. Jim Martin hasn’t put forth anything to interest... read the full comment by Fred Tucker | Comment on Popularity doesn't always transfer well Read Popularity doesn't always transfer well
Coleman’s lead has been trimed to 180 ballotws with 32% of the ballots left to count. The key could definitely be in the challenged ballots which will be reviewed in mid-December by the Canvass Board. From the Miknnesota Star Tribune:... read the full comment by Chad Harris | Comment on Popularity doesn't always transfer well Read Popularity doesn't always transfer well
i almost feel sorry for obama the weight of the expectation must be enormous.... read the full comment by shiny happy people | Comment on Popularity doesn't always transfer well Read Popularity doesn't always transfer well
Shorter: Bush Cheney have wrecked this country beyond any expectations in history. Get these morons out of the way now and take Suxbutt Chumpass with ‘em.... read the full comment by Chad Harris | Comment on Popularity doesn't always transfer well Read Popularity doesn't always transfer well