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Josh Kraushaar says the Dem party is feeling the Obama magic. Like everything else he touches, it is suffering. The party shows evidence of decline when you look at its thin bench.
Nearly two years ago, then-Rep. Artur Davis, still a Democrat in good standing, was lamenting the future of his now-former party. In an interview I had with him back then, he expressed concern that Democrats talk the talk when it comes to diversity, but the party is surprisingly thin when it comes to recruiting and electing viable minority statewide candidates. The comments came in the wake of his disappointing primary loss for Alabama governor, and then-Rep. Kendrick Meek’s third-place finish in the Florida Senate race, where Meek got little support from party leaders.
Initially, I thought he was overstating things. After all, an overwhelming number of minority voters back Democratic candidates. But look at the Democrats’ list of convention speakers, and the lack of a deep, diverse bench is painfully evident. The party is highlighting the stars of yesteryear–former President Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, and defeated Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Among the party’s Senate recruits, the only minority candidate is Richard Carmona of Arizona, who faces a steep challenge in a solidly Republican state.
Davis’ critics may call him a turncoat, but his new party features more minorities holding Senate seats and governors’ offices, and they made sure convention viewers knew it. The tale of the tape: Republicans boast five minorities as governors or senators–Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez–and should have a sixth when Ted Cruz wins a gimme Senate race in Texas. Democrats have only four: Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and the two senators from Hawaii, Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka. Of the four, only Patrick has been touted as a possible contender for a future presidential ticket.
The problem, as Davis explained to me, was that most of the Democrats’ minority representation comes from House members who hail from overwhelmingly liberal, majority-minority districts. Most of these members of Congress don’t have the broad political coalition to appeal to a wider swath of voters. …
… For all the hype about the historic nature of President Obama’s presidency, he has brought along with him precious few Democrats who present the same post-racial appeal he showcased in 2008. He’s been single-mindedly focused on his own reelection at the expense of assisting down-ballot allies, as The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. …
Kimberley Strassel has similar thoughts.
… By 2009, President Obama presided over what could fairly be called a big-tent coalition. The Blue Dog caucus had swelled to 51 members, representing plenty of conservative America. Democrats held the majority of governorships. Mr. Obama had won historic victories in Virginia and North Carolina. The prediction of liberal demographers John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s 2004 book, “The Emerging Democratic Majority”—lasting progressive dominance via a coalition of minorities, women, suburbanites and professionals—attracted greater attention among political analysts.
It took Mr. Obama two years to destroy this potential, with an agenda that forced his party to field vote after debilitating vote—stimulus, ObamaCare, spending, climate change. The public backlash, combined with the president’s mismanagement of the economy, has reversed Democrats’ electoral gains and left a party smaller than at any time since the mid-1990s.
Of the 21 Blue Dogs elected since 2006, five remain in office. The caucus is on the verge of extinction, as members have retired, been defeated in primaries waged by liberal activists, or face impossible re-elections. The GOP is set to take Senate seats in North Dakota and Nebraska, and maybe to overturn Democratic toeholds in states from Montana to Virginia. There is today a GOP senator in Massachusetts. Republicans claim 29 governorships and may gain two to four more this year. …
… The liberals who supported Mr. Obama’s expansion of the entitlement state are pinning everything on Mr. Obama’s re-election, assuming it will cement their big-government gains and allow them to grind back congressional majorities in the future.
But contemplate the situation if he loses. Consider a Democratic Party that may hold neither the White House nor Congress, that has disappeared in parts of the country, and that has few future Obama-like stars. Compare that to 2008. This is the party Barack Obama un-built. …
Now a NY Times columnist has noticed the wasteland that will be left behind by this administration. It’ll be interesting to see if Maureen Dowd keeps slamming The One.
How did the one formerly known as The One go for two?
In his renomination acceptance speech here on Thursday night, he told us that America’s problems were tougher to solve than he had originally thought.
And that’s why he has kindly agreed to give us more time.
Because, after all, it’s our fault. …
… We admit we like our solitude — maybe a little too much given our chosen profession. We could have opened up our weekend golf foursomes to a few pols — even women! — rather than just the usual junior aides.
And we could probably stomach giving lifts in the limo to some mayors and members of Congress, and actually pretend that we care about their advice — not to mention their votes.
Maybe we could drop the disdainful body language. For that matter, shouldn’t we put a little more effort into helping elect Democrats to Congress? Just because we only did a cameo in the Senate doesn’t mean some people there don’t think of it as a star turn.
Apparently, etiquette matters. We could send out a few thank-you notes to big donors and celebrities who give benefit concerts. Oddly, it turns out folks like to frame notes signed by the president and hang them on the wall.
Maybe we relied too much on Valerie Jarrett, a k a the Night Stalker and Keeper of the Essence. She says people should woo us. But could it be that we need to woo them as well?
How could we have let the storybook president lose his narrative? …
The jobs report gets a look from some of our favorites. Craig Pirrong is first.
We now understand exactly why Obama gave such a listless performance last night. He knew the jobs report would be abysmal.
And abysmal it is. Anemic payroll growth of 96,000, along with downward revisions of the July numbers. The unemployment rate declined-but only because labor force participation fell to its lowest level in 31 years.
And like clockwork, the administration trotted out its Chief of Economic Advisors, Alan Krueger, to say it was “important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
That is truly comical. Krueger has been saying that every month. I figured he would say it again, so I Googled “Krueger one monthly jobs report” and bingo, up came that link.
Not too predictable. But too pathetic. This pointillism-trying to discredit each single jobs report as not particularly informative-rings quite hollow when each successive jobs report is anemic. Individually-yes, probably not important. Collectively: damning. I wonder how Krueger maintains his self-respect. But I guess you have to check that at the door when you take that job in troubled times.
So I guess Recovery Summer will have to wait until 2013, having failed to appear in 2010, 2011, and 2012. …
Mort Zuckerman says the jobs report is actually worse than it looks.
… The best single indicator of how confident workers are about their jobs is reflected in how they cling to them. The so-called quit rate has sagged to the lowest in years.
Older Americans can’t afford to quit. Ironically, since the recession began, employment in the age group of 55 and older is up 3.9 million, even as total employment is down by five million. These citizens hope to retire with dignity, but they feel the need to bolster savings as a salve for the stomach-churning decline in their net worth, 75% of which has come from the fall in the value of their home equity.
The baby-boomer population postponing its exit from the workforce in a recession creates a huge bottleneck that blocks youth employment. Displaced young workers now face double-digit unemployment and more life at home with their parents.
Many young couples decide that they can’t afford to start a family, and as a consequence the birthrate has just hit a 25-year low of 1.87%. Nor are young workers’ prospects very good. Layoff announcements have risen from year-ago levels and hiring plans have dropped sharply. People are not going to swallow talk of recovery until hiring is occurring at a pace to bring at least 300,000 more hires per month than the economy has been averaging for the past two years.
Furthermore, the jobs that are available are mostly not good ones. More than 40% of the new private-sector jobs are in low-paying categories such as health care, leisure activities, bars and restaurants.
We are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression. Consider two indicators: First, food stamps: More than 45 million Americans are in the program! An almost incredible record. It’s 15% of the population compared with the 7.9% participation from 1970-2000. Food-stamp enrollment has been rising at a rate of 400,000 per month over the past four years.
Second, Social Security disability—another record. More than 11 million Americans are collecting federal disability checks. Half of these beneficiaries have signed on since President Obama took office more than three years ago.
These dependent millions are the invisible counterparts of the soup kitchens and bread lines of the 1930s, invisible because they get their checks in the mail. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that millions of people who had good private-sector jobs now have to rely on welfare for life support.
This shameful situation, intolerable for a nation as wealthy as the United States, is not going to go away on Nov. 7. No matter who wins, the next president will betray the country if he doesn’t swiftly fashion policies to address the specific needs of the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed. …
If the work force continues shrinking at this pace, we’ll get the unemployment rate down to that 5 percent President Obama promised us before you know it. …
And Jennifer Rubin reminds the report is even worse because of the downward revisions to June and July reports.
On the heels of the president’s widely panned speech, a dreadful August jobs report was released this morning. The expectation was 125,00 to 130,000 new jobs; only 96,000 were added. Moreover, July and June job reports were adjusted downward. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported: “The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +64,000 to +45,000, and the change for July was revised from +163,000 to +141,000.” …