TLIAD: Waiting for Obama

[Plumber]

I wonder what it's like over in the TL where President Clinton's disappointing time in office is now drawing to a close and the Democratic base is excited about the return of Senator Obama to claim the crown that should've been his six years ago, to clear aside the age of bitter deadlock and usher in a new era of bipartisanship and good feeling.

In all seriousness, somebody should do that as a TLIAD.

 

[Plumber]

Bad Decisions Came Back to Haunt Democrats in Midterms

Americans reeling from the economy still resent the policy choices that President Clinton and congressional Democrats made early on. By Charlie Cook

Democrats are now sifting through the rubble of what was their party on election night, examining losses—and even near losses—that seemed fairly inconceivable just a couple of weeks ago. Such epically bad nights rarely have a single cause, and this one was no different. But some factors weighed more heavily than others.
No truer words were ever spoken then when President Clinton told a Northwestern University audience last month, "I am not on the ballot this fall. But make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them." Civics and political-science textbooks have long told us that midterm elections are usually a referendum on the incumbent president and their party. Yet every time a midterm election comes up, there seems to be a certain amount of denial that occurs, though wishful thinking is probably a more accurate term. The "out" party wants a nationalized election, while the "in" party expresses complete confidence that it can effectively "localize" the elections instead.

However, to the extent that elections are about any single issue, far more often than not that issue is the economy. Although some Democrats were content to recite the improvement in the unemployment rate—which has dropped below 6 percent—and how many consecutive months the economy has created 200,000 or more jobs, in reality this election was not about the unemployment rate per se or what any economist says about how the economy is doing. Rather, it was about how Americans feel the economy is doing. The fact is that most Americans do not believe the economy is doing better. Specifically, they do not think their personal economy has yet recovered.
Seventy-eight percent of voters said they were either "very" or "somewhat" worried about the direction of the economy for the next year in the National Election Pool exit poll for ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC. Only 21 percent said they were "not too worried" or "not at all worried" about it. Only 29 percent of those polled said they thought the state of the economy was either "excellent" or "good," while 70 percent said either "not so good" or "poor." Just 32 percent felt that the economy is "getting better," the same percentage said it was "getting worse." Thirty-four percent of those polled said the economy was staying about the same. Only 28 percent of respondents said their family's financial situation is better now than it was two years ago; 25 percent said worse, and 45 percent said about the same. Just 32 percent said they thought the U.S economic system is fair to most Americans, compared to 63 percent who say it favors the wealthy. Finally, and most devastating, just 22 percent said that life for the next generation will be better than it is today. More than twice as many—48 percent—said it will be worse, while 27 percent said it will be about the same. As has been reported often, real median family income is no higher today than it was in 2000.

Hillary, congressional Democrats, and members of the Democratic Party outside of Washington are paying dearly for having simply checked the box on an economic stimulus package in early 2009 and then quickly moving on to a liberal agenda. They passed a cap-and-trade bill, the DREAM Act, and made unionization and fair pay for women easier. In doing this, the Clinton White House neglected the mantra that had gotten them elected in 1992—“it’s the economy, stupid.”

In mid-summer 2009, polls universally showed that Americans wanted the president, along with the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, to focus on the economy and job creation. Instead, in its infinite wisdom, Congress chose to focus almost exclusively and obsessively on healthcare reform and liberal wish lists. Although several of the laws passed are worthy reforms that have improved the governance of our republic, the effort would likely have been better spent in a time when people weren't so worried about their economic well-being. This horrific choice, to focus on environmentalism, feminism, and unionization rather than the economy, besides costing Democrats their congressional majority—not to mention platoons of Democratic governors and state legislators who would have been handy in drawing the congressional redistricting maps the next year—created scar tissue that remains to this day.

Americans resent the policy choices that Hillary and congressional Democrats made early on. Voters saw little action that would have turned the economy around and created jobs for many working- and middle-class Americans. Their struggle continues to this day, and it cost Democrats their Senate majority—again—last week.
Choices have consequences, and elections have consequences. The decisions of 2009 and 2010 just keep on having consequences for Democrats.

Speaking directly to Republicans: Enjoy the big victory, but remember, your brand is still badly damaged. In Fox News's final pre-election survey, the national poll showed that while the Democratic Party had a net negative of 10 points in voter favorability—42 percent favorable, 52 percent unfavorable—the Republican Party was upside-down by 16 points—38 percent favorable, 54 percent unfavorable. The national exit poll showed a net negative of 12 points in favorability for each party. So, for the GOP, election night came with both good and bad news. The bad news being that even with this big win, Americans still do not like the GOP. The good news for Republicans, this time around, is that this election was not about you.

Credit for writing almost all of this post goes to Charlie Cook himself, at http://www.nationaljournal.com/off-to-the-races/bad-decisions-came-back-to-haunt-democrats-in-midterms-20141110. The alterations are intentionally few.

 

[DTanza]

I'd just like to thank you for this.

 

[Meadow]

Oh, I like this idea. I will be watching.

 

[Plumber]

United States presidential election, 2008
55.11% Hillary Clinton / Evan Bayh (Democratic) 390 EVs
43.35% John McCain / Tim Pawlenty (Republican) 148 EVs

 

[Plumber]

The rationale behind the alternate 2008 election results comes from Harvard Prof. Stephens-Davidowitz's study on how racial animus cost Obama roughtly 3-5% of the popular vote in 2008:
View attachment RacialAnimusObama.pdf

I'd just like to thank you for this.

Of course.

Oh, I like this idea. I will be watching.

Thank you. I'm a bit pressed for time today, so the original writing will probably be less than I'd like. But I think the discipline of actually finishing a TLIAD is more important (to me) right now than a first draft that can be tinkered with later on. So if you expect the writing quality to even scratch the surface of yours, you may be disappointed.

 

[Seleucus]

Not sure that this would actually happen in case of a Clinton nomination in 2008 (Pawlenty being picked as VP doesn't suit McCain's gambling personality, and with that big of a presidential victory in 2008, you'd get a quite different economy).... but as a TLIAD, I'll accept it

 

[Constantinople]

Makes sense she'd win more states... but why did she lose Indiana, Virginia and Iowa?

 

[OnlyAlb]

This is going to be great. Is Romney still the nominee in 2012?Was Healthcare reform passed?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Can we get a GOP that says "If only we had Obama..."?

 

[Westbrook]

Following this with interest!

A few notes:

-Did Obama lose in 2008, or did he simply decide, "I'm not going to run, I'm going to see what my options are in a few years"? Remember, his original intention was to serve out his full Senate term until 2010?

-I was confused by the electoral map, until I realized it was a color swap, but then I thought, "Wait, with Bayh on the ticket, how does Hillary lose Indiana in 2008?" Iowa I can imagine you can attribute to Pawlenty spillover; and in Minnesota I imagine that A) the Presidential race was exceedingly close, and B) with T-Paw on the ticket Coleman may have been able to defeat Franken.

 

[Plumber]

United States Senate elections, 2008

Democratic gains:
Alaska: Mark Begich defeats Ted Stevens (inc.) 49.77%-44.52%
Colorado: Mark Udall defeats Bob Schaffer 55.8%-44.5%
Georgia: Jim Martin defeats Saxby Chambliss (inc.) 50.89%-46.83%
Kentucky: Bruce Lunsford defeats Mitch McConnell (inc. Minority Leader) 52.97%-47.03%
Minnesota: Al Franken defeats Norm Coleman (inc.) and Dean Barkley 44.23%-39.15-14.98%
Mississippi special: Ronnie Musgrove defeats Roger Wicker (inc.) 50.01%-49.99%
New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen defeats John E. Sunnunu (inc.) 56.72%-41.20%
New Mexico: Tom Udall defeats Steve Pearce 63.40%-37.23%
North Carolina: Kay Hagan defeats Elizabeth Dole (inc.) 53.74%-43.35%
Oregon: Jeff Merkley defeats Gordon Smith (inc.) 52.97%-41.87%
Virginia: Mark Warner defeats Jim Gilmore 59.00%-39.53%

51 + 11 - 0 = 62 seat supermajority for the Democratic coalition
Majority Leader: Harry Reid (NV)
Majority Whip: Dick Durbin (IL)
Minority Leader: Jon Kyl (AZ)
Minority Whip: Lamar Alexander (TN)

When the new Senate was sworn in, the Senate balance stood at 60-40 in favor of the Democratic Party due to the unresolved election results in Mississippi and the appointment of Becky Skillman (R-IN) by Governor Mitch Daniels to fulfill the seat of Vice President Evan Bayh. The defection of Arlen Specter (R-PA) in February changed the balance to 61-39, and it increased again in the Democrats' favor to 62-38 with the certification of Musgrove's win in Mississippi. Scott Brown (R-MA) won a 2010 special election to replace Democrat Michael Dukakis' interim appointment following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. This brought the balance back to 61-39 before the 2010 election cycle.

 

[Plumber]

Not sure that this would actually happen in case of a Clinton nomination in 2008 (Pawlenty being picked as VP doesn't suit McCain's gambling personality, and with that big of a presidential victory in 2008, you'd get a quite different economy).... but as a TLIAD, I'll accept it

T-Paw was supposed to be the "safe" pick. A risky gamble like Palin is a nonstarter for the campaign Republicans had been prepared to run for eight years.

This is going to be great. Is Romney still the nominee in 2012?Was Healthcare reform passed?

Hillary Clinton didn't want to emulate her husband 16 years earlier, so HCR was saved for later. It never got passed ITTL.

As for 2012, we'll see but I'm currently leaning towards no...

Makes sense she'd win more states... but why did she lose Indiana, Virginia and Iowa?

Despite Bayh being on the ticket, HRC narrowly lost Indiana. A lot of enthusiastic Obama for America workers (based in Chicago) helped tip it towards him ITTL.

Iowa and Virginia are based off polling that showed HRC weaker than Obama in those states. The losses there were very narrow and she would have won them had the Clinton campaign put a bit more strength there (instead they targeted Appalachia) in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Following this with interest!

A few notes:

-Did Obama lose in 2008, or did he simply decide, "I'm not going to run, I'm going to see what my options are in a few years"? Remember, his original intention was to serve out his full Senate term until 2010?

-I was confused by the electoral map, until I realized it was a color swap, but then I thought, "Wait, with Bayh on the ticket, how does Hillary lose Indiana in 2008?" Iowa I can imagine you can attribute to Pawlenty spillover; and in Minnesota I imagine that A) the Presidential race was exceedingly close, and B) with T-Paw on the ticket Coleman may have been able to defeat Franken.

He lost by a sliver. Thande's quote is the premise of this TL.

T-Paw helped Coleman, but not as much as Hillary being white helped Franken.

Can we get a GOP that says "If only we had Obama..."?

Of course.

 

[Plumber]

What if the Clinton administration fully sided with Iran's Green Movement?

Saturday, June 10, 2010
A YEAR ago on Saturday, a movement was born that offers the best chance of ending the threat posed by Iran's support for terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons. Millions of Iranians turned out to vote against the extremist government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a presidential election -- and were outraged when the regime announced an improbable landslide victory for the incumbent. Since then, what is now known as the Green Movement has swelled into the most consequential challenge ever mounted to Iran's Islamic theocracy. Through sheer brutality -- shootings, mass arrests, tortures, rapes and executions -- the regime has mostly driven it off the streets; leaders called off demonstrations that had been planned for Saturday. But the popular revulsion with Iran's rulers that drives the opposition has not faded.
To a large extent, the Green Movement is leaderless. The opposition presidential candidates it initially rallied behind are aging adherents of clerical rule who have little in common with Iran's huge ranks of frustrated young people. Yet it seems likely that a victory by the opposition would mean a shift toward democracy and liberal reforms. The White House was slow to embrace the movement -- so much so that protesters held up signs last year asking President Clinton, "Are you with them or with us?" Lately, Mrs. Clinton has made some stronger statements, including one on Thursday that was delivered in his name by an aide before the National Endowment for Democracy, which gave its annual award to the Green Movement.
But as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pointed out in a powerful speech before the group also on Thursday, the president has hesitated to "unleash America's full moral power to support the Iranian people." Mrs. Clinton clings to the hope that the radical clique in Tehran will eventually agree to negotiate in good faith -- "an assumption," Mr. McCain noted, that "seems totally at odds with the character of this Iranian regime."
The senator proposed "a different goal: to mobilize our friends and allies in like-minded countries, both in the public sphere and the private sector, to challenge the legitimacy of this Iranian regime, and to support Iran's people in changing the character of their government -- peacefully, politically, on their own terms and in their own ways."
In fact, the administration has been moving in this direction. It has taken some small steps to help Iranians overcome the regime's Internet censorship. Many of the new sanctions are focused on companies controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which is the regime's backbone and prime instrument of repression. And the State Department has started using millions appropriated by Congress to start Internet fire-wall busting on the web of Islamic Republic's citizens.

Mrs. Clinton's strategy hasn't slowed Iran's nuclear program or its aggressions toward Iraq, Lebanon or Israel. The popular discontent reflected in the Green Movement offers another avenue for action, one that is more in keeping with America's ideals. It's time for the president to fully embrace it.

Almost entirely the same content as the OTL article.

 

[SlideAway]

The rationale behind the alternate 2008 election results comes from Harvard Prof. Stephens-Davidowitz's study on how racial animus cost Obama roughtly 3-5% of the popular vote in 2008:
View attachment 243184


Of course.


Thank you. I'm a bit pressed for time today, so the original writing will probably be less than I'd like. But I think the discipline of actually finishing a TLIAD is more important (to me) right now than a first draft that can be tinkered with later on. So if you expect the writing quality to even scratch the surface of yours, you may be disappointed.

Yeah I don't really buy this. It says race cost Obama 3-5% compared to a hypothetical candidate with all his strengths and none of his weaknesses. During the actual primary campaign, Hillary never consistently did better than Obama - they both did roughly the same against McCain in polls, albeit with slightly different coalitions. Keep in mind too that Obama's victory was right about where the fundamentals predicted.

I'm aware that the exit poll had Hillary outperforming Obama, but again you can't presume that in an actual election cycle that would be the case - by that point, Hillary was a blank slate to voters who were dissatisfied with both candidates. Had she not Obama been the nominee, he would have polled better, as he did early in the cycle when Hillary was the frontrunner and he was someone with significantly higher favorability ratings among the general public.

Another factor is that against Hillary, McCain likely doesn't pick Palin (as you note) and doesn't thereby alienate moderates and independents as much.

Overall, I think she'd win by basically about the same, but with weaker margins in the Upper Midwest, the Pacific NW, Virginia, and Colorado (all states where polls consistently had Obama doing better), but with stronger margins in FL and OH. She'd likely carry Missouri, Arkansas, and maybe West Virginia, but I doubt she'd have carried Kentucky or Tennessee. And unlike Obama she probably would not have won Indiana or NC.

Effects on the Senate? Maybe no Al Franken, but maybe Lunsford wins in Kentucky.

 

[Japhy]

This is a fun little project I have to say, I'm liking what seems to be the interesting contrast between the changes and the "No, any Democrat would have gone this way" stuff that we're seeing here. It will certainly be interesting though to see what the end result of the Health Care Reform is since Hillary was neck and name deep in the last fight.

 

[Orville_third]

I wonder who got that !-2% of the third party voters? For me it was Barr since he had the best chance of winning my state. (I was willing to consider McKinney.)
Is Clinton still planning on keeping troops in Iraq? I assume the Iraquis won't like that, especially if a certain PFC releases information. (Of course, she may have less of a reason to if someone not Clinton is SecState.)
Who is in the Cabinet? Did SB 1070 go through?
Is Clinton planning any big initiatives?
Who is Clinton's NID? Will they be sticking to the 2007 assessments of Iran's nuclear program (i.e. Iran is NOT seeking nukes), or will they listen to the establishment and toe the line?

 

[Plumber]

This is a fun little project I have to say, I'm liking what seems to be the interesting contrast between the changes and the "No, any Democrat would have gone this way" stuff that we're seeing here. It will certainly be interesting though to see what the end result of the Health Care Reform is since Hillary was neck and name deep in the last fight.

I figure that HRC will want to avoid doing healthcare reform first, and as a result, it ends up never happening due to 2010 being a wipeout like OTL. But since I literally started this TL on a spur of the moment, I'm not as familiar with HRC's timing plans as I would be. If there is evidence she was willing to implement it earlier, I'll retcon this. But for now, some Very Serious People have persuaded her to let it rest for now — much as Obama did IOTL for immigration reform.

 

[OnlyAlb]

I figure that HRC will want to avoid doing healthcare reform first, and as a result, it ends up never happening due to 2010 being a wipeout like OTL. But since I literally started this TL on a spur of the moment, I'm not as familiar with HRC's timing plans as I would be. If there is evidence she was willing to implement it earlier, I'll retcon this. But for now, some Very Serious People have persuaded her to let it rest for now — much as Obama did IOTL for immigration reform.

Since there is no Healthcare reform, are the GOP more willing to pass a healthcare reform bill? Before Obama, healthcare proposals were debated in the Senate, some even sponsored by DeMint. So my assumption is, that an Obamacare lite bill could be a GOP platform.

 

[SlideAway]

I figure that HRC will want to avoid doing healthcare reform first, and as a result, it ends up never happening due to 2010 being a wipeout like OTL. But since I literally started this TL on a spur of the moment, I'm not as familiar with HRC's timing plans as I would be. If there is evidence she was willing to implement it earlier, I'll retcon this. But for now, some Very Serious People have persuaded her to let it rest for now — much as Obama did IOTL for immigration reform.

I disagree with this too, though I admit that Hillary having a near-identical presidency to Obama's makes for a thoroughly boring timeline.

The thing is health care reform was always the most logical big-ticket item in '09-'10. Compared to cap and trade, immigration reform, entitlement reform, or education, it actually had fairly solid party unity (especially compared to cap and trade). And it had been perhaps the biggest domestic policy subject during the Democratic Primary.

Hillary herself was always a health care wonk, and her failure in 1993-1994 made her if anything more determined to get it right the second time around. It was her campaign, not Obama's, that generally attracted the top health care people, and it seems very unlikely to me that she wouldn't have made a major push. If anything Obama initially (during the campaign) seemed likelier to emphasize cap-and-trade, education, and good government reforms, with health care as a second-tier priority.

But don't just take my word for it. From Ezra Klein (plus an excerpt from a piece by John Heileman):

John Heilemann, who also wrote a WWHHD piece, got a more ambivalent answer:

What about health care? Some speculate that Clinton was so scarred by her experience in 1993 and 1994 that she would have shied away from it altogether. But people close to Hillary consider that view nonsense. “Health care was her thing, her passion, her highest priority,” says one. “She might have pursued it differently than he did, but she would’ve pursued it just as hard.” It’s possible, of course, that in the face of Scott Brown’s election, she would have acceded to the (inevitable) counsel of her Über-strategist Mark Penn to scale back her ambitions. Or, then again, she might have gotten the thing passed more quickly than Obama did. What seems dubious, however, is the notion that health-care reform wouldn’t have become a central rallying point for the Republicans — that the nightmare of the town halls of 2009 could have been avoided.

And I did a quick canvass of my own and was told that there was no way Clinton would have ever let health-care reform go if there was a real chance of getting a bill passed into law -- which there of course was.

So what's going on here? We're talking to different people, and I'd hazard a guess that we're seeing the same division that existed in the Obama White House. Talk to people in the policy shops for either Obama or Clinton, and they think that the reason to govern is to pass things like health-care reform, and they further think their bosses agree with them. Talk to people in the political shops, and they're more ambivalent about big pieces of legislation that don't necessarily win you elections, and they think their bosses agree with them.

In the Obama White House, the "cut-your-losses" position was held by Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod. They wanted Obama to pare back the effort, and they were overruled. They've got their analogues in Clintonland -- notably Mark Penn -- and we just don't know who would've won that fight. My hunch is the policy people, because the logic of the situation favored passing the bill, and Clinton wanted to pass a bill. But we'll never really know.

The more interesting question is whether Clinton would've handled the health-care reform process differently. I've heard Clinton was skeptical about the prospects for bipartisanship from the very beginning, and so some suggest she wouldn't have let things like the Gang of Six drag on so long. But given that Max Baucus ran the relevant committee and he -- and other moderate Democrats -- wanted to either have a bipartisan bill or show that they gave a bipartisan bill every possible chance, it's not clear what Clinton would've done differently. The Obama White House didn't love the Gang of Six either, but they didn't really see a way around it.

And Jonathan Bernstein:

... I think it’s highly unlikely that Clinton, who ran on health-care reform just as much as Obama did, would have abandoned the No. 1 long-term priority of the Democratic Party after an election in which Democrats won a huge landslide. The odds are strong that she would have rolled out almost exactly the same plan that Obama tried, and that the initial reaction would have been practically identical: strong support from mainstream liberals, cautious but real support from moderate Democrats, and blanket opposition from Republicans.