Mark Schmitt

Do the Republicans Have a Candidate?

Here’s my analysis of the Republican presidential field for 2008:

• John McCain. I’ve said enough about McCain recently. Some people believe he’s the inevitable nominee; others believe it’s impossible, because too many conservatives are just dead-set against him. I’m in the second camp. And if the nominee, he still faces huge problems: age, health, the fact that he gave up the “Straight-Talk Express” persona that made him a plausible cross-partisan character in the first place. (An interesting debate on TAPPED about David Ignatius’s “A Man Who Won’t Sell His Soul” column concludes that the press explains away any behavior by McCain because they just like him. But that’s a double-edged sword in a presidential campaign. As soon as you hit the campaign trail, the reporters aren’t middle-aged guys who want to hang out with you. They’re 25-year-olds looking to make their mark, and they don’t do it by liking a guy. The McCain cult in the press is weird, but it won’t actually save him.)

• George Allen. We thought he was an amiable dunce, sort of like a guy out of a Budweiser ad. Actually, turns out he’s a preppy Redneck-wanna-be, a type I’ve encountered once or twice in my life and is probably one of the creepiest personality types there is. To be a racist because you were raised in a racist family in the Deep South is one thing, racist by choice is a bit worse.

• Bill Frist. Revealed as inept and probably a crook. Utterly charmless.

• Senator Santorum. Soon to be ex-Senator Santorum. This guy could come back some day, like Nixon, but you can’t lose a swing state and then expect to be the 2008 nominee.

• Mitt Romney. I’ll go with whatever Amy Sullivan says on whether evangelicals will accept a Mormon. Apparently the answer is no.

• Sam Brownback. I asked Amy the other day - if LDS is a problem for evangelicals, what about a convert to Opus Dei? Apparently Brownback also still attends a Protestant church as well. But he is a pure theocrat, which is appealing in his seamless commitment to human rights, but obviously frightening as well. And I don’t know anything about this, but I can’t help imagine that his life before he found God, which includes much of his political career, might involve some interesting stories.

• Condoleeza Rice. That whole Black/Woman thing isn’t a problem, I believe. But are they really going to want the 2008 election to be a referendum on Bush’s foreign policy?

So unless I’m wrong about McCain, it looks to me like the Republican Party doesn’t have a candidate. But I did leave one name out: Newt Gingrich. He’s running. He’s known. His personal failings are old news. He hasn’t had to vote on anything in seven years. And if the Republicans need a change, he alone can tell a powerful story: the Republican Revolution was a glorious victory, squandered by the Abramoffs, the DeLays, and yes, even the Bushes. Newt vs. Clinton? Newt vs. Edwards or Warner or Bayh? I wouldn’t put my money on Newt in any of those contests, but - for that very reason - they would be fun to watch.

Tax Hikes for Workers

Time last week got the scoop on Josh Bolten’s Five-Point Plan to protect the Bush administration from that which it fears the most -- subpoena power - through the familiar strategy of firing up their base. All of them seem lame or craven, or grotesque, not least the promise to ratchet up tensions with Iran for political reasons. “In the face of the Iranian menace, the Democrats will lose,” says a source described as “a Republican frequently consulted by the White House.” But let’s focus on Point three:

…the Administration will focus on two tax measures already in the legislative pipeline-extensions of the rate cuts for stock dividends and capital gains. … “This is very popular with investors, and a lot of Republicans are investors,” the adviser told TIME.

It’s true, more than half of households are now investors in equities, directly or through funds, and an even greater proportion of Republicans. But here are a few statistics from the Tax Policy Center: 16.8% of taxpayers report dividends. Even for people with income between $100,000 and $200,000, capital gains make up only 12% of their income, and for households in the $50,000-$75,000 range, the heart of the middle class, it’s only about 2%. Capital gains don’t make up more than half of income until you get into the range of people making not just millions, but 10 million dollars or more a year.

But the point is not just that this is a tax cut that benefits principally the super-rich. It discriminates between people based on how they get their income. If you work, and you are fortunate to earn a good living from your labors, you are likely to pay a tax rate more than twice that someone living off the income generated by a trust fund.

Defenders will say that it is an incentive for investment. But it does not reward the act of investing; it rewards the act of taking money out of an investment. Consider this: a trust fund kid could liquidate some stocks his grandpa bought, buy expensive imported luxury goods, and pay only 15% on the capital gains. That is rewarding a net reduction in savings and investment, and if you don’t think it happens, meet some trust fund kids. Meanwhile, a person who works for a living and through careful planning saves or invests some of it gets no benefit today, and only a potential a benefit in the future.

And of course it gets worse. Recently both Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard, two former heads of the Council of Economic Advisors under Bush, pointed out this week that tax rates are going to go much, much higher, as high as a 50% top rate. Actually they said they would go higher unless there were massive cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which seems to be part of an orchestrated campaign to blame "entitlements" for the budget crisis, rather than tax cuts. But since neither party, for good reason, has the appetite for such cuts, what they really mean is that taxes are going up, up, up. If members of Congress vote to extend the 15% rates, and other rates go up, then in effect, to vote for the continued special treatment of investment income is equivalent to voting for a tax increase for anyone below roughly that $10 million threshold - that is, anyone who gets more of their income from work than from sitting on their butts watching their investments grow.

This is a fight that Democrats should not shy away from. And they shouldn’t muck it up the way Kerry did, saying that he supported restoring taxation of capital gains but only for people making more than $200,000 a year. That mixes a message about rich vs. poor with a very simple message that cannot be called class warfare: treat all income the same and people in the same situation should pay the same taxes whether they are investors or workers.

On the Pulse of the People

[I'm posting some items here that already appeared on TPM Cafe, and somehow didn't post here. Look forward to a full return, cleaned up comments, and more frequent posting here shortly.]

This is a first for Senator George Allen, a complete paragraph without a single football metaphor. But take out the football, and he inadvertently speaks the truth. Allen on Tony Snow, speaking on Snow’s network: 

The best
thing that Tony’s going to do is bring the pulse of the American people
into the White House in those deliberations. People like Laura Ingraham and
Tony and Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, they understand what’s going on in the
real world, and I think that’s going to be very helpful for the White House
as they develop policy to move this country forward....I think it will
be good for the American people, too, to have one of their advocates
clearly in the White House who’s on the pulse of the people in the real
world.

In case you thought that the problem with the White House was that they needed a dose of the Hannity/Limbaugh understanding of the real world, Tony’s the man. 

The Real McCain and the Cult of Authenticity

[posted on TPM Cafe April 20. Sorry for delay in posting here. This will be the first of several backlogged items to be cross-posted here, after fixing some technical problems and doing some spring cleaning.]

I can’t pass up the debate on the "real" John McCain. Jon Chait, who zigs when others zag, makes a pretty good case that John McCain can be considered a liberal or moderate, based on some of his actions in the 2002-2003 period, including having dinner with Tom Daschle and hinting that he might switch parties. Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias disagree in various subtle ways over at TAPPED, and I made the argument against McCain in that magazine last month. (I made The Prospect put the column on line before it came out, because I could feel the "Oh my gosh, we thought he was one of us, but he’s really a right-wing Republican" tide building.)

Now just to be clear, my position has been specifically that McCain’s overall record makes him, as I put it, "a worthy heir to Barry Goldwater’s Senate seat." And I used that analogy quite deliberately, not so much to emphasize McCain’s conservatism, but also to make the point that, compared to the nutjobs who besmirch the mostly honorable tradition of conservatism, Goldwater would seem fairly moderate. Bring Goldwater back in today’s Senate, and there would be at least 30 Republicans to his right. Goldwater was a supporter of gay rights, and long before there was McCain-Feingold, McCain’s single (and, I’ve come to think, dubious) achievement as a "moderate," there was a campaign finance reform bill known as Goldwater-Boren. Yesterday’s "extremism in defense of liberty" would be today’s "moderation in pursuit of justice."

(Although, one notable difference is that when another Republican president was sunk at 35% approval and mired in scandal, Goldwater went to the White House and told Nixon it was time to quit, while McCain asked voters in a straw poll to vote to give Bush a third term. If this was 1974, McCain would be trying to figure out how to hire Haldeman, Ehrlichman and G. Gordon Liddy for his own campaign.)

But having said that, I must admit that I’m really tired of all these discussions about whether McCain, or any politician, is "really" a moderate or a conservative or anything else. I don’t like the whole mode of analysis that assumes a politician has some "real" core of beliefs and then various positions he or she takes are either "real" or "political." That whole analysis is based on the cult of authenticity of which McCain, and to a lesser extent Bush, have been the greatest beneficiaries.

Politicians are aggregations of their instincts, values, and political circumstances and conditions, the pressures put on them and the niches that are available. (For example, there’s no niche in the Republican presidential primary field for an independent moderate or a pro-choice candidate, and so McCain is simply not going to be either of those things, whatever his inner core is). And that’s not totally inappropriate in a democracy, where people are elected to represent and serve the public. Consider that even on a deeply moral issue, capital punishment, many moderate Democratic politicians who probably were instinctively uncomfortable with the death penalty nonetheless found a way to live with it in the 80s and 90s. Obviously, people grow up with instincts and values and experiences that shape their general view of the world, but within those worldviews, there’s a lot of room for various policy positions in response to external pressures and circumstances and opportunities.

Any number of times, I’ve heard liberal groups complain of an elected official, "We thought he was one of us, we helped get him elected, then he got in and it turned out he was really just another corporate establishment tool..." But it’s not that the politician was "really" some other thing than he appeared to be, but that the group didn’t have enough power or use its power to keep him where he started. Both FDR and Bill Clinton famously told advocates who wanted him to do something "make me" do it -- that is, create the external conditions where that move would be possible.

But like it or not, "authenticity" is an important political tool in its own right. And voters are malleable as well, supporting a political candidate they view as genuine, even if the candidate’s views differ greatly from their own, as I discovered in New Hampshire in 2000 where some number of independent, socially liberal voters chose to vote for the hot McCain in the Republican primary over Bill Bradley in the Democratic. Likewise, pro-death penalty voters supported Tim Kaine in Virginia because they felt that his opposition was authentically rooted in his religious belief -- it actually strengthened his sense of authenticity. But as McCain demonstrates, authenticity is itself a pose, one he adopted and has now discarded.

McCain’s latest move is necessary, if he wants to be president, but it’s awfully daring. Live by the cult of authenticity, perish by the cult of authenticity. A pollster once told me that the way to destroy a political opponent is to get people wondering, "Who is this guy?" That insight was certainly borne out by the demolition of John Kerry, in which he collaborated in creating a sense that he didnt quite have areal core of beliefs. I assume that McCains gamble is that he has so strongly established the "straight-talk express" brand with the general electorate that he can perform the ritual obsequies of the Republican nominating process and still emerge with his reputation intact. But he cant. The odd period in McCains career that Chait focuses on created too many Republican activists who simply arent going to stomach his nomination, and he cant spend two years in his current mode and expect the independent moderate voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere to remember what they kind of liked about him for a period in 2000.

So the question isnt, "what would the "real" McCain be like as President. It is, what is McCain going to be like when his presidential hopes are put to rest and he serves out his 70s in the Senate. And the answer is still, a lot like Barry Goldwater, which in my book is still better than a lot like Bill Frist.

Straight-Line Projections

Many years ago, I remember that the Washingtonian magazine commissioned the writer who goes by the name of "Joe Bob Briggs", and who had made his name in a Texas paper with his reviews of drive-in and B-movies, to review all the Sunday morning political talk shows. It was a hilarious piece of writing, which unfortunately I cannot find online, but I vividly remember, first, his observation that David Gergen bore an uncanny resemblance to The Cat in The Hat, and second, that everything that purported to be a "prediction" on McLaughlin or Meet the Press or Sam and Cokie was nothing more than "a straight-line projection from the present." Not necessarily a humorous observation, but accurate, and not always obvious.

Reading Elizabeth Bumiller’s cold assessment this morning of Bush’s futile effort to justify the Iraq war reminded me of Joe Bob’s second observation. It’s tempting to play the game of "the press is cowed by the right," or "the press is all a bunch of liberals." The fact is that the main bias of the press is toward the assumption that, however things look now, that’s how they will remain. For my money, over the last few years, no reporter has been more "in the tank," more slavishly devoted to the conventional wisdom on Bush’s genius and Bush’s overwhelming political strength than Bumiller. Part of that was the isolation of the bubble, but more important was that straight-line projection: Bush is politically strong, therefore he will remain politically strong.

Now of course, Bush looks ridiculously weak, so the straight-line projection has him going down the tubes. Bumiller’s video presentation on Bush is an even more potent example of her shift over to the alternative projection. As a friend in Iraq reminded me a few weeks ago, things are never either as bad as they look when they’re bad nor as good as they look when they’re good. Under Bush’s apparent strength in 2002-4, there were some incipient weaknesses just as his apparent weakness now disguises some political strengths. The press isn’t biased toward the right or the left (generally speaking, with some exceptions), but it is biased toward inertia. That’s a factor that’s worked hugely to the advantage of Bush and the right, and now it will kill them.

Other Writing

I haven’t been posting much here recently, although some of the world’s most distinguished economists -- and several other very smart people whose identities I don’t know -- have joined the comment thread on the post entitled, "The BS Human Capital Story." I was particularly fascinated by James Galbraith’s comments on the different effects of increasing income inequality and wage inequality.

I’ve got a few other pieces of writing up here and there: Last week, my review of this year’s crop of books about what’s wrong with the Democratic Party appeared in The Washington Monthly. (Hint: Crashing the Gate, by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong is remarkably good.)

My column this month in The American Prospect has a few things to say about Senator John McCain, and the point that even when he’s trying to engineer bipartisan compromises, he’s basically serving the purposes of one-party rule. This week seemed to be the moment when everyone suddenly "discovered" that, ewww, John McCain’s really a pretty conservative Republican, so the Prospect put the full column up on the web a bit before the next issue comes out. My previous column, which is on a different way to think about campaign finance reform and the lobbying scandal, is still subscriber-only. (Please subscribe.)

I’ve also been taking advantage of my rights as a columnist to post occasionally on the Prospect’s blog, TAPPED, which has been extremely lively and provocative since they added comments.

I’ve got a couple of things to post in the next few days.

The "BS Human Capital Story"

While I enjoy some vigorous disagreements on TPMCafe almost as much as its proprietors probably do, the fight that has broken out between Ed Kilgore and Max Sawicky is actually quite dispiriting.

To summarize: Max attacked the “Bullshit Human Capital Story” - the idea that education and training is the answer to the challenges of the global economy - and “The Clintons” for promoting it; Ed defended education and Clintons.

But, look, let’s leave the Clintons out of it. Yes, it’s true: twelve or fourteen years ago, Clinton, his Labor Secretary Robert Reich, his economic advisor and later Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, Rubin’s ally Sperling, and many others (including my boss at the time, Senator Bill Bradley) promoted the idea that the U.S. should fully engage with the global economy (that is, NAFTA) and that while that might cause disruptions in the manufacturing sector, the way to deal with it was to raise skill levels through education and training.

Was that the right answer for the early 1990s? Maybe. It was more limited than many of its advocates recognized. But it was a good-faith effort to expand the economy and the benefits of growth, in a politically viable way.

But is it the right answer today? Almost certainly not.

The problem today is that we have a polarized labor market, and, in addition, as Paul Krugman pointed out in the column originally cited by Nathan, the returns to increased productivity have gone to capital and to a highly-skilled elite, rather than to the broader minority of workers with college educations or specific training. (The top 1%, rather than the top 20%.) On top of that, almost all the benefits of tax cuts have gone to the same small elite.

The polarization of the labor market is described in this paper by David Autor, Melissa Kearney and Lawrence Katz (a Clintonite himself), and this paper by Frank Levy and Richard Murnane. Basically, their argument is that a combination of computerization and globabalization - including offshoring/outsourcing but that’s not the biggest factor - has shifted the demand for skills and the middle of the labor market has dropped out, even while there is some increased demand for minimal-skill jobs. Autor et al explain some of the conflicting evidence on income inequality through this lens, and it seems persuasive to me.

The “Human Capital Story” isn’t an answer today because it’s not really possible to move people across these two labor markets that are pulling away from each other. There isn’t enough of a middle to train people up into, and the medium-skilled are going to have a hard time moving in to the highly-skilled elite. A bachelors’ degree won’t do it: The average weekly pay of full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree fell slightly during the last five years, after adjustment for inflation. (There may be some sectors that are exceptions, such as health care, where career ladders would help people move up.)

Of course, as they say at Faber College, “Knowledge is Good.” More education is better than less. Early childhood education is important for a bunch of reasons. But the idea that equipping people with higher ed and specific skills training will help them move smoothly through the rough waters of the economy and also up into the middle class just isn’t realistic in a polarized labor market. Nor is there any one thing we can do - such as stop passing trade deals - that would restore the middle of the labor market.

Relitigating the ‘90s or our feelings about the Clintons has absolutely nothing to do with figuring out how to deal with the labor market and economic circumstances fourteen years and four tax cuts later.

But what are some answers? It seems the story has to involve accepting that a lot of people are going to be stuck in the lower part of the job market, skills or no, and the key is to improve circumstances for them:

1. If we accept that the returns of productivity growth will flow to capital, cut more Americans in on the deal. Use universal accounts, baby bonds, universal 401(k)s and other asset-based systems to bring the returns to capital to working people.
   
2. Make capital pay. Equalize tax treatment of capital income (dividends and capital gains).
   
3. Tax wealth, not income. Or tax capital through a means such as a tax on financial transactions, or a Tobin Tax, focused on taxing cross-border transactions.
   
4. Raise the minimum wage, by at least $2 and adjust it for inflation.
   
5. Universal health care, universal health care, universal health care.

The Life of Brian

I finally had the opportunity yesterday to see Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer in action, in a speech at the Center for American Progress. I’ve been fascinated by the Schweitzer cult since his election last year, not because I don’t think it’s cool that a straight-shooting Democrat could win the Montana statehouse in the same year that the Democratic presidential nominee got 38% of the vote in that state, but because it wasn’t really that unusual for a Democrat to win a governorship in a "red" state. After all, Democrats govern Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, even Dick Cheney’s Wyoming. Janet Napolitano, Brad Henry, Katherine Sebelius, and Dave Freudenthal are every bit as popular as Schweitzer, but don’t get the national notice. (The wonderful Napolitano, the only other member of this group that I’ve met/seen in person is an exception.)

I recently finished a review of four new books about how to revive the Democratic Party -- which I’ll link to here when it’s available -- and underlying each book was a sort of psychodrama for the soul of the party in which the contenders are, on one side, an unnamed chorus called "John Kerry’s advisors" -- timid, out of touch, and living in comfortable ease by skimming the media buys of decades of bad ads for failed candidates -- and on the other side, always, Brian Schweitzer.

So, my verdict on Schweitzer in person: Extremely impressive. Completely at ease in his own skin, which I think in the Bush era is part of his appeal. The Bolo Tie, the boots, the jeans, the windbreaker in a room where almost every other man is wearing a suit and tie would all be affectations on someone else but seem entirely genuine for Schweitzer. I was surprised by how much he wanted to talk about energy, even though that wasn’t the main topic of the speech. He handled Iraq deftly by shifting it to energy, speaking movingly about attending service members’ funerals and how it recommitted him to the idea that never again should we have to invade another country because of our dependence on foreign oil. Not quite, "No war for oil," but close. And yet not quite an answer to the "what do we do now?" problem. But he uses energy as a theme to cover a lot of ground: the need for a president to call for shared sacrifice, the value of investing in education, as well as the environment and foreign policy. If the political vision inherent in the Apollo Alliance were embodied in one person, it would be Schweitzer.

In personality, he seems like the kind of person who enjoys explaining complicated things in an easy-going and simple way, without seeming condescending. That seemed like it would be a refreshing change from the inane platitudes of the current president. (I admit I was sort of sizing Schweitzer up as Vice Presidential material, although four years as governor of a state with fewer than a million people and no prior political experience is probably just a little too little experience for 2008.) And he seemed to have an ability to make an idea like biodiesel development exciting while being precise and modest about it -- "this could replace 15% of our domestic oil consumption, which isn’t a lot but would get us back to the import levels of the late ’70s." That’s another trait that seems useful for the politics of the near-future, where big promises are likely to lead to disappointment.

The talk was entitled, "The Resurgence of Progressive Politics in the West," but other than his health care policies, there was little that was obviously "progressive" about it. I’m not sure whether that’s a problem or not. Schweitzer sells himself and a set of policies that are identified with him, and increasingly with other Democrats in the West. The policies over time make their own label. And using Schweitzer as an example of what all Democrats should be like raises the question, Is the point to be like Brian Schweitzer (which is easy if your name is Brian Schweitzer and those boots are yours, not so easy otherwise) or is the point to be yourself, talk about what you care about, and don’t be afraid of the political consequences that "John Kerry’s advisors" tell you are around every corner? I hope it’s the latter.

But the talk was a reminder of how incredibly important it is for the face of the Democratic Party to be governors. Governors can say "I did" and "I created," rather than "I proposed," "I was the first co-sponsor of..." and "I consistently voted against..." Nothing was more important to the long-term success of the conservative movement than its governors in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, there were only a handful of Democratic governors in big states -- Hunt in North Carolina and Chiles in Florida, nearing the end of their careers, Carnahan in Missouri, Zell Miller in Georgia -- and all through the Upper Midwest and Northeast, voters saw conservative Republican governors who were effective (thanks to an economic boom and some slick postpone-the-pain tax moves) and mostly non-divisive. That’s one reason that when George W. Bush came forward as a compassionate conservative, it was a familiar and comfortable idea. Take away Newt Gingrich and the takeover of Congress, and the Republican Party might be every bit as strong today. But take away the dominance of Republican governors through the ’90s, and I doubt we would have this era of one-party control in the ’00’s. I want Democrats to win back at least one house of Congress in 2006, if only to stop the worst policies, force a confrontation on taxes and the budget, and to be able to issue some subpoenas, but for the long-term, successful Democratic governors will be at least as important. The governors I mentioned above all seem to be cruising to reelection; add Democratic victories in New York, Ohio, Maryland, Arkansas, Missouri, and protect the Midwesterners who are in some cases reaping the consequences of their predecessors’ economic scams, and you have the recipe for a resurgence of progressive politics not just in the West, but everywhere. And perceived-successful governors not only make four of the last five presidents, they also make unbeatable Senate candidates.

Who Owns Bipartisanship?

There are many possible explanations for the now-resolved Barak Obama/John McCain dust-up, but election lawyer Bob Bauer here hits on the one that I think really matters in the long run: It’s all about preserving McCain’s unique and unprecedented role as the second most powerful force in American politics, which is based on his power to define bipartisanship.

 Bipartisanship works for Senator McCain, in lobbying reform as elsewhere:  it works politically, and helps him realize goals quite partisan in nature.

For Senator McCain to succeed in this effort, he must be able to distinguish the partisan from the bipartisan, and he has proposed to do so, with wide support from the press, on his own authority. This has been his aim in lobbying reform, and when frustrated in aims personally and-in this instance-politically important to him, it is his practice to assail, in vituperative terms and a righteous tone, those who contest his judgments.

That’s exactly right. It explains what was oddest in the underlying issue in the fight: Obama suggested taking lobbying reform legislation through the normal committee process, whereas McCain wanted to set up a bipartisan task force. For this, Obama is criticized as partisan. If the Democrats controlled Senate committees and were in the habit of rolling things through on party-line votes, that might be a legitimate charge. But in a Republican Senate, how could the committee process be more partisan, for Obama, than McCain’s?

It isn’t, of course. It just wouldn’t meet McCain’s definition of bipartisan.

In addition to Bauer’s point that McCain-branded bipartisanship "helps him realize goals quite partisan in nature," it should be noted that McCain-branded bipartisanship is a corollary of one-party control of Congress. The two phenomena are completely interdependent. Ordinary bipartisanship in either House is a product in short supply, and McCain has effectively monopolized what there is of it. And to the extent that, with support from the press, he is empowered "to distinguish the partisan from the bipartisan," he controls that resource, and the credibility that comes with it, to his own ends.

Think about it: Since the actually bipartisan achievement of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, there have been mostly two ways to put together winning coalitions in Congress -- the DeLay way (Republican-written, with Democrats invited to come along but given no voice) and the McCain way (Campaign Finance Reform, the torture amendment). McCain has been almost a safety valve for the inherent impulse toward bipartisanship or the occasional desire to challenge Bush. But he has control of exactly how far it goes, and uses that control to position himself exactly where he needs to be on the scale between independence and sufficient loyalty to win over the GOP base. For example, when Bush adds his legendary "never-mind" signing statement to the torture amendment, no reaction really matters other than McCain’s. If he complains but shrugs, it’s automatically okay.

But if the power of the DeLay system were to break down -- as I believe it is beginning to -- then there would be more outlets for bipartisanship. If other Republicans were willing to break ranks occasionally and stay broken, then there would be multiple ways to put together winning coalitions in Congress -- which is the usual state of affairs. If there were a real possibility that Obama and others could work through the Government Affairs Committee process, working with Senators Collins, Voinovich and Chafee, then McCain would have less power to set the terms, either of acceptable reform or acceptable bipartisanship.

I respect McCain, but as a conservative well suited to the Senate seat he took over from Barry Goldwater, not as some kind of transcendent figure beyond all party and all ideology. I wish most conservatives were like him. And I also think, based on my own experience in government, that forming bipartisan coalitions in which legislators of different viewpoints work together to solve problems is a healthier way to govern the country than the anomalous system of one-party rule or asymmetrical partisanship of the last five years, and usually it’s the only way. McCain has attained a strange kind of power that will, ironically, disappear when there are other outlets for actual bipartisanship. And that’s what I think he’s raging against. It’s nothing personal.

One last chance on the budget

OK, so Alito is now a Supreme Court justice, which is very much too bad. (At the end of the day, you can’t defeat a nominee unless he or she cooperates in the effort and/or is significantly worse than the alternative you would expect from the current president.) That fight is over, the next one comes tomorrow.

I often say that there are two factors that are transcendent issues, because they shape the parameters of what’s going to be possible as a society for generations to come: One is judicial nominations, and the other is fundamental choices about budget and tax policy. On the current path, all hope for a government that addresses even basic economic and social needs in the next decades will be cut off. On Wednesday afternoon, the House is scheduled to vote a second on the "Deficit Reduction Bill," which should more appropriately be called the "Make Way for More Tax Cuts Bill." I’ve written recently about the cuts to child support in the bill, and about the wedging of the entire welfare reform reauthorization into the bill, others have focused on the cuts to student loans and Medicaid.

There are a dozen other reasons to oppose this bill, but one of the best is that it represents the end of the game, of the misuse of this closed, anti-democratic process to sneak through provisions that would never pass in the light of day, or to justify further massive tax cuts.

The bill passed by six votes in December, then the Senate forced some irrelevant changes that require a second vote in the House. To bring it down, six Republicans will need to switch their votes and vote against exactly the bill they voted for six weeks ago. But it could happen. CongressDaily reported this morning:

  House Republican leaders face more possible GOP defections Wednesday when they bring legislation to the floor that would trim the growth of entitlement programs and otherwise reduce the deficit by $39 billion over five years. Reversing last month’s 212-206 vote in favor of the bill would still appear to be a long shot, however.
     Over the weekend House Science Chairman Boehlert, who supported the measure last month when it came to the House floor, told Gannett News Service, "I don’t know how I’m going to vote."
     Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., also said over the weekend he was now undecided on whether to vote for the reconciliation bill. The freshman lawmaker voted for the bill last month. "This is a matter that’s under consideration," Fitzpatrick told The Intelligencer of Upper/Central Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania.
     The reconciliation bill has passed both chambers by slim margins, but another vote is necessary in the House because of small changes made by the Senate before passage. Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., another reconciliation supporter last month, is also undecided, a spokeswoman said, because he wants to review the Senate-made changes. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., also has indicated some hesitation. Only one Republican, Rep. Rob Simmons of Connecticut, has thus far publicly announced he will switch from supporting to opposing the measure.

This afternoon, word came that Rep. Joe Schwartz of Michigan (who, interestingly, holds the seat occupied by Rep. Nick Smith, the Republican who said he was essentially offered a bribe in exchange for his vote on the Medicare Prescription Drug bill) has changed his vote. That’s two switches and, based on the CongressDaily list, four more on the fence. Two+four=just enough votes to bring down the bill.

A word here for the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities, which has led this fight. When this project started, my reaction was doubtful. It shouldn’t be an emergency campaign, I thought, it’s a permanent campaign. But the creativity and the intensity they have brought to the fight, bringing grass-roots groups to members’ offices and blocking every attempt to evade responsibility. Above all, they prevented individual interest groups from being bought off with improvements to their particular piece of the legislation, and kept the focus on the legislation as a whole. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it had not been done effectively before.

The impact of a defeat on this bill will be huge. It will certainly affect the leadership race, probably bringing DeLayism to an end. The ability of Bush and the congressional leadership to move more tax cuts or unpopular policies through on a strictly one-party basis will be over. And Republicans will still have nothing to show for their years of unilateral power but bigger, more corrupt, ineffective government.