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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: portage who wrote (29826)	10/9/2003 9:13:49 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Recall lesson: Incumbents beware of discontent ________________________________________ By Ron Fournier AP Political Writer Posted October 09, 2003 dailyherald.com WASHINGTON - If a political rookie from Hollywood can oust a two-term governor, perhaps no incumbent is safe. The recall in California, where voter discontent made political history, gives hope to challengers everywhere. Even as Democratic and Republican strategists cautioned against assigning broad national implications to Gov. Gray Davis' demise, they said the recall campaign has reinvigorated a decade-old strain of disenchantment incumbents must face - or fall to. "There is a piece of this that is germane only to Davis - a big piece. That said, this is also a flashing yellow light to incumbents all across the country: Welcome to the politics of a jobless economy," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat, former aide to President Clinton and a supporter of Wesley Clark's Democratic presidential campaign. Clinton benefited in 1992 from Ross Perot's anti-establishment campaign, which undercut then-President Bush's re-election bid. A roaring economy under Clinton's watch tempered voter unrest, though the sentiments rose again to buoy wrestler-turned-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura and 2000 GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Clark is a retired Army general who, like Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, has no experience in elective office and little substance behind his domestic policies. Clark hopes to play a role mastered by California's Hollywood-honed new governor - the political outsider. Rival Howard Dean must take a different tack because he is no political neophyte; the Democratic presidential front-runner has a 20-year political career, including five terms as Vermont's governor. His anti-war, anti-establishment message appeals to voters tired of the Washington hierarchy, including Democratic leaders and President Bush. Dean would like to think there is a national backlash against incumbents, but he wonders. "It's a day after the vote. We don't really know the answer to that question," the candidate said in a telephone interview between campaign stops Wednesday. "I do know we've lost 3 million jobs, and people don't know what do about Iraq, and the president doesn't know how to get us out." Even some Democratic strategists said Dean and his rivals can't read California's results as a mandate. "This has no implication for George Bush or the Democrats," said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, whose firm represents presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman. "It was people voting against Davis. Not much more." Strategists said the recall did: • Exacerbate partisan divisions, with Democratic activists linking it to the contested presidential election in 2000. "The Republicans are the party of Bonnie and Clyde - they go from state to state stealing elections," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who worked on Al Gore's campaign. • Complicated Bush's re-election bid. White House officials worry that Schwarzenegger will flounder as he wrestles with California's budget deficit, the state's conservative GOP and a Democratic legislature. It might have been easier to run against the wildly unpopular Davis, they say. Now the president's fortunes are linked to a new governor who enters the statehouse with a 45 percent unfavorable rating and accusations of sexual misconduct hanging over his head. • Point out why recalls are hard to organize in states not called California. "After that circus, any state that already has a recall is less likely to use it and those thinking of having one will think twice," said Thomas Baldino, political science professor at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The next measure of voter angst will be a smattering of elections next month. But incumbents don't appear to be under any unusual stress in Mississippi, New Jersey and other places staging November contests. "The dynamics here were unique to this governorship and this particular recall effort," said Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie. "I'm not sure you can extrapolate anything that happened in California to what might happen nationwide." Democrats and Republicans took one lesson from Davis' demise - a bad economy hurts an incumbent who doesn't deal with it. "What we're going to see is incumbent governors - Republicans and Democrats - being much more cautious and worried about inflaming public opinion," said pollster Schoen. "It could bite Bush, too." ___________________________________________ • Ron Fournier has covered the White House and national politics for The Associated Press since 1993. Lesson: Strategists worry Bush campaign could be affected

To: portage who wrote (29826)	10/9/2003 9:34:10 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Message 19384828

To: portage who wrote (29826)	10/17/2003 1:26:00 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The Sweet Spot nytimes.com By PAUL KRUGMAN OP-ED COLUMNIST THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: October 17, 2003 "What we have here is a form of looting." So says George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, of the Bush administration's budget policies — and he's right. With startling speed, we've blown right through the usual concerns about budget deficits — about their effects on interest rates and economic growth — and into a range where the very solvency of the federal government is at stake. Almost every expert not on the administration's payroll now sees budget deficits equal to about a quarter of government spending for the next decade, and getting worse after that. Yet the administration insists that there's no problem, that economic growth will solve everything painlessly. And that puts those who want to stop the looting — which should include anyone who wants this country to avoid a Latin-American-style fiscal crisis, somewhere down the road — in a difficult position. Faced with a what-me-worry president, how do you avoid sounding like a dour party pooper? One answer is to explain that the administration's tax cuts are, in a fundamental sense, phony, because the government is simply borrowing to make up for the loss of revenue. In 2004, the typical family will pay about $700 less in taxes than it would have without the Bush tax cuts — but meanwhile, the government will run up about $1,500 in debt on that family's behalf. George W. Bush is like a man who tells you that he's bought you a fancy new TV set for Christmas, but neglects to tell you that he charged it to your credit card, and that while he was at it he also used the card to buy some stuff for himself. Eventually, the bill will come due — and it will be your problem, not his. Still, those who want to restore fiscal sanity probably need to frame their proposals in a way that neutralizes some of the administration's demagoguery. In particular, they probably shouldn't propose a rollback of all of the Bush tax cuts. Here's why: while the central thrust of both the 2001 and the 2003 tax cuts was to cut taxes on the wealthy, the bills also included provisions that provided fairly large tax cuts to some — but only some — middle-income families. Chief among these were child tax credits and a "cutout" that reduced the tax rate on some income to 10 percent from 15 percent. These middle-class tax cuts were designed to create a "sweet spot" that would allow the administration to point to "typical" families that received big tax cuts. If a middle-income family had two or more children 17 or younger, and an income just high enough to take full advantage of the provisions, it did get a significant tax cut. And such families played a big role in selling the overall package. So if a Democratic candidate proposes a total rollback of the Bush tax cuts, he'll be offering an easy target: administration spokespeople will be able to provide reporters with carefully chosen examples of middle-income families who would lose $1,500 or $2,000 a year from tax-cut repeal. By leaving the child tax credits and the cutout in place while proposing to repeal the rest, contenders will recapture most of the revenue lost because of the tax cuts, while making the job of the administration propagandists that much harder. Purists will raise two objections. The first is that an incomplete rollback of the Bush tax cuts won't be enough to restore long-run solvency. In fact, even a full rollback wouldn't be enough. According to my rough calculations, keeping the child credits and the cutout while rolling back the rest would close only about half the fiscal gap. But it would be a lot better than current policy. The other objection is that the tricks used to sell the Bush tax cuts have made an already messy tax system, full of special breaks for particular classes of taxpayers, even messier. Shouldn't we favor a reform that cleans it up? In principle, the answer is yes. But an ambitious reform plan would be demagogued and portrayed as a tax increase for the middle class. My guess is that we should propose a selective rollback as the first step, with broader reform to follow. Will someone be able to find the political sweet spot, the combination of fiscal responsibility and electoral smarts that brings the looting to an end? The future of the nation depends on the answer.