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Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen have an editorial in today’s Washington Post that carries a warning for Democrats. And while the message is one that has been around a while, the messengers this time are different.

Caddell has been a thorn in Democrat’s side since 1988, with sharp criticism for the party’s direction. But his resume is impressive; he worked for national candidates and Presidents like George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Joe Biden and Jerry Brown. Schoen was one of Bill Clinton’s pollsters, but is no stranger to controversy himself: his 2008 book Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System angered partisans on both sides of the aisle.

Like David Frum in the GOP, the voices of those unhappy with their party are often much more important than the cheer-leading done by those toeing the party line.

Pundits tell us that some Democrats no longer speak of the benefits of reform, but only what will happen to their jobs if they don’t pass something, even if it won’t work. In other words, the American people will reward them for at least acting, even if they don’t like the act. Caddell and Schoen address that issue:

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

They point out that recent polling shows even the dreaded health insurance companies have higher favorability ratings than the government:

Scott Rasmussen asked last month whose decisions people feared more in health care: that of the federal government or of insurance companies. By 51 percent to 39 percent, respondents feared the decisions of federal government more. This is astounding given the generally negative perception of insurance companies.

The authors reject the Republican idea of “starting over”, favoring instead a change of focus to individual measures that will win at least some bi-partisan support and gain success for some legislative attempts that will address the voter’s concerns. The crisis of confidence the Democrats are experiencing will otherwise lead to an electoral blood bath in November.

Cross posted to Donkelphant

Politics Doug Schoen, health care reform, Patrick Caddell

Dissatisfaction with Congress is at an all time high, with the Congressional Job Approval polls at about a 19% approval rating. Usually a poor showing in these polls leads to an increase in the minority party’s rating, but the GOP is still showing lower than expected strength.

Third parties haven’t caught on, either, but grass roots campaigns like the Tea Party movement garner more respect. Disgusted voters may like to see strong, independent candidates, but the barriers to entry can usually be overcome only by an organized, well financed political party. Reformers have yet to come up with a way to break through unless the candidate is independently wealthy.

Now comes GOOOH.com from a computer analyst who thinks he has found a process that may work. Tim Cox believes strongly in a citizen legislature.

Tim’s plan is to sign up people who want to remove professional politicians in favor of local citizens. In each congressional district, these folks would answer a questionnaire, caucus together in groups of ten, and advance one of the ten to the next round. A congressional district with 100 interested citizens would start with 10 groups, all feeding their best candidate to the final group of ten for a decision. At the end of the process, each of the 435 congressional districts would have a candidate to run against the established candidates. Because Tim realizes the citizens of San Francisco may want a person with different views than the citizens of Salt Lake City, the only requirement is that the candidate agree to limit their term in Congress.

But the real question is funding. How can a local caucus of volunteers compete with the billions spent by the parties? The process is free too join as a voter, but people who decide to become “declared candidates” pony up $100 at the beginning. The funds are then distributed to the final 435 candidates to pay for filing fees, etc. The caucus members themselves provide the necessary signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Tim has addressed some of the difficulties in getting “regular people” to serve as legislators, including removing partisan influences. But I suspect the real story will be if the caucuses themselves hold together as differences become magnified through the selection process.

Cross-posted to Donklephant

Politics independents

Well, not really.

But the administration is backing off the proposal to try certain foreign terrorists in the regular court system. The reversal is for terrorists who declared war on the US, then plotted and directed the worst attack on US soil from abroad .

The Washington Post reports:

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

Duh.

The argument that the mastermind of 9/11 should be tried in civilian court never made sense to me, or evidently to a lot of people, including Democrats.

That being said, there is a good argument that can be made for de-emphasizing the lesser terrorist attempts like the Christmas day underwear bomber. Why would the underwear bomber be different? Because highlighting these lesser attempts and treating them like they are Khalid Sheik Mohammed elevates their status among their compatriots, providing the fame and reputation that young strident “true believers” often seek. If we provide non-stop news coverage, a Presidential address, and the US military swooping in every time some punk shoots up a shopping mall, you can expect more “true believers” to be attracted to going out in a blaze of glory. I am not convinced that the existence of military tribunals or even Gitmo are “recruiting tools” for these folks, but the psychological benefits of having the leader of the free world appear on TV and utter your name just might be.

Military tribunals have passed constitutional muster, and are just as valid as civilian courts. What we need now is a bi-partisan, national policy regarding what conditions merit their use.

Cross posted to Donklephant

Politics civilian terror trials, Kahlid Sheik Mohammad, military tribunals, terrorism

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the MacDonald v Chicago case this morning. McDonald is the first case to examine if the Second Amendment rights secured for citizens in federal jurisdictions also apply to citizens in the various states.

In 2008, the Court held in District of Columbia v Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. But the narrow interpretation of that ruling meant the decision applied only to federal enclaves.

Some of the rights secured in the Bill of Rights are extended to the states through the Due Process Clause of Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prior to passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, individual states secured rights for their citizens in different ways. For instance, the Bill of Rights forbids the establishment of religion in the First Amendment, but state-sponsored religion was still tolerated. By 1833, Massachusetts severed its ties to the state church, ending established state churches in America. The most prominent example of differing state treatment of individual rights center around the institution of slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment was passed as a remedy.

But the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases ruled that the extension of rights via the Fourteenth Amendment did not necessarily restrict the actions of a state or local government entity. Since then, individual rights have been applied selectively through state legislative action and court decisions.

Court watchers are wondering if the Justices’ comments during questioning foreshadow the decision. McDonald is the only case challenging local gun laws that is focused on extending all Constitutional rights through the Fourteenth Amendment. As Wikipedia summarizes:

McDonald is unique among post-Heller gun cases in that it is asking the court to overturn the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases. Slaughter-House determined that the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause did not apply the Bill of Rights to the actions of states (and by extension, local governments). If overturned, the Selective Incorporation process would be moot and unnecessary, as the entire Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, would be applied against the states.

In attempting to overturn Slaughter-House, this case has garnered the attention and support of liberal legal scholars interested in its potential application in areas outside of firearms law. Their interest is that if Slaughter-House is overturned, it is possible that constitutional guarantees such as the right to a jury in civil cases, right to a grand jury in felony cases, and other parts of the Bill of Rights, as well as future court rulings and existing federal precedent, not universally guaranteed in actions by the states, would be applied against the states automatically

The Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy was instrumental in bringing Heller to the Court, and the issue of how the Court decides the case is as important to Cato as the decision itself. After today’s hearing, Cato.org comments:

From the initial questioning through the end, it was quite clear that those living in Chicago — and, by extension, New York, San Francisco, and other places with extreme gun restrictions — will soon be able to rest easy, knowing that they will be able to have guns with which to protect themselves. Unfortunately, the Court did not seem inclined to adopt the arguments propounded by petitioners’ counsel Alan Gura (and supported by Cato) that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was the way to go. Chief Justice Roberts expressed reluctance at having to overturn the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases and other justices joined in concerns over how activist judges would use the Clause if the Court revived it — even if that were the path that hewed more closely to the constitution’s true meaning.

This turn of events is unfortunate because reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause, far from giving judges free reign to impose their policy views, would actually tie them closer to the text, structure, and history of the Constitution. As it stands now — and as it seems will be the case after McDonald is decided — many of our most cherished rights are protected only to the extent that judges are willing to label them as sufficiently “fundamental” to warrant such protection. That is an unprincipled jurisprudence and one that hurts the rule of law.

It appears the Second Amendment rights secured to citizens in federal territory will be applied to the citizens of the various states, but only through Selective Incorporation. This will be a narrow decision, then, that applies only to the Second Amendment, and not to other rights secured in the Constitution.

Cross posted to Donklephant

Politics gun rights, Heller, McDonald, Second Amendment

Recently, discussion on Donklephant.com centered around a perceived bias on the part of the Drudge Report in not featuring the recent domestic terrorism attack on an IRS building in Texas. Concern was also expressed that police in Austin “refused to call it terrorism.”

The administration must be listening. Obviously bowing to the pressure from the “Big Teeth, Huge Ass, Surprisingly Reasonable” community, someone from the Obama Administration has boldly stepped forward and called the November 7, 2009 Fort Hood attack “terrorism” for the first time:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has become the first Obama Administration official to publicly describe last year’s deadly shootings at Ft. Hood, Tex., as a terrorist act, according to a search of news clips and transcripts.

I fully expect Drudge to make the same kind of admission … in a few months.

Cross posted to Donklephant.

Politics Ft. Hood, terrorism