Politics

It has always been said that in polite company one should never talk about politics or religion. Today, let's do both.

There was a lot of discussion throughout this election about religion. Would born-again Christians vote for Mormon Mitt Romney? Would Barack Obama lose white Catholic support? Would Obama turn off Jewish voters because of his handling of U.S.-Israeli relations?

From exit polling, we can shed light on these issues:

President Obama unquestionably owes his historic victory to an overwhelming 71 percent of the Latino vote. In 2004, George W. Bush won 44 percent of Hispanics. Four years later, John McCain, the author of an immigration reform bill, took 31 percent of Hispanics. And this year, Romney captured only 27 percent of Hispanics. Last Tuesday’s result shows that being against the DREAM Act and immigration is no longer good politics for the Republican Party. In fact, for the past eleven months, undocumented youth from across the nation rallied to expose the extreme position of Mitt Romney on immigration in swing states, including his threat to veto the DREAM Act.
 
But the election is over and it’s time for genuine leadership on immigration and the DREAM Act: it begins not only with the president, but also with Congress, specifically Republicans.

Since Election Day, there has been abundant chatter about the new American electorate, one that is less traditional, less white and more diverse. No doubt, the Obama campaign's ability to deliver victory by surfing the waves of changing demographics -- we used to call this "identity politics" -- was impressive.

Historically, there has been plenty of attention focused on African-American voter participation, which has been a powerful force in the country's politics for decades. More recently, the growing Hispanic vote has become a hot topic of analysis, as well it should be.

As times change, demography is destiny. We see it in the numbers, and the implications are stark.

I feel sympathy for Karl Rove. Yes, his rant questioning Fox News’ correct election night projections was embarrassing. And yes, his allegation of voter suppression rang hollow, as Bush’s 2004 campaign which Rove directed, benefited from much harsher and less factual “swiftboating” ads.

Meanwhile, the surmise that Rove was merely shifting the blame for Republican defeats, was off the mark. Political consultants have lots of experience explaining defeats to wealthy contributors.

What we really saw last week was the death of Rove’s dream: a William McKinleyesque realignment for the GOP. Long ago, Rove wisely realized that the realignments of the Jackson, FDR and Reagan eras, marked by enduring landslides, were ill-suited to our era. Realignments are measured not by landslides, but by the emergence of enduring majorities.

Halloween is the perfect occasion for analyzing scary federal judicial selection with three judges assuming senior status on October 31. The bench experiences 83 vacancies in the 858 appellate and district judgeships. The openings first spiked to 90 in August 2009 and have since remained near ten percent. These empty seats are ghost-like apparitions that do nothing to resolve huge caseloads. Thus, President Barack Obama must promptly nominate, and the Senate expeditiously confirm, lower court nominees, or the nation will confront the nightmare of a judiciary that cannot deliver justice.

Since 1987, Republican and Democratic accusations, countercharges and paybacks have haunted selection mainly because of divided government. Democrats now control the White House and the Senate. However, the party should continue cooperating with Republicans to reduce these counterproductive dynamics because the process has stopped until the November lame duck session.

In a potential replay of the 2006 campaign of North Carolina Congressman Larry Kissell, Democrat Gloria Tinubu, who won a smashing victory in a Democratic primary runoff, has gotten no financial support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in South Carolina’s new Seventh District.

Most public policy debates in today’s divisive climate are framed as zero-sum games; if one party wins, the other claims that everyone has lost.

These debates are almost always framed around threats. Threat-based narratives can have a significant and pernicious effect – they reinforce our tendency to focus on the short-term. They lead us to further magnify risk and discount potential rewards. When the threat is imminent, we tend to focus on protecting ourselves now rather than worry about longer-term issues we might face later. And this inhibits the strategic visioning process and political compromises required to move America forward.

Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone was killed iin a plane crash ten years ago today while campaigning for re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate. His wife Sheila, daughter Marcia and five others also died in the crash. Former Rep. Jim Ramstad reflects on Wellstone's legacy in this open letter.

Dear Paul,

Hard to believe you’ve been gone ten years, and we still miss you. You still have more bumper stickers on Minnesota cars than any active politician.

We miss your passion to help people who are hurting. People suffering the ravages of mental illness, addiction, homelessness and hunger. We miss our champion for veterans, seniors, abused women and children. Most of all, we miss the authentic person you were. You never took yourself too seriously, but you took the causes you championed very seriously.

It was more than 40 years ago when two young prosecutors, one from the biggest city in Pennsylvania and one from a smaller town in rural Vermont, came together at an annual meeting of the National District Attorneys Association in Philadelphia. Little did Arlen Specter and I know then that we would spend 30 years working together in the United States Senate, building on our bond as former prosecutors, seeking to bridge the partisan divide, and striving to find common ground on some of the most contentious issues of our time.  
 
Arlen Specter’s public service began during the Korean War. When elected to serve as Philadelphia’s District Attorney, he led landmark prosecutions against public corruption and to rid his city’s streets of some of the country’s most hardened criminals. He was a prosecutor’s prosecutor.

Arlen Specter dedicated nearly all his adult life to public service – first in the military, then as Philadelphia’s District Attorney, and last and most significantly, as a U.S. Senator representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. To each of these roles, he brought his remarkable intelligence, tenacity, and energy. In the end, Arlen faithfully served the people of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the United States as a public servant for more than 40 years.
 
I had the pleasure of working with Arlen in Congress for 16 years, and I saw first-hand the dedication and intensity which characterized his service in the Senate. Arlen was a hard worker. Arlen never failed to get out front on any issue he thought was important to the voters of Pennsylvania, and he worked hard to represent his constituents and secure federal funding to address their local needs.