Can the Policy Positions of Elected Dems Damage the Democratic Party?

The relationship between Democratic elected officials and the Democratic Party is complex. Usually the Party, local, state, or national, is controlled by the most powerful elected official at that level, although that isn't always the case. The Democratic Party of Dane County, for instance, is essentially controlled, quietly and behind the scenes, by a union, AFSCME Council 40.

But I digress. The question is if unpopular policy positions taken by Democratic elected officials can significantly damage the Democratic Party. The answer is clearly yes. Back in the mid 1960's the Democratic Party of Wisconsin lost more than two-thirds of its members because of Lyndon Johnson's support for the Vietnam War, dropping from 27,000 in 1964 to 8,000 in 1967. Even today, after more than forty years, the DPW has never come close to its former size, with current membership hovering a little under 10,000. There are many reasons for that, but one is a divisive war fought a generation ago.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin History Project

Have you ever been curious about the history of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin? To the best of my knowledge the only relatively recent info published on this subject is The history of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, 1949-1999, by Dr. Richard Carlton Haney, Professor (now emeritus) of History at UW Whitewater, Erica Feldkamp, past DPW Intern, and Paul Tewes, past DPW Executive Director.

Unfortunately, this pamphlet is out of print and very difficult to obtain, although a few libraries have copies. Several years ago Dr. Haney and the DPW granted permission to put the newer edition online, and after a long delay here it is:

The history of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, 1949-1999

You can read it online, print a copy, or download it as a (rather large) PDF file. It's short, only about twenty-five pages of text and ten pages of pictures, and reads like a magazine article (which it originally was), although the additional material added in the second edition makes it somewhat disjointed at times.

One thing I find particularly interesting is the ideological struggles within the party over the years. Ideology and primary fights are two things that can tear a political party apart faster than just about anything else. There are important lessons here for today's DPW, although they're not always quite as obvious as one might think.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin History Project is my effort to preserve documents and other materials from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and whenever possible to make them available on the web. I have two reasons for doing so. First, as I've learned from trying to trace my own family history, unless there is an active effort to preserve historical information it will inevitably be lost. Second, I hope that making such information more easily accessible will help current party leaders make wise decisions and lead to a bigger and more vibrant Democratic Party.

Please help me with this project. If you have material from past party conventions, DPW reports, newsletters, pictures, or personal stories about the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, contact me (russwallac@aol.com), and I will digitize them and put copies online to protect and preserve them for posterity.

Health Care Reform: Michael Steele Better Get Out of the Way...

If you don't read DailyKos, you really should...

Was Obama's Nobel Prize Really Aimed at Bush?

Seems to me that the Nobel Committee may have given Obama the Peace Prize not so much for what he's done, but for who he isn't: George W. Bush. I'm sure this whole thing will drive the wingnuts crazy, but you reap what you sow...

Those Liberal Dummies at Isthmus

I hate it when liberals hand ammunition to conservatives by making stupid mistakes. And I mean that quite literally in this case.

The latest Isthmus has an interesting story about a proposed program that would help Madison cops buy personal AR-15 assault rifles, which they would then presumably carry in their patrol cars in case they need extra firepower. To add some kick to the story the folks at Isthmus included a nice picture of an AR-15 with the caption "An AR-15 like this for just 52 easy payments!" Except it's not an AR-15. Not even close. Took me a while to recognize it because it's so obscure, but the weapon in Isthmus' picture is an antique WWII-era German StG44, the worlds first true assault rifle.

The problem with this sort of dumb and easily preventable mistake is that it plays right into the conservative stereotype that liberals hate guns, even though we know nothing about them.

Of course, we believe pretty much the same thing about conservatives and science...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a real Colt AR-15 A3 Tactical Carbine. Probably quite similar to what the Madison PD would buy. Picture from Wikipedia.

Ten Year Old Hunters

As of next week, ten year old children in Wisconsin will be able to hunt with adult supervision. Previously the minimum age was twelve. This doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.

I'm not anti-gun, or even anti-kids-and-guns. My father gave me my first gun, a .303 Lee-Enfield, and taught me to use it when I was four. Even so, I waited until my kids were around ten before I offered to teach them how to shoot.

So, if I would let my own kids shoot at ten, why would I have a problem with them hunting at that age? The reason is that there's a big difference between a shooting range and a hunting trip. Lot easier to control things at the range, and with kids safety is all about control.

Think of how often you hear about hunting accidents. Now try to remember the last time there was an accident at a shooting range. Doesn't happen very often, even though far more rounds are fired at ranges than on hunts. My opinion is that kids should be at least fourteen before they're allowed to hunt. Safer for them, safer for everyone else.

Jim Doyle: Doing the Right Thing for Himself... and for the Democratic Party

I've been working on a major post showing what polling tells us about the likely direction of Jim Doyle's reelection campaign. I collected all the available polling data on Doyle over the past four years, including cross tabs which are where the good stuff is buried, and I put everything into Excel so I could slice and dice it.

Big waste of time, given Doyle's announcement that he won't be running. But I thought I'd share a few charts because they show just how tough it would have been for Doyle to win. Doyle's predicament is largely due to national trends beyond his control. Nothing fair about politics. Announcing fairly early that he won't be running again cripples Doyle legislatively, and makes it harder for him to solidify any sort of positive legacy, but it does give Democrats the best possible chance to win next year. Got to admire him for that...

Anyway, on with the charts. This data is from the SurveyUSA tracking poll, which they do almost every month for every federal elected official and governor. The benefit of a tracking poll is consistency. All pollsters have biases (intentional or not) due to the choices they make in their sampling techniques and models. This makes it difficult to spot more subtle trends when comparing polls from multiple pollsters. Tracking polls have the same sort of biases, of course, but as long as the pollster doesn't change anything, those biases have no effect on trends.

The first chart shows Doyle's approval and disapproval from the end of '06 until now. It's pretty grim:


The next chart shows Doyle's net approval (approval minus disapproval) for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Doyle has lost significant ground with all three groups. This is probably why he decided to throw in the towel. There's just no obvious policy or ideological direction that will win him enough support to succeed in '10. If he tries to appease one group he'll just piss off the others:


Doyle's misfortune is a blow to the Party, but it opens new opportunities for other Democrats. The next year or so is going to be very exciting for political junkies in Wisconsin. I can hardly wait!

Note on the charts: The trendlines in the first chart are three month moving averages; in the second they are six month. The data in the second chart is noisier because it's a sub-sample of the total data, so I used a longer average to make the charts more comparable.

PhRMA Firing a Shot Across Tammy's Bow?

Just heard a very odd ad on the radio. It urged listeners to contact Tammy Baldwin and thank her for supporting biomedical research. The ad was paid for by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

PhRMA is the velvet glove of the big drug companies. It exists to increase drug company profits through coordinated PR campaigns and lobbying. PhRMA doesn't spend money without good reason, so why the heck would they be running ads praising Tammy? It's an off-year, and even if it wasn't, Tammy certainly doesn't need PhRMA's help. She's essentially unbeatable short of a Ensign-sized scandal.

Seems to me that PhRMA may just be reminding Tammy that they're keeping an eye on her. The ads, which are probably being run on more "liberal" stations, will undoubtedly prompt a bunch of phone calls to her office, and few things get a politician's attention like lots of constituent calls on one issue. While PhRMA undoubtedly knows that taking Tammy out would be extraordinarily difficult, they're playing the long game. Tammy is ambitious, and may well run for another office eventually. By flexing their muscles now, in a nice way, Pharma is making it very clear to Tammy not only how much muscle they have, but also that they're willing to use to use it for, or against, her down the road.

An Unusual Place to Work

Just took the picture above of my work site for the next couple of weeks. It's the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on the summit of Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. The telescope is at 13,800 feet/4,200 meters, although the dorms where we eat and sleep are at 9,500 feet, which is much more comfortable.

If we're lucky, and nothing goes wrong or breaks, I should have some time to work on some interesting posts. Of course, things rarely seem to go smoothly on jobs like this...

The Dangers of Socialism, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Market

Great video from HAARM!

AMA to Rename Itself "The Greedy Bastards Club"

UPDATE! Less than a day after announcing that it opposed health care reform, the AMA is backing away from that position. They deserve credit for doing the right thing, even if has more to do with fear of being left out of negotiations than any real change of heart.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

True to form, the American Medical Association has come out against Obama's health care reform plan. The AMA has a very long, if not exactly proud, history of opposing any effort to extend health care to the poor, the elderly, or the uninsured. Here's what the president of the AMA said in his 1963 Congressional testimony about the proposal to create Medicare:

[Hospital insurance for the aged is not] "only unnecessary, but also dangerous to the basic principles underlying our American system of medical care."¹

The AMA was so concerned about the dangers of helping sick old people that they even cut a secret deal with the tobacco industry to downplay the risks of smoking in return for tobacco state congressmen agreeing to vote against Medicare!² As the head of the British Tobacco Association observed at the time, "The AMA appears more concerned with safeguarding the financial interests of doctors through political lobbying than with the doctor's patients." It's been almost fifty years, but apparently not much has changed.

Look, I understand that the AMA's basic job is to protect doctor's earnings. I don't expect them to lead the charge for reform; they have a mighty sweet deal under our current system. But I thought they'd show some decency and at least stay out of the way this time around. Nobody knows better than the AMA's members that we that spend twice as much money per capita on health care than any other country. They see it in their paychecks every month. Yet even with all that money, twenty to thirty percent of Americans lack access to basic care because they're uninsured or underinsured and simply can't afford it.

It's time for the AMA to realize that American doctors won't do well unless America does well. We can't continue spending more and more on what is arguably the world's least efficient health care system. It's bankrupting us, and making it increasingly difficult for American business to compete against countries with much less costly "socialized" medicine. The AMA is killing the goose that laid their golden egg, and we'll all pay the price for their greed.

Ronald Reagan starring in a 1961 AMA anti-Medicare effort.

1. The Politics of Medicare, second edition, by Theodore R. Marmor, p28.
2. A Question of Intent, by David Kessle, p207.

"Aid and Comfort"

Article III, Section III, of the U.S Constitution says in part "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

As more and more incriminating links are found between Scott Roeder and Operation Rescue, it will be interesting to see if there is a legal crackdown on militant anti-abortion groups. When it comes to Islamic terrorism we've applied the concept of "aid and comfort" very broadly, preemptively closing American charities that had any ties, however innocuous, to groups like Hamas. There is certainly justification to call the actions of many of the individuals tied to the anti-abortion movement, and perhaps those of the movement itself, terrorism. Do our homegrown Christian terrorists deserve the Islamic treatment, or should we just turn the other cheek in the hope that they'll realize they've strayed from the path of righteousness? Watch Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry in the video below, and let me know what you think.