Relentless mockery by bloggers does have an influence on how Bigfoot reporters go about their job. Eventually, they anticipate the mockery and take precautions against it. Ideally, this involves fact-checking but it also takes this form…paragraphs that begin:
First, the data that shout that I am wrong.
That’s how David Broder transitions from his lede to his argument in today’s column. This is a form of fact-checking, albeit one in which the facts are checked only so that they can be ignored. You can call it a half-step in the right direction. At least it demonstrates the first signs of self-awareness. Broder, as is always his wont, is writing yet another column about the greatness of bipartisanship and centrism. But he knows that the Republicans unanimously rejected the budget and nearly-unanimously rejected the stimulus. He knows that the 61% partisan divide in presidential approval is at an historic high for this period in a new presidency. In the past, he might have just ignored these facts but today he takes them head-on. Of course, his procedure is to ignore other facts.
But, still, this analysis ignores potent factors, starting with the fact that the fastest-growing portion of the electorate consists of people who have no strong partisan allegiance. These political independents are now as numerous as self-identified Republicans and are closing the gap on the Democrats.
Though badly underrepresented in Congress, where districting rules and campaign finance practices reinforce the two-party hegemony, the independent voters make up the swing vote in almost every contested election — including the presidential race.
Let’s take a look at those independent voters in the latest Research 2000/Daily Kos poll:
Obama Favorable/Unfavorable/Undecided
DEM 93/6/1
REP 24/74/2
IND 73/24/3
The Republican and Independent numbers are almost exactly inverse to each other, which should tell Broder both that the Democrats are winning the argument with the Republicans for the decisive swing-vote, and that there is something desperately wrong with his argument. But he pushes ahead anyway.
It is the reaction of those swing voters — or the politicians’ anticipation of their shifting opinion — that drives the outcome of the big policy debates. You’ve had an example of this already with Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal for protecting the environment from carbon discharges.
Once political independents, who like the idea of clean air, grasped that cap-and-trade would mean a big tax increase for them, Republican opposition was reinforced and Democratic support weakened to the point that the Obama plan may already be doomed this year.
Typically for Broder, he offers no evidence (not even a poll) to back up his assertion that political independents like clean air but have realized that cap-and-trade will bring big tax increases and now oppose it. Without supporting this premise his conclusion that cap-and-trade is doomed this year because of independent opposition doesn’t follow. And if his conclusion about cap-and-trade doesn’t follow, then it cannot serve as the premise for his next point.
The crucial role of the independents will be demonstrated again and again when Congress takes up Obama’s challenge to reform health care, immigration and other broken systems or renew arms control agreements. Because those independents are impressed when measures find prominent supporters in both parties, it will continue to behoove Obama to woo Republican help — no matter how tough the odds.
Actually, he isn’t even trying to drive a logical argument here. He merely asserts that independents are ‘impressed when measures find prominent supporters from both parties’ without building any predicate case to support it. According the the Research 2000/Daily Kos poll, Minority Leader John Boehner has a 12% approval rating from independents and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fares little better at 21% approval. Congressional Republicans, as a whole, receive approval from a mere 11% of Independents. Most independents would rather get the clap than listen to a House Republican on their teevee. It does not seem to have occurred to David Broder that Congressional opposition to cap-and-trade is not being driven by Independent opposition but by the energy industry’s interests in many Democratic senator’s home states.
Having utterly failed to make his case, Broder concludes:
Presidents who hope to achieve great things cannot for long rely on using their congressional majorities to muscle things through. That is why a strategy based on the early roll calls and polls is likely to fail.
Presidents who hope to achieve great things do not allow their agendas to be held hostage by people who are less popular than a case of chlamydia with the swing-voters that decide every contested race- even presidential ones.
