ThinkProgress Logo

Politics

Ted Stevens can’t vote for himself. (UPDATED)

By Amanda Terkel on Oct 27, 2008 at 9:31 pm

Kos points to Alaska election law, which shows that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) — who was convicted on seven felony charges today — can’t even vote for himself in November:

I was convicted of a felony, but have served my time and am on probation. Can I register to vote?

No. A convicted felon may not register to vote unless unconditionally discharged from custody. When you are no longer on probation, a copy of your discharge papers will allow you to register.

Update

The New York Times brings up the possibility of a pardon: “Mr. Stevens is certain to appeal the conviction, and his supporters are also likely to explore the possibility of obtaining a pardon from a fellow Republican, President George W. Bush, before Mr. Bush leaves office in January.”


Update

,Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offers this reaction:

This is a sad but serious day. Sen. Stevens was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and now must face the consequences of those actions. As a result of his conviction, Sen. Stevens will be held accountable so the public trust can be restored.


Update

,Alaska’s top election official, Gail Fenumiai, e-mailed Al Kamen at the Washington Post and said that as of now, Stevens is still able to vote on Nov. 4: “The Department of Law has determined that until a final judgment and sentence has been entered by the federal court in his case, Senator Stevens is eligible to vote in the November 4 General Election.”

Security

National Security Experts Agree: Biden Was Right; Enemies Likely To ‘Test’ Next President

By Amanda Terkel on Oct 27, 2008 at 8:48 pm

Recently, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said that if Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is elected, there will be “an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” He followed up his comment by saying that Obama will rise to the occasion, because he has “steel in his spine.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) quickly jumped on the first part of Biden’s comments, declaring that the fact that Obama may be tested is actually a sign of weakness:

“I’m gonna test them,” Republican John McCain said at a campaign rally in New Mexico this morning. “They’re not gonna test me.”

Increasingly, national security experts are disavowing McCain’s comments. They agree that an international crisis confronting the next president is not a sign of weakness, but rather a very likely occurrence no matter if Obama or McCain wins:

– “I think the enemy could well take advantage” of the transfer of power in Washington, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, who launched preparations for the transition months ago

– Veteran Pentagon consultant Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board, told his fellow panelists that the new president’s inner circle should “set aside time in transition to identify the planning, gravitas and interagency process necessary to respond to a likely first-270-day crisis.”

– Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the federal government is monitoring “dozens” of potential terrorists in the U.S. … Chertoff says there is a risk that some would see opportunity during the transition between administrations.

– In its Administration Transition Task Force Report issued early this year, DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council placed the peak threat period from 30 days prior to the change in administrations, to six months after.

In June, even close McCain confidante Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) predicted that “our enemies will test the new president early.” As all these experts pointed out, preventing such an attack from being catastrophic requires extensive planning and preparation. So far, McCain has dismissed talk of transition planning, and it doesn’t appear that he has prepared anything except tough rhetoric.

Yglesias

RNC Up in Montana

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 27, 2008 at 8:32 pm

This seems like a terrible waste of money. Montana may or may not be competitive at the moment, but any universe in which Barack Obama wins Montana is a universe in which he’s winning the election anyway. And that’s money that could be spent on shoring up Chambliss or Wicker.

Politics

Phony board of elections flier tells Virginia Democrats to vote on November 5.

By Ryan Powers on Oct 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm

The Virginia Pilot reports today that a phony Virginia Board of Elections flier is being distributed in Hamption Roads, VA telling Democrats that they are now scheduled to vote on November 5. The flier falsely claims that “an emergency session of the General Assembly” adopted a new voting schedule to “ease the load” at polling places on election day:

195911.jpg

As the Pilot explains, “no emergency action has been take by the General Assembly, which isn’t in session, and furthermore, doesn’t have the authority to change the date of a federal election.” Along with the rest of the nation, Virginians in all parties vote on November 4.

Yglesias

The Center Moves Left

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 27, 2008 at 6:22 pm

After the election, there will no doubt be a feisty debate about whether or to what extent the new president needs to “govern from the center.” And of course you sort of do need to govern from the center. But it’s noteworthy that “the center” is in a very different place than it was in 1993. Lawrence Summers, for example, writes:

The crisis has also reminded us of the lessons of the technology bubble, Japan’s experience in the 1990s and of the US Great Depression – that finance-led growth is problematic. The wealth and income gains from the easy availability of credit were highly concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few. The benefits also proved temporary. In retrospect, the fact that 40 per cent of American corporate profits in 2006 went to the financial sector, and the closely related outcome – a doubling of the share of income going to the top 1 per cent of the population – should have been signs something was amiss.

Therefore we need to reform tax incentives that encourage financial risk taking, regulate leverage and prevent government policies that give rise to a toxic combination of privatised gains and socialised losses. This offers the prospect of a prosperity that is more firmly grounded and more inclusive. More fundamentally, short and longer-term imperatives come together with respect to policies that seek to ensure that any future prosperity is inclusive. The policies that are most effective in helping to support demand are those that help households struggling either because of low incomes or because they have recently lost part of their income. Recent events also remind us that individuals can become impoverished or lose health insurance through no fault of their own. This reinforces the need for people to have basic health and retirement security protection regardless of what happens to their employers.

There’s been some talk that Summers, who was only Treasury Secretary fairly briefly at the end of the Clinton administration, might be brought back for a second tour of duty. That would certainly be a centrist choice that many populists and liberals would deem disappointing. But he’s writing about the need for the government to provide a universal guarantee of health and retirement security, to build inclusive prosperity and to fight inequality. Eight years ago, you’d say that’s what populist critics of late-Clintonian centrism were saying. But of course that was before Republicans started nationalizing banks and insurance firms.

Politics

Senate Conservatives Would ‘Welcome Lieberman With Open Arms’ Next Congress

By Satyam Khanna on Oct 27, 2008 at 6:20 pm

lieberman325129.jpgWith the possibility of Democrats gaining a “supermajority” in the Senate, Senate conservatives appear to have their sights set on Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Interviewed on MSNBC today, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) said that he would welcome Lieberman into his caucus “with open arms“:

“We welcome Joe. I think Joe’s a terrific guy with a lot of integrity and does what he believes,” Ensign stated. “But, you know, it’ll be interesting to see how the Democrats handle Joe Lieberman after what he’s done in this presidential race. But as far as Republicans are concerned, we welcome him with open arms.”

Lieberman sides with McCain on foreign policy issues, including Iraq and kicking Russia out of the G8, but he has also refused to condemn McCain’s radical Social Security privatization scheme. In an interview with ThinkProgress at the RNC in September, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said that Lieberman is “practically” voting like a conservative already:

SPECTER: Well I would like to see him move a little closer to being a Republican. I’d like to see him vote with the Republicans when we go back in September. He’s practically there. That would have the consequence of giving us a Republican senator . We could confirm a lot of judges. We could do a lot of things.

The media has also picked up on Lieberman’s potential switch to the GOP. On Friday, Politico’s Mike Allen told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt that Lieberman “very may well caucus with Republicans” next year:

ALLEN: Any single senator can stop something, so no matter how bad the numbers are, Republicans senators are still going to have clout and, a little tidbit for you, when you’re doing your tallying, don’t forget to count Sen. Lieberman. He very well may caucus with Republicans. He almost certainly is to be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee and that would allow him to be counted as a Republican.

Listen here:

In July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “did not rule out” removing Lieberman from his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2009.

Health

The Future Of Children’s Health Insurance

By Igor Volsky on Oct 27, 2008 at 6:15 pm

bannerschip3.JPG

Should Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) win the election, most health care analysts predict that SCHIP expansion will kick-off a larger effort of health care reform. In 2007, despite broad bipartisan support and the urging of governors, President Bush vetoed two separate bills (HR 976 and HR 3963) that would have extended health care coverage to some 10 million children.

In preparation for the next SCHIP battle, the Wonk Room has compiled the voting records of politicians up for re-election who opposed SCHIP expansion:

Name HR 976 HR 3963
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) No No
Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) No No
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) No No
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) - No
Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) No No
Rep. Bill Sali (R-ID) No No

Along with the president, the above complained that the bipartisan compromise would “raise taxes on working Americans,” add “nonpoor children to the program” and encourage “many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.”

Despite their claims, however, “the overwhelming majority of children who would gain health coverage under the emerging agreement are precisely the low-income children the President says he wants to focus on.” A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the SCHIP the first bill found that the overwhelming majority of those who would gain coverage under the bill have incomes below states’ current SCHIP eligibility limits. Two-thirds of “those who gain SCHIP coverage…would otherwise be uninsured.”

The importance of covering children cannot be overstated. Publicly insured children are “more likely to have asthma, learning disabilities, and/or health conditions that require regular treatment with prescription medications.” Medicaid and SCHIP, in turn, “provide access to the medical care that can treat these problems and help children grow, function, and learn more effectively.”

Ninety-one percent of Americans want “Congress to help states cover more uninsured children.” The next President and Congress will have a unique opportunity to channel this consensus towards concrete health care reform, of which SCHIP will only be the beginning.

Politics

Palin: Stevens verdict ‘shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company.’

By Faiz Shakir on Oct 27, 2008 at 6:10 pm

Hotline reports that Sarah Palin issued a statement about the guilty decision in the Ted Stevens corruption case:

Thanks for your patience there. It’s a sad day for Alaska, and a sad day for Senator Stevens and his family. The verdict shines a light though on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company up there in Alaska that was allowed to control too much of our state. And that control was part of the culture of corruption that I was elected to fight. And that fight must always move forward regardless of party affiliation or seniority or even past service. And as governor of the state of Alaska, I’ll carefully monitor now the situation, and I’ll take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I do ask that the people of Alaska join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system, and I’m confident that Senator Stevens, from this point on, will do the right thing for the state of Alaska.

CNN reports, “Palin did not respond when asked if she will vote for Sen. Stevens and promptly boarded the campaign plane.”

Update

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reacts:

This verdict is a personal tragedy for our colleague Ted Stevens, but it is an important reminder that no man is above the law. Senator Stevens must now respect the outcome of the judicial process and the dignity of the United States Senate.

Politics

Holtz-Eakin Argues Carbon Dioxide Is Not A Pollutant

By Ali Frick on Oct 27, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation, top McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin insisted that the next president will have to enact “comprehensive policies” to create jobs. After calling for a “real energy policy,” Holtz-Eakin slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) plan to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant:

HOLTZ-EAKIN: And so the question will be: who can most quickly generate jobs in this economy, to keep the unemployment rate from spiking so high? At the heart of that, is having comprehensive policies … that have a real energy policy that would allow us to grow. I mean, you know, Senator Obama has promised that, day one, he would enforce the Clean Air Act, treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That runs the economy from the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a draconian regulatory approach. That’s not a rescue for jobs.

Watch it:

Is Holtz-Eakin suggesting that McCain does not view CO2 as a pollutant? That would be interesting, considering that McCain frequently — as recently as last week — highlights his supposed difference with President Bush on the issue of global warming. But Bush has steadfastly refused to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, strong-arming the EPA into rejecting requests by California and other states to regulate CO2 emissions from cars.

More importantly, Holtz-Eakin seems oblivious to the fact that the EPA is legally required to regulate CO2 emissions, at least according to the United States Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. “Under that decision, the EPA is effectively obligated to begin the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act,” conservative law professor Jonathan Alder explained. “If the law is not amended, and the next Administration fails to act, environmentalist groups will file suit to force their hand — and win.”

Finally, Holtz-Eakin is simply wrong to suggest that tackling climate change is “not a rescue for jobs.” California’s pollution standards have created 1.5 million jobs.

Transcript: Read more

Yglesias

The Annals of Prescience

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 27, 2008 at 5:22 pm

Hey look what some idiot wrote on page 152 of a book called Heads in the Sand (this is me writing about the 2006 midterms from the vantage point of 2007 with emphasis added):

The difference was that the increasing deterioration of the situation in Iraq had turned the war into an albatross around the GOP’s neck, motivating Republicans to attempt their own version of the Democrats’ evasion strategy from 2002. To try to exploit Democratic ambiguity on the issue [i.e., of withdrawing from Iraq], Republicans would need to be willing to talk about it. And as Election Day grew near, the GOP was eager to talk about anything else. On November 3, the New York Times reported that “Republicans seized on a drop in the unemployment rate to assert on Friday that tax cuts were invigorating the economy, highlighting just four days before the election an issue that party strategists are counting on to offset bad news about the war.” In reality, just as Democrats had learned four years earlier, candidates for office don’t get to unilaterally decide what elections are going to be about. Nothing in the ups and downs of the twenty-first century economy — neither its relatively weak condition in 2002 nor its relatively strong condition in 2006, nor the downturn that followed the collapse of the subrpime mortgage market — suffices to trump the drama surrounding questions of war and peace.

Oops!

Thus the perils of book publishing. At the time of writing, I knew that we were in for some economic headwinds. But I had no idea how bad they would be. So instead of just biting the bullet, I chose to guess that the 2008 elections would be conducted amidst some relatively mild economic problems. In fact, they turned out to be quite severe. I made the same point in what turns out to have been a smart way, all the way back in the February 2005 American Prospect:

Re-reading John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s popular book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, after the election, I noticed the same thing. The majority was repeatedly prophesied to emerge “when memories of 9-11 fade,” or equivalent formulations. But while memories of the attacks as such are likely to fade (and indeed have to a reasonable extent), the salience of the issue isn’t going anywhere. A study by Democratic pollster Mark Penn has shown that public interest in world affairs reached a low point in the 1990s not seen since the Great Depression. Democrats can hope that it happens again, but hope is not a plan. Besides, history suggests that it will not. The Clinton years were highly unusual; foreign policy has consistently been a prominent element of presidential campaigns since America’s emergence as a major world power in the Spanish-American War, and will probably continue to be for the foreseeable future. The only reliable method of pushing it off the agenda is a 1930s-style economic collapse, but hoping for something like that would be perverse and unrealistic.

Turns out to have been substantially more realistic than I would have guessed.

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up