Within the Margin

…that headline being the closest those items (Icahn and the American left) will likely ever come to each other.

In the midst of reading (here and here, for example) about the various travails of Trump advisor Carl Icahn, my mind wandered into consideration of the American left’s prior failures to deny its bête noir presidents a second term. Icahn has now served twice as the illustration of America’s descent into clientelism under the present administration; one of the most obvious fears of what Trump’s election would wrought seems to be coming to pass.

This got me pondering the last few decades of American presidential elections. Nixon’s reelection was dreaded on the left and managed to shock any number of people – from Hunter S. Thompson to John and Yoko – despite his comfortable polling leads. Reagan got slapped around in midterms but as 1984 dawned, his second victory seemed almost assured, even as the left saw him as a smiling but sinister threat to labor, global peace, and domestic race relations. George W. Bush engendered abject hatred and cries of fascism, and his quest for reelection offered far more suspense than the other two, but he survived. The only Republican president of the last 50 years to be denied a second term was the one who provoked the least hostility among his foes – George H.W. Bush.

Yet each of those three triumphantly-ratified presidents would see their political fortunes evaporate soon enough. Watergate began to unravel Nixon at the outset of his second term; he would resign the August before midterms and his party went on to lose 49 House seats – on top of the five lost in special elections as the scandal unfolded. Iran-Contra didn’t end the Reagan presidency, but it consumed several years and weakened his standing. Democrats retook the Senate in midterms with a net gain of eight seats. Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, and a foolish ploy to privatize Social Security sent Bush into freefall in his first year after reelection. Nothing improved for him the second year, and his toxicity combined with an assortment of Congressional scandals to lose his party both the House and Senate in 2006.

In all three cases, the president’s second term was at best a struggle (Reagan) and at worst an outright disaster (Nixon and Bush). In all three cases, the president and his party suffered heavy political defeats. To a certain degree, that is to be expected for most presidencies, as the public grows restless for change by the time the second midterm rolls around. What seems notable in these three cases is the rapid, steep decline following so soon after voters put their imprimatur on the administration’s work to date.

Is the left skilled, then, at sowing the seeds of political defeat, but cannot reap them in timely fashion? Is there something intrinsic to how the left prosecutes its case against these presidents? I find myself wondering if the intensity and assured nature of its argumentation is taken for granted by the so-called swing voters, who dismiss it as simply being the way of things: “Ah, yes, my liberal friends are once again foretelling the downfall of civilization. Once again, they think all is not well in the kingdom! Such alarmists.” And then Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Iraq/Katrina happen, and all is confirmed. It seems safe to argue that the intellectual left is quite well known for being loud and abstract, and only when events prove loud enough and tangible enough to match do the political winds actually change.

How will it be with Trump, then? He started with less political capital than these others, and soon began losing ground. He is said to be “rebounding” when he occasionally manages to hit 40% in an approval poll (Gallup currently puts him at 39%). His party trails badly in generic Congressional ballot polls. More importantly, though, his administration has been beset with scandal almost immediately. He hasn’t faced and failed crises like Bush did, but the worst fears of his opposition with respect to ethics and corruption have been confirmed through various dramas and departures from the norm. Have events proven loud enough and tangible enough for the left’s arguments to be heard? Will they be forgotten if things smooth out somewhat before 2020, and the new norms – exemplified by Carl Icahn and his ilk – are fully entrenched?

Before I offer some quick thoughts on Trump and Priebus declaring war on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this week, I present three pieces of information:

• The 9th Circuit’s overturn rate is above average, but it’s not the highest in the country; it’s third, behind the 6th Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee) and 11th Circuit (Alabama, Florida and Georgia).
• The sanctuary city ruling didn’t even come from the 9th Circuit per se, but from a judge on the 5th District Court.  A piece of the 9th Circuit, yes – one of thirteen district courts in that circuit – but not the court itself. The 9th would hear the case on appeal. I’d be happy to excuse the imprecise language but for the fact that this administration is so fast and loose with verbiage and would do well to speak with specificity when they’re talking about unleashing massive judicial changes, such as breaking up a circuit court.
• Conservatives who are “in the know” like to reference the out-of-control 9th to excuse away rulings they don’t like as the doings of some granola-chomping eco-terrorist toiling away on a commune in northern California. The states I mentioned above in the 6th and 11th don’t quite serve the same function in their hyped-up fantasies; you don’t often hear conservatives talking about the need to rein in the un-American extremists of Kentucky and Alabama.

So when Priebus says the 9th Circuit is “going bananas,” and Trump says he is considering proposals to break up the 9th, as “many people” support, they’re speaking in code to activists on their side who accept as gospel truth that the 9th Circuit is beyond the pale and that drastic action is required. Never mind that the 9th Circuit isn’t as far out of the so-called judicial mainstream as they imply, or that changes to the 9th Circuit would shake up courts in Idaho and Wyoming that are a bit harder to caricature than San Francisco, or that it would require 60 votes in the Senate – requiring at least 8 Democrats, and possibly more if western Republicans have parochial reasons to avoid disruption, or that the country has historically held the federal judiciary sacred and it’s one of the few things I can imagine that could actually drive Trump’s approvals even lower. He is conceivably foolish enough to imagine that the successful confirmation of Neil Gorsuch means he can do no wrong when it comes to remaking the courts, but his language sounds radical and drastic (“break up” a court), and the general public may well agree.

And so what this really amounts to…is a conversation with his base. Trump is talking to the 46% of the country that voted for him, and ignoring the rest. There are no national discussions in this administration; he’s only interested in the folks that buy into certain truths about conservative activists, particularly judicial activists. He only wants to speak to those willing to speak in his language; there is no outreach to the other 54%. The framing of the 9th’s rulings as radical will bounce around the conservative echo chamber, and restructuring courts will become accepted wisdom among that 46% as a viable, necessary strategy.

I know consensus is impossible at this time, and sometimes there’s little value in going through the motions of pretending to seek or obtain it. But in the first hundred days, at least, can we uphold one of the ideals of this office? Just one?

In the end, the margin was what it should have been: a comfortable Democratic victory to hold Senate District 10 and with it control of the Delaware Senate. Stephanie Hansen captured a little more than 58% of the vote compared to just under 41% for John Marino, with the Libertarian candidate grabbing the remaining 1.12%.

As I wrote last night, Democrats held most of the advantages here and had to win. But winning the easy ones has not been the party’s forte of late, and Republicans had the strongest scenario they could ask for: a candidate with an interesting profile and background, who had nearly captured the seat for them in 2014, and who was outspent but with sufficient funds to be competitive.

This was not 2014, though: the enthusiasm gap that cost Democrats so dearly that year was not present in this campaign. Helpfully, we can quantify that: Hansen received 7,314 votes today, compared to her predecessor Bethany Hall-Long’s winning haul of 6,230 votes in 2014. Let that sink in for a moment: the Democratic candidate won over a thousand more votes in a February special election for a state senate seat, with nothing else on the ballot, than in the November 2014 election with U.S. Senate and House seats on the line. While one should never, ever read too much into an individual special election results, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Trump presidency has sharpened the focus of  Democrats at the grassroots level and helped them understand that resistance takes place up and down the ballot. That’s how you get 250 people to turn up and volunteer to canvass for a state legislative race on a wintry Saturday, as Hansen did a few weekends ago. And that’s how you blow past your last general election number in a given district.

There are many miles to go on the way back to respectability for Democrats in our state legislatures. Tom Perez and Keith Ellison, now the chair and deputy chair of the national party, have vowed a bottom-up focus that would make wins like this plenty common in the years to come. Hopefully Stephanie Hansen, her hundreds of volunteers, and over 7,000 voters have taken the first step in a very long process.

Last month, my indoor five-a-side soccer team was languishing near the bottom of the table as the fall/winter season drew to a close. A campaign that had started brightly enough with a decisive win and some encouraging draws had given way to a seemingly endless series of one-goal defeats. The defense (including me) was of middling quality at best, the offense lacked a killer instinct. It was not out of the realm of possibility that we’d finish 17th out of 18, compared to our usual hard-fought mid-table (or just under) placement.We were struggling on all fronts, but our next to last game featured a team one spot below us. Beat them, as just about everyone else had done, and we’d secure 16th with a shot to move up another spot in the final week. Lose, and risk dropping a spot and losing more momentum going into the spring season. Pride was on the line, in other words. There are games you simply have to win.

So naturally I lost my man in the penalty area after a corner and turned around with horror to see him collecting a pass and firing it past a goalkeeper who had worked so many miracles for us all season. That’s my goal, I said, but whatever class I showed in taking the blame didn’t make us feel any better about the 1-0 scoreline. The game stood that way at halftime: we were losing to one of the only two teams that had been worse than us all season.

But it’s a game of two halves, football. We equalized soon after the break and plowed forward with resolve the rest of the way until finally, with two or three minutes to spare, I intercepted a ball in midfield and dashed forward. Spotting my workhorse teammate Ronald – a man who carries the pain of his native Ecuador’s massive 2016 earthquake with him onto the pitch and inspires me to do better, or at least try harder – speeding down the left flank, I threaded a perfectly weighted ball past his marker and onto his feet. He took care of the rest with a thunderous strike. 2-1, and it was never in doubt that we’d hold on and see out the victory after that.

***

There are elections you simply have to win. Not because the Delaware legislature is regarded as one of the nation’s most innovative or influential, and not because Democrats are hurting to develop a bench in a state where they have controlled the governorship since 1992 and both U.S. senators since 2000 and the lone U.S. representative since 2010, not to mention most of the other statewide offices for over a decade – on the whole, Democrats are more or less doing just fine in Delaware. Not because the Trump White House will see the result and suspend their assault on immigrants, on health care, on the environment, on civil rights, on the free press.

But because sometimes in life – on the pitch, on the campaign trail – you need a sense of momentum. You need reliability. You need to know that your team can experience a poor run of form but still spy the winnable game…and then actually win it.

That’s Saturday’s Delaware senate special election. Control of the Delaware Senate hinges upon it. They’ve seen a 15-6 majority in 2008 eroded by one seat in each election since. That would have left them up 11-10 after the 2016 elections, except incumbent senator Bethany Hall-Long vacated her seat upon being elected lieutenant governor. So it’s 10-10 right now, pending Saturday’s outcome. Democrats are the side with everything to lose: the First State is one of only six in the country where Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the legislature. They’re the out-party in much of the nation, but this is a seat – and a senate chamber – that they actually have, or had until November.

Let’s be clear: it’s  a Democratic seat. Obama carried it 59%-40% in 2012 (and unofficial calculations show Clinton carrying it 54%-41% last year). But especially in low-turnout special elections, few seats are actually safe if hotly contested, and that’s certainly happening here. John Marino, a retired New York City police officer and current realtor and small business owner, is the GOP candidate. He’s a solid candidate and he’s been close to winning before: in a previous bid for this seat in 2014, he lost only 51%-49%. Democrats are running former New Castle County council president Stephanie Hansen. Both candidates are well-funded, with lots of outside money in the mix: Hansen is getting plenty of support from a Delaware-specific PAC called First State Strong. Marino is getting less money than her but plenty enough to run a race, and far more than the usual Delaware senate race, from the usual mix of anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-tax groups.

Democrats are spending more because they have more to lose, and anyway it’s funny to listen to a guy complain about being outspent by PACs when his party gleefully opposes campaign finance reforms all around the country. Regardless, Marino has enough funds and existing name recognition to be competitive. What he doesn’t have is a party enthused to find some way to strike back at the party of Trump…and he doesn’t have Joe Biden campaigning for him, as Hansen does.

Democrats have everything to lose and nothing to gain…except a touch of momentum, a bit of confidence, and that little spring in their step that would come from knowing that all the resistance efforts are not for naught, and that the decline of party strength in America’s 50 state legislatures is to be arrested and down the road, reversed.

The party could use a little swagger right now.

Yes: I just wanted to be sure that somewhere on the web for all eternity would be an article referencing “the Pataki Moment.” Slate has a delightful piece today about the former governor of New York’s latest attempt to be part of a fun-filled Republican presidential primary saga. And bingo: not because Pataki is showing up at bingo halls to connect with seniors, but because his web presence is poorly managed and thus overrun by internet bingo advertisements. A thing I learned today? The world is full of internet bingo sites – which seem inherently self-contradicting – and they like to advertise on derelict political sites. Not this one, though: Within the Margin is a bingo-free zone, though maybe there’s a business model to be found here…

But I digress. Anyone who’s talked politics with me in recent years has heard me mock this guy’s quadrennial presidential flirtations. You see, I’m too young to really remember much of the Pataki governorship: I just remember him sort of being in and around the 9/11 response, but those are really the Giuliani and Bush “moments.”  And then I remember him preparing to leave office with a 30% approval rating according to the best collegiate pollster in the business. That was the precursor to the Spitzer moment, which went poorly for New York, and it was also the precursor to the first (that I’m aware of, anyway) Pataki presidential campaign “buzz.”

That first foray never became a moment, though we did have Pataki-in-Iowa reporting from the Times. Most notable: Pataki’s desire to visit a country fair. I can relate: I enjoy a good fair. Many trips to Iowa and New Hampshire followed, and presumably many fairs visited, but no formal campaign materialized. The country would plod along without him for a while, but our fears were briefly allayed in the summer of 2012, when the Post noted that Pataki was back on the Iowa picnic circuit and preparing to jump into the nomination race. But no dice; he again opted to stay out, meaning that he would never join the likes of Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum in topping GOP primary polls at some point in the 2012 campaign. And the American people have once again had to struggle along without his leadership.

The 2016 field has a somewhat more serious mix of personalities, though not universally so: Trump is “seriously thinking” of running and Palin is “seriously interested” and Mike Huckabee is seriously warring with Beyonce and Ben Carson is seriously proposing that homophobic bakers might poison same-sex couples’ wedding cakes. Those clowns aside, Pataki likes to think of himself as a thinker and innovator and may find the tone in 2016 a bit more amenable to policy discussions. Now 69 years of age, Pataki needs to act soon if he wants to be able to say he once ran for president. He’s running out of time to create the Pataki Moment that our country, err, George Pataki, so desperately needs.