Brendan Nyhan

Despite my suggestions to the contrary, the Blagojevich scandal has failed to damage Barack Obama. After several weeks of coverage, approval of his job performance and his transition efforts remains very high (via Yglesias).

Meanwhile, the Republicans are struggling to coordinate on an anti-Obama message that would change the flow of political information to the public, as Adam Nagourney reports in the Times today:

It’s not so easy being the loyal opposition these days.

Almost two months after Barack Obama’s election, Republicans are struggling to figure out how — or even whether — to challenge or criticize him as he prepares to assume the presidency.

The president-elect is proving to be an elusive and frustrating target. He has defied efforts to be framed ideologically. His cabinet picks have won wide praise. An effort by the Republican National Committee to link Mr. Obama to the unfolding scandal involving Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois and his alleged attempt to barter for Mr. Obama’s Senate seat was dismissed by no less a figure than Senator John McCain, the Republican Mr. Obama beat for the presidency.

The toughest criticism of Mr. Obama during this period — in fact, the real only criticism of him during this period — has come not from the right but from the left, primarily over his selection of the Rev. Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor who is a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, to deliver the invocation at the inauguration.

There are plenty of battles ahead that may provide Republicans with an opportunity to find their footing. They will no doubt find arguments to use against Mr. Obama when, for example, he starts to lay out the details of his economic stimulus plans. While Mr. Obama is the beneficiary of the kind of post-election honeymoon Washington has not seen in at least 16 years, honeymoons tend to end.

Still, this display of Republican uncertainty is testimony to the political skills of the incoming president, and a reminder of just how difficult a situation the Republican Party is in. More than that, though, members of both parties say, it is evidence of the unusual place the country is in: buoyed by the prospect of the inauguration of a president who appears to enjoy great favor with the public, while at the same time deeply worried about the country’s future. It is going to be complicated making a case against Mr. Obama, many Republicans said, in an environment where people want him to succeed and may not have much of an appetite for partisan politics.

Contrary to Nagourney, there is likely to be little comparison between Obama’s first months in office and the experience of Bill Clinton, who entered office with approval ratings in the 50s and quickly came under attack from Republicans. Obama is already in the high 60s before the inauguration and the resulting flow of positive coverage and goodwill, which may push his approval ratings into the low 70s. The last president to have a honeymoon of that magnitude was Jimmy Carter more than thirty years ago.

Nagourney’s analysis parallels similar articles written about Democrats after 9/11, when President Bush enjoyed the equivalent of an extended honeymoon. But what’s most striking about the article is this newfound Republican reticence about hardball politics. For someone like me who grew up in the Clinton/Bush era, there has never been a time in which Republicans were this nervous about attacking Democrats. It’s a complete inversion of the (supposed) rules of the Reagan-Gingrich-Bush era — the political equivalent of the apple flying up into Newton’s tree.

News of the weird: Someone thinks that Fred Thompson, who clears his throat every ten seconds and was last seen begging die-hard GOP activists for applause, can draw a mass audience as a radio host:

It is a lively time to be behind the microphone. One television talker, Joe Scarborough, is starting a radio show. Another, Bill O’Reilly, is ending his.

Several of the supporting actors in this year’s Republican primary are showing interest in the medium, too. Fred Thompson, the “Law & Order” star turned presidential candidate, will begin hosting a two-hour show in March, as the syndicator Westwood One is expected to announce this week. Mr. Thompson’s show would take the place of Mr. O’Reilly’s.

Remind me to short Westwood One stock.

Back in July, I worried that the move of Matthew Yglesias from The Atlantic to the Center for American Progress would undermine his independence due to “the structural incentives of working for a movement organization and appealing to a more movement-centric audience.”

Sadly, that seems to have to come true. After praising the group Third Way as a “neat organization” that “[does] a lot of clever messaging stuff,” Yglesias referred to their domestic policy agenda as “hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit,” prompting CAP to bigfoot on his blog tonight:

A Special Note Re: Third Way

This is Jennifer Palmieri, acting CEO of the Center for American Progess Action Fund.

Most readers know that the views expressed on Matt’s blog are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s comments about Third Way. Our institution has partnered with Third Way on a number of important projects – including a homeland security transition project – and have a great deal of respect for their critical thinking and excellent work product. They are key leaders in the progressive movement and we look forward to working with them in the future.

There’s no way that this sort of reaction won’t create a chilling effect on Yglesias. How could he not think twice about criticizing Third Way or other CAP partners in the future? It’s the reason we need smart bloggers like him at independent outlets like The Atlantic that won’t enforce a party line.

Update 12/22 7:01 PM: See the updates from Yglesias and CAPAF’s Faiz Shakir as well as commentary from a slew of bloggers. I’m glad Yglesias didn’t get directly censored (he reiterated his objections to Third Way in a later post) but the chilling effect scenario outlined above still seems very plausible.

When it comes to measuring support for the US abroad, the Bush administration keeps selecting different metrics.

Back in 2003, the White House was caught exaggerating the size of the coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq by including tiny countries that were not active military contributors:

The administration asserts that 44 nations are part of the coalition. But officials reach that number by lumping nations providing military units or logistical assistance with an eclectic group of nations — such as Afghanistan,
Eritrea, Honduras, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands and Uzbekistan — that are only voicing political support.

On Meet the Press today, however, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took the opposite approach, pointing to support for the US among the large populations of India and China to deemphasize the fact that the citizens of many countries do not view the US favorably (my emphasis):

MR. GREGORY: Eight years later, seven years later after that, do you think that the world views the United States as a humble nation?

SEC’Y RICE: I certainly think the United States views the—that the world views the United States as a place to be respected. All over the world, David, our values are respected; who we are, a place that you can come and come from modest circumstances to great things, that’s respected. What we’ve done hasn’t always been liked or popular. But if you look at some of the most populous places in the world—China, India—the United States is not only respected but, in fact, popular. So yes, there are some places that have had real quarrels with our policies, but, but I think the United States is very well-respected worldwide.

It’s also not clear that the US is “popular” in China — the latest Pew Global Attitudes Poll found that only 41% of Chinese have a favorable view of the US.

Politico has done an excellent job documenting how the disturbing Caroline Kennedy boomlet is part of a “trend toward dynasty politics.” The statistic in bold is particularly troubling:

[Obama’s] secretary of state will be Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. The Senate seat she’ll vacate is being pursued by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of a president and the niece of two senators. Joe Biden’s Senate seat may go to his son Beau. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Obama’s pick for interior secretary, could end up being replaced by his brother, Rep. John Salazar.

…While Obama’s election and subsequent Cabinet appointments may have accelerated the trend toward dynasty, he’s hardly responsible for it. There is a rich bipartisan history of dynasty in American politics that dates all the way back to the Founding Fathers; Obama-Biden actually represents the first winning ticket since 1976 without a son or a grandson of a U.S. senator on it.

…At the moment, the Senate includes six sons or daughters of congressmen.

And the House – the “people’s House” – isn’t exactly bereft of hereditary influence, either.

In the 111th Congress next year, there will be 21 House members with a parent who also served in Congress – plus five wives who currently hold their late husbands’ seats.

As I’ve written (here and here), Barack Obama has been on track for a classic presidential honeymoon before the Blagojevich scandal came along. For instance, here’s a nice illustration from Rasmussen of how strong disapproval of the president-elect has declined since the election:

Now, however, those numbers may change (though they haven’t budged yet). Gallup has the first partisan breakdown I’ve seen in polling about the Blagojevich scandal that I’ve seen. The results show that approximately half of Republicans think Obama’s staff did something illegal or unethical:

The question is if (or when) those perceptions will translate into disapproval of Obama generally. It’ll depend on the overall strength of the flow of negative information about Obama — will Republicans back off per Newt Gingrich and John McCain or will they try to make Obama’s first year like Bill Clinton’s?

I’m supportive of efforts to elect more women and minorities to the Senate, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that Hillary Clinton must be replaced by a woman or Barack Obama by an African-American simply because of the previous officeholder’s background. What’s worse is that Caroline Kennedy, who is now seeking Hillary’s seat despite a lack of obvious qualifications beyond “fairy tale” Kennedy mythology, would be the second person to hold New York’s Senate seat largely on the strength of her last name. What might be seen as a victory for women would also reinforce the country’s disturbing trend toward dynastic politics.

When you’re governor of a major state, apparently you begin to think it’s acceptable behavior to berate your aides for not having your hairbrush on hand at all times:

Mr. Blagojevich, 52, rarely turns up for work at his official state office in Chicago, former employees say, is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president.

You can’t make this s— up. What will he do in prison without “the football”?

On Thursday, I asked if the Blagojevich scandal would wreck Barack Obama’s nascent presidential honeymoon. The next day, The Hotline, an influential newsletter for political insiders, asked the same question, signalling a potential shift in the conventional wisdom:

Could Pres.-elect Obama’s honeymoon be over before 1/20? For the first time since 11/4, RNC emails are filling our in-boxes, suggesting they see a chance to knock some shine off Obama’s platinum-plated approval ratings.

— First, Obama’s attempts to try and ride above the Blago story aren’t working. Not only has his PR approach drawn loads of criticism, but there’s now growing speculation about whether his team was really as hands-off w/ Blago as he’d reported. The fact that his normally ubiquitous CoS has been out of sight recently only intensifies the focus on Rahm’s involvement.

— Then there’s the bailout fall-out. Another failed attempt at bi-partisanship means another bad day for the markets. That Pres. Bush has little to no capital on Capitol Hill isn’t surprising. But what about Obama? Despite his calls for protecting Detroit, he did little to publicly pressure Congress to forge a deal. Will he now put pressure on the WH to release TARP funds? Or will he wait for Bush to make the first move? At this point, it looks like the WH may already be warming to that option.

— Either way, it seems like the Obama team is going to have to re-evaluate their ability to truly stay above the fray for the next 30+ days.

There’s still no sign of a decline in Obama’s honeymoon-esque approval ratings, but media coverage continues to relentlessly associate Obama with the scandal despite a complete lack of evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the president-elect or his associates.

In addition, the Republican National Committee, which never stopped criticizing Obama after the campaign ended, has gotten increased traction with its incessant drumbeat of demands for answers to a never-ending list of questions about Obama and Blagojevich. Here’s the newest RNC web video titled “Questions Remain”:

This is turning into an interesting test of whether Obama can break the Clinton paradigm of scandal coverage early in his administration…

Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic governor of Michigan, is smearing opponents of the auto bailout as “un-American”:

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) said it was “un-American” for senators to have voted against approving a bailout of troubled automakers last night, saying their vote may cause a recession to become a depression.

“It is unacceptable for this un-American, frankly, behavior of these U.S. senators to cause this country to go from a recession into a depression,” Granholm said during a radio interview Friday morning.

Update 12/14 9:22 AM: Back in September, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi similarly called House Republicans “unpatriotic” for not attending meetings on the bailout:

PELOSI: I thought it was very unpatriotic of them not to show up, not to show up, in some ways, boycott the meetings earlier in the week.