Beyond Red & Blue

Meta-post: Temporary lull in blogging

Sorry for the relatively light blogging over the past week. We are now in overtime mode at CommonWealth magazine putting together our special issue on the 15th anniversary of Massachusetts' Education Reform Act. And it's almost as if Barack, Hillary, and the voters of Pennsylvania are helping us out by freezing the Democratic primary contest in place.

In a few days, we'll be back up to full speed on the blog. In the meantime, you can read past posts and marvel at how little has been resolved...

Update: Democratic primary vote in the 10 regions

 

I've added the Pennsylvania results to the chart showing how Clinton and Obama have fared in our 10 political regions. For the first time, Obama leads in four regions, as his votes in Philadelphia and its suburbs push him to a narrow edge in the Northeast Corridor. And for the first time, Clinton's strongest region is not El Norte, as her sweep across central Pennsylvania makes Cumberland her most reliable base of votes. Note that Clinton has a narrow lead in the popular vote because the Florida and Michigan primaries, while nonbinding, are included here.

No exit (or, the sitcom campaign)

What more to say about Pennsylvania? The Democratic race has become a sitcom, in which all the stock characters -- the sassy grandma, the dumb jock, etc. -- go through crisis after crisis and never change a bit. Last night, as usual, Clinton won the votes of women, older people, Catholics, and voters without a college education, and Obama won among men, younger people, non-whites, and college graduates.

In particular, the age difference seems irresolvable. According to exit polls at CNN, Clinton won the over-60 vote in Pennsylvania by a ratio of 62-38, while Obama won the under-30 vote by a ratio of 61-39. In all 28 primaries and caucuses for which CNN has done exit polls, Obama has done better with younger voters, and in 17 states Obama has won the under-30 cohort while losing voters over 60. (In another state, California, he tied Clinton among voters under 30 but lost the senior set by 21 points.) The gap has been smallest in Vermont (where Obama won 64 percent of the younger group and 58 percent of the older group) and Connecticut (58 percent and 50 percent). It's been widest in Iowa (where Obama got 57 percent of the younger group but only 18 percent of older voters against Clinton and John Edwards) and Ohio (61 percent for Obama among younger voters and 28 percent among older voters).

This persistent pattern may spell trouble in November for the Democrats. If Obama is the nominee (still the likelier possibility), he may lose older Democrats to 72-year-old John McCain. If Clinton is the nominee, she may not attract younger voters to the polls and may have problems with independents who don't necessarily share the fondness for the first Clinton administration that older Democrats seem to have.

Conflict of interest: Where you stand depends on where your state legislature sits

The National Conference of State Legislatures features a good daily round-up of news from the state capitals, and today there are two good pieces about conflicts of interest among state lawmakers who have "day jobs." Jessica Fender writes about Colorado in the Denver Post:

Pretend you're bar-manager-turned- state Rep. Paul Weissmann, and the House is considering a bill to boost the price of restaurant licenses. Do you vote?

Just to make sure nobody thinks he's voting in his own interest, the real Weissmann says he abstains.

But attitudes seem more relaxed in Kentucky, according to the Herald-Leader's John Cheves:

Democratic Sen. David Boswell, who annually crusades for legalized casino gambling in Kentucky, is also citizen David Boswell, sales manager and registered Frankfort lobbyist for the Owensboro Executive Inn, which wants to open a casino on its premises. Boswell said he would have pushed for casinos regardless of who pays his salary. But he added that a casino would help the hotel, and what's good for his employer is also good for his Senate district.

Does it even matter who the Democrats nominate?

John Judis has a New Republic piece warning that Barack Obama will have a very tough time winning the "white working class vote" in November:

Obama comes from a modest background and has tried to appeal as a candidate of both Harvard Law School and Chicago's Back-of-the-Yards, where he organized laid-off steel workers, but he hasn't been able to pull it off. His manner, his tenor, and his diction are Harvard Law, and when he starts dropping his 'g's," he sounds strained. And Obama is too young, and lacks the stature, to appear as a Franklin Roosevelt-style father figure.

One response is that economic conditions trump all of these character issues anyway (see an argument from 2004). And saying that Obama (or Hillary Clinton) "lacks the stature" of Franklin Roosevelt is circular logic, since the indisputably elitist Roosevelt didn't get his stature until he was elected president, undoubtedly due to economic conditions.

There's also the question of whether the white working-class vote is static in its importance. John Kerry, mocked for being even further out of touch with salt-of-the-earth voters (windsurfing, ordering Swiss cheese on his Philly cheesesteak, etc.) came within 2.5 points of winning in 2004. And if the country is steadily becoming more educated and urban, won't there come a time when a candidate who does well among well-educated and urban voters be at an advantage? (One problem this year for Democrats, however, is that John McCain is stronger than your typical Republican among these voters.)

Judis also warns that Obama isn't in the same league as our last Democratic president:

Sometimes, voters will think a candidate cares about them because they think he is "one of them." Bill Clinton, of course, was a genius at this. He could be the candidate of Hope, Arkansas, and Yale Law School.

But praise for Bill Clinton's political skills usually leave out this data point, from Real Clear Politics:

Exit polls actually show that in 1992 Bill Clinton won essentially the same portion of white men as Michael Dukakis in 1988. It was Ross Perot who siphoned off these men, as well as a lesser portion of white women, and undid George H.W. Bush.

Was Clinton a genius because he somehow maneuvered Perot into running for president?

Don't make these voters angry

I'm working on some charts and maps showing which counties have a consistent bias for or against the incumbent party in presidential elections, which may take a little while. As a sneak preview, here are the major counties with the biggest vote swings in the last three elections where the incumbent party lost. In 1980, Jimmy Carter's slide in Worcester, Massachusetts, was exacerbated by the presence of John Anderson on the ballot; in 1992, the third-party candidacy of Texan Ross Perot accelerated the first President Bush's drop in the Lone Star state; and in 2000, the second George Bush did particularly well in Texas. Overall, though, anti-incumbent (angry? bitter?) counties seem most common in Florida, Texas, and the West. Are they a good predictor as to how well the Democrats will do this fall?

Biggest swings against incumbent party among counties casting at least 100,000 votes

1980: Clark (Las Vegas), Nevada. Drop of 19 points for Jimmy Carter (from 50% to 31%).
Worcester, Massachusetts. Drop of 18 points (from 60% to 42%).
Miami-Dade, Florida. Drop of 18 points (from 58% to 40%).

Biggest swings against incumbent party among counties casting at least 100,000 votes

1992: Collin (suburban Dallas), Texas. Drop of 27 points for George H.W. Bush (from 74% to 47%).
Brevard (Melbourne), Florida. Drop of 27 points (from 70% to 43%).
Denton (suburban Dallas), Texas. Drop of 26 points (from 68% to 42%).

Biggest swings against incumbent party among counties casting at least 100,000 votes

2000: Travis (Austin), Texas. Drop of 11 points from Bill Clinton to Al Gore (from 52% to 42%).
Salt Lake, Utah. Drop of 7 points (from 42% to 35%).
Hidalgo (Mexican border), Texas. Drop of 6 points (from 67% to 61%).

No more gambling with second-hand smoke

No more smoking in the public areas of Atlantic City casinos, thanks to a new law by the city council. The state government may have mixed feelings about this, since New Jersey has the highest cigarette tax ($2.57 per pack) in the nation. Always tricky when government tries to discourage an activity and make money from it at the same time...

Sen. Clinton, Massachusetts has already voted

"Why is Barack Obama smiling?" I wondered. But I quickly realized that the 8-1/2 inch x 12 glossy in my mailbox wasn't from the Illinois senator. It was a stinging indictment of the Democratic presidential contender's Senate voting record, courtesy of this New York colleague.

Fair enough. But today's question, sports fans, is: Why is Hillary Clinton spending her precious campaign dollars on mailings in a state that has already voted?

Sen Clinton, I'd love to weigh in on the upcoming Pennsylvania contest, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave that to Mom. Or has the Clinton campaign decided on the head-scratching tactic of targeting PA natives living in states that have already voted, who presumably are so enthused by Clinton's candidacy that they'll talk her up (and bad-mouth Obama) to friends and family back home? No, probably not.

Or wait, better yet, here's a plan: Contact heaps o' voters who have already cast their ballots. They'll be so moved by the message, nay, by the outrageousness of it all, that they'll contact loved ones and anyone else in the states that have yet to vote. The invective about Obama's voting habits will flow as will votes into Hillary's column...and...and...

Naw, can't be that either. So what's the strategy here?

No complaints must mean no problems!

It's become an institution in New York City and Somerville, but Boston has no plans to add a 311 hotline to handle residents' non-emergency complaints and questions. The Boston Globe's John Drake reports that Mayor Tom Menino is unmoved by City Council members who say that the current hotline (617-635-4500) is too hard to remember. (As of this writing, that number is not on the city of Boston's homepage, even though 311 shows up three times on Somerville's homepage  and there's a 311 logo on New York City's homepage.)

But City Hall has logic on its side. If it's easier for citizens to make complaints, there will probably be more complaints, and who needs that?

Menino's spokeswoman, Dot Joyce, said the existing hot line has served the city well.

"We had a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week hot line for residents to call and get a human being long before there was ever a 311," Joyce said.

Menino's chief information officer, Bill Oates, insisted yesterday that the city will have an online tracking system for complaints ready by the end of 2008, but he said the administration has no plans to switch to a 311 number.

He said residents are comfortable with the mayor's long-established hot line. But he also acknowledged a switch to the catchy and simple 311 could elicit a flood of new calls.

"One of the challenges of 311 is we don't want to turn the button on 311 and have a volume [of calls] that will overwhelm the capacity of the call center," Oates said.

It seems that the key to efficiency is keep down those pesky calls from voters. Somerville has outsmarted itself by giving city employees more to do.

Sal DiMasi and the chicken-or-egg question

In the current Boston Phoenix, David Bernstein writes about the lack of dissent (and dissenting votes) in the state House of Representatives as ruled by Speaker Sal DiMasi -- who, despite the thesis of a professor at the University of North Carolina -- may be the most powerful politician in the state right now.

"DiMasi’s critics say he runs a tyrannical operation that buys acquiescence and punishes dissent," writes Bernstein, but some say that his power is the result, not the cause, of meek legislators:

“He is credited and blamed with being a lot more heavy-handed than he actually is,” says Arline Isaacson, a lobbyist for gay rights and teachers’ unions. “Because legislators believe the myth, they pre-emptively vote the way they think he wants them to vote.”

The lay of the land in Florida's Gold Coast

After looking at the map of the 10 States of American Politics, Brian wrote:

A friend suggested Broward County (FL) be included with Northeast Corridor, just as Miami-Dade was put with El Norte rather than with South Coast. Was this ever considered? Outside the Everglades, the county's density is over 4,000, voting tends to be heavily Democratic, and most residents are relocated from the Northeast Corridor.

That's a good point, and I did consider putting Broward with the Northeast Corridor, but I didn't want to make the map too complicated, and I wanted to take into account a longer time frame than the past two or three elections. As the chart below shows, Broward County, like the Northeast Corridor , has trended Democratic beginning in 1992. But Broward was closer to the South Coast during the 1960s through the 1980s -- swinging toward Richard Nixon in 1968, back to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, and then again to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. And South Coast, in contrast to Southern Inland, now looks like a swing region. If Broward gives the Democratic nominee a New York City-style landslide this fall while the South Coast goes Republican, I may change its region, but I think it's possible John McCain will do measurably better in Fort Lauderdale than on Long Island.

Miami-Dade County really is one of a kind. Its swing toward the GOP during the Reagan years, and the Republican Party's plunge in the 1990s, was a far more extreme version of what happened in the United States as a whole. It doesn't fit exactly in any region, but its imitation of a long-necked bird puts it closest to the South Coast and El Norte. But the fact that it's been solidly, if unspectacularly, Democratic in the last few elections makes it a better fit with El Norte.

And as proof that the three "Gold Coast" counties of Florida have distinctive personalities, here is how they compare with each other.

Finally, here are the stats reflected in the charts above.

Where the political earth moved in 1976

 

In our journey through recent presidential elections, we come to 1976, the high-water mark for the Democratic Party over the past 40 years and the last time that party won the South. (Go here for explanations of our 10 regions and links to data from other election years.) Georgia's Jimmy Carter won six of our 10 political regions and ran about 18 points ahead of Hubert Humphrey's showing in 1968 -- when Dixiecrat George Wallace ran strongly in the former Confederate states.

The one region where Carter ran worse than Humphrey did was the Upper Coasts, which may have been cool toward a religious Southerner with a rural sensibility. He made improvements in the less populated counties of the region but lost ground in the vote troves of Boston, Hartford, Portland (both Maine and Oregon), San Francisco, and Seattle, and he lost the Humphrey states of Connecticut, Maine, and Washington. As the Republican Party gained strength in the South, the Democrats would grow increasingly reliant on the Upper Coasts, but it would take a while for the party to become dominant there.

Carter's gain was less impressive when compared with 1960, the last competitive race with only two major candidates. He did much better than John F. Kennedy in most of the South, and especially in border states such as Kentucky and Tennessee, but he fell behind in most of the North.

The biggest drop for the Democrats between 1960 and 1976 was in Mega-Chicago, which switched from Kennedy to Republican Gerald Ford. Again, Carter made some gains in rural areas but was weaker than Kennedy in such major cities as Chicago and Detroit. Despite unimpressive showings in Milwaukee and St. Louis, however, he was able to carry Wisconsin and Missouri by doing well in the Southern Inland and Chippewa parts of those states.

Overall, Carter got just over 50 percent of the vote against Ford, thanks to heavy support in the South.

In particular, Carter got 58 percent in the Southern Inland region; no Democrat has one a majority there since Carter headed the party.

Carter racked up his biggest margins against Ford in large cities, following the pattern of all Democrats, but there were more red splotches on the raw-vote map than is usual in a Democratic year. It was Carter's rural popularity that allowed him to narrowly overcome his lack of appeal in major suburban counties.

In Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois, the heavy Republican vote in the suburbs kept Carter from winning the electoral votes of those states. But he narrowly carried Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where secondary urban areas (such as Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Madison) compensated for large Republican counties.

No welfare for people with too many cable channels?

MassINC is now hosting a reader's forum on the state budget in Massachusetts and the "point of reckoning" caused by an economic downturn and soaring health care costs. Daniel Winslow, who was the chief legal counsel to Gov. Mitt Romney, kicked things off with a provocative essay on ways to limit spending on social services, such as using "lifestyle analysis factors" to determine who is really in need:

For state entitlement eligibility, a simple LAF checklist can consider discretionary spending such as whether persons or households seeking free or discounted state services own property, have credit cards, hold bank accounts, or own a new car, multiple cars or a boat. The checklist could also consider whether an individual purchases cable television, Internet service, or premium cell phone service and whether they buy airline tickets, possess illegal drugs, or smoke a pack of cigarettes daily.

Is this the kind of reform that can solve our fiscal crisis? Is it fair or compassionate public policy?

Electoral College compromise?

Reader Peter Porcupine responded to my post about the Electoral College and the possibility of repeating the 2000 election by suggesting an alternative:

There is an intermediate step between the existing system and a popular vote, and several states use it now. It is to apportion electoral college votes according to popular votes within a state. Maine uses this, for instance. It is a viable compromise. It preserves the original purpose of the electoral college - having the interests of rural states preserved against an overwhelming popular vote in urban areas - while apportioning those vote more fairly.

Peter doesn't indicate a preference here on whether to retain the two votes given to each state regardless of population size (that is, reflecting their representation in the Senate), a provision that gives a little extra heft to smaller states. If each state didn't get those extra two votes, Al Gore would have won the 2000 election even with a winner-take-all system. Since Bush won 30 states to Gore's 20, he won 60 bonus votes to Gore's 40; without them, his 271-266 victory in the Electoral College would have vanished.

In 2004, Bush won 31 states to John Kerry's 19 states, giving him a 24-vote margin among the bonus electoral votes. If the bonus votes vanished, he would have still won 224-213 in the Electoral College, a too-close-for-comfort margin given his 3 million vote edge in the popular vote.

All of this is mere speculation, of course, for the major parties would adjust their strategies in response to any change in the system of deciding a winner -- or, as reader Chris Van Haight puts it, "the presidential election industry would have to retool."

Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America

A few readers have commented on similarities between Beyond Red & Blue's 10 States of American Politics and a 1981 book by Joel Garreau of the Washington Post called The Nine Nations of North America. Garreau's book, not surprisingly, made a big impression on me (certainly more than The Lord of the Rings or the misleadingly named Atlas Shrugged, both of which had adherents among my contemporaries). I have a yellowed paperback edition of Nine Nations at my desk right now; it's survived a lot of moving days. The book is out of print, but you can see Garreau's map on Wikipedia.

There are some differences between the two models, but also some geographical divisions that are still valid today. Garreau included Canada and Mexico and, unlike me, he did not set out to draw regions that were of equal size. He did not split any regions into two or more parts. And his emphasis was on economic conditions rather than political allegiances. My main quibble is with the Foundry region, which includes not only the industrial cities of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, but also Chicago and most of the New York City area (he cuts out lower Manhattan and refuses to place it in any of his nine regions). Politically and economically, there is too much diversity in this area to qualify it as an entity. Even in 1981, Long Island did not belong with Flint, Michigan. Dixie was also too big, and parts of it are in four of my regions, though we both decided that Miami did not belong with Jacksonville and Memphis.

But Garreau's Mexamerica is basically the same as my El Norte, and the combination of his New England and Ecotopia is close to my Upper Coasts. If you're not familiar with his map, check it out, and let me know whether it makes more sense instinctively. 

Fired or retired? The difference is nearly $50,000 a year

The Boston Globe's Sean Murphy reports on former Big Dig administrator Michael Lewis, who was able to triple his annual pension to $73,000 as a result of being "fired" by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority -- as opposed to voluntarily retiring, which was how the departure was annnounced last year. (Lewis now earns $130,000 as Rhode Island's transporation secretary, but Murphy reports that he is already collecting his Massachusetts pension.) From the Globe story:

The pension increase for Lewis was the result of a state law intended to protect state employees from politically motivated dismissals. Employees with more than 20 years of service are eligible for enhanced pensions if they can prove they were not fired because of poor performance or malfeasance. In his case, the reason was that his job was eliminated.

CommonWealth's Michael Jonas reported on the questionable application of this law in 2002:

The review shows that at least four ex-state legislators, including former House majority leader Richard Voke, have been granted early pension payments, despite apparently not qualifying for them. In hundreds of other cases, the timing of the pension application raises questions about the validity of claims that the employee was terminated or their position was abolished.

...top state officials, including lawmakers voted out of office and ex-legislators fired from plum patronage jobs, have legitimately qualified for a benefit whose public policy purpose appears dubious at best. Among those tapping into the rich grab bag of retirement provisions is former governor Paul Cellucci, who is now collecting $42,573 a year while serving as US ambassador to Canada on a federal salary of at least $130,000 a year.

And in 2004 state Treasurer Tim Cahill told CommonWealth that he would work to reform what are known as "termination pensions."

Shhh... don't tell anyone how much our school cost

The Cape Cod Times reports on the town of Falmouth's own "Big Dig," a high school renovation project that is only two-thirds complete and has already cost $67 million. According to the story by Aaron Gouveia, town officials aren't blaming the project's general contractor, TLT Construction, even though TLT now faces an investigation from the state because of its record in school construction projects. Of course, Falmouth may have an incentive not to bad-mouth the builders. Gouveia quotes David White, a member of the Wachusett Regional High School Building Committee, which is dealing with its own cost overrun problems:

When towns have disputes with contractors and attempt to recoup the money, White said one of the conditions is that a municipality not provide a poor reference of the contractor's work.

"When issues get resolved in mediation those issues don't get communicated to future municipalities," White said. "That's one of the really big problems that needs to be fixed."

Stats and spreadsheets from the Democratic primaries so far

As promised, here is more data than is good for anyone. There may still be minor variations from official totals, but I think this is about 99% complete -- except, of course, for states that haven't voted yet. The first chart (click it for a bigger version) below is how our 10 States of American Politics have voted so far. (See a map of the boundaries in the left column of the website or get a larger PDF here.) Note that Obama is slightly ahead in the popular vote but is only winning three regions. However, he might be ahead in Frontier if the votes from Kansas were available by county, and it's likely he'll pull ahead anyway when the results from Montana, Oregon, and South Dakota come in. Another close region is the Northeast Corridor, and Obama could close the gap there if he does well enough in the Philadelphia area in the Pennsylvania primary later this month.

(Also note: I did include vote totals from Florida and from Michigan, where Obama was not on the ballot but his supporters were encouraged to vote "uncommitted." This does not mean that I'm arguing that those two nonbinding primaries should be used to seat delegates; I'm simply including whatever data is available from each state.)

The second chart is an update to an earlier post about the gap between counties where George W. Bush significantly improved his vote when running for re-election in 2004 (which Clinton is winning solidly) and counties where Bush did worse than he had in 2000 (where Obama is the clear favorite).

If the summaries are not enough, you can get county-by-county results by downloading the Excel spreadsheet here (be warned, it will take a LONG time): Download 2008primariesbycountysimple.xls (876.5K). Or just download the PDF, which is much quicker, here: Download 2008primariesbycountysimple.pdf (482.5K)

New maps: Democratic primary results as of April 5

Taking into account updated results from several primary and caucus states, here is a county-by-county map on the relative strengths of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so far. (Look for a separate post with county-by-county spreadsheets for the real geeks.) First, the differences between the two candidates measured by percentages of the vote. If the big map isn't detailed enough, click on one of the thumbnails below for regional close-ups.

Next is a map showing the difference in raw votes between the two candidates.

Of particular interest is Ohio, where Clinton won a solid victory over Obama in March. Obama got big vote advantages in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, but Clinton countered with big hauls in Akron and Youngstown, in the northeast. Coupled with her wins in most of the rural counties, this was enough for a 10-point edge statewide. This outcome was in stark contrast to Obama's win in Missouri, Georgia, Maryland, and Virginia, where he won the major cities and didn't have to worry about mid-sized, industrial, overwhelmingly white areas like Youngstown.

Wisconsin is the one major state where Obama did well in mid-sized cities without a lot of minority voters. (His biggest margins came from the major city of Milwaukee and the university town of Madison, but Clinton failed to compensate with significant wins in places like Kenosha, Racine, and Green Bay.) Can he get put that coalition back together in Pennsylvania?

Paper beats rock, says western Mass. legislator

State Rep. Denis Guyer, whose district is about as far away from a subway stop as one can get in Massachusetts, is peeved that MBTA vending machines give change in dollar coins rather than in paper currency. The Boston Globe's Glen Johnson reports that Guyer has filed legislation requiring that the T give back paper when a customer is owed more than $5. Not coincidentally, "the Dalton Democrat ... lives in the same town as Crane & Co., the exclusive supplier of paper stock used to make dollar bills and other U.S. currency, and he'd like to preserve some jobs." But he also argues that special interests are behind the dollar coin:

"I'm not going to apologize for fighting for jobs in my district. I think that's one of the reasons people elect me to office. At the same time, the dollar coin has been wildly unpopular and the federal government and their friends in the mining industry keep fighting for the coin," Guyer said.

MBTA manager Dan Grabauskas counters that it would be prohibitively expensive to make the switch to paper change.

At least the T has no stake in the great debate over whether to abolish the penny, a move that William Safire suggests and Barack Obama seems to like.

Legislator collects $306,000 for his 14-mile commute

A state senator in California has collected $306,000 for the hardship of living within running distance from his job. The Los Angeles Times reports that Tom McClintock, who claims to live in his district a couple hundred miles from the capital, actually resides full-time with his family in Elk Grove, a mere 14 miles from Sacramento. Yet he still takes advantage of per diem payments meant for lawmakers who must pay for transportation and lodgings while the legislature is in session. Patrick McGreevey reports:

Overall, McClintock has received $306,000 in per diem while living in Elk Grove during his eight years in the Senate and previous four years in the Assembly. Last year, the senator collected $36,012 in per diem, a record amount for him.

Per diem paid to a legislator whose home is within 50 miles of the Capitol building is considered taxable income. Since he is citing Thousand Oaks as his home, McClintock has taken the money tax-free, atop his annual Senate salary of $116,000.

The receipt of the money by McClintock, while not illegal, is striking because his political career has been fueled by unrelenting opposition to government spending. Several of his unsuccessful campaigns for statewide office have centered on curtailing state spending. McClintock has spared no one, even fellow Republicans such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in decrying bloated budgets.

Per diem payments have long been one of the most cherished perks of state lawmakers, and CommonWealth's Gabrielle Gurley reported in December on federal legislation to make them tax-free.

Tough times ahead for Mass. government

MassINC is sponsoring a forum next Thursday that promises some spirited debate -- and, no doubt, an audience with some passionate opinions. Will the fiscal crisis encourage the major political players in Massachusetts to work together on reform measures? Come to the event and find out whether change is in the air. Also, get the PDF of the MassINC policy brief "Point of Reckoning: Two Decades of State Budget Trends."

The Politics of Tough Choices During Tough Fiscal Times

Date: April 10th, 2008
Time: 8:00-9:30AM
Location: Omni Parker House Boston, MA

Click here to RSVP or call (617) 742-6800 x120.

Join us for this special MassINC event on the Massachusetts budget and the choices facing the governor and legislature as they look toward the future. Moderated by Jim Braude from WTTK and NECN, panelists include former Senate president Thomas Birmingham, former Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Patricia McGovern, former secretary of Administration and Finance and MassINC board member Thomas Trimarco and former secretary of Administration and Finance Steve Crosby.

A sacred cow in Lexington

Voters are usually stingier than their elected representatives, but there's one area of government spending that the townspeople of Lexington, Mass., refuse to prune. Going against the unanimous vote of their board of selectmen, voters decided overwhelmingly to restore $24,000 in the municipal budget for new trees to be planted along town roads. (See the Lexington Minuteman story.)

The battle is on over police details

Blue Mass. Group's Charley on the MTA calls for a grass-roots effort to abolish the singular Massachusetts sensation of mandating that police officers (instead of mere civilians) stand guard at utility repair and construction sites along public roads:

Now, $5 million/year that the state spends on the details is not that big a deal, although it may add up to many times that when you include local roads. But this is the test case  for all the other important, cost-saving reforms that [Senate President Therese] Murray has proposed. If the legislature rolls over for the police unions (again), then come the MBTA unions, with their cushy pension deal. Then come the toll collectors. Then come the contractors, who don't want the stricter oversight that Murray's bill would provide.

The police detail issue, though unknown in the rest of the country, has been inflaming passions for years in Massachusetts. It came up at MassINC's "Municipal Meltdown" forum in December (see transcript), where anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson referred to the "the policeman with the coffee and the donut in the other hand watching the hole being dug" and Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer countered that "on the scale where the real [fiscal] problems are, that’s a blip."

What's behind the push to get Hillary out of the race?

The Boston Phoenix's Steven Stark asks why so many Democrats are calling for Hillary Clinton to end her presidential campaign despite her being so close to Barack Obama in terms of delegates and the popular vote:

...Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history. That’s being driven by Clinton fatigue, but it’s also being driven by a concerted campaign that examines every action the Clintons take and somehow finds the basest, most self-serving motivation for its existence. Thus, in this case, when Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party. Is there a fair amount of sexism in the way she’s being asked to get out of the way so a man can have the job? You be the judge.

I agree that it's understandable for Clinton to remain in the race, though I'm not sure she's the victim of sexism here. Stark writes that second-place candidates have historically remained active through the end of the primaries and even into the national conventions, but the Democrats may have become accustomed to quick wrap-ups after the short campaigns of 2000 and 2004, when Al Gore and John Kerry became certain nominees only a few days or weeks after winning the New Hampshire primary.

Stark also notes that "In 1988, Jesse Jackson took his hopeless campaign against winner Michael Dukakis all the way to the convention, often to great media praise." But in that case, Dukakis and party leaders were happy to have Jackson travel around the country criticizing Dukakis for not being liberal enough and not paying enough attention to minority and low-income Americans, since they thought it helped Dukakis among the independents and moderates he'd need in the general election. This time, Hillary Clinton is criticizing Barack Obama in ways that could hurt him (he's not ready to be commander-in-chief, his church pastor doesn't fit the sensibilities of, say, Westchester County) if he's the nominee in November. The last primary race I can think of with anything close to this dynamic is 1984, when Gary Hart warned that the narrowly leading Walter Mondale would be a weak general-election candidate, but even then Hart didn't argue that Mondale was unqualified to be president. And it was Hart, not Mondale, who ran better among independents in the primaries and seemed able to attract new voters to the polls, so in some ways he resembles Obama more than Clinton.

Still, Stark was one of the few political analysts who predicted an Obama nomination last year, when he ran far behind Clinton in the polls, so he can't be dismissed as a Hillary apologist.

Where the political earth moved, 1968

In our survey of recent presidential elections, we now reach 1968, which this year could be a scary historical parallel for either Republicans (incumbent party collapses in the midst of an unpopular war) or Democrats (party isn't able to recover from a bitter and protracted nomination fight). The first map shows the drop in support for the Democratic nominee from Kennedy in 1960 (49.7% of the vote) to 1968 (42.7%). The drop is greatest in the South and the interior West. You can see today's Democratic base (Northeast, upper Midwest, West Coast) in the areas where Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey kept his party's losses to a minimum. Also, the patches of green in the Deep South represent areas where voter participation among blacks went up significantly between 1948 and 1968.

The second map compares the vote for Richard Nixon in 1968 with the vote for Republican Tom Dewey in 1948 -- the previous election with a strong Dixiecrat candidate (Strom Thurmond in 1948, George Wallace in 1968).

Though Nixon won in 1968, he ran 1.7 points behind Dewey's losing percentage in 1948 (going from 45.1% to 43.4%). But he increased the Republican percentage in four of our 10 regions, with the biggest jump in South Coast, where he went from 31.4% to 39.6% -- enough to carry the region in a three-way contest. Nixon carried four states in the region that went for Harry Truman in 1948: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. For the most part, they would remain part of the Republican base through the 2004 election.

The next map shows where Nixon ran best overall in 1968; keep in mind that 43% was enough for a victory that year. Essentially, this map shows what was left of the Republican base in the North after first Franklin Roosevelt and then John F. Kennedy chipped away at it. This is also before Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan filled in much of that blank space in the South and gave the GOP a new governing majority.

Next are two maps showing where Nixon and Humphrey got their biggest raw vote majorities (against each other, not considering votes for Wallace). In the inset map, note Illinois and Missouri, two states that switched from Democratic in 1960 to Republican eight years later; Nixon rolled up big majorities in the "collar counties" around Chicago in 1968, as well as in suburban St. Louis County, that outweighed Humphrey's big-city margins in those states.

And here's where George Wallace ran strongest in 1968. His base was mostly, but not entirely in the Confederate South, but he did better in the interior than on the Atlantic Coast.

 

Delaware wins border dispute against New Jersey

I was unaware of a Cold War between the two states, but today the Supreme Court allied with Delaware in its attempt to block New Jersey from building a liquified natural gas pier on the other side of the Delaware River. Turns out that the First State has jurisdiction over the entire river along Delaware's northern boundary, right up to the spot where the pier would stick out from the Jersey shoreline. As the Wilmington News Journal's Jeff Montgomery explains:

Most river boundary lines run along the middle of a waterway, but a late 17th century deed made all of the Delaware River -- from shoreline to shoreline -- part of Delaware along the state's northernmost 29 miles of waterfront.

The News Journal account also includes this ominous sentence:

Opponents of BP's plan hailed the decision as a clear victory for Delaware and its Coastal Zone Act conservation law, while one New Jersey lawmaker warned that it could further sour cross-border relations.

I hope the dispute doesn't escalate. These two states definitely have the capability for a lot of chemical weapons.

Where the political earth moved in 1960

As we move into the 1960 election (see previous post on the 1948 election), one of our 10 States of American Politics clearly comes into view. The Northeast Corridor had been part of the Republican base since the Civil War, and Republican Tom Dewey carried it by some 25,000 votes over Harry Truman in 1948, but it went strongly for Democrat John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon 12 years later. Kennedy got 54.2 percent of the vote here, running almost exactly 8 points ahead of Truman. Nationally, Kennedy got 49.7 percent of the vote, or just one-tenth of a point more than Truman. Most importantly in terms of the Electoral College, Kennedy won six Northeastern states that Dewey had carried in 1948: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Without them, he would have lost badly to Nixon. The map of the Northeast Corridor shows that Kennedy won this region -- and the election -- by greatly increasing the Democratic share of the votes in the suburbs around New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. And ever since, these counties have been increasingly important for Democratic presidential nominees.

Here's the national map of the vote swing between 1948 and 1960. Note that Kennedy greatly increased the Democratic vote in parts of the Deep South, but that was because Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond had pushed down the Democratic vote so much in 1948; the Democrats' recovery here would be short-lived. More important, in the long run, would be the drop in the Democratic vote in fast-growing areas of the West.

Here's the national picture of Kennedy's share of the vote by county.

And here's the raw vote margin. Note the patches of blue in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas -- all states that Kennedy narrowly carried.