Tom Keane

The Republican Party isn’t dead

With Barack Obama’s successful bid for a second term, the conventional wisdom is the Republican Party is dead. Don’t believe it. Such obituaries for political parties have been written many times before — in 1972 after Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern; in 1980 when Ronald Reagan crushed Jimmy Carter; in 1988 when George H.W. Bush routed Michael Dukakis; in 1992 with Bill Clinton’s win over Bush — and they’ve all turned out to be untrue. So too this time around. For one, the magnitude of the 2012 GOP loss is just not that great, a matter of small, correctable things and not a wholesale rejection of its small government message. For another, party members are chastened. You may not agree with them, but they’re not stupid — and they’ll fix what went wrong. Resurrection is near.

Not in the Bay State, however. Massachusetts, as commentator Jon Keller has observed, is “the bluest state,” and we showed that to a fare-thee-well this time around. Seriously: If scandal-plagued Representative John Tierney can’t be beaten by a gay, moderate Republican, then the GOP’s hopes of resurgence in the Commonwealth are about as likely as David Petraeus being named “Husband of the Year.” Sure, we might well elect a Republican governor in two years. But the state GOP will continue to operate on the margins.

The national party has a better chance. Granted, the results of the Electoral College (332 to 206) look like a landslide, but the popular vote was 50.7 percent to 47.6 percent, a margin of just 3.8 million votes. In context, it’s a small number, easily moved.

To begin with, of course, candidate Mitt Romney unnecessarily lost votes with a series of boneheaded remarks — the 47 percent crack, insisting he’d de-fund Planned Parenthood, insulting the British handling of the Olympics. He was also a flawed nominee, plagued with a deficit of charisma, shifting positions, and a hard-to-explain business background. Moreover, the Republican primary process itself was an extraordinary exercise in self-flagellation. The candidates all went overboard in kowtowing to the right while also brutally attacking Romney — knowing he would eventually be their nominee.

So here’s what the party will quickly figure out: To win, it has to attract independents (proof of that was Romney’s numbers climbing when, at the first debate, he finally did the long-awaited pivot toward the center). That means bringing back the 11th Commandment, most famously voiced by Ronald Reagan (“Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican”). It means avoiding boneheaded statements that disaffect voters you’ll eventually have to attract. And it means nominating someone who connects with regular folks.

Then, too, demographics matter. In 2012, according to exit polls, 93 percent of roughly 16.3 million black voters favored Obama. If that number dropped back to, say, 80 percent (more in line with historic norms), the difference alone would account for about 2 million votes. The same analysis applies in varying ways to other groups defined along lines of sex, ethnicity, or age. Move the numbers a little bit and the results can be profound.

Doing so, however, will require that Republicans stop their unnecessary alienation of young people, Hispanics, and women (because of anti-gay rhetoric, obdurate immigration stances, and anti-feminist rants). At an Aspen Institute/Atlantic magazine “Ideas Forum” held in Washington just after the election, senior GOP members such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham were tripping over themselves to make clear they got this. Whether that can happen quickly is unknown — the party’s hard-right wing will surely resist — but it has to happen eventually. Political parties are about winning, not ideology. If the ideology thwarts victory, then inevitably the ideology will change.

And finally, consider this. The two frontrunners for the Democratic nomination in 2016 are Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, who in four years will be 74 and 69 respectively. On the GOP side, possible nominees include folks such as Bobby Jindal (45 in 2016), Kelly Ayotte (48), and Marco Rubio (45) — a younger generation that looks and sounds much different from the old white men who now dominate the party. It’ll be the GOP, not the Democrats, that more looks to be the face of change.

This column originally appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe on November 25, 2012.

Next up in Mass.: Marijuana legalization

Ever feel like you’re one step behind? Massachusetts voted earlier this month to approve the use of so-called “medical marijuana.” Meanwhile, voters in Colorado and Washington state one-upped us, deciding simply to legalize pot altogether. No more games about decriminalization or having to manufacture fake diseases so one could get a fake prescription from a fake doctor. It’s just legal — like beer, wine, or (except in New York City) big sodas.

Coming soon, one suspects, to a future Bay State ballot initiative: full-blown legalization. And in all likelihood, that too will pass. There are, in fact, some risks to pot, especially for kids. So if government officials are truly worried about the consequences of legalization, then the time to start rethinking is now.

Today, pot is “regulated” through the criminal justice system. Under federal law, possession of any amount is a misdemeanor that carries the possibility of one year in prison. And if you’re caught again? Mandatory jail time of 15 days the second time; 90 days the third or subsequent time. Granted, most enforcement of drug laws is handled by state and local authorities, and prosecutors exercise a lot of discretion about whom they charge. Their goal, they’ll say, is to get the dealers. Still, about 859,000 people were arrested for pot-related offenses in 2010 (the latest FBI numbers available). Of those, 750,000 were for possession. That’s more arrests than for any other kind of crime, by the way — even more than for drunk driving.

So how’s criminalization been working? About as well as did Prohibition in the 1920s. Back then, people kept drinking. Today, they’re smoking up. About half of all Americans have tried pot. About 17.4 million use it currently.

And as with Prohibition, the mounting hypocrisy — are half of us really lawbreakers? — is leading to a revolt. While politicians are mostly loath to touch the subject, regular voters are not. Massachusetts is one of 14 states to have passed ballot questions to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, and one of 18 to allow medical marijuana. Now, with two states voting for outright legalization, it seems pretty obvious where all of this is going. The federal government will for a time hold onto its national ban but, eventually, will follow the model that felled Prohibition: Leave it up to the states.

That will leave state officials, who will have to persuade rather than arrest, with a real problem: they have no credibility.

Pro-pot groups such as NORML say that for many users marijuana is a harmless pleasure. Pot, they argue, tends not to be addicting and on balance is less dangerous than alcohol. On the other hand, the official line is that marijuana is terrible for you. Today’s rhetoric — such as that from the National Institute of Drug Abuse — is not as over-the-top as old time scare films such as “Reefer Madness,” but it’s not that far from it, either. There are, it seems, no redeeming qualities to the stuff. Use it and your brain turns to mush.

NORML’s argument is probably the more accurate. But in truth, we don’t know. As many medical marijuana activists have pointed out, one downside to the national ban on pot is that research into its properties — both pro and con — is largely prohibited. There’s evidence that pot’s effect on the developing adolescent brain is harmful. It may well be that further investigation finds smoking marijuana as hazardous to one’s health as smoking cigarettes. Or it could be that adverse effects are rare.

If — when — marijuana is legal, government officials are going to have to develop some standing on the matter. That means permitting research and being willing to speak honestly about its results. If moderate pot use is harmless, then say so. That will make all the more convincing warnings about circumstances under which there could be danger.

Right now, though, my guess is that among the general populace — and certainly adolescents — groups like NORML are more trusted than is government, whose approach to date has been a mixture of fear-mongering, finger-wagging, and throwing people in jail. That’s going to have to change.

This column originally appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe on November 18, 2012.

In defense of polls

Trust those polls – they’re usually right

The Catholic religion has its own profession of faith. Politicians and pundits need one too, and it should begin, “I believe in the power of polls . . .” The meaning of the 2012 election will likely be subject to interminable argument. The Tea Party, for instance, believes it proved “weak-kneed Republicans do not get elected.” Others think the contrary — hard-right posturing threatens to marginalize the party altogether. But one thing it seems all sides should acknowledge: Pollsters know what they’re doing.

On election morning, New York Times blogger Nate Silver predicted 313 electoral votes for Obama along with a popular vote favoring the president 50.8 percent to 48.3 percent. The Real Clear Politics average of polls just before the election showed Obama up by 0.7 points. The Signal looked at the same polls and predicted at least 303 electoral votes for Obama. The Huffington Post’s national tracking model estimated a 1.1 point Obama edge. Nate Cohn of the New Republic reached similar conclusions. The actual results: Obama received 50 percent of the popular vote and 332 electoral votes. In essence, all of these folks were right on the mark.

Contrast that those who got it wrong. One-time Clinton advisor Dick Morris foresaw a Romney landslide — 325 electoral votes to 213. Political analyst Michael Barone gave Romney 315 electoral votes; columnist George Will, 321. Karl Rove — the Democrats’ favorite demon — projected Romney with 51 percent of the popular vote. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes also foresaw a Romney victory.

It wasn’t only conservative commentators who got it wrong. Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money, saw Obama taking an amazing 440 electoral votes. (Those of you who follow Cramer’s investing advice may want to reconsider your allegiance.) And there were also many observers — such as Philip Klein from The Examiner and Ross Douthat of The New York Times — who, while correctly predicting an Obama victory, were far off from the final results.

Those who got it right didn’t have any particular insight. Instead, they simply looked at the polls and believed the data. Indeed, Nate Cohn prefaced all of his forecasts by saying “my ‘predictions’ aren’t really mine (they’re the polls).”

Everyone else tried to play analyst. Some simply saw pollsters as politically biased and so tried to “fix” their numbers by adjusting them up or down. Others saw evidence that seemed to confound what the polls were saying. Peggy Noonan, for instance, pointed to the crowds at Romney’s final rallies and the proliferation of GOP yard signs in Ohio. “The Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm,” she wrote. “The Democrats do not.” Polls, in this view, were dry statistical tools that failed to look into the hearts and minds of voters.

Others questioned methodology. Pollsters were not accounting for differences in turnout from 2008: This year, for example, evangelicals would turn out while young people, disillusioned by Obama, would not. Why, analysts wondered, didn’t pollsters get that? So too, they theorized other factors were distorting results: The rise of cellphones, polling burnout (Americans refusing to answer questions), and deliberate lying (some voters would falsely say they were voting for Obama).

There are two problems with all of this analysis. The first is that people see what they want to see. Those favoring one candidate or another would seize on anecdotes contrary to the polls and think of them as some broad new truth. They probably didn’t do this intentionally — no one likes egg on the face — but it’s an all-too-human failing. It’s the exact failing, by the way, that polling is designed to avoid.

The second is that pollsters aren’t idiots. Methodological concerns such as turnout and demographics and cellphones were all well-known to the industry and in different ways have been addressed. Polling firms make their money on being right and are aware — more than any armchair analyst — of the pitfalls they need to avoid. This year, quite clearly, they succeeded.

When it comes to the prediction game, data and statistics rule. Analysis is too risky. Next election, if you to want to seem smart to your friends, forget about what you hope will happen and just predict exactly what the polls are saying. You’ll be right.

This column originally appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe on November 11, 2012.

A break, too brief, from us vs. them

Sandiphilia is the condition of feeling empathy for one’s fellow man and woman, brought about by a catastrophic storm that takes lives and destroys property. It has been on full display for the last week and — at risk of sounding callous — one almost wishes events like this could happen more frequently, if only to remind us of our common humanity. It has also been a welcome respite from this long political season of us versus them.

It once was the case that great leaders could bring us together as a people. Now it’s weather forecasters. As Sandy morphed into Frankenstorm and then into Superstorm, it was to them we turned, with their blue screen graphics, clever storm logos and hyperventilating predictions. At first, we watched with skepticism, knowing the demands of ratings give television stations great incentive to hype even the most trivial of weather events. But the relentlessness of the bad news and the confirmation by less biased sources — such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — ultimately proved persuasive.

And so, like lemmings, we rushed to grocery and hardware stores for provisions and then hunkered down, waiting in the midst of mostly blue skies for things to turn ugly. We coordinated with work; if we were lucky, bosses told us to telecommute.

It wasn’t only television that drew us together. So did social media. “Off to Costco for some supplies,” would read one Facebook post and quickly would come the replies: “Be safe,” “Be safe,” “Be safe.” Twitter would relay almost instantly (and sometimes inaccurately) every unfolding event as Sandy slowly came ashore. Pictures were everywhere, from camera uploads to YouTube videos to reporters standing knee-deep in flood waters (do they stand anywhere else?), their words incoherent from the wind’s roar.

There was a mutuality to our concern. We were worried not only for ourselves but for each other, not just the neighbors across the street but the strangers in distant towns. It was a worry without regard to political or any other affiliation. And our politicians worried too. From city councilors to members of Congress, they all sent out e-mails letting us know they too were concerned. Again, “Be safe!”

Campaigning stopped. Politics receded and government emerged — the practical stuff of organizing, managing, and responding. It’s easy to be cynical about all of this: Even when a politician is not acting political, runs the thinking, that in and of itself is acting political. Maybe. But sometimes motives matter less than actions, and this was one of those occasions. The president acted appropriately, so too did Mitt Romney and the governors and other officials of the many states targeted by the storm (the lovefest of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Barack Obama was particularly striking). After all, though, they’re elected to do a job and this was their time to execute. And for the most part, it seems, they did well. In all likelihood, the lessons learned from previous disasters — especially Katrina — along with better weather prediction and better communications (thanks to advances in computerization and the Internet) meant that lives were saved.

Even now, with the storm long gone, residual feelings of camaraderie remain, driven largely by sympathy for the plights of New York and New Jersey residents. But the conflicts drowned out by the storm have re-emerged. Obama and Romney are back on the trail. Two days from now we will be reminded with a harsh jolt that Sandiphilia was at best temporary. Half of us will support one candidate, half the other.

Some elections seem to resolve issues, to shift the country on one course or another. That was true of FDR’s election in 1932 and true as well (albeit in a different direction) of Ronald Reagan’s in 1980. Even Obama’s win in 2008, with its illusions of hope, seemed to bring us together. This election will not. The triumphalism of the winning side notwithstanding, the outlook on Wednesday will, I suspect, be grim. The losers will be embittered, the nation still divided.

This column originally appeared on the Boston Sunday Globe's op-ed page on November 4, 2012.