I think one of the mistakes the left blogosphere continually makes is that they are oversold on the importance of framing.

Framing works well when people are already predisposed to trust the framer. Its simply taking credibility from one area and using it to leverage credibility in another. If Bush is trusted on national security, his attempts to frame opposition to the Patriot Act as evidence of Democratic weak knees is likely to work.

But that isn't what we have right now. I don't think you can frame your way back in to credibility. You have to result your way back in.

I strongly believe that the Dems need to keep showing backbone here. The public wants the war to end. If Bush refuses to accept funding for the troops under the condition of a deadline, I am quite confident that the public will blame him, not the Dems.

That said, I don't expect that the result of all this will necessarily be what has been predicted. I suspect one of:

1) Bush eventually signs the bill, with a signing statement that he rejects the Constitutionality of Congress' attempt to impose a deadline, and states that he has no intention to comply with the deadline.

2) A few Dems buckle at the knees and the bill passes without the deadline, but with a clear policy distinction having been made between Dems and Republicans.

3) Bush makes do without the appropriations bill, relying on executive authority to reassign other funds to Iraq. Iraq continues, at the expense of funding problems for other defense priorities. The Democrats express anger at Bush's willingness to jeopardize national security to insist on his own way in the Iraq fiasco, but realize that they have to be big and fund America's other defense priorities, which are passed without an Iraq deadline.

I don't buy it. It is pretty rare when an executive's mendacity permanently affects the public's view of the entire party on a specific issue.

People distrusted Democrats on national security during the Carter Administration, because they thought Carter was just as Mendacious as LBJ on national security? We do see a big spike in distrust toward the Democrats in the late 70s, but I don't think that's why.

What about Nixon's lying over Watergate? That was a much more infamous incident of mendacity, and yet we see very little movement to the Democrats on national security.

My personal take is that Democrats lost short term credibility due to management of the Vietnam War, and that short-term loss turned into a more permanent loss when the party seemed to be captured by factions that were deemed to be too shy in using force to accomplish sufficiently important, or easily obtainable, policy goals. The American public recovered from Vietnam syndrome much faster than the Democratic Party did.

If so, I wouldn't necessarily expect Bush to bring about any permanent change in the GOP's national security reputation. If the GOP takes a permanent hit, I think it will be because of the party's reaction to the failures in Iraq - denial, blame-shifting, continued hubris. If they they think the GOP is going to get us into another Iraq, or hasn't learned from its mistakes, the GOP will take a hit.

But this doesn't mean a free ride for the Dems. What scared me about the 2004 election is that the public had seen 4 years of Bush, and 18 months of incompetence in Iraq, and still trusted Bush more than Kerry on national security.

While specific reasons for not trusting the GOP on national security will help the Dems, the Dems need to give the public a reason for trusting them. I don't see that happening until a Democratic President successfully presides over a major/medium-sized military action in defense of American interests. Something akin to the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan, only more successfully concluded.

I think it is trickier than that. Presidents are the Commanders in Chief, and Congress controls the pursestrings, which only provide rough control over Executive actions.

If I were the Congress, I would be wary about getting into a battle of trying to control military deployments via the budget. It is an extremely clumsy tool for this purpose. At best it is likely to be ineffective. For instance, funding can be routed from other discretionary sources, with the White House then going to Congress to ask for money to fund projects other than the escalation to replace the funds routed to support the escalation. I haven't looked closely at the Defense Budget by I strongly suspect there is lots of discretionary spending authority in it.

It is very easy for Bush to place the Democrats in a corner with budgetary tricks. There is simply an inherent conflict between the Constitutional authority over funding and Presidential authority as Commander in Chief, and that conflict structurally has always favored the President.

The Democrats need a real strategy here. I have been concerned for awhile now that Bush will box them into a position where they feel compelled to vote for budget authority that can be used to construe support for Bush's policies ("both McCain and Obama voted to fund the escalation - how can you hold McCain accountable for this and not Obama?".

Frankly, I think the best the Democrats can hope for here is that they can make it clear that their fingerprints aren't on Bush's policies. I don't see how they can actually stop Bush from sending more troops to Iraq if Bush really wants to do it.

I have been reading Stanley Karnow's book on Vietnam in my spare time, and what really jumps out at me is that these same "desperation" lines were being used to explain away the Tet Offensive.

Chris, I think this is really promising research, and I like the methodology, but my inner statistician is screaming "Sample size of 10! Sample size of 10!"

One way to look at this is to consider what you would expect to see if the probability that a given Rep votes with the party is .825(the Dem average), and then look at the expected distribution pattern for 10 votes. On a lark, I did this in a spreadsheet model (was faster than calculating the exact probabilities by hand). I ran the model for 203 Reps, 10 times, and then took the average. Here are the results.

Number of Reps that would be expected to be loyal on...

10 votes: 28 Reps
9 votes: 65 Reps
8 votes: 58 reps
7 votes: 33
6 votes: 12
5 votes: 3
4 votes: 1
<4 votes: 0

The point of this is that your small sample size creates some risks of false positives or false negatives in trying to identify disloyal Democrats. A Democrat of average party loyalty could have found himself with high disloyalty just because of bad luck in the draw of these particular votes.

I don't think it detracts from your overall conclusions, as the Blue Dog deviance rate seems far higher than could be expected by chance. I also would think, based on this, that any Dem with a loyalty score of less than 4 has a lot of explaining to do, even with the small sample size. I only raise it as this could easily turn into a "Democratic shit list", and as you say, we really want to make sure we target the right people.

I recommend broadening your analysis to the last Congress, or adding more data points for votes in the current Congress, to get a more accurate list.

I also think that other commentators are correct in that some of the Blue Dogs have it tough, living in very marginal districts. But not all. Collin Peterson, for instance, from Minnesota, is in a rural, working class district, and probably doesn't have the freedom of most Dems on issues involving firearms, farming, and "values". But he did get 67% of the vote in 2004, and there is no electoral excuse for his being in Marshall's "fainthearted faction". The guy clearly has a lot of wiggle room.

I think a combination of your list with election results and a subjective assessment of the districts in question would be a great tool in whipping the party into a bit more shape. Nice work.

As for why don't the Dems do it anyway, the current situation illustrates how dependent Senate functionality is on rules, precedent, and tradition.   It is one thing to threaten escalation in response to an attack on those traditions. It is another to do it when one is a minority party, and just lost a major election with incredibly high turnout.

Point is that the Dems should still use this agenda, but not halt the Senate for it, if the GOP declines to go nuclear.

The Dems have said that their response to the nuclear option will be to stall the Senate. As such, my take on this is that Reid wants the Dems to have positive agenda, not simply the negative one of stalling the Senate. That is, take the Republican language about wanting an up and down vote and use it on policy questions where the GOP doesn't really want an up and down vote.

I hadn't assumed these bills were new. I had assumed instead that they were ones the Dems have had in the ir pocket for awhile and that the GOP was denying them a hearing.

If this is indeed what Reid has planned, I think it is a good idea. The Democrats can't just play a negative game without badly losing a PR war. Demanding votes on a popular social agenda is quite brilliant. It points out Republican hypocrisy on the insistence of up-and-down votes, draws attention to popular parts of the Dem agenda, and sets a clear positive goal for which Democrats will allow other bills to proceed. And it is safe. No way will the GOP allow votes on most of those things.

Looking at the CNN data, I answered my question. There is a transcription error in your table, but the underlying analytical number is correct.

This is an interesting analysis. An issue I would like to raise:

There are some potential problems comparing the "other" category in 2000 with a Values/other category in 2004. It is very possible that by specifying "values" in 2004, the pro-Bush shift there could instead be entirely due to hard core Republicans shifting their priority issue in 2000 from taxes and economy to "values", with a commensurate Democratic shift in the other direction from "other" to economy.

That is, there is a competing explanation that is not falsified by your analysis. Kerry's defeat could still be caused by the dem drop in world affairs, with the shift to Values being entirely due to a shift in question wording.

The numbers in your 2004 table don't add up. Your table has Kerry beating Bush 53-43 among Values/other voters, but you call it a -13.6% margin for the Democrats, which is then the basis for the rest of your analysis. Is the 53-43 number wrong, or is the -13.6% number wrong?

This might depend on which schools you are looking at. In Minnesota, the two big urban districts have the first and third highest per pupil spending in the state. They also are among the worst districts in the state on test results, for demographic and socioeconomic reasons. Mileage can vary in other states. The GAO recently did a study showing how spending can vary.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03234.pdf

Anyway, the point is that there isn't a whole lot of evidence that more money is going to make a significant dent in solving the problem. International comparisons also bear this out. The US spends the most per pupil, but is mediocre in terms of results, close to performance with the Czech Republic, which spends a third as much per pupil. Results seem primarily driven by factors other than money, at least when you get to the developed world. Culture, socioeconomic conditions, teaching methods, etc.

This is what I mean by criticizing throwing money at a problem. At best, there is a loose relationship between financing and results. We need to be smarter with what we have before we can convince voters to shell out more. They see real spending as having ~tripled in the past few decades, with results not remotely keeping pace.

I think this illustrates a difference between moderates and liberals. I have never voted against a school referendum, but I don't count on those funding decisions to make a huge difference. I think instead we need to know more about what yields results. Experiment. Test. Evaluate. Rinse. Repeat. Not to say that all testing is accurate and free of problems. I think the science of education is about where medicine was in the mid-19th century - a mishmash of guesswork, science, quasi-experiments, ideology, leeches, and non-antiseptic surgery (NCLB is a great example of the latter). But you can either give up on the whole endeavor, or keep learning. My gripe with liberals on education policy (present company excluded) is that they tend to oppose the experiments that help us learn.

On the possibility of a single payer system, you seem to think that all America needs is a pep talk on the subject: "believe in your dreams and they will all come true!"

You need to recognize that people have valid concerns about single payer. Look at how poorly the public reacted to the rationing attempts of HMOs in the 90s. How do you expect them to react when the government tries it? How will single payer be financed? If you think the public is willing to pay significantly more taxes at the moment, you haven't been paying attention. Additionally, cost containment is also an issue in countries like Canada. As such, it isn't clear that single payer would do much to solve health care costs. Yes, it would probably reduce administrative costs, but that is about a one time 10% reduction, at best, in an area of the economy that has been growing that much per year.

As for what I would advocate, I thought Kerry's plan had merit, improving on coverage without going all the way to single payer.

I recognize that I was not making in depth analyses of liberal positions. It wasn't my point, and this isn't the place. I was drawing rough contrasts on a broad array of subjects.

Again on empiricism. Minnesota pioneered several innovations with school choice. Its hardly being ideological or dogmatic to want to experiment with something new. Liberals opposed the mere concept of experimenting at the time. I fully recognize that not everything has worked, but that is a sign of strength. Choice allows poorly performing charter schools to be shut down. Implicit in your comment is that the failure of individual businesses indicates that the market isn't working. In fact, it often indicates the exact opposite. However, personally I think our schools are doing quite well. The numbers get skewed because of the patchwork nature of the US educational system, and income distribution problems. The problem with inner city schools isn't lack of money - they get more money than almost any other schools, per student. Rather, the performance problems are a symptom of the underlying social problems. I don't see school choice as a fix for a broken system, but a way to improve upon a functional system.  

On trade: I think you completely misread the arguments from your own side. Protectionist sentiment abounds among liberals simply on its own merits, or lack thereof. Arguments about NAFTA codifying laissez faire are largely specious, but the point is at least legitimate, if true. You don't want NAFTA prohibiting you from engaging in legitimate efforts to improve the environment and whatnot. But a lot of what you get from the left is mere protectionism.

I agree about Republicans on the environment.

Why Iraq?

Mostly, I think the Administration wanted to set an example for state-sponsorship of terrorism. Afghanistan simply wasn't enough. They were already in the middle of a civil war, they weren't an arab state, and didn't have much of an army. Taking them out didn't do much for showing American resolve.  A better statement of America's new anti-terrorism/anti-rogue state commitment was needed. Iraq was convenient for several reasons:

1. The American public already knew Saddam was a bad guy. It was an easier sell.

2. Iraq had been openly defiant of international pressure for years. Even with the most benign interpretation, Iraq was a persistent pain in the ass - a threat to regional stability that required a US presence in the Gulf, a presence that contributed to the anti-Americanism of certain people named "Osama", among others. As much as a like Clinton's policies, he dropped the ball on Iraq.

3. Perceptions of WMDs. We now know that these were false, but the intelligence wasn't completely trumped up. Clinton also was convinced Iraq had WMDs.

4. Convenience. We already had Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as bases. Invading Syria, Iran, or Libya had greater logistic problems.

5. Personal reasons. I am wary of armchair psychoanalyzing, but I think Bush has long-standing issues with his father, and wants to prove himself by being successful at something his father botched.

6. Iraq was already diplomatically isolated. Invading Iraq wouldn't provoke the same reaction that invading other countries would have.

7. The Neocon argument. Bush fancies himself as someone who doesn't swat flied, but goes right to the heart of the problem. He and the neocons think that illiberalism and authoritarianism in the Middle East are the source of the problem. Create a successful liberal democracy, and you put the lie to many arab arguments for authoritarianism. Hate is replaced with hope. It is a compelling vision, in my opinion, and is plausible. (whether you can create such a democracy by invading a country was a much riskier proposition).

One last comment on the dollar. You overstate the importance of having the dollar as an international reserve currency.  See this Paul Krugman article:

http://www.pkarchive.org/trade/seignor.html

I think it depends what you are dogmatic about. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is pretty fundamental to politics. Many people only get seriously interested in social issues when they have generally comfortable lives themselves, or unless those issues directly affect them. If they are concerned about their job, health, safety, or well-being of their children, they will circle the wagons.

I don't think Democrats see this. If you really want to implement a Democratic agenda, I think you need to get the fundamentals right first. Republicans do see this, and they are dogmatic about the fundamentals. Crime. National defense. The moral environment in which we raise our children. Reassured on those points, the public elects them and gives them free rein to implement the rest of their agenda as well, which enjoys less popular support.

Democrats have easy access to the high ground on a lot of health and (non-crime) safety issues. But those just aren't perceived as problems right now for the political mainstream.

1. On economic growth, your numbers don't match what the Bureau of Economic Statistics has. But your general point is correct that economic growth isn't noticeably worse under Democrats. However, you miss the point. The left-liberal in 1948 was Henry Wallace, not Truman. Truman was the military hawk who threatened to draft striking workers. Kennedy ran to the right of Nixon on national defense in 1960, accusing the Eisenhower administration of having allowed a missile gap with the Russians. One of Johnson's first major laws was a tax cut. My comments were not aimed at them, but at the post-Vietnam variety of American liberal.

2. On growing the pie, I strongly agree that many programs can both grow the pie and result in more equal distribution of it. Education is the best example, and it tends to be supported by moderate Democrats and Republicans as well (I live in a city that went for Bush that always seems to pass its school funding levies). But liberals tend to want to throw money at schools rather than support accountability and choice options. By choice, I don't mean private school vouchers. In Minnesota, my home state, the left at the teachers unions opposed public school choice and giving high school seniors the option of taking college-level classes that might better suit their needs. The law was passed anyway by a moderate Democratic governor. Welfare reform is another example. Liberals accurately saw risks in setting work requirements, but didn't seem to see the risks in allowing the cycle of welfare dependency to continue.

3. On crime, the strength of the liberal approach to crime is to address the underlying societal factors behind it. The strength of the conservative approach is to put the perps behind bars. The weakness of each is that they are soft on the other approach. Moderates want to blend the two. Bobby Kennedy did indeed have a good track record, but what ideological group tended to oppose "truth in sentencing" laws?  New York is a good case study. One of the things that New Yorkers are thrilled about lately is the massive decrease in quality of life problems - panhandling, graffiti, the sex trade, vandalism, etc. That was largely driven by a crackdown that was opposed by many on the left. As I said, it is an issue of priority. Granting greater power to the criminal justice system increases the likelihood that that power will be abused. Tying their hands reduces that likelihood, but increases the likelihood that someone guilty will go free. Everyone draws that line in a slightly different place. Liberals draw it further away from public safety.

4. On health care, you make the common mistake of assuming that every other industrialized country is like Canada or Britain. Most have a mix of public and private care. And I would say that again it is liberals being dogmatic on the issue. Liberals haven't deviated from their support for single payer. Moderates have been experimenting like mad. One thing we are discovering is that many of the experiments don't work. I am personally coming a lot closer to embracing a single payer system, but before performing major surgery on the US health care system, I don't regret us trying less invasive procedures first, particularly since a single payer system is politically impossible, and half a loaf that reduces the problem of the underinsured (which was a result of the various reforms in the 90s) is better than none.

5. On empiricism: trade and environmental policy were two things I had specifically in mind. The left often ignores the empirical economic work supporting globalization as a key to improving global living standards. The left also frequently ignores evidence that certain health and environmental problems might not really be problems. It never seems to be a moderate who is convinced that mercury levels in flu vaccines are so bad that you shouldn't get vaccinated, or gets in a dander about unsupported claims of health risks in baby toys. Meanwhile, real environmental and health problems don't get the resources they could.

Anyway, I really don't want to get into a major bout of infighting with regard to liberals v. moderates. You are far closer to being my ideological kin than George Bush or Ralph Reed. My response, and its tone, was primarily rooted in a perceived attack on moderates as unprincipled. I hear that a lot and it tends to get under my skin. My larger point was to articulate what I see as moderate principles. I found that hard to do meaningfully without drawing contrasts.