Brian Kanowsky

Last night, Democrat Mark Critz won the special election to fill Jack Murtha’s old seat in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. This race in a swing district (Voted Kerry in ‘04, McCain in ‘08) was hyped by Fox News and many Democratic sources as a bellwether race.

Critz’s solid victory brought out the usual spin from the GOP, but Democratic strategist Paul Begala pointed out that there was a good reason for this Democratic victory (partial transcript below):

Begala: "Mark Critz ran attacking the Republican for – guess what – cutting spending! He attacked him for being against Medicare. He attacked him for wanting to privatize Social Security. He attacked on the very sorts of issues that Democrats generally win on."

Even Politico, usually a faithful transcriber of every GOP press release, credited Critz’s Democratic message:

In the case of Critz, that meant hammering Burns as being in favor of outsourcing jobs overseas and highlighting his willingness to cut Social Security benefits – significant liabilities in an economically-beleaguered and aging congressional district.

Case in point:

While no two elections are exactly alike, it’s not hard to draw parallels to races here in Indiana, and especially to the Senate race between Brad Ellsworth and DC lobbyist Dan Coats.

Last week, Coats endorsed the Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which called for the privatization of Social Security and the elimination of Medicare. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee immediately picked up on it and attacked Coats for this giant giveaway to his former lobbying clients on Wall Street.

The GOP and Coats will try to paint the Ellsworth as a lackey of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, like Tim Burns did in PA-12. (In fact, they’re doing it already. I think it’s mandatory for every post on their anti-Ellsworth propaganda site to mention Pelosi at least once.) But as this special election showed, a 50-foot tall cartoon Nancy Pelosi can’t compete with Democrats who run on the issues – even in a district where Obama’s approval rating is as low at 35%.

Democrats can win in tough districts if we emphasize our values and priorities – and that shouldn’t be hard to do against a lobbyist who worked to help his clients ship American jobs overseas and wants to raise taxes on 90% of Americans.

(Crossposted at BlueIndiana)

The Louisville Courier Journal’s Lesley Stedman Weidenbener first pointed out on her twitter account that IBM’s lawsuit against the state (PDF) used Governor Mitch Daniel’s’ own words against him. Sure enough, here’s a bit from the first page of the complaint:

For two years, the IBM Coalition and the State jointly tackled the problems of the old welfare eligibility system, and rolled out a new, modernized system to 59 Indiana counties serving 430,000 social services clients. In public statements by Indiana officials, including the Governor, the State consistently commended IBM for its role in this project and for the improvements it made to Indiana’s previously fraud-ridden and inefficient welfare eligibility system.

And the state continued to praise IBM throughout the duration of the contract:

On August 1, 2008, in a report to the federal government, the FSSA stated that “[t]he Eligibility Modernization Project is in its second year and has already made substantial progress toward its goals and objectives."

And:

In fact, the FSSA attributed its prompt disaster relief assistance to the IBM Coalition’s efforts: “The ability to mobilize multiple state agencies and provide computers and phones for Hoosiers to apply for state and federal assistance was made possible by the infrastructure already in place a s a result of eligibility modernization.”

And:

On October 15, 2009, Governor Daniels held a press conference to announce that the State was terminating IBM’s involvement in the Modernization Project […] During the course of his remarks, the Governor commended IBM for its work, citing a litany of benefits that the IBM Coalition had conferred on the State […]

Reading through the lawsuit, it’s apparent that despite Daniels’ current protestations, the state got exactly what they wanted from IBM – a system that virtually eliminated face to face contact:

In fact, the only things that Governor Daniels offered as reasons for the termination were two “fundamental flaws’ in the basic concept of the Modernization Project: “saving welfare applicants the burden of a face-to-face meeting” and breaking up the determination process into “discrete tasks… done by specialists.” However, these “fundamental flaws” were key objectives of the State identified in its own RFI, RFP, and inter-agency Review Committee report.

So for Indiana to win its case against IBM, we essentially have to argue that Mitch Daniels was lying to Hoosiers and to the federal government about what was going on at FSSA. The alternative isn’t much better – that he’s only lying now to do some political posturing before the 2012 Presidential race heats up.

The Star’s Bill Ruthhart and Mary Beth Schneider report “there may be a political price for Daniels.”

He came to office in 2005 as a champion of putting public business in private hands wherever it seemed to make economic sense. Ignoring critics who argued that welfare wasn’t the right venue for such changes, and the fact that similar efforts had failed in Texas and Florida, Daniels announced the contract with fanfare in late 2006. Now, the episode threatens to be a blot on his legacy as governor, and could tarnish his luster as a potential Republican candidate for president.

It’s also important to remember that this isn’t just a matter of financial mismanagement, incompetent governance, or even political costs. This debacle had a real human cost as well.

Medicaid cut off to a Hoosier who missed her welfare appointment — because she was hospitalized with terminal cancer. Welfare benefits denied to a deaf person — because she couldn’t do a telephone interview. A nun who lost Medicaid benefits and was deemed uncooperative when she missed a telephone interview because she had to play the organ on a Holy Day — though she repeatedly tried to reschedule.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that multiple courts have found that FSSA’s "modernized" system violated the law.

But like my state representative told the Journal Gazette, I hope Indiana prevails in this suit – the last thing we need to do is give more money to IBM after all these years of Mitch Daniels’ financial incompetence.

Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, said she is glad the state is standing up for itself: “I don’t want us to roll over. Unfortunately, the state of Indiana rolled over for too long with IBM and let IBM call the shots. We’re not doing that anymore. If that means a legal battle, then so be it.”

In a rambling “Guest Commentary” for the Times of Northwest Indiana, State Senator Mike Delph (R-Carmel) argues for an Arizona-like racial profiling immigration enforcement law in Indiana:

Until we have an administration and a Congress willing to take control of this situation, it will be up to the states to exercise the rights granted to them in federal law as Arizona has done.

Of course, Delph glosses over the questions about the constitutionality of such a law, the problems with racial profiling, and the resistance of law enforcement to this kind of law.

He also trumps up the problems in Arizona, ignores the taxes that undocumented immigrants pay, and never suggests increased enforcement against businesses that employ undocumented workers.

At a time when Indiana’s economy is struggling, and our unemployment rate at or exceeding the national average, he ignores the damage that’s been done to Arizona’s economy by boycotts brought on by SB 1070. A bill like this could even threaten Indiana’s chance of hosting the Super Bowl. We all know the league moved the 1993 game over protests about Arizona’s refusal to acknowledge the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

But I guess it will go farther than Delph’s previous attempt at immigration laws – which “have never won the Legislature’s approval“. Even if this bill doesn’t get out of committee, it will probably get him 30 seconds on Fox News. As Tony Barreda, chairman of the Community Coalition for Immigrants, told the Times, it’s “pure, unadulterated political posturing.”

Just after Dan Burton’s campaign decided to run an ad featuring Ohioan actors posing as real Hoosiers, his campaign got a little more help from out of state.

The Iowa-based American Future Fund – who has made a lot of noise over the past few months – popped in to drop this bizarre ad on the Hoosier state:

As primary challenger John McGoff’s campaign put it, “The AAF [sic] is known for their salacious and knee-breaking advertising campaigns.” That’s stating the case a bit mildly. According to the Iowa Independent, AFF’s legal counsel is Ben Ginsberg – the same Ben Ginsberg who was forced to resign from the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004 when it came out he was serving as the legal advisor to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. And AFF’s media strategist is Larry McCarthy, who produced the infamous “Willie Horton” ad in 1988.

You may remember that AFF targeted Rep. Baron Hill with a TV ad last fall, then targeted Hill along with fellow Congressman Brad Ellsworth in print ads over health insurance reform. While I couldn’t find a good fact check of the ad they ran against Hill, the nonpartisan Factcheck.org wrote that AFF’s last ad against the Affordable Care Act “mixes bits of recycled images and false claims with new falsehoods”.

AFF apparently broke a lot of golden eggs to make and air this commercial. Burton primary challenger Luke Messer repeatedly complained the amount was “over $100,000”, and the Star reported that AFF spent more than $200,000 supporting Burton, including $171,500 on television. And as the Star reported, “It’s unclear why the group is getting involved in the primary.” AFF is no stranger to large expenditures – they dropped over $600,000 into Scott Brown’s Senate race in Massachusetts. (They are also uncovered as the organizers of a massive online attack on Martha Coakley in a new study by two Wellesley University professors.) As a 501c(4), AFF does not have to disclose their donors. But their 2008 form 990 (amended) showed they took in almost $7.5 million and spent more than $4.5 million on advertising, despite having no paid staff. (PDF link)

Despite this kind of advertising, Burton went on to defeat Messer and McGoff in the 5th District’s GOP primary. Meanwhile, actual Democrat Dr. Nasser Hanna lost to “Conservative American Democrat” Tim Crawford in the Democratic primary (a result puzzled over by both Michael Wallack and Chris Worden). And so my old neighborhood in the 5th District is lost for another term, unless a strong independent candidate emerges.

Now, if only I had the budget to remake that 80s “This is your brain on drugs” PSA with exploding watermelons.

Hoosier Congressman Mike Pence took to the floor of the House of Representatives to demand an investigation into what happened on April 20, 2010. But he’s not interested in what caused the Deep Horizon oil rig to explode – he wants to know how he can blame the Obama administration:

“The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy cabinet-level federal officials until he spoke at the White House on April 28th.”

I want to make one thing clear: Pence isn’t one of the handful of conservatives pushing the line that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is “Obama’s Katrina.” That would be too moderate for the former talk radio host. Instead, ”Pence asserted that Obama’s response time was slow compared to Bush’s response [to Hurricane Katrina] in 2005.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other Democrats have condemned these kind of remarks – and Pence’s remarks specifically. But it turns out that Mike Pence’s wild allegations are too much for his fellow Republicans.

The most thorough response came from Fox News host Jane Skinner, who was armed with the facts and refused to let Karl Rove get away with baseless allegations about a delayed response from the Obama administration. She told Rove that “the national response team was activated and later that day the President convened a meeting in the Oval Office with all those involved.” (Watch the video of their exchange here.)

Minnesota’s Republican Governor (and 2012 Presidential hopeful) Tim Pawlenty told ABC News that the government “is responding to the best of their abilities.”

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called the politicization of the spill “insane”, and asked, “What could they have done? Are you gonna put Obama in a dive suit and send him down there with a little rake?”

My favorite, though, was Pence’s former colleague in the House, Joe Scarborough, who called the oil spill-Katrina analogy “completely obscene”, and went on to say, “Anybody that draws that analogy is an idiot.”

I can’t find anything to argue with there.

(Video & text of Pence’s remarks below the cut.)

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