President Barack Obama (WDCpix)

“A freeze in domestic discretionary spending,” they argued, “would immediately save $53 billion and more importantly demonstrate an immediate commitment to fiscal restraint.”

Over the next month, the “No-Cost Jobs Plan” remained a useful talking point for Republicans rebutting attacks on their “no” votes, a hook for op-eds, and not much else. But in early January, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag fueled speculation that the White House might want freezes in discretionary spending in the 2011 budget. On Monday night the White House leaked the news that President Obama would propose a three-year freeze on such spending, which makes up roughly one-sixth of the budget. In his State of the Union speech, the president confirmed it.

“Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years,” Obama said. “Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will.”

This sudden and hardly expected shift–using the language of personal responsibly that Republicans have used since before Obama took office–has startled members of both parties and economists both critical and supportive of White House policy. And while they’re using the opportunity to needle Democrats on a policy that’s seen as unlikely to shrink the deficit, conservatives see Obama’s decision as a partial declaration of surrender.

“I never met a spending freeze I didn’t like,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the chairman of the Republican conference. He pointed to the December 9 letter and gave his party full credit for appearing to change the president’s mind on spending. “I’d welcome a sincere attempt at a spending freeze.”

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said he approved of the spending freeze but believes it can’t stand alone. It must be coupled, Grassley said, with “cutting things or just turning back the TARP money, as an example. That’s $200 billion right there.”

Grassley pushed the idea of a spending freeze last March as a method to stop the president’s “socialist” agenda.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames, said he, too, supports the idea of a spending freeze but remains skeptical it will actually happen under the watch of “a president who spent more taxpayer dollars in his first year than any other president in history.”

As a short-term attempt to co-opt Republican rhetoric, the “spending freeze” promise is a success. The first poll on the idea, conducted by Rasmussen Reports, found a 56-24 percent majority in favor of a freeze, with a slim 48 percent plurality of voters predicting it would have at least “a little” impact on cutting the deficit. It followed multiple polls that have found the public skeptical that government spending can pull the economy out of the recession. That, according to some critics, explains why the White House would grab onto a Republican concept unlikely to have a major effect on the economy.

“It has to be evaluated on political terms,” said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who has clashed with fellow travelers over his opposition to spending cuts in a bad economy. “What’s he trying to accomplish politically by saying this? He’s trying to give the appearance of moving to the middle. As policy, it’s too puny to have an effect even if it’s implemented.”

Bartlett argued that liberal economists’ concerns about the impact of any kind of spending freeze were “overwrought, because nothing will come of this. But Obama’s sending mixed signals to everybody–his own supporters as well–as to what exactly his economic philosophy is.”

Deficit hawks have taken the same approach to the “freeze” concept as Republicans. At best, it points to the right policy but doesn’t get there fast enough. At worst, it’s a distraction from more deeply-needed cuts.

“We wouldn’t oppose this,” said Josh Gordon, director of policy at the budget watchdog group The Concord Coalition. “It’s an acknowledgment that the deficit is a problem. You have to start somewhere. My concern is that too much political capital could be wasted on small items, and not enough could be spent on long-term challenges, like entitlement and defense spending.”

“Voters aren’t stupid,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. (Conant’s client Tim Pawlenty called the “freeze” concept “kind of like somebody eating three Big Macs and then deciding they’re going to control their weight by ordering a Diet Coke.”) “The spending issue is not going anywhere, with or without this spending freeze. It only pertains to a small part of the budget, not even the fastest-growing part of the budget.”

Conant doubted that Obama had taken a Republican issue off the table for 2010, despite the instant polls. “Republicans do deserve credit for having the president acknowledge a problem,” he said. Other Republican strategists agreed that the “freeze” wouldn’t shift public opinion on which party can grapple with the deficit; one suggested that Obama’s embrace of the frame might make it easier for Republicans to run on government-cutting while dodging the tricky questions of entitlement or defense spending cuts.

“Ninety-five percent of Republican candidates, officials, staffers and advisers do not give a rat’s ass about fiscal restraint or government size,” one strategist told TWI. “At the end of the day, 95 percent of them believe people want to hear about fiscal restraint, but ultimately want government to give them stuff. This is how we default to talking about tax cuts, not spending, because everyone is afraid that if you criticize a spending item, you’ll offend someone. Well, you will. But when you bankrupt the whole country, which Obama’s proposal is not going to stop, you offend millions.”

Pence and other Republicans suggested that the “freeze” concept would come up again in a Friday meeting between the president and their party’s conference in Baltimore. Whatever the long-term political effect–whether or not a “freeze” happens–Obama critics are pleased that a year of arguments for more government spending are being swept aside.

“What he’s doing is actually pretty much what Bush didn’t have the guts to do in eight years,” said Veronique De Rugy, a libertarian economist at the Mercatus Center who has criticized the Keynesian spending policies of the Obama administration. “It’s nothing. But it’s more than Bush did.”

Ryan Rhodes will join Funk’s campaign as political director. He is described in a press release as having “coordinated many grassroots efforts across the state and helped other states fight against unchecked growth and the stranglehold of big government.”

Dave Funk

Of the five men hoping to unseat incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, Funk has the closest ties to the Tea Party movement.

“Dave isn‘t just a late comer to the Tea Party for political purposes,” Rhodes said. “He has been there from the beginning and I believe he is someone we can trust to be a true voice of the people for limited government in Washington.”

Rhodes, 27, ran for state House District 45 in 2008 while still a student at Iowa State University. He lost to incumbent Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, by 17 percentage points.

Also running for the GOP nomination are physician Patrick Bertroche, former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons, retired architect Mark Rees and state Sen. Brad Zaun

Dave Funk

Retired pilot Dave Funk, one of five Republicans hoping to challenge Boswell for the 3rd District Congressional seat, questioned why the project received funding during a time when “Iowans are losing their jobs, the Iowa Food Pantry is at devastatingly low levels and the state itself is facing major budget cuts across the board.”

“Sir, how dare you waste honestly earned, taxpayer money when the State of Iowa, Iowa’s largest employer, faces a 10 percent budget cut across the board, which inevitably means job cuts?” Funk said in a statement.

The money, which was part of the $446.8 billion FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2009, will go toward the year-long, $30 million effort to transform the former downtown library into the Norman E. Borlaug Hall of Laureates. The city vacated the century-old building in 2006 and it was taken over by the World Food Prize Foundation, founded by Iowan Norman Borlaug.

Nearly $25 million of the $30 million needed to renovate Des Moines’ 1903 downtown library building and convert it into combination headquarters, museum and conference center has already been raised from mostly private donations.

The building, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, is scheduled to be completed late next year.

Funk said the funding is unnecessary because the project won’t create jobs.

“How can you stand proud of $750,000 given to the World Food Prize when Iowa’s unemployment rate has increased from October 2008 (4.3) to November 2009 (6.7), a 55 percent increase?” Funk said, later adding: “We all deserve these answers. Please give us this common courtesy and explain to us how you so comfortably give away our hard-earned money.”

Dave Funk

In a blog post at TheIowaRepublican.com, Funk discussed a story from the conservative Web Site “The American Thinker.” It argued that the “universally-taught belief that petroleum deposits are derived exclusively from long-dead plants and dinosaurs is about as scientifically sound as the concept of Anthropogenic Global Warming.”

He then pointed to the so-called “Climategate” scandal, where hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents were stolen from a computer server at a British university that global warming critics say prove a conspiracy to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change. Funk said when coupled together, the myth of climate change and limited oil supply show “how government interference in our economy has slowed our economic growth, artificially increased our energy costs and allowed a massive transfer of wealth out of our country.”

It is time, he said, that U.S. energy policy is run by “adults in America and not environmental zealots.”

The concept Funk is discussing is called “abiogenic petroleum origin,” a theory that states petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits dating to the Earth’s origins, as opposed to the prevailing belief that it was formed from ancient biologic material. The concept came to fame in the Soviet Union during the mid-20^th Century, but has little support among contemporary geologists. Its proponents argue that if it is proven true it would mean much larger oils reserves than currently predicted.

Dr. Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies, said in August that the global oil supply is likely to peak in about 10 years. He warned that oil production has already peaked in non-OPEC countries and the era of cheap oil has come to an end.

Birol’s dire predictions are not universally accepted, but all authoritative estimates of the world’s existing energy reserves conclude there is a limit, even if it won’t be reached for many decades.

Funk is running against state Sen. Brad Zaun and former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons for the chance to challenge incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell in 2010.

“We like Dave Loebsack,” the endorsement begins, praising the incumbent for his work during a “volatile” year that saw massive flooding in the district.  He “has done a good job of representing his district in Washington.”

But “We also like Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks,” the Courier continues.

In the end, the Courier’s endorsement seems to come down to questions about whether the southern part of the district — where Ottumwa is — gets as much attention as Linn and Johnson Counties, which are home to the district’s Democratic base and a large percentage of its voters:

To his credit, Loebsack has continued to return to his district. He’s returned to Ottumwa more than 40 times this year alone to discuss issues with district patrons.

But there are concerns that Loebsack, like his predecessor, focuses too much of his attention on Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

The district is made up of 15 unique counties and the needs of people living in Ottumwa, Centerville, Fairfield, Bloomfield, Burlington and Keokuk are just as important as those folks living in Linn and Johnson counties.

This is a tough decision. Both candidates are qualified to serve and both will do a solid job of representing our views.

But this year, the edge goes to Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and we endorse her candidacy for Congress.

An analysis of 2004 caucus attendance shows that, on average statewide, it took just under 41 caucus goers to elect a state delegate equivalent.  The easiest county to elect a delegate was Fremont County, where 22.3 caucus goers translated into a state delegate.

The hardest places to elect delegates, in contrast, were college counties, with Johnson County far ahead of the rest.  In Johnson County, it took 79.2 people to elect a delegate, nearly twice the state average and almost four times the level of Fremont County.Poweshiek County, home of Grinnell, and Story County, site of Iowa State, ranked second and fourth hardest.  Squeezed in at third was Jefferson County, where the meditator community centered around Maharishi International University  led Dennis Kucinich to a near-win, his strongest showing in the nation.  Luther College’s Winneshiek County was also in the top ten.

Those statistics are likely to shift in 2008 with the caucuses occurring over collegiate breaks.  But even the calendar shift doesn’t change the underlying fact: some counties are full of go-to-meeting activists while others have more rank and file voters.

The caucuses take place in a mythical, projected version of a general election voting population, because caucus apportionment is based on votes for the top of the ticket.  In 2004 the counts were based on votes for Al Gore in 2000 and Tom Vilsack in 2002; likewise this year’s counts are based on John Kerry and Chet Culver.  In all four of those contests, Johnson County had the top Democratic percentages in the state.  While those Johnson County voters are the most likely to vote Democratic, they’re also the most likely to spend two or three hours at a meeting.

Another factor that skews caucus representation toward rural counties is the state’s shifting population.  Joining the college counties in the top ten list of hardest counties to elect delegates are high-growth areas in central Iowa — Dallas, Madison, Polk and Warren counties, four of the six fastest growing counties in the state from July 2000 to July 2003 (the Census estimates closest to caucus dates).  Dallas County grew 13.2% in those three years.  But a voter who moved to Dallas County three years before the caucuses won’t count in the county’s presidential vote totals used to calculate delegates, because they voted somewhere else.  A voter who moved in after the gubernatorial election wouldn’t count at all toward the delegate count.

The other high growth counties hurt in caucus apportionment are Johnson County again, plus Benton County.  But Benton’s exurban commuters to  Cedar Rapids and Waterloo were less likely to caucus, as the county ranked 63rd in attendees per delegate.

In contrast, Fremont County, the easiest place to win a delegate, lost 2.3% of its population over the same period.  Yet voters who were no longer in the county still helped its delegate count.  Sac County, the fasted shrinking county in 2000-2003 (-5.1%), ranked number 83 on the caucus goers per delegate list.

This helps explain dynamics like three Democrats showing up within 20 hours in Carroll.  It also means candidates can’t run up the score with big wins in big counties.  But paradoxically, it also mutes the impact of the holiday break in college towns — whether 30 students or 300 show up in Iowa City Precinct 5 (all dorms and frat houses), the same six delegates are at stake.  It also helps a candidate with isolated hotspots of support (like Kucinich in 2004) and hurts candidates with low but evenly spread backing.

Ultimately, the apportionment rules mean candidates have to carefully allocate their resources and fight on all fronts at once, and part of that allocation is making the effort where the most bang for the buck is available — the small towns.

align="right">552

Rank	County	Attendance (2004)	State Delegate Equivalent (2004)	Attendees per delegate (2004)
1	Johnson	11169	141	79.21
2	Poweshiek	1396	20	69.80
3	Jefferson	890	13	68.46
4	Story	5674	86	65.98
5	Decatur	437	8	54.63
6	Warren	2453	47	52.19
7	Polk	21821	430	50.75
8	Winneshiek	992	20	49.60
9	Dallas	2111	43	49.09
10	Madison	681	15	45.40
11	Cedar	766	18	42.56
12	Jasper	1868	44	42.45
13	Marshall	1696	40	42.40
14	Davis	330	8	41.25
15	Mahaska	648	16	40.50
16	Woodbury	3255	81	40.19
17	Muscatine	1404	35	40.11
18	Boone	1240	31	40.00
18	Marion	1120	28	40.00
20	Buchanan	908	23	39.48
21	Iowa	592	15	39.47
22	Greene	473	12	39.42
23	Wapello	1615	41	39.39
24	Clay	590	15	39.33
25	Adair	351	9	39.00
26	Bremer	889	23	38.65
27	Palo Alto	424	11	38.55
28	Linn	8716	228	38.23
29	Wayne	228	6	38.00
30	Monroe	303	8	37.88
31	Hardin	715	19	37.63
32	Webster	1531	41	37.34
33	Hamilton	634	17	37.29
34	Louisa	371	10	37.10
35	Washington	701	19	36.89
36	Des Moines	1879	51	36.84
37	Buena Vista	589	16	36.81
38	Appanoose	478	13	36.77
39	Sioux	398	11	36.18
40	Union	464	13	35.69
41	Dubuque	3739	105	35.61
42	Adams	177	5	35.40
43	Kossuth	698	20	34.90
44	Scott	5566	161	34.57
45	Harrison	414	12	34.50
45	Monona	345	10	34.50
47	Keokuk	344	10	34.40
48	Pottawattamie	2331	68	34.28
49	Jackson	718	21	34.19
50	Mills	333	10	33.30
51	Tama	632	19	33.26
52	Clayton	663	20	33.15
53	Ringgold	197	6	32.83
54	Black Hawk	4450	136	32.72
55	Guthrie	392	12	32.67
56	Plymouth	17	32.47
57	Van Buren	194	6	32.33
58	Fayette	708	22	32.18
59	Shelby	289	9	32.11
60	Ida	224	7	32.00
61	Henry	605	19	31.84
62	Cass	381	12	31.75
63	Benton	857	27	31.74
64	Chickasaw	504	16	31.50
65	Page	306	10	30.60
66	Carroll	635	21	30.24
67	Audubon	241	8	30.13
68	Howard	330	11	30.00
69	Franklin	328	11	29.82
70	Grundy	298	10	29.80
71	Wright	386	13	29.69
72	Crawford	355	12	29.58
73	Floyd	525	18	29.17
74	Cerro Gordo	1586	55	28.84
75	Lucas	256	9	28.44
76	O’Brien	281	10	28.10
77	Jones	617	22	28.05
78	Clarke	308	11	28.00
79	Allamakee	360	13	27.69
80	Butler	354	13	27.23
81	Delaware	489	18	27.17
82	Winnebago	323	12	26.92
83	Sac	268	10	26.80
84	Lee	1193	45	26.51
85	Dickinson	477	18	26.50
85	Humboldt	265	10	26.50
85	Pocahontas	212	8	26.50
88	Lyon	158	6	26.33
89	Calhoun	287	11	26.09
90	Osceola	103	4	25.75
91	Montgomery	203	8	25.38
92	Taylor	149	6	24.83
93	Worth	248	10	24.80
94	Mitchell	278	12	23.17
95	Hancock	254	11	23.09
96	Emmet	230	10	23.00
97	Cherokee	295	13	22.69
98	Clinton	1326	59	22.47
99	Fremont	156	7	22.29
	Statewide	122193	3000	40.73

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/1727/rural-counties-fewer-caucus-goers-per-delegate/feed 12 http://iowaindependent.com/863/mccain-collapse-worst-presidential-repudiation-since-cross-of-gold http://iowaindependent.com/863/mccain-collapse-worst-presidential-repudiation-since-cross-of-gold#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:00:00 +0000 John Deeth http://iowaindependent.com/863/mccain-collapse-worst-presidential-repudiation-since-cross-of-gold [Commentary] John McCain’s presidential candidacy has now collapsed so completely that, in a recent poll back home in Arizona, he is trailing for re-election to his own Senate seat in 2010 to popular, term-limited Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.  Another poll, this one from Strategic Vision, shows 51 percent of likely Republican — Republican — caucus goers support withdrawal from Iraq in the next six months.

Much of McCain’s collapse is because of his repositioning, from the straight talk maverick of 2000 to the insider’s choice of 2006.  This may have seemed like a smart move early in the campaign because of the Republican tradition of nominating the person whose turn it is next.

Several months ago, I argued that “the principle of the Turn” made McCain a lock for the Republican nomination, because the Republican Party had not rejected the anointed successor since the 1940s.  With only one interregnum, the line is unbroken, with no Jimmy Carter type outsider.  Dewey to Ike to Nixon to Ford to Reagan to Bush 41 to Dole to Bush 43.  The sole exception is the Goldwater forfeit in 1964.  Goldwater himself said LBJ could not be beaten less than a year after JFK’s assassination, and the establishment decided to let the right wing take over and lose.

I’m not serving myself a big plate of crow, because the collapse of McCain’s candidacy doesn’t discredit the Turn theory.  Rather, it shows the exceptional weakness and disarray of the Republican Party during the extended death-rattle of the Bush administration.The increasingly isolated president has virtually no influence over the nomination.  Despite the veto pen and the finger-on-the-button power still at his command, Bush’s only political usefulness to his party is raising money from the 25 percent or so that still blindly back him.  Closed door, no media, protesters at a Secret Service enforced distance, $1,000 a plate, Air Force One back to the ranch.

No other Republican candidate is stepping forward to claim the mantle of heir that cursed McCain, because no one wants to be associated with Bush.  Not that they’re rejecting the policies.  Not in the context of a GOP nomination contest dominated by the few and the faithful, the 25 percent, many of whom back the war because they have family members fighting and they can’t bear the cognitive dissonance that their loved ones are at risk for a failed policy.

But the contenders are keeping an eye on the general election, and avoiding praise of Bush that could sound-bite them in the butt next October.  Bush’s name is rarely invoked in Republican debates or on the stump — unless it’s negatively by Ron Paul.  Otherwise, it’s all the troops, the troops, the troops, with nary a mention of the Commander in Chief.

It’s hard to overstate just how big a deal this repudiation is.  Even the thoroughly discredited Richard Nixon, driven from office by (ahem) the threat of impeachment (ahem), managed to name a successor.  And Gerald Ford, with his (unfair) stumblebum image and with the albatross of the Nixon pardon around his neck, became the only person ever — ever — to defeat The Great Communicator.  Why?  Because Ronald Reagan cut in line in 1976 and the Republicans decided it was Ford’s turn for his own term.  And Nixon’s anointed — literally, appointed — successor became the ultimate proof of the Turn theory.

But George W. Bush’s tacit deal with McCain — back me on the war and immigration and I’ll get my big fundraisers on your side — has blown up in McCain’s face.  Indeed, this level of repudiation within a president’s own party may be unmatched since 1896, when William Jennings Bryan and free silver took over the Democratic Party from Grover Cleveland and the gold bugs.  That was a realigning repudiation.  It set the stage for the whole Progressive Era and the 1920s pre-New Deal normalcy backlash.

The 1896 repudiation of Cleveland was based on policy.  But, again with the lone exception of Ron Paul, the ongoing Republican battle isn’t a policy fight.  This is a repudiation based on Bush’s incompetent execution of an incomplete policy.  The crop of Republican candidates offer changes in style, or at most degrees of emphasis, but do not represent change on substance.  Yet the Next Turn line looks ready to break.  The Bush establishment cannot openly get behind another contender without causing him irreparable damage.  Unless the machinations are subtle, the Republicans will hit the reset button in 2008.

There’s a huge opening for an anti-war Republican like Paul or Chuck Hagel (whose Hamlet-like indecision makes him the Republican Mario Cuomo).  A 51 percent opening in Iowa, says that poll.  If the Republicans would go so far as to actually nominate an anti-war candidate, that would have to rank as the biggest slap in the face from a president’s own party since 1884 — when accidental incumbent Chester Arthur was actually denied nomination for a term of his own.