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UNION$ SHELL
Unions and Obama making up crucial WINDOW
Stein 2/18/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/18/wisconsin-protests-obama-labor-delicatedance_n_825353.html
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has
worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center
for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is
a graduate of Dartmouth College.
At that point, however, Wisconsin had become a proxy war for the philosophical battles of Washington;
and, as such, the president's participation in the process -- or lack thereof -- was being closely studied for
broader meaning. Any additional statement of solidarity, labor activists stressed, would not only lift the
spirits of the protesters, it would solidify a base vote that has, at times, seemed unenthused with the
current administration. "I think that people understand that when attacked you must fight back and they
are energized by that. And I think the lesson of what people will learn from this is that moving forward you
have to stay engaged and keep fighting. And we will see that take place in 2012 in the electoral scene as
well," said Karen Ackerman, the political director of the AFL-CIO. "People are reminded that there are
consequences to elections, that it is important who gets elected." So far, the president's engagement has
been cheered. "We think to come out publicly and say, as far as he is concerned, that this seems to be an
attack on public unions ... it was a wonderful statement he made," said McEntee. That good will,
however, be tested in the weeks ahead, as a government shut down in Madison and similar protests
elsewhere seem likely to consume more of the president's attention and time. On Friday, White House
Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated the president's concern about the underlying objectives of the antiunion legislation. But aides to Obama declined to say whether he would visit Wisconsin in the week
ahead, despite protesters' pining for a visit. One top Republican strategist described the situation best,
when he noted the debate has allowed labor and the president -- never really trusting of one another -a limited window in which to patch things up. "Labor unions and the White House might not be in
bed with each other, but they're definitely having make-up sex right now," the strategist emailed.
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small donors online will be hampered by the bad economy and, perhaps, by diminished "grassroots
enthusiasm."
Extinction!!
James A. Russell, Senior Lecturer, National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, 9 (Spring)
Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East IFRI,
Proliferation Papers, #26, http://www.ifri.org/downloads/PP26_Russell_2009.pdf
Strategic stability in the region is thus undermined by various factors: (1) asymmetric interests in the
bargaining framework that can introduce unpredictable behavior from actors; (2) the presence of nonstate actors that introduce unpredictability into relationships between the antagonists; (3)
incompatible assumptions about the structure of the deterrent relationship that makes the
bargaining framework strategically unstable; (4) perceptions by Israel and the United States that its
window of opportunity for military action is closing, which could prompt a preventive attack; (5) the
prospect that Irans response to pre-emptive attacks could involve unconventional weapons, which could
prompt escalation by Israel and/or the United States; (6) the lack of a communications framework to
build trust and cooperation among framework participants. These systemic weaknesses in the
coercive bargaining framework all suggest that escalation by any the parties could happen either on
purpose or as a result of miscalculation or the pressures of wartime circumstance. Given these factors, it
is disturbingly easy to imagine scenarios under which a conflict could quickly escalate in which
the regional antagonists would consider the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. It
would be a mistake to believe the nuclear taboo can somehow magically keep nuclear weapons
from being used in the context of an unstable strategic framework. Systemic asymmetries between
actors in fact suggest a certain increase in the probability of war a war in which escalation could
happen quickly and from a variety of participants. Once such a war starts, events would likely develop
a momentum all their own and decision-making would consequently be shaped in unpredictable ways. The
international community must take this possibility seriously, and muster every tool at its disposal to
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prevent such an outcome, which would be an unprecedented disaster for the peoples of the region,
with substantial risk for the entire world.
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AND the window for this relationship is RIGHT NOW thats STEIN 2/18
AND UNIONS remember longer than voters
Bai 7
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/whos-interests-are-special/
Matt Bai, who covers politics for the Sunday Times Magazine, is the author of The Argument: Billionaires,
Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. I went to Tufts and Columbia's Graduate School
of Journalism, where the faculty generously awarded me the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. Early in my
career, just out of college, I was a speechwriter for what is now the U.S. Fund for UNICEF,
Mr. Obama has essentially charged that Mr. Edwards is a hypocrite because, while Mr. Edwards has said
he favors banning unregulated campaign money from outside groups, his campaign is getting millions of
dollars worth of assistance from outside contributors namely unions. Whats remarkable about this line
of attack is that, while Mr. Obama is aiming squarely at Mr. Edwards, he also risks alienating some of the
most powerful interest groups in Democratic Washington. More likely, Mr. Edwards believes hes being
true to his convictions about money in politics because he simply doesnt see union money as part of the
problem. The general view among Democrats is that special interests are people with power
(pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors), while unions are dues-paying institutions that
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aggregate the power of ordinary Americans. To put this another way, if your boss plunks down 500 bucks
for 100 lottery tickets, hes using his wealth to unfairly game the system. If you and your co-workers each
contribute 10 bucks to buy the same 100 tickets, then youre simply pooling your resources in order to
give yourselves a fighting chance. Theres an attractive logic to this argument, except that, in practice, it
runs into some nettlesome inconsistencies. For instance, the National Rifle Association is also a duespaying group that aggregates the power of its members, as is the National Federation of Independent
Businesses, and I doubt very much that Edwards or other Democrats would describe these as anything
other than special interests. Just like the N.R.A., Big Labor tries to manipulate elections to gain access
and favor for its members. That doesnt make unions a corrupting influence; as Andrew Stern, the
president of the Service Employees International Union, always says, unions have been the greatest
antipoverty program in American history. But it does make labor a special interest, whether Democrats
like it or not. If youre going to base much of your presidential campaign on ridding politics of unregulated
money from influential interest groups, then you cant expect to just exempt those groups you happen to
like or who happen to like you. Theres no way around it: thats what Mr. Edwards seems to be doing.
As for Mr. Obama, you have to wonder if making this argument, right or wrong, could haunt him later,
especially if he doesnt win the nomination and wants to make another run for higher office. As one labor
activist pointedly told me, Democrats running for president arent supposed to go after their friends.
Maybe Iowans will remember Mr. Obamas stand against special interests when they go to caucus
Thursday. Im pretty sure some unions will remember it longer than that. .
***UNIONS UNIQUENESS
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!!!UNIQUE WINDOW
Now key union and Obama healing their rifts, but its delicate
Stein 2/18/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/18/wisconsin-protests-obama-labor-delicatedance_n_825353.html
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has
worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center
for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is
a graduate of Dartmouth College.
The ongoing protests surrounding an anti-union measure in Wisconsin has placed the president and the
Democratic Party in a yet another delicate dance with the labor community. Demonstrations against a
bill that would effectively end collective bargaining for many unions would, on the surface, seem like a
political lay-up for a Democratic administration. Unions represent the base of the party. And a show of
solidarity with those walking the streets of Madison would go a long way toward soothing the muchdiscussed tensions between unions and the White House. On Thursday evening, one top labor activist,
speaking on the condition of anonymity (for fear of jinxing the administration's engagement), said he
thought Wisconsin would be a "turning point" in bringing the two factions together.
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recess appointments to add two pro-labor members to the board. Since then, the NLRB's decisions have
more often than not infuriated Big Business and its conservative allies.
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UNIQUENESS: GOLDILOCKS
Obamas perfectly spilt the difference over Wisconsin
Christian Science Monitor 2/25/11
Ln
But Obama has, for the most part, stayed out of the Wisconsin imbroglio, and in fact, political analysts
say, in not carving out an intricate "middle way," Obama has played it right. "The biggest danger in
some ways was for him to be consumed by this issue," says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and
public affairs at Princeton University. "That hasn't happened." Staying on message Instead, Obama has
remained focused on his jobs message. As things stand now, getting the unemployment rate down from
its current 9 percent to closer to 8 percent by Election Day is his most important reelection task. The
president did weigh in on Wisconsin late last week, saying that "some of what I've heard ... seems like
more of an assault on unions." He referenced in particular Gov. Scott Walker's effort to curtail public
employees' collective bargaining rights. The group Organizing for America - Obama's old political
network that is now part of the Democratic National Committee - had encouraged volunteers to support
the protests, but party officials say the White House was not involved. During his first two years in office,
Obama at times derailed his main message by commenting on a side issue - such as the mistaken arrest
in 2009 of a black Harvard scholar by a white police officer in Cambridge, Mass., which ignited a week of
public discussion about race relations, rather than health-care reform. Obama's new message discipline
can be attributed partly to his staff shakeup - a new chief of staff, William Daley, and new top political
adviser, David Plouffe, both of whom are seen as more organized than their predecessors. Obama
"There's a maturity to the situation," says Democratic strategist Peter Fenn. "When you're president of the
United States, you don't just go running around saying whatever comes into your mind." Mr. Fenn agrees
that Obama has handled Wisconsin correctly. He's made it clear where he stands, but has not jumped in
with both feet.
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Unions still stay home or shift focus even if they dont party switch
Associated Press 3/12/11
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mobile/?type=story&id=2014480736&
Obama has called Walker's proposal an "assault on unions" and urged governors not to vilify public
workers. After the state Senate relied on a procedural move Thursday to pass the anti-bargaining-rights
measure without any Democrats in the chamber, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama thinks
it is wrong for Wisconsin to use its budget troubles "to denigrate or vilify public-sector employees." Solis
also pledged her support for public employees on a phone call with thousands of members of the
Communications Workers of America. "Budget sacrifices are one thing but, demanding that workers give
up their voice is another," the labor secretary told the union members. But asked whether Solis would go
to Wisconsin or any other state where protesters are rallying, spokesman Carl Fillichio said she's
"keeping an eye on the situation." DeMoro, from the nurses' union, has been reminding Obama about his
2007 campaign promise to walk with union members. She has even sent out news releases offering to
buy the president a pair of shoes to march with demonstrators. "Standing with the embattled workers
would be an important symbol," DeMoro said. There's no question that Obama will keep getting strong reelection support from organized labor. But he stands the risk that unions won't be as enthusiastic if he is
too aloof about the attack on bargaining rights. On the other hand, it's possible that unions will be so
consumed with their own efforts to save bargaining rights, recall governors or other issues of selfpreservation that they won't have the time to work on Obama's behalf with full vigor. Schoen, the
Democratic consultant, said Obama is "trying to have it both ways." If the budget-cutting tactics of Walker
and GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio are successful, Obama doesn't want to be seen as aggressively
taking sides, Schoen said. If they fail, the president can say he was always on the side of the unions.
Most union leaders have praised Obama in public for offering support with his words.
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AT NU- SKFTA
Obama not pushing SKFTA because of this
Hadar 3/15/11
Business Times Singapoire, LN
Leon Hadar, is a global affairs analyst, journalist, blogger and author. A long-time critic of American policy
in the Middle East,[1] Hadar is a research fellow with the Cato Institute,[2] a contributing editor for the
American Conservative and a regular contributor to Chronicles and Reason and a regular blogger on The
Huffington Post. Hadar has published numerous analyses and commentaries on U.S. global diplomatic
and trade policies, with a special focus on the Middle East and East and South Asia. Hadar is the author
of two books on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Quagmire: America in the Middle East (Cato Institute,
1992), and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Hadar also served
as a foreign policy advisor to the Ron Paul 2008 presidential camapaign.[3]
Even supporters of the Obama administration insist that when it comes to global trade issues, President
Obama has failed to assume a strong leadership position. Part of the problem has to do with the White
House's reluctance to antagonise powerful political allies in the Democratic Party and the labour unions
whose support the president would need when he runs for re-election next year.
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***2012 UNIQ
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where Gallup shows decent Obama approval ratings, another 154 electoral votes are contributed to the
pot, bringing Obama's total to 300 exactly, 30 more than needed. This formula takes into account the
West Coast, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, the upper Midwest, the entire Northeast, Virginia and North
Carolina. Advantage, Obama. To summarize, while the economy, unemployment, health care,
Afghanistan and other issues will certainly be factors, people vote their pocketbooks bottom line.
According to the New York Times, Yale economist Raymond Fair is predicting almost 4 percent economic
growth in 2012, with a corresponding Obama landslide. According to most other forecasts, growth in the
more modest 3 percent range is likely, which in my opinion still produces an Obama victory. Decent
economic growth plus progress with unemployment is key. Here's my prediction: on November 6, 2012,
it'll be Obama-Biden with 53 percent of the popular vote and 300 electoral votes over RomneyPerry that's Texas Governor Rick Perry.
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cost you $6.25. This means that, according to Intrade.com, President Obama (assuming that he is the
Democratic Presidential nominee in 2012) has a 62.5% chance of winning in 2012. -- The going rate for
the "Republican Party candidate to win the 2012 Presidential Election" is currently $3.50, meaning that
Intrade.com believes that there is a 35% chance of the Republicans winning in 2012.
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reelection. And lately, Mike Huckabee -- who might be the front-runner for the GOP nomination, if only
he'd get in the race -- has been making headlines by talking up Obama's strength, as he did to Politico:
"The people that are sitting around saying, 'Hes definitely going to be a one-term president. Its going to
be easy to take him out,' theyre obviously political illiterates -- political idiots, let me be blunt." Thus, the
Republican presidential field for 2012 is now most notable for its lack of depth. No one, it seems, wants to
be the first to jump in, and those who seem most interested in running have clear, significant liabilities.
Meanwhile, potentially stronger prospects like Huckabee, Chris Christie and (maybe) Jeb Bush seem
content to wait for 2016.
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AT NU LIBYA
Libya wont impact 2012
Lindsay 3/8/11
http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2011/03/08/will-libya-hurt-obama-in-2012/
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
Will the administrations slowness in responding to events in Libya hurt Obamas reelection run? Jennifer
Rubin poses that question over at Right Turn. Her answer: Yes, it could. My answer: Almost certainly
not. Rubin has it exactly right that foreign policy doesnt usually figure prominently in presidential
campaigns.
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AT NU FOREIGN POLICY
No one cares about foreign policy
Lindsay 3/8/11
http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2011/03/08/will-libya-hurt-obama-in-2012/
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
So if Obama goes into the 2012 general election campaign saying he withdrew U.S. troops in Iraq as
promised and has begun drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, he will be in a strong foreign policy
position politically. That will be true regardless of what is happening in Libya (or Belarus or Honduras for
that matter). Obamas biggest foreign policy risk is the opposite of what Rubin supposes, namely,
becoming entangled in Libya. Should the United States intervene in Libya and find itself trapped, Obama
will pay a steep political price. And GOP candidates will be his most vocal critics.
The second reason to doubt that Libya will matter in 2012 is a weak U.S. economy and a federal budget
bleeding red ink. Domestic issues almost certainly will trump foreign policy ones in 2012. Indeed, if
you could guarantee White House officials that foreign policy will shove domestic policy aside during the
election campaign, they almost certainly would be pleased. If GOP presidential candidates are talking
Hugo Chavez and Bahsar al-Assad rather than unemployment rates and trillion dollar deficits, then
Obamas second term is assured.
***2012 UNIONS
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correct as to the share of union voters in the actual electorate, then the net effect on Mr. Obamas vote
was 2.4 percentage points. Also, our study is measured in terms of the marginal effect on Mr. Obamas
vote. But the way that we have designed the analysis, any votes that did not go to Mr. Obama instead
went to Senator John McCain. Therefore, the impact on the margin between the two candidates was
twice as large: not 2.4 points, but 4.8 points. This is fairly meaningful. Of the last 10 elections in which the
Democratic candidate won the popular vote (counting 2000, when Al Gore lost in the Electoral College),
he did so by 4.8 points or fewer on 4 occasions (2000, 1976, 1960, 1948). So, while the impact of union
voting is not gigantic in the abstract, it has the potential to sway quite a few presidential elections,
since presidential elections are usually fairly close.
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Ohios linchpin of 2012 must set the agenda for Dem win
Galston 2/23/11
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/83993/obama-2012-reelection-colorado-ohio
William Galston is a former policy advisor to Bill Clinton and current senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution.
The seductiveness of the Colorado model is obvious. But the consequences of succumbing to it could be
dire. The last Democrat to win the presidency without prevailing in Ohio was John F. Kennedy. The
electoral college math worked only because he won South Carolina, Georgia, half of Alabamas electoral
votes, and even Texas, thanks to LBJs presence on the ticket. None of these states is remotely within
Democratic reach today. Ohio is more than a rich pool of votes; it is the closest state we have to a
microcosm of the nation. Barack Obamas path to reelection runs through Ohio and the Midwest, not
around them. And that means taking seriously the concerns of the voters throughout the region who
deserted Democrats in droves last yearAmericans unlikely to be moved by an agenda of high-speed
rail, cleaner energy, and educational reforms that rarely seem to yield good jobs for themselves or their
children. Instead, ratcheting up efforts to boost exports would work better; so would toughening our line
against the excesses of Chinas economic nationalism. In addition, Obama should acknowledge clearly
that no region has gained more from the administrations forward-looking restructuring of the U.S. auto
industry; and none would have lost more if the administration had allowed it to collapse. Despite the
continuing unpopularity of this initiative nationwide, the administration might as well take credit and tout it
full-throatedly. Obama should also use his proposed Infrastructure Bank as the leading edge of a program
to rebuild America that would create large numbers of good jobs that cant be exported. And white
working-class skepticism about the first two years of the administrations economic agenda gives the
president one more reason to participate in broader bipartisan discussions about our fiscal future. Its
easy to claim that the administration need not choose between a Colorado strategy and an Ohio strategy.
At the level of tactics, that may be true. If the Obama campaign raises as much money as, or more than it
did, in 2008, it will be able to organize and advertise everywhere. But at a deeper level, that doesnt hold.
The administration can have only one agenda. If its policy choices over the next 18 months are
directed principally toward mobilizing voters from its base, it will pay a price among the millions
of others without whose support Obama would never have been elected.
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emphasizing the administration's focus on building the economy. Obama's likely Republican rivals for the
presidency are undergoing the same exercise. On Friday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held a
conference call with more than 300 contributors from his last race to update them on his activities.\
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FUNDRAISING KEY
Money crucial need war chest
Kroll 3/4/11
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/obama-donor-2012-president
Andy's work has appeared at The Wall Street Journal, SportsIllustrated.com, The Detroit News, Salon,
and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He works in Mother Jones' DC Bureau, and can
be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com.
With conservative heavyweights planning to spend lavishly to topple President Obamathe White House
anticipates $500 million or more in outside spendingthe biggest challenge facing Obama aides and the
Democratic Party is amassing a campaign war chest large enough to fight back against the Koch
brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's Crossroads groups, and so on.
The Wall Street Journal today has an in-depth look at the Obama team's early courting of donors in cities
such as Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. The "strategy briefings" by Obama aides, featuring
the requisite PowerPoint presentation branded with the "Change the Matters" slogan, emphasizes the
president's "clear but narrowed support" in blue-collar, Midwestern states, but points out the stiff challenge
facing Obama from deep-pocketed donors on the right.
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Curbs on campaign finance that had been in effect since the Watergate era were gutted. Suddenly, sixand seven-figure checks were the weapon of choice in politics. Rove and other savvy political players
channeled tens of millions to groups like the American Crossroads, which by law must disclose its donors,
and its affiliate Crossroads GPS, which can keep donors' names secret. "2010 was only Crossroads'
opening act," Steven Law, the group's president, told the Center for Public Integrity. These two groups
hope to rake in $120 million for 2012 compared to $71 million last year. Republican efforts got a head
start in 2010 from big donors including Houston home builder Robert Perry, who gave $7 million to
American Crossroads. Multi-billionaires David and Charles Koch several years ago launched and helped
finance Americans for Prosperity, which planned to spend $45 million last year. Democrats initially stayed
on the sidelines of the outside group money chase. But by fall, as the U.S. House began to slip away, the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees jumped in with $91 million, which led
spending by all groups. AFSCME president Gerald McEntee said unions, now at war in states like
Wisconsin with newly elected Republican governors, are determined to do more. "We have to build a
broader coalition to counter Rove & Co.," McEntee said. "2010 provided a lesson and a beating. We
have a lot of work to do."
***2012 ATS
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AT T/ - HISPANICS
Our internal outweighs its a FUNDRAISING race first right now, thats
FREIDMAN. Small donors are uniquely disempowered after Citizens United, and
theres no good Latino PAC
Latinos dont vote
Michelson 10
Faculty Fellow, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University. 5 Duke J.
Const. Law & Pub. Pol'y 159 MAJORITY-LATINO DISTRICTS AND LATINO POLITICAL POWER
The size of the Latino electorate does not accurately reflect the size of the Latino population in the U.S.
and is failing to keep pace with the community's rapid growth. From 2000 to 2008, the size of the Latino
population grew from 35.2 million to 46.8 million, increasing from 12.5% of the population to 15.4%. n52
Unlike Black populations--which are generally concentrated in the South, generally concentrated in
segregated communities, and holding steady in comparison to non-Black populations--Latino populations
are moving in increasing numbers to "new destinations," generally integrating into communities rather
than creating new segregated communities, and growing quickly in comparison to other populations. n53
Latinos are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country, and are predicted by the U.S. Census to
make up a third of the national population by 2050. n54 Yet, Latinos only constituted 7% of the electorate
in November 2008, continuing a longstanding pattern of low voter turnout. n55 This is generally due to a
variety of factors: lower levels of citizenship; lower [*173] levels of English-language proficiency; and the
demographic nature of the Latino community, including lower median levels of age, income, and
education--all of which are strong predictors of turnout. n56 Even among Latinos eligible to vote,
participation lags behind that of Whites and Blacks. In other words, part of the reason Latinos are
underrepresented is because they do not vote. Black citizens, in contrast, generally vote more than
would be predicted by their socioeconomic characteristics and in levels approaching those of Whites. The
historic 2008 Presidential election was unusual, in that Black turnout almost matched White turnout
(65.2% and 66.1%, respectively), n57 but even in previous elections Black turnout was much closer to
White turnout than it was to Latino turnout. In 2006, 51.6% of White individuals of voting age claimed to
have participated in the midterm elections, compared to 41% of Blacks and only 32.3% of Latinos. n58 In
2004, 67.2% of Whites and 60% of Blacks reported voting, but only 47.2% of Latinos reported voting. n59
And in contrast to the spike in Black turnout in November 2008, only 49.9% of Latino citizens made it to
the polls (and only 31.6% of the voting-age population). n60 In California, the population has shifted over
the past three decades from 69% White to only 43% White, while the size of the Latino population has
more than doubled from 18% to 37%. Yet, Whites are still 65% of the electorate, and Latinos only 21%.
n61 Low Latino turnout is also due to asymmetries and deficiencies in mobilization and outreach by
political parties and candidates, which have been found in multiple studies to be crucial to participation.
n62 [*174] While non-partisan community organizations such as the National Association of Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project expend
considerable resources every election season to mobilize Latino voters, their efforts cannot compensate
for the general lack of outreach by Democrats and Republicans, who tend to focus their efforts on likely
voters. In July 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made headlines with his pledge to spend $ 20 million
to reach out to Latino voters. This was double what the GOP had spent on similar efforts in 2000, but less
than 3% of the candidate's overall campaign budget of $ 744.9 million.
The bottom line is that despite the Latino community's growing size and geographic scope, various
demographic characteristics and chronic neglect by major party candidates and organizations combine to
keep Latino turnout low. This limits the ability of Latinos to win elections in districts where they do not
constitute a majority (or sometimes a supermajority) of the population, and severely limits their ability to
"elect representatives of their choice" in coalitional or influence districts. The growth of the Latino share of
the electorate continues to lag behind the growth of the Latino population.
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Charles D. Ellison is host of The New School on Sirius/XM satellite radio, an edge-filled weekly take on
the world of politics. He is author of the critically-acclaimed urban political thriller TANTRUM. Ellison is
also Washington Correspondent for Politic365.com and for the Philadelphia Tribune. He is a former
Senior Fellow at the University of Denver a former Visiting Fellow at the George Washington University
Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. More information can be found at
http://www.cdellison.com
Still, Democrats have little to worry about when glancing the numbers on the other side of the partisan
aisle: only 9% of Latino voters said they would vote for a Republican candidate for president while only
8% said they might. Because of perceived GOP hostility to immigrants and the impression that
Republicans are blocking comprehensive immigration reform (opinions solidified by staunch Republican
opposition to the DREAM Act), the party is earning a reputation as being somewhat draconian on the
issue of immigration. The failure to pass DREAM actually proved politically beneficial to Obama, as
Latino voters perceived him as the good guy fighting bad Republicans.
Immigrations a wash both parties get credit and attempts to SPIN BACKFIRE
Lawrence 3/8/11
http://www.counterpunch.org/lawrence03082011.html
Stewart J Lawrence is a Washington, DC-based public policy analyst and writes frequently on immigration
and Latino affairs. He is also founder and managing director of Puentes & Associates, Inc., a bilingual
survey research and communications firm
In polls, they pretty much blame both parties equally for failing to make progress to date, which means
moderate Republicans who arent completely hostile to Latino aspirations like Newt Gingrich, and
especially Jeb Bush are likely to get a fair hearing and a fair amount of Latino support if they also
offer compelling strategies for reducing the deficit and stimulating job growth. These issues concern
Latinos as much as anyone else - and in fact, more than immigration in the final analysis, because Latino
voters arent immigrants, legal or otherwise, even if many of their family members and friends are. And
when Democrats try to appeal to Latinos on the immigration issue alone, or to exploit it narrowly,
they get mixed results, as we saw last November. It worked in several states in the Southwest only
because the GOP candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Meg Whitman in California - virtually
self-destructed over missteps with Latinos during the final weeks of the campaign. Its doubtful that
Democrats will get so lucky in 2012.
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of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates in 2010 - more than in 2006 (30 percent)
and 2008 (29 percent). In fact, since 1984, Republican House candidates have only won a higher
percentage of the Hispanic vote in one election: 2004. This level of Hispanic support for Republican
candidates came despite widespread pre-election claims by advocates for illegal immigration that the
Arizona law and a pro-rule-of-law stand would undercut Hispanic support for Republicans. Journalist
Shikha Dalmia admitted in Forbes that the 2010 election "casts severe doubts" on the assumption that
Hispanics will necessarily be advocates for illegal immigration. "Anti-immigration sentiment," she wrote, is
"driven by economic and other fears that have to be addressed anew for every generation regardless of
its ethnic make-up." Hispanics certainly share these fears with all other American workers, and Hispanic
workers face the impact of illegal immigration head-on. Among native-born Hispanics without a high
school degree, 35 percent are either unemployed, are so discouraged that they have left the labor force
or are forced to work part time. Many Hispanics indeed voted for the very Republican candidates
most identified as having a pro-enforcement or anti-amnesty stance. And these Republicans
generally did as well as, or better than, the Republicans running for the same positions in the previous
election.
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!!!EXT: NO T/ UNIQUENESS
70% support now disproves link
Marrero 2/14/11
http://www.impre.com/noticias/2011/2/14/latino-voters-continue-support-239269-1.html#commentsBlock
political columnist and metropolitan editor for La Opinion newspaper in Los Angeles
Despite the dire situation of the economy and the lack of immigration solutions, President Barack
Obamas approval rating among Latino voters increased again to 70% after decreasing in mid-2010.
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AT ECON K TO ELECTION
The counterplan resolves the turn better
Money swamps the economy is still spinnable with enough advertising. We can
just carpet bomb ads blaming it on the Republicans
No timeframe lag time between policy and economic effects is very long
Wasington Times 8
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-7393800/Long-term-economic-plan-seen.html
cites David Smick, a veteran economic and political strategist who advises Republican policy-makers and
global business leaders.
What has Mr. Smick and party policy-makers worried is the long lag time between economic policy
changes and when they are actually reflected in the economic data, plus an additional lag before those
improvements are actually felt by most Americans.
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But Klein looked at the upper right of Sides' graph, saw a correlation and argued grand causation. There
were three landslide elections in that corner: 1964, 1972 and 1984. "We understand elections in terms of
candidates, but it seems awfully convenient that the three worst candidates happened to end up in the
three most impossible election years," Klein wrote. It's also "awfully convenient" to ignore that all three of
these campaigns had popular incumbents. There were those other factors as well, like the assassination
of John Kennedy. Richard Nixon had a good economy in 1972. But other presidents had better. Yet
George McGovern won one state, and only about three-in-ten whites that year. Replace McGovern with
Henry Jackson and, to borrow from a young Pat Buchanan, Nixon's strategy of "square America" versus
"radical America" would have been significantly undercut. Replace Barry Goldwater with Nelson
Rockefeller; 1964 is a closer race. The economy was relevant in these years. For these longshots, strong
economies made their long odds longer. Yet the more one looks at the data, the more economic fatalists'
larger case falls apart. The Post graph relied on real disposable income. That's Americans' after tax
income, when adjusted for inflation. It includes benefits packages, like health insurance. Studies suggest
it's the best of imperfect political indicators (including unemployment). Income growth correlates to
election outcomes. But the correlation is weaker than Klein contends. It's also far from determinative.
Real income growth, per capita, was actually larger in the 2000 election year than in 1972. If income
growth is destiny, 2000 should have been the landslide. Income growth was significantly larger in 1988
than the greater blowout of 1980. This correlation is even weaker in midterm years. (See the graph below
for the big picture as well as my methodology.)
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an economist does politics. Krugman is dead on about the economic lessons, but the political lesson that
the Obama administration should internalize from Brown's troubles is that political movements - such as
New Labour - after a period of time lose energy and inspiration and therefore must evolve and develop
and bring in new blood.
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AT ECON: NO U FOR T/
Econs good enough for Obama win
Financial Times 3/9/11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6b534a-4a87-11e0-82ab-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Gc5odG5E
A more capricious factor that could work in Mr Obamas favour is the economy. Though jerky and fragile,
growth is starting to pick up. True, $100-oil will do the economy no favours, and unemployment remains
stubbornly high at 8.9 per cent. But jobless figures recently nudged downwards, and hiring is spreading
across a range of industries. If he is lucky, the economy may have turned decisively in time for re-election,
though the jobless rate will remain critical to the outcome.
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No price spike
Washington Post 3/8/11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030805121.html
Oil prices remain well below 2008 levels, and, despite the troubles in Libya, global supplies are still
adequate, in part because Saudi Arabia and other producers have more than enough spare capacity
to make up for whatever Libya can't supply.
Will stabilize
Market Watch 3/15/11
http://fidelityfinancegroup.com/news/mortgages/18763-asia-stocks-to-watch-investors-see-opportunitiesin-korea
The impact of higher oil prices will likely complicate building and already uncomfortable inflationary
pressures in emerging markets, including Korea, analysts at Daewoo Securities said.
However, Citigroup analysts said our base case assumes Middle East unrest will be short-lived, and oil
prices will stabilize soon and on that basis, we believe recent weakness represents an attractive
opportunity.
Too far this wont matter in a year because its crisis not fundamentals
Zweig 3/10/11
http://money.msn.com/how-to-invest/why-you-should-not-buy-oil-stocks-wsj.aspx
Jason Zweig became a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal in 2008. He was a senior
writer for Money magazine and a guest columnist for Time magazine and cnn.com. He is the author of
Your Money and Your Brain (Simon & Schuster, 2007), one of the first books to explore the neuroscience
of investing. Zweig is also the editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor
(HarperCollins, 2003), the classic text that Warren Buffett has described as "by far the best book about
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investing ever written." Before joining Money in 1995, Zweig was the mutual funds editor at Forbes.
Earlier, he had been a reporter-researcher for the Economy & Business section of Time and an editorial
assistant at Africa Report, a bimonthly journal. Zweig has a B.A. from Columbia College, where he was
awarded a John Jay National Scholarship. He also spent a year studying Middle Eastern history and
culture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. A frequent commentator on television and radio,
Zweig is also a popular public speaker who has addressed the American Association of Individual
Investors, the Aspen Institute, the CFA Institute, the Morningstar Investment Conference, and university
audiences at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. Zweig was for many years a trustee of the Museum of
American Finance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. He serves on the editorial boards of
Financial History magazine and The Journal of Behavioral Finance. Jason Zweig is not related to money
manager Martin E. Zweig.
With crude oil prices cracking $100 a barrel and $1.4 billion in new money gushing into energy funds in a
recent one-week period, should you be pumping oil stocks into your portfolio, too? It may seem obvious
that you should buy energy stocks, since the price of oil is bound to go higher. But precisely because it
seems obvious, you should doubt that belief. Adjusted for the overall rate of inflation, the price of oil has
tended to go down, not up. All the way from the Civil War (when a barrel of oil cost roughly $168 in
today's money) to the early 1970s, the oil price, adjusted for inflation, sloped jaggedly downward. Since
then, it has lurched up and down and up again in response to events, such as the wave of revolutions
sweeping across North Africa, that investors believe will affect supply or demand. Even after the recent
run-up, oil is down more than 25% from its price in mid-2008. Adjusted for inflation, the price of oil today is
just 4% higher than it was at its last peak in January 1981, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration. There were many sickening bumps throughout the intervening 30 years, but in the end
the average annual gain, adjusted for inflation, was roughly 0.014% -- a return that makes even a money
market fund look like a gusher. Even from early 1973, before oil prices tripled, the long-run real return is
less than 4.5%, according to analyst Howard Simons of Bianco Research. That is less than the return on
cash after inflation. When prices have spiked, it has usually been because of supply fears -- as in Iraq
and Iran in 1980-81, during the early part of their long war; Kuwait in 1990, after it was invaded by Iraq;
and Venezuela and Iraq in 2003. But supply shortages tend to be solved quickly. Over time, rising
prices have consistently brought on rising production, which has tended to lead to falling prices.
Even Douglas Ober, the portfolio manager of the oldest fund specializing in energy stocks -- Petroleum &
Resources (PEO, news), which was founded in 1929 -- isn't a long-term bull. "As long as there is unrest
in the Middle East and North Africa, we're going to have higher oil prices," says Ober, who has run the
fund since 1986. "But once it settles down over there, oil prices will probably come back down. There's a
fair amount of speculation in the price."
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AT OHIO KEY
State key claims mix cause and effect
Silver 3/9/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/theres-nothing-special-about-ohio/#more-6914
But Ohio so closely resembles the rest of the country that there is almost no deliberate strategy a
president could pursue in order to single it out. What working-class voters in Youngstown think about Mr.
Obama will greatly resemble what working-class voters in Reno think. The college kids in Columbus
arent all that different from the ones in Charlottesville, Va. A president could conceivably pursue a
strategy to win North Carolina or New Hampshire or New Mexico, since those states are more
idiosyncratic. But theres not much he can do to exploit any advantage in Ohio. This is why I say theres
nothing special about it although one could argue that Ohio is special precisely because it is so
uncannily average. Nor does it follow that working-class voters are going to be especially important in
2012 just because there are a lot of them in Ohio. There are roughly as many swing voters, for instance,
in upper-crust Colorado, the state that Mr. Galston contrasts Ohio against: Yes, the swing voters in
Colorado are different than the ones in Ohio. But, as we mentioned last week, demographics alone dont
do all that much to predict how someone will vote. In contrast to 2004, when the conversation was all
about what security moms in the suburbs would do, the focus now seems to be on the white working
class. But both groups contain their share of winnable votes. And there are about as many electoral votes
in swing states with above-average incomes (for instance, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire and
Minnesota) as there are in states with below-average ones like Ohio or New Mexico. In short, analyses
like these risk confusing cause and effect. Its not so much that as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Its
more that as the nation goes, so goes Ohio.\
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Obama realizes the risks hes balancing pro-union and independent appeal now
Politico 3/14/12
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51215.html#ixzz1GcvpA8G0
The ongoing labor battle in Wisconsin gives President Barack Obama a chance to test-drive what could
emerge as a major 2012 campaign theme that hes the only man who can stop wild-eyed GOP
radicals. While that may not be the enthusiastic embrace of labor that union leaders might like to see,
the theme fits well with an election strategy in which winning back independents will be critical. Obama
allies and people who are likely to be involved in his campaign sense opportunity in the growing anger
and enthusiasm of pro-union Democrats in Wisconsin, but they also realize that there are risks. They are
keenly aware of the perils of the direct and forceful intervention demanded by labor leaders, especially the
possibility of alienating independents who resent the guaranteed pensions and benefits offered to
unionized state workers. So for Obama, Wisconsin will require what is likely to be something of a high
wire act.
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vigorously for Employee Free Choice. Not just a giveaway sentence or two in favor of it, but a full scale
declaration of war against bosses who illegally fire their workers for expressing their democratic right to
join a union. If he does this, the working class of this country - union members and teenagers alike - will
see him as a hero willing to fight for the working class against special interests. The biggest problem that
the Democratic Party faces now, after going along with the Wall Street bailout, is that they are seen as a
party of special interests. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed that more Americans have a more
favorable view of the Tea Party Movement than both the Democratic and Republican parties. Obama
could make the Democratic Party the workers' party once again. By advocating forcefully for workers'
rights and against the unlimited ability of big corporation to push their workers around, Obama could win
back over the mass of people disaffected with the Democratic Party. We might very well lose this fight, but
over the long run, we will have won the war to bring the working class over to our side.
***2012 IMPACTS
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GREENHOUSE, IMMIGRATION
Obama win completes his agenda greenhouse regs, immigration reform, close
gitmo
Krauthammer 7/15/10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071504593.html
Charles Krauthammer (pronounced /krat.hmr/; born March 13, 1950) is an American Pulitzer Prizewinning syndicated columnist and political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in
The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 200 newspapers and media outlets.[1] He is a
contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is also a weekly panelist on the
PBS news program Inside Washington[2] and a regular panelist on Fox News's Special Report with Bret
Baier.
The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were
highly ideological, grandly ambitious and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years,
Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: "For Reagan and the
New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over" -- and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked
from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo -- the list is long.
The critics don't understand the big picture. Obama's transformational agenda is a play in two acts. Act
One is over. The stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform have exhausted his first-term mandate. It will bear
no more heavy lifting. And the Democrats will pay the price for ideological overreaching by losing one or
both houses, whether de facto or de jure. The rest of the first term will be spent consolidating these gains
(writing the regulations, for example) and preparing for Act Two. The next burst of ideological energy -massive regulation of the energy economy, federalizing higher education and "comprehensive"
immigration reform (i.e., amnesty) -- will require a second mandate, meaning reelection in 2012. That's
why there's so much tension between Obama and congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters
little. If Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will probably have an easier time in 2012,
just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as the foil for his 1996 reelection campaign.
Obama is down, but it's very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he's done
much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do he knows must await his next 500 days -- those that
come after reelection. The real prize is 2012. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans.
Republicans underestimate him at their peril.
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As the national parties and campaign committees start to think about the 2012 map, they have to be
struck by the importance of a relative handful of states next year in both the race for the White House and
the fight for control of the Senate.
And, they have to wonder whether, given the increasingly partisan nature of American voting, carrying
those key presidential states also translates into winning a majority in the Senate next year.
In 2006, 2008 and 2010, voters approached the general election more as a parliamentary choice than
ever before. Thats the only way to explain losses by popular incumbents such as Reps. Jim Leach (RIowa), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) and Walt Minnick (D-Idaho).
Certainly, some voters continued to split their tickets during the past three cycles. But three wave
elections in a row suggest that in 2010 Republicans who had voted for moderate Democrats in the past
switched to the GOP candidates, while in both 2006 and 2008 Democratic voters who had cherry-picked
GOP moderates in the past opted to vote a straight Democratic ticket.
Want more evidence? Democratic pollster Pete Brodnitz argues that the results of Sen. Jim Webbs
narrow win in Virginia in 2006 and Harold Fords narrow loss in Tennessee that year were strongly related
to President George W. Bushs relative approval ratings in both states.
The development of parliamentary voting raises many questions for party strategists, as well for Senate
campaign managers in the key state battlegrounds.
Will the trend continue into 2012? And if it does, how do campaigns deal with the development?
Brodnitz assumes that the trend will continue, and another Democratic pollster agreed that the countrys
continued polarization could lead to another parliamentary election.
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Leaders of the union, which says it represents 700,000 of the governments 2 million employees,
deduced that throwing employees out of work for a few weeks with no guarantee of pay would be better
than the higher federal pension contributions and large agency cuts the GOP was planning, which might
force extensive layoffs.
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path to worthwhile reform. Now policymakers are confronting difficult design issues as they craft policies
to advance performance-based compensation. So far most of the research and debate has focused on
criteria for triggering annual performance bonuses. This paper will illustrate that policymakers must
broaden their thinking about compensation reform to consider how other policies can support better ways
of paying teachers, andjust as importanthow all of these new investments in performance- based
compensation can be leveraged to build the capacity of our public schools to take on the hard work of
systemic improvement, without which it will be impossible to raise the achievement of Americas students
to globally competitive levels.
KAGAN, 7 (Robert, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, End of
Dreams, Return of History, 7/19,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html)
This is a good thing, and it should continue to be a primary goal of American foreign policy to perpetuate this relatively benign international
configuration of power. The unipolar order with the United States as the predominant power is unavoidably riddled with flaws and contradictions. It
inspires fears and jealousies. The United States is not immune to error, like all other nations, and because of its size and importance in the international
system those errors are magnified and take on greater significance than the errors of less powerful nations. Compared to the ideal Kantian international
order, in which all the world's powers would be peace-loving equals, conducting themselves wisely, prudently, and in strict obeisance to international
the unipolar system is both dangerous and unjust. Compared to any plausible alternative in the real
world, however, it is relatively stable and less likely to produce a major war between great powers. It is
also comparatively benevolent, from a liberal perspective, for it is more conducive to the principles of
economic and political liberalism that Americans and many others value. American predominance does
not stand in the way of progress toward a better world, therefore. It stands in the way of regression toward
a more dangerous world. The choice is not between an American-dominated order and a world that looks
like the European Union. The future international order will be shaped by those who have the power to
shape it. The leaders of a post-American world will not meet in Brussels but in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. The return of great powers and great games If the world
law,
is marked by the persistence of unipolarity, it is nevertheless also being shaped by the reemergence of competitive national ambitions of the kind that have shaped human
affairs from time immemorial. During the Cold War, this historical tendency of great powers to jostle with one another for status and influence as well as for wealth and power
was largely suppressed by the two superpowers and their rigid bipolar order. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has not been powerful enough, and probably
could never be powerful enough, to suppress by itself the normal ambitions of nations. This does not mean the world has returned to multipolarity, since none of the large
powers is in range of competing with the superpower for global influence. Nevertheless, several large powers are now competing for regional predominance, both with the
United States and with each other. National ambition drives China's foreign policy today, and although it is tempered by prudence and the desire to appear as unthreatening as
the Chinese are powerfully motivated to return their nation to what they regard as its
traditional position as the preeminent power in East Asia. They do not share a European, postmodern view that power is
possible to the rest of the world,
pass; hence their now two-decades-long military buildup and modernization. Like the Americans, they believe power, including military power, is a
good thing to have and that it is better to have more of it than less. Perhaps more significant is the Chinese perception, also shared by Americans, that
history as a pawn between the two powers, is once again worrying both about a "greater China" and about the return of Japanese nationalism. As
Aaron Friedberg commented, the East Asian future looks more like Europe's past than its present. But it also looks like Asia's
past. Russian
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foreign policy, too, looks more like something from the nineteenth century. It is being driven by a typical,
and typically Russian, blend of national resentment and ambition. A postmodern Russia simply seeking integration into the
new European order, the Russia of Andrei Kozyrev, would not be troubled by the eastward enlargement of the EU and NATO, would not insist on
predominant influence over its "near abroad," and would not use its natural resources as means of gaining geopolitical leverage and enhancing Russia
's international status in an attempt to regain the lost glories of the Soviet empire and Peter the Great. But Russia, like China and Japan, is moved by
Although
Russian leaders complain about threats to their security from NATO and the United States, the Russian
sense of insecurity has more to do with resentment and national identity than with plausible external
military threats. 16 Russia's complaint today is not with this or that weapons system. It is the entire postCold War settlement of the 1990s that Russia resents and wants to revise. But that does not make
insecurity less a factor in Russia 's relations with the world; indeed, it makes finding compromise with the
Russians all the more difficult. One could add others to this list of great powers with traditional rather than
postmodern aspirations. India 's regional ambitions are more muted, or are focused most intently on
Pakistan, but it is clearly engaged in competition with China for dominance in the Indian Ocean and sees
itself, correctly, as an emerging great power on the world scene. In the Middle East there is Iran, which
mingles religious fervor with a historical sense of superiority and leadership in its region. 17 Its nuclear
program is as much about the desire for regional hegemony as about defending Iranian territory from
attack by the United States. Even the European Union, in its way, expresses a pan-European national ambition to play a significant role in the world, and it
more traditional great-power considerations, including the pursuit of those valuable if intangible national interests: honor and respect.
has become the vehicle for channeling German, French, and British ambitions in what Europeans regard as a safe supranational direction. Europeans seek honor and respect,
too, but of a postmodern variety. The honor they seek is to occupy the moral high ground in the world, to exercise moral authority, to wield political and economic influence as an
antidote to militarism, to be the keeper of the global conscience, and to be recognized and admired by others for playing this role. Islam is not a nation, but many Muslims
express a kind of religious nationalism, and the leaders of radical Islam, including al Qaeda, do seek to establish a theocratic nation or confederation of nations that would
encompass a wide swath of the Middle East and beyond. Like national movements elsewhere, Islamists have a yearning for respect, including self-respect, and a desire for
honor. Their national identity has been molded in defiance against stronger and often oppressive outside powers, and also by memories of ancient superiority over those same
powers. China had its "century of humiliation." Islamists have more than a century of humiliation to look back on, a humiliation of which Israel has become the living symbol,
which is partly why even Muslims who are neither radical nor fundamentalist proffer their sympathy and even their support to violent extremists who can turn the tables on the
Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of
the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its influence eastward across
it is also engaged in
hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East
and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States,
too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it,
they generally prefer their global place as "No. 1" and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having
entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it
until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to
the world and claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of
billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations
and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system.
Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power ,
influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying -- its
regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the
regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and
lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often
through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such
a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars
between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the
Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power,
role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power
everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of
international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its
role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and
Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed
embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way
that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the
possibly beyond.
European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough
succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power
was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that 's not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions.
It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of
the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of
order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement?
Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is
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the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that
and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia,
China, or Iran. The world hasn 't changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to "normal" or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce
a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional
stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend
American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an
easier path.
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MERIT PAY U
Obama successfully pushing toward teaching merit system
Washington Post 2/16/11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/16/AR2011021602142.html
Administration officials say Obama's policies have spurred progress on a host of fronts, leading states
across the country to take steps toward performance pay, charter school expansion and tenure reform.
Many Republicans say they applaud elements of Obama's reform agenda that are at odds with union
traditions. "I do have some respect for the fact that the president and Secretary Duncan have challenged
their constituencies to go out of their comfort zone," said Tony Bennett, superintendent of public
instruction in Indiana and a Republican.
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***UNIONS GOOD DA
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LINKS: MORALE
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UNION UNITY U
Unions unified now
Associated Press 2/19/11
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/obama-offers-tactical-support-unions-state-budgetbattles/#ixzz1GLbqV5SK
For the labor movement, which suffered a bitter split in 2005, the brash moves by GOP lawmakers such
as Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., have brought unions together in a way unthinkable a few years ago.
Nearly every major union leader -- both public and private sector -- has united behind an ambitious $30
million plan to stop anti-labor measures in Wisconsin and 10 other states.
The group at the new "Labor Table" includes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka working with leaders
such as Teamsters president James Hoffa. Until recently, the two barely were on speaking terms.
"There's nothing like the possibility of extinction to focus people's attention," said former Rep. David
Bonior, D-Mich., who spent more than a year trying without success to reunify the labor movement.
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local reporter. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to
recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."
For his part, Gov. Walker responded Friday morning during an appearance on Fox News to the
presidents comment. I think were focused on balancing our budget, said Walker. It would be wise for
the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they are a long ways
from doing.
It's no wonder that the White House's political arm, Organizing for America, and the Democratic National
Committee have been lending support to the Wisconsin protesters.
Of course, fights between management and labor are nothing new, and battles between officeholders and
public-employee unions arent unique. Anyone who has lived through a sanitation workers' or a teachers
strike can testify to that. Indeed, politicians of both parties regularly seek to keep public-employee costs
down to relieve pressure on budgets and taxes.
But the Great Recession has created a fiscal crisis in states, counties, and municipalities. As a
consequence, some governors have gone beyond traditional budget-cutting. Like Wisconsins Walker,
they have instead sought to revamp the basic collective-bargaining rules that public employees have
come to see as beyond political debate.
Walker's moves are similar to proposals by two old-hand Republican politicians who find themselves as
freshman governors -- John Kasich, the former House Budget chairman who is now Ohios governor, and
Terry Branstad who has retaken the governors chair in Iowa. Each is trying to pare not only the state
budget but also the rights of public employees.
This is a far cry from other recent measures such as Obamas freeze on federal salaries in his proposed
$3.7 trillion budget. It is of an entirely different stripe than the Democratic Congresss failure in 2009 to
pass the Employee Free Choice Act, the so-called card-check bill, that would have made it much easier
for unions to hold, and win, electionsa setback that broke the hearts of union officials. No, the Walker
move is more akin to the 2002 debate in Congress over the creation of the mammoth Homeland Security
Department where President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress managed to exempt
many jobs from traditional union work rules.
Whats happening in Wisconsin is more threatening to unions because its not just giving back money
something thats become a mainstay in the auto industry for years. Its giving back hard-won rights. By
going after collective-bargaining rules, Walker has taken on public-employee unions in a way thats more
fundamental, profound, and threatening to unions than New Jerseys Republican Gov. Chris Christie's
wielding of the budget axe. Christie has become the darling of the GOP circles because of his
administrations fiscal austerity.
By taking aim at the ability of public employees to strike, Walker has found a tool that may well cut the
state's budget deficit. In doing so, however, he has lit a fire under Democrats and a chastened labor
movement that has gotten used to givebacks.
Collective bargaining is the infrastructure--the essential core of labors rights and power--and so attacks
on that right go to the heart of the union movement. That is why the president weighed in on what is at
first glance a local issue. If the battle of Madison spreads beyond Columbus and Des Moines to the rest of
the country, well be hearing a lot more on this topic from the president.
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leads the advanced world in inequality. The poverty rate in the United States, which was cut in half during
the 1960s, is now the highest of the wealthy democratic countries. And according to a recent UNICEF
study of child well-being, the United States ranks 20th out of 21 OECD countries.
The societies that rank high in the UNICEF study -- and in other studies of social well-being and the
quality of life -- are almost invariably societies with strong labor movements. This is not a coincidence. For
it is the labor movement that is among the stoutest defenders of the social safety net and shared
prosperity, and labor is one of the few institutions able to serve as an effective counter-weight to the
power of corporations and their political allies in an increasingly marketized global system.
For the United States, the implications could not be more clear. The attack on public-employee unions,
should it triumph, will remove one of the last remaining obstacles to the untrammeled power of private
corporations and the politicians committed to their agenda. This will have dire consequences that will go
far beyond union members and their families, for it will shred America's already tattered safety net and
further concentrate power in the hands of the privileged. It is precisely because labor and its allies have
realized what is at stake that they have succeeded in mounting a fierce counter-offensive that may
nevertheless be repulsed. But whatever the outcome, the battle in Wisconsin may mark not the historic
blow to organized labor that Governor Walker had expected to deliver, but the first step in the renewal of a
beleaguered, yet still essential, movement.
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Obama needs unions to win in 2012 Wisconsin loss kills their monies
Stone 2/22/11
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/22/union-protests-in-wisconsin-could-affect-obamas-chances-in-2012/
Senior Washington Correspondent, AOL
Labor also contributes heavily to Democratic candidates.
Public-sector unions gave nearly $17 million to congressional candidates in 2010, almost all of it to
Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was the largest single chunk contributed
by organized labor that year.
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But if Walker -- who today threatened layoffs if unions don't agree to his demands -- wins, the coffers of
labor's political action committees could run dry. And that would deprive Democrats, including the
president, of an important source for cash.
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and Europe. If Pump's correlation holds up, it's another piece of evidence that unions really do tend to
produce more egalitarian social policies in general, not just policies that favor union members.
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Politifact.com has a Wisconsin operation and it was also among those that got it wrong 100
percent dead wrong -- because it assumed the facts as stated by Gov. Walker and failed to
question the underlying premise. Further, contrived assumptions make it is easy for the
perpetrators of the misrepresentation to point to data that support a false claim, something
Politifact missed entirely, on at least two occasions, in proclaiming false statements to be true.
Given how many journalists rely on Politifact to check political assertions, instead of doing their own
research, this is, by far, the inaccuracy likely to have the greatest (or most damaging effect) on
subsequent reporting. (Examples of Politifact' s inaccurate assessments can be found here and also
here.)
Again, the money the state "contributes" is actually part of the compensation that has been negotiated
with state workers in advance so it is their money that they choose to take as pension payments in the
future rather than cash wages or other benefits today.
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***AFF V. UNIONS
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N/U: GENERAL
Unions are enraged at Obama
Wallstein 2/19/11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/18/AR2011021807507.html
Peter Wallsten is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who covers national politics. Wallsten joined the
Journal in October 2009 from the Los Angeles Times, where he authored, with Tom Hamburger, One
Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century. A graduate of the University of
North Carolina and a Chapel Hill native, he worked previously at the Miami Herald, St. Petersburg Times,
Charlotte Observer and the Congressional Quarterly. He lives in Washington, D.C. Wallsten is partially
blind as a result of Stargardt disease, which is a genetically inherited form of macular degeneration. In
June 2006, this caused an exchange of words with President George W. Bush at a White House press
conference. Unaware of the journalist's medical condition, the president questioned Wallsten's need to
wear sunglasses when the sun wasn't visible. Bush later apologized for the incident.
Two years into a presidency that carried immense promises for the labor movement, this is how it has
gone for Obama. Some unions remain firmly by his side, while others think he has reneged on promises
or - as he seeks to mend relationships with business leaders - abandoned them altogether. "He's
basically trying to be everything to everybody," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National
Nurses United, a nursing union that claims 160,000 members and is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. "Until you
look at the policies, and then it's clear he's there for the corporate sector." The union arranged a protest
this month when Obama addressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accusing him of cozying up to big
businesses. Officials from another AFL-CIO affiliate, the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers, said that tens of thousands of its members have been laid off and that they don't see
the White House advocating for them. "They may be lost to the Democratic cause," said Rick Sloan, a
spokesman for the union. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees,
said he "resented" the president's recent calls to reorganize the government and freeze salaries because
they seemed to feed into a growing criticism of workers. Pointing to Obama's defense this week of
Wisconsin public workers, Gage said, "It's about time."
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Nearly half the states, mostly in the South, have "right to work" laws that make it all but impossible for
workers to organize. They are the models for today's GOP efforts.
"There are a whole lot more taxpayers than union members," said Earl Black, an expert on Southern
politics at Rice University. He predicts little sympathy for union members, even if their wages are
comparable to those of private-sector workers.
"The more the public unions try to make a case for themselves, the more they point out the gap between
what is ordinary practice in the private sector -- especially in times of great economic stress -- and the
benefits they have been able to bargain for with Democratic politicians," he said.
John Pitney, a former GOP congressional aide who now teaches at Claremont McKenna College in
California, said unions and their Democratic allies will have a tough sell to make the current controversy
pay off politically in the next election.
"Their challenge is that many voters are hearing the following: 'We want you to pay higher taxes so that
we can keep better pay and benefits than you have,' " he said. "Perhaps that characterization is unfair, but
it's what a lot of people think. And it's not a winning message."
***AT 2012
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summer 2012. After that, the odds of fixing the law if its struck down or repealing it if it survives will
be longer. The losing side will be deflated. And the way things are going, that will be Obamas side.
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***LINK TURN
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SKFTA NO PASS
No SKFTA public opinion, timing
Hadar 3/15/11
Business Times Singapoire, LN
Leon Hadar, is a global affairs analyst, journalist, blogger and author. A long-time critic of American policy
in the Middle East,[1] Hadar is a research fellow with the Cato Institute,[2] a contributing editor for the
American Conservative and a regular contributor to Chronicles and Reason and a regular blogger on The
Huffington Post. Hadar has published numerous analyses and commentaries on U.S. global diplomatic
and trade policies, with a special focus on the Middle East and East and South Asia. Hadar is the author
of two books on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Quagmire: America in the Middle East (Cato Institute,
1992), and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Hadar also served
as a foreign policy advisor to the Ron Paul 2008 presidential camapaign.[3]
Public opposition Mr Obama has been stressing in his speeches that expanding trade with other
countries benefits the American economy and creates new jobs. But most public opinion polls show that
growing number of Americans are opposed to free trade, a sentiment that has become more intense in
the face of a slow economic recovery and a continuing high rate of unemployment. In short, free trade is
not really a winning issue for any candidate running for political office. And it's doubtful that Mr Obama is
going to win any brownie point with the voters if the FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama are
approved by Congress. Major initiatives And, in any case, with so many domestic and foreign policy
issues crowding the White House, it's unlikely that Mr Obama is going to have the time or the energy to
win public and Congressional support for major trade initiatives before the end of his term next year. The
conventional wisdom in Washington is that if the White House wants to get Congress to pass any trade
agreement, it will need to bring it to a vote before the end of this year. Very little can be achieved on trade
issues during a presidential election year. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at a Congressional
hearing last week that the Obama administration was hoping to finalise the trade agreements with
Colombia and Panama before the end of the year. But he expressed scepticism about the proposal of
bringing the FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama for a vote in Congress at the same time.
***GRAB BAG
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