Council for a Livable World

Last week our members joined a conference call with distinguished national security experts Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard and Air Force Col. Richard Klass to discuss the upcoming withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. (Colonel Klass is a board member of the …

Everybody knows that Democrats had great success in the 2008 Congressional elections, but how difficult can Republican opposition make Obama’s attempts to institute a progressive agenda? Council ED John Isaacs just published a fantastic article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on exactly this.

After proposing that an early Republican strategy of “Just Say No” to many Obama initiatives – from bills on health care for children to home foreclosures – is indicative of what’s to come, John breaks down foreign policy issues into those he believes Congress could make for Obama “merely ‘tough problems’” (negotiations with Iran and missile defense), “nothing more than a grumble” (troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan), and “extremely challenging issues” (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [CTBT] and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START]).

Those “extremely challenging issues” unfortunately include two of the arms control movement’s primary goals for the coming years, but we’re up for the fight, and John thinks there’s reason for optimism:

Despite facing a determined, but small, GOP opposition, President Obama has moved–and will continue to move–full-speed ahead with a number of dramatic changes in U.S. policy. In the process he already has kicked over the Republican hornet’s nest. The question in the months ahead will be whether Republicans will merely buzz around angrily in opposition or in some cases actually block decisions.

Click here for the full article.

 

The special election in New York’s 20th Congressional District has become a toss-up.  With just days left before votes are cast on March 31st, Democrat Scott Murphy, a political newcomer, is within striking distance of defeating veteran State Assemblyman James Tedisco (R).

Click here to help Murphy win.

The election was triggered when Gov. David Patterson appointed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate seat that Hillary Clinton vacated when she was appointed Secretary of State.  Gillibrand won her Congressional seat by upsetting four-term incunmbent Republican John Sweeney in 2006.  Prior to her victory, the seat had been considered reliably Republican.  

Because personal scandal had contributed to Sweeney’s downfall, many observers believed that when the charismatic Gillibrand moved on to higher office the seat would revert to its Republican roots.  Indeed, a poll taken in the beginning of February, when the election was announced, showed Tedisco with a twenty point lead over Murphy – 51-29%.  Close reading of the poll, however, revealed an opening for Murphy: most voters in the district were familiar with Tedisco from his thirty years in the district and were set in their opinions of him.  Murphy, however, was an unknown entity and had the ability to increase his support.  Viewed in this light, Tedisco’s slight edge over the 50% he would need to win began to look more like a liability than an advantage.

Murphy began to travel the district widely and, drawing on his own personal wealth as well as an impressive fundraising effort, began blanketing the airwaves with TV and radio ads to introduce himself to the voters.  Murphy touted his work as a venture capitalist, highlighting the many jobs his companies had brought to the region.

Tedisco, with considerable help from the national Republican party, began airing ads attacking Murphy as a “Wall Street insider.”  However, voters reacted poorly to his negative ads, and polls show that more voters felt the attack ads made them less likely to vote for Tedisco.  Tedisco was also hurt by his refusal to state whether or not he would have voted for or against the economic stimulus bill, a non-position that attracted considerable criticism from the local press.

A poll released last week found that the tables have turned, with Tedisco leading Murphy by only four points, 45-41 – a virtual tie given the polls 4 point margin of error.

Rocked by this turn of events, Tedisco has spent the early part of this week attempting an about-face.  First, Tedisco announced that he would be taking control of his campaign from the national party and take the high road by ending the negative ads.  However, the political professionals at the Republican National Campaign Committee promptly announced that they had no intention of stopping the attack ads, no matter what Tedisco’s desires.

Next, Tedisco announced that he now had a position on the stimulus bill – he would have voted against it.  This position has two potential downsides for Tedisco: (1) it’s unclear whether voters will view this 11th hour conversion as sincere and (2) even if they believe it, it is not clear the a vote against the stimulus package would be popular in this economically devastated district.

When this race began, Republicans pointed to it as an opportunity to prove that their electoral misfortunes of the last several years have been reversed, and that the Republican brand is not hopelessly tarnished.  Now, with the race a dead heat, they are struggling for a narrow victory, which would still be perceived as a public relations debacle given the resources they have invested in the race.  An equally likely possibility is that Murphy will win, showing that a once-reliably Republican district has shifted decisively to the Democrats.

Click here to help Scott Murphy pull off an upset.

Yesterday, former Rep. Rob Simmons (R) officially announced his candidacy for the Senate seat currently held by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, up for re-election in 2010. (John Isaacs first posted on the race two weeks ago.) Simmons will pose a seriou…