Indiana is taking the lead among 17 states signing a brief in support of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, to be argued before the Supreme Court March 27. But 38 states ban same-sex marriage. That means a majority of states with bans are not even trying to defend DOMA, which defines marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman.
Among the states with bans, 17 signed the brief supporting DOMA and 21 did not.
Two of those states, California and Minnesota, are obvious omissions. California officials are also refusing to defend Prop. 8, the voter passed initiative that bans same-sex marriage in the state and was ruled unconstitutional in a district court and the Ninth Circuit. The high court will hear the Prop. 8 case March 26, when Ted Olson and David Boies, antagonists in Bush v. Gore, unite to try to shoot down all state marriage bans as an unconstitutional. Find their brief here.
Minnesota voters last November defeated a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman, the first state ever to do so.
The Indiana amicus is signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virgina and Wisconsin.
States banning same-sex marriage through either legislation or the state constitution that did NOT sign the brief are: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina (the latest to ban marriage through a constitutional amendment approved overwhelmingly by voters last year) , Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.
Dale Carpenter, a professor of civil rights law at the University of Minnesota and author of Flagrant Conduct, a reportorial masterwork on the Lawrence v. Texas decision, said Wednesday on a call arranged by the conservative Federalist Society that he assumes that in the non-participating states, “there are executive law enforcement officers who do not support their state ban…There are public officials across the country who have evolved on this over time. Either that, or they don’t care enough about the issue to take the trouble to make this part of their legacy.”
To be sure, only DOMA’s section 3 is at issue, which defines marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman. Section 2, which says that no state is required to accept gay or lesbian marriages from other states, is not before the court.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a 55 percent majority nationwide supporting same-sex marriage, following a Washington Post poll earlier this week showing support jumping to 58 percent, an all-time high. The Post reported that the results have flipped since 2006: “As recently as 2010, opponents of same-sex marriage outnumbered supporters. As recently as 2006, they outnumbered them by a double-digit margin, 58 percent to 36 percent.”
With a huge fight heating up over whether to allow exports of U.S. natural gas, California solar executive Arno Harris argued that allowing exports would help the solar industry and reduce global carbon emissions.
The U.S. shale-gas boom (fracking) has up-ended global energy markets, lowering energy costs in the U.S. and promising to make the U.S. a net energy exporter, instead of a dependent on Middle East oil.
Cheap natural gas “is wiping coal off the map,” said Harris, CEO of San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, which builds large-scale solar plants that sell electricity to utilities.
That’s a big plus for climate change, because natural gas has about half the carbon emissions of coal. But cheap natural gas also threatens to undercut green energy.
But Harris argued in an interview that solar costs are plummeting too, and that the industry can remain competitive.
“Everybody knows we’re in this cheap gas environment,” Harris said. “Gas-fired electricity today is probably five cents or six cents per kilowatt hour, wholesale.” But new solar plants that Recurrent Energy is building will sell power to utilities as low as seven cents a kilowatt hour, he said.
“There’s no longer this giant gap like there used to be a few years ago,” Harris said. “What Americans aren’t aware of is in fact how narrow that gap gotten, just as gas is at historically low prices, wind and solar are at historically low prices as well.”
Gas exports are a rare case where Republicans and the Obama administration agree. The Dept. of Energy set off a ruckus with a study saying gas exports would provide a “net economic benefit” to the United States. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, called foul. Democrats want to keep gas prices low. Environmentalists oppose exports because they oppose the fracking that allows the gas to be reached; they also fear that low gas prices will undercut cleaner energy.
Harris favors gas exports because they could help boost the price of gas, making solar and wind more competitive.
“I’m making the argument to my friends in the environmental and climate community that they shouldn’t make this knee jerk reaction about exported gas,” Harris said. “In fact export of gas is the best step we can take to bring order back to energy markets and raise the price a little bit.” Gas has gotten so cheap that utilities are under intense pressure to build gas turbines and decrease their use of renewables.
Paradoxically, the U.S. gas boom has encouraged coal exports to Europe, where U.S. coal is cheaper than natural gas from Russia, which controls most of the gas supply to Europe. The price shift has made it more difficult for European countries to meet their carbon emissions targets.
“That coal is still coming out of the ground, it’s just all going to Europe,” Harris said. “They are switching from Russian gas to American coal, so overall, even though we’re keeping the natural gas here, it is still resulting in a big uptick in carbon emissions because we’re still pulling all that coal out of the ground. We’re just not burning it here.”
There’s a lot at stake in the coming fight over corporate tax reform, although more may be happening in state legislatures. California’s incentives, including its renewable portfolio standard that requires utilities to use green power, drew the solar industry to the state, and the AB 32 climate change law is being closely watched worldwide.
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s also the star of a Current TV interview show, will not be working for Al Jazeera for a couple of reasons — including some interesting legal questions that might have arisen, sources close to Newsom tell us.
San Francisco-based Current, the cable TV network founded by former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, was sold to Al Jazeera this week.
The political fallout has been interesting, as conservative commentators go nuts about Gore’s association with what they’ve called an “anti-American” network funded by the oil-rich government of Qatar.
Some were wondering if Newsom, another champion of climate change, would catch flak working for a Middle Eastern-based entity awash in fossil fuel wealth.
There might have been legal issues: had he wanted to work for Al Jazeera, Newsom, as a public official of the state of California, could have been confronted with legality of working for a firm owned by a foreign government, sources tell us.
Still, the CA LG – even before the Current acquisiton — had decided to part ways with the network, we’re told.
“The Gavin Newsom Show was a great opportunity for which he is grateful. The LG’s original agreement with Current is set to expire this month and he had already decided on moving in a new direction,” according to a statement from his office.
But Newsom won praise for his work as a host on the Current gig, and has become a regular on Sunday talk shows. And he clearly enjoyed the format and the forum on TV.
The big question behind the sale of San Francisco-based Current TV is “Why would owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt sell to Al Jazeera?” OK, besides the estimated $500 miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillion sale price — $100 mill to be pocketed by Gore. But besides the Benjamins, why Al Jazeera?
Fox News is preparing to feast on this development for years. Doesn’t get much better for them that liberal former VP Gore — long one of their punching bags — sells to the network that once broadcast Al Qaeda videos in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. No matter that A-J has won all sorts of journalistic awards; Bill O’Reilly just got his programming set for the next month.
Here is a note that Hyatt sent to Current employees Wednesday afternoon explaining their reasoning. Interesting to note how Hyatt points out the journalistic strengths of A-J as well as the underlying values it shares with Current. (Somewhere around the seventh paragraph of this note, we’re guessing that O’Reilly has rolled onto his back, giggling in delight.) And you gotta love Hyatt’s “Colin Powell” name check.
Al and I are thrilled and proud to announce that a few moments ago Current was acquired by Al Jazeera, the award winning international news organization.
When considering the several suitors who were interested in acquiring
Current, it became clear to us that Al Jazeera was founded with the same goals we had for Current: To give voice to those whose voices are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the important stories that no one else is telling. Al Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us.
Al and I did significant due diligence as part of our evaluation process.
We were impressed with all that we learned about Al Jazeera and its
journalistic integrity, global reach, award-winning programming, and
growing influence around the world. That influence has recently been
demonstrated by Al Jazeera’s important and impactful coverage of the Arab Spring, which was widely credited as being the most thorough and
informative coverage from any media company. Colin Powell told Al that Al Jazeera is the only cable news network he watches (which he is able to do because Comcast carries it in the Washington, DC market).
As you may know, Al Jazeera is funded by the government of Qatar, which is the United States’ closest ally in the Gulf Region, and is where the United States bases its Middle East Air Force operations. I have had first-hand knowledge of Qatar’s policies as a result of my tenure on the Board of The Brookings Institution. The Saban Center for Middle East Policy is a joint venture of The Brookings Institution and Qatar, and it has offices in Washington, DC and Doha, Qatar. Its purpose is to propose practical public policies that can contribute to peace in the Middle East,and its founding Director is my friend, Martin Indyk, the former U.S.Ambassador to Israel.
While considering this decision, I spent a week in Doha, Qatar, where Al
Jazeera is headquartered, and I am pleased to tell you that I could not
have been more impressed with their operation. First of all, they are
bringing large-scale resources to journalism – something which we have not been able to do. Al Jazeera has more than 80 bureaus around the world,and is seen in more than 260 million homes in 130 countries. Al Jazeera has a staff of over 4000 people, including 400 journalists. Its
journalists hail from more than 50 countries, with every conceivable
nationality and religion represented on its professional team. Al Jazeera
is a major global media player.
The rest of the world thinks so too. Al Jazeera English has won many, many awards including an Alfred I DuPont Award for Best Documentary, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards for freedom of speech and expression, an Amnesty International Award for International TV and Radio, the prestigious Peabody Award, and the Huffington Post Ultimate Media Gamechanger award.
All of this is compelling, but what really convinced Al and me that Al
Jazeera would be a great home for the people of Current was their publicly stated Values and Core Capabilities. Their mission includes the
following: Diversity (“bringing stories from the underreported communities, societies and cultures from across the globe), Journalistic
Integrity (“committed to the uncompromising pursuit of truth and the
ideals of journalism”), and A Voice for the Voiceless (“promoting the
basic human right of the freedom of expression for people everywhere”).
Al Jazeera is planning to invest significantly in building “Al Jazeera America,” a network focused on international news for the American
audience. Al and I will both serve on the Advisory Board of Al Jazeera
America, and we look forward to helping build an important news network.
Obviously there will be a lot of transition work in the coming weeks. Al Jazeera does not have a management team in place in the U.S to run this new venture. They are extremely impressed with our people and our accomplishments. I will be holding staff meetings in the next few days and will introduce the senior folks from Al Jazeera who have led the planning for this entry into the United States. (I will separately communicate as to the day and time for those staff meetings.) We will communicate more of the details of this acquisition during those meetings.
Getting this transaction done was very difficult. One of Current’s
distributors, Time Warner Cable, did not consent to the sale to Al
Jazeera. Consequently, Current will no longer be carried on TWC. This is
unfortunate, but I am confident that Al Jazeera America will earn
significant additional carriage in the months and years ahead. In the
United Kingdom, it has become the number three news network (behind the BBC and Sky News). It did that by investing in great programming – as it intends to do in the United States.
Al and I are incredibly proud of what all of us have been able to
accomplish together. Throughout our short history, Current has been a
thought leader for the media industry, innovating many exciting features that became standard after we introduced them. (Tweets on television anyone?!) Just this past year, we’ve been able to provide our viewers with fantastic interactive and social TV 2.0 coverage of the Presidential Election, including a peek inside the Obama Campaign headquarters, in depth analysis of the Libor Scandal, the breaking and relentless coverage of the Trayvon Martin scandal, and the list goes on and on. We have won most of the important awards in the journalism profession. We have stayed true to our independence and courage. And in our choice of new corporate parent, we are continuing to strive to make a difference – to provide the American people with information and analysis they need to live better, more secure, happier lives. I am confident this will continue into the future.
As I reflected deeply about this decision – both to sell the company and to whom – I kept coming back to one basic notion: The purpose of journalism is to provide those who don’t know with information and knowledge so that they can become those who do know. Bias and hatred are fueled by ignorance. Information and knowledge are the only antidotes to that ignorance. That is the role journalism must play – to provide the knowledge that sweeps away the bias and hatred caused by ignorance. It is a noble pursuit. I am proud of each and every one of you for your dedication to pursuing that noble goal. And it is a privilege to have worked with all of you these past few years.
Please accept my best wishes for a happy, healthy, exciting and fulfilling New Year!
All the best,
Joel
Vice Presidents: The good, the bad and the powerful
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By KYLE CAMPBELL
Hearst Washington Bureau
Since the creation of the American presidency, the role of the vice president has been ever evolving.
In the early days of the republic, the recipient of the second most electoral votes was given the rank of second in command.
As time went on, presidential candidates picked their running mates. Over the past six decades, the duties of the vice president expanded beyond simply presiding over the Senate as they began taking on crucial roles in policy making. And we actually began hearing from them before the election. The first vice presidential debate took place in 1976, and they’ve been a regular feature of recent campaigns.
In honor of the vice presidential debate tonight between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Texas on the Potomac brings you the best, worst and most influential vice presidents as well as the VPs that did more harm than good.
Let’s begin with the most influential vice presidents:
5. George H.W. Bush
Selected after a hard-fought primary race with Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush brought balance to the Republican. Bush was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a former businessman and congressman, and he held various other high ranking positions including ambassador to the U.N., chief liaison to China and director of the CIA. Bush aided the Reagan administration with foreign affairs issues including the falling of the U.S.S.R.
4. Alben Barkley
Having been thrust into the presidency during the late stages of World War II with little inside information, Harry Truman wanted to make sure his vice president was ready to take the reins at the drop of a hat. As the vice president in Truman’s second term, Alben Barkley was the first vice president to sit in on all cabinet meetings and he also sat in on meetings of the newly formed National Security Council. Barkley marked the end of the VP’s legislative duties and the start of integration into a more executive role.
3. Al Gore
Though he did not, as he claimed, invent the Internet, Al Gore was quite influential in the advancement of commercialized use of government created information-sharing network along with a number of other technological advances in the 1990s. Gore also was an advocate for environmental protection and global warming issues. His involvement in Bill Clinton’s policy making decisions was unprecedented at the time, as the two met daily to discusses matters of governance.
2. Walter Mondale
Though Walter Mondale’s legacy is not always viewed as one of success — he and President Jimmy Carter lost their re-election bid in 1980 and he suffered the second largest electoral defeat in the history of the presidency to Reagan in 1984 — he was an integral part of Carter’s administration. He was the first vice president to have an office in the West Wing of the White House and he only presided over the Senate to cast a tie-breaking vote and during electoral vote counts. He received daily intelligence briefings as a was a top aide to Carter for matters of foreign affairs.
1. Dick Cheney
Only time will tell how much influence Dick Cheney had during George W. Bush’s presidency. A former Secretary of Defense, Cheney was widely viewed as a key architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cheney frequently was credited with having the final say in many policy discussions and was sometimes accused of over-stepping the boundaries of his office.
Now onto the worst of the worst.
5. Henry Wallace
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second vice president, Henry Wallace was not widely embraced by his party nor anyone else for that matter. He clashed with other Democratic leaders, he was viewed as sympathizing with Soviet Union and he was viewed as being a liability on the ticket in Roosevelt’s final campaign effort in 1944. He was replaced by Henry Truman who went on to succeed Roosevelt after the president died three months into his fourth term.
4. Thomas Marshall
Possibly the least enthusiastic individual to be picked as a running mate or hold the position of the vice president, Thomas Marshall frequently joked about how sparse his duties were. He and President Woodrow Wilson clashed constantly, and when the president suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, Marshall refused to accept the position of Acting President of the United States. Marshall and Wilson hardly met during the final year of their second term in office.
3. William Rufus King
William Rufus King’s ineptitude as vice president was little fault of his own as he died just six weeks after assuming office. Elected in 1852 as Franklin Pierce’s running mate, King was formally sworn in on March 24, 1853 in Cuba (where he had gone to ease the symptoms of his tuberculosis) and died April 18, 1853 back on his Alabama plantation. King was the only bachelor vice president and spent much of his time in Washington living with future President James Buchanan, the only bachelor president.
2. Aaron Burr
In 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, though both Democratic-Republicans, tied for most electoral votes, therefore the House of Representatives had to choose which would be president and which would be vice president. Despite working together to get Jefferson elected as president and Burr as VP, Burr coveted the presidency. He ultimately lost, blaming a number of people including Federalist Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson did not trust Burr and did not include him on any presidential matters. When it became clear that Burr would not be invited to run with Jefferson in 1804, he challenged Hamilton to a duel. Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton in what might very well be his most memorable moment as vice president.
1. Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew’s demise was one of several scandals that came out of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Agnew resigned from office in October 1973 and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in order to avoid a more serious bribery charge from his short stint as governor of Maryland. There is some speculation that Nixon had Agnew go public with his Justice Department indictment to deflect attention from the looming Watergate scandal.
These next two categories have to do with the best and worst running mate selections. We’ll start with the five best.
5. Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt’s youth, vigor and war record helped propel William McKinley past William Jennings Bryan and the rising populist movement. Roosevelt was instrumental in orchestrating the Spanish-American War as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and with the formation of his “rough riders” cavalry. Roosevelt spent just six months as vice president before the assassination William McKinley made way for him to become the youngest U.S. president of the United States at 42 years old.
4. Walter Mondale
Still reeling from the Watergate scandal, American voters were looking for a changing of the guard in the White House. Jimmy Carter’s modesty and transparency were just what voters wanted, but as governor of Georgia, Carter lacked high-level legislative experience. Enter Walter Mondale. As a tenured congressman from Minnesota, Mondale ended up being the perfect balance to Carter and the two young politicians edged out Gerald Ford and Bob Dole in 1976.
3. George H.W. Bush
Like Carter, Ronald Reagan was a popular governor that presented a vastly different set of ideals than the incumbent administration, but lacked experience in terms of foreign affairs. Like Mondale, Bush provided experience, international savvy and regional diversity being that he was a Massachusetts transplant based out of Texas. Bush was Reagan’s strongest competitor in the Republican primary and by adding him on the ticket, the Republicans shored up a handy victory.
2. Al Gore
Gore’s appeal is somewhat anomalous considering he and Clinton mirrored one another so closely: both were young, moderate Democrats from adjacent southern states. However, the lack of contradiction worked to their advantage as the two were seen as near equals, almost as if it were two presidents for the price of one. The youthful vigor of the Clinton-Gore ticket excited young voters as well as rural southern voters and proved to be highly successful, unseating incumbents George Bush and Dan Quayle.
1. Lyndon B. Johnson
The differences between Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy couldn’t have been more stark. Kennedy was a young Catholic Senator from Massachusetts and Johnson was an older, Protestant Texan with years more experience. The juxtaposition worked very much in their favor as JFK and LBJ won Texas and a swath of other Republican strongholds on their way to electoral victory in 1960.
And last but not least, the five biggest running mate blunders.
5. John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun first took the vice presidency under John Q. Adams in 1825 despite having ideas that directly contrasted those of the president (he even once a law that would allow any state to nullify any act of Congress). When Adams lost the presidency in the 1828 election to Andrew Jackson, Calhoun promptly switched sides. As Jackson’s VP, Calhoun managed to upset off his second boss, too, and ended up getting canned along with the entire Cabinet.
4. Bill Miller
Never heard of him? Well that’s what many Republicans thought when Barry Goldwater selected Bill Miller, a little-known congressman from upstate New York, to be his running mate in 1964. Goldwater’s main justification for picking miller? “He drives Johnson nuts.” Johnson would have been a formidable opponent no matter what, but the Miller selection probably didn’t help Goldwater as Johnson won by a resounding 434 electoral votes.
3. Spiro Agnew
Conventional knowledge says not pick a running mate with any nasty skeletons in their closet that could pop out at an inopportune time. Nixon defied this basic logic when he stuck with Spiro Agnew in 1972. Nixon’s route worked in the short term as he handily won re-election by more than 500 electoral votes. However, the wheels began falling off within the first year of the second term and Agnew was the one to get things going when he resigned in disgrace.
2. Dan Quayle
Billed as a Republican John F. Kennedy, Dan Quayle might have seemed like a solid choice for a running mate, but shortly after the 42-year-old Indiana senator opened his mouth, that perception went out the window. His most notable faux pas came in his 1988 vice presidential debate when he willfully compared himself to JFK only to have the proposition thrown back in his face by Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentson. Bush and Quayle won in 1988 but they did not have such luck in the following election cycle.
1. Thomas Eagleton
Getting back to the whole skeletons in the closet rule; while bribery and tax evasion might be bad there are a few qualities in a candidate that are just a bit worse — like having undergone electric shock therapy. This little tidbit of information came out about Democratic candidate George McGovern’s running mate Thomas Eagleton during the 1972 campaign. Though McGovern initially said he stood behind Eagleton “1,000 percent,” he eventually had to drop him from the ticket. McGovern’s campaign never recovered and he was crushed in the election 520-17, only winning Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
The eight vice presidential debates held over the past 36 years have had minimal impact on the final election results. Arguably, only one — Republican Dick Cheney’s strong performance against Democrat Joe Lieberman in 2000 — significantly shifted the polls. But this year’s encounter between Vice President Joe Biden and GOP congressman Paul Ryan at Centre College, site of the Cheney-Lieberman debate twelve years ago, has taken on added significance because of President Obama’s low-energy effort in last week’s first presidential debate.
“This debate has the potential to either continue Romney’s momentum or derail it,” says Steven E. Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College. “It is a significant event in the campaign, particularly if either vice presidential candidate stumbles badly.”
If one candidate stumbles, it won’t be the first time. Here’s a glimpse at some of the stumbles, bumbles and shining moments in previous VP debates.
1. Lloyd Bentsen tells Dan Quayle he’s no Jack Kennedy.
Lloyd Bentsen was elected to Congress from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley in 1950 and served alongside another young lawmaker with higher ambitions, Massachusetts Rep. John F. Kennedy. Flash forward to 1988: Republican vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle repeatedly invoked Kennedy’s name and youthful image. At the debate in Omaha, the 41-year-old Indiana senator declared that he had as much legislative experience as Kennedy when JFK was elected president in 1960. Bentsen raised his eyebrows at Quayle’s assertion — and was prepared with a devastating rejoinder. Quayle’s “deer in the headlights” look only exacerbated the damage. Quayle never recovered politically, but the debate had little impact on George Bush’s comfortable win over Bentsen’s running mate, Michael Dukakis.
2. Admiral Stockdale gets lost in space.
Quayle’s second debate performance was overshadowed not by his Democratic rival, Al Gore, but by the running mate of third-party contender Ross Perot. Retired Admiral James Stockdale, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, wondered aloud, “Who am I? Why am I here?” Stockdale later said he couldn’t hear a question because his hearing aid was not turned on. These unscripted moments defined Stockdale (unfairly) as old and out of touch.
3. Bob Dole decries “Democrat wars.”
Jimmy Carter’s big early lead over incumbent Republican Gerald Ford had dissipated by the time Democrat Walter Mondale faced off with Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who had replaced Nelson Rockefeller on the 1976 GOP ticket. Dole was a wounded veteran of World War II, but his acerbic assertion that all American military conflicts of the twentieth century were “Democrat wars” came as a shock to vets who blamed Hitler, the Kaiser and Kim Il-Sung, among others, not FDR, Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman.
4. Barbara Bush says Geraldine Ferraro is a (rhymes with witch).
Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 became the first woman nominated for vice president by a major American party. In her only debate with incumbent Vice President George Bush, she was substantive and aggressive. A little too aggressive for Bush’s wife Barbara. During the debate, the vice president at one point said during a foreign policy exchange, “let me help you.” Ferraro retorted that she resented “your patronizing attitude.” After the debate, the nation’s second lady made headlines when she declared that the New York congresswoman was a “rhymes with witch.”
5. John Edwards reminds us that Dick Cheney has a gay daughter.
The award for gratuitous mention of an irrelevant fact goes to 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards. In his debate with Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, Edwards praised the family values of the Cheney family and their willingness “to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter.” The bizarre comment didn’t have much to do with anything and earned bipartisan condemnation. Mary Cheney, in a book published two years later, called Edwards a “total slime” and accused him of trying to use her sexual orientation as a political weapon against the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Bonus: Here is a video with four minutes, 45 seconds of hilarious VP debate highlights. Enjoy…
Historically, says Emory University debate coach Bill Newnam, “vice presidential debates have not mattered.”
But in the aftermath of President Obama’s disastrous performance in last Wednesday night’s first presidential debate, which helped Republican Mitt Romney erase the Democratic incumbent’s yearlong lead in the polls, “the stakes in Thursday night’s debate are astronomical for both candidates,” notes University of Michigan debate director Aaron Kall.
Here’s what Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan need to do during their encounter at Centre College in Danville, Ky.:
JOE BIDEN
1. Stop the bleeding.
Before the first debate, the Obama-Biden ticket was leading in the RealClearPolitics poll index by an average of 4 percentage points. Tuesday, for the first time in 2012, Romney and Ryan took the lead. “Obama didn’t just hurt himself, he hurt the brand,” said independent pollster John Zogby. “There’s a lot of pressure on Biden. He has to get them back on track because they’re bleeding now.”
2. Attack, attack, attack! (But in a systematic way.)
Obama found himself on the defensive from the first moments of the first debate. His running mate must seize the offensive and relentlessly critique Ryan’s record as chairman of the House Budget Committee and Team Romney’s economic and foreign policy proposals. “It’s the vice presidential candidate’s role to go out and attack the other side,” said Sherri Greenberg, director of the Center for Politics and Governance at the University of Texas’ Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. One cautionary note: It’s possible to be too aggressive. (Examples: Al Gore invading George W. Bush’s space at their first debate in 2000. Or Jimmy Carter’s serial attacks on Ronald Reagan in 1980, ending with Reagan’s retort, “there you go again.”)
3. Win the budget/tax battle.
Biden needs to convince average Americans that Ryan’s past support for cuts in middle-class entitlements such as college financial aid and eldercare could hurt them personally. “Biden wants to remind people of the Ryan budget and the impact on their lives,” said American University political communication professor Dotty Lynch, “especially if Medicare is changed and government programs like Medicaid and student loans are cut.”
4. Look like the only grown-up on the stage on international issues.
Joe Biden has been a player on foreign policy issues since Paul Ryan was, well, three years old. The vice president needs to use his knowledge and record, as senator and vice president, to his advantage. “He will challenge Ryan on his lack of experience and also criticize Romney,” said Jim Granato, director of the Hobby Center for Public Affairs at the University of Houston.
5. Don’t be a bully.
It’s fine to be Fightin’ Joe, champion of the middle class. It’s not OK to be Mr. McNasty or Mr. McDirty. Americans don’t mind some tough, substantive exchanges. But personal attacks or relentless negativism could backfire and make Ryan a more sympathetic figure.
6. Don’t commit a major gaffe that will dominate the headlines whatever else happens in the debate.
Republicans are quick to note that Joe Biden is a human gaffe machine. He can terrify his handlers by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. A whopper during Thursday’s big showdown would definitely be the wrong time. “Joe Biden must be ‘gaffe-free’ and aggressive,” said Steven E. Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College. “His job is to reveal the shortcomings of the Romney-Ryan approach far more clearly than the president did in his first debate.”
PAUL RYAN
1. Keep the momentum going.
A win or a tie is fine for the Wisconsin congressman. He just wants to make sure that he doesn’t do anything that reverses the gains created by Romney’s aggressive, self-assured performance in the first debate. “The task for the Romney campaign is to maintain the momentum generated by the first presidential debate,” said Schier. “That means Paul Ryan cannot afford to lose the debate.”
2. Avoid wonkishness.
Like President Obama, Ryan can be professorial and wonkish. He needs to ditch the green eyeshades and talk about budget and tax choices in a way that resonate with average Americans. “Congressman Ryan’s specialty is giving power-point presentations that involve a lot of data and visual aids,” said Kall. “He will be without those aids during the debate and must find a way to verbally integrate this information.”
3. Pay attention to details.
Ryan tripped up recently when Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace tried to pin him down on details of the Romney-Ryan tax cut plan. He has said, in various venues, that the issue is too complicated to discuss on radio or television. That excuse won’t fly during a 90-minute vice presidential debate. “Ryan is going to be on the defensive,” said Newnam. “He’s going to try to explain how things add up.” How can you cut everybody’s tax rates by 20 percent, cut business taxes and end up with a revenue-neutral tax plan? Ryan needs a concise, Romney-like answer to the all-but-certain question.
4. Fight to a draw (or win) on Medicare and Social Security.
Biden is sure to attack Ryan for proposing to replace Medicare with a voucher program for Americans born after 1957. And for supporting former President George W. Bush’s plan to partially privatize Social Security. Over-65 voters could well decide the results in Florida, Ohio and Iowa. And baby boomers are anxious about any possible changes in their government retirement plans. Ryan doesn’t have to win the argument with Biden. But he has to avoid a clear defeat.
5. Sound competent on foreign policy
Ryan is an undisputed expert on budget matters, but he has not been a major player on international issues. He needs to show a nuanced understanding of geopolitical matters. And he must avoid any misstatements on foreign policy. “Ryan will have to demonstrate he can articulate — and is informed on — foreign policy, given Biden’s large advantage in foreign policy experience,” said Granato.
6. Look like he could be a president.
The gravitas thing. Dan Quayle flunked this test against Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 (“you’re no Jack Kennedy”) and then against Al Gore in 1992. (Of course, Quayle and George Bush were elected in ’88 anyway.) Ryan is no Dan Quayle, but he does have questions to answer. “He’s only 42,” said Zogby. “He’s got to show that he belongs there.”
