SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010
KLMNO Sunday OPINION DANA MILBANK
A Democrat’s cynical
fratricide by Dana Milbank W
hen I worked on the college paper as a freshman, the editor was a talented but prickly junior by the name of An-
drew Romanoff. He clashed so fiercely with the newspaper’s business staff that he and the pub- lisher communicated only through memos. In- stead of putting all effort into the newspaper, energy was wasted on internal squabbles. I recalled that long-ago episode while
watching this year’s Colorado Senate race, in which my old editor Romanoff is challenging Sen. Michael Bennet for the Democratic nomination. The dynamic is much the same: Rather than furthering the causes they agree on — there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference in their ideologies — Romanoff is provoking a Democratic family feud. He’s painting Bennet, a former Denver schools superintendent appointed to the va- cant Senate seat last year, as a Washington in- sider on the take from corporate donors. “The nation’s biggest insurance firms, drug makers, oil companies and Wall Street banks are pour- ing hundreds of thousands of dollars into my opponents’ campaign coffers,” Romanoff al- leged at a rally this year. “Why?” he asked. “What have they already gotten” for their money? Having accused his opponent of corrup- tion, Romanoff announced that “our cam- paign does not accept money from political action committees.” He didn’t tell the crowd that a mere four
days earlier he quietly shut down his own PAC, the Romanoff Leadership Fund, which freely accepted corporate PAC money. In his eight years in the state legislature, including a stint as House speaker before term limits forced him out in 2008, Romanoff accepted money from those evil “insurance firms, drug makers, oil companies and Wall Street banks.” The man Romanoff accuses of being cor- rupt, meanwhile, is the very opposite: an ear- nest education policy wonk who has never held elected office and who, appalled at the way he has seen the Senate operate, has au- thored a radical plan for a lifetime ban on lob- bying by former lawmakers and a six-year ban for congressional staffers. He was chosen for the Senate job by Gov. Bill Ritter for the right reason: Because he would make a good sena- tor, not because he was a good politician. That’s why I’m troubled by what my old edi- tor is doing in Colorado. Americans are dis- gusted enough with politics. Is it really neces- sary to portray one of the good guys as a crook? I’ve been following this race with more than the usual interest. I’ve never met Bennet, but for years I’ve known his brother, James, who is editor of the Atlantic and was a class- mate of Romanoff’s at Yale in the late ’80s. I’ve also admired Romanoff’s success in Colorado politics, where he was by all accounts a model legislator, a centrist Democrat who built con- sensus with Republicans on thorny issues such as immigration. But now he has hired Howard Dean’s for-
mer strategist, Joe Trippi, and he’s practicing the Dean style of Democratic fratricide, even as he acknowledges being an “imperfect mes- senger” for an anti-establishment uprising. The clearest instance of that was his recent re- lease of e-mails from the White House, which dangled the possibility of jobs at the U.S. Agency for International Development if he didn’t challenge Bennet. It was clearly aimed at embarrassing Presi- dent Obama for backing Bennet. But Roma- noff neglected to mention that he had sought a job at USAID, part of a long and public job search that, according to state records and Colorado media, included an application to be Colorado secretary of state and attempts to position himself for governor, lieutenant gov- ernor, head of a child advocacy group, and, of course, senator. It’s understandable that Romanoff would
be angry that he didn’t get the Senate appoint- ment last year, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bennet was an excellent choice. In addition to his anti-lobbying legislation, Ben- net has taken a lead role in education policy and voiced support for institutional changes such as electing committee chairs rather than awarding them on seniority. If more Mr. Ben- nets came to Washington, the Senate wouldn’t be the mess that it is. That’s what makes Romanoff’s anti-incum- bent message so disturbing. He describes Bennet and his supposed Washington mas- ters as “an incumbent protection racket” and urges supporters to defy “the power brokers and the party bosses” and “send a seismic shock to the U.S. Senate, which needs one.” Romanoff’s right. The Senate needs a shock. But accusing one of the few good ones in the chamber of insider dealing and corrup- tion isn’t a shock — it’s politics at its most cynical.
danamilbank@washpost.com MIKE LUX
Co-founder and chief executive of Progressive Strategies; co-founder of
OpenLeft.com; special assistant to the president for public liaison from 1993 to 1995
The lesson of Tuesday for my fellow Democrats: You can survive by becoming fiery populists. If Sen. Blanche Lincoln had run a business-as-usual race, even Bill Clinton could not have saved her. Pushing her legislation to regulate financial derivatives changed the dynamics in her race, giving her credibility to claim she is on the side of regular folks against Wall Street speculators. Democrats take heed: You have just one chance to survive this election without experiencing that sinking feeling those of us in the Clinton White House had in 1994. Both your base voters and your swing voters are mad as hell. They feel like both parties have let them down, that both parties listen more to the special interests that crashed this economy and caused all this pain. They feel like they voted for change in 2006 and 2008 but that the country isn’t changing enough. But if Democrats speak to that anger, show
that they will take on the powers that be and make clear that they will be on voters’ side, Americans remain open to hearing them out. Democrats can do better in November than anyone thinks they will, just as Lincoln won when everyone was predicting she wouldn’t — but only if they become the kind of populists Lincoln became in the last few weeks of her election.
SARAH PALIN Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008; former governor of Alaska
The recent primaries make clear that
Washington’s status quo is turning us off because the politicos are turning us into a country that would ignore its charters of liberty. Americans who understand that deficits and enormous, immoral, unsustainable federal debt steal liberty and opportunity are saying, “Enough is enough. You who have not fought for the people and against Big Government — you’re fired.” The criteria for supporting constitutional, Reaganesque conservative politicians are pretty simple: Do they know how to live within their means, and do they realize it’s a sacred trust to be spending other people’s money? How do they stack up against an incumbent who supported government control of one-sixth of our economy via Obamacare? Did the incumbent pit himself or herself against state officials who warned against accepting Obama’s debt-ridden, strings-attached stimulus package? Did he or she disrespect the 10th Amendment and push unfunded mandates on local governments? Do they disrespect America’s families by putting us in harm’s way, economically and militarily,
TOPIC A What did Tuesday’s results show?
because of skewed priorities? If the politicians fit that bill, then they’re
part of the problem, and so we will hire people who know the solution. That’s the message, and our voice will be heard loud and clear at the ballot box in November.
ROBERT SHRUM
Democratic strategist and senior fellow at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service
Last Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) won the Republican Senate primary in Nevada. After the establishment favorite destroyed herself by suggesting a wacky health policy of trading chickens for medical care, a right-wing electorate rushed to Sharron Angle, the Tea Partyer who’s for abolishing Social Security, Medicare and the Education Department. She’s likely to cost the Republicans a Senate seat they were counting on capturing.
Similar ideological coups in other primaries
have diminished Republicans’ midterm chances; instead of energizing the GOP, the Tea Party movement now marginalizes it. Democrats will lose seats in November but fewer than the conventional (un)wisdom assumes — and they will keep control of both houses.
Blanche Lincoln’s surprise victory in Arkansas also tells us that Democrats will do better by identifying with the president than by distancing themselves or by dissing him. After casting a legislatively inconsequential vote against final passage of health reform, Lincoln advertised her earlier support for the measure, ran spots that featured President Obama and brought in Bill Clinton to seal the deal. Clinton is back from his malaprop performance for Hillary in 2008 — and there he was right after Arkansas in Las Vegas for Harry Reid. Reborn as America’s greatest political pitchman, Bill will be on the trail and on message, making a difference for Democrats in November. Overcaffeinated Republicans will fall off the
extreme edge. By the fall, today’s uncertain Democrats will notice that Obama’s poll ratings are far higher than theirs — and that he’s their strongest running mate. They’ll run on health care, not from it. And at rallies, they’ll be raising the president’s hand in the air — Obama’s and Clinton’s.
ED ROGERS White House staffer to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; chairman of BGR Group
Tuesday’s primaries yielded one clear result:
None of the fashionable explanations for what drives voters in 2010 is perfect. The far right, the far left and the Tea Partyers are winning a few and losing a few. The only thing we know for sure is that voters are unhappy and are groping to find an outlet for their frustrations. Part of the reason may be that the economics
of 2010 are creating an unusually sharp divide in America. Many voters think that since the economy is bad, the government should create ways to give them more money. Many other voters think that since the economy is bad, the government should take less of their money. Everyone in this debate searches for the loudest voice answering their plea. That can be an incumbent, a complete stranger, a classic Republican or an old-school union liberal. This rage about the economy can be especially bad for incumbents, though, because either way you cut it, voters are unhappy with their current economic circumstances. So we’re left with an electorate that is searching and dissatisfied. The parties and their leaders don’t appear to be up to the job or willing to shake up the status quo. Voters believe that our old problems are getting worse and that the new ones have exposed incompetence, deceit and selfishness from the government, from business and from the so-called elite in every field. In Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, an
incumbent, can defeat the full might of well-financed unions; in Kentucky, Rand Paul can defeat an establishment Republican just by appearing reckless and kind of wacky; in California, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina’s big money can beat back the GOP right wing. It’s a jumbled mix with only the jumble itself as a coherent pattern. Both Democrats and Republicans have been — and are likely to be — caught in the cross hairs.
DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN Democratic pollster and author
The election results and the poll data that followed Tuesday’s elections sent a few very clear messages. Outsiders are in and incumbents are out. The Democrats are heading in the wrong direction. And the greatest asset Democrats have is . . . the Republicans. The biggest upset is the victory of Sharron Angle in Nevada. The victory of the Tea Party movement confirms what many have chosen to ignore: the move toward independent, outsider, fiscal conservatives remains strong. Both Rand Paul in Kentucky and now Angle start with at least a 50 percent chance of being elected, largely based on grass-roots anger toward Democratic spending policies. The trend toward outsiders was also clear in California, where Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina used a similar appeal to win their primaries. The weird results in South Carolina only underscore the fact that voters are simply suspicious of any insider. Democrat Alvin Greene may not be a credible candidate, but what voters clearly said is that being an insider was simply not credible. Even Blanche Lincoln’s victory in Arkansas has been misinterpreted. By getting close to 49 percent of the vote against an incumbent, Bill Halter sent a message to Democrats about the perils of moving to the center. But, regrettably, the center is where the votes are in the fall. Still, the absence of any coherent Republican
message other than opposition to President Obama gives hope that the Democrats can distance themselves from the White House and do what Mark Critz did in the Pennsylvania special election: run on fiscal prudence and social moderation — the message Bill Clinton championed when he was in the White House and what he used to carry a beleaguered Lincoln to victory in the Arkansas primary.
TOPIC A ONLINE: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on what Tuesday’s results mean for both parties.
R
A13
OMBUDSMAN ANDREW ALEXANDER Still loose with anonymous sources L
ast month, a story about conflicts between parents and childless adults began with an an- ecdote about an unleashed puppy pestering a toddler in a District park. After the child’s father complained, the dog’s owner told The Post that par- ents of children can be “tyrants” and she urged them to keep their kids inside the park’s fenced-in play area. “I think children are fine,” she was quoted as saying, but “I don’t think they own everything.” For this, The Post identified the woman only as Linda, a veteran journalist, “because she didn’t want to be seen as hostile to children.” The Post’s internal policies set a high threshold
for granting anonymity. It “should not be done cas- ually or automatically.” Further, “merely asking should not be sufficient to become anonymous in our stories.” If sources refuse to go on the record, “the reporter should consider seeking the informa- tion elsewhere.” But too often it seems The Post grants anonymity
at the drop of a hat. In a recent politics story, a Democratic strategist
was afforded anonymity so he could be “candid.” In April, a source was granted anonymity for an in- offensive quote “because he is reluctant to have his name in the paper.” Late last year, a Post story on then-White House social secretary Desirée Rogers quoted a friend who was granted anonymity “in order not to offend.” An- other source in the story was given anonymity “so as not to upset” Rogers. Reader Jay Thomas of Herndon complained about these “flimsiest” of reasons. “Either the pas- sages in question should have been dropped from
the piece,” he wrote me, “or another source who could voice the same opinion . . . without the cloak of anonymity should have been found.” More recently, in a story about Senate consider-
ation of the financial overhaul bill, a banking lobbyist was granted anonymity so he could “speak more free- ly.” The lobbyist told The Post that the provision in the bill would have a “chilling effect” because “Markets crave certainty. All this does is introduce a comic amount of uncertainty.” Reader Jonathan Wood of London objected. “The
utterly banal remark that ‘Markets crave certainty’ certainly did not require granting anonymity to ‘speak more freely,’ ” he e-mailed. “This article es- sentially gives a platform to someone actively lob- bying to weaken or kill the bill to make an unattrib- uted criticism.” Anonymity, granted judiciously, can benefit read- ers. Sources often require confidentiality to disclose corruption or policy blunders. On a lesser scale, sto- ries can be enriched with information from sources who would suffer retribution if identified. But by casually agreeing to conceal the identities of those who provide non-critical information, The Post erodes its credibility and perpetuates Washing- ton’s insidious culture of anonymity. There’s evidence The Post’s use of anonymous sources is growing. The phrase “spoke on condition of anonymity” has appeared in an average of 71 sto- ries a month through May — slightly higher than in the same period a year ago. This year, it has appeared more than 450 times (stories often include multiple anonymous sources). And that doesn’t include all of the anonymous sources described in other ways. For
example, those ubiquitous unnamed “senior admin- istration officials” have been quoted more than 130 times this year. Post rules urge that when sources are granted anonymity, readers be told why. But in more than 85 stories this year where sources “spoke on condition of anonymity,” there was no explanation. In many others, where a weak rationale was offered, readers protested. That was the case with the story about the clash
between parents and childless adults. Online com- menters criticized granting anonymity to the source who “didn’t want to be seen as hostile to children.” Wrote one: “If she didn’t want to share her name, she shouldn’t have been permitted to share her point of view.” Post reporter Annys Shin, who authored the
story, agrees in retrospect. “It wasn’t exactly about state secrets,” Shin acknowledged. “In the end, I should have insisted, or we should have just not used that anecdote.” For decades, ombudsmen have complained about The Post’s unwillingness to follow its own lofty standards on anonymous sources. Readers, who care about the quality of The Post’s journal- ism, persistently object to anonymity they see as excessive and incessant. The problem is endemic. Reporters should be blamed. But the solution must come in the form of unrelenting enforcement by editors, starting with those at the top.
Andrew Alexander can be reached at 202-334-7582 or at
ombudsman@washpost.com. For daily updates, read the Omblog at
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ ombudsman-blog/.
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