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Politics & The Nation Outsider candidates seek inside help...............................................A3
GULF COAST OIL SPILL Administration gives BP a deadline for better containment.........A6
The World
Russia won’t intervene in Kyrgyzstan ...........................................A10 Iranian protesters return to streets................................................A10 Foreign Digest U.N. reviews Taliba, al-Qaeda blacklist..........................................A10
Opinion
Dana Milbank: A Colorado Democrat engages in cynical fratricide. .............................................................................A13 Topic A: What did Tuesday’s election results show? ....................A13 Ombudsman: The Post remains loose with using anonymous sources. ........................................................................A13 Editorial:Why hasn’t the Justice Department acted to stamp out prison rape? ...................................................................A14 Editorial: The fiscal records of D.C.’s mayoral candidates. .........A14 Kathleen Parker: The old Dixie is losing traction in South Carolina. ................................................................................ A15 Post Partisan: The candidacy of South Carolina’s Alvin Greene raises red flags. .................................................................................A15 George F. Will: California’s proposition to ensure political blandness. ..........................................................................A15 David S. Broder: The election deck shuffle in California............. A15 David Ignatius: A fatwa from Saudi Arabia against terrorism seems to suggest moderation. ........................................................A16
THE SUNDAY TAKE Dan Balz
M
idterm elections are generally seen as a referendum on the
president and his party, particularly in the first term of a new administration. Halfway through this tumultuous year, it is clear there is more on the voters’ minds than a judgment on President Obama. The president’s performance
and agenda certainly are at the forefront of the voters’ concerns as they look to November. His approval ratings speak to questions about his leadership, which have been reinforced by the administration’s handling of the gulf oil spill. Triggered by his domestic agenda, concerns about the size and reach of government shape the political climate. But that’s hardly the end of
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what has given rise to the “angry electorate,” the shorthand for the political mood. There is, more broadly, anger at Washington and at politics as usual. There’s dissatisfaction with Congress and with incumbents of both parties. There is also anger at Wall
Street, big banks and big corporations. There is anger at corporate executives who reap big bonuses as the economy struggles to recover. Now there is anger at BP over the economic and environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. There is unhappiness on the right, aimed at the president but also at Republicans who are seen as unfaithful to the core principles of conservatism. The “tea party” activists hope to shake up government, but first they are shaking up the Republican Party. There is frustration on the left, aimed at Democrats who are seen as insufficiently committed to the agenda that many progressives believed would become reality under Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress. All of that could result in making this election different than either of the elections of 1994 or 2006, both of which changed party control of Congress. Those two elections are used for historical parallels to events now unfolding. The level
ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid is vulnerable in Nevada.
of voter dissatisfaction with incumbents, for example, now rivals that of 1994. By November, the 2010 election
might be remembered as similar to those elections if, as Republicans hope, Democrats lose the House and take substantial losses in the Senate. If that happens, Obama and his policies will surely be blamed and 2010 will become the third wave election in two decades. Democrats are certainly more on the defensive than Republicans. Of the 67 House seats listed as competitive by the Cook Political Report, Republicans hold just seven. But the story of election 2010 so far has had as much to do with the internal debate over the direction of the Republican Party, and with questions about whether Republicans will head into the fall at their most competitive. So far, Republicans have felt the jolts of the electorate as much as the Democrats, which raises
the question of whether the Democrats are in less jeopardy today than they appeared to be a few months ago.
Republican primaries have pushed candidates further to the right. That’s certainly the case of former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, who is running against the vulnerable Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) in California. The GOP’s California gubernatorial nominee, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, also was forced to the right in her primary. How much that will hurt them in the general election isn’t yet clear, but their situations are not ideal. The strength of the tea party movement has resulted in Republicans having nominated potentially weaker candidates for Senate races in Kentucky and Nevada. Rand Paul remains the favorite to hold the seat of retiring Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning, but he got off to a stumbling start after the primary.
SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010 ‘Angry electorate’ could be unpredictable at polls this fall
In Nevada, embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is still highly vulnerable. But in Sharron Angle, who wants to close down several federal departments, he has drawn an opponent that gives him renewed hope of retaining his job. The Democratic Senate runoff
election in Arkansas, in which Sen. Blanche Lincoln survived a challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who was backed by labor and progressive groups, shows that nimble incumbents can survive even when voters are unhappy with incumbency. The fragile recovery remains the source of much of the dissatisfaction voters are expressing. Administration policies have not yet delivered and might not in time for Democrats to escape the voters’ wrath in November. The oil spill in the gulf is bearing down on Obama, and the government’s response has been judged as inadequate, according to the polls. That’s one more problem that could keep the president’s standing down. But Democrats will try to turn GOP policies against their candidates, whether it be a Republican candidate who defends — or worse, practiced — outsourcing, or the many more who signed on to the policy of “drill, baby, drill” before the oil well blew up and changed public opinion overnight. Republican resistance to new regulations on financial institutions might have a cost as well. Getting on the right side of the voters will be every candidate’s goal, whether they are incumbents or challengers. Every political consultant working for an elected official this year has the same advice: Run like you did the first time you got elected. “For a voter sitting out there, there is not just one focal point to this election. There are lots of things that are making people angry right now,” Democrat pollster Geoff Garin said. He added: “It’s clear that there are lots of moving parts to this election that have and will affect individual races. It’s not a neat, simple storyline.” Republicans might take issue with that characterization. In their analysis, November will still be largely a referendum on Obama’s presidency and the Democrats in Congress. But even they recognize that the frustrations of the voters can register in unexpected ways.
balzd@washpost.com
Death toll rises in Arkansas campground flooding
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Rescue workers search for bodies of missing amid fallen trees, debris
Associated Press
The search for nearly two doz- en people who disappeared after flash floods swept through a popular Arkansas campground went from desperate to grim Sat- urday, after teams that scoured miles of river and rugged wilder- ness found just two bodies — rais- ing the death toll to 18. The last time someone was found alive was late Friday morn- ing, hours after a pre-dawn wall of water surprised sleeping campers at the Albert Pike Rec- reation Area, leaving them franti- cally trying to scramble up the
steep terrain in the dark. About 200 searchers combed some 20 miles of wilderness along the receding rivers Satur- day. Crews on kayaks and canoes scanned the thick brush and de- bris in the swollen Caddo and Lit- tle Missouri rivers for bodies, but experts say many of those killed could be trapped under fallen trees and rocks, and that the river water probably won’t be clear enough to see through for several days. Tom Collins, a Spring Hill vol- unteer firefighter, said the debris in the water was frustrating their attempts to recover bodies and that there were so many fallen trees that it looked like a “beaver dam.” “It’s just a tangled mess,” Col- lins said.
Other searchers rode out on horseback and ATVs to scan the
heavily wooded area and rocky crags along the rivers, where de- bris hung as high as 25 feet up in tree branches. Cellphone service and visibility from the air in the heavily wooded area are very poor, hampering search efforts. Portable cell towers were dis- patched to the area in the hope that stranded survivors would be able to call for help.
At least six of the 18 people
confirmed killed were children, according to a list released by Ar- kansas Gov. Mike Beebe’s office that publicly identified 15 of the dead. Among them were five peo- ple, including three children, from Gloster, La., as well as three others from that state and six from Texas. The last body found Friday night was retrieved eight miles downstream from the camp- ground, and authorities Saturday
combed the headwaters of Lake Greeson, a large body of water about 20 miles from the camp that would be the farthest any of the bodies could travel. The search was expected to
take several more days, or even weeks, and family members of the victims were left not knowing if they’d have to return to their homes and jobs knowing that their loved ones’ bodies were still missing. “This is not a one- or two-day
thing,” said Gary Fox, a retired emergency medical technician who was helping identify the dead and compile lists of those unaccounted for. “This is going to be a week or two- or three-week recovery.”
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FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG), 9 a.m.: Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Carly Fiorina, California Republican U.S. Senate candidate; and Barbara Bush, Global Health Corps president. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN), 9 a.m.: Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R), Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), and American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA), 10 a.m.: Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN), 10 a.m.: Rep. Spencer Bachus (Ala.), ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA), 10:30 a.m.: Riley, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I), Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen. MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC), 10:30 a.m.: Fiorina, White House senior adviser David Axelrod, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. WASHINGTON WATCH (TV One), 11 a.m.: Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), economist Peter Morici and Michael Ettlinger of the Center for American Progress.
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