Toxic politics, inflation batter Washington -- Nov. 11, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

That was quick. Republican euphoria over Virginia’s election results and what they may portend for 2022 began to evaporate in less than a week.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu dashed the hopes of fellow Republicans Tuesday by saying he would not run for the Senate. Instead, he will seek a fourth two-year term as governor, which he is expected to win handily.

“My responsibility is not to the gridlock and politics of Washington. It’s to the citizens of New Hampshire. And I’d rather push myself 120 miles an hour delivering wins for New Hampshire than to slow down and end up on Capitol Hill debating partisan politics without results,” Sununu told reporters.

Republicans had counted on Sununu to run against incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan, one of the weakest Senate Democrats seeking re-election in the midterm elections. Former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has also indicated she won’t run, leaving the New Hampshire GOP with lower tier candidates, so far.

Every Senate seat is crucial as both parties seek to break the 50-50 tie in their direction. Vice President Kamala Harris casts tie-breaking votes. Sununu’s decision was a blow to Republicans, who were blindsided by the announcement. Party leaders found out the same way everyone else did – on the news.

You can’t blame Sununu for saying, thanks but no thanks, even if he did it artlessly. Politics in Washington could hardly be nastier. Republican House members who vote “wrong” in the eyes of extremists – that is, in a bipartisan manner – now endure death threats.

One wonders why anyone who wants to be constructive – rather than a demagogue -- would take on the capital’s toxic atmosphere, although we must be thankful for those who do.

At the same time, Democrats are still smarting from the Virginia election debacle -- and they can’t catch a break. They want to celebrate the roughly $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill the House passed Nov. 5 and President Joe Biden is scheduled to sign Monday.

But Biden saw his victory lap derailed Wednesday by scary inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index rose 6.2% last month from a year ago and is at its highest level in more than three decades.

Taming inflation is now a top priority for the White House, though there’s little a president can really do. Gerald Ford’s Whip Inflation Now button and Jimmy Carter’s cardigan sweater led to their one-term presidencies.

“Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs more, and it’s worrisome even though wages are going up,” Biden said Wednesday in Baltimore. “We still face challenges, and we have to tackle them.”

The spike in inflation threatens his $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate change reconciliation bill in the Senate, where Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and others worry it will feed inflationary pressures. White House and independent economists dispute that assessment.

“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not `transitory’ and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day,” Manchin, of West Virginia, tweeted.

But Manchin, who holds a knife over Biden’s reconciliation package, has been all over Twitter touting the goodies the infrastructure bill will bring his state – “nearly $6 BILLION in infrastructure funding over the next decade.”

Note the time element: The money will come over 10 years. Democrats worry voters won’t see enough new jobs and economic growth by Election Day 2022.

Yet the bill was a bipartisan victory in a Congress where few occur. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of 19 Republicans who voted in favor in August. He recently called it a “godsend” for his home state of Kentucky.

Incredibly, House Republican leaders threaten to punish the 13 Republican members there who dared to vote for that same bill by stripping them of their committee assignments.

The threat prompted Biden to renew his call for more civility and cooperation in politics.

“I know I get in trouble when I talk about” bipartisanship, he said Tuesday. “As people say, why the devil would I like any Republicans? Well, it’s important. If we don’t generate consensus in America, we’re in trouble.”

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Inaugural hope for peace, if not unity -- column of Jan. 14, 2021

By MARSHA MERCER

At the first presidential inauguration I attended in person, President Ronald Reagan opened his address with a nod to the peaceful transfer of power.

“To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are,” Reagan said just after noon on Jan. 20, 1981.

“In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

Little did we know then how much of a miracle we took for granted.

I was new to Washington in 1981 and, sitting in the press section as the temperature hit a balmy 55 degrees, I was agog at the scene.

The oaths of office by the vice president and president, Nancy Reagan in her bright red coat, prayers, military bands, speeches and 21-gun salute all played out before a cheering throng that stretched from the West Front of the Capitol into the distance on the National Mall.

I fell in love with the “commonplace occurrence” and made a point of witnessing in person every outdoor inauguration since – nine in all. Arctic temperatures in 1985 forced Reagan to move his second inauguration inside, keeping me out along with more than 140,000 invited guests.

I loved the stirrings of hope and renewal inaugurations brought to the surface. Even if I preferred a different presidential victor, I was usually glad to see the joy that animated the day.

Let’s hope those halcyon days are not a thing of the past.

Like millions of Americans, I’ll watch Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration Wednesday on TV or online. The sad and chilling confluence of the novel coronavirus and credible threats of violence since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump have suspended our time-honored traditions.

Trump, who still falsely claims the election was stolen from him, was impeached Wednesday on a bipartisan House vote for inciting the violence at the Capitol, becoming the only president in history to be impeached twice.

He said he will not attend Biden’s inauguration, the first president to back out since Andrew Johnson refused in 1869 to attend Ulysses S. Grant’s swearing-in. Johnson too had been impeached, but one vote saved him from being removed from office.

Biden, the mayor of Washington and the governors of Virginia and Maryland have sent one message to well-wishers and those who have evil intentions alike: Stay home.

Trump issued a video statement Wednesday after he was impeached that didn’t mention impeachment or regret but said: “Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement.”

Our movement? At least 16 groups, some whose members are armed pro-Trumpians, have registered for protests in Washington. The FBI warns those protests as well as others planned in every state capitol this week threaten to turn violent.

Seven-foot fences have been erected around the Capitol, and tens of thousands of National Guard troops will be on duty to protect the small group of dignitaries attending the Biden inauguration in person.

Biden’s inaugural theme of “America United” sounds more aspirational than realistic, but he must start somewhere. Biden faces a monumental task as long as Trump is falsely telling more than 70 million voters he was wronged.

Americans used to understand that some of us were bound to be disappointed by a presidential contest. Defeat meant it was time to assess what went wrong, regroup and go to work – not use American flags as weapons to beat people.

The 1980 election was no picnic for incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who won just 49 electoral votes to Republican Reagan’s 489.

But Carter conceded to Reagan in a telephone call before 10 p.m. on Election Day and promised his support for the transition. At his inauguration, Reagan thanked Carter for his “gracious cooperation.”

We won’t hear anything like that from Biden, of course. Nor should we, for Trump hasn’t cooperated at all, much less graciously.

The best we can hope for is a peaceful day and week. That would be worth celebrating.

(© Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

A stonewall looks like obstruction -- Oct. 10, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Echoes of Watergate -- now he’s building a stonewall.

You’d think the border wall with Mexico would be wall enough for President Donald Trump, whose promises to build it helped him get elected.

But now Trump has erected a metaphorical wall against impeachment which, perversely, may help him get re-elected. Trumpian defiance plays well with his base, if not with most Americans.

Even a Fox News poll reported Wednesday support for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office has reached a new high of 51 percent of voters.

“One of the main things Americans are now considering is the fact that the White House is trying to stonewall and not provide adequate information,” former President Jimmy Carter, still sharp at 95, said Tuesday on MSNBC.

The New York Times summed the situation Wednesday: “The White House intends to formally stonewall Congress, setting up a constitutional clash.”

Carter and the newspaper were referring to the political screed in the form of a letter the top White House lawyer sent Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and three Democratic committee chairmen. 

The White House will not cooperate with the congressional impeachment inquiry, the letter said, claiming it’s an attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Trump refuses to comply with subpoenas from Congress for documents and testimony from government officials about the July 25 call with the president of Ukraine.

That’s stonewalling -- “a policy based on resistance to revelation” – a word popularized during the Watergate investigation, according to “Safire’s New Political Dictionary.”

“As transcribed from the Nixon tapes, White House counsel John Dean assured the president on Feb. 28, 1973: `We are stonewalling totally,’” William Safire writes.

A few weeks later, President Nixon directed: “I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else . . . ”

Thus Trump has latched onto a tactic that worked so well for Nixon that he was forced to resign to avoid the shame of impeachment. One of the three articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee had drawn involved stonewalling Congress.  

Safire traces the word’s roots to the First Battle of Bull Run War when Confederate Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson held his position, and a Southern officer was said to have cried, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall . . .”

Hurling verbal grenades and threatening his adversaries are classic Trumpian business tactics, but he’s not calling the shots from Trump Tower anymore.

The president doesn’t get to decide if he will be impeached. The Constitution gives Congress impeachment power.

”Despite the White House’s stonewalling, we see a growing body of evidence that shows President Trump abused his office and violated his oath to `preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a statement responding to the letter.

And, in case Trump didn’t get it, Pelosi warned: “Mr. President, you are not above the law. You will be held accountable.”

Democrats continued pushing for documents and testimony in their evidence-gathering phase. If Trump continues his defiance, it could lead to an article of impeachment charging Trump with obstructing Congress.

Chinks appeared in Trump’s stonewall almost immediately. Just a day after the letter, Trump said he would cooperate under certain conditions, including the full House taking a vote on beginning the impeachment inquiry and allowing his legal team access to documents and the ability to call and cross examine witnesses.

It’s worth remembering no vote is required under the Constitution. Trump wants a vote so Republicans can use Democrats’ votes for the inquiry against them in their campaigns for re-election.

Unlike the impeachment inquiries for Nixon and President Bill Clinton, the current hearings are behind closed doors so that classified material could be discussed.

Nixon’s stonewalling ended in July 1974 with the Supreme Court’s 8-0 ruling to  turn over the White House audio tapes. Three were Nixon’s nominees to the court -- Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Lewis Powell. Justice William Rehnquist recused himself.

One wonders whether Trump nominees Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would rule similarly and how Trump would react.  

But we can be sure even if the House accedes to Trump’s current demands, he will make others. No one expects Trump to live up to his word. Nor, to his peril, is he likely to listen to sage advice from a former president.

Jimmy Carter advised Trump: “Tell the truth . . . for a change.”

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Resolving to be president? Ask W.C. Fields -- Jan. 3, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The first Democrat out of the gate to formally explore a 2020 presidential bid is traipsing around Iowa this weekend.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a foe of big banks and big business, promises to end the corruption in Washington and be a champion for the middle class.

She has called President Donald Trump a “thin-skinned racist bully.” He calls her Pocahontas.

Warren is the first of thousands of earnest Democratic presidential hopefuls who soon will be out campaigning. OK, it’ll only be dozens, but it will feel like thousands.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are among those weighing bids.

Meanwhile, Trump never stopped campaigning, as his every appearance demonstrates. 

Some state Republican officials say they might cancel GOP primaries to keep Trump from facing a challenge from within his own party.

Democrats are determined to send Trump back to New York after one term, but with no clear front-runner, party leader or unifying message, at this point anyone could become the Democrats’ nominee.

The Democratic National Committee will sponsor six candidate debates this year, starting in June.

We’re facing countless breakfasts, lunches, dinners, tweets, emails and untold Russian influences before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in February 2020.

Candidates will try to outdo each other with campaign resolutions aplenty. So, we need to pace ourselves.

What we need is W.C. Fields. Really. 

I ran across a parody the comedian wrote that can lighten and enlighten our long campaign season. In “Fields for President,” he announces his candidacy and puts forth his thoughts about resolutions – campaign and New Year’s.

The year was 1940, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had just been elected to an unprecedented third term. A book nearly 80 years old, “Fields for President” is silly, often sexist and surprisingly on point. It was republished in 2016 with a forward by TV talk show host Dick Cavett.

Fields, whose comedic persona was as a hard-drinking misanthrope, writes: 

“Campaign resolutions are nothing more than overgrown New Year’s resolutions: They are thrown together hastily at the last minute, with never a thought as to how they may be gracefully broken.

“Now, I am a candidate with years of experience in the making and breaking of New Year’s resolutions, and what I can accomplish with those, I can certainly accomplish with campaign resolutions.”

That’s as good an explanation as I’ve seen why campaign promises vanish into thin air.

This is the time of year for making New Year’s resolutions, and of course reporters ask presidents for theirs. When Fox News asked Trump his personal resolution for 2019, he replied: “Success, prosperity and the health of our country.”

You wouldn’t expect Trump to admit he needs to change anything, would you?

Few presidents are like Jimmy Carter who conceded after his first year in office he’d underestimated Congress and would try harder in the New Year.

President George W. Bush said at the end of 2001, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “All in all, it’s been a fabulous year for Laura and me.” He also said he didn’t regret even one of the decisions he’d made.

To be fair, Bush enjoyed an approval rating of nearly 90 percent at the time.

But Bush also came forth with a personal resolution: “Eat fewer cheeseburgers.”

Fields says: “Ninety-three percent of New Year’s resolutions fail because they are based on frustration. Tell a person he must no longer eat pomegranates, and he’ll be a nervous wreck until he does eat them.”

What he called the Fields Plan takes the opposite approach. “Instead of prohibiting a person from doing what he’d like to do, force him to do what he’d like to do,” he 

writes.

We’re about to see each candidate develop and pitch a plan he or she hopes will match what voters would like to happen. But, as boxer Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.  

So we’d best take all these resolutions with a healthy dose of skepticism and a grain of salt – just not on our pomegranates.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Let's celebrate a president who never stopped working -- Aug. 30, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Jimmy Carter, who turns 94 on Oct. 1, swung a hammer this week at a Habitat for Humanity project in Indiana.

Sweating in the hot sun while doing manual labor may not be most people’s ideal activity for their 90s, but the former president and his wife Rosalynn, 91, have helped build homes for poor families for the last 35 years.

Carter says they “get more out of it than we put into it.”

As we mark Labor Day by taking a day off, let us also celebrate former President Jimmy Carter, working man.

When voters in the 1980 election sent Carter packing after one lackluster term in the White House, his peanut business in Plains, Ga., was in shambles. He had to create his next act.

An ex-president longer than anyone else, he long ago proved his character and redeemed his reputation by living modestly in the same ranch house in Plains he built in 1961, by refusing to trade on the presidency, and by performing good works.

“The Democratic former president decided not to join corporate boards or give speeches for big money because, he says, he didn’t want `to capitalize financially on being in the White House,’” Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan wrote in a profile of “The un-celebrity president” in the Aug. 17 Washington Post. 

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle reportedly landed a $65 million joint book deal last year. Bill and Hillary Clinton command hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single speech, and daughter Chelsea isn’t far behind.

"I don’t see anything wrong with it; I don’t blame other people for doing it,” Carter told the Post. “It just never had been my ambition to be rich.”

Carter set to work writing books – and has turned out about three dozen. He founded 

The Carter Center in Atlanta, a nonprofit that prevents and resolves conflicts, fights disease and promotes freedom and democracy around the world. He still teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.

Studies show volunteering helps the volunteer live longer, but Carter’s long life is also testament to medical innovation. Three years ago, his future looked iffy.

In August 2015, he said his melanoma had spread to his liver and there were four cancerous spots in his brain. He had surgery to remove the small tumor from his liver, and doctors then used a relatively new immunotherapy and radiation treatment. Four months later, he was cancer free.

Maybe you saw news on social media in this month that Carter’s cancer was back. A tweet shared 26,000 times and then another tweet with 156,000 shares asked for prayers for Carter.

Fortunately it wasn’t so.

The Carter Center tweeted on Aug. 22: “Stories in the last day on social media stating that Jimmy Carter has cancer again are based on old news reports in 2015. There are no updates to our last statement about his health, and a recent scan showed no cancer.”

Carter has mostly refrained from criticizing the current president; he says he prays for him.

But, he allows, President Donald Trump is “very careless with the truth.”

This especially matters to Carter because during his 1976 campaign he closed nearly every speech with a pledge never to lie to the American people. The country was bruised and battered by the lies that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon.  

Reporters groaned when they heard the pledge, but the unknown Georgian impressed voters with his sincerity. Carter says he stuck to his pledge.

“I think I went through my campaign and my presidency without ever lying to the people or making a deliberately false statement,” he told John Dickerson Tuesday on “CBS This Morning. “And I think that would be a very worthwhile thing to reinsert into politics these days.”

In contrast, the Post Fact Checker tallied 4,229 false or misleading statements by Trump in 558 days.

Carter has inspired many to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, including talk show host David Letterman, who was in Indiana with him this week.  

Seeing Carter and working on the projects “is such a lovely break from the cynicism of life,” Letterman told Dickerson.

We could all use a break from cynicism. Thank you, Jimmy Carter.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Trump, GOP will own shutdown, if it happens -- April 20, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald Trump took credit for a Democrat’s failure to win a special election outright in Georgia’s 6^th Congressional District, forcing a run-off in June. 

“Glad to be of help!” he tweeted Tuesday night.

But if you want a true gauge of presidential clout, watch Congress as it wrestles with the prospect of yet another government shutdown. 

Americans have learned not to count on Congress to do much, but keeping the government open is a modest expectation. That goal, however, challenges Trump’s and congressional spending priorities.

Democrats have said no to Trump’s $1.4 billion request to build a border wall. They’re also fighting his proposed $18 billion in cuts to domestic programs to offset huge increases in defense spending.

Conservative Republicans still want to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, but saving it is a Democratic priority.

All this matters because Republicans likely will have to work with Democrats to avoid another government shutdown. Trump should help make a deal, but, as we know, he’s unpredictable.  

We’re here because Congress was unable to get its act together last December and passed a continuing resolution or temporary spending measure to avert a government shutdown. That spending authority expires Friday, the day before Trump’s 100^th day in office, which he’d rather spend talking up his accomplishments than explaining why national parks are closed.

Congress went on a two-week spring break without dealing with the spending issue. The Senate returns to Washington Monday and the House on Tuesday, leaving a few days to negotiate. 

The last government shutdown, in October 2013, dragged on for 16 full days, and the one before that lasted 21 full days before it ended in January 1996. Each cost taxpayers billions of dollars and caused major disruptions in services.

“There’s not going to be a shutdown,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, assured reporters the other day. These are the same people who promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Day One.

Congress could punt again and pass another temporary extension for a week, pushing the crisis into May, Politico reported.

Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats are preemptively blaming each other.      

“Our Republican colleagues know that since they control the House, the Senate, and the White House that a shutdown would fall on their shoulders, and they don’t want it,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-New York.

Republicans need eight Democratic votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, so Democrats are trying to use their leverage to stop Trump’s agenda.

“I think Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want a shutdown,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and architect of the last shutdown, told constituents in Texas the other day, the Texas Tribune reported.

This is rich coming from Cruz, who kept the Senate floor for 21 hours in 2013 in a vain attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act, a stunt that led to a budget standoff and then to the last shutdown.

Cruz’s antics demonstrated a truth about budget brinksmanship and government shutdowns: They don’t work. An omnibus spending bill passed, the ACA still stands, and Congress’ approval rating is a dismal 20 percent.

The cost of paying furloughed federal workers for not working during the 2013 shutdown was $2 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget, which also cited such additional indirect costs as uncollected fees, halted IRS enforcement measures and additional interest on payments that were late, due to the shutdown.

No matter how they spin it, Republicans would suffer political fallout of a shutdown. The stars haven’t misaligned to bring on a funding gap under single-party rule since the troubled presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Even if Congress manages to keep the government open this time, another crisis looms in the fall, when the debt ceiling is reached.

The potential shutdown is a test. Trump could demonstrate he cares more about governing than electioneering and support a compromise. Congressional Republicans could show they have more aptitude for governing than squabbling.

It shouldn’t be a big ask to keep the government’s lights on.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Ignored no more -- why this Super Tuesday matters -- Dec. 31, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley soon may be a footnote in history, but he made news the other day by simply showing up.

Braving a blizzard, O’Malley made it to Tama, Iowa, population 2,877, and found exactly one voter waiting for him.

“The very last event of the night, we actually had a whopping total of one person show up, but by God, he was glad to see me. So we spent the time with him,” O’Malley told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday.

O’Malley sat and talked with the man, identified only as Kenneth, about Syrian refugees, prison reform and other issues. In the end, though, Kenneth remained undecided. He needs to see some other candidates before making up his mind.

Of course he does. Iowa and New Hampshire voters expect to see the whites of presidential candidates’ eyes while voters elsewhere rarely catch a glimpse a contender in the flesh.

As the election year begins, candidates and the news media are focused on the first four contests – Iowa caucuses Feb. 1, New Hampshire primary Feb. 9, and South Carolina’s Republican primary and Nevada’s Democratic caucuses Feb. 20.

This year, though, another date looms large -- March 1. That’s Super Tuesday, when a dozen states hold presidential primaries or caucuses, the most on a single day. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia. 

Some have dubbed March 1 the “SEC primary” after the Southeastern Conference in college sports.

After the first Super Tuesday in 1988, former Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb, an architect of Super Tuesday, said it was intended to “reduce the influence of the so-called Iowa syndrome” and nationalize the political message. Southern Democrats also hoped it would give the region more clout.   

It hasn’t worked out that way, but in 2016 Super Tuesday may live up to its potential. It could do what Iowa and New Hampshire likely won’t do – winnow the crowded Republican field.

Super Tuesday states are getting more attention than usual. Ted Cruz took a bus tour of the South last summer and blitzed a dozen cities in a week in December. Marco Rubio stumped in Georgia and announced dozens of endorsements in Virginia. He plans a rally in Texas Jan. 6.

Donald Trump drew a huge crowd to a rally in Mobile, Ala., in August. Just how many attended was in dispute – he claimed 31,000 while some media outlets estimated about 20,000.

Determined to be ignored no more, Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill, a Republican, says he will promote visits by candidates of both parties, although deep red Alabama draws more Republican contenders.

Trump conceded the other day that he might not win Iowa. He was looking ahead to Super Tuesday when he lambasted Virginia Republicans for requiring a party loyalty pledge to vote in the primary. The pledge -- “My signature below indicates that I am a Republican” -- could turn off independents and Democrats who might be Trump voters.

“Suicidal mistake,” Trump tweeted.

If Super Tuesday delivers a Republican candidate that appeals broadly, it could finally weaken Iowa’s parochial influence. 

Iowa’s record picking nominees is dismal. Rick Santorum won the Republican caucuses in 2012 and Mike Huckabee won in 2008. After Lindsey Graham of South Carolina dropped his presidential bid the other day, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Graham told him he had learned two things about Iowa: “You need to love Jesus and ethanol.”  

Mitt Romney and John McCain won the New Hampshire primary in 2012 and 2008, respectively, and both became the party’s presidential nominees.

In the 2008 Democratic contests, Barack Obama won in Iowa – and Hillary Clinton came in third, behind John Edwards. She won the New Hampshire primary that year.

The hard truth is that most presidential candidates end up as also-rans. If they’re lucky, they may be remembered for a good line. Mo Udall was a Democratic congressman from Arizona when he ran for president in 1976. He finished second in six primaries the year Jimmy Carter rode his win in the Iowa caucuses to victory.

Udall often told a story about meeting some elderly fellows in a barber shop in New Hampshire, where he said, “I’m Mo Udall, and I’m running for president of the United States.”

“Yeah,” the barber replied, “We were just laughing about that this morning.”

©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

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How 'bout those girls? Daughter power in the White House -- Oct. 29, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Since Jimmy Carter was mocked for quoting his 13-year-old daughter Amy on nuclear proliferation, presidents have been careful about citing their daughters’ views on issues.

In a debate with Ronald Reagan a week before the 1980 election, President Carter said he’d asked Amy what was the most important issue, and, “She said she thought nuclear weaponry and the control of nuclear arms.”

Carter intended to use the conversation to personalize the nuke threat and show that it affects all ages, but most commentators hooted. He lost his re-election bid and there was not another daughter in the White House until Chelsea Clinton moved in with her parents in 1993.

Every election since 1992, though, voters have chosen a president with daughters, and the girls influence the dad-in-chief.

“I’ve got two daughters – I care about making sure these streets are safe,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday in Chicago as he called for tougher gun control measures.

When his daughter Malia suffered asthma as a 4-year-old, the experience influenced his views about the environment as well as health insurance, Obama has said. Because the family had good health insurance, “we were able to knock (the asthma) out early.” 

Obama has made climate change and health insurance priorities of his presidency.

Malia is now 17 and Sasha, 14. Dinner table conversations helped change his mind to support same-sex marriage, he said. The girls have friends whose parents are same-sex couples and they could not understand why those parents should be treated differently.

“It doesn’t make sense to them, and, frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective,” Obama said in a 2012 interview with ABC News.

The White House isn’t the only place where daughters’ opinions count. Academic research is mounting that daughters affect decisions in corporate boardrooms, courtrooms and in Congress.

Companies run by chief executives who have daughters have stronger corporate social responsibility ratings and spend more of their net income on corporate social responsibility than do companies whose CEOs have sons, the November issue of Harvard Business Review reports. 

For example, companies led by CEOs with daughters do more about and spend more on workforce diversity, employee relations and environmental stewardship, Henrik Cronqvist of the University of Miami and Frank Yu of China Europe International Business School found.

An earlier study found that when a member of Congress has a daughter, the representative is more likely to vote liberally, particularly on reproductive rights.

“Such a voting pattern does not seem to be explained away by constituency preferences, suggesting that not only does parenting affect preferences, but also that personal preferences affect legislative behavior,” Yale economist Ebonya Washington wrote in a 2007 paper.

After her landmark work, researchers studied the “daughters effect” on federal appeals court judges.

“Judges with daughters consistently vote in a more feminist fashion on gender issues than judges who have only sons,” Adam N. Glynn of Emory University and Maya Sen of Harvard University, wrote in an article published in January in American Journal of Political Science. Male Republican judges seem to be driving the trend, they said.

None of the studies looked closely at whether the gender of the CEO, judge or member of Congress matters more than that of his or her children, although researchers suspect it does.

After 22 years with First Daughters, voters next November will decide whether to extend or end girls’ long run in the White House.

Among the 2016 Republican presidential contenders, Donald Trump has two daughters and three sons ranging in age from 37 to 9. Marco Rubio has two daughters and two sons, while John Kasich has twin daughters,and Ted Cruz has two little girls.

Ben Carson has sons, and Jeb Bush has two sons and a daughter, all of them grown.

Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton’s daughter has a daughter, while Martin O’Malley has two daughters and two sons. Bernie Sanders has a grown son.

In 2012, you may recall, voters rejected Republican Mitt Romney, who has five sons and no daughters. Coincidence, you say? Sure.  But presidential candidates with daughters do have a good track record.

You likely won’t hear any of the candidates quoting their teenage daughters on nuclear arms this campaign season, but watch for the effect of daughter power if a candidate with girls is elected.

© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

NOTE: An earlier version said Jeb Bush had only sons. This has been corrected to include a daughter. 

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Politicians need not apply -- May 7, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Republican Carly Fiorina has never held elective office, although not for lack of trying.

In 2010 the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard sank $5.5 million of her own fortune into her Senate bid in California against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. Despite a Republican wave nationally, Fiorina lost.

So, when she announced her presidential bid on Monday, Fiorina tried to make a virtue of her inexperience.

“Our Founders never intended us to have a professional political class,” she said in a video. “They believed that citizens and leaders needed to step forward.”

Welcome to yet another presidential campaign in which amateur candidates hope voters will overlook their lack of political know-how, and no candidate admits to being a politician.

Fiorina isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate who’s starting at the top. Ben Carson, author and retired pediatric neurosurgeon, has never held or even run for office.  

“I’m not a politician,” Carson said Monday in Detroit, launching his campaign. “I don’t want to be a politician because politicians do what is politically expedient. I want to do what’s right.”

That may sound refreshing, but our political system often requires cooperation and compromise.

As the former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is no stranger to politics. After winning  the 2008 Iowa caucuses, he quit the race. He sat out 2012.  

When he entered the presidential contest Tuesday, Huckabee chided politicians, without mentioning any names, for the common practice of holding one office while seeking another, something several of his Republican competitors are doing.

“If you live off the government payroll and you want to run for (an) office other than the one you’ve been elected to, then at least have the integrity and decency to resign the one that you don’t want anymore,” Huckabee said.

Even seasoned politicians are distancing themselves from their calling. Bill Clinton amazingly declared in an interview the other day, “I’m not in politics.” Hillary Clinton has a resume as long as your arm, but her performance in office may be a liability.

The 2016 presidential race is starting to sound a lot like 2008, when another self-styled Washington outsider won favor.

Here’s Fiorina:  “If you’re tired of the sound bites, the vitriol, the pettiness, the egos, the corruption, if you believe it’s time . . . for citizens to stand up to the political class and say enough, then join us.”

And here’s freshman Sen. Barack Obama in 2008: “If you believe that part of the problem is the failed politics of Washington and the conventional thinking in Washington, if you’re tired of the backbiting and the scorekeeping and the special-interest-driven politics of Washington, if you want somebody who can bring the country together around a common purpose and rally us around a common destiny, then I’m your guy.”

Fiorina, likely the only woman in the GOP field, is positioning herself as the anti-Hillary, and Carson, likely the only black man, as the anti-Obama. Critics say neither has a chance of actually capturing the GOP presidential nomination.

That certainly will be true if they fail to land onstage at the Republican debates starting in August.  The Republican National Committee is working on the criteria for determining who will be eligible to participate.

In presidential politics, though, hope springs. The patron saint of long shots is Jimmy Carter. In 1974, Carter was such a confirmed nobody that when he went on the TV game show “What’s My Line?” not one of the panelists recognized him. He was governor of Georgia at the time. Two years later, he was elected president.

But Carter’s presidency was lackluster and Obama’s has suffered because he lacked the political skills to deal with the entrenched powers in Washington. Voters should remember that it takes more than a fresh face to get things done.

Hovering over the non-politicians is the specter of Herman Cain. The flamboyant pizza company executive and tea party darling surged in the polls of GOP presidential hopefuls in 2011, leading Mitt Romney by 20 points. Cain’s star plunged just as quickly, and he left the race amid charges of sexual impropriety.

No outsider wants to be the Herman Cain of 2016.   

© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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