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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Women's equality -- yes, it's political -- Sept. 20, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Asked when there will be enough women on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a ready answer.

“When there are nine,” she says. “People are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”

Ginsburg’s provocative response came to mind during the debacle surrounding President Donald Trump’s selection of Brett Kavanaugh for the nation’s highest court. Trump could have nominated a woman.

After all, President Ronald Reagan nominated the first woman justice – Sandra Day O’Connor.

We’re nowhere near Ginsburg’s goal. Only three of the nine are women – Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. 

Not that choosing a woman to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy would have guaranteed smooth sailing. It’s easy to imagine Trump choosing the wrong woman just as President George W. Bush did in 2005.

Bush crashed on the rocks of public opinion with his ill-conceived choice of White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace O’Connor. Miers, who had no judicial experience, was such an unsuitable pick she withdrew before her confirmation hearing.

Bush then chose federal appellate judge Samuel Alito, who is one of the most conservative justices.

Americans consistently tell pollsters they’d like to see more women leaders in both politics and business.

Majorities of Americans say having more women in top positions in government and business would improve the quality of life for everyone, for men and for women, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey released Thursday.

But there’s a gender gap. Seven in 10 women say there should be more women in high political office and in top business jobs, but only about half of men say so.

And – no surprise -- Democrats and Republicans see the state of women’s equality very differently. Nearly eight in 10 Democrats and Democratically-leaning independents say too few women hold high political office, but only one in three Republicans and Republican-leaners think so.

With the most women running for Congress ever, the looming question for the midterms is whether voters will make this truly a Year of the Woman.

The dismal approval rating of the Republican-controlled Congress – still bumping the bottom at 19 percent in the latest Gallup poll – suggests a desire for change.

Only 31 percent of Republicans approve of the way Congress handles its job, but that’s far higher than the 8 percent of Democrats who approve. Among independents, 17 percent approve of the job Congress is doing.

The current Congress has a record 112 women – 89 in the House and 23 in the Senate – but that’s only 21 percent of the total. Most the women are Democrats – 64 in the House and 17 in the Senate.

For a sense of how long it’s taken women to get this far, 52 women have ever served in the Senate and 23 are serving now.

Of the 53 women who filed to run for the U.S. Senate this year, 23 made it through their primaries and are still in the running. In the House, 239 of the 476 women who filed are still in the running, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Several Democratic women in the House are forming Elect Democratic Women, a PAC inspired by the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus, that plans to raise money for female Democratic candidates.

“We really feel very strongly that better decisions will be made by government when it represents the diverse population it is supposed to represent,” Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Florida, chairwoman of the group, told Politico.

Winning for Women PAC, whose leaders include former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, formed last year to endorse conservative candidates and serve as a counterweight to EMILY’s List, the powerful Democratic group that endorses abortion rights candidates.   

The competing PACs are emerging as women worry women candidates may be losing ground. Women are more doubtful now than they were four years ago that voters are ready to elect women, Pew found.

In 2014, about 41 percent of women thought the main reason women were underrepresented in high political offices was voters weren’t ready to elect women. Now, after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, 57 percent of women say they think voters aren’t ready.  

We’ll know the night of Nov. 6.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Write-in for president? Not so fast -- Oct. 20, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

You say you can’t stand voting for the presidential candidates on the ballot, so you’re going to write in Mickey Mouse, your own name -- or mine? Don’t. Really.  

Yes, several prominent Republicans say they will write in GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence for president because they can’t abide Donald Trump. They include Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Rob Portman of Ohio.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he might write in the name of his buddy Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

The urge to protest the presidential choice is strong, but a write-in could be wrong. You might as well tear your ballot into tiny pieces and swallow them as write in someone’s name, even Pence or Bernie Sanders -- unless you do your homework.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, won a write-in campaign for re-election in 2010 after losing the GOP primary, but no write-in presidential candidate has ever won a single state.

Votes for a third party or write-in candidate could tip close states to one candidate or the other, however. Hillary Clinton finally called on Al Gore to make the point.

“Your vote really, really, really counts. A lot. You can consider me as an Exhibit A of that truth,” Gore said at a Clinton rally in Miami Oct. 11.

In the 2000 presidential election, Gore came within a whisker of winning Florida’s popular vote and the White House. Many Democrats still blame Ralph Nader for Gore’s loss.

It’s worth reviewing this bit of ancient history. In the official Florida tally, George W. Bush beat Gore by 537 votes – and Nader got 97,488 votes.

Nader was on the ballot as the Green Party presidential candidate, so his votes counted. Each state sets its own election rules, though, and many states are unfriendly to write-ins.

In 34 states, including Virginia, write-in presidential candidates must file papers with the state before the election. Otherwise their votes don’t count.

A write-in presidential candidate in Virginia needs to submit to the state a list of 13 electors at least 10 days before Election Day. Alabama does not require advanced paperwork, but Tennessee does.

In Florida, write-in presidential candidates must file an oath with the state in order to have a blank space provided for their names to be written in on the general election ballot.

A write-in presidential candidate in Florida must file the form and a list of electors “at any time after the 57^th day, but before noon of the 49^th day, prior to the date of the primary election in the year in which a presidential election is held,” according to Florida law.

Got that?

Only seven states allow voters to write in whomever they please for president, and nine states don’t allow presidential write-in votes at all.

Presidential candidates also must file with the Federal Election Commission. So far, more than 1,800 individuals have filed paperwork as presidential candidates with the FEC.

Clinton, Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson are on ballots in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is on the ballot in 44 states and D.C., and she has qualified as a write-in in three other states. 

Independent Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, insists he has a shot largely as a write-in candidate at the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House.

On the ballot in only two states, Kotlikoff says by Election Day he will be registered as a write-in in all but one of the states that require certification.  

Independent Evan McMullin, a conservative who made news when a poll in usually red-state Utah put him in a tight race with Trump and Clinton, told NPR Sunday he is on the ballot in 11 states and will be on the ballot or certified as a write-in in 43 to 45 states by Election Day.

It’s totally understandable that voters appalled by Clinton and Trump would want to protest by writing in someone else’s name. The smart thing to do first: Check with your local election office whether a write-in vote for president will be tallied.

Make sure “your vote really, really, really counts.”

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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