Brookings Press Blog

On Economist.com, PRIMARY POLITICS Author Elaine Kamarck Debates the Obama Administration’s Record with Cato’s David Boaz

In an online Oxford-style debate moderated by The Economist’s Washington correspondent Robert Guest, Elaine Kamarck is currently arguing against the motion, “This house believes that Barack Obama is failing.” Kamarck notes that public trust in government has declined as dissatisfaction with job creation efforts, banking reform, and mortgage assistance programs has grown. The president has also failed to rally the public to his side in the debate over health care reform.

“Obama's first-year troubles,” she says, “were entirely predictable. In fact, in November 2008, my colleague William Galston and I did exactly that. In a long article titled ‘Change You Can Believe in Needs a Government You Can Trust,’ we reviewed the decades of data from the American public showing a severe and persistent lack of trust in the federal government. This lack of trust is an especially difficult problem for a Democratic president with an activist and progressive agenda.”

Nonetheless, Kamarck argues, the administration is now on the right path: “The fix began in the State of the Union address. I carefully watched the clock. It took 40 minutes for him to even mention the words ‘health care.’ And in the 40 minutes before that he talked of nothing but the economy and jobs. The State of the Union was a recalibration of his presidency that will limit his losses in the midterm elections to within the normal range and guarantee his re-election….Obama got the most important message when he said, ‘We face a deficit of trust—deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years.’ This is not a man who will fail. This is a man who will learn and thrive.”

- Join the live debate.

- Read David Brooks’s take on “politics in the age of distrust.”

- Learn more about Primary Politics.

Following the SOTU, Daniel Gitterman Analyzes the Democrats’ Dilemma on Tax Relief

The economy was the centerpiece of President Obama’s first State of the Union address, delivered on Wednesday. As the president noted, “This recession has compounded the burdens that America's families have been dealing with for decades–-the burden of working harder and longer for less; of being unable to save enough to retire or help kids with college.”

Later in his speech, the president explained some of his administration’s efforts to target this problem: “That's why last year I asked Vice President Biden to chair a task force on middle-class families. That's why we're nearly doubling the child care tax credit, and making it easier to save for retirement by giving access to every worker a retirement account and expanding the tax credit for those who start a nest egg. That's why we're working to lift the value of a family's single largest investment–-their home.”

These are likely to be popular proposals, but they also highlight the return of what Boosting Paychecks author Daniel Gitterman calls “the Democrats’ dilemma”—choosing between targeting tax relief to working poor families who need it most or targeting it to moderate- and middle-income families who make up a much larger share of the electorate and who are also facing tough times.

Commenting on Wednesday’s speech, Gitterman, who serves as a senior policy adviser to North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, noted:

“In 1993, Clinton expanded the EITC for working poor and moderate income families; after the 1994 Republican takeover, it was all about middle-income families.

“Obama is walking the same walk: Obama ‘08 recognized that ensuring affordable child care is critical to helping working parents get ahead. His plan was to reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit on the first $6,000 of child care expenses. This would benefit 7.5 million working mothers.

“Obama ‘10, in his State of the Union, called on Congress to nearly double the child care credit for families earning less than $85,000—which would lower by $900 the taxes such families owe to the government. But the credit would not be refundable, meaning that low-income families would not get cash payments if they owe no individual income taxes.

"It’s the Democrats’ dilemma redux.”

- See the full text of the State of the Union.

- Find more details on the administration’s middle-class agenda.

- Learn more about Boosting Paychecks.

National Parks Traveler interviews author Bill Lowry, author of "Repairing Paradise"

In a recent interview with Bill Lowry, National Parks Traveler calls Repairing Paradise "a book valuable for national park lovers who want to better understand how the parks' resources are both impacted and managed, and for advocacy groups seeking to affect change.” The article considers how politics affects the National Park Service and its ability to provide stewardship to the land it is mandated to protect. It also looks at the role that public support played in introducing wolves back into Yellowstone National Park.


- Read the article by National Parks Traveler

- Learn more about Repairing Paradise

Will Sarah Palin be the 2012 Republican nominee for president? How the GOP’s winner-take-all primaries could boost her chances

The release of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s new book, Going Rogue, is creating a lot of buzz. Many political observers wonder if her book tour is laying the groundwork for a run for president in 2012. Could such a polarizing figure win the Republican nomination?  Walter Shapiro outlines a possible scenario in his Politics Daily column.

Republican Party rules are made-to-order for a well-funded insurgent named Sarah to sweep the primaries before anyone figures out how to stop her. If Palin can maintain, say, 35-percent support in a multi-candidate presidential field, then she is the odds-on favorite for the GOP nomination.

The secret of Palin's presidential potential is the Republican Party's affection for winner-take-all primaries. According to my friend Elaine Kamarck's invaluable new book, Primary Politics, 43 percent of the 2008 Republican delegates were selected in primaries where the winner corralled all the delegates by winning a state or congressional district.

Illustrating how candidates have used the delegate counts to create momentum is one of the topics Kamarck discusses in Primary Politics. The book offers an insider’s view of how the presidential nomination process became the often baffling system we have today.

- Read the full article

- Learn more about Primary Politics

Elaine Kamarck Interview on "Primary Politics": Presidential Nominating Process is Out of Control

Elaine Kamarck recently appeared on BroadSide, a program from New England Cable News. Talking about her book Primary Politics, Kamarck said the presidential nominating process is out of control. If she could change one thing, she “would allow the later states, the states in May and June, to be winner takes all.” This adjustment would focus the candidates’ attention on the people of states who are often overlooked in the primary elections.

- Learn more about Primary Politics

“Primary Politics” Event Wrap Ups

Blogger and columnist Tom Schaller offers two recaps of the recent Brookings event for Elaine Kamarck’s new book Primary Politics. In a post on the blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Schaller outlines the main points presented by the panelists and offers his own observations. He writes that “Kamarck noted that for the first time the Republicans, who historically have only permitted rule changes to be considered at their quadrennial national conventions, are now also looking at their own presidential nomination process during the interim between 2008 and 2012.”

In his column in the Baltimore Sun, Schaller emphasized that the rules of the primaries matter. They can and do affect the outcome of elections. He quotes Kamarck as saying that “last year the Democrats' proportional allocation rule for delegates prevented Mrs. Clinton from racking up delegates in the big primary states she won, including New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Had all state contests been winner-take-all, Kamarck estimates the former New York senator would have won the primary by about 300 delegates.”

- Read more about the event on FiveThirtyEight.com

- Check out Tom Schaller’s column in the Baltimore Sun

- View the transcript of the event

- Learn more about Primary Politics

Brookings Hosts Discussion of "Primary Politics"

Elaine Kamarck, Dan Balz, and Walter Shapiro to speak on October 9

On Friday, October 9, Washington Post political correspondent Dan Balz and PoliticsDaily.com columnist Walter Shapiro will join Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Elaine Kamarck to discuss the past and future of the presidential nominating system. Kamarck is the author of the new book Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System. The discussion will be moderated by Brookings senior fellow William Galston. This event is part of the Governing Ideas series, which is intended to broaden the discussion of governance issues through forums on timely and relevant books on history, culture, legal norms and practices, values, and religion.

- Register for the event

- Learn more about Primary Politics

Elaine Kamarck to Speak on Political Partisanship at the University of Virginia

On Friday, October 2, Primary Politics author and DNC member Elaine Kamarck will join Washington Post columnist and Brookings senior fellow E.J. Dionne; William Kristol, editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard; and Sidney M. Milkis, White Burkett Miller Professor of Politics, for a panel discussion titled “Party Animals: Is Political Partisanship Obama's Problem or Solution?”. The session, which begins at 1:30 p.m., will be moderated by media columnist Edward Wasserman and is cosponsored by UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, Washington and Lee University, and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

- Read more about the event.

- See Austin American-Statesman’s coverage of Primary Politics.

Government goes ‘wiki’ in the 21st century

Beth Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, launches discussion on emergent online democracy

In an event hosted by the Markle Foundation, Beth Simone Noveck, author of Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful, led a 50-plus person discussion in New York City while the rest of the world connected via satellite to the MacArthur Island conference amphitheater in Second Life. This could very much be the model for modern government in the near future. Noveck, who is the Obama administration’s deputy Chief Technology Officer for the Open Government initiative, led a 30-minute discussion on ways the public can use emerging technologies and social media to govern, address, and solve problems more effectively. With the rise of multimedia networks such as YouTube, Twitter, and even blogs, Noveck believes that government can also tap into the emerging resource that connects the government to more citizens and broadens the prospects of open government.

In a visionary, yet pragmatic way, Wiki Government explains how the vision of a true democratic government can be transformed into reality and reveals the ways an innovative government can tackle the needs and opportunities of the 21st century.

- Learn more about Wiki Government

- Read articles on the event from the Markle Foundation and Second Life

Steven Kelman and Henry J. Aaron: Authors in the News

In the realm of research, Washington Post writer Joe Davidson asserted that many studies on how to improve the federal government “plow the same ground and can be as dull as a worn rug.” However, in the July 8 article “Leaders Who Succeeded – And Those Who Didn’t”, Davidson cites one recent study led by Steven Kelman, author of Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government for its innovation. The study, titled “What It Takes to Change Government” [pdf], breaks new ground by examining failed, rather than successful, government leaders. Kelman and others found that failed politicians “spent too much time hobnobbing with other bigwigs and not enough time with people on the shop or office floor,” according to Davidson.

On the same day, the Washington Post published an article titled “In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?” regarding the ever-evolving health care debate. One of the largest questions looming seems to be, as staff writer Alec Gillis puts it, “In a country where ‘rationing’ is a dirty word, who will say no?” In his study of the issue, Gillis turned to Henry J. Aaron, co-author of Can We Say No? The Challenge of Rationing Health Care. According to Gillis, Aaron said that “real cost reform would mean giving all physicians incentives to leave behind the fee-for-service model for accountable care networks,” a transition that could take some time. Asserting the reality of the situation, Aaron claimed, “We're just not going to be able to all have everything . . . regardless of cost.”

- Learn more about Unleashing Change

- Read Joe Davidson’s article “Leaders Who Succeeded – And Those Who Didn’t”

- Read "What It Takes to Change Government," the report co-authored by Steven Kelman [pdf]

- Learn more about Can We Say No?

- Read Alex Gillis’ article “In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?”