Ballot Initiatives May Impact 2012 Election in Maryland

The possibility of two high profile ballot measures - repeal of the MD DREAM Act and Same-Sex marriage - may make the 2012 election in Maryland anything but boring.

Ordinarily, a presidential election year in Maryland is pretty boring stuff. No Republican presidential candidate has carried the state since George H. W. Bush in 1988 and no Republican has won a Senate race since Mac Matthias in 1980. In 2008 Maryland delivered Barack Obama one of his largest victory margins.

At first blush, one would be forgiven for expecting 2012 to be another boring presidential election year in the Free State. Though President Obama's approval rating nationally is languishing in the mid-forties his approval in Maryland is just north of 50% - thanks largely to the overwhelming support of African American voters. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin will be seeking election to a second term and in the midst of the 2010 Republican tidal wave, Cardin's senior counterpart, Barbara Mikulski, cruised to reelection with 60% of the vote.

Maryland's Congressional districts were just redrawn as well and the state's two safe Republican districts (the 1st on the Eastern shore and the 6th in Western Maryland) were reduced by half with Rep. Roscoe Bartlett's district redrawn to include a host of new Democratic voters from Montgomery county.

Normally, one would expect 2012 to be year in which Republicans and conservative Independents and Democrats might decide to stay home - but there's reason to believe that 2012 will be anything but a normal presidential election in Maryland. Indeed, 2012 may reveal serious divisions within the state's Democratic electorate and the creation of some strange political bedfellows.

During the 2011 legislative session, the General Assembly passed a controversial measure known as the Maryland DREAM act. Under the bill, signed into law by Governor O'Malley, the children of undocumented residents would be granted the opportunity to attend Maryland colleges and universities and pay in-state tuition. The public backlash to the new law was significant and with precious little effort or money an opposition group quickly gathered enough signatures to suspend the law and place it on the ballot in 2012. By design, it is very difficult in Maryland to mount a successful petition drive against a piece of legislation but organizers gathered twice the number of required signatures in record time.

The 2011 session also saw the defeat of Same-Sex marriage legislation. Though such measures have passed in the House of Delegates in the past they always died in the Senate. In 2011, the Maryland political world was shaken when then the Senate narrowly passed the measure. Under tremendous pressure from community religious leaders the bill died in the House when an unlikely coalition of black Democrats from Baltimore City and Prince Georges County joined with rural Democrats and Republicans in opposition to the bill.

Same-Sex marriage will be up for a vote during the 2012 session and if it is approved this time there is every expectation that another petition drive will place it on the ballot along with the DREAM Act in 2012.

To understand the potential impact of these two measures on the 2012 vote one need only review the new poll from Gonzales Research. The poll finds voters evenly divided on both measures with 49% opposing the DREAM Act and 48% supporting it. On same-sex marriage 49% favor it and 47% oppose it. The more interesting results, however, come from the results among specific voting blocs.

Democrats (62%) and Independents (56%) support same-sex marriage, but 76% of Republicans oppose it. Independents and Republicans make-up 40% of the state's electorate and the high level of opposition among Republicans coupled with the 4 in 10 Democrats and Independents opposed helps explain the state's split support. The more interesting division, however, is between Democrats overall and black voters (nearly all of whom vote Democratic in Maryland). Though 62% of Democrats support same-sex marriage, nearly the same share - 60% - of black voters oppose it. This represents a significant division among the Democratic electorate.

On the DREAM Act Republicans (71%) and Independents (52%) oppose it Democrats (61%) support it - but not overwhelmingly. Black voters (56%) support the measure.

So how can these numbers help us understand the 2012 election?

Ben Cardin vs. Anthony Muse
Prince Georges County Senate Democrat C. Anthony Muse has announced his intention to challenge Ben Cardin the Democratic party primary. Muse has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and voted against the measure in the 2011 session. Though Cardin enjoys a 68% approval rating among state Democrats, Muse could use the same-sex marriage issue to drive a wedge between Cardin and black voters and conservative Democrats. Cardin has spoken favorably with regard to protecting the civil rights of same-sex partners but has largely avoided taken a position on the issue of same-sex marriage. A challenge by Muse would likely force Cardin to take a firm position. If Cardin endorses same-sex marriage it may provide an opening for Muse.

Even if Cardin wins the nomination, a serious challenge by Muse could weaken him heading into November (Cardin only has a 51% job approval rating) and the presence of same-sex marriage on the ballot may undermine his support among black voters even as they turnout to reelect President Obama. If a credible GOP candidate could siphon some of the Black vote, or more realistically they withhold their vote for Senate, that combined with turn-out by social conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage and the DREAM Act could face Cardin with a serious challenge.

Maryland's 6th, 8th, and 2nd Congressional Districts
In the newly drawn 6th Congressional District, the ballot measures may save Roscoe Bartlett's job. Based on a vote analysis of the prior and newly adopted congressional districts one would expect a Democrat to win the new 6th district in a presidential election year. But, increased turn-out by conservatives and social conservative would likely make the electorate more similar to the 2010 midterm. In that case, Bartlett may just squeak to victory - dashing Democratic plans to claim a new seat in Congress.

Turn-out by social conservatives and any degree of dissension within the ranks of key Democratic voting blocs could spell trouble for Chris Van Hollen and his newly drawn and decidedly less Democratic 8th district as well as Dutch Ruppersberger in the 2nd district where black voters are crucial to his reelection success.

In the end, Maryland is a democratic state. Republicans have won statewide elections only twice in the last 32 years. Odds favor a strong democratic showing in 2012, but do not discount the impact of these two ballot measure and their potential to disrupt what would otherwise be a boring election year in Maryland.

Compromise in the Era of the True Believers

The recent handwringing on the Left and on the Right over the tax deal struck between President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans has provided a nice opportunity for Americans to see that there is in fact little difference between the far Left and the far Right in America - to be sure, they differ with regard to their stance on issues - but when it comes to the their arrogant, self-righteous, intransigence they are cut from the same cloth.

Political scientist E. E. Schattschneider once wrote,

Democracy is based on a profound insight into human nature, the realization that all men are sinful, all are imperfect, all are prejudiced, and none knows that whole truth…. Even when we disagree with other people we like to think that they speak from good motives and while we realize that all men are limited, we do not let ourselves imagine that any man is bad. Democracy is a political system for people who are not sure that they are right.

In other words, the very foundation of the democratic social contract is the understanding that no one philosophy or ideology is to be privileged above others. In contemporary American politics this is simply no longer the case. As political elites, be they Liberal or Conservative, have grown ever more polarized they have lost sight of the reality that "none knows that whole truth" and that at its heart "Democracy is a political system for people who are not sure that they are right."

Instead we live in an age when the Left and the Right have drifted so far apart that neither is able to see any good in the opposition. Last year, William Galston presciently warned,

"polarized partisanship creates a climate in which each party is likely to deny any truth or virtue to the other. But because no party has a monopoly on truth or virtue, this mindset all but rules out legislation that draws from the best ideas of both... partisan polarization tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Democrats feel sure that Republicans will only obstruct their legislative agenda, why allow them to participate in drafting it?"

In the midst of an ever more partisan and bitter era in American politics, and following a devastating electoral defeat for Democrats, President Obama and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell achieved the impossible - compromise. As the clock ticked down on tax rates enacted under George W. Bush and a Republican Congress many Democrats, still stinging from the midterm elections, demanded that only the tax rates for those earning less than $250,000 per year be extended. Republicans sought to maintain all tax rates at current levels. During his presidential campaign, Obama had promised to allow the upper income tax rates to expire. During the same time that Congress and the White House was discussing the issue of the tax rates, Congress was also considering an extension of federal unemployment benefits - but Republicans in the Senate were blocking the effort.

The deal struck between McConnell and the White House allowed for a temporary two-year extension of the Bush era tax rates, a temporary 2 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax, and a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits. The legislation passed the Senate by an impressive 81-19 margin and after considerable moaning by Democrats it passed the House with a bipartisan majority of 277-148.

Yet this tremendous victory has caused many on the Left to view President Obama as a traitor who betrayed his base. Some have even called for a primary challenge to Obama in 2012. It's enough to give a casual political observer whiplash. During the height of the health care debate the American Left defended Obama against attacks from the Right. Obama critics were derided as racists, radicals, birthers - all seeking to bring down the President. Now Obama has to deal with flak from his Left - his great treasonous crime? Compromise.

In his book "The True Believer" Eric Hoffer wrote

"It is the true believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and constancy. The fanatic cannot, can not be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason or moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.  Though they seem to be at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet. The fanatics of various hues eye each other with suspicion and are ready to fly at each other's throat. But they are neighbors and almost of one family. They hate each other with the hatred of brothers."

Those "true believers" on the Left who now decry President Obama as a traitor to the faith are little more than the dizygotic siblings of those on the Right who angrily dismiss the President as a socialist out to destroy America or who believe McConnell sold out. Left or Right, they are fanatics. Democrats lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives in the November midterm, they lost 6 Senate seats, and over 700 state legislative seats in the worst electoral rout in 70 years. Somehow, many Democrats have convinced themselves that the correct response is to entrench, to defend ever more vigorously progressive policies - seemingly oblivious to the fact that the 2010 losses were driven by the massive defection of Independent voters who felt that Democrats were already pursuing an agenda that was too far left. Meanwhile, conservatives and Tea Party folks in Congress have mistaken the voters repudiation if Obama and the Democrats. The greatest threat to the GOP in 2012 isn't Obama it's the possibility of Tea Party intransigence.

President Obama got the message of the 2010 midterms, the tax deal is evidence of that and probably the first significant mile marker in his road to reelection. Mitch McConnell got the message as well and provided a significant boost to Congressional Republicans. Congressional Democrats seem clueless.

What has been too often lost in the discussion of the tax compromise are the effects that it is having on other legislation. Now that the tax deal is out of the way it is very likely that the Senate will join the House and vote to repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the Senate is likely to ratify the START treaty - it's event possible that the Dream Act will pass the Senate - none of this would have been possible without the compromise on taxes.

The far Left thinks that President Obama sacrificed too much, the far Right suspects the same of Senate Republicans. All I can say is, if the fanatics are angry, it must have been a damn good compromise. It's not the bill I would have preferred, but I welcome the precedent that it may set for future relations between the White House and Congressional Republicans.