democracynow.org
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ˈäləˌɡärkē/
noun
a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.
"the ruling oligarchy of military men around the president"
a country governed by an oligarchy.
"the English aristocratic oligarchy of the 19th century"
government by oligarchy.]
We get reaction to the Republicans’ big midterm victory from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. "What frightens me is what Citizens United has done to the politics of this country and the ability of billionaires like the Koch brothers and others to put unprecedented sums of money into elections," Sanders says. "I fear that we may be on the verge of becoming an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control not just the economy, but the political life of this country. And that’s just something we’re going to have wrestle with."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: [This is] Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, on this day after. That’s right. Last night, Tuesday night, during Democracy Now!’s five-hour special broadcast, Juan González and I spoke with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, just as it started to become clear from early election results that the Senate was clearly going to be controlled by Republicans.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What I do know is that if in fact the Republicans carry the Senate and control the Congress, as they may, I think it will be a disaster for the middle-class and working families of this country. And we’re just going to have to figure out how we can fight back as effectively as we can.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what do you see as the options for—in case that does turn out to be the result tonight, what do you see the options in terms of how President Obama can move forward any kind of a Democratic or progressive agenda in the remaining two years?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think it’s quite far-fetched to believe that he can move forward a progressive agenda. I think the immediate effort will be to stop to have more tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations, which the Republicans will certainly bring forward. I think under the guise of, quote-unquote, "entitlement reform," they will be making efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. They’ll go after Medicaid. They’ll go after education. They’ll go after nutrition. They’ll probably want to increase funding for the military. And my guess is, with all of the money from the Koch brothers coming in and the other fossil fuel industries, they’ll continue to ignore scientific evidence about climate change. So, I think we’re going to be more of a defensive mode trying to prevent bad things than having illusions at this point about doing good things.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders, your state has struggled with your Obamacare website. It has caused a very major issue particularly in Vermont, because of the quest by Governor Shumlin and many others to make Vermont the first single-payer state. Can you talk about the significance of this and what it will mean?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, it’s obviously a negative. I mean, I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. I think if you want to provide quality care to all people in a cost-effective way, that is the approach you have got to go. Clearly, it is not a good thing for a state government, or in fact federal government, not to be able to run a website which is accountable and works well for people. So, that’s a negative. But I hope very much that despite that, we’ll go forward and be the first state in the country to pass a single payer.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, one argument that even Governor Shumlin has used is that, you know, Obamacare is complicated—
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —and that that is not the ultimate answer. And this, the downing of your website, proves this.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Look, what you need—the American healthcare system is enormously complicated. And when you have a system that is complicated, it becomes very, very expensive, and we end up spending approximately 30 percent of every healthcare dollar in the administration and profiteering and everything else. Clearly, in my view, and I think the view of a whole lot of Americans, healthcare should be a right. We should fund it through public funding in a progressive way, and people should be able to go to the doctor they want in the hospital they want. And it turns out that in our country we spend—and people don’t understand this—we spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare as do the people of any other nation, precisely because it is a complicated, bureaucratic, confusing and profit-oriented system.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders, the issue of the minimum wage, in all the states that it is being introduced, the ballot initiative being voted on in Alaska, in Arkansas, in Nebraska, in South Dakota, even if they’re Republican states, it is overwhelmingly, two, three to one, being voted for. What message does this send to your Democratic colleagues?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, Amy, that’s an excellent point, and it’s a very important point. And it’s not just the minimum wage. On economic issues, whether it’s raising the minimum wage, whether it’s pay equity for women workers, whether it’s investing in rebuilding our infrastructure and creating millions of decent-paying jobs, whether it is making college education affordable and ending this burden of student indebtedness that so many young people have, guess what. The vast majority of the people want change.
But what I think the Republicans have done, with the support of the media, is allow—is prevent us from focusing on those issues. And what the Republicans have done is made this a referendum, is: Are you satisfied with the economy? Well, you know what? Most people, including myself, are not satisfied with the economy today. But what they have done is had us forget where we were six years ago, and also had no discussion—you tell me what you’ve heard about Republican plans for the future on economic issues. Do you think the American people want more tax breaks for the rich and large corporations or cuts in Social Security and Medicare? Of course they don’t. Do you think the Republicans talked about that one bit? Absolutely not. But let me tell you something. If they win control of the Senate, that’s exactly what they will be talking about.
Last point I will make before I have to get off is, what frightens me very much is what Citizens United has done to the politics of this country and the ability of billionaires like the Koch brothers and others to put unprecedented sums of money into elections. And it frightens me very much, because I fear that we may be on the verge of becoming an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control not just the economy, but the political life of this country. And that’s just something we’re going to have to wrestle with.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Bernie Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont, who is exploring whether to run for president as he travels the country. We were speaking to him in his home state.
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Republicans have emerged from Tuesday’s midterm elections with control of Congress for the first time in eight years by winning key Senate seats and strengthening their majority in the House. Republican candidates won at least 10 of the day’s 13 closely contested Senate races, giving the party control of the Senate for the first time since 2007. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is expected to become the next Senate majority leader after defeating Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in one of the nation’s highest-profile contests. McConnell has played a leading role in fighting campaign finance reform and supporting the Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates to unlimited election spending. The $4 billion price tag made this election the most expensive midterm in history. We look at the Kentucky race and what to expect out of a McConnell-led Senate with Phillip Bailey, a freelance journalist in Louisville.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A Republican rout. That’s how Tuesday’s election, the most expensive midterm election in history, is being described after the Republicans took control of the Senate, strengthened its control in the House and took a number of key gubernatorial races.
Republican candidates won at least 10 of the day’s 13 closely contested Senate races, giving the party control of the Senate for the first time since 2007. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is expected to become the next Senate majority leader, after he withstood a challenge from Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who refused to say during the campaign whether she had voted for President Obama, although she had been once an Obama delegate. Three sitting Democratic senators lost races. In North Carolina, Thom Tillis defeated Kay Hagan. In Arkansas, Tom Cotton unseated Senator Mark Pryor. And in Colorado, Senator Mark Udall lost to Congressmember Cory Gardner. The political landscape could still worsen for the Democrats, as the Senate race in Alaska remains too close to call and Louisiana is headed for a runoff in December.
This is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking last night at his victory speech in Louisville, Kentucky.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Tonight, they said we can have real change in Washington. Real change. And that’s just what I intend to deliver. So, friends, tonight turns a corner, and the future I see is a bright one. Americans have seen that what the current crowd in Washington is offering is making us weaker both at home and abroad. They have had enough. You know, there’s an old saying that’s often attributed to Winston Churchill that I’m reminded of. Here’s what he said about us, about Americans. He said, "You know the Americans. They always do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else first."
AMY GOODMAN: The Republicans also picked up at least 10 more House seats, giving the party its largest majority since World War II.
President Obama is facing a similar predicament as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the last three presidents to serve two terms. They all governed for the final two years with the opposition controlling both chambers of Congress.
The Republican Party also strengthened its control in gubernatorial races as Republican candidates in Maryland, Arkansas, Illinois and Massachusetts took control of seats that had previously been held by Democrats. A number of sitting Republican governors also overcame strong challenges, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Florida’s Rick Scott and Michigan’s Rick Snyder. In one of the rare Democratic upsets on Tuesday, Tom Wolf is projected to have beaten incumbent Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Corbett. Republicans also picked up gubernatorial victories in the traditional blue states of Massachusetts and Illinois.
We begin our show in Kentucky. Phillip Bailey is a freelance journalist in Louisville. He’s a former political editor at the local NPR affiliate radio station, WFPL.
Phillip, why don’t you talk about this extremely significant race, not only for Kentucky, but for the nation, since the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, could now become the Senate majority leader if Republicans decide to choose him? Talk about this race, Phillip Bailey.
PHILLIP BAILEY: Yeah, I think that, you know, this is what Mitch McConnell has always wanted. The coveted position since he was first elected way back in 1984 was to be Senate majority leader. He is all but guaranteed to get that position. There seems to be really no one else who wants the job or Republicans are galvanizing around, even though there have been a few who say they don’t want to vote for McConnell, or they don’t want to answer the question, at least. I think it’s all but assured that Mitch McConnell will be Senate majority leader.
There are a few questions. During this campaign, reporters really weren’t clear on—in asking the senator what the agenda was, if he took over the Senate. McConnell would say, "Well, I don’t want to show my hand too early. Let’s not measure the drapes." So, we’re all interested to see what exactly is going to happen with this new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. Will there be more cooperation with President Obama? Will President Obama be more aggressive?
McConnell has often said on the campaign trail, "I was the defensive coordinator; now I get to be the offensive coordinator." Those are two very different roles. On defense, a large part of what you do is to cause problems for the offense, to disrupt. Many Democrats would refer to McConnell as "Mr. Obstructionist" or "the doctor of dysfunction." Well, now he has to govern, as well. And particularly for Republicans going into 2016, it’s important for them to show how they can govern, as many show, the exit polls, that the American voters are very frustrated with Congress overall. No matter how unpopular President Obama is, Congress is less popular. So, Americans seem to be saying, "Let’s get something done, anything done." So we’re all interested to see how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can get that accomplished.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to Senator McConnell speaking last night in Louisville.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Some things don’t change after tonight. I don’t expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. He knows I won’t, either.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mitch McConnell. Phillip, can you talk about what the key issues were in Kentucky and why this senator—who was the minority leader, could become the majority leader—actually really was given quite a run for his money? And it was a lot of money.
PHILLIP BAILEY: Yeah, exactly. I mean, one thing is, Mitch McConnell, probably more than any other politician in the United States, is associated with being the architect of Citizens United. He has often said that money is speech. He has filed amicus briefs in many of those Supreme Court cases seeking to tear down McCain-Feingold or campaign finance law. So this race, in many ways, was Mitch McConnell’s dream come true, and you did see somewhere north of $80 million spent in it.
The question is: What did that money get us besides a bunch of TV ads? There was only one debate. For the most part, the candidates talked about coal and President Obama, McConnell saying and his allies saying that Grimes would be a surrogate for Obama, Grimes spending a large part of her time saying, "I’m not Barack Obama," literally saying that in a TV commercial. So the question is: With all this money in politics, what does it actually get voters? We didn’t have a conversation, for example, about a lot of infrastructure issues in Kentucky. Heroin, the epidemic here in the state, did not come up. We certainly didn’t have a conversation about Internet broadband access. A large part of it was spent on coal, with both candidates trying to show who’s more of a champion for coal. Very little conversation came up about, well, how does the free market impact coal, and the idea that it costs more money to extract coal from the ground. So, a lot of that was missed in this campaign, but it certainly did buy a lot of entertaining ads.
As far as Grimes, she did initially think—people thought that she was going to give McConnell a run for her money, which is why many, I think, Democrats left with their jaws dropped, considering she lost by 15 points, pretty much a blowout, and that she only won, I believe, nine or 10 counties in the entire state out of the 120 counties. So, this was a rout, as far as that race was concerned. But Democrats still did hold onto state House. But still, no one really expected Grimes to lose the way she did. She underperformed heavily in Democratic strongholds like Louisville and Lexington. So you do have a lot of Democrats pointing figures at each other now, trying to figure out what went wrong. I think the McConnell campaign had probably the easiest and best strategy the entire summer: Barack Obama is unpopular, she’s Barack Obama, make me Senate majority leader, Kentucky will be in power. That is essentially what Mitch McConnell said for a year and a half, and that’s what Kentucky voters supported.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board, refusing to reveal whether she voted for President Barack Obama.
REPORTER: Did you vote for President Obama, 2008, 2012?
ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES: You know, this election, it isn’t about the president. It’s about—
REPORTER: I know, but did you vote for him?
ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES: —making sure we put Kentuckians back to work. And—
REPORTER: Did you vote for him?
ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES: I was actually in '08 a delegate for Hillary Clinton. And I think that Kentuckians know I'm a Clinton Democrat through and through. I respect the sanctity of the ballot box, and I know that the members of this editorial board do, as well.
REPORTER: So you’re not going to answer.
AMY GOODMAN: So she has referred to herself as a Clinton Democrat, but not an Obama Democrat. And didn’t this non-answer, though she had been an Obama delegate at the convention earlier and was then secretary of state of Kentucky, sort of emblematic of Democrats around the country, Phillip Bailey, when it came to their relationship with President Obama in this election?
PHILLIP BAILEY: More so than any single Democrat, that answer probably epitomized the problem that the national Democratic Party and Democrats had in this midterm election: How do you reconcile running in states where Barack Obama lost, when he’s still the head of your party? It was surprising, given that Grimes understood very early on that this was going to be the strategy, that she was so unprepared for that question. At first she tries to sort of blow through with a talking point. Then she says, "Well, I was a Clinton delegate." And then she just creates this very weird answer of, "Well, I don’t want to say anything. It’s the sanctity of the vote." Well, you’re running for U.S. Senate. Voters and other folks are interested in who you voted for. So there were many ways for her to answer that. That came off to a lot of folks as phony, to be quite honest.
If you look at the turnout numbers—take Louisville, for example, which is a Democratic stronghold, you have half a million Democrats registered, far more than Republicans in the city. John Yarmuth, who represents a good portion of the city with his district, a liberal congressman, the only Democrat representing Kentucky in Washington, got about 157,000 votes. Grimes only got 144,000 votes from more precincts in Louisville. So that disconnect right there shows that there were some Democrats, probably the liberal Democrats, who said, "You know what? I’m not going to associate myself with Alison Lundergan Grimes. She doesn’t want to associate herself with Obama. She doesn’t want to stick up for the environment."
So, what many Democrats I hear saying this morning are—what they’re saying is, once again, Kentucky Democratic Party officials have run a lukewarm candidate, someone who was trying to be a Republican, and this is what you get. Now you have a Mitch McConnell blowout. Remember, about a year and half ago, many Democrats were arguing about whether it should be Ashley Judd running for U.S. Senate. And many moderate to conservative Democrats said, "Well, if Ashley Judd runs, she’ll get blown out by 15, 20 points."
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Phillip Bailey, I want to thank you for being with us, freelance journalist in Louisville, Kentucky, former political editor at the local NPR affiliate radio station, WFPL. When we come back from break, we’ll be joined by Lee Fang, who has been investigating the money trail. Yes, Mitch McConnell was given a run for his money—and there was plenty of money. Did money win big in these midterm elections, the most expensive, $4 billion, in history? Stay with us.
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With their newfound control of both houses of Congress, the Republican agenda includes a rollback of environmental regulations, including President Obama’s new rules limiting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. We discuss this prospect with Lee Fang, a reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, and blogger about money and politics at the the Republic Report. "This Republican majority owes its fortunes to a small number of fossil companies who were very big campaign spenders," Fang says. "And the next Congress will see some of the most avowed climate change deniers taking control of key congressional committees in the Senate and in the House."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. And this is the day after—I’m Amy Goodman—the day after the midterm elections of 2014 that cost $4 billion. Our guest now is Lee Fang, reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, blogs about money in politics at the Republic Report. He did a recent investigation for The Nation headlined "Mitch McConnell’s Freighted Ties to a Shadowy Shipping Company." He has also blogged about how if the GOP takes the Senate, climate change deniers will control key committees.
Why don’t we start there, then go back to Mitch McConnell, Lee Fang? Talk about what the Republican Senate will look like when it comes to the leadership of the committees. Among those who won last night was Oklahoma Senator Inhofe.
LEE FANG: Hi, Amy. Good morning. This Republican majority owes its fortunes to a small number of fossil fuel companies. The conservative Koch brothers, several coal companies, natural gas companies were very big campaign spenders. And in the next Congress, we’ll see some of the most avowed climate change deniers taking control of key congressional committees in the Senate and in the House. In the Senate, Senator Jim Inhofe, the most outspoken critic of climate change science, will take control of the Environment Committee. Senator Ron Johnson, another outspoken critic of climate change science, will take control of the Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee. It’s possible that Senator Ted Cruz, yet another climate change skeptic, will control the Science Subcommittee within the Commerce Committee. That’s the committee that controls federal science research.
And it’s likely that these fossil fuel companies spent big on this election because they’re looking for something in return, that being pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back or delay its proposed rules on carbon emissions. There are rules that are coming up that deal with existing coal-fired power plants. These are power plants that were built in the '40s, ’50s and ’60s, with very outdated technology, that are significant drivers of carbon emissions. The Obama administration has proposed these rules, and it's likely that the new Republican Congress will pressure the EPA to delay them or maybe even attach a budget rider that says that the EPA will not be funded to carry out these rules. That could set the stage for another government shutdown, like the similar dynamic that happened last year when a budget rider was attached attempting to defund the Affordable Care Act, better known as "Obamacare."
As part of a broader dynamic, though, the House Science Committee in the last Congress, for one of the very first times in history, began subpoenaing government scientists, attempting to harass them and then pressure them to back away from air pollution rules. With Republicans now in control of the Senate, we might see a similar dynamic on the Senate side. Already, just in the last two months, we’ve seen Senate Republicans sending letters to environmental groups, pressuring them, basically signaling they’d like to open new investigations into groups like the NRDC, the National Wildlife Foundation, the American Lung Association, Greenpeace. These environmental groups are now going to be under the gun as Republicans try all the different avenues for influencing environmental policy.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Republican senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, in his own words. He won re-election Tuesday. This is a video message he recently made for the climate skeptic think tank, the Heartland Institute.
SEN. JIM INHOFE: Good news is that Republicans are going to take over the United States Senate in November, and I will be replacing Barbara Boxer as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, so we can go back and start using CRAs—that’s Congressional Review Acts—to repeal or to stop some of the onerous regulations that are taking place. So, you guys are the only ones, the only group out there that can be effective and help us in this battle. And keep in mind, they now have a new resource to use: They have unlimited money to run for re-election using the issue of global warming.
AMY GOODMAN: Like another Republican senator I was watching yesterday, Rob Portman, saying that the key issues are cutting down regulation and Keystone XL. The significance of what won big yesterday, Lee Fang, when it comes to the Keystone XL, something that President Obama has put off ruling on until after this election?
LEE FANG: That’s right, Amy. In terms of policy change, we’ll see incredible pressure from congressional Republicans to push the administration towards approving many different new pipelines and oil and gas initiatives. The Keystone XL is at the top of that list. That pipeline, running from the Alberta tar sands down to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, that requires special approval from the White House and from the State Department. And we’ll see a Republican Congress push the president to approve that pipeline.
But beyond that, there are a number of other goals. There’s also the liquefied natural gas issue. For natural gas in America to be exported abroad, there needs to be a special approval from FERC and the Department of Energy. There are a number of bills in Congress to expedite those approvals. And if the American natural gas market is linked to global prices—in Asia, in particular, natural gas prices are much higher—we’ll see a much broader boom in fracking, the horizontal drilling technique, because the price of natural gas in America will rise. Republicans are intent on pushing this priority. Cory Gardner, one of the Republican Senate candidates who won last night in Colorado, he’s made this one of his top initiatives. And Republican leaders have signaled this is at the top of the list along with the Keystone XL.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, of course, when it comes to Democrats and fracking, right up to President Obama, they certainly have not distanced themselves from it. As someone tweeted last night, one organizer wrote, "It’s rough when you decide to throw a lot of people under the bus and then expect those same people to get you into office."
LEE FANG: Sure. The Obama administration has also been very close to the natural gas lobby. You know, I’ve done stories showing that the main lobbying group for the fracking industry, America’s Natural Gas Alliance, ANGA, has actually provided dark money to the Democrats, as well. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley—or, current soon-to-be-former Governor Martin O’Malley received funds for his own dark money group from ANGA, the natural gas lobby. Democrats have raised money from natural gas interests. Actually, in Colorado, the Democratic Party, one of the reasons for their defeat last night was that the Democrats there were very divided over the issue of fracking. An effort to place a ballot initiative that would have allowed local cities and municipalities in Colorado to ban fracking fell apart, and part of that disarray really helped Republicans. So, Democrats have been very divided on this issue, and they have not been shy about soliciting funds from the same industry.
AMY GOODMAN: An exit poll conducted Tuesday night by Edison Research found interesting results when it came to voters and climate change. The New York Times reported, quote, "Nationally, nearly six in 10 voters said climate change was a serious problem, and a broad majority of them (about seven in 10) favored Democratic candidates for the House. Among the four in 10 voters who said it was not a serious problem, an even larger majority (more than eight in 10 voters) supported Republican candidates." Lee Fang, I wanted to go back to Mitch McConnell, who could be the next Senate majority leader, if Ted Cruz doesn’t have his way, how he personally funded his campaign, where his wealth comes from.
LEE FANG: Well, Senator Mitch McConnell is not known for any particular ideology. You know, he’s kind of cast himself as a libertarian this year, but in previous years, you know, he’s supported foreign wars, the bank bailouts. What Mitch McConnell is really famous for on Capitol Hill is campaign finance. Beginning in the '80s, Senator McConnell blocked efforts on public financing of elections, and throughout the ’90s and early aughts, he attempted to block and filibuster different types of campaign finance reform legislation, including limits on contributions to candidates in soft money. More recently, he's filibustered and blocked efforts to shine a light on dark money in elections, and he’s been successful on that front. However, if you look at the election last night, this was really a culmination of a career that’s focused on allowing unlimited, unregulated, secret money. The largest spender in Kentucky in the Senate race this year was actually a dark money group set up by former campaign consultants to the McConnell campaign.
Additionally, as you mentioned, we did a story recently on McConnell’s personal wealth. McConnell is one of the wealthiest members of the Senate. He married into money. His wife, Elaine Chao, the former labor secretary in the Bush administration, her father founded a large shipping company, Foremost Maritime Corporation. It ships commodities all over the world. We did a story looking at some of those different dynamics. The shipping company avoids U.S. taxes and labor law by registering in the Marshall Islands and flagging their ships through Liberia. They also ship, interesting enough, coal, cheap coal from Colombia. Now, this, as your previous guest mentioned, has been a big topic in the Kentucky Senate race, where Mitch McConnell has blamed the declining production of Kentucky coal on environmentalists, on Democrats, but the real picture is much more complicated. The role of natural gas has pushed out coal as a cheap fuel source. In addition, cheap imports from places like Colombia has undercut American coal. And in kind of a bizarre twist, recently Colombian officials boarded a ship owned by the McConnell family in-laws and found around 90 pounds of cocaine on a coal shipment bound for Europe. There’s an ongoing investigation. There were no arrests made. But it’s an interesting twist to the story.
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President Obama is facing a similar predicament as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — the last three presidents to serve two terms. They all governed for the final two years with the opposition controlling both chambers of Congress. "Presidents have the ability to define the last quarter of their second term, even if there is a strong opposition," says John Nichols, political writer for The Nation. "My fear with Obama is that he will let the Republicans do too much of the defining, and so this becomes an incredibly important moment for grassroots movements."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to move right now from Kentucky to Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, we’re joined right now by John Nichols, John Nichols who writes for The Nation, a political writer there, where his report on the election aftermath is headlined "Obama Need Not Accept 'Lame Duck' Status." His latest book, with Bob McChesney, is Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America. Now, Wisconsin was very significant last night. Once again, Scott Walker, the governor, has won. He addressed his supporters during his victory speech after he was elected to a second term Tuesday night.
GOV. SCOTT WALKER: When you think about the last couple months, if not the last couple years, it’s interesting the challenges we’ve faced. You see, there was a group out of Washington, Washington-based special interest, who thought they could spend a lot of money and a lot of time in this state and somehow convince the people of the state to be against something. I’ve got to tell you, I’m an optimist. I believed all along if we got a positive message out, that in the end people of the state wanted to be for something, not against something. And look what happened tonight. You see, those big government special interests spent tens of millions of dollars, brought all sorts of ads in here, brought all sorts of attacks, because a few years ago we took the power away from the Washington-based special interests, and we put it in the hands of the Wisconsin taxpayers.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Republican Governor Scott Walker addressing his supporters during his victory speech after election last night. John Nichols, you’re in Madison. Talk about the significance of this race in Wisconsin. He beat Mary Burke.
JOHN NICHOLS: He did beat Mary Burke, who was waging her first campaign for governor of Wisconsin. She was a Madison School Board member and a relatively wealthy woman, who did contribute some to her own campaign, and considerable amount.
But I find it quite amusing to hear the governor talk about the powerful special interests that were arrayed against him. This morning I was adding up the amount of money that Scott Walker and his supporters have spent in his three election campaigns—2010, 2012 and then 2014. And it’s in the range of $100 million. So, in a relatively small state, Scott Walker has brought in overwhelming amounts of national money to just flood the airwaves, flood the mailboxes, flood social media with messages on his behalf. And yet, last night, he won re-election with a lower percentage of the vote than he got in 2012 and only the same vote that he got in the Republican wave election of 2010.
Now, the fact of the matter is, if Scott Walker won by a single vote, he would have claimed a mandate, and he would have used that mandate to begin talking very seriously about a 2016 presidential race. He actually won last night by about 100,000 votes. And there’s simply no question that that speech that he gave there may have been cheered by a crowd of his supporters, but he set that up—that event up to be a mass event with all of the right camera angles, because he wants that victory, that little bit of a victory speech, played on media across this country, particularly on Fox News, and this is the beginning of a 2016 presidential race.
AMY GOODMAN: John, take this bigger to the piece that you wrote, that report you wrote somehow between our five-hour broadcast last night and today, called "Obama Need Not Accept 'Lame Duck' Status."
JOHN NICHOLS: Yes. Look, I think it’s important to put elections in perspective. And the first thing that people need to understand is that the Republicans did very, very well last night. In this midterm election, they won back the Senate, and they won it back by more than even I think some Republicans expected they would. They did very well in the gubernatorial races. They did pretty well in a lot of down-ballot races. But if you were to talk about mandates from last night, the important thing to understand is that President Obama’s may have not fared overly well all over the place, his agenda may not have been a total success, but Elizabeth Warren’s agenda did really well, to give you an example. Elizabeth Warren supports raising the minimum wage. Elizabeth Warren supports paid sick leave. Referendums on those issues won overwhelmingly, even in states where Republicans were winning up-ballot. So, first thing to understand is that when we start to talk about this election sending any kind of ideological or policy message, we should be very careful. The president ought to take that in.
But he also ought to take history in. The fact of the matter is that in the sixth year of presidencies, presidents usually have a pretty lousy time of it. Ronald Reagan lost control of the Senate in 1986, losing eight Senate seats. Dwight Eisenhower lost 15 seats in 1958, a major setback. In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt lost eight seats in the Senate and more than 80 seats in the House of Representatives. Each of those presidents was in a very bad position on the day after their sixth year midterm election. And yet, by the end of their second term, each of those presidents had relatively high approval ratings, had achieved major things, and in the case of Franklin Roosevelt, actually got elected to a third term. What we take away from this ought to be a lesson, that presidents have the ability to define the last quarter of their second term, even if there’s a strong opposition.
My fear with Obama is that he will let the Republicans do too much of the defining. And so this becomes an incredibly important moment for grassroots movements. Everything that Lee was just talking about, people need to understand. If you don’t want a Keystone pipeline, this is the time to make the loudest noise possible, because President Obama can stop that, if he feels that there’s a mandate out there to do it. If you don’t want meddling with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, this is the time to make more noise than ever about how horrid and dangerous a grand bargain would be, because if the president hears that—and frankly, even if members of Congress on both sides hear that—it has power.
The most dangerous thing at this point would be for grassroots activists to stand down and kind of let the politicians in Washington sort things out. That is not, by any measure, what the American people want. But if people do stand down, if they let this become a definitional midterm election, then the folks on Wall Street are going to take it to the bank. This is going to be a fabulous moment for them, because they will be able to align scared Democrats, who are worried about raising money in 2016, with empowered Republicans and end up moving a lot of agenda that, frankly, we know loses at the ballot box, because the people voted to raise wages, the people voted for paid sick leave, the people voted for a host of progressive initiatives across this country. And so, we’ve got countermandates, and we ought to listen to all of them. Grassroots activists ought to especially recognize that this is the time to be engaged.
AMY GOODMAN: Also interesting that Dannel Malloy, the governor of Connecticut—
JOHN NICHOLS: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —facing an extremely tight race, it looks like he’s pulled it out. It’s, you know, just thousands of votes apart. But he did declare victory earlier today against Tom Foley, his Republican challenger. And he was one of the few people who had Obama come into town to campaign with him, unlike Alison Lundergan Grimes, for example.
John Nichols, I want to thank you for being with us, political writer for The Nation. We will link to your report, "Obama Need Not Accept 'Lame Duck' Status." We’re going to break. We’re going to hear from Bernie Sanders, the Independent governor of Vermont, and also look at how the issue of Obamacare and single payer has played into the Vermont race. Very interestingly, the popular governor, Peter Shumlin, facing a serious crisis now, it looks like that governor’s race will be decided by the Legislature. It’s the only state, I believe, in the country where when a candidate doesn’t get 50 percent—for example, in Louisiana, they’ll have a runoff—in Vermont, the Legislature decides who will be the next governor. Stay with us.
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In Vermont, incumbent Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin has nearly been unseated in a shocking upset. In a process unique to Vermont, projections now show the governor’s race will be decided by the state Legislature after neither Shumlin nor his Republican challenger reached the necessary threshold of 50 percent. The state Legislature remains solidly Democratic, so Shumlin will likely keep his seat. But Shumlin was not considered a vulnerable candidate before last night, and Scott Milne, his challenger, was a relative unknown. The election is seen as a possible referendum on healthcare reform after Shumlin has vowed to make Vermont the first state with a single-payer healthcare system. The state’s embattled health insurance exchange implemented under Obamacare has been down since September. We are joined by Peter Sterling, executive director of Vermont Leads, an organization that advocates for single-payer healthcare in Vermont.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to stay there in Vermont, where the incumbent Democratic governor, Peter Shumlin, has nearly been unseated in a shocking upset. In a process unique to Vermont, projections now show the governor’s race will be decided by the state Legislature after neither Shumlin nor his Republican challenger, Scott Milne, reached the necessary threshold of 50 percent. In other states, it might be a runoff. In Vermont, the state Legislature will decide. It remains solidly Democratic, so Shumlin will likely keep his seat.
The election is seen as a possible referendum on healthcare reform, after Governor Shumlin has vowed to make Vermont the first state with a single-payer healthcare system. The state’s embattled health insurance exchange implemented under Obamacare has been down since September.
For more, we’re going to Peter Sterling, executive director of Vermont Leads, an organization that advocates for single-payer healthcare in Vermont. He’s in the nation’s—he’s in the state’s capital, Montpelier.
Welcome, Peter Sterling, to Democracy Now! We only have a minute before we go to Colorado, some other stunning results there. But talk about the significance of what’s taken place in Vermont.
PETER STERLING: Well, coming into this year, the governor seemed to have the wind at his back. Vermonters and polling really showed we wanted to move toward single-payer healthcare. And this election result does seem to take some of the wind away from Governor Shumlin and his plans, the centerpiece of his administration.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about—I mean, there’s two things that have gone on here. Vermont could be the first single-payer state, but you, unlike a number of states, have had a complete crisis with the Obamacare exchange, with the Vermont healthcare exchange. How did that happen? And even if Governor Shumlin has made the point that, you know, it’s complicated, and that’s why we need single payer—that’s a very fine distinction—people see that the government can’t run healthcare in Vermont. And will he be able to carry out this mandate if indeed the Legislature chooses him?
PETER STERLING: I mean, it’s a good point. And, I mean, we’re a small state. You’re largely going to see the same people who have been leading on the exchange lead on the movement to single-payer healthcare and to implementing it. But at the end of the day, the exchange is a problem with the website, which is on a very short timeline set up by the Affordable Care Act. We have many—a few years to do Green Mountain Care, so I think the governor can re-establish that confidence in his administration to implement up the nation’s first universal, publicly financed healthcare system.
AMY GOODMAN: And just the response—we have 20 seconds—to what has happened, that this race will be decided, as Peter Shumlin’s first governorship was decided, by the Vermont Legislature?
PETER STERLING: It’s certainly shocking to everyone here in the state that it was this close. But I would say that most voters did not go to the polls on a referendum on universal healthcare; they went there on property taxes and other local issues. So I’m not sure that the governor’s result was a referendum on the popularity of universal healthcare.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Sterling, thanks for being with us, executive director of Vermont Leads, the organization that advocates for single-payer healthcare in Vermont.
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Mark Udall, Leading Senate Voice on NSA Surveillance and Environment, Ousted in Heated Colorado Race
The Republican gains in a majority of the midterms’ tightly contested Senate races included Colorado, where Cory Gardner ousted Sen. Mark Udall, a leading Senate voice on the environment and National Security Agency surveillance of Americans. Outside groups poured millions of dollars into the campaigns. We’re joined from Denver by Susan Greene of The Colorado Independent, a longtime reporter and columnist.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As we turn right now from one mountainous state to another, we go to Colorado. Both also states suffered massive flooding during storms. We go to Colorado, where Republican Cory Gardner ousted the incumbent Senator Mark Udall in a closely watched U.S. Senate race. This is Gardner addressing his supporters after he declared victory Tuesday night.
SEN.-ELECT CORY GARDNER: Voters around this state had their voices heard. They are not red. They are not blue. But they are crystal clear, crystal clear in their message to Washington, D.C.: Get your job done, and get the heck out of the way! Tomorrow—tomorrow we go to work to fix a Washington that is out of step, out of touch and out of time.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Denver by Susan Greene, editor of The Colorado Independent, longtime reporter and columnist formerly with The Denver Post.
Susan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of what’s happened, from the governor’s race—it looks like Governor Hickenlooper has pulled it out—to what Mark Udall didn’t manage to do—win the race—Mark Udall, the senator until, well, January, when Cory Gardner will take his seat.
SUSAN GREENE: That’s right. We spoke last night, and last night I think we were telling you that Bob Beauprez, in our governor’s race, was slightly ahead of Governor John Hickenlooper. In the hours since, Governor Hickenlooper has a slight advantage. He’s at .7 percent over Beauprez. And the race is still too close to call. So, that—everybody in Colorado has been up all night looking at that race, because pretty much Republicans have taken over everywhere else. So, people stayed up all night—journalists, political insiders, normal people—just looking at all the numbers, making spreadsheets and trying to figure out: Can Hickenlooper keep his position?
AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible] closely watched race in Congress, Mike Coffman, known as a proud birther, challenging President Obama’s birth certificate, beat out Andrew Romanoff. And Mark Udall, what does it mean to lose Mark Udall, the man who together—who has been very forceful on the issue, together with Senator Wyden, on the NSA?
SUSAN GREENE: It means quite a bit to lose Mark Udall. Mark and his family are icons throughout the West. Mark very much embodies Colorado. He climbs our 14,000-foot fourteeners, our mountains. He is an ardent environmentalist. He’s married to an ardent environmentalist. He comes from a family deeply rooted in the land, in the water and the public lands of the West. He also, as you mentioned, has been extremely active on issues of government surveillance and privacy, and very outspoken about it, in fact one of the pioneers in the Senate.
What didn’t happen in that race was really a serious discussion of all that he has done in the Senate on those issues. There’s been a disconnect between the Mark Udall on the floor in the Senate and the Mark Udall as the retail politician in Colorado. He’s really, in some ways, much more comfortable just talking really down and dirty details of public policy than on the stump glad-handling. He’s someone who’s much more comfortable having a one-on-one conversation than really giving a speech.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, although Mark Udall lost in Colorado, his cousin, Senator Tom Udall, did prevail in New Mexico. Susan Greene, I want to thank you for being with us, editor of The Colorado Independent, as we wrap up with Lee Fang in San Francisco for your final comments. Was the biggest winner here money, Lee?
LEE FANG: The biggest winner last night was money. And I would say that for Obama and his lasting legacy, you’ve seen in the last four years, since Citizens United, what appears to be blatant lawbreaking in terms of illegal coordination between super PACs and candidates, 501(c)(4)s violating their primary purpose. The IRS, the Federal Elections Commission has not enforced the law. For Obama to really clean up his legacy on dark money and campaign finance, he needs to issue executive orders, and he needs to direct the Department of Justice to start looking into these issues, unless he wants to be remembered as the dark money president.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Lee Fang, I want to thank you for being with us, as well, reporting fellow at The Nation Institute, blogging about money in politics at the Republic Report. And that does it for our day-after broadcast.
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Republicans Win Senate Control, Boost House Majority
Republicans have emerged from Tuesday’s midterm elections with control of Congress for the first time in eight years. In the most expensive midterm in history, Republicans took control of the Senate and strengthened their majority in the House. Republican candidates won at least 10 of the day’s 13 closely contested Senate races, giving the party control of the Senate for the first time since 2007. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is expected to become the next Senate majority leader after defeating Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. McConnell celebrated his victory in Kentucky.
Sen. Mitch McConnell: "Friends, this experiment in big government has lasted long enough. It’s time to go in a new direction. It’s time to turn this country around. And I will not let you down. Thank you so much."
Alaska Senate Race Undecided; Louisiana Heads to Runoff
Three sitting Democratic senators lost races: Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, and Mark Udall in Colorado. The political landscape could still worsen for the Democrats as the Senate race in Alaska remains too close to call and Louisiana is headed for a runoff. The Republicans also picked up at least 10 more House seats, giving the party its largest majority since World War II.
Republican Candidates Dominate Contested Governors’ Races
Republicans also won a number of tightly contested gubernatorial contests. Republican candidates in Maryland, Arkansas, Illinois and Massachusetts took control of seats previously held by Democrats. A number of sitting Republican governors also overcame strong challenges, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Florida’s Rick Scott and Michigan’s Rick Snyder. In one of the rare Democratic upsets on Tuesday, Tom Wolf is projected to have beaten incumbent Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.
5 States Back Minimum Wage Hikes; Mass. Approves Paid Sick Leave
The midterms saw nearly 150 ballot measures nationwide. Voters in four traditionally conservative states approved initiatives that will raise the minimum wage — in Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas. Voters in Illinois also backed an increase to $10 an hour, although state lawmakers will have final say. In Massachusetts, voters approved a landmark measure that will provide workers with the strongest paid sick leave requirements in the country, up to 40 hours per year.
Marijuana Measures Approved in Oregon, D.C.; Failure in Florida
Washington, D.C., passed a ballot measure to legalize marijuana, as did Oregon. A medical marijuana initiative failed in Florida.
Anti-Choice Initiatives Lose in Colorado, North Dakota; Win in Tennessee
In a victory for abortion rights, voters in both Colorado and North Dakota defeated personhood amendments, which would have defined fertilized eggs as human beings. But an anti-choice amendment in Tennessee that would enable the state Legislature to pass extreme anti-abortion legislation was approved.
Voters Reject GMO Labeling in Colorado; Oregon Likely to Follow
Colorado voters rejected an initiative to require labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients. The agribusiness giant Monsanto spent $4.7 million to defeat the GMO labeling measure. Voters appear to have defeated a similar initiative in Oregon, but it remains too close to call.
Washington State Voters Approve Gun Background Checks
In Washington state, voters approved the day’s only major gun control measure, imposing background checks on all gun sales.
U.S. Drone Strike Reportedly Kills al-Qaeda Leader in Yemen
A top al-Qaeda leader has reportedly been killed in a new U.S. drone strike inside Yemen. Shawqi al-Badani, head of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and deemed a "global terrorist" by the United States, was among four people reportedly killed in an American attack overnight. Badani has been accused of links to bombings that killed more than 100 Yemeni soldiers and a plot on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. The strike follows an earlier U.S. bombing that killed at least 10 alleged militants.
10 Wounded in Attack on Jerusalem Pedestrians
Ten people have been wounded in Jerusalem after a driver drove his car into pedestrians. The attack occurred near a similar incident two weeks ago where a Palestinian ran into a group of Israelis, killing two people. Daily unrest in occupied East Jerusalem continued today with clashes between Palestinians and far-right Israeli demonstrators who tried to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel stoked new outrage this week after advancing plans to build 500 new illegal settlements homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
Ukraine, Russia Move Forces to East; Kiev Accused of Violating Truce
Both Ukraine and Russia are moving their forces closer to eastern Ukraine after a weekend vote backing pro-Russian separatist leaders. Russia has recognized Sunday’s elections, while Ukraine’s president has threatened to scrap an autonomy deal for the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Separatists are already accusing Ukraine of violating the truce reached in September. On Tuesday, the Ukraine government said it would deploy new units to the east, where fighting has killed more than 3,000 people since April. In Brussels, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Russia has also moved forces closer to its border with Ukraine.
Jens Stoltenberg: "Recently we are also seeing Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine, and Russia continues to support the separatists by training them, by providing equipment, and supporting them also by having special forces, Russian special forces, inside the eastern parts of Ukraine."
Fugitive Mayor in Student Disappearances Arrested in Mexico
Authorities in Mexico have captured the fugitive mayor of Iguala who is suspected of ordering a police attack on 43 students, who have now been missing for more than five weeks. Federal police arrested Jose Luis Abarca and his wife in Mexico City, where they were hiding in a working-class neighborhood in a building that appeared to be abandoned. They are suspected of orchestrating the attack by police on the students from a rural teachers college, who were apparently then turned over to a local drug gang. The mayor’s wife is accused of being the gang’s leading operator. The couple fled Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero, amidst an investigation that has netted more than 50 arrests and uncovered remains in multiple mass graves, none of which have so far been identified as the students. Family members and protesters have continued to hold out hope the students are alive.
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