Matt Yglesias

Everyone’s Writing About CAP

Here’s Tom Friedman:

That is why I was heartened to see the liberal Center for American Progress stating last week that, while the stimulus is vital to rescuing our economy, the size of projected budget deficits demand that we also start thinking about broad-based tax increases and reductions in some spending and entitlement programs supported by liberals.

And here’s Marc Ambinder:

Among the D[emocracy] A[alliance]’s success stories: it has contributed to CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has used its money to harass Democrats and Republicans with ethics issues and whose investigation of contractors in Afghanistan have led to a review of State Department policies. Media Matters, a liberal press watchdog group, is bigger today than it was before the election. DA also helped fund the Center for American Progress, the uber-progressive think and action tank. Membership costs $55,000 for the first year and at least $30,000 per year after that.

And Michelle Malkin:

CAP is a lead organization in the Health Care for America Now coalition, the so-called “grassroots” lobbying group for Obama’s health care takeover legislation run out of 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C., with a $40 million budget. CAP is also the parent group of Think Progress, the far-left website leading the smear campaign against fiscally conservative activists who protested at congressional town halls this summer. And several CAP alumni are now leading the Obamacare push at the Department of Health and Human Services, including special HHS assistant Michael Halle and HHS Director Jeanne Lambrew, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked on health policy in the Clinton administration.

Apparently Halle was a CAP intern in 2007. So you can see everyone should apply to the program, since it’s apparently a one-way ticket to running the country.

A “‘Heritage of the Left’ of the Right”

The political system enters a period of infinite regress:

In the wake of another chastening set of GOP defeats at the polls, Holtz-Eakin is now setting out to address those problems head-on. He’s developing a proposal for a new think tank that he describes as a “Center for American Progress for the right” — a reference to the liberal think tank that has supplied staff and policy proposals to the Obama administration and developed new ways to market its ideas. [...]

The irony, of course, is that the Center for American Progress itself was developed as a liberal answer to the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that has been a source of Republican policy ideas for decades. But Holtz-Eakin says established think tanks of the right, like Heritage and the American Enterprise Institute, were “not helpful” during the McCain campaign because they weren’t politically engaged or innovative in their media strategies.

That’s why Holtz-Eakin says he now looks to the Center for American Progress as a model. The center, headed by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John D. Podesta, combined a battery of domestic and foreign policy proposals with outreach innovations, such as hosting film screenings around the country and collecting e-mail addresses of people who sign up for the screenings.

This seems pretty misguided to me. In particular, DHE needs to think harder about the fact that there are already well-resourced conservative think tanks with plenty of capabilities. Before CAP came on the scene, there really wasn’t a “Heritage of the left.” On the right, Heritage and AEI already exist. The problem they face is that the conservative movement, as presently constituted, is not prepared to accept anything other than “tax cuts” as a solution to anything. Consequently, they’re not really even prepared to accept the premise that other problems exist. Tax cuts can’t solve climate change, so there must be no such thing! Tax cuts can’t curb inequality, so there must not be a problem with growing inequality.

If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you. But otherwise there’s nothing there policywise. That’s not, however, because there are no organizations out there capable of developing or marketing policy. It’s because the movement has become unremittingly hostile to constructive policymaking. Everybody’s too busy cowering in fear from Rush Limbaugh to come up with anything.

Jon Henke Attacks CAP/AF as “Astroturf”

Speaking of astroturf organizing, Jon Henke has a curious post up accusing my ThinkProgress colleagues of hypocrisy for using the term “astroturf” in a disparaging way:

The Center for American Progress & Think Progress, of all groups, should know better than to use the word “astroturf” against funded, ideological 501c(4) organizations that are trying to organize activists. Especially considering how many funded, ideological 501c(4) organizations they have trying to organize activists.

I don’t understand how this argument is supposed to work. CAP & CAPAF aren’t astroturf outfits because we’re not pretending to be a grassroots organization. The Tea Party “movement” is a sham because it’s pretending to be a spontaneous grassroots movement. Obviously, ThinkProgress is not a spontaneous grassroots movement. It’s a hierarchical organization that describes itself as “a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund” that “seeks to provide a forum that advances progressive ideas and policies.”

Useful Clever People

Baron YoungSmith remarks on the fact that the very same neoconservatives who argued themselves hoarse that the election of Barack Obama would lead to imminent dhimmitude at the hands of a Sino-Islamo-Fascisto-Cuban alliance are now seeming remarkably supportive of an Obama policy agenda whose content—take troops out of Iraq and put a smaller number of troops into Afghanistan while not acting like a jerk on the world stage—is exactly the same as the one they hated during the campaign.

It’s important to understand that this isn’t a softening of neocon madness, it’s exactly what they did in the 1990s. After spending the George H.W. Bush administration in their customary role as the “totally insane” faction of conservative movement foreign policy thinking (key episodes being the insistence that Bush should have marched on Baghdad and commenced an occupation of Iraq, and the 1992 defense planning guidance draft) they spent the 1990s being the less partisan faction of the movement with regard to Clinton’s foreign policy. Basically any president sometimes orders military action somewhere, and whenever Clinton did so neocons would applaud and call politely for even more forceful action while criticizing those Republicans who asked questions. By making themselves useful to Clinton and his supporters, while maintaining an appropriate level of critical distance, the neocons were able to elevate their status within the conservative coalition and emerge as a more influential faction in the W. Bush administration than they’d been in the H.W. Bush or Reagan administration.

Going back to these tactics is integral to neocon plans to regain power. And I think it’s working. When PNAC 2.0 was launched, John Nagl head of CNAS spoke at the debut event, and Fred Kagan is speaking at CAP today. Neocons are out of power, but they’re not being banished to the fringes of the discussion, key progressives groups have made them the preferred interlocutors on high-profile issues. In the domestic political context, in other words, neocons very clearly appreciate the tactical and strategic utility of sometimes being nice, of accommodating the interests of others, and of strategic restraint. If only they could figure out a way to apply these lessons to foreign policy.

The Health Team

Jonathan Cohn spills the beans on Barack Obama’s health care team:

Today the Obama transition office will announce its health care policy team. As expected, Tom Daschle will be leading it. According to sources closes to the transition, he’ll be joined by a set of analysts including Lauren Aronson, Mark Childress, Dora Hughes, and Jeanne Lambrew. Harvard economist David Cutler will be serving as a part-time, outside advisor, reprising a role he served during the campaign. Among the other outside advisers are Jonathan Blum, Rahul Rajkumar, Terrell McSweeny, and Jenny Backus. [...]

The team is heavy on people who know a thing or two about moving plans through Congress. Take Aronson. Her most recent job was in Rahm Emanuel’s office. There, she advised him on floor strategy; she also was a liason to other members and outside stakeholders. Before that, she worked for Chris Jennings, a former Clinton staffer who is one of the best known health care advisers in town. So, like Daschle’s appointment, the naming of this team suggests that Obama is serious about pursuing health care reform.

I think this barely counts as transition gossip, since it doesn’t even include titles. Meanwhile, Jeanne Lambrew is a CAP Senior Fellow further reenforcing the point that each and every person working here is now incredibly important and influential. If you’re interested in the question of how and/or why the incoming administration will push for health care reform despite the economic crisis, you should read her testimony on “Health Policy and the Economic Crisis” which I imagine is a subject she’ll have occasion to revisit.

Creating Magical Enjoyment You Feel Good About

Travel to Europe’s small countries always offers one an intriguing glimpse of the world’s linguistic future — English spoken universally, but not quite right (admittedly, it’s an unfortunate coincidence that the world’s lingua franca is also the language that features the greatest proliferation of irregularities and so forth). Nestlé headquarters was full of promotional copy that didn’t scan right to a native speaker. Sometimes, they seemed to be working of a very literal translation from French. But then there was this:

I think I’d like to make that this blog’s new slogan. Creating magical enjoyment you feel good about since 2002.

Henke on CAP

Jon Henke has a smart post at The Next Right about CAP/CAPAF and the role these institutions have played in the progressive revival.

One word of caution I would offer, however, to people looking at building the next set of conservative institutions is that while it’s always good to learn from precedent, it’s not smart to slavishly imitate what exists. Insofar as CAP’s been successful, it’s been successful because it’s been responsive to the specific situation and filled roles on the progressive side that needed filling. The “gaps” on the right are in different places. In particular, the communications spaces aren’t remotely close to mirror-images of each other. Conservatives have both the luxury and the burden of operating with big, entrenched, profitable conservative media institutions like Fox News and the talk radio universe. I’m not sure what the specific implications of that are, but it does mean that if you’re thinking about creating and marketing new conservative ideas, you’re talking about operating under very different circumstances.

I Am Incredibly Powerful

As you may have heard, anyone who works for the Center for American Progress is now an incredibly influential person in American politics. That means me! If you’re not convinced yet, read this (”Podesta nonprofit to take center stage”) from Politico and this (”Soros-Funded Democratic Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font”) from Bloomberg. Folks looking to curry favor with the incoming administration are encouraged to get in touch and offer me junkets and/or free meals here in DC.

CAPAF Letter on Automakers

So despite what I’ve blogged here, CAPAF is putting out a letter supporting the idea of a carmaker bailout subject to the following conditions:

To ensure that the managers who helped create this mess are not unduly rewarded, the loans must disallow excessive executive compensation. In addition, the auto companies must fulfill their commitments to provide both health care and retirement security for their employees and retirees. The companies must commit to continue their research and development of advanced, clean-vehicle technology and energy efficient manufacturing. A loan oversight board should ensure the companies develop a long-term business plan based on the production and sale of fuel-efficient vehicles.

The auto companies should embrace—not resist—the transition to less polluting vehicles. They should assure Congress that they will cease their legal and lobbying opposition to the imminent new fuel economy standards, and the California motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards that President-elect Obama said he would allow. These measures will reduce oil dependence, increase national security, save families money, and reduce pollution. In addition to harming the nation, continued opposition to these standards would keep the companies on the path that got them in this mess in the first place.

Please support the $25 billion loan for U.S. auto companies and include the aforementioned safeguards. This will help protect American jobs and ensure progress toward significantly more efficient vehicles. Thank you.

At a minimum, I would go further on the lobbying stuff. If progressive politicians are going to be giving taxpayer money to carmakers as part of a transition to our bold green future, we should expect them to cease all lobbying against progressive environmental legislation, not just fuel economy standards.

MSNBC on the Center-Right Myth

Interesting segment:

Always good to see ThinkProgress get some acknowledgment on television

Savage on CAP

Charlie Savage, fresh from investigated the abuses of power at the heart of the Bush administration, takes a gander at John Podesta and the Center for American Progress. This isn’t the main point of the piece, but I did want to emphasize one thing:

With Democrats back in control of the executive branch, the question now, Professor McGann said, is whether the center will keep going. If its policy experts all leave for government jobs, he said, it could collapse as quickly as it rose.

Mr. Podesta, for one, plans to stay. On Wednesday, when he was named to the transition team, he sent an e-mail message to the center’s staff pledging that “I will not be joining the new administration and will return to American Progress after the transition ends.”

We could all be killed in a meteor strike next week but, really, everyone has every intention of the Center continuing to exist. The Heritage Foundation didn’t close its doors when Ronald Reagan came into office. If anything, it grew in size and influence as people realized that this whole conservative movement thing was kind of a big deal. Politicians being in office who are sympathetic to progressive ideas doesn’t obviate the need for politically engaged policy analysis and communication. Indeed, in a lot of ways it makes it more important for someone to be doing work that’s a bit detached from the day-to-day dictates of political expediency.

Dancing McCain

CAPAF released the following policy report today:

Never say this isn’t a serious, substantive think tank.

The Wages of Sloppy Journalism

Earlier today, The New York Times “reported” that “Mr. Podesta has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called The Power of Progress.”

This is false.

Podesta published a book this summer, The Power of Progress, that was written with John Halpin. The book contains, as a literary conceit, a hypothetical inaugural address for a progressive president. The book was in the works for over a year, and the “inaugural address” section was submitted to the publisher in March before Obama was the nominee and when, indeed, Podesta was supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Nevertheless, CBS News reports:

Taking aim squarely at what McCain’s campaign feels is the presumptiveness of Barack Obama, McCain was referring to a report in the New York Times that says John Podesta has already drafted an inaugural address for Obama.

“There’s ten days left in this election, maybe Barack Obama will even have his first State of he Union address ready before you head to the polls,” McCain continued. “I guess I’m a little old fashioned about these things. I’d prefer to let the voters weigh in before presuming the outcome.”

The Obama campaign says the charge is “completely false,” and points out that the address McCain is referring to appears in a book Podesta wrote before Obama was the nominee.

It’s true, as CBS News is reporting, that the Obama campaign says the charge is completely false. However, it’s also true that the charge is in fact completely false. If when candidates launched false attacks, news organizations reported the falseness of the attacks in a straightforward manner, then they might not be so eager to launch them.