21st Century Agenda for America

In a previous New Tools feature, I discussed the launch of Web sites like WhiteHouse2.org, and wondered whether an Obama administration would be open to using tools like this to amplify the public's voice and increase its role in governing.

That very much remains to be seen, but President-Elect Obama's background in community organizing, his groundbreaking use of the Internet during the campaign, and the launch of his new site, change.gov, seem to bode well for the possibility of a more open-source style presidency (although I hope change.gov evolves to become much more interactive and participatory than it is at the moment). Of course, Obama was elected to lead, and in order to be effective leader he will ultimately have to make his own judgments and decisions. But the more voices and opinions he hears in the course of his deliberations, the better.

If he chooses to do so, Obama can certainly use technology to give people a greater voice in government. But he can also use it to spread his message and to build support for his initiatives. Simon predicts that Obama will do with the Internet what FDR did with radio and what JFK did for television, using the web to reach people in new ways. He envisions a weekly YouTube address that could be instantly viewed by millions of people around the country and the world. This kind of direct reach would be an incredibly powerful tool in advancing the administration's agenda.

In the past few weeks, we at NDN have talked a lot about the ways an Obama administration is likely to use technology to govern: in addition to the aforementioned New Tools post, Simon and Joe Trippi discussed this at our NDN election forum, and Simon did a great video blog about it, entitled "Obama to Reinvent the Presidency."

NDN's thinking in this area has also been featured in a host of press stories in recent days: Simon was interviewed in an Associated Press video segment today that asked, "How much will President Obama embrace Internet?" and has also been quoted in Wired, the National Journal's Tech Daily Dose, the Washington Times, the San Jose Mercury News, Agence France Press, the Houston Chronicle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TCMNet, Business Intelligence Middle East, and Real Clear Politics on the topic. 

Friday morning UPDATE: Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post reports this morning that

Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video -- a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning."

On this Sunday's meet the press, Senator Mel Martinez acknowledged that the way the national Republican Party has demonized Hispanics these past few years may make it in impossible for their Party to win Presidential elections for years to come. MTP quoted NDN and Simon, "If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there." This back and forth has now put tremendous public pressure on the GOP to turn around the full-on condemnation of their party among Hispanics. The GOP could help itself avoid political annihilation by abandoning the stance seen by many as a level of racial intolerance unacceptable in a new age of Obama, and by working with President-elect Obama to pass comprehensive immigration reform ASAP. This moment may really be a game-changer for both parties.

Let's not forget, Obama's victory among Hispanics may still be short-lived if he does not follow through on his promises to this community - as stated by Dan Schnur, Republican strategist: "Candidates don't cause realignments, presidents do. Candidate Obama has certainly created the conditions for potential realignment, but it's going to be up to President Obama to govern in a way that can make that happen." And that means passing immigration reform during his first year. Hispanics are not forgetting about his promise - on this Sunday's Al Punto, Jorge Ramos asked all his guests about the prospects of immigration reform. He asked Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ): Will [Obama] fulfill the promise he's made to Hispanics to pass immigration reform? Polls show that people care about the economy, education, etc. but the issue of immigration is still at the forefront for the Hispanic community....This is a big promise, how will he do it? Sen. Menendez responded that Barack Obama has remained steadfast on immigration since his votes for reform last summer. 

Rep. Luis Gutierrez was also asked and noted, "Barack Obama owes his victory to the large Hispanic turnout," as Obama invested more resources in reaching out to this community than Kerry and Bush together in 2004. When asked, "Can he fulfill this promise, or is it just rhetoric?" Luis Gutierrez reported that he has already spoken to Obama staff and that he is already working to strategize how to move on immigration reform, "It's really important to fulfill those promises," that's why on November 15 Rep. Gutierrez is holding a rally and inviting all U.S. citizens who know of undocumented persons to demand action - "We have to continue putting pressure on the administration." And Republican Mario Diaz-Balart agreed, although he opposes Sen. Obama's stance on Cuba policy, etc., he agreed to work to pass immigration reform alongside Rep. Gutierrez.

An article in the Politico today discusses how all "Dem groups" are claiming the win for Barack Obama - the truth is that while Hispanics are still not a "Dem" group, it is undeniable that it was Hispanics - the ultimate swing electorate - who delivered key battleground states like IN, NM, and FL for Barack Obama, and allowed for a sizeable lead in CO and NV due to their numbers in those states and because they held record shares of the electorate. "Without the Latino vote, we would not have won those states," said Federico Pena, national co-chairman of the Obama campaign. And Hispanics were also influential in Obama's victory in Virginia and North Carolina.

For their part, Republicans must decide how to become part of the 21^st century if their party is to survive. The immigrant-issues coalition is expanding to include other ethnicities. Mercury News reports, this election was not only an appreciation for Obama's multicultural upbringing, but also a rejection of the Republican-led "demonization" of immigrants, particularly of Hispanic and Muslim backgrounds, in recent years. John McCain could help his party in this regard, at least alleviating some of the strongest negative feelings towards the Republican Party by supporting comprehensive immigration reform in 2009.  Beto Cardenas, former counsel to Kay Bailey Hutchinson: "When we have laws that make it easier to get that labor legally, it will be easier to enforce the laws. Such reform could also protect the rights of the workers, who too frequently are subject to exploitation because they are afraid to report abuses...I think there's a will to address the issue if it can be shown it enhances the economic health of the country," he said.

In September, the Pew Hispanic Center's report on the overall state of Latinos found that Latinos were in a significantly worse economic condition and reported a decline in their general well-being. We have continued to see how the economic crisis is hitting Latinos particularly harshly, and today we find that the unemployment rate for Latinos has sky-rocketed to 8.8% in October. The overall national unemployment rate for October reported today is 6.5%, with 240,000 jobs cut during the month. Hispanics have been particularly affected, as the number of unemployed Hispanics went up in September to 1.72 million, and in October Hispanics comprised 1.96 million of the 10 million people unemployed nationally.

As noted by Dan, NDN's narrative has been shaping analysis of the election, not only in the U.S., but in Mexico and elsewhere. The newspaper of largest circulation in Mexico (along with Reforma), El Universal, has followed NDN's analysis of the Hispanic vote in this election. In June, Alejandro Meneses published a piece on NDN's findings, contained in Hispanics Rising, and on Andres's analysis of the role of immigration in this election. In September, Jaime Hernandez wrote about the candidates' courtship of Hispanics and noted Simon's point that "John McCain gave in to the right wing of his party and abandoned support of his own [immigration] legislation." Jaime also cited our analysis and projections in late October. Finally, Wilbert Torreenviado of El Universal, and Mauricio Ferrer of La Jornada (another major national newspaper) have both published NDN's preliminary analysis of the Hispanic Vote and reported our narrative of Obama's new 21st century coalition and the new generation of politics that has been born with this campaign.

On Wednesday, I posted some of the influential election stories that featured NDN - if you haven't seen these, be sure to check them out, there are some really exellent pieces by some of the best journalists in the country. Since Wednesday, in addition to Simon's winning The Hill's election prediction contest, NDN has appeared in another big round of press:

First, Simon was quoted in a must-read piece by Ron Brownstein in the National Journal:

Barack Obama on Tuesday won the most decisive Democratic presidential victory in a generation largely by tapping into growing elements of American society: young people, Hispanics and other minorities, and white upper-middle-class professionals. That coalition of the ascendant—combined with unprecedented margins among African-Americans—powered Obama to a commanding victory over Republican John McCain, even though Obama achieved only modest and intermittent gains with the working-class white voters who provided the foundation of the Democratic coalition from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election in 1932 to Humphrey’s defeat 36 years later.

“Obama is reimagining a Democratic coalition for the 21st century,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic group that studies electoral trend and tactics. “Democrats [are] … surging with all the ascending and growing parts of the electorate. He is building a coalition that Democrats could ride for 30 or 40 years, the way they rode the FDR coalition of the 1930s.”

Simon was also quoted in USA Today about about the changing demography of America and its significance for the future of politics:

Dramatic rises in Hispanic participation, support or both put Obama over the top in Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. The trends were similar in Arizona and Texas, though the two states went for Republican John McCain. The group also made its presence felt in Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.

"If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there," says Simon Rosenberg, head of the NDN, a Democratic group that studies Hispanic voters.

In addition, Simon discussed the importance of the Hispanic vote in Newsroom America, and Andres' analysis of Hispanics in this election was covered on NPR, in a DNC release, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Latino Journal (and again here), Hispanic Trending, and the Latino Politics Blog.  

Simon also weighed in on "Obama, Race and the End of the Southern Strategy" in a featured post on Huffington Post which was also picked up by OpenLeft.

In addition to the new demographics, Simon also talked about the use of new technology and media. He spoke to both how Obama used technology to win, and how he will use it to govern. From a piece in the Washington Times:

The campaign won't say whether the BarackTV and live-streamed events will continue after the inauguration, but all signs point to a revolutionized way of White House communication with America and the world.

"The most interesting thing to watch will be what do they and how do they reinvent the way a president speaks to the American people," said Simon Rosenberg of the liberal think tank NDN and a veteran of the Clinton White House.

"There's no doubt this is going to be more of a YouTube presidency than a fireside chat presidency," he said. "President Obama will be reinventing the relationship between the president and the American people using these new tools."

Simon gave similar analysis in the National Journal's Daily Tech Dose, Wired, and Digital Graffiti.

In terms of general election analysis, Simon talked about the likely governing philosophy of an Obama administration in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Times. 

New NDN Fellows Michael Hais and Morley Winograd were featured in the Post-Bulletin about the Millennial vote. Michael had an essay in Grist about the opportunities for the new administration to invest in clean infrastructure and clean energy. Finally, Rob talks about the economic challenges facing the new administration in the AP, Accountancy Age, and the Irish Left Review.

As NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais demonstrated yesterday, the Millennial Generation played a key role in this election, voting in higher numbers than in any recent election and in a more unified manner than any other age group - 66% of Millennials supported President-Elect Obama, compared to only 32% who supported U.S. Sen. John McCain. Millennials constituted a greater percentage of the vote than those 65 and over. Without the overwhelming support of Millennials, Obama's victory margin would have been 1.5% instead of 6% nationally, and there might have been a lot more nail-biting on Tuesday night.

We're still waiting for the final numbers on the youth vote to come in, but a new CIRCLE report projects that youth turnout increased between 1 and 6 percentage points this year - an increase that translates into several million new voters. What was responsible for this increase?

One obvious answer is the candidate himself; Obama connected with young voters like no other political figure in recent memory. He gave them something to get excited about and ways to get involved. Shirts sporting his visage flew off the shelves at Urban Outfitters. He is, simply put, cool.

Others might point to the fact that his campaign organized a superlative ground game and created a fundraising juggernaut. Still others might note that the Obama campaign demonstrated a mastery of technology and deployed it on a scale never before seen in American politics - this is a point that Sarah Lai Stirland makes in Wired this week, and something I and others at NDN have talked about a lot.

The Obama campaign's message, organization, and use of new tools were all game-changers. But I believe one of the biggest boosts in the youth turnout may actually have had nothing to do with Obama himself. On the day before the election, I wrote about the Facebook Election Rally, which allowed users to select automated status message updates urging friends to get out the vote, including a link to join the rally themselves and the option to invite other friends manually. By the end of the rally, nearly two million Facebook users donated their status messages for GOTV purposes. Of those users, 70% put up messages encouraging friends to get out the vote for Obama, 21% put up messages for McCain, and 7% put up messages saying to simply "get out the vote."

Then, on election day, Facebook essentially became one giant GOTV tool. The login page said "VOTE" in giant letters, and at the top of the home page was a button that said "I voted," next to a counter of Facebook users who had voted so far. When I checked at around 10 PM, the counter had reached nearly five million.

From a sociological perspective, the combined effect was very powerful. Anyone who logged into Facebook near or on election day was inundated not only with reminders to get involved, but also bombarded with reminders that their friends were voting. I don't think this has ever happened before, and seems much more powerful than any "Vote or Die"-style MTV ad could be - seeing so many friends involved has a real impact, particularly on youth. Facebook is helping to create a culture of civic participation among Millennials, and that participation quickly becomes habit. And if it continues, this could have an even greater impact in the next few elections, since less than half of Millennials were eligible to vote in this election. If Millennials gave Obama between 4 and 5 points nationally in this election... well, you do the math.

As President-elect Barack Obama turns to the enormous challenges facing the nation, his first priority will be to set his priorities. Already, there are more urgent problems than any president could tackle successfully in a single term, and even more will almost certainly emerge. Moreover, he now will have to lead in ways he did not have to as candidate, by taking real and contentious actions. His historic, landslide election will give him greater, initial political capital than any president since Ronald Reagan. Even so, capital gets spent, and a president’s power and influence are finite, so he will have to choose precisely where he intends to focus all that capital, power and influence.

The lead items on his domestic agenda must be the nation’s financial and economic crisis. That will require, first, steps to slow housing foreclosures. He has pledged to initiate a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, but that would be only a first, modest step. He also could also create a new fund to lend tide-over funds to homeowners facing foreclosure after the 90 days are up, and while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac work out a responsible plan for them to renegotiate the terms and interest rates on the mortgages of homeowners in distress. He also can help banks get credit flowing again with a temporary, reduced tax rate on an estimated $700 billion in profits now held abroad by the foreign subsidiaries of American companies.

That step also could provide a measure of stimulus for an economy currently entering what is likely to be a long, nasty recession, and addressing the recession also must be one of President Obama’s first priorities. Tax rebates won’t work, since most Americans would most likely save any new checks rather than spend them. So Washington will have to jumpstart the nation’s additional spending, with a new spending package of $200 billion to $250 billion. And President Obama should focus most of it on the long-term investments he called for during the campaign, including grants to digitize health care records and provide access to computer training for current workers, and new supports to modernize the electricity grid and accelerate the development and spread of alternative energy. On top of that – and grants to cash-strapped states so they can avoid large cuts in their Medicaid programs and their workforces – the new president should focus the infrastructure piece of his stimulus on creating a national infrastructure financing bank and initiating new commitments for low-polluting light rail systems in major metropolitan areas.

The president will also hear demands and pleas for a new regulatory framework for the financial sector. That task is clearly a necessary and urgent one, but getting it right will be a long, complex process. His best move would be to create a national, expert commission with a mandate to figure it out over the next six months and report back to the nation.

The president’s serious priority-setting can only really begin once he addresses those emergencies – and it won’t be easy. The stimulus measures can be the first steps toward meeting his pledge to help build a more energy-efficient and climate-friendly economy. And since he will have to choose, the rest of that agenda should probably take lower priority than health care reform. One reason is that while the recession will cut energy prices and energy use with no help from Washington, for at least a time, it will only worsen out health care problems. The recession will further increase the numbers of people without coverage, perhaps by millions, without making a dent in the steady, sharp increases in health care costs that will continue to cut into jobs and wages. And any further delay will only make it all worse. It’s time to carry out his plans to make coverage much more nearly universal, and tie those extensions to a hard-nosed program of cost controls that will require hospitals and clinics to adopt the best practices of the country’s most cost efficient medical centers.

This will leave President Obama with plenty to tackle in the second half of his term. That can be the time to take further steps to help make America more climate friendly and energy efficient. It also has to be the time to build on the cost-control lessons from health care reform and finally address the serious and treacherous business of reforming Medicare and other entitlement spending for tens of millions of Baby Boomers.

And if President Obama can make real progress in these priority areas over his first term, it will almost certainly earn him an even bigger national landslide for a second term. 

The world was definitely watching as the results of the U.S. elections came in. In Latin America - the news of Obama's victory, and even Congressional races, were all over the press. Looks like NDN's view of the Hispanic electorate has gone global: Spain's major publication, El Pais says: "Latinos Were a Key Force In Obama's Victory," and Mexico's La Jornada reports: "Obama Blows McCain Away Among Latino Voters." Overall, it seems that the U.S. once again (in the words of Bill Clinton) moved the world by the power of its example rather than by an example of its power, and has revived the sentiment of hope and endless possibility in others, for which it is known.

In Mexico, the story of Obama's victory sadly was relegated to the interior of printed press because as Obama's victories were coming in, tragedy hit Mexico - Mexico's Secretary of the Interior, who led the fight against drug cartels, Juan Camilo Mouriño and anti-drug czar José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos were killed in a plan crash, which is under investigation (latest news confirms that U.S. authorities are assisting in this case). In spite of this tragedy, Mexican press did comment a great deal on the election: El Universal reported on Obama celebrations abroad, in Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, etc. where the general sentiment was:

[Translation] Observers, many of them from countries where the idea of a member of a minority group being elected President is unthinkable, expressed surprise and satisfaction at seeing the United States overcome centuries of racial conflict as it elected an African-American as their president. "This shows that the U.S. is a truly diverse and multicultural society, where skin color doesn't matter," said Jason Ge, a student of the University of Pekin in China.

The substance of this statement might be up for debate, but the irrefutable point is that the world looks at the U.S. in a new light today. The Latin American news reports even have some interesting tid bits that had never been reported in U.S., for example, Chile's La Nacion reported on election day celebrations in Kenya, and I learned that Barack Obama's "grandmother" in Kenya is not a blood relative - she is not the mother of Barack's father, but rather the third wife of Barack's grandfather, with whom he had other children.

Argentina's La Nacion showed off its new tools capability, publishing a word cloud of Obama's victory speech (in Spanish) seen below - "Hope,""Moment," "United," and "Country" have the most hits. Also in La Nacion, Congressmen and women outlined their hopes:"We have to observe the composition of the new Congress and strengthen relationships there...we will insist on greater market access in agriculture," and, "We have an opportunity to set aside our prior differences, Obama seems to be predisposed to dialogue and a higher degree of understanding...so I see a world with greater peace and security." The Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs has this press release on their homepage:

[Translation]
U.S. Elections: [Minister]Taiana affirms that "Obama's victory is a message of hope..."
"Undoubtedly, the victory of a candidate like Barack Obama in the U.S. is a message of hope and proof that a cycle is coming to a close in the world...a cycle dominated by...a politics of unilateralism and the imposition of decisions."

In Peru, El Comercio printed President Alan Garcia's congratulatory letter to Barack, in which he's already inviting Barack to go visit: "We have followed this campaign with interest and admiration, it has demonstrated the vigor of democracy in the United States and the people's decision to support your message of change and hope....We are also assured that during your term our bilateral relationship will continue to become strengthened...Peru, as a country committed to peace, stability and security in our continent, would be honored to greet you. I extend my most cordial invitation for you to visit Peru."

El Comercio also wrote about the excitement of First Minister Yehude Simon in view of Obama's victory, the headline reads: "Simon on Obama's election: ‘It is wonderful what's happened in the United States," and Simon added, "I hope he does not fail us," while he also praised the "lesson on democracy" taught by John McCain through his acceptance speech.

Even in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez sent Obama a congratulatory note, calling suddenly for "a constructive bilateral agenda," because, "From the homeland of Simón Bolívar, we are convinced the time has come to establish new relations between our countries and in our region...," as reported by El Nacional.

Colombia's El Tiempo reports that this historic election brings great expectations for Barack Obama within and without the U.S., and also discusses McCain's moving concession speech. In the face of such challenges some degree of skepticism remains, as reported by Mexico's La Jornada: "Mexico shouldn't get its hopes up too high with Obama: says expert of the Center of Economic Research." While the Universal's headline read a bit differently, "Obama represents hope for immigrants...Obama as president could mean pride for the foreign-born and hope for a change in their living conditions." So the world writes of hope, making history, transcending race, challenges, opportunity...most importantly, it is in everyone's best interest for the next administration to look more to all these neighbors to the south and work to develop a fundamental change in the U.S.'s view of what constitutes a positive working relationship with Latin America.

One more nail in the coffin of the GOP's southern strategy: Virginia goes blue in 2008. NDN has long discussed the impending downfall of the Southern Strategy as the demography of traditionally "red" states changes to reflect the 21st century composition of the country.  Before last night, Virginia had voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1952, except in 1964. This year Virginia's Latino voters and immigrant voters played a critical role in winning the state for Democrats. There are about 150,000 registered Latino voters in Virginia (almost twice the number from 2004), and let's not forget that Jim Webb defeated Sen. Allen in 2006 by 10,000 votes. Hispanics comprise 3% of total eligible voters, but last night they accounted for 5% of total voters in Virginia - a state that Obama won by 5% (or close to 155,000 votes). This is another example of Hispanics voting at a higher rate than the general electorate. Could Virginia,with its growing Hispanic and immigrant population, be the next Nevada?

Simon offers his thoughts about how we have arrived at this historic moment: