buzz

Monday Buzz: Remembering Ted Kennedy, Local Latinos, Probing the CIA, More

It was a week of expansive quotations for the NDN family in the news. Simon had the kicker quote in a major NPR piece this week about the Justice Department's inquiries into "enchanced interrogation" techniques. From the piece:

The administration said that the practice, known as rendition and condemned by human rights advocates, would proceed with more oversight.

"I think the Obama administration is having a hard time calibrating all of this," says Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network. "They were left a bad set of practices and realities by the Bush administration."

"The Obama team is finding that unraveling this is harder than they thought it would be, and they're trying," Rosenberg says. "But we're going to be having this debate a long time, and this [inquiry] is an important step."

That debate, he says, will necessarily involve how the country treated terrorism suspects in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Suggestions that discussion about what happened in the Bush era is either partisan or out-of-bounds is ridiculous," he says. "Laws may have been broken, and our standing in the world was affected."

"We need to have a conversation about this in our country."

Andres was quoted extensively in the Las Vegas Sun about the lack of Latino involvement in local politics:

Andres Ramirez made a bid at becoming only the second Hispanic mayor in Southern Nevada history when he ran for mayor of North Las Vegas against incumbent Mike Montandon in 2005. He lost, in a city where an estimated 38.6 percent of the population is Hispanic. He would have joined Cruz Olague, who held the title in Henderson for two years in the 1970s.

When Ruben Kihuen was elected to the Assembly in 2006, he became the second Hispanic immigrant to become a state lawmaker, after Pablo Laveaga, who was elected in 1875 and hailed from Sinaloa, Mexico. Kihuen was born in Jalisco. He joked at the time about doubling the number of Spanish-speaking voices in Carson City, referring to Moises Denis, who was born in Brooklyn to Cuban parents.

When you go through this litany with Ramirez, who now works as vice president of Hispanic programs for NDN, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, he accentuates the positive.

He notes that most other large counties in the top 15 for Hispanic population have had their large populations for much longer. In Clark County, and Nevada generally, he says, Hispanics "have become a quantifiable political force only since the last census" - less than a decade.

And while Ramirez won't overlook the historical paucity of elected and appointed officials with Latin American backgrounds, he also underlines the impact of those who have worked in other areas, such as former Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief Manny Cortez, "one the most powerful tourism officials in the world."

As for politics, Ramirez also points out that the expanding Hispanic population has voted in increasing numbers in the past decade, contrasting the highly contested 1998 race between Harry Reid and John Ensign, when "35,000 Hispanic votes was considered the most you could get," with the recent presidential election, when more than four times as many Hispanics went to the polls.

As for Kihuen and Denis, their victories are the result of lobbying on redistricting from Ramirez and others following Census 2000. The result: District 11, which is Kihuen's, and District 28, which fulfilled its intent with Denis' 2004 election.

Locally, the lack of Hispanic surnames on councils and commissions, Ramirez says, doesn't negate the increasing number of Hispanic staff members whose jobs are to ensure Spanish-speaking constituents are heard.

The rest is a question of "time and maturity." Ramirez predicts a near future that includes the more Hispanic state senators and more candidates for local offices.

Rob was featured in The Age talking about the benefits of a carbon tax:

TRADING of emission permits around the world will become a financial rort that fails to reduce carbon emissions - and will ultimately be scrapped in favour of a simple carbon tax, a former senior official in the Clinton administration has forecast.

Robert Shapiro, former US undersecretary of commerce and author of Futurecast, predicted that the US Senate would reject the emissions trading scheme proposed by President Obama, which is now before it.

Speaking by video to the Trade 2020 conference convened by Austrade and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Dr Shapiro said ''cap and trade'' systems as proposed by the US and the Australian governments to limit carbon dioxide emissions and allow trade in permits do not work as intended.

''Cap and trade has proved very vulnerable to vested interests, and therefore too weak to deliver the necessary emission reductions'', he said. ''Cap and trade creates trillions of dollars of new financial instruments to be traded, and subjected to the next financial fads. China and India will never accept a cap and trade regime.''

A better solution is to impose a carbon tax on emissions and return the revenue from it to households so people are not made worse off, Dr Shapiro said. A similar approach in Sweden has cut emissions there by 8 per cent since 1990 while GDP rose about 40 per cent.

CEDA research director Michael Porter strongly supported Dr Shapiro. CEDA today will release a report urging the Rudd Government to scrap its emissions trading scheme in favour of a carbon tax.

Finally, Simon was also featured in a Politico video about Senator Ted Kennedy. Simon addresses Senator Kennedy's remarkable legacy on immigration reform around the 5 minute mark. Check it out here:

Monday Buzz: Obama @ 100, the Honeymoon Continues, Cable Chatter, more

It was a strong week for NDN in the news. Simon had an op-ed which led on the Huffington Post front page about why Congress should pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform this year. His argument was quickly picked up in a range of blogs, and even in an internationally syndicated Associated Press analysis of how Justice Souter's retirement might reignite debate over social issues:

On immigration, some mainstream Democratic activists have joined Latino groups in urging Obama to get the legislative process moving soon. Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, says there are several reasons to tackle the difficult issue this year. They include better pay scales for blue-collar workers if employers cannot exploit illegal immigrants, and better U.S. relations with Latin American countries.

Simon was also quoted in Politics Daily on Senator Specter's party switch:

Specter's latest swivel can be seen as a potent symbol of the Republicans' fast-dwindling political base through the Northeast. Pennsylvania now has two Democratic senators for the first time in 62 years. "This is further evidence that there is a major realignment taking place," said Simon Rosenberg, the president of the center-left New Democratic Network. "But Specter's shift also has other major implications. It puts more pressure on the congressional Democrats to deliver on President Obama's agenda."

Morley and Mike had a piece published in the Huffington Post this week, entitled "The Honeymoon Isn't Over Until the Public Sings." They were also quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle story on Obama's 100 Days:

Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, co-authors of "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics," say Obama's buoyant numbers are pegged in large part to a demographic marker - his continued appeal to millions of so-called "millennial" voters.

"They think he's honest, straightforward and transparent. ... They have not lost any of their enthusiasm for him - and they drove the election in 2008," said Hais, who notes that the millennials "accounted for about 80 percent of the (Obama) margin over John McCain," and voted for Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio.

These younger voters represent the largest and most diverse generation in American history and are still the focus of intense political outreach by Team Obama, the authors say.

Morley and Mike also spoke to Politics Daily about Obama's distaste for cable news:

There is also a strong generational component to Obama's seeming contempt for cable. Veteran Democratic strategist Morley Winograd, the co-author of "Millennial Makeover" that shrewdly anticipated Obama's appeal to young voters, points out, "Division and confrontation are not what the millennial generation believes in. They believe in social networks, not cable news. You don't shout on social networks."

In unrelated news, NDN's Rob Shapiro went on Fox News last week to discuss the GM bailout plan. I think it's safe to say that he owned it:

Lastly, the Huffington Post posted an abbreviated version of UK Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander's address to NDN at the Harvard Club in New York last week. Check it out!

Monday Buzz: Rolling Stones, Rocks and Hard Places, Immigration, and More

It was an especially diverse week for NDN in the media. First off, Simon had a great quote in Rolling Stone's "100 People Who Are Changing America." Guess who was number 1 on the list? Here's what Rolling Stone had to say about America's Change Agent-in-Chief:

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The every-man-for-himself ethos of the Reagan Revolution, in favor of a greater idea of America: We're all in this together. The change is reflected in the successes of his first six weeks — the largest-ever middle-class tax cut, passed with the stimulus; his extension of health care to 4 million children; and the act he signed to bring fair pay to working women. "He has already brought about an amazing amount of constructive change," Al Gore tells Rolling Stone. "And he has succeeded in greatly expanding the limits of what is now considered possible." The crises Obama faces in domestic and foreign policy are immense, but his opportunity to implement sweeping change is similarly historic. "He has a capacity to do so much in the next eight years that he'll leave behind a very different understanding of what government can be — and of America itself," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the Democratic think tank NDN.

Simon was also quoted in several stories about immigration reform - in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Associated Press (Spanish-language), El Extra (Texas, Spanish-language) Excelsior (Mexico), and World Journal (Chinese-language). From the Chronicle piece:

Pro-immigrant Democratic strategists were also calling the confab a success. "It's an exciting day," said Simon Rosenberg of NDN. And given the magnitude of Obama's other legislative challenges, he predicted: "The White House is going to realize that passing comprehensive immigration reform is one of the easier things he can do this year."

And from the Mexican paper Excelsior:

Salas destacó que aunque Obama no especificó el mes en el que podría promoverse la reforma, los legisladores confían en que sea en el otoño venidero, por su parte, Simon Rosenberg, presidente del Instituto de Nueva Política, aseguró que le conviene tanto a demócratas como a republicanos promover una reforma migratoria este año.

“Para los demócratas, porque ellos se comprometieron con los votantes latinos a lograrlo y, para los republicanos, porque si no hacen las paces con la enorme y creciente comunidad latina, estarán arriesgándose a quedar fuera del escenario político en una generación y la única forma de reconciliarse con la comunidad latina será salir y apoyar esta reforma migratoria, y reconciliarse con esta enorme fuerza de votantes” explicó.

Our recent event with Joe Rospars and Simon was also picked up in the Polish paper Gazeta (the online version also embeds our video of the event).

Rob got major play in an excellent story by Thomas Edsall in the Huffington Post today:

Democrat Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the Clinton administration, and chairman of the economic advisory firm Sonecon argues that, by generally deferring to Wall Street leaders, the administration has become the target of populist resentment, drawing attention to the fact that many in the administration came from the financial industry, or the New York Fed -- which is closely linked to the industry, including Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Now, Shapiro added, Summers and Geithner are in position of virtually defending Wall Street - only backing off on the AIG bonus issue, for example, when the public rose up in fury.

Shapiro argues strongly in favor of temporary nationalization of those banks which are on the verge of collapse. A full scale, short-term takeover of insolvent institutions "is the only reasonable course at this point," he said, if that means "pulling out the bad assets and the leveraged borrowed to hold them (without having to put a particular value on them), and selling what's left to a new group, under a new name or the old one. It could actually be done very quickly - so the institution is closed for a short time while the depositors' accounts are quickly transferred to the new entity."

Shapiro contends that "these institutions are so stricken that there's no other practical solution."

Finally, NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais were featured in the San Jose Mercury News in an article about Obama's online mobilization of support for his policy initiatives. From the piece:

Some analysts and political experts believe Obama will be able to springboard from his campaign success, using online tools to keep backers connected and motivated, and that will put new pressure on Congress to enact the president's agenda on health care and energy. Votes on the budget are expected in the next two months.

"The legislative branch is about to experience crowd-sourcing," said Morley Winograd, the co-author with Michael Hais of "Millennial Makeover." He was using a term for leveraging Web technologies to enable mass collaboration.

"The ability to communicate and organize is a powerful weapon, and this will be part of a transformational change in politics," he predicted Thursday. Winograd and Hais believe "millennials" (voters under 30) are using online tools to remake politics.

President Clinton faced a similar challenge, how to keep his backers involved after the 1992 election, "and basically did nothing — that was a costly mistake," Winograd said.

Monday Buzz: "Millennial Makeover" in NYT's Top 10 of 2008, the New Voters, Electron Superhighways, and More

It was a banner week for NDN fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais: their book, Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics, was named one of the top 10 books of 2008 by New York Times' Michiko Kakutani. From the Times feature:

In what turns out to have been a highly prescient book, the two authors predicted that 2008 would be a “change” election, informed by new technology and by the outlook of a new generation of millennial voters, who tend to be more inclusive, optimistic and tech-savvy than their elders.

Their work on Millennials was also featured in MarketWatch, the Toledo Blade, and the National Journal. The National Journal piece, "Where are the New Voters?", also features NDN's work on Hispanic issues:

"It's another indication that America went through a civic realignment in 2008," said Morley Winograd, a fellow with the progressive think tank and activist group NDN, and co-author of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics. Hispanic voters, too, have swung decisively to Democrats, NDN experts note, and increased their share of the electorate by 62 percent in Colorado, 50 percent in Nevada, and 28 percent in New Mexico.

Michael's recent essay, "Building the Electron Superhighway," was featured in the Huffington Post and Grist.

Rob was quoted in Forbes on President-elect Obama's economic team:

Rob Shapiro, an economist who was a top official in Clinton's Commerce Department, said Obama's selection of Geithner and Summers, as well as his wooing of Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, reflect Obama's interest in attracting expertise and people of strong will.

"It tells you that not only does President-elect Obama have respect for expertise, but that he is very comfortable in an administration with very major figures," said Shapiro, now an official with NDN, a think tank formerly known as the New Democratic Network.

Rob also was featured in the Huffington Post, Carbon Tax Center, and Computer Weekly.

Friday Buzz: Millennials, Hispanics, and the First YouTube President

Since my last roundup on Tuesday, we've been in several stories that have really picked up and advanced NDN's narrative. Simon was in a great Associated Press video about how Obama will use the internet to govern, in which he predicted that the weekly radio address would also be broadcast on YouTube. His analysis of the subject was also featured in RCR Wireless, and in a whole host of other pieces over the past several weeks.  From the RCR article:

New Democratic Network President Simon Rosenberg offered a different view in foreseeing that Obama’s tech innovations have paved the way for “a completely different relationship between the President and the public.” Presidential “Fireside Chats” by radio initiated during the 1930s Depression will be out in this scenario. They would be supplanted by an entire array of interactive and citizen-empowering communications tools already tested during the campaign that convinced 55+ million voters to be Obama supporters. Pipedream or prediction? We’ll all soon see.

And indeed, with Obama instituting a weekly YouTube address this weekend, we are seeing sooner than most expected.

Simon was also in a great story in Salon, entitled "A Permanent Democratic Majority?", about the role of Hispanics in creating a lasting progressive majority coalition. From the article:

...None of this means that Democrats can take the Hispanic vote for granted. In fact, the party's success this year comes in large part because it began a concerted effort focusing on Hispanics. Simon Rosenberg, the president of the New Democrat Network, which has been studying the changing electorate and especially the impact of the Hispanic vote, says, "Increased turnout happened because Democrats finally woke up to this Hispanic opportunity ... It's really only in the last few years that Democrats woke up to this new reality. If you're a Hispanic voter, particularly in the Southwest or the West, the Democratic Party sort of woke up and started to speak to you."

NDN's work on Hispanic issues was also featured in the Boston Globe, the Examiner, the Latino Journal, Talk Radio News Service, Capitol Hill Blue, ScrippsNews, and VotoLatino.

Simon was also quoted in Mathaba on how Millennials and Hispanics have permanently changed American politics. NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais were quoted in great article in Forbes, entitled "Young Voters Turn America Left." And Rob was quoted in the Kansas City Star, and had a featured guest blog in the Houston Chronicle.

NDN's work has been featured in many narrative-shaping stories over the past week and a half. If you haven't gotten a chance to check them out yet, you can do so here, here, here, and here.

NDN Buzz: Monday Edition

It has been a remarkable week for NDN in the media; this is my fourth news round up in eight days (see the others here, here, and here).

First off, Simon's election analysis appeared in a major article in BBC News today, which began like this:

Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, director of the New Democrat Network, is one of those who argues that the pattern of the last four decades has been broken.

Since the the 1960s, when the Democrats passed civil rights legislation, the southern states have mostly voted Republican in presidential elections.

This has given them an in-built advantage, and only two Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (both southerners), have won the White House in the last 40 years.

Now Mr Rosenberg argues the Democrats have created a new paradigm that means they could dominate politics for a generation.

He gives three reasons:

• Demographics: The Democrats are appealing to the fastest-growing groups in the electorate

• Technology: The Democrats have mastered the new digital technologies, enabling them to fundraise and mobilise their supporters more effectively than their opponents

• Issues: The Democrats are better equipped to deal with the new issues, like global warming, immigration, and the global financial crisis, which go beyond traditional left and right divisions

He also argues that the Republican brand has been irrevocably damaged.

At the same time, he recognises that the main issue for many voters in this election was an old-fashioned one - falling living standards - and this will represent a major challenge for President Obama.

Simon is also quoted extensively throughout the body of this excellent article, which lays out many of NDN's main arguments, so be sure to check it out.

Since Friday, Simon has also been quoted in a plethora of sources about how Obama is likely to use technology to govern, including Wired, Agence France Press, the Houston Chronicle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TCMNet, Business Intelligence Middle East, and Real Clear Politics; NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Michael Hais are also quoted in the RCP story talking about Millennials. 

From the Wired article:

Obama is widely expected by the inside-the-Beltway community to use the web to redefine the relationship between the President and his constituents, just as he did so with voters during the 2008 campaign when he often used tech tools like YouTube and text messaging to communicate directly with voters, bypassing the media.

"I think you're going to see this new model used throughout his presidency that Obama's pioneered that allows him to reach many more people in a much more meaningful way," says Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the non-profit think-tank NDN in a recent interview. "Just like the advent of radio changed the relationship between those that govern and their voters, President (elect) Obama will start to re-invent the relationship of American citizens to their president using the new and modern internet-based tools."

This could take shape in the form of Saturday YouTube addresses instead of or in addition to the President's weekly Saturday radio address, Rosenberg speculated. The point is that Obama is expected to use the tools to go "over the heads" of the media to communicate and to mobilize voters.

Simon was also quoted in several more stories about the Hispanic vote, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, the Las Vegas Sun, the Latino Journal, and Burnt Orange Report. Tom Brokaw also quoted Simon in an interview with U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez on "Meet the Press," and Markos (Kos) from DailyKos linked to Simon's blog post about the interview.

Finally, Andres appeared in the Las Vegas Sun discussing Latino turnout, and Rob discussed Obama's possible economic policies in the Chicago Tribune and Ireland's Independent

NDN Buzz: Weekend Edition

With the elections just two days away now, it was a very busy week here at NDN. Yesterday, our recent polling on immigration reform was featured in the lead article in the Wall Street Journal, an excellent piece by Jonathan Weisman:

Between 2000 and this year, the Hispanic electorate will have doubled, to 12% of voters, according to Census data and NDN, a Democratic group that studies the electorate. That growth has been concentrated in once-Republican states, not only in the Mountain West but in the South. By 2006, Hispanics represented 31% of voters in New Mexico, 13% in Nevada, 11% in Florida and 8% in Colorado.

President Bush and his political team were able to ride that wave, nearly doubling the GOP's share of the Latino vote from 21% in 1996 to 40% in 2004, according to exit polls. Then came 2006 and the Republican Party embrace of get-tough legislation on illegal immigration, followed by Republican efforts to kill bipartisan bills to stiffen border enforcement and provide illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

In 2006, Republican support among Hispanics fell to 30%. Even Sen. McCain, who co-authored the bipartisan immigration legislation, does not appear able to reverse the trend. An NDN poll in August, when Sens. Obama and McCain were virtually tied in the polls, found Sen. Obama leading among Colorado Hispanics 56% to 26% and Nevada Hispanics 62% to 20%.

Simon hit on similar themes involving the Hispanic electorate and the country's changing electoral map in the San Francisco Chronicle and Bloomberg. His election analysis was also featured in DemFromCT's daily poll roundup on DailyKos, which linked to his front-page Huffington Post article, as well as in Newsday, the Arizona Republic, and the Huffington Post (again).

Andres was also featured in the Wall Street Journal speaking about the increasing importance of early voting, Michael was featured in the Council on Foreign Relations discussing energy prices and cutting carbon emissions, and Rob was featured in Grist speaking about clean infrastructure and a second economic stimulus.

Finally, aside from the print and Web media, NDN also made several TV appearances last week. Our event with Simon and Joe Trippi was broadcast on C-SPAN, Simon went on BBC World News to discuss the election (relevant section begins at 1:40), and Andres appeared on several Nevada TV channels, including Fox and ABC, condemning illegal voter suppression tactics targeting Hispanic voters. 

Syndicate content