Electing Judges

Does Justice O'Connor Have a Better Way? News this weekend that an anti-abortion, pro-gun, Christian group in California is targeting judges in the San Diego area comes hard on the heels of another tough contest - including independent expenditures - in Idaho for a seat on the Idaho Supreme Court. Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been speaking out and writing about the inherent problems associated with electing judges; something that most states do. O'Connor summarized the problem nicely in a recent New York Times Op-Ed: "Each state has its own method of choosing judges, from lifetime appointments to partisan elections. But judges with a lifetime appointment are not accountable to voters. And elected judges are susceptible to influence by political or ideological constituencies." Speaking to a bar group in Chicago, O'Connor recalled a contentious 2004 race in Illinois that cost $9 million. "As you might have guessed," she said, "the winner of that race got his biggest contributions from a company that had an appeal pending before the Illinois Supreme Court. You like that?" O'Connor advocates a merit selection system and a retention election. "In a merit selection system, a nonpartisan nominating commission interviews and investigates applicants for judicial vacancies, and ultimately recommends a few candidates to the governor. The governor appoints one from the list. Regular 'retention' elections are held to allow voters to decide whether to keep the judge in office."

As a state legislator in Arizona before going to the Supreme Court, in 1974 O'Connor helped create Arizona's system of merit selection and retention. The respected Brennan Center at the New York University School of Law tracks judicial elections and reform efforts and the Center's Adam Skaggs said recently that O'Connor has it exactly right - politics and judges don't mix.

Strictly speaking, the Founders thought the same. Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separate from the legislative and executive powers.” The election of judges may soon get even more complicated thanks to the recent U.S. Supreme Court corporate contributions case Citizens United that was decided by a divided court on First Amendment grounds. Skaggs predicts, as did Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent in the Citizens case, that more money will soon flow into judicial elections making it even more difficult for voters - and those with business before the courts - to see how judges are any different than politicians. As Justice Stevens noted in the Citizens case “concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch” and O’Connor predicts,“the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon." A superb Frontline document a while back examined Justice for Sale, It was sobering and cautionary and for anyone who really cares about the independence of the courts viewing it will send a shiver down your spine. Justice O'Connor continues her trailblazing career and her thoughtful cautions are worth a careful listen.

70 Years Ago...

Their Finest Hour Seven decades ago, western civilization teetered on the brink on a sandy spit of land in the French coast at a little town called Dunkirk. Over the last few days of May and the first few days of June 1940, 340,000 British troops and thousands more French were evacuated from northern France in what was at the same time a remarkable save and a stunning defeat. Dunkirk, that is all that need be said, to conjure up the image of England literally standing alone against what appeared to be the total superiority of the Nazi war machine. The 70th anniversary of the Miracle of Dunkirk is being remembered in England this weekend. One veteran who was taken off that bloody beach all those long years ago told the Guardian that the memory is "on my mind all day every day." It is hard to make great history - or great speeches - from abject defeat, but when England and the world needed it most, that most remarkable Englishman, Winston Churchill, rose to the occasion. His "finest hour" speech still stands as a superb historical document and as close as any politician can ever come to turning political rhetoric into lasting literature. The last three paragraphs of the speech Churchill delivered in the House of Commons on June 18, 1940 begin: "What (French) General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us." Churchill did many remarkable things with his speech after the Dunkirk disaster, not least being that he leveled with his country about its almost unbelievably dire circumstances. We take it for granted today that Britain would survive, that the United States would enter the war, that Hitler would be defeated. It wasn't so clear in that long ago spring. Read Winston's words and put yourself in that place 70 years ago: "Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." Churchill later said that the British people had displayed the heart of a lion in standing up to Hitler. He had the honor to supply, as he said, "the roar." "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" We celebrate Memorial Day weekend with cookouts, baseball games, a few hours in the garden perhaps, and, I hope, with a few moments of pause to remember. Western civilization did hang in the balance 70 years ago. It is history worth knowing and appreciating. Happy Memorial Day. Footnote: There is a remarkable new wartime biography of Churchill - Winston's War - by the acclaimed British World War II historian Max Hastings. It's a terrific book. Hastings shows Churchill to be all that he was - brilliant, petulant, difficult, charming, a cigar smoking, champagne swilling leader and orator of the first order.

Sorting Out the Idaho Primary - Part II

The Palin Effect and More If there is a single journalist with a national audience who regularly keeps an eye on Idaho it would be Tim Egan, the former Spokane kid, who now writes a weekly, online column for the New York Times. Here is the lead on Tim's column today: "In the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country." Read on for Egan's take on the Palin brand and some insight into why her obvious popularity doesn't seem to transfer to the folks she endorses, including Vaughn Ward. Meanwhile, if its possible, the Idaho Legislature next year is shaping up to be even more conservative. One sure take away from Tuesday's election in Idaho: the most conservative elements in the state GOP continue to be on the rise and they turned out this week. The Associated Press' John Miller notes in his summary story on the defeat of four GOP incumbent state senators: "Sens. Chuck Coiner of Twin Falls, Mike Jorgenson of Hayden Lake, Gary Schroeder of Moscow, and Lee Heinrich of Cascade lost to rivals who are either tea party adherents or courted voters espousing the movement's limited-government, states-rights philosophy." Still, I'm reminded - from an historical perspective- that there is nothing new in the fact that given a choice, Idaho GOP primary voters often reward the most conservative candidates in a given race. That's why Helen Chenoweth beat David Leroy in 1994 in a GOP First District primary and why Bill Sali won a six way race in the same district in 2006. In the more distant past, then-House Speaker Allen Larsen won a six way primary for governor in 1978, in part, on the strength of his very conservative standing. In hotly contested GOP primaries, all things being equal, the most conservative candidate tends to win. None of this history diminishes the obvious intensity of the "tea party" movement. Idahoans and people across the country are fuming about a lot of things and they are taking it out on incumbents or those seen as representing "the establishment." As a result, one-time GOP moderates like John McCain in Arizona, fearing the anger, are running to the right, while the middle of American - and Idaho - politics becomes more and more a no candidate land. November may tell us the power of anger as a political platform. Historically, optimism and practical solutions have proven to be a better path to power, but we're in a new zone and Tuesday's outcomes in Idaho will serve to reinforce the notion that being against something feels better to most candidates in this climate than being for something.

Sorting Out the Idaho Primary

Money, Endorsements Lose to Gaffes and Guts Raul Labrador, the new GOP candidate for Congress in Idaho's First District, is political proof of Woody Allen's famous phrase - "Eighty percent of life is showing up." Back in the gloomy cold of winter, with the Idaho Republican establishment in line with the guy Labrador decked on Tuesday, you wouldn't have found many political watchers in Idaho - this one included - who would have given the very conservative state legislator even a five percent chance to win the GOP primary. You gotta hand it to Labrador. He had the guts to show up and win he did. All politics require measures of luck and timing and courage and Labrador got just enough of each. Labrador will now face first-term Democrat Walt Minnick in a race that could well turn on whether Republicans nationally have a genuine chance to recapture control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall. Minnick will hope to make the election about his effectiveness and his conservative Democratic credentials. In other words, localize the contest. Labrador will try, as he began to do on election night, to make the contest part of a national referendum on Nancy Pelosi. Minnick has a war chest, while Labrador must have awakened this morning looking for money. The one-time anointed GOP candidate in the First District, Vaughn Ward - now dubbed the worst candidate ever - saw his front runner status dissolve over the last month in what will go down in Idaho political history as the most astounding series of, as Randy Stapilus says, "goofs and gaffes" that anyone can remember. Ward's demise drew significant national attention because he had been so completely embraced by the national and state GOP establishment and because Sarah Palin's last minute appearance on his behalf seemed to do nothing to help his cause. At the end of his line, Ward's big name endorsers, including two former governors, were no were to be found. Sen. Mike Crapo admonished him in the campaign's 11th hour for misusing a quote and a YouTube video of Ward stealing - of all things - Barack Obama's words went absolutely viral. Shakespeare couldn't have written this ending. Now, the vetting of Labrador really begins. Ward, as the front runner and generally regarded as the toughest opponent for Minnick, collapsed under the scrutiny and because of his own verbal gaffes. Now Labrador, who went virtually unchallenged during the primary, get his turn in the barrel. The rest of the primary soup in Idaho was pretty thin. Incumbent Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter won renomination, but a squad of challengers held him under 55 percent. Still Otter, a decades-long fixture in Idaho politics, seems well positioned for the fall. He will face first-time candidate Keith Allred, who had little opposition in the Democratic primary. Incumbent Republicans Crapo and Idaho's other Congressman Mike Simpson seem on a sure glide path to re-election. More tomorrow.

Now...That Was a Primary

Glen Taylor...an Idaho Original For the last few weeks, many Idahoans - particularly those who enjoy a good political tale - have been fascinated by the congressional primary between Raul Labrador and Vaughn Ward that will be decided today. The Ward-Labrador GOP primary has been a fascinating race, but can't hold a candle to a long ago Democratic primary. Fifty-four years ago, Idaho witnessed one of the most contentious primary elections ever and the guy who lost that epic battle - Glen Taylor - went to his grave believing the victor - Frank Church -had stolen his chance to return to the U.S. Senate. That 1956 primary launched Church's distinguished 24 year career. Idaho has produced its share of political characters - Big George Hansen, Steve Symms, C. Ben Ross, to name but three - but few could hold a candle to Glen Taylor, the Singing Cowboy. Taylor ran for the Senate six times, but won only once, in 1944, when he beat incumbent D. Worth Clark in the Democratic primary. In his earlier attempts at elective office, Taylor traveled Idaho with a sound truck, his wife Dora and the GlenDora Singers. As Taylor's biographer, F. Ross Peterson, has colorfully detailed in his excellent book on Taylor - Prophet Without Honor: Glen Taylor and the Fight for American Liberalism - the Taylor clan would ride into town, set up on a street corner and start belting out country-western tunes. After a crowd gathered, Taylor would climb up on the roof of the truck and deliver his political stump speech. It must have been quite the show. Taylor ran and won in 1944 as an unabashed liberal, an advocate of what became the United Nations and a supporter of civil rights. His left-leaning politics eventually propelled Taylor onto the 1948 Progressive Party national ticket where he ran as former Vice President Henry Wallace's running mate. They two liberals lost badly - Wallace and Taylor polled fewer than 5,000 votes in Idaho - and the stench of socialist or communist influence in the Progressive Party never completely left Taylor. He lost the 1950 Idaho Democratic primary to the guy he'd beaten in 1950 - former Sen. Worth Clark. Clark, in turn, lost to one-term Sen. Herman Welker. Taylor tried again for the Senate in 1954 and lost again. He made one final try two years later against the 32-year old Church. Church ran a vigorous campaign and by the morning after primary election day he held a less-than-commanding 170 vote lead over Taylor. Taylor alleged irregularities in the vote count in Elmore County, but Church was declared the winner and went on to defeat Welker in the fall. A subsequent Senate review of the election - lead by Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore, Sr. - confirmed that Church had indeed won, but Taylor never believed it. In his 1979 memoir - The Way it Was With Me - Taylor wouldn't let the long-ago election die. I remember interviewing Taylor at the time and he remained, at age 80, feisty, opinionated and outspoken. Taylor died in 1984, a one-time senator from Idaho and a many time candidate. One of the true Idaho originals. After running out his string in politics, Taylor made a fortune as the inventor of the Taylor Topper and he operated the extremely successful toupee business for many years. The ex-senator was a walking advertisement for his hairy product. In 1963, TIME did a piece - pardon the pun - on the male hair piece and quoted the general manager of the Taylor Topper company as saying: "The Senator is always saying that the only thing that will stop hair from falling is the floor." Don't forget to vote today.

No Coincidence

Opposition Research, Politics and the Press Richard Blumenthal's problems prove one of my cardinal rules of politics - there is no such thing as a coincidence. You look deeply enough and you'll find a reasonable explanation, not a coincidence, for everything. Blumenthal is the attorney general of Connecticut and, before the New York Times exposed his - to say the least - inconsistent statements about his Marine Corps service during the Vietnam era, he was also the front runner to replace retiring Sen. Chris Dodd in the U.S. Senate. But Blumenthal's still unfolding story is about more than just another politician not being square about his military service. His story is also a rare and fascinating glimpse behind the veil of secrecy that, more times than you might think, finds reporters and news organizations serving as the willing conduits for information/dirt/scandal that one political camp wants to dish on another. It was no coincidence that the story about Blumenthal's apparent embellishment of his military record hit just before the state's political nominating conventions and at a moment when he appeared to be on a smooth glide path to election in the fall. The story of a politician imploding that appears on the front page of the Times is about as big a body blow as you can imagine for a candidate, particularly if that candidate is a Democrat. The Bluemental story went national instantly and with all the mainstream credibility that goes with a story where the venerable Times takes down a liberal. Its hard to think the story would have had as much impact had it originated in, say, the Hartford Courant. An immediate Rasmussen survey showed that the Times story had dramatically tightened the Connecticut race. It was also no coincidence that Blumenthal's GOP opponent in the November election, multi-millionaire Linda McMahon, helped the Times explore the essence of Blumenthal's exaggerations based upon McMahon's own opposition research. While it is still unclear how exclusively the Times relied upon the work of Blumenthal's opponents to try and bring him down, it is not in doubt that McMahon's campaign had a role. They actually bragged about it. Times' editors, meanwhile, defend the handling of the story and insist it didn't originate with McMahon's campaign, but don't explain precisely how they came to investigate the story. Blumenthal defenders quickly hit back, with Howard Dean calling the Times story a "hatchet job" because the paper relied upon information from an opposing campaign. The hubris of Blumenthal's opponent actually admitting to playing a role in advancing the story is fascinating since it violated the unwritten rule about such things. Political operatives and reporters engage in the dance for information all the time but rarely, if ever, let the rest of us in on the details. Ironically, the bragging by McMahon's campaign also tended to dampen the impact of what Blumenthal has done. Consider all this the journalistic version of the Mafia's code of silence. Reporters take tips and research from political operatives all the time, but it is considered truly bad form to admit that it happens. This delicate dance is part of the little understood symbiotic relationship among reporters, politicians and their operatives who constantly engage in the trading of information. Information, like the fact that a candidate hasn't been square about his military service or had a business deal go bad, is particularly valuable to reporters when an election roles around and a opposing campaign has the financial ability to fund deep and broad opposition research. It's like adding a research bureau to the newsroom. Closer to home, I have no idea - only my belief in no coincidence - about why and how the relentless barrage of stories have surfaced over the last month about the various missteps of Idaho congressional candidate Vaughn Ward. It violates my rule to believe the stories are mere coincidence. Clearly some of the stories - Puerto Rico is a country, for example, not a U.S. Commonwealth - were driven by Ward's own words. But with all due respect to the Idaho reporters who broke other stories about Ward's failure to pay taxes, failure to vote in 2008, failure to acknowledge - or at least see the irony - in his wife taking home a paycheck from Fannie Mae while he was bashing bank bailouts, that he cribbed from other candidates websites to flesh out his own positions, that he misfiled his financial disclosure form, that he violated Marine Corps rules about using his military standing in his ads and that he borrowed a pick-up truck for his first TV ad - did I miss something - its impossible to believe all that information was merely the result of old fashioned, hard-work reporting...or coincidence. We all know newsrooms are in steep decline. Reporters and news organizations have fewer resources and less time than ever to pursue stories, particularly stories that take time and may - and often do - result in nothing more than arriving at a dead end. This environment makes opposition research even more valuable for news organizations and makes it all the more important that news consumers understand how the game is played. A few weeks ago, John Miller of the Associated Press filed a fascinating story - no coincidence - that Idaho campaigns are becoming better and better at opposition research. Miller noted that reporters often get a call that starts with something like: "hey, did you hear about..." So, with these caveats - Blumenthal has some serious explaining to do, each of the Ward stories is legit and helps explain the character of a major candidate and there is nothing wrong with reporters getting tips from anyone - I offer three rules to guide future reading of such stories.

• Money pays for research. McMahon's campaign in Connecticut is self-funded - she says she'll spend $34 million on the race - with the millions she made from professional wrestling. And, again no coincidence, national Democrats have more money than Republicans so far in this election cycle. By definition, that means more money for opposition research on candidates like, say, Vaughn Ward. Well-funded campaigns tend to do the most complete job of researching their opponents - no coincidence.
• Reporters make use of this kind of information - oppo research - all the time and almost never with any hint of where it came from. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps, but it does raise questions of motive and benefit. Next time you see a story along these lines, ask yourself who stands to benefit the most from having the story reported? Who has a motive for getting the story out? And, remember no coincidences.
• Finally, as Harry Truman famously said, if you can't stand the heat leave the kitchen. Politics is a contact sport. Life - political life, especially - ain't fair. If you have skeletons in that closet, they'll be rattled. Reporting the shortcomings in political resumes is what reporters do. With respect to Sarah Palin's stumping for Ward in Boise this week, as she calls it, the "lamestream media" reports what it can stumble upon and also what it is served on a silver platter and that, too, is no coincidence.

The Best Ad Ever for Ag Commissioner

Never Heard of Dale Peterson...Now You Have Big ol' Dale has become, thanks to the Internet, the most famous man ever to run for State Agriculture Commissioner. If you're a political junkie, or just a student of popular culture, you must check out Peterson's web-based commercial. The spot hasn't ever run on TV, but it's gone viral on YouTube (an increasingly vital portal for political ads), received thousands of hits, generated national press coverage and spawned a parody. Since this is a family website, you'll have to go find the parody yourself. It won't be hard. In the spot, Peterson, a Republican, rides a horse, wears a white Stetson, hoists a rifle and looks directly into the camera and bellows - "listen up!" It's raw, populist red meat for red necks and its, perhaps unintentionally, very funny. Yet, the guy really looks like he should be the Ag Commissioner in Alabama. A number of observers, including this one, say the ad is the best so far in this political cycle. Peterson's ad is, like most memorable political spots, different, funny and sharply pointed. It reminds me of some of the ads Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and New Mexico Gov, Bill Richardson have run in their campaigns. Dan Testa, writing for the Flathead Beacon, makes the Schweitzer connection and offers his check list for a Peterson-type ad: "...this one covers all the bases: Horses? Check. Western wear? Check. Ranch or farm setting? Check. White-hot faux populist anger? Check. Firearms? You should know better than to ask." The best political ads, I think, give the viewer 30 seconds (or 60 in Peterson's case) of real insight into the candidate. In 1990, former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus' best - and most remembered spot - featured him spontaneously reaching in his pocket to pull out his wallet in order to show a potential voter the fish he had caught with his granddaughter. When the prospective voter asked the angling governor, "where did you catch those?" Andrus responded: "No tellem creek..." and everyone had a good laugh. The spot was truly captured as it happened, unscripted and unrehearsed. In a few seconds it showed Andrus to be a proud grandfather, a successful fisherman and a fast man with a quip. In other words, it provided that 30 second look into what the guy is all about. I don't know if Dale Peterson will win the GOP nomination for Ag Commissioner in Alabama, but I do know most people who see his commercial will remember it - and him. That's the point.

Establishment Takes A Beating

What Does it Portend for Idaho Next Week? The political establishment took it on the chin in yesterday's primaries in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas. Voters said no to long time incumbents and party-endorsed favorites in both parties and forced Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a runoff that she might well lose. Any lessons for Idaho? Maybe. The highest profile race next week in Idaho is the GOP battle in the First Congressional district for the chance to take on first-term incumbent Walt Minnick. By any measure, the establishment candidate is Vaughn Ward who hopes to regain his perceived front runner momentum with a last week visit from once and future candidate Sarah Palin. Ward is trying to get up off the canvas after being downed by a truly amazing series of gaffes; the most amazing series I've seen in watching 35 years of Idaho politics. Still, Ward has a long list of establishment endorsements, including Dirk Kempthorne, Phil Batt and Idaho First Lady Lori Otter. He will outspend his primary opponent Raul Labrador in the range of 4-1. National Republicans have tagged him as the best hope against the Blue Dog Minnick. Yet, all that advantage - considering the political background from Tuesday's primary - may not help Ward all that much this year. Things to watch in the last week:

1. Can Ward avoid another damaging front page story in the last week? The hits the first time candidate have taken have been fierce, but we'll see if they have been fatal. They range from his wife's work for mortgage giant Fannie Mae, while he's attacking the kind of bank bailouts that saved Fannie Mae. Ward is an Iraq war veteran who has had the Marine Corps chastise him for the way he has presented himself in uniform. He failed to pay taxes on property he owns or properly file a required disclosure form. Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell twice caught his campaign plagiarizing other candidate's positions on his website. That last offense caused Ward to dismiss his campaign manager. As I said, unprecedented incoming fire. Update: The Statesman's Dan Popkey has a story today that won't help Ward's prmary end game. While touting his Marine credentials, Ward - despite promises to do so - hasn't released records about this service.
2. Will Ward's money advantage help him prevail? While the use of a borrowed pickup truck for his first campaign TV spot got Ward some unwelcome attention, the fact remains that he's been up on TV and Labrador hasn't. It appears both campaigns, based on the disclosure reports, are running on empty, but many First District voters likely know what they know about the race from seeing a Ward TV spot.
3. Will the sustained negative media coverage of Ward's mistakes offset his money and endorsements? Or, put another way - have folks been reading the papers? What is often called "earned media" was once considered absolutely critical to a candidate's ability to to put across his message. But with generally less coverage of politics by the Idaho media, more specialized attention by bloggers and widespread use of social media and the web, whose to say the barrage of negative coverage of Ward has had as much impact on the voting public as it has, for example, on the state's political elite who have generally watched his campaign with jaws dropped.
4. Does Palin's visit help? Minnick's campaign poised the question of why she would be campaigning for Ward when he didn't vote for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008, another of his gaffes? Ward managed the McCain campaign in Nevada, but didn't solve the riddle of getting his hands on an absentee ballot so he could vote. Palin will turn out a crowd, but for whom - Ward or the Wonder from Wasilla?
5. Finally, who shows up to vote next Tuesday? Idaho primaries typically produce the most faithful, most committed voters. Does either campaign have a voter turnout operation? And ultimately will Idaho voters follow the money and big name endorsements, or will they, like in Pennsylvania and Kentucky senate primaries, reject the establishment candidate?

Meanwhile, Minnick continues to pull in his own conservative endorsements and fatten his campaign account.

No predictions here. I'll just continue to watch with fascination. It's almost as good as a Red Sox-Yankees game.

Oregon's Governors Race Set Today

A Kitzhaber Comeback...or a GOP Fast Break? While most of the national attention today will be focused on Specter and Sestak in Pennsylvania, Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and whether a straight up Tea Party candidate can get a Senate nomination in Kentucky, one of the more intriguing races could be forming in Oregon. John Kitzhaber, a two-term former Governor, seems sure to win Oregon's Democratic primary today, while Republican newcomer and former NBA player Chris Dudley - all 7 feet 1 inch of him - could win the GOP nod. It is a race worth watching. Both men held leads in some of the recent public polling. I've written here in the past about the difficulty of pulling off a political comeback, which may be Kitzhaber's biggest challenge in a blue state that he once called "ungovernable." The last Oregon comeback attempt - Tom McCall's in 1978 - fell flat. At the same time, first-time candidates who try to launch political careers from the top - above the rim in Dudley's case? - often stumble. MSNBC has a good take on the race this morning, noting that in a recent robo-call poll Dudley came out ahead of the two other GOP contenders at just "shy of his career 46% free throw shooting percentage." No word on Kitzhaber's career shooting percentage.

Advise and Consent

Senate Rule 38: ...the final question on every nomination shall be, "Will the Senate advise and consent to this nomination?..." In Otto Preminger's 1962 film of Allen Drury's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Advise and Consent, Walter Pidgeon - playing the Senate Majority Leader - tells the fictional president: "that's a hell of an appointment." That must be every majority leader's lament to every president: "you gave me this nomination to get through the Senate?" I got to thinking, in light of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court and the nasty, Internet-driven campaign to raise questions about her sexual orientation - if the old Drury novel, with the same subplot, holds up all these years later. Simple answer: absolutely. The dust jacket of Advise and Consent - it was published in 1959 - talks about "driving ambition" and "ugly personal jealousies" and the always popular "vicious demagogues." Sounds like this morning's headlines. The Senate historian has a wonderful piece on the book that provides some guesses as to who Drury based his characters on and notes that the novel launched his fiction writing career. How good was the book? Drury's major competition for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1960 was Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King and, this is saying something, the inside account of a Washington, D.C. Senate confirmation fight won out. In literary competitions, as in politics, you are often defined by who you beat. Writing in Policy Review Roger Kaplan said Advise and Consent is the only book of its genre - the political thriller - worthy of literary acclaim. And NPR's Scott Simon noted on the 50th anniversary of the novel that he has read and re-read the book since first discovering it when he was 12 years old. Thomas Mallon's 50-year look back at the book in the New York Times noted that Drury's senators in the late 1950's were dealing with issues of pre-empetive war, the consequences of lying under oath and the notion that the cover up is always worse than the crime. Add the sexual orientation subplot now rearing its ugly head in the Kagan nomination and it is easy to conclude that not much changes in American politics. I also agree with Peter Bogdanovich that Preminger's movie, based on the book, just might be the best American political movie ever. It has a great cast, in addition to Pidgeon, that includes Henry Fonda, Don Murray, Peter Lawford, the great Charles Laughton and, brace yourself, Betty White. It is a great film. Drury's story, of course, involves a decades-old allegation about sexual orientation. Eventually all the principle characters know what's going on, as do newspaper reporters, and in 1959 - at least in Advise and Consent - the mere hint of being outted as a homosexual was enough to prompt a suicide of a prominent senator. The whispering about Kagan has already moved to the mainstream with the Associated Press asking if her orientation is anyone's business. Ultimately that question, and any other you can think of, is for the Senate to determine as part of its Constitutional duty to advise and consent. How the question is handled will say as much about the Senate as it will about the nominee. Years after his celebrated book was published and after Drury, a Times reporter, had written several other not-so-well received books, he was asked what he made of the Senate that he had long covered and wrote about in fiction and non-fiction books. Drury said: "There's nothing like it on God's green earth." That's for sure. Read the book and rent the movie. Think of it as research for the Kagan hearings.

Shedding a Political Past

That Reminds Me of a Story... I think the wonderful line is attributable to former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson. At least I'll give him credit. It sounds like something he would have said. When asked if there is any cure for the "disease of politics," the crusty old GOP moderate replied: "Yup, embalming fluid." I have been thinking about that line in connection with the U.S. Senate primary races underway in Arizona, where John McCain is doing everything he can to get rid of any hint that he was once the Senate's biggest maverick, and in Pennsylvania, where Arlen Specter is running away from his 40-plus years as a Republican. There is much to lament these days in our politics, but it is downright sad to see guys like McCain and Specter abandon character right along with the policies they have embraced for years. I know, it's all about political survival in this toxic environment, but they still have to look themselves in the mirror every morning when they lather up. You wonder how they do it. McCain has embraced the controversial Arizona immigration law like the born again Tea Party activist that he has become. This despite his courageous bi-partisan efforts - with Ted Kennedy - to force action on an immigration strategy that might have actually helped address the problem. McCain's new TV spot features him walking along the Arizona-Mexico border talking tough with a sheriff about finishing "the dang fence," a policy he once dismissed as ineffective. Specter is running TV spots featuring President Obama saying nice things about him after he cravenly switched parties in order, as he put it at the time, to have a chance of being re-elected to a sixth term. A few months ago Specter, then a Republican, voted against the confirmation of Elena Kagan to be solicitor general of the United States. Now that he's a Democrat, he thinks Kagan looks a whole lot better as a Supreme Court nominee. These guys, both admirable in past lives because of their cranky independence, have succumbed to the political disease to such a degree that they appear ready to do and say almost anything to hang on to high public office. Make way the embalming fluid. And while it may be true, in Emerson's famous phrase, that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." We'll see soon enough if voters agree. The real point of the famous essay - Self-Reliance - that Emerson's "foolish consistency" line is plucked from is contained at the very end. "A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." Principle is taking a beating in these two races.

Civilization Requires Civility

National Civility Tour Comes to Idaho Jim Leach is on a mission. The former Republican Congressman from Iowa, now chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has the passionate belief that we're shaking the foundations of our democracy by the way we handle our political discourse. Leach is on a mission for civility. In a speech last fall in Nebraska, appropriately entitled "With Malice Toward None," Leach said: "The public goal should be to recognize that it is great to be a conservative or libertarian; great to be a liberal, a moderate, or progressive. But it is not great to hate. It is not great to refuse to respect one’s fellow citizens at home and refuse to endeavor to understand fellow peoples abroad. "The decency and fairness with which political decisions are made are generally more important than the outcome of any issue. The 'how' almost always matters more than the 'what.'" Leach should know. He spent 30 years in Congress, rose to the top ranks, lost re-election in 2006, taught at Princeton and was tapped by President Obama to run the Endowment last year. Almost immediately he launched a 50-state "civility tour" talking about the importance to a functioning democracy of understanding and not demonizing your political opponents. He talks about the search for "the common good," not just partisan advantage. Leach has a politician's experience and a scholar's disposition. Believe me, that is a rare but valuable combination. The Andrus Center for Public Policy - I serve as the Center's volunteer president - will host Leach for a lunch and talk on June 11th at the Grove Hotel in downtown Boise. The Idaho Humanities Council, the state - based affiliate of the NEH - has been instrumental in getting the chairman to Idaho. Leach will speak on "Civility in a Fractured Society." Leach doesn't call for the abandonment of fiercely held political principles, but rather that we not start the political discourse by assuming that the other person's position is automatically suspect and therefore not worthy of consideration. It is a message the Andrus Center embraces. The Center was formed in 1995 to help carry on the approach to public affair that the four-term former Idaho governor embodied - vigorous, but civil debate that sought to find win-win solutions. Seating for the luncheon and speech is limited and you can reserve a spot online at the Center's website. As columnist Jamie Stiehm noted recently in U.S. News - to steal Dr. Samuel Johnson's phrase - "we've become good at hating," but not so good at being civil. Jim Leach is trying to save us from ourselves. Let's hope he's making progress.

The Brits Know How to Have an Election

You Want Change... Put me down as an Anglophile. London is a great city. Winston Churchill was, and I know I'll get an argument, the indispensable man of the 20th Century. Theater, music, literature, quirky humor, lukewarm beer, whiskey from Scotland - I really like the mother country. The British have their challenges, needless to say, but the recent election there is a reminder of how much Great Britain has to teach us about conducting a spirited and quick national election, making a decisive change in leadership - again quickly - and doing it all with a fair amount of style and class. Gordon Brown, the just ousted prime minister, will never be confused for Churchill, but it was hard not to admire the way he left Downing Street yesterday in route to hand his resignation to the Queen. Stiff upper lip and all that. At the same time, David Cameron, the 43-year-old leader of the Conservatives immediately became the youngest prime minister in 200 years. You win an election in Great Britain and poof - you move in at No. 10. You wonder if they had time to change the sheets. You must also admire the speed and decisiveness with which Cameron and Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg closed a deal to forge the first genuine coalition government in Britain since World War II. Clegg will be the deputy prime minister and several of his Lib Dem colleagues will get spots in the Cabinet, Britain gets a fresh start with two attractive younger leaders and it all happened in a matter of days. As the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum noted, the British system worked beautiful and now the Tories confront the nation's economic troubles in full partnership with the left of center Liberal Democrats. Each party has a stake in working on the details and fixing the economy. It may not work in the end, but some how all the players seem to have been trying to find the best path for the country once the voters had spoken, and not very decisively at that. I've had a running debate with my much better half for years over the relative merits of the British and American systems. As our politics have become ever more polarized - can you imagine Barack Obama and John McCain negotiating a power-sharing arrangement - and voters feeling like Washington is less and less accountable, I find the parliamentary system to have more and more appeal. Key members of the ruling party in Britain actually run departments of government. They must propose and defend their own budgets and plans. They must stand weekly for questions from the opposition. Its not any fun to lose an election in Britain, I know, but its not often an occasion for prolonged transitions and public agonizing. Tradition demands a certain pace and, after all, the Queen is waiting. What would our system be like, in a variation on the Brits' approach, if the president drew his cabinet from the leading members of his party in the Congress? Hillary Clinton could still be in the Senate and Secretary of State. Ken Salazar could run Interior and still be the Senator from Colorado. How about Barney Frank running the Treasury Department or the Securities and Exchange Commission? OK, maybe not. But, you get the point. Separation of powers problems aside, with a hybrid American-British system we'd have more accountability and if the president lost a key vote in Congress - bam - national election. It wouldn't hurt us to shorten up our transition, either. In the modern age, from election day to January 20th is an eternity. The British do it better. I know, as my better half says, what are you thinking, or smoking? Still the British, with all their problems and challenges, have something to teach us about four-week long campaigns, the ability to quickly and effectively form coalition governments and a chance to provide real change and accountability for those running the government. After all, it's not like we have the perfect system. We could learn some things. Might do us good.

But She Isn't a Judge

Many Great Ones Weren't, Either The early line of attack against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan seems to be focusing on her lack of "judicial experience." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, among others, voiced that concern after President Obama announced her appointment Monday. While Texas Sen. John Cornyn was lamenting Kagan's lack of judicial chops, someone was remembering that he thought George W. Bush's nominee Harriett Miers lack of the same was just fine. Lots of water to go under this confirmation bridge, but the "lacking judicial experience" line, from an historical perspective, doesn't hold water. The history of the nation's high court is a story of many celebrated justices who donned the black robe for the first time only after they joined the Committee of Nine.

Consider these names, just in the 20th Century:

Chief Justices Harlan Fiske Stone, a law school dean, like Kagan, and then Attorney General before going to the court. Or, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a Justice Department lawyer, before becoming a Justice. Hugo Black a U.S. Senator. William O. Douglas, a senior federal official with no judicial experience. Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Lewis Powell and Earl Warren, all without prior judicial experience and all who became celebrated justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In fact, every president from FDR to Nixon appointed at least one justice without prior experience on the bench.

Given the extreme partisanship that surrounds all judicial nominees, Kagan will have to run the confirmation gauntlet and answer questions about everything she has ever said, written or done. Fair enough. It is a life-time appointment, but not being a judge - as American history shows - certainly shouldn't be a prime factor in the confirmation test. Until fairly recently it hasn't been much of a consideration at all.

By the way, for students of the Supreme Court, the SCOTUSblog may be the best source around for really good information on the nominee, what she has said and done and what others are saying about her.

Back to the Future

Is it Time to Bring Back Glass-Steagall? Carter Glass (left) developed an impressive resume during his nearly 50 years in public life - Congressman, Secretary of the Treasury under Woodrow Wilson, architect of the Federal Reserve System and U.S. Senator. If he's remembered at all more than 60 years after his death it for the financial services regulation he authored - the Glass-Steagall Act - and pushed through the Senate in 1933. A key provision of Glass-Steagall regulated for the first time the speculative activities of banks and mandated the eventual separation of commercial banking from investment banking. Bankers would have to chose under Glass' legislation to accept deposits and make loans - commercial banking - or invest and trade in securities and other instruments - investment banking. There is general agreement that the legislation stablized banking in the 1930's and provided a solid platform on which to build a strong and sustainable system for the rest of the 20th Century. Wall Street was never satisfied, however, and after years of lobbying to end the separation and "reform" and modernize banking for the 21st Century, Congress repealed provisions of Glass-Steagall in 1999. President Bill Clinton signed the legislation. The final Senate vote was a lopsided 90-8. Still, there were some voices back in 1999 expressing concern about doing away with the Depression-era legislation. When you go back and read the comments of North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, one of the no votes, you almost feel he had a crystal ball allowing a look into the future. ''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall," Dorgan went on, "but I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.'' The late Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota called Glass-Steagall a "stabilizer" during the Great Depression "designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring." The fears were discounted by the proponents who, after all, had the votes. Then-Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska said: ''The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown." Now, in the wake of the greatest financial crisis since 1929, a host of people think the repeal was a bad idea and even some who originally supported it, like Arizona's John McCain, are supporting a return of Glass-Steagall. Even an ex-Merrill Lynch executive said he regretted supporting repeal. The great financial meltdown of 2008 had roots deep in the fertile soil of a wild and unsustainable real estate market, unregulated and unintelligible exotic investment tools and regulators at the federal level who were too often asleep at the switch. Someday we may know the full story that is still unfolding thanks primarily to good reporting and post-disaster analysis. One could make the argument, and more and more are making it, that the great collapse really began when Washington wiped from the books a Depression-era law written by the long forgotten senator from Virginia - Carter Glass.

Tough Primaries

Pennsylvania: A Foretaste of What's to Come in Idaho One of the most interesting - and toughest - primary elections in the country is nearing an end in Pennsylvania. Party-switcher Arlen Specter, supported by the White House and most heavyweight D's, is trying to hold off Rep. Joe Sestak and preserve a chance to win his sixth term in the U.S. Senate. Sestak has put up one of the most effective ads I've seen in a while reminding Democratic primary votes in Pennsylvania that Specter was a Republican until two years ago. Sestak, a retired three-star Navy Admiral, has now taken a tiny lead in the race. While Snarlin' Arlen tries to hold on against charges that he is a conniving opportunist, Sestak is fighting off demands that he release his Navy records against a backdrop that includes the allegation that he was relieved of his command forcing his retirement. The race shows how tough a primary election can become when candidate are scrapping over the base voters in a party. The Republican primary races in Idaho's First District has taken on a similar tone as Vaughn Ward, a Marine Corps reserve major and the favorite of many establishment Republicans, tries to hold off the challenge of very conservative state legislator Raul Labrador. The race could turn in the final days and makes the Tuesday head-on-head debate on Idaho Public Television really important. Both candidates have roots in the southern part of the huge district making populous Canyon County the battleground and both candidates are clearly trying to out appeal the other with the Tea Party crowd. Last week, Labrador gained the endorsement and help of long-time conservative activist Dennis Mansfield who claims the momentum in the race is moving Labrador's direction. Labrador also picked up endorsements in Canyon County. Again, like the Pennsylvania race, the GOP primary battle in the First District reflects the fault lines in the increasingly conservative Republican Party. Expect some tough shots in the final days. These guys, like Specter and Sestak back east, are battling for the heart and soul of their party and it's winner take all. The winner in Idaho goes against first term Democrat Walt Minnick who has had the luxury of not facing a primary challenge allowing him to build his ample war chest for the fall.