So, there's an agreement on nuclear weapons cuts.  Is that such a step of major importance today, when the once-terrifying prospect of all-out nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States is of far less concern in the public mind (and rightly so, I think) than a stray North Korean or Iranian missile?  Since the fall of Communism, disarmament has become a ritualistic ballet that mainly flatters the Russian ego because it makes Russia feel like a fellow superpower.  (The cuts benefit Russia in other ways as well; its nuclear arsenal is badly in need of an upgrade, and the country can ill afford a new arms race.)   Has Obama agreed to link stratetgic arms reductions to the issue of missile shield installations in Eastern Europe?  Obama says no (and his chief Russia advisor, Michael McFaul, says no even more emphatically); Medvedev seems to think he has, because discussions of "defensive weapons" are to be included in the talks.  There's also a statement about "cooperation" on missile defense.  Whether any of this is meaningful remains to be seen.  Russian policy expert Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center writes that the way out of the impasse is for the U.S. to agree to a joint missile defense with Russia, a decicion from which Trenin says "the U.S. has little to lose" even if it ultimately doesn't work out.  The problem is that, as Trenin admits, Moscow does not want a joint ABM defense system if the U.S. also proceeds with missile shield installations in Eastern Europe.  Dead end.

There is a deal to allow the transit of U.S. weapons and military personnel across Russian territory (and airspace) to Afghanistan to help the U.S. and NATO military effort there.  As Russian military analyst Alexander Golts notes (Russian-language link), "While Moscow presented this as a concession, in reality it is obvious that the Americans' war effort in Afghanistan ensures Russia's security."   Golts believes that this deal was the only useful part of the Obama-Medvedev talks, otherwise no more meaningful than (in his colorful metaphor) the chatter of extras on a movie set who must maintain the background noise of conversation.

There was, however, an interesting reference to Georgia. (more...)

John Cornyn and Rick Perry got booed at Tea Parties over the holiday weekend - the Senator for his vote in favor of TARP and the Governor for his advocacy of toll roads to reduce traffic congestion. And here I thought those Tea Parties were simply about a bunch of "racist rednecks.....hating a black man in the White House."

(Via Ben)

One of the central tenets of the Emerging Democratic Majority theory, at least as defined by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, is that American attitudes on critical issues are becoming more liberal.  Hence the finding of their study that, on a 400-point scale with 400 being the most liberal and 0 being the most conservative, Americans average about a 209 -- slightly to the left of center.

The only problem with this theory is that, to claim the country is shifting to the left, you first need to establish a baseline.  Teixeira's study doesn't have any baseline off of which to operate.  It merely asks its questions, then concludes that America is now center-left.  Of course, without such a baseline (i.e., a study of American attitudes in, say, the 1980s, at conservatism's height), it is impossible to say with any certainty whether America has moved right, left, or stayed the same.

Fortunately, we do have studies with such baselines, and they are consistently showing little to no net movement to the left.  Back in late May, David Paul Kuhn examined the results of the Pew survey from 1987 to the present, and found that there was no movement to the left in American's political views.

Gallup has the latest entry in this debate.  It finds that, by a 2:1 margin, more Americans describe their political views as having become more conservative than liberal.  Interestingly, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike describe their views as having moved to the right.

At the micro level, we see similar shifts from 2004 to the present day.  On a range of domestic issues, from health care to guns to the environment, the public is noticeably more conservative.  The two more "liberal" viewpoints -- a decreased desire to see lower immigration and an increase in people who want the current health care system to change -- are actually inconclusive.  The immigration issue cuts across partisan and ideological lines, and it may be (and would make sense) that more conservatives would favor a system of tax credits to fund health care, rather than the federal government.

On values issues it is more of a mixed bag.  Substantially fewer believe that the government should promote traditional values, and substantially more describe themselves as "pro-life."  Overall, however, there has not been substantial movement here.

On government power, there are similar results.  The percentage of people who think taxes are too high has dropped for points, but the percentage who think that government has too much power has shot up 10 points, to 52%.

Finally, on defense, supermajorities believe that defense spending is too low or about right, and a similar number believe that Afghanistan was not a mistake.  The percentage of people who believe that Iraq was not a mistake is up a tick from 2008, though it is down substantially from 2004.

Taken as a whole, the Gallup data show a country that has not moved much to the left, and if anything is somewhat more conservative than it was in 2004.

So what then to make of the election of 2008, the oversized majorities granted to Democrats in Congress, and the election of the most liberal (or progressive, if you will) President in several years?

The answer is simple:  American voters are largely nonideological, pragmatic voters.  They do have some basic political values, and if a politician is too far outside of those values, he will not be elected.  But those values are broad enough and internally inconsistent enough that most politicians can offer the voters something.

Instead, what Americans want is government that works.  And Republicans somewhat spectacularly failed to provide this before the elections in 2006 and 2008.  So Americans turned to the Democrats to fix things.  If Democrats make government at least seem to work, they will govern for a long time.  If not, the country will return Republicans to power.

At any rate, the evidence for an emerging progressive and/or Democratic majority grows increasingly scarce.  The evidence for a pragmatic, essentially non-partisan, essentially non-ideological electorate continues to grow.

In an interview with Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Do you think it was helpful for Obama to deliver a speech to the Islamic world in Cairo? Or has he created a lot of illusions about what politics can deliver?

Kissinger: Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening. Now he's got to play his hand as he plays his various counterparts. We haven't gotten beyond the opening game move yet. I have no quarrel with the opening move.

SPIEGEL: But is what we have seen so far from him truly realpolitik?

Kissinger: It is also too early to say that. If what he wants to do is convey to the Islamic world that America has an open attitude to dialogue and is not determined on physical confrontation as its only strategy, then it can play a very useful role. If it were to be continued on the belief that every crisis can be managed by a philosophical speech, then he will run into Wilsonian problems.

Mickey Berdy, an American living in Moscow where she works as a translator and interpreter, comments on the Obama visit:

“Putin” is easy to pronounce, but “Medvedev” is a mouthful for English speakers. Happily, you can avoid their last names and address them as господин президент (Mr. President) and господин премьер-министр (Mr. Prime Minister). If you're not sure who's in charge, don't worry: No one here knows either. If you wind up in the same room with them, you might look in their general direction and address your comments to господа (gentlemen).

Here in Moscow, it's hard to tell which official statements are: for internal consumption and can be ignored; for external consumption and should be noted; or blurted out on a bad hair day. So who knows what you'll hear at the negotiating table. Heck, for all I know, you guys just crack open a couple of beers, kick back and get down to some good-natured horse-trading.

But you might hear the oft-repeated phrase, мы встали с колен (We've gotten up off our knees) as if Russians had crawled their way through the 1990s. I recall those years well, and I don't remember anyone on their knees in humiliation. To the contrary, at the time, they were impressed by the aid we were giving them, especially considering that they still had all their nukes pointed at us. In any case, we gave billions to them so they could get on their feet, and now they say they are — so we're copacetic, right? проехали (Moving right along … )

Another theme is: Нас окружают враги (We're surrounded by enemies). This one's easy. If it comes up, just ask: Есть у вас карта? (Have you got a map?) Then you show them that their country is one-seventh of the world's land mass.

Go here for more.

(Cross-posted to The Y-Files.)

UPDATED POST: KTUU-TV in Anchorage now reports that Palin not only won't seek re-election, but will resign later this month. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R) will replace her at the governor's picnic; he won't run for a full term in 2010.

ORIGINAL POST: Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has announced she will not run for re-election in 2010, CNN reports. She's scheduled to make an announcement shortly.

The decision frees Palin to travel in the Lower 48 as she considers a potential run for president in 2012. A re-election campaign could also have been tough on the former vice presidential nominee; her approval rating has dropped from stratospheric highs, and a number of candidates in both parties are said to be considering runs. Even if she won, the race would have been dominated by the specter of a presidential bid, giving her adversaries an opportunity to wound her politically. She's still fending off ethics complaints, many spurred by the "Troopergate" scandal.

Of course, a second term could have given the governor additional time to fill what many see as an experience gap between her and other potential candidates.

In the next few days, I plan to be blogging regularly, here and at The Y-Files, on Barack Obama's trip to Moscow and especially the Russian coverage of his visit.

I didn't really expect much from the trip, but so far, it is shaping up to be quite fascinating.  Evidently, Obama is spending a lot of one-on-one time with Medvedev (who declares on his video blog today that "Today, we are united by the values of our civilization, the values of respect for human life and human rights and freedoms" -- does he say this stuff with a straight face?) and a lot of time with "unofficial" activists.  On Tuesday, he breakfasts with Putin.  Obama's remarks today suggest that his "narrative" for the Moscow trip is that he and Medvedev together will be leading their countries forward to cooperation and partnership, while Putin, who "still has a lot of sway" and keeps "one foot in the old ways of doing business", needs to understand that the time of the old ways has passed.  Sounds like Obama's message to Putin is, more or less, "Move out of the way, buddy, time's up."

Chances are, Putin is not going to like this, particularly in conjunction with the fact that Obama goes straight from breakfast with Putin to a day of meetings with representatives of unofficial Russia.  In EJ.ru, Alexander Golts writes that his conversations with "certain people who are involved in the [U.S.-Russian] negotiations in one way or another" have left with the impression that they are confident that Obama's visit will be productive, but also extremely tense and nervous that something will go wrong.  And that "something" has a name.  According to Golts,

At one point, an impressively high-level diplomat blurted out, "What if Putin finally loses it completely and screws everything up?"

I go back and forth on how real or meaningful the rumored Putin-Medvedev rift really is, and to what extent Medvedev is really emerging as his own man (or a reformer).   We may learn a lot next week.

Cross-posted to The Y-Files.

In addition to the pressure Governor Mark Sanford is getting from the growing list of Republicans (and Democrats) in the Palmetto State now calling for his regisnation, a new poll Sanford is losing the battle of public opinion as well.

A day after last week's press conference in which Sanford first revealed he had been unfaithful to his wife, a poll from SurveyUSA showed 60% said he should resign while 34% said he should remain in office.

A new poll from SUSA shows that after a week's worth of non stop coverage that including an emotional interview with the Associated Press revealing that he "crossed lines" with other women and had more encounters with his Argentinian mistress than previously disclosed, 7 in 10 now think Sanford shoud step down from the Governorship while only 28% think he should stay in office. Sixty-three percent now say they have "no trust" in Sanford's ability to fulfill his duties as Governor of South Carolina.

Lastly, and perhaps most telling about Sanford's handling of the situation and the attendant media coverage it's generated, a week ago only 22% thought Sanford had "said too much" about his personal life, while 36% thought he needed to say more and 36% thought he had revealed "the right amount." Today an overwhelming 68% think he's now said too much.

A UNH/Granite State Poll released today finds that former senator John Sununu (R) would fare well against Rep. Paul Hodes (D) in a race for Senate in New Hampshire (June 24-July 1, 505 LV, MoE +/- 4.4%). Unfortunately for Republicans, Sununu -- who was bounced out of office last November -- announced yesterday that he won't run.

While Sununu trails Hodes by 2 points, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte gets help from independents and leads Hodes by 4 points -- with a quarter of voters undecided. Former congressman Charlie Bass trails by 2 points. Businessman Fred Tausch trails by 20 points.

While Hodes has represented one of the state's two congressional districts since January 2007, more than a third of voters still don't know enough to hold an opinion of him. Same goes for the potential GOP candidates -- especially Tausch, who's unknown by 85% of voters.

Ayotte 39
Hodes 35
Und 24

Hodes 40
Bass 38
Und 20

Hodes 45
Tausch 25
Und 29

Hodes 43
Sununu 41
Und 14

A group of American pundits which includes people as different as William Kristol and Leon Wieseltier is appealing to Barack Obama to make democracy and human rights a priority on his Moscow visit.  Grani.ru reports (in Russian) that, according to Obama's top Russia advisor, Michael McFaul, about half of the President's time on his Moscow trip will be devoted to interaction with "unofficial" persons.  Specifically, nearly all of Day 2 of his three-day visit will be spent in meetings with activists, members of the business community, and youth groups (hopefully not Nashi!).   And Gazeta.ru reports that on the first day of the visit, July 6, Obama will attend a "Civic Summit" of non-governmental organizations including Memorial, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House.  (Dmitry Medvedev is also expected to attend, though this is not officially confirmed.)   So far, this sounds like good news.

Meanwhile, a resolution urging the Russian government to dismiss the new charges against imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev -- a case that reeks of politics and outrageous injustice -- has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Reps. James McGovern (D-Mass.)  and Frank Wolf (R-Va), co-chairmen of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission,  and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe.  A similar bipartisan resolution was submitted in the Senate earlier.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who was in Moscow this week as head of a visiting Congressional delegation, was asked about this on Ekho Moskvy radio (where he appeared with his Russian counterpart, Konstantin Kosachev).

Berman's reply:

I am the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and I have never heard of this resolution.  There is a tremendous difference between resolutions submitted by members of Congress and the laws Congress actually passes.  I would not focus on the isolated proposals of isolated members of Congress.  We should focus on what constitutes U.S. policy, what legislators enact, not the statements of some politicians.

Not only does Berman not support his colleagues' human rights initiative; he goes out of his way to dismiss it as an insignificant and isolated political move. Nice work, Congressman.

By the way, here is the full text of the resolution's concluding part. (more...)