Remembering Alan Greenspan and Glen Bolger
Plus: New Senate polling in critical Ohio, Maine.
The focus of this week’s column changed at least three times over the last eight days, for me a bittersweet period of events both joyous and sad. The first and joyous event was last Sunday, a destination wedding outside of Moab, Utah, of our younger son, the youngest Cook, to a wonderful woman and a terrific addition to our family. The breathtaking and jaw-dropping geological formations near Arches National Park are something to behold, making that weekend even better.
The next day brought the sad news that Alan Greenspan had died at age 100. I had only met Greenspan socially during his historic 19-year tenure as chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006. But after he left government, his assistant would call from time to time to ask if I would be interested in coming over to have lunch with him, generally soup and sandwiches from the Daily Grill, at a little table in the corner of his office overlooking the corner of Connecticut and Desales.
Greenspan had an insatiable appetite for, and mastery of, politics. For me, picking his brain on the economy and getting the off-the-record insights of someone who had advised Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ford, then chaired the Fed during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush, and Bill Clinton, was sublime.
Not surprisingly, his office was filled with interesting photos and accumulated knick-knacks, but my favorite item was his “despatch box.” In the British government, the monarch, the prime minister, and top ministers are issued these boxes, basically briefcases made of wood, wrapped in red leather, and lined with satin, for carrying the most important and sensitive of government documents. After Greenspan left government, a high-level British government official presented him with a despatch box in gratitude for his stewardship of the world economy and the advice he had offered over the years.
Our lunches ended when his health began to fail a few years ago, but I’ll always cherish the memories, both fascinating and fun.
Two days later came more bad news: My friend of almost 40 years, Glen Bolger, died at just 63. I first met Glen when he headed the polling operation at the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1991, after a stint working with Dick Wirthlin, Reagan’s pollster. Glen and his Wirthlin colleagues, Bill McInturff and Neil Newhouse, left to start the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, now the largest in the business.
While he was always careful never to betray his clients’ trust, I could always count on Glen and his partners to be straight shooters about what was going on. Their firm did, and still does, so much work every week from coast to coast that if there was a new trend or a shifting dynamic, no one was more likely to see it first than those at POS. It was a combination of scale, the highest quality, and the sharpest analysis that I always found invaluable.
Beyond his analytical mind and storehouse of wisdom, Glen was also as nice a guy as you could ever meet. He and his wife, Carol Farquhar, traveled more than anyone I know, earning the moniker “The Iron Travelers” over their treks through some 40 countries, something my wife Lucy and I experienced with them on a trip to Cuba years ago. Glen and I had been on a panel about American elections, then the four of us headed across Cuba at a pace that almost killed us and would have worn out anyone half our age. Glen and Carol’s friends could vicariously travel with them through Glen’s travel blog, the last installment of which came from Seville, London, and Paris just over a year ago. When not working or traveling, Glen enjoyed kayaking along the Potomac, a quest to see as many bald eagles as he could.
For the last nine months, Glen battled a glioblastoma, with Carol and their three daughters at his side. Three weeks ago, Glen bravely attended the American Association of Political Consultants’ awards dinner to be inducted into the AAPC Hall of Fame, along with Bill and Neil on the Republican side, and David Doak, Anita Dunn, and, posthumously, Cecile Richards for Democrats.
Good news for Dems in Ohio, but the same stress in Maine
Thankfully on Thursday, things moved from sad to interesting; AARP released the first of its highly regarded battleground-state surveys for the cycle, this one among 800 registered voters in Ohio. The results corroborated the recent Fox News poll, which showed that the Buckeye State is considerably more competitive than it has been in recent years. AARP found former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown with a narrow lead of 3 points over Republican Sen. Jon Husted, 48 to 45 percent. The Fox poll also showed Brown ahead of Husted, who was appointed to the Senate last year, but by a wider margin of 8 points, 53 to 45 percent. Both surveys showed the governor’s race very close; the AARP poll put Democrat Amy Acton ahead of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee, by 3 points, 47 to 44 percent; Fox had her up by a point, 50 to 49 percent.
The common denominator across the surveys was that Democrats were not only more thoroughly consolidated behind their senatorial and gubernatorial nominees but also more enthusiastic, suggesting the likelihood of a higher Democratic than Republican turnout. In keeping with midterm election patterns, supporters of the opposition party are more motivated than those of the party holding the White House. Given the increasingly Republican trend in Ohio in recent elections, this should be yet another warning sign for Republicans that this could be a very tough year.
To the extent that there was a silver lining for the GOP, it may be found in the splits among age cohorts. Among voters 50 years of age or older, the AARP poll showed Husted up by 8 points, 51 to 43 percent; the Fox survey showed the race basically tied among those 45 or older, with Brown up by 1 point. The AARP survey showed Ramaswamy ahead of Acton by 10 points among those 50 and older, 51 to 41 percent; the earlier Fox poll had Ramaswamy ahead by 6 points, 52 to 46 percent. Keep in mind that older voters tend to vote at higher rates than their younger counterparts.
On Monday, the first high-quality survey of the Maine Senate race, a New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll of 608 likely voters, showed the race essentially tied. Forty-nine percent supported, or lean toward, Democratic challenger Graham Platner, while 47 percent favored or lean toward Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Thirty-three percent of Mainers identified as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans, and 35 percent as independents. When independents were asked which way they leaned, 51 percent leaned toward Democrats and 43 percent toward Republicans. As in Ohio, Democrats expressed much more enthusiasm about voting—67 percent said they were almost certain to vote, compared to 55 percent of Republicans. Unlike in Ohio, however, Republican voters were monolithically behind the Republican candidate, giving Collins 98 percent of their vote. Democrats backed Platner, 88 percent to 8 percent.
Each candidate has their own set of liabilities; Collins’s biggest is President Trump and the near impossibility of surviving as a liberal-to-moderate Republican, the same problem conservative-to-moderate Democrats have experienced. For his part, Platner must live down a rather unorthodox and controversial trail of words and actions. This is shaping up to be a very close race in a state Democrats shouldn’t have to worry about—but do.