A Second Hand Conjecture

For those of us not living in the concentrated sprawl of the coastal and Midwestern metropoli, it is often extremely perplexing how urban Democratic mayors in places like Chicago and Philadelphia can compile lengthy and embarrassing records of incompetent and failed policies, yet remain wildly popular within their urban constituencies. Even as these mayors accumulate massive public debts while governing with a seeming indifference to economic and developmental realities, there is often a certain immutability to their popularity. It is doubly surprising how mayoral characters of this sort are consistently reelected to office in enormous majorities, frequently over vastly superior Republican opponents.

It occurs to me that as the United States becomes ever more urban concentrated, is it not conceivable that we should expect to see this bizarre phenomenon replicated in national politics?

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Whilst most elected Republicans are still preoccupied in pledging to work with (or for) the Obama administration, Sarah Palin isn’t having any of it.

This is significant criticism, because it is vitally important that a Republican leader emerges who can command a media platform, and will articulate regular opposition to the Obama administration on national policy. Naturally, whoever does emerge to shoulder this burden will be perfectly placed to continue that opposition in the next presidential election.

There’s certainly no point in looking to the decimated and newly submissive ranks of congress for this leadership. As in 1976, political reality mandates that it must come from outside Washington. Interestingly, Palin possesses an advantage over Reagan when he sought to become this kind of external leader of the opposition: she holds political office and can reinforce her criticism with independent action, as the new pipeline with Canada demonstrates.

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Rasmussen has polled the public on whether they agreed with President Bush’s characterization of capitalism as the “highway to the American Dream.” Only 44% voiced support for capitalism, 33% were undecided and 22% expressed opposition. A grim finding. Only Republicans marshaled an absolute majority of support for the system, commendably voting 4:1, independents had a plurality of support, and Democrats were evenly split.

It should be observed that it is not without historical precendent that a victorious power would quickly wish to transform itself into the image of the enemy it proved its system utterly superior to, rejecting the values and virtues which had enabled her to triumph, in favor of those which had condemned her adversary to defeat. Indeed, it’s a bizarre but relatively common historical temptation if considered.

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Rasmussen reports today that Sarah Palin is the choice of 64% of Republicans for the 2012 Republican nomination, and that a staggering 91% of Republicans have a favorable impression of her (equally remarkable, 65% rate their view as ‘highly favorable’).

It’s perhaps unnecessary to mention that there is no figure of comparable popular prestige left standing in the Republican party. Assuming she puts to rest lingering concerns among the Republican commentariat about her knowledge of foreign affairs, she’s in a remarkably similar political position to Ronald Reagan in 1976…standing as she is, alone among the wreckage of the GOP. And in 2012, the conservative grassroots sentiment will likely be quite similar to 1980, when no one in the GOP was eager to give the establishment favored candidates of George H.W. Bush or Howard Baker another chance, after the painful defeat of their previous hero, Gerald Ford.

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I was not in favor of the Paulson plan if you haven’t caught that yet. Still, the pitiful display from our congress today set a recent low.

First, faced with an unpopular and contentious bill which she feels for the good of the nation must be passed, we get a partisan and divisive speech from Nancy Pelosi:

Pelosi had said that the $700 billion price tag of the measure “is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”

Pure horse hockey. More importantly, if Pelosi believes her rhetoric about the importance of this bill the poor judgment, lack of leadership and inability to understand the importance of statesmanship in a crisis should be grounds for immediate dismissal from her post.

Then, we get this pathetic response from the Republican leadership:

“I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, adding that Pelosi “poisoned” the GOP conference.

Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) held up a copy of Pelosi’s floor speech at a press conference and said she had “failed to listen and to lead” on the issue.

The Speaker had blasted the Bush administration in her speech and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asserted that some GOP lawmakers, who had reluctantly agreed to support the bill, might have changed their minds following Pelosi’s remarks.

“Might” have effected them? What whining. If it is false it shows the same tin ear that Pelosi demonstrated. If it is true it is even worse. Either way, did it not occur to them how petty it would look in a moment of crisis?

If these congressman or women really didn’t support the bill and were going to vote for it anyway, the idea that they would change their votes because Pelosi was her normal clueless self is enough to deprive them of my vote forever.  It is even more damning if they thought the bill was necessary and voted against it due to her behavior.

This is a disgrace.

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According to the Associated Press, a sequence of interviews with Democratic leaders has revealed this to be the political plan being recommended to the Obama campaign:

1. Tie the Republican to an unpopular President Bush.
2. Let no charge go unanswered.
3. Stress plans to fix the economy.

Well, I’m not sure any of these items is good advice, with a possible qualitative exception on #3.
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According to ThinkProgress’ count President Bush went completely unmentioned last night at the convention. Rather sad and rather weak. There are plenty of defensible polices of the administration (if there seem to be an equal number of indefensible ones). Avoiding the subject altogether without even a cursory acknowledgment is a sign of unnecessary fear, which can only supply further confidence to the opposition.

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RightWingNation has some good photographs from the Pennsylvania McCain/Palin rally. Evidently the crowd kept drowning Sarah out with adulatory chants.

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I’m honestly kind of surprised that people are surprised John Edwards had an affair on his cancer-ridden wife and fathered a baby. I mean, I know that’s something we thought was limited only to Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, but honestly? That’s a big shocker? So I asked my friend Dave, one of those clear-eyed Obamanauts I enjoy asking about current events, what he thought.

Josh: so hey how about that John Edwards
omigod a politician lied about having sex!
that’s so new and we’ve never had to deal with that before!

David: HAHA I KNOW
what the public wants to know is:

Josh: and people are freaking out about it
IS IT CURVED

David: WILL OBAMA DENOUNCE HIM!?!?!

Right, so there you have it.

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Rumors have it that Bobby Jindal will deliver the keynote address at the RNCC. Shlok Vaidya thinks the GOP intends to position Jindal for 2012, the way the Democrats managed Obama in 2004. Interesting and possible, although such things are rarely that well-planned. The Democratic view in 2004 wasn’t to position Obama for a White House run, but to lend a rather tired and morose candidate named John Kerry some youthful optimism and vigor. Come to think of it, not so different for the Republicans in 2008 after all, is it?

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It is telling that some of the most outspoken anti-gay Republicans out there, who attach their name to anti-gay marriage amendments no less, are tranny bottoms, cruisy sluts, and whore-mongers. Not that there is anything fundamental to Republican Christian conservatism that encourages deviant anonymous sex, but there is a disturbing correlation building. They think people like me, who would really just like the right to get married some day, pose the biggest threat to the family.

I wonder what it is about the relationship with my boyfriend they find so threatening—an appreciation of John Waters and Russ Meyers movies, or repeated viewings of Strangers With Candy? Oh yeah, I don’t really wonder. What despicable men.

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Most people believe that liberals and Democrats are more sympathetic to gay interests than conservatives and Republicans. Count me among those who think this is accurate.

But, not all is what it seems on the surface.

Some Republicans – some very high up – can and have expressed support for those in the gay community.

Allow the Gay Patriot to explain.

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Do you want the best possible result? Sure; don’t we all?

When I play bridge, we frequently say: “I didn’t get the best possible result. But – I got the best result possible.” Sometimes, the best possible result is impossible to get. And – you don’t always get what you want.

These very important lessons are highlighted in this spot-on essay from the Weekly Standard: The Inconvenient Truths of 2008.

Each party’s base has two inconvenient truths it doesn’t want to hear. For Republicans, those truths concern immigration and the culture war. Most of today’s illegal immigrant population is here to stay (along with their descendants) and will pay no significant price for getting here outside the legal channels. No presidential candidate can change those facts. On the issue that matters most to conservative Christians–abortion–the political phase of the culture war is over. The right lost –a pro-life initiative failed in South Dakota in 2006: If it can’t win there, it can’t win anywhere. Well, maybe Utah.

For Democrats, the relevant subjects are Iraq and federal spending. Discussions of the Iraq war in Democratic primaries have a bizarre quality: Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speak as though the war is a lost cause. It isn’t–unless one of them wins the election and pulls the plug, a scenario that Iran’s proxies no doubt await eagerly. As for spending, the federal budget (and federal tax revenues) will leave no room for large, expensive, New Deal-style health and education programs. For the foreseeable future, domestic policymaking will have more to do with arranging incentives than with dispensing largesse: Think welfare reform, not Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

If Republicans fail to understand their unpleasant truths, they will lose in November, and lose badly. Democrats might win even if their heads remain in the sand: It’s a Democratic year, as a comparison between the two parties’ fundraising, turnout, and vote totals in the primaries to date suggests. But they will lose the chance to have the kind of public debate that shapes government policy–meaning, the kind that is based on truth, convenient and otherwise.

Will we elect a leader who tells us the truth – even if those truths are not what we want, and not what we want to hear?

Sad to say, the candidate who most often tells unhappy truths may not turn out to be the candidate who wins the most votes. Elections are not always won by truth-tellers; deception sometimes carries the day. John F. Kennedy, whose presidency is often invoked these days, won a close national election by describing an imaginary gap between the Soviet Union’s arsenal of missiles and our own. If something similar happens this year, if the next president wins by promising limitless spending with limited taxes or a costless retreat in Iraq, voters should not blame the winning candidate. In politics as in markets, customers rule; we usually get the leaders we want. The trick is to want the right leaders. We might start by asking who tells us the truth–even, or especially, when it hurts.

You get what you pay for. What will we be purchasing come November?

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Huckabee was interviewed on MSNBC on the day Fred Thompson withdrew. The liberation theologist took the opportunity to further ridicule and attack Fred and his supporters for supposedly injuring his campaign in South Carolina. Smart move Huck, really should endear you even further to Fred Thompson people who are now looking for a new candidate. Personally, I’m eagerly awaiting the bankrupt and collapsing Huckabee campaign’s political annihilation on Super Tuesday.

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Earlier in the day, you might have been wondering how much of your assets might melt away, as markets around the world gyrated with perceived increasingly negative news. Later, on political blogs everywhere, reports that Fred Thompson was ending a run for his party’s nomination.

Then, news that a young and successful actor had died, most likely from a drug overdose.

Usually my evenings are a strange brew of real estate work, reading blogs, playing or watching bridge online, editing photographs, and so forth. In the background, talking heads on the various political shows fill me in on what has happened during the day – occasionally inducing some mental error while I compete!

Tonight, I thought that a majority of these shows would be devoted to discussing the future for Republicans now that Fred was dropping out.

Wrong!

Oh, yes; Thompson got some time. But – just as on the Internet (Fred; 174 hits; Heath Ledger, over 1,800) – almost all the focus was the death of Ledger.

Please do not misunderstand me. The death of a vibrant young person is a terrible tragedy. I myself have faced the illness of addiction in my own family, and words can barely express the pain and the awful outcomes that it can produce.

Still. On political cable channels, would one expect hour upon hour of focus about a movie star, rather than on the people who will soon lead our country? I would not – but – once again, I prove myself to be a poor prognosticator of what might occur.

Back to the politics. Fred wasn’t “my guy” (Rudy was and is). Yet, Thompson would have been “my guy” had he gotten the nomination. Smart, humble, straightforward, intelligent … I particularly loved when he stood up to that ridiculous interviewer in Iowa, who wanted him to state in one or two words what he thought about some of the most important issues facing us. He wouldn’t do it. If Fred couldn’t have the opportunity to really explain his viewpoint – at least 30 or 45 seconds! – well then, he would not play along.

I wish we had more like him.

And, as long as I am wishing, I wish that whoever does get the nod to be our next president might have some insight about addiction. The War on Drugs and “Just Say No” have been sad failures. I don’t know the answers. I only hope that others may have a glimmer of a solution.

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The Maricopa County Republicans (McCain’s home county) held a meeting and had a straw poll on the primaries. McCain was voted “Most Unacceptable,” ahead of even Ron Paul. Fred Thompson won the “Most Acceptable” vote, but then lost to Romney on the nomination vote. Fred continues to be the candidate everyone agrees with, but no one will vote for. So strange.

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I don’t want to hear any more about how the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility; none of them are planning to close the current deficit, much less deal with the now-seriously-it-really-is-looming entitlement problem. Their tax code changes will claw back only a small fraction of the revenue lost in the Bush tax cut. If you are surprised, it is probably because the Democrats and the Republicans have a different definition of the tax cuts going “mostly to the rich”. If you mean, “which individuals got the biggest benefit from the tax cuts?”, rich people did, because they pay the most taxes; that is the definition Democrats use. But if you mean “which class of people got most of the money?”, then the answer is “the middle class”. There just aren’t that many rich people; it costs a lot more to hand out a modest amount of cash to 200 million than to hand out a lot of cash to 500,000. So when Democrats repeal only the tax cuts on the top one or two brackets, this may be symbolically rewarding, but it will not actually generate that much revenue for the treasury.Democrats are, of course, planning to spend every bit of the money from their tax increases on new spending, plus it looks like some more. You may now return to forgetting that you ever thought you cared about the budget deficit.

This rant is inspired by this post from Greg Mankiw on Hillary Clinton’s tax plan:

1. The $52 billion estimate seems high to me. The CBO reports that each percentage-point increase in the top two income tax rates–singles making over about $150K, married taxpayers over about $180K–increases tax revenue by only $6.5 billion in 2009. Multiply that by 4.6 (the proposed rate increase), and you get $29 billion, not $52 billion. And even that $6.5 billion is an overestimate, because it includes the top two rates, not just the top rate. I would guess that the Clinton campaign included other tax increases in the $52 billion figure, such as increases in the taxes rates for dividends and capital gains.

2. Even taking the $52 billion estimate at face value, it shows how little revenue would come from increasing taxes on the rich. This is only about 1/3 of one percent of GDP.

3. The passage from Leonhardt makes clear that Senator Clinton wants to spend the extra revenue on other proposals, instead of using it to reduce the long-term fiscal gap.

4. The passage says that this revenue will “help pay” for her other proposals, instead of fully paying for them. The entire package seems to involve either an expanded deficit or other taxes increases (or spending cuts) to be named later.

Actually, as bad as this is it doesn’t come close to the grand stupidity of this suggestion from Hillary on how to solve the housing crisis.

Not that Megan is shocked at her conclusion, but I have certainly pointed out before that any examination of the voting in Congress showed that Republicans were far more fiscally responsible than the Democrats. So I already reached the same conclusion she has. Which doesn’t mean the Republicans in power is a good thing. They have much stiffer backbones in the minority.

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At least the last sentence, my emphasis:

First he has no chance whatever of being elected President of the United States of America. He is a rich kid, yes so is George Bush as well – but George Bush gives a good imitation of looking and sounding like an ordinary Texan, Mitt Romney looks and sounds like what he is.

Americans will accept a Democrat who was born rich – they have more of a problem with a Republican who was born rich.

- Paul Marks, taking no prisoners

Via Samizdata

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Social conservatives and particularly crypto-socialist social conservatives (or “populists” if you prefer), are inevitably going to be a minority faction within the GOP. But to their great credit they themselves recognize this. The implications of that self-awareness are dire for Huckabee however.

Because their interests and perspectives are in many ways peculiar to themselves within the party, historically they’ve always been sensitive to their permanent political vulnerability. Thereby there is a tendency among social conservative voters to desert their insurgent leaders at the first sign of weaknesses (ala Pat Robertson, 1988). Weaknesses which could conceivably imperil their leveraged influence with the eventual broader party nominee and his regime.

As Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated points out, these odd men out have smelled weakness on Huckabee and must soon begin their desertion from him to the establishment, in order to preserve influence. That’s because what the social conservatives are staring at now, is the prospect of being rendered completely irrelevant for the first time since perhaps 1976. Having supported the overthrow of the prevailing order in the Republican party by an extremist champion with a radical and unpopular agenda, only to watch him fail to seize control of the party, the coup plotters will soon be looking for ways to make themselves indispensable again.

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Some people are very happy about the Michigan results: media firms. As Ken Wheaton  points out in Advertising Age, with there still being no clear frontrunner for the GOP nom, spending on advertising is about to go through the roof.

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Video clip of Mike Huckabee arguing that “what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.” Hmm. Is that really in accord with anyone’s notion of Founders intent? I know committed social conservatives who do not share such a false and extreme view of the Constitution. Aside from that, can you imagine this kind of rhetoric in the context of a general election? Automatic defeat.

H/T: Pamela Leavey

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Mitt Romney appears to be calling for a government directed solution to the American automotive indutry’s woes. Marc Ambinder uses the occasion to point out that save Thompson, interventionist government seems to be a consistent theme for all the GOP candidates. How did this come to pass anyway?

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A few weeks back I posted a facile little rebuke aimed at the national security implications of Green Party presidential candidate Alan Augustson’s political platform. Alan responded to this in such a way that I realized I had little idea what the Green Party’s position on security matters was, relative to its environmental policies. Indeed, rarely have I seen anyone even ask Green Party figures questions about this subject.

In continental Europe, Greens are expected to have a broad agenda on all conventional political issues from foreign policy, to funding for the humanities. However in the United States, Greens seem to have been ghettoized into answering questions solely on subjects like global warming or genetically engineered foods. This has the natural effect of marginalizing them into niche political interests within the broader Left. A Left that the media seems quite content to have dominated by the Democratic Party alone.

So, toward a better education in the broader politics of Greens, Alan was kind enough to sit down with us for a short interview on security policy.

From the outset, it should be noted that Alan is a fierce critic of current US security policy and naturally his ideas won’t find much agreement with me, or among postpolitical’s predominantly conservative audience. But I think you’ll agree with me that we managed to ask some fair questions and the interview turned out to be an interesting and instructive exploration of a radically different political perspective.

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I seem to have caused some confusion with my previous post, “Putting the Question to the Bishop,” by an inartful use of the term “small-government libertarian.” The more I think about, the clearer it becomes to me that this term is redundant — libertarians are, by definition, in favor of small government. To me, the term has always been a way to distinguish between the minarchist (such as Hayek or Friedman styled libertarians) and anarcho-capitalist (such as fans of Murray Rothbard or Robert Nozick) flavors of libertarianism. Minarchists find value in some minimal level of government, whereas anarcho-capitalists are usually anti-state in nearly every form. However, when the term “small-government libertarian” is used in any other context it just becomes confusing. Frankly, I was simply wrong to employ it the way I did.

The intended point of my previous post was to highlight the choice being forced on the Democratic Party by the netroots crowd — those who support the war vs. those who don’t — and to suggest an alternate choice: the anti-war left vs. the pro-small government electorate. The choice I envision does not involve the war, but instead hinges on how one views the State. Of course, anti-war views are well represented amongst those who prefer small government, and that’s fine. A good argument can (and has been) made that if Congress and the Executive branches were filled with small-government types, there would be no War in Iraq. But, in my view, the Democratic Party needs to focus less on netroots voters who would hold their support of the war against them, and more on voters who are (justifiably) wary of the Democrats’ propensity for big government. The latter have been abandoned by the Republican Party. If the Democrats decided to occupy that small-government ground that the Republicans vacated, such small-government voters could easily be swayed to vote Democratic.

In short, instead of “small-government libertarian” I should have simply said “small-government voters.” My underlying premise is this: as the two major parties continue to cater their policies of governance to increasingly smaller and divisive, albeit increasingly more vocal, special interest groups, they are creating an ever-growing swath of independent voters.

If you think about it, don’t you hear more and more people claiming to be libertarians today, despite their seemingly disparate views? I surely do. I believe this is the natural result of the Democrats and Republicans being more concerned with single-issue voters (e.g., pro-choice vs. pro-life; homosexual rights vs. anti-gay marriage; anti-war vs. pro-strong defense; etc.), than with broad policy measures. Eventually all you have left are moneyed special-interests who promise to get out the vote. Left in the wake of this rush to divvy up the battleground into pro and anti groups are those who feel the government is foisting itself too much on ordinary citizens. Most people just want to be left alone, even though they gladly take free goodies when they are a member of a favored interest group (which is, of course, quite rational). In my opinion, a significant number of voters are out there who will choose small-government policies over single-issue candidates (such as pro-defense/anti-war). I only wish one of the two parties would act on that.

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