-
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones has found a way to make himself readable--limit himself to 140 characters at a time. Unfortunately it seems to be a stunt, not a hard technical limit. [Via Rachel Sklar] 4:16 A.M.
___________________________
Footnote to a footnote to a footnote: Those closely reading the complaint in the Vicki Iseman libel suit against the NYT (and who isn't, really) may notice a quote from Matt Yglesias on page 21, calling the Times' Iseman story "a pretty shameful attempt to set up a Kaus-like presumption of guilt." Q: What's that "Kaus-like" all about? A:Yglesias was almost certainly referring to this 2007 kf post, which isn't about McCain and Iseman but about John Edwards and Rielle Hunter. It argued that Edwards' initial denial of the National Enquirer's original story was too sharp and confrontational (he'd said it was "made up") which was "not necessarily a smart move for a politician in Edwards' position." Yglesias thought I had assumed Edwards' denial was b.s. (which of course it was). I claimed I didn't assume his guilt--that even if Edwards was innocent it would be unwise for him to directly attack his accusers, lest that spur them redouble their efforts and make it a two-day story or worse. I admit it was difficult to avoid assuming Edwards' guilt since I pretty much knew he was guilty.
P.S.--Yglesias wrong, so very wrong: In the event, Edwards' denial spurred the Enquirer to redouble their efforts and they nailed him. ... Meanwhile, Yglesias had argued: "No doubt by now we've had all the legitimate news organizations in the country looking into it and it seems that . . . nobody can come up with any evidence." It turned out, of course, that "legitimate" news organizations hadn't spent a lot of effort looking into it. ...
Whatever you do, do not let this man speak for the Center for American Progress Action Fund! ... 3:17 A.M.
___________________________
1) Immigrants are leaving Southern California. 2) Crime is falling in Southern California (contrary to criminologists' 'hard-times=crime' predictions).
Is there a connection? I don't know. But don't expect the Los Angeles Times to even ask. ... [Thanks to alert reader R.] :2:07 A.M.
___________________________
I missed "The Music of Seal on Ice" TV special. Did someone liveblog? ... 1:44 A.M.
____________________________
You're No LGM, or even FMK: Exhausted by 24 hours of nonstop mindless piece-rate sneering, Gawker's Alex Pareene resorts to one of the oldest tricks in the book! (But you'll have to be nastier than that to make me link, buddy!) ... 1:39 A.M.
___________________________
-
Friday, December 19, 2008
Mo' Bailout:
1) The Treasury Department has now posted the terms of the bailout.
2) How does the UAW's Gettelfinger get away with saying these terms are "singling out workers"? The deal calls for creditors to convert two thirds of their debt into equity. There are also limits on executive compensation. Maybe they're mostly toothless in practice--but the terms directed at the UAW are explicitly toothless. They're just "targets."
3) It's not a deal: Note that Gettelfinger says he's unwilling to abide by these provisions and makes it clear he intends to "work with the Obama administration and the new Congress to ensure that these unfair conditions are removed." So it's not really a deal. It's a deal that one party has pledged to undo as quickly as possible. Think of the fuss if there were a Republican adminstration on the way and GM vowed to undo its obligations under the arangement as soon as possible.
4) We like it except for the parts that, you know, make our constituency change: Indeed, Barney Frank has joined in the call for removal of the UAW-sacrifice "targets" once Obama takes office. Is he actually amping up the pressure on the incoming President to protect the UAW, or is he just scoring cheap points with labor at a time when feelings are raw and he can't be expected to actually do anything? I smell Kabuki! They stick in non-binding targets. Labor and its allies rebel and righteously remove the non-binding targets. Everyone wins. Gettelfinger looks strong. Dems like Frank repay their debt to labor. Republicans get an anti-union cause. Nothing has happened. The real issue is whether Obama actually forces unionzed autoworkers to shave wages and (a much bigger issue) change restrictive work rules when the actual crunch date comes around next year.
5) Here are two paragraphs for my pro-union friends who doubt that Wagner Act work rules are a) at the core of Detroit's problem and b) the hardest thing to get the UAW to reform, because they require more than an incremental increase or decrease in compensation:
The Bush plan requires work rule parity between U.S. automakers and foreign automakers — not a simple task, said Aaron Bragman, an automotive industry analyst at consultancy IHS Global Insight.
“Work rule parity is very different between the UAW and the foreign automakers,” Bragman said. “Work rules govern how you make the cars, or who can touch what in the factory. There’s such a level of detail, and how a Japanese automaker makes cars is totally different to how a U.S. company makes cars. So there are a lot of difficult issues to be fixed very quickly. GM’s Rick Wagoner says they can fix them, but analysts are not so sure.” [E.A.]
As far as the UAW is concerned, this was not a change election! ... 11:24 P.M.
___________________________
Jobs Americans Won't Will Do: A WSJ report contradicts two pieces of pro-legalization CW:
1) 'Crops will rot in the fields without legalization and a "guest worker" program': Not this year--
Growers across the country are reporting that farmhands are plentiful; in fact, they are turning down potential field workers.
2) 'Non-immigrant Americans just won't do tough, dirty jobs like agricultural field work and day labor' Not any more--
In particular, Mr. Gray has observed an influx of U.S.-born Latinos and other workers who previously shunned field work. "These are domestic workers who appear to be displacing immigrants," says Mr. Gray.
A similar situation has emerged in U.S. cities from New York to Los Angeles, where unemployed, nonimmigrant laborers are seeking informal work that typically has been performed by low-skilled immigrants ...
Note that if Americans will do the work when they're desperate--i.e. when they can't get better jobs--that suggests that at least some of them will do the work if they're paid sufficient wages (i.e. when they can't get better jobs). The point is they will work on farms. We're just haggling over the price, and the alternatives. That means, when the economy picks up, that farmers could get much of the labor they need by ... raising wages. What a concept. ... [As long as we don't raise autoworker wages, eh?--ed The UAW's members negotiated above-market wages, demanded lots of legalistic work rules, and now want taxes on people like $10/hour agricultural laborers to bail them out when their firms go under (while deferring modest wage adjustments until 2011). Seems like a different case! But maybe your point is that restricting the flow of illegal immigrant labor can raise the wages at the bottom of the ladder, for the "least among us," while protecting the UAW protects the $50/hour "aristocracy" of the labor movement. That must be it. I wonder which course the Democratic party dogma prefers.] ... 10:29 P.M.
___________________________
-
We almost lost Burkle! Hillary's gift to the press: With Hillary, Obama gets the Bill Drama. And with the Bill Drama, he gets the Burkle Drama! The latest, from S.F. Chronicle: "Billionaire supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, who is former President Bill Clinton's confidant and financial benefactor, put in millions" in a failed biometric bill-paying venture run by a sketchy-resumed "visionary" who apparently knew how to party. ... Partying seems to be a common thread in Burkle investment missteps. ...[Tks to reader H.] 12:52 P.M.
___________________________
Saturday December 6, 2008
New York Daily News gossip columnists Rush & Molloy cut back to one day a week. Somewhere, Lloyd Grove is smiling. ... 11:13 P.M.
___________________________
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Mark Krikorian takes on the Illegals-Are-Leaving-So-What's-the-Problem argument (which has of necessity replaced the Illegals-Are-Here-To-Stay-So-Deal-With-It-Yahoos argument). We might as well make the borders porous, this new argument goes, "because people will just leave when the economy slows down." Yes, they will. But Krikorian notes they're leaving in part because of the economy but in part because of the enforcement efforts that people like Krikorian have championed. And, he might add, because the promise of amnesty as a reward for sticking around has faded.
But it's more than that. We don't want low-paid illegals immigrants streaming back in when the economy heats up again. One of the virtues of a hot economy, for Democrats, and certainly for Democratic adherents of Clintonomics, is that it tightens the labor market at the bottom, raising wages for the groups that have gotten screwed the worst by the forces of trade and technology over the past three decades. Sure, in boom times we need more workers. But we want employers to have at least some trouble finding help--then they have to pay more to get it (and maybe pay relatively less to their well-educated managers). It worked in the '90s. It won't work if the proximate effect of a boom isn't raises for unskilled American workers but rather more jobs (in America) for new, unskilled non-American workers. A free flow of immigrants, in this sense, functions eerily like the reserve army of the unemployed functions in paranoid Marxist theory. ("My men are demanding raises. Time for a recession," whisper the industrialists to each other over cigars at the club.) It's bad enough that the Fed takes away the punch bowl whenever the party starts getting good.** ...
Of course, sophisticated defenders of "comprehensive" reform realize this, and argue that in the future the inflows will be controlled. That argument's equally flawed (in part because many of the interests supporting "comprehensive" reform don't really want it to be controlled). But it's a different argument from the one Krikorian is refuting--which is the idea that--hey, look!--uncontrolled, natural flows solve any problem themselves. ...
**--['without all sorts of uninvited guests crashing the party and drinking the punch first?'-ed No. The full metaphor might almost work, I suppose, if the "party" is a wage-increase party, not a growth party. Immigration doesn't seem to inhibit growth. But the "punch" in the metaphor is easy money--and the immigrants aren't drinking that. I give up.] ...10:48 P.M.
__________________________
The Jobs Bank Lives! It's not for UAW workers. It's for termed-out Dem politicians in California. The aptly named Waste Management Board ... [via Insta] 10:07 P.M.
___________________________
25% of the Amnesty with None of the Enforcement! Even if "comprehensive immigration reform," legalizing more or less all illegals, doesn't pass in the next year, a seemingly more limited measure called the DREAM Act might. In WaPo's words:
The legislation would have halted deportation efforts of children who are here illegally, giving them citizenship opportunities if they entered the country before age 16 and have lived here for five years.
They would then have six years to complete two years of higher education or two years in the military. But because the Act would apply to any illegals between the ages of 12 and 30 (as long as they entered the U.S. before age 16) it could effectively legalize millions. And do you really think the government is then going to take action against their parents, or against siblings who are also here illegally? That's why even DREAM proponents claim the act would be an amnesty for "25% of our total undocumented population."
On bloggingheads I attempt to explain why this means DREAM offers the worst of three worlds. 1) It creates a powerful magnet for future attempted illegal immigration--"Sneak into the U.S. with your children and they can be made U.S. citizens and attend U.S. colleges like their predecessors!" 2) But it doesn't have the toughened enforcement parts of the "comprehensive" compromise--so those incentivized to sneak in by Factor #1 would find it as easy to do as it is now;. Meanwhile, 3) it still leaves the bulk of the illegal population living "in the shadows." ... All of the perverse incentives with none of the non-perverse incentives! It took decades of practice for sophisticated activists to achieve this result. ... 8:21 P.M.
___________________________
-
Wake Up Call: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells the Detroit News that Obama and McCain reached an "agreement" to "move forward" on "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e.: legalization) early in the next Congress.
Q: Will there be as much of a fight on immigration as last time?
A: We've got McCain and we've got a few others. I don't expect much of a fight at all.
Brian Faughnan has the details, and notes Sen. Menendez urging Senators to swallow the bitter immigration pill early, instead of close to the midterms when voters might remember. (That's because "comprehensive" reform is so popular!). .... 1) This is a stronger statement from Reid than I, for one, had expected; 2) The Senate has passed legalization before. They balked in 2007, but it's not clear that this year the biggest obstacle won't come in the House, where lots of newly-recruited centrist Dems ran tough-on-immigration campaigns. 3) Rahm? Rahm? Don't you maybe want to put a stop to this? 4) There are ample opportunities here for posturing and "make believe"--e.g., scoring points with Hispanic groups by voting for a reform that you don't think will actually pass. Of course, if enough legislators vote for a reform thinking it won't actually pass it might pass; ... P.S.: Note that Reid also pours cold water on hopes of fast Senate action on health care ("[T]hat's going to take a lot more time to do.") .... So voters don't get health care (which Obama made a central issue in the campaign) but do get illegal immigrant semi-amnesty (which was a selling point only on Spanish language radio)? .... 12:27 P.M.
___________________________
-
Monday, November 24, 2008
Mark Krikorian is not impressed with likely Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano's border-control credentials but concedes
[S]he's about as close as any Democrat governor can get to appearing hawkish on illegal immigration.
He speculates:
"It could mean that the Obama administration picked an immigration person for this job because they want to burnish their pro-enforcement credentials to make a more plausible case for amnesty down the road ...."
That would be shrewd. But I wonder--suppose it all miraculously works according to plan. That is, suppose Napolitano succeeds, against all expectations, in controlling the border. The ACLU sues to cripple enforcement in the workplace. It loses! Illegal immigration in effect ceases. The public feels soon confident enough to allow Congressional Democrats to legalize those illegals already in the country. No more living in the shadows. Celebrations in the streets! But because the border is controlled, no new illegal immigrants get in. Guest workers, including agricultural workers, do get in--perhaps with a "path to citizenship." But only in the numbers authorized. The question is: Would the Congressional Dems and their allies be happy?
I'm not sure. ... They'd get 12 million new, mainly Latino voters. Likely Democrats. But that would be it. I suspect there are a lot of Dem pols who would not-so-secretly be rooting for things to not go according to plan--for an amnesty to be accompanied by a breakdown in border control, as it was the last time it was tried, meaning there would be millions more illegal immigrants, mainly Latino, to legalize and empower in future years.. ...
I suppose the answer would depend on whether the new rules allowed existing immigrants to keep bringing in members of their extended families, thereby rapidly expanding the newly-arrived, legal electorate. ...
I'm not saying this scenario is likely to happen--it's a thought experment. The very forces that might be happy to see the border-control part break down (low-wage employers, pols hoping to surf the Latino surge, anti-nationalist libertarians) would try to make it break down. Which is why it probably would. ... 12:17 P.M.
___________________________
A job for Anna: New York is still in a state of intense speculation on the central policy question regarding Obama's transition: What does it mean for Vogue? Editor Anna Wintour's "rep" has denied gossip reports that she'll be joining the administration, but that hasn't stopped them. ... She raised some money for the campaign. What might she want? Ambassador to France would be a good fit, no? "The French would deal with her a lot better than the Iceberg Lettuce King of Salinas that W. sent over," says cosmopolitan kf reader Madame S. ... 10:50 A.M.
___________________________
Sunday, November 23, 2008
"Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes": Give Nate Silver points for not playing it safe. ... Update: A new Silver calculation:
The various versions of the model project a Franken win by between 48 and 136 votes once all ballots are re-counted and all challenges are resolved.[E.A.]
There are some disclaimers about high "margins of error." Nobody will notice them if Silver's right. ...11:22 P.M.
____________________________
Richardson Vets! [You said this wouldn't happen-ed. Vets for Commerce. That's like being "Hot for D.C."] 1:45 P.M.
___________________________
-
The Mistake: What will Hillary Clinton bring to the Obama administration? British sourcing on this one--an unnamed "veteran" Obama "aide" tells "a friend"--but the ring of truth:
"He's making a mistake." As one of the [Obama aides] participants told a friend later that night: "She'll do a good job but she'll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can't bear the drama again." ... [snip]
The Obama aides who went for coffee on Wednesday discussed how the initial tentative talks between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were leaked by the Clinton camp, then how every twist and turn of the financial vetting found its way into the media. ...[snip]
They can't help themselves," the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. "Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They're positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm." [E.A.]
Where is Gina Gershon now that we need her? ... [via Lucianne] 11:50 A.M.
___________________________
Saturday, November 22, 2008
More signs of the Gran Salida of Illegal Immigrants: Emergency room visits are dropping. In Arizona
In the Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, the director of the ED commented that 45% of adults and 80% of children seeking ED care at the hospital emergency department are Hispanic. The economy in the area is getting worse and the hospital believes that many of the patients that usually come to the ED have left town
It's not just Arizona--a commenter from North Carolina notes:
Around NC, the poor economy has illegals leaving in droves…no work.
Our ED volumes are down. Most ED patients are those without insurance (lay-offs), so the family doctors won’t see them. Hospital census is down by my estimated guess, 10%. We have 3 ICUs, one is completely closed, the other two at about 60%. Hours being cut throughout.
P.S.: There's a less entrada too--"Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years ..." [Thanks to alert reader W.O.] 11:53 P.M.
___________________________
Friday, November 21, 2008
The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.
___________________________
Mickey's Assignment Desk: 2000 words on "The Agony of Richard Holbrooke." He can't just be sitting still and patiently waiting for Hillary to make up her mind about whether she wants to be Secretary of State. ... Assigned to: Lloyd Grove. David Ignatius. Or someone young, who doesn't want a foreign policy job someday. (Michael Crowley?) ... Update: Reader emails that "[H]olbrooke WANTS hillary to take sec of state -- that's the only way he gets back into the state dept." OK. Bet he's still been in agony! 11:53 A.M.
___________________________
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mitt Romney writes that in a "managed bankruptcy" of the auto industry
[M]anagement as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.
Why "must" Alan Mulally of Ford go? He practically just got there (in late 2006). He's not a Detroit lifer like GM's Rick Wagoner. He can't be held responsible for Ford's sorry condition--he was brought in to fix Ford's sorry condition. A new face recruited from a successful outside company (Boeing) he seems like just the sort of person Romney says should be hired. Is Romney really sure recruiting another new CEO--who'll have to relearn whatever Mulally has learned--will be so much better? Maybe Romney knows something about Mullaly that I don't. Or maybe he's failing to discriminate among three different companies in a way that can't be the mark of a good "turnaround" artist. ... P.S.: For one thing, Mulally hasn't killed off Ford's new products the way GM and Chrysler seem to be doing--perhaps because Ford has more hope of actually selling its new products. ... 1:43 A.M.
___________________________
Crocodiles: Good to see my father's most famous quote back in the news. It's about how hard it was for him as a judge to be uninfluenced by the possibility that voters might boot him from office if they don't like his decision. The quote is freshly relevant because everybody's wondering whether the current California Supreme Court has the balls to invalidate Proposition 8, which reversed that same Court's ruling on gay marriage.
Now the moderately conservative state Supreme Court is being asked to take an even riskier step -- to overturn the November voter initiative that reinstated the gay-marriage ban and possibly provoke a voter revolt that could eject one or more of the justices from the bench. ... [snip]
Kaus later said that as hard as he tried to decide cases impartially, he was never sure whether the threat of a recall election was influencing his votes.
"It was like finding a crocodile in your bathtub when you go to shave in the morning," Kaus said. "You know it's there, and you try not to think about it, but it's hard to think about much else while you're shaving."
I suspect the crocodile effect won't even come into play in the state court's review of Prop. 8. True, the court could throw it out if they decide it amounts to a wholesale "revision" of the state constitution, rather than a mere "amendment." But the arguments that it's a "revision" are implausible. (See Prof. Volokh's analysis.) Precedent and reptile are in accord. I'll be shocked if Prop. 8 isn't upheld.
Does that mean gay-marriage advocates should stop bringing lawsuits? Prof. Althouse asks:
Why should a minority group that perceives itself as oppressed accept the will of the majority? Why should the intransigency of the political majority convince them that they should refrain from using the courts?
The answer is it shouldn't. Gay rights groups remain perfectly free to argue that Prop. 8 is invalid under the federal Equal Protection clause. But they don't want to argue that case, apparently, because they are worried they'll lose.
Gay rights lawyers, fearful that a high court defeat on same-sex marriage would set the movement back decades, have urged supporters to stay out of federal court.
With state constitutions amended, they may have no other judicial remedy. But it still seems simpler, and preferable just to wait a couple of years and overturn Prop. 8 at the ballot box. A democratic resolution will tend to stick. A judicial resolution will produce an ongoing, painful social battle (what abortion has been ever since Roe). ... 1:14 A.M.
___________________________
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Still not black enough! Sasha Frere-Jones disses Will.i.am. .. 10:23 P.M.
___________________________
Rahm: Yes on universal health care, noncommittal on card check. ... The hesitancy about card check would be more significant if Emanuel hadn't been talking to a business group. Still. ... 10:09 P.M.
___________________________
Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Automobile is offering subscriptions for $6 annually. That includes a free tire gauge. I'm waiting until they offer free tires. ... P.S.: The way things are going could also throw in the New York Times. (Not just a subscription to the New York Times. The New York Times.) ... 8:39 P.M.
__________________________
Excitability + Aflatoxin = Iraq War Hillary! Atlantic backscratchers Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg are swooning over Secretary of State Clinton. Sullivan says it's "an inspired idea." Goldberg cites a passage that he says demonstrates Clinton has a "simultaneous mastery of the smallest details and of the biggest themes" that is "beyond impressive." Read it for yourself. Does it reflect Hillary's "uncommon knowledge"? Or is it, rather, an unremarkable politicians' statement that either tells Goldberg what he wants to hear ("You do not get people into a process ... unless the other side knows that your commitment to Israel is unshakable.") or makes Hillary someone Goldberg might like to promote for either political or beat-sweetening reasons? You make the call! ... P.S.: It does seem like he's always selling somethin'! ... P.P.S.: And Holbrooke doesn't know about the Middle East? ... Update: Dick Morris is making sense. Always a troubling sign. ...
Goldberg responds: "I plead guilty to the charge of political promotion." ... :6:28 P.M.
___________________________
A young Facebook/PayPal mogul is catching flak from his Silicon Valley peers for his alleged support of ... not Prop. 8**, but Numbers U.S.A., the highly effective "restrictionist" lobbying group. In particular, the mogul is said to have fallen under the sway of a "Christian right wing thinker" named "Rob" Morrow:
Earlier this year, Morrow wrote a paper called "The Bull Market in Politics." His thesis was that "government influence — over trade policy, social programs, decisions of war and peace — becomes much more important" to investors. One key policy area: immigration, where Morrow thinks there is a rising consensus for restrictions.
A politically driven drop in immigration has broad economic implications, especially on the housing market; with less population growth, housing prices will continue to suffer for much longer than most anticipate.
The Northern California beef against Morrow is that he's "not merely forecasting the market. He has cajoled his influential boss to spend money to make his forecast a reality." OK, but what about the forecast? The timing more or less fits, no? Real estate prices started to plummet just as expectations of imminent semi-amnesty were turning into the reality of harsher enforcement. Schools in immigrant heavy areas of L.A. for example, reported declining enrollments in 2006. The nationwide character of the Gran Salida became apparent, even to the press by early 2008. . It seems highly plausible to me that there is some non-trivial causality running between the decrease in the net inflow of illegal immigrants and the real estate bust--all the immigrants who have disappeared would have had to live somewhere. Even if they were renters, not buyers, they would ordinarily have bolstered the value of housing stock. (And some were buyers--search for "this borrower has gone back to Mexico and has no intention of returning.")
But you don't hear many MSM analysts making this obvious connection. It's odd, because you'd think the reporters who favor legalizing illegals and increasing immigration would want to be able to say, "We need more hard-working immigrants to buy our damn houses!" But they aren't saying it. Why? Is it because a) admitting that immigrant populations are declining contradicts the reigning bipartisan right-thinking line that illegal immigrants are here to stay, they're never going back, so therefore we have no choice but to legalize them? Also, b) once you admit that immigration flows affect the real estate market, you might also have to admit that they can affect other markets, like the labor market--where more immigrants would have the likely effect of driving down wages, especially for the unskilled workers who've been doing relatively badly recently. ...
**--The Prop. 8 list is here, though, for those who want to engage in distasteful and counterproductive boycotts. ... 12:58 A.M.
___________________________
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Lieberman keeps chair after anonymous private vote of Senate Dem caucus. Netroots unhappy. Uh, oh. Now they'll really hate the secret ballot. ... 11:53 A.M.
___________________________
"How Hard Can It Be?" Ex-National Reviewer David Frum tries to put his finger on what annoys him about what Sarah Palin symbolizes in the GOP (and why she's like Harriet Miers) ... 1:22 A.M.
___________________________
Monday, November 17, 2008
James Carville explains why Hillary's nomination as Secretary of State might be complicated by her husband's business dealings:
"She's not married to Todd Palin," Carville said, referring to the oil field worker and snowmobile champion who is married to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee.
Maybe that just accidentally came out sounding like snobby Clintonite arrogance. ... Hadn't had a dose of that for a few months--I didn't miss it. Did you? ... P.S.: Will the Clintonites--those who haven't defected to Obama--now be more obnoxious because they lost? ...11:50 A.M.
___________________________
Forget the "Fairness Doctrine," says the American Thinker. The Dems will try to knock out Rush Limbaugh with "localism." Even discounting for right-wing paranoia, you have to think that making broadcasters consult with "leaders in the civic, religious, and non-profit sectors that regularly serve the needs of the community" is a recipe for a lot of makework meetings with self-promoting complainers and shakedown artists.**
There are three more interesting wrinkles, however:
1) The conservative strategy is to delay regulations until Obama is in power! Why this seemingly perverse approach?
The delay is critical, since once it is the Obama Administration leading the fight for rules which would shut down conservative talk radio, Republican Congressmen and Senators will find it easier to fight back. [E.A.]
Hmm. The same non-intuitive logic might apply to another issue I could think of. ...
2) Some broadcasters think McCain would have been worse, from their point of view, than Obama:
One broadcast lobbyist thinks broadcasters will be better off with Obama "only because you know where McCain's from on the issues. At least you're starting off with somewhat of a fresh slate with the Obama folks. There's not that instinctive 'let's go after the broadcasters.' "
3) There's a potential fratricidal conflict between "localism" requirements and minority broadcasters--or at least the Heritage Foundation thinks so:
"An Obama administration would definitely push stricter broadcaster controls on ownership and take more aggressive efforts on diversity, says James Gattuso, senior fellow for regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
"The question is what would an Obama administration do on localism: Would an Obama FCC pursue the moveon.org agenda of strong regulation to enforce local news and content?" he asks."Or would it side more with minority or smaller broadcasters who point out that the cost of regulation would fall disproportionately on minority- and women-owned stations."
**--It's not that diversity and consolidation don't seem valid issues. I wouldn't have a problem with a strict ownership limit that would require Clear Channel, say, to sell half its stations. Just unload them. Whether or not they were serving the "community," No complaints, no hearings, no self-appointed "representatives," no fuss, no muss. The problem is the tendency of liberals to promote not so much de-consolidation as the empowerment and consequent enrichment of their non profit allies.... 10:56 P.M.
___________________________
Autoshow Shocker: Ford debuts the new Mustang and it's ... not ugly. 10:10 P.M.
___________________________.
Vodkapundit makes the basic point about Obama's Blackberry. ... You want the President to rely solely on information passed up the official chain through the White House gatekeepers? That way lies the Bay of Pigs! The chain of command is a lousy way to find out bad news. Emailing around seems like a pretty good way. Is it that much harder to secure than a phone call? Aren't Presidents trusted with the telephone? ... Paranoid P.S.: You have to wonder whether on some level this isn't an an attempt by the White House bureaucracy to control Obama. ... [via Insta] 8:28 P.M.
___________________________
Academics are always the last to know! Today, kf. Tomorrow ...
Kausfiles, Nov. 3--"Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004."
David Rohde, Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University and Director of the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Nov. 17--"Let's call John Kerry's loss in 2004 what it is: the luckiest thing to happen to Democrats in 40 years."
10:23 A.M.
_________________________
The NYT gloats that Chris Buckley and David Frum's exit suggests National Review has become an un-erudite "megaphone for Republican party orthodoxy" and "'intellectual defender of the Bush administration.'" I can name one issue where that was definitely not true, in part because there was no party orthodoxy and in part because most of the magazine's editors openly disagreed with the Bush administration. Begins with an "i." (And it's not Iraq. Or Iran.) . ... P.S.: Buckley seems to be basking in his Strange New Respect. If Frum wants to keep his street cred on The Corner, which I suspect he does, I counsel him not to follow suit. ... [via Gawker, which has suddenly become much more substantive. What happened to Julia Allison?.] 2:12 A.M.
___________________________
I dunno, I'm having trouble figuring out what Obama supporter Marty Peretz really thinks of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:
[T]he young Hillary was a fashionable leftie. No, she wasn't Bill Ayers. But her Wellesley commencement address was especially trite when trite was the rule. She worked for a communist law firm. She was faddish when independent thinking was what the country needed.
Hillary then went to Little Rock, armed with a Yale Law School diploma, and worked for another law firm, this one positively sleazy.
It goes on from there ...
Now, if Barack Obama has actually offered Hillary the post of secretary of state, he has reversed what most Americans thought was one of the much sought-after consequences of his nomination and his electoral victory. That is, sought after by the voters. And this was to end the Clinton dominion in American politics. That's certainly what the primaries were about. Once Obama freed himself and the party from the vice presidential blackmail almost everyone assumed that, with Joe Biden as their candidate's running-mate, the Democratic nominee did not need the experience of someone who'd visited 81 capitals for a day or two or who'd been to Bosnia "under fire" or who kissed Suha Arafat right only moments after the pampered lady had accused Israel of spreading cancer in the West Bank. ...
I believe Barack is playing with fire.
He's for Holbrooke. ... P.S: Don't recent events tend to support Marty's view? We're already worrying whether Hillary is scheming to maniuplate Barack (by making public the possibility of her becoming Secretary of State and implicitly threatening a rupture if she's not picked) before she even has the job. Maybe LBJ was wrong. Sometimes you want them outside the tent p------g in. ...The very reasons she might want the job (i.e., she doesn't have that much seniority or power in the Senate) are the reasons she couldn't do that much damage from the outside. ... 12:44 A.M.
___________________________
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Future Unrecanters of America? On reflection, does Peter Beinart's well written Time cover essay on "The New Liberal Order" say anything other than, in essence, 'If Obama and the Democrats succeed in restoring the economy and stabilizing the government's finances without cutting popular programs or producing social disorder, they'll keep being reelected for decades'? Well, yeah. ... Beinart abstracts from the question of whether Obama and Democratic policies can actually achieve this winning result. It's one thing to say that if Obama tries to "shore up the American welfare state" it "won't divide his political coaliton." (They like the welfare state.) It's another thing to recognize that Medicare is heading for deep deficits and to figure out how to pay for it without imposing intolerable rationing. ... And of course Beinart just assumes that if Democrats give labor more power it won't significantly gum up the economy. Or that some Democrats won't reestablish no-work cash welfare under another name, giving the Republicans back one of their more potent issues. ...
P.S.: Beinart says
Obama doesn't have to turn the economy around overnight. After all, Roosevelt hadn't ended the Depression by 1936. Obama just needs modest economic improvement by the time he starts running for re-election ....
Are we sure of that? In a time of Faster Politics voters may want Faster Results. They're certainly not going to give Obama the time they gave FDR. ...
P.P.S.: I thought Dems would only succeed if they put a war against "Islamist totalitarianism" at "the center of their hopes for a better world"! Oh, well. Another day, another weltanschauung. ...
P.P.P.S.: Aren't now-recanted Iraq War supporters like Beinart about to unrecant their support, now that the war is going better? ... A prize for the reader who correctly guesses the first recantation-recanter. ... 11:42 P.M.
___________________________
Poor "Pulitzer" Chuck Philips! Patterico is on Philips' case, he doesn't seem about to give up, and he has a hot doc. ... P.S.: This isn't the embarrassing Philips screw-up that led to a spectacular LAT retraction in April. This is another, potentially more-than-embarrassing, incident--but also related to the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murder stories. ... 9:46 P.M.
____________________________
Sorry to miss the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon! ....9:34 P.M.
____________________________.
-
Props: If California's Proposition 11--redistricting reform--passes, that will be at least a partial redemption of Gov. Schwarzenegger's reformist promise, squandered in his disastrous 2005 "year of reform." Prop. 11 doesn't apply to Congressional redistricting--Nancy wouldn't allow it. It only applies to state officeholders. But it's a start. ... Drug policy expert Mark Kleiman is torn about Prop. 5, in theory designed to end incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. (He calls it a "crock," but might vote for it anyway). ... Race preference opponent Ward Connerly comes out strongly against the anti-gay-marriage initiative (Prop. 8)--and without kausfiles' tortured legalism:
In an interview today with The Times, Connerly said he made the decision without telling the No-on-8 campaign consultants, and against the wishes of some of his political advisors.
“There are times when you have consider who you are,” Connerly said.
Connerly, whose wife is white, noted that when he got married in 1962, “the government in many parts of our country did not legally allow us to do that. I have never forgotten that.”
Kevin Drum has generally sensible recommendations on the other California ballot questions. (The only one I'm torn on is Prop. 4, for Patterico's reasons.) ... 2:49 P.M.
___________________________.
My Obama Hangup: My main hangup in voting for Obama today is his support of "card check" legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. That would be both a violation of democratic priinciples and a practical drag on the economy, threatening to spread Detroit/UAW-like inefficiencies while reviving the wage-price spiral of the '70s.
If Obama wins, and Democrats gain the expected majorities in Congress, "card check" will be hard to stop. I'll even concede that it will be harder to stop "card check" under Obama than it would be to stop the equally significant, equally misguided "comprehensive immigration reform" under McCain. But there's still a chance--even a good chance. It's not easy to defend "card check" in public. Will Democrats want the public to know that carrying Big Labor's water was their first priority upon gaining unified control of the government? Press coverage won't help their cause. Some moderate Democratic Senators--Mark Warner?--might balk at cloture-time.
But suppose "card check" passes, and unions mount their expected organizing campaigns. If the new law has the expected semi-disastrous consequences, its impact will be partially self-limiting (unionized firms will lose business). And Democrats won't be able to avoid accountability for any economic deterioriation. It will certainly be a lot easier to reverse "card check" than reverse the impact of a failed immigration semi-amnesty. Misguided labor laws can be repealed (think Taft-Hartley). If a failed immigration law legalizes 12 million new Americans and attracts another 12 million illegals hoping to become legal, that will create irrevocable 'facts on the ground"--including millions of new voters and political support for further amnesty.
Isn't a focus on these discrete legislative issues inappropriate, given the grand election themes of war, peace, justice, liberty, hope and change? Not really. If you look at what Clinton actually accomplished in his 8 years, you could be excused for giving a prominence to the welfare reform of 1996--a prominence vastly exceeding the issue's coverage in the press. The same would be true of "card check," though I suspect with a different historical verdict. Both laws alter fundamental economic institutions, with consequences that tend to outlive presidencies.
Still, Obama's virtues outweigh the threat of this one bill. He promises to calm down the world in a way John Kerry, say, could not--and I supported Kerry in 2004 largely because of his global hatred-lowering potential. His choice of advisers, so far, is confidence-inspring. It's hard to predict what he'll do once elected--maybe he'll replace Jason Furman with Amiri Baraka. But all indications suggest he's a steady, inclusive, perhaps overly cautious and conventional leader. (Examples: Jim Johnson as veep-vetter, Joe Biden as VP--and: John Kerry,rumored to be Obama's Secretary of State. A Trifecta of Usual Suspects.) And don't forget health care.
Time to go vote for him. With hope, even. 10:45 A.M.
___________________________,
Sister Sagjah: There was some sniping when Mary Battiata suggested an Obama victory might render unfashionable
heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit.
Here's Obama in Nevada last Saturday (in an interview broadcast Monday):
"I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. ... [snip] Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What's wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don't have to pass a law, but that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear -- I'm one of them." [E.A.]
It's not clear anyone will pay attention to Obama on this. But it's not clear they won't. ...12:44 A.M.
___________________________
Monday, November 3, 20008
Thank you, Ohio! Tomorrow, if all goes as expected, Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004. What would have happened if Kerry had won? 1) He would have presided over a slow motion loss, or continuing stalemate, in Iraq. No way Kerry would ever have approved the "surge." 2) He would also have presided over the current housing and financial collapse that has both broken economic growth and, apparently, destroyed any chances of the incumbent party retaining the White House. Democrats don't bear the main blame for this crisis, but is there any reason to think they would have prevented it? I can't think of one. We'd be looking at a Republican wave instead of a Democratic sweep. ... 7:46 P.M.
___________________________.
The Tamar Jacoby Prize: The Republican candidate for president seems poised to lose the Latino vote despite his longtime championing of illegal immigrant legalization. Some would argue this demonstrates the poverty of attempting to win the Latino vote by championing illegal immigrant legalization. (Maybe Latino voters, like other Americans, worry mainly about the economy, the war, and schools.) But sophisticated policy journalists know this is plodding, linear thinking. The coveted kausfiles Tamar Jacoby Prize goes to the first writer to argue, as if it were self-evident, that McCain's abject failure pursuing a Rovian Hispandering strategy dramatically vindicates the Rovian Hispandering strategy. ... I mean, that strategy must be right, because unless politicans are convinced of it, you know, there's not much hope of actually passing illegal immigrant legalization, which is bipartisan and therefore good. ... [Offer void where applicable. Tamar Jacoby and members of her immediate family are eligible!] 3:34 P.M.
___________________________
MSNBC's "First Read" on how the early voting results seem to mirror its overall poll results:
One more thing: 30% say they’ve already voted, and those voters break [for Obama] by an identical 51%-43% margin.
Hmm. Is this breakdown in early voting really such good news for Obama? You'd think, given the enthusiasm gap between the two candidates' supporters, that Obama voters would tend to be early voters. That means the voters left to vote on election day will be the more undecided, more pro-McCain voters, no? The final results should be less pro-Obama than the early results. Which means if the early voting is 51-43, then the overall MSNBC poll showing a 51-43 Obama edge is off--and Obama is actually less than 8 points ahead, no? Just asking! ... 2:24 P.M.
____________________________
Greg Sargent is shocked by John McCain's "lying."** Those of us who opposed McCain's campaigns for illegal immigrant legalization--sorry, "comprehensive reform"--are maybe less shocked. McCain routinely lied during the immigration debate when it suited him--saying the illegals he legalized would "not be in any way rewarded for illegal behavior" (BS), that they'd have to go to the "back of the line behind everybody else" (not the most important line), and that he does "not support nor would I ever support any services provided to someone who came to this country illegally" (BS he does and BS he did). ... He got away with this serial dissembling because most reporters thought he was on the right and compassionate side of the issue. And, of course, that he got away with it may help explain why he dissembled in the first place--he knew he wouldn't be punished by the press if he deceived to get what he wanted. ... Now he knows he'll be punished, but he feels he has no choice (if he's going to get what he wants). ... That's a distinction, I guess. But not necessarily a moral one. ...
**--If the "lie" Sargent complains about isn't good enough for you, here's a better one. ...12:26 P.M.
___________________________.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Dept. of Heterodoxy: Anti-liberal, anti-Obama, anti-LAT blogger Patterico comes out against California's Prop. 8, which would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage (after the state Supreme Court ruled the constitution required gay marriage):
I am angry about the California Supreme Court’s attempt to take this matter out of voters’ hands, and part of me wants to support the measure just to flip the bird to the justices. Ultimately, however, I support the right of homosexuals to marry one another, and so I will be voting no.
I'm pretty sure I will too, for similar reasons. The problem is that if the state Supreme Court is sustained in creating this right, it will be inevitably tempted to create other, more problematic constitutional rights. ("Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them," says a man who may soon be in a position to insure this "expansion" picks up steam.) We'll wind up in a Rose Bird world in which almost all significant disputes involve contending "rights" and are therefore to be decided by judges, not voters. ... I'd vote for a ballot proposition that merely reversed the Court and kicked the gay marriage issue back to the legislature and the voters. But that's not what we're being asked to vote on. We're being asked to keep the matter out of the legislature's hands--just in the other direction. ... P.S.: Patterico got 267 comments. Those are HuffPo numbers, no? ... P.P.S.: Patterico also supports California's animal rights Proposition 2. Come home, Matthew Scully! ...
Update: Alert reader G.D. notes that the gay marriage issue was already out of the legislature's hands even before the Court ruling, thanks to Proposition 22, which amended the Family Code in 2000 to define marriage as man-woman only. Because it passed as an initiative statute, Prop. 22 could not have been simply overturned by the legislature. Prop. 22 was what the state Supreme Court overturned, declaring that it violated the state constitution. Prop. 8--being voted on Tuesday--would write the gay marriage ban into the state constitution, thus overturning theCcourt. But--a big caveat--it would only take a majority vote on another constitutional initiative, in the future, to overturn Prop. 8. The California Constitution is easy! ... Which leads to G.D.'s implicit question: What's the big difference between the solution of merely reversing the Court decision--which would leave an initiative statute (Prop 22) in place that could only be overturned by a majority of the voters--and Prop. 8's solution, which would leave a constitutional ban in place that could also be overturned by a majority of voters? Either way, there's a ban, the state Court couldn't reverse it, but 50% + 1 of the voters could. My answer: I'm willing to vote to overturn the Court's decision, rendering the state constitution mute on the subject of gay marriage. I'm not willing to write a gay marriage ban into the constitution. I'm for gay marriage. I wouldn't vote for the statutory ban of Prop 22 either. Why ask me to do it--especially if you could achieve the same practical effect by just reversing the Court's decision? ... And of course you could write an inititiative constitutional amendment that voided both the Court's decision and Prop. 22, leaving the issue for the legislature to decide. ... 10:38 P.M.
___________________________
Isn't it pretty clear that the reason Obama is contesting McCain's home state of Arizona isn't to humiliate McCain or because Arizona might actually be decisive (those scenarios are fairly complicated) but as a media strategy to generate Election Week MSM stories about how McCain is on the defensive, etc.--stories that will demoralize Republicans and help Obama win the real battleground states? ... P.S.: It's working. On MTP, Tom Brokaw had "Arizona" at the top of his list of contested states, as part of a how-things-have-changed-for-McCain analysis. It's almost as if the MSM is playing along! .. .8:46 P.M.
___________________________.
Not over! At this point in New Hampshire, had Hillary even cried yet? No. ... [Don't give McCain any ideas--ed. He's tried A! He's tried B. ...] ... P.S.: Remember that the Two Electorates Theory (those not following the election are less well informed than in the past) plus the Feiler Faster Thesis (they can inform themselves very quickly at the last minute) = Volatility and Unpredictability. ... 7:35 P.M.
___________________________
-
No Ring. On to the DNA test! ... 1:22 P.M.
___________________________
Everybody's Pitching In (7)! Barbra Streisand is doing her part [in a non-profit, non-endorsement way of course] ... 1:15 P.M.
___________________________
Are we sure that when Obama was talking about judge-led "redistributive change" that "the real context" for his remarks was the inherently limited debate over Charles Reich's "New Property"--i.e. whether government benefits (like welfare) could be denied without various procedural safeguards like as hearings--as Emily Bazelon argues? Didn't Harvard Law Prof. Frank Michelman famously attempt to import into the Constitution John Rawls' Theory of Justice--in order to require the provision, not just of procedural rights, but of actual welfare benefits? My memory might be off, but I think he did! Obama was certainly talking broadly enough to include this ambitious, unsuccessful liberal effort:
[T]he supreme court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the warren court it wasnt that radical ... it didnt break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the constituion at least as it has been interpreted and the warren court interpreted it generally in the same way that the constitution is a document of negative liberties
Since Obama is rejecting the idea of pursuing "redistributive change" through the courts, what difference does it make whether this change was narrow and procedural (Reich) or dramatic and substantive (Michelman)? Answer: It matters because Bazelon's version minimizes the extent to which liberal legal activists actually wanted to redistribute wealth through the courts--and might one day again if they think they can get away with it. That possibility seems very remote, I agree. But as David Bernstein argues, it can't be completely discounted despite Obama's criticism of judge-led redistribution, because Obama's criticism was largely pragmatic, and the pragmatic equation could change:
There are two basic possibilities. One is that Obama might believe that appointing far left Justices to the Court would be unlikely to accomplish much in the long-term, and could ultimately harm the progressive agenda, and his own presidency, by reviving "unelected judges imposing their will on the American people" as a Republican campaign theme. The other possibility is that Obama, intoxicated by victory, and having the very healthy ego that all successful politicians have, will decide that the election of a very liberal African-American president, along with large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, signals that the social and political winds have shifted sufficiently that the Supreme Court could successfully launch an activist liberal agenda, and he will nominate justices accordingly. But there is nothing in either Obama's radio remarks, his voting record in the Senate, or his public statements on judges to suggest that he objects in principle to the equalitarian "living Constitution" of Brennan, Warren, et al., and there is much to the contrary. [E.A.]
3:36 A.M.
___________________________.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Obama Infomercial: Effective! (And I hate Real People). ... Made Obama seem normal. .... Huge gap between what he says he'll do ("restore fairness") and his actual initiatives (tax credits). ... Was that Joe Biden or his SNL caricature saying "Whoa!"? .... 5:40 P.M.
___________________________
Who Let Rachael Larimore in? Slate's quadrennial exercise proving that just because you're open about it doesn't mean it's not embarrassing is up. Slate is voting 55-1 for Obama over McCain, with one additional vote for Bob Barr. With those numbers, it's getting hard to agree with founder Michael Kinsley:
No doubt it is true that most journalists vote Democratic, just as most business executives (including most media owners) vote Republican, though neither tendency is as pronounced as their respective critics believe.
Not "as pronounced" as our "critics believe"? You mean Sarah Palin thought it would be 56-1? How much more pronounced could it get? ...
Memo to Don Graham: As long as we're going with the O by a 55-1 margin, why not drop the now-ludicrous MSM-style pretense of non-partisanship and reap the financial rewards of partisanship that available on the Web-- like, say, the Huffington Post? ... P.S.: Slate itself is a bad name, in this respect, since it implies a blankness, a void of strong preferences that (fortunately) isn't there. But I guess it's too late to change that. ... 4:37 P.M.
___________________________
Shocked, Shocked for Barack! The cheapest out if your'e a previously McCain-friendly pundit who wants to endorse Obama is to say you like McCain but can't vote for him because you're revolted by his campaign. It's an out elaborately developed by Joe Klein at Time, and it's an out Anne Applebaum takes in Tuesday's WaPo. Applebaum claims she's not reacting against McCain's "campaign" but rather to "institutional" deterioration in his "increasingly anti-intellectual, no longer even recognizably conservative" party. But all the examples she cites come from his campaign (Palin) or campaigning that's not even his (Sean Hannity's anti-Obama telecasts).. ...
The problem with the "I'm repulsed" argument is that while it's eminently respectable it's unserious. The campaign will be over soon. There is no reason to think McCain has actually changed what he wants to do on, say, immigration. Applebaum doesn't offer even a speculative argument as to why, with the election safely behind him, President McCain would have to truckle to his party's anti-amnesty contingent. That's because he wouldn't. He'd be much more likely to make immigration the basis for his first and perhaps only foray into bipartisanship--in effect, truckling to the pro-legalization forces. Nor has McCain "spent the past four months running away" from his longstanding immigration position. He's spent the past two months reasserting it.
I think Applebaum knows this. She's not a fool. If she really thinks that McCain's pre-campaign immigration policies--or his budget policies, or his torture policies--are right for the country, then she should be for McCain. Even if he's trying to win by running anti-Ayers ads. Even if his supporters "repulse" her. It's hard to believe that this repulsion isn't a convenient cover for some unstated, perhaps unconscious, pro-Obama imperative (or maybe simply for the imperative to come to a decision). ... 2:54 A.M.
___________________________
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
If you're looking for evidence of a "Bradley"-like effect--in which preelection polls can be wildly off--one place to look is the polling on Ward Connerly's Civil Rights Initiative in Michigan. According to Connerly (in answer to an email query)
Some polls had us losing by 10 points the weekend before the election. We won by 16.
Results here. ... It seems clear, in that case at least, voters told pollsters the respectable PC answer they thought pollsters wanted to hear. ... Barack Obama was one of those campaigning (in radio spots) for the respectable PC side that lost. ... P.S.--Is McCain Yorty? Sherry Bebitch Jeffe argues (as have others) that there was no Bradley effect in Tom Bradley's 1982 gubernatorial race--the alleged ur-example. In Bradley's 1969 mayoral race against Sam Yorty, on the other hand .... 5:07 P.M.
___________________________.
-
If (like me) you want to feel better about Barack Obama, try reading conservative Bradford Berenson's Frontline comments on Obama's performance at the Harvard Law Review. Excerpt:
I think Barack took 10 times as much grief from those on the left on the Review as from those of us on the right. And the reason was, I think there was an expectation among those editors on the left that he would affirmatively use the modest powers of his position to advance the cause, whatever that was. They thought, you know, finally there's an African American president of the Harvard Law Review; it's our turn, and he should aggressively use this position, and his authority and his bully pulpit to advance the political or philosophical causes that we all believe in.
And Barack was reluctant to do that. It's not that he was out of sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. ... [snip]
It confirmed the hope that I and others had had at the time of the election that he would basically be an honest broker, that he would not let ideology or politics blind him to the enduring institutional interests of the Review. It told me that he valued the success of his own presidency of the Review above scoring political points of currying favor with his political supporters.
12:23 A.M.
___________________________
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Last Stunt is Always to Drop All the Stunts: Hmm. If, as Mike Murphy argues, 1) McCain's negative campaigning hurt him, and 2) his brief moments of non-negativity before the debate were helping him--something Gallup seems to support--but if 3) his renewed and MSM-amplified negativity during the debate turns out to have hurt him again, is there time left before the election for McCain to flip back again and 4) dramatically drop the attacks and make a direct, affirmative case for his presidency? The Feiler Faster Thesis says "yes," as it usually does. There are two whole weeks to go! ... But what does McCain do with the second week? ... P.S.: Republican incumbent Norm Coleman pulled this very stunt in Minnesota. Is it working for him? Quinnipiac has him only 2 points down. ... 4:15 A.M.
___________________________
Mark Krikorian, who knows as much about immigration politics as anyone, sticks by his conclusion that McCain, not Obama, would be "more likely to get an amnesty through Congress." His reasoning is similar to that of Democratic Rep. Artur Davis: Without a Republican in the White House actively promoting legalization, Republicans in Congress will be free to coalesce in opposition to any Obama legalization push. ... You also have to wonder: If even John McCain's lifelong (and only temporarily suspended) campaign for legalization doesn't get him much support among Hispanics--who currently seem to prefer Obama 2-to-1--will Republicans in general finally give up on the cynical Rovian dream of using immigration liberalization to win over that growing ethnic group? ... 3:23 A.M.
______________________________
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I forgot to ask Bob Wright if he'd serve on a board with William Ayers. ... I think I know what his answer would be regarding Luis Posada and Eduardo Arocena.. ...P.S.: Wright calls Sarah Palin's "palling around with terrorists" charge against Obama
one of the most despicable acts in the history of American campaign politics.
and even issues a challenge to come up with something more despicable. ... Bloggingheads commenters rise to the occasion. ... Update: Maguire offers some useful sober skepticism on Obama's "palling" defense. ... 11:52 P.M.
___________________________
USA Today editorializes against "card check." The more attention this issue gets, the less chance it has of passing, you'd think. It's hard to publicly defend getting rid of the secret ballot. ... I'd like to see Obama try it. (Since he's for "card check," shouldn't he be asked to explain his position?) ... P.S.: No wonder Democrats would want to rush "card check" through, in the early days of his presidency, before too many people notice--and when press reports are likely to be buried under a crush of other news. ... 5:10 P.M.
___________________________
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Final Debate: Before I get spun: 1) McCain did himself some good in this zero-sum game because in the first half of the debate he seemed sunny, yet had Obama on the defensive; 2) But not enough good; 3) Specifically, McCain failed to drive home the risk of placing so much power and trust in a relative unknown. Why couldn't he say, "I know I'm behind by a few points. But do you really know what you're getting with Sen. Obama?" Everything else in this campaign has been so crudely explicit--with talk by Obama of a "pivot" and appeals, not to "the people" but to "Joe Sixpack" and "the middle class." You'd think McCain could just come out and say, "Message: Buyer's Remorse!" ... 4) Obama's answer on the have-you-ever-bucked-your-party question was strong. His answer on Ayers was weak, all the weaker because he seemed to think it was strong; ... 5) "Senator Government." McCain's best line was an accidental slip. 6) Also liked "Bresh of Freath Air." So true! ... 6) Bob Schieffer made McCain look young and vigorous. 7). But you had to love the way that sly old Schieffer snuck in a few unexpected questions to throw the candidates off and reveal their true characters! ... Oh wait, He didn't do any of that! Instead he made utterly predictable stabs at vague, CW-approved topics, as if he was trying to out-bore Brokaw. He succeeded. ... He made Jim Lehrer look like Jim Cramer! ... Is this the end of the MSM Dinosaur Moderator? ...Next time: Chris Buckley and Glenn Loury! ... 8) Most telling passage:. Two times, if I remember right, McCain rattled off long li