Kausfiles: A mostly political weblog.

Blog of Rivals!

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 P.M.

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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Autoshow Shocker: Ford debuts the new Mustang and it's ... not ugly.  10:10 P.M.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

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.

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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.

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Sorry to miss the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon! ....9:34 P.M.

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Does Obama Really Want To Get to 60?

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mark Krikorian looks at Obama's likely actions on immigration and sees ... hope! He expects Obama will prioritize. ...

To the chagrin of hard-left activists, [incoming chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel has said of immigration that "For the American people, and therefore all of us, it's emerged as the third rail of American politics. And anyone who doesn't realize that isn't with the American people.” Last year Emanuel told a Hispanic activist that “there is no way this legislation [“comprehensive immigration reform”] is happening in the Democratic House, in the Democratic Senate, in the Democratic presidency, in the first term.”

There's a twist ending, though. ... P.S.:  In March, we're due for a fight over reauthorizing the government's  E-Verify system, which now screens one of 8 new hires for legal status. Obama has said he supports E-verify. Senator Menendez of New Jersey opposes it. ... The real objection to E-Verify is that it works, no? ...

Backfill: See also this mixed WSJ assessment, which concurs with Emanuel--"Mr. Obama will be focused on the economy and tax policy and isn't likely to expend political capital on such a divisive issue"--but which overdramatizes the anti-"comprehensivist" electoral losses, at least as described by Krikorian:

Roy Beck of Numbers USA [a leading anti-"comprehensive" lobbier] has done a preliminary analysis of House results and finds that there are six incoming pro-amnesty Democrats replacing somewhat anti-amnesty Republicans, though none of the Democrats made immigration a major issue. On the other hand, three other newly elected Democrats ran on very strong pro-enforcement platforms and four others appear to be much more hawkish than the Republicans they’ll replace. In Beck’s words, “The results of this evening have not been a reason for celebrating. But neither have they been a reason for us to put on sackcloth.”

4:52 P.M.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Get Me a Ron Burkle Type: It looks to me as if bankruptcy might be a better solution for GM than a federal bailout--union contracts could be redone, duplicative dealers axed--except for one factor: GM sells cars, and nobody wants to buy a car if they think the manufacturer isn't going to be around to honor the warranty or provide spare parts. Formal bankruptcy would itself help sink the GM ship. A bailout could be a way to essentially do what a bankruptcy would do, but without the sales-killing stigma. Taxpayer money would be a lure to force the necessary dealer and UAW concessions. a) But do you trust Pelosi's Congress to ever make either of these groups give up some of its pay or perks? No. That's where the White House (either Bush's or Obama's) should come in. A job for Ron Burkle! (Talking unions into giving up contract gains was once his specialty.)  b) Wouldn't it be good PR if the UAW stepped up to the plate and unilaterally, voluntarily, offered a substantial package of givebacks in exchange for all that federal money (and maybe a cap on executive pay)? I don't expect this to happen--for internal purposes, union leaders probably have to be seen as going down fighting for every dollar. But it would help get the money, no? [Also improve the unions' image and help them pass "card check"-ed Sorry I suggested it.] 10:53 P.M.

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Will 'more time to blog' replace 'more time to spend with my family'? Al Martinez blazes the trail. ... 8:22 P.M.

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I dont understand Andrew Gelman and Matt Yglesias' point.  You don't win the House of Representative when you rack up a large percentage of the national "two party "Congressional vote, or when you win a large "average swing" vote on a "state-by-state" basis. You win when you win lots of actual House seats. That's what can pass or defeat legislation. And measured by actual House seats the Democratic gains (of about 22) were a little less than expected. There is a reason for this. Maybe my favorite theory--the SeeSaw Theory--isn't the reason. That's fine. It's just a theory. But that's different from saying there's nothing to explain because by some other, meaningless measure, Dems did great.. ... See Yglesias' first commenter. ... Update: Gelman gropes for common ground [see P.P.S.]. ... 7:57 P.M.

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Hispanic Hype Alert--That Crucial Latino Vote: Not there, says Krikorian:

[T]he benchmark in garnering Hispanic votes for Republicans is Bush's 40 percent showing in 2004. So So what would have happened if McCain had matched Bush's performance, instead of the 31 percent he actually got? Based on CNN's exit polls, McCain still would have lost Nevada, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, not to mention, say, California and New Jersey. Conversely, even if Obama had won 90 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas, instead of 63 percent, he still would have lost the state. With the possible exception of North Carolina, where the results were close but the number of Hispanic voters is too small to register in the exit poll, there doesn't seem to be a single state where the Hispanic vote was critical to the outcome. [E.A.]

Even if the Latino vote was decisive, Krikorian notes, it wouldn't necessarily follow that the best strategy for GOPs is to pursue it--which might be a tough sell--as opposed fo figuring out a way to win a bigger share from far more numerous whites and blacks. ... 7:35 P.M.

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Faster 538: Dems are slobs.** They mess up more ballots that can then be salvaged in recounts. Meet Senator Franken....

**-- Sorry, I meant "vulnerable voters." ... 7:12 P.M.

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Dick Morris: "The Election Is Not Over." He's right. We've been set up for a plot twist after the credits, if the Dems sweep the three undecided Senate seats, which is entirely possible. And there is a big difference between 57 Democratic senators and 60. ... P.S.: I don't endorse Morris' pro-GOP fundraising efforts. But I'm pretty sure I'd rather have 57 than 60. Already the prospect of a GOP-led filibuster is encouraging some labor unions to modulate their demands to end secret ballots, for example. ... P.P.S.: Democratic presidential campaign aides have reportedly been dispatched to the Georgia runoff. But you have to wonder: Does Obama really want to get to 60? Getting a large,"filibuster-proof" majority would dramatically increase the expectations from his party's left, and from its entrenched Congressional interests, making them that much harder to control. Without 60, Obama can cite the filibuster threat and easily steer a moderate, popular center-left course. With 60, he'll have to use heretofore untested muscle to control Dem demands regarding the Detroit bailout, union "card check" elections, immigration, health care, tax cuts, the Fairness Doctrine (sorry "Forced Balance") etc. ... 

Update: [Don't you want Obama to think big out of the box on some issues, like health care?--ed Yes. But even there it's not clear 60 would help more than it woud hurt. a) Even within the Obamaesque consensus that Jonathan Cohn says is emerging, emblodened libs could easily push for too much--unaffordable subsidies, loose coverage limits (think "mental health parity"), protection for lavish union plans, draconian drug price controls that ignore the dilemma of non-rising marginal costs, and resistance to cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for all of it; b) Cohn says Dems don't need 60 to pass health care anyway! And businesses are on board! (Presumably they'll have a few GOPs in tow).

In any case, I'll risk less health care to avoid the disaster of card check, immigration semi-amnesty, and  a Leyland-like auto bailout. ...

More: If Obama really wanted 60, wouldn't he go to Georgia to campaign for the Democrat in the runoff? [Might not want to risk losing his first postelection fight. See Crowley--ed. But if he really wanted 60 ...] 3:18 P.M.

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"Peace and Security": Maguire notes WaPo confirming that Obama's omission of "democracy" from his acceptance speech was not an accident:

[C]onversations with several Obama advisers and a number of senior military strategists both before and since last Tuesday's election reveal a shared sense that the Afghan effort under the Bush administration has been hampered by ideological and diplomatic constraints and an unrealistic commitment to the goal of building a modern democracy -- rather than a stable nation that rejects al-Qaeda and Islamist extremism and does not threaten U.S. interests.

I'd give up on the drug war (and the attempt to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crop) before I'd give up democracy.... P.S.: So we really are in for a mirror image of the 20th century, when it was liberals who criticized the U.S. government for siding with strongmen in order to fight the global enemy (Communism)? ...  There are even hints that "some senior military strategists" see elected Afghan President Karzai as a dispensable, Diem-like figure. ...  2:53 P.M.

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Gawker: What was Antonio Villaraigosa doing onstage at the Obama economic summit? He is not one of America's 17 most confidence-inspiring economic minds. ... Update: Hellisotherpeople makes a good point--better to start to pay back Latino voters with this "appointment" than with other, more substantive concessions I can think of. ... 4:13 P.M.

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Obama will act quickly to "chart a new course for immigration enforcement, some Obama advisers say."  Hmm. After all, why not give the fractured GOP rump a unifying issue right out of the box? ... Rahm, you there? ... Rahm? .... 3:59 P.M.

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A New Morning in America: Nic Harcourt, who for a decade has deadened L.A. musical culture (much like the L.A. Times deadened L.A. political culture) with his soul-killing taste for breathy pop and humorless delivery is leaving his influential position as music director for local NPR affiliate KCRW. ... If only the Times could go away as quietly and costlessly. ... P.S.: Harcourt "rarely pays attention to lyrics," reported the NYT in a clueless puffer a few years ago. I mean, who cares about lyrics? Bob Dylan never worried about 'em, right? ... P.P.S.: Change we can believe in! ... P.P.P.S.: Bad news for Pete Yorn. ... 3:21 P.M.

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The Big Three's Little Secret: I hate to make invidious solidarity-eroding comparisons between competing UAW shops, but Detroit's cars aren't uniformly inferior to their Japanese competitors. Ford's products have been consistently less unreliable, in recent years, than vehicles made by the other two members of the Big Three. From the most recent issue of Consumer Reports:

Ford's three brands--Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury--continue to pull away from the rest of the Detroit automakers. Almost all Ford models are now average or better, with the exception of some that are truck-based. Excluding those, Ford's reliablity is now on a par with good Japanese automakers.

GM is a "mixed bag." Chrysler seems hopeless. "Almost two thirds of its products rate below average for reliability."

I know reliability isn't everything. Most Chrysler products are ugly too! ... P.S.: If the automakers react the way GM reacted when its Saturn subsidiary actually started making good cars, their legislative strategy is clear: Figure out a way to punish Ford!  ... 1:34 P.M.

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Fragging Palin: If McCain's such an instinctive man of honor, where is his "vigorous defense of his running mate"? 1:04 P.M.

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

NYT buries story on labor's "card check" campaign on the bottom of page 25. I smell liberal bias! As noted earlier, it's in labor's interest that the "card check" story gets as little publicity as possible. The NYT is complying. ... When I tell my underinformed, idealistic SoCal liberal friends that labor wants to end the secret ballot, the typical response is "Why would they want to do that?" Or else they assume that I have it backwards and it must be management that wants to eliminate the secret ballot. ... Union legislative strategists may think that demanding "card check" is a great, scary bargaining chip, to be traded away for a pro-labor compromises on other rules (like holding quick elections, or empowering arbitrators to set contract terms). But I wonder if it's not so disreputable sounding that it doesn't actually discredit all of labor's other, perhaps more reasonable demands--putting the unions in a worse position than if they'd never asked for it in the first place. It's not a bargaining chip. It's a poisoning chip.  Getting voters to cheer for the "Employee Free Choice Act" is a little like getting them to cheer against Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. ...  11:48 P.M.

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Say You Won't Steal Fitzmas! A plea from Obama's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, for the President-elect to reaffirm his apparent promise not to fire local U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, even as Fitzgerald closes in on Obama's Democratic colleagues. ... Fallback plan: Indict fast. ... Clever Way Out for Obama: Justice Fitzgerald? Or at least a Federal Appellate slot. ... How does Fitz feel about Roe? ...[via Newsalert]  11:30 P.M.

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In the past week, I bought a CD online at Amazon, then I bought the same CD at Barnes & Noble. Amazon price: $9.99. B&N price: $16.99. My impression is that this sort of price differential has opened up pretty much across the board. B&N is doomed, no? ... 

Alert Reader N asks, pointedly: "Why didn’t you buy the second CD from Amazon?" Because I needed it that day for a birthday present. This is what B&N and Borders are (sometimes) good for. But it's hard to believe that the I-need-it-in-my-hands-right-now sliver of the marketplace is enough to sustain a large, expensively-located building and sales staff if you lose the basic I-need-it-in-a-couple-of-days market. ... 11:11 P.M.

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I admire Rahm Emanuel. Without him welfare reform might not have happened in 1996, and the Dems might not have won back a House majority a decade later. (Two milestones that, I think, are not unconnected--welfare reform made liberal government acceptable again.) Emanuel is smart, relentless, disciplined, gets things done, a winner, all that stuff. But here's my problem with having him as chief of staff: Suppose you work for President Obama. You send a memo up the line to the Oval Office. If a week later Rahm Emanuel tells you he's showed it to the President, would you believe him?

By way of an answer, I should add that among Clinton-era welfare reporters, the rule of thumb was that you called Rahm to get the administration's line and then you called Bruce Reed to find out if it was the truth. ... 

P.S.: But Rahm was not the unnamed Clinton official who foolishly boasted to Michael Kramer, early in the administration, that the Clintonites would "roll" Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Ask Lawrence O'Donnell if you don't believe me. ... 8:57 P.M.

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Whirl of Change!

And now for another view of Mayor Bloomberg, we have Mr. Fred Siegel ...

A knockoff of Berlusconi, he's a man with a media empire who has dedicated his efforts to saving not his city or country but himself from the boredom of buying influence by merely giving away pieces of his fortune. ...

[O]perating on the basis of ambiguities in the city charter, Bloomberg strong-armed the city council into overturning term-limits: threatening to cut off funds to their districts and stop his "anonymous" donations to the nonprofits they count on to get out the vote if they opposed his plan.

Siegel's attack is ... incompletely convincing,** but enjoyably vitriolic. [Not unlike his review of your book--ed. It's lucky I don't remember things like that] ...

**--Is it really true, for example, that "the additional $9 billion [Bloomberg's] spent on education hasn't shown up in any improvements" in test scores? ... 2:23 P.M.

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Newsweek s poll: Put it out of its misery. ... 1:59 P.M.

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Friday, November 7, 2008

Vertical Ticket Splitters Rule! National Journal's Charlie Cook seems to very tentatively embrace a version of the See Saw theory (which I first heard from Reader M):

[G]iven the strength of the top of the ticket nationally, one might have thought that the victory would have been more vertically integrated. ...

There is no shortage of theories. It could be that a lot of first-time and younger voters cast their ballots for Obama but didn't bother to venture down the ballot. Once the final vote tallies are tabulated, we will have a better idea of whether that happened. Or maybe there was a determined effort to apply checks and balances. By deciding to elect Obama president, more than a few voters may have opted to keep the Republican incumbent in place, just to prevent Democrats from getting carried away. ... [E.A.]

Sorry again, Kinsley. ...2:32 P.M.

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Opponents of the "Fairness Doctrine" are looking for a more evil-sounding name. "Forced Balance"? ...  10:53 P.M.

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Mark Krikorian admits he was wrong about Julie Myers. ... Jonah Goldberg discovers that Rahm Emanuel is Jewish! ... I mean, who knew? ... 9:47 P.M.

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How About At Least Making Them Choose? So the UAW wants a $25 billion bailout and an end to the secret ballot ... Because Wagner Act unionism clearly worked out so well for Detroit. ... 9:31 P.M.

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The Sound of One Hand Sat On:  One big argument before the election was whether a) McCain's heterodox positions (on immigration, campaign finance, torture, Bush's initial tax cuts, etc.) had alienated conservatives, who would fail to turn out and vote for the Republican nominee, or whether b) conservatives would turn out anyway, leaving McCain free, in theory, to run to the center (the Mike Murphy position).  It should be possible to get at least part of an answer to that question now, no? Here's a start, from Curtis Gans' Center for the Study of the American Electorate--and at first glance it doesn't look good for Murphy. [Note: But see semi-vitiating conclusion, at end of this item] As summarized by CNN:

“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008. [E.A.]

From Gans' explanation, as summarized by the study's press release:

John McCain's efforts to unite the differing factions in the Republican party by the nomination of Governor Sarah Palin as vice-presidential nominee was a singular failure. By election time many culturally conservative Republicans still did not see him as one of their own and stayed home ... [E.A.]

This would be at least part of an argument as to why, contra Jamie Kirchick's glib comments, Republicans can't afford to move further in the McCainish pro-legalization direction on immigration (for example!) unless they want to find themselves a new base. ...

P.S.: Of course, it's possible the McCain campaign ineptly managed to alienate both the base and the center. It's also possible that given the country's predicament there was no way for even a non-inept campaign to please enough of both to win. But the mere fact that yes, conservatives sometimes do sit on their hands would knock out a pillar of Murphy-style political strategy, no? ...

Note: Reader G. suggests that maybe there were just fewer Republicans this year. No. Unless I'm reading Gans' stats wrong, they measure the percentage of Republicans who went to the polls, not how many Republicans there were. (The percentage went down from 30 to 28.7.) ... Update: On rereading the release, I'm now thinking Reader G is right and I misread the tables.  I have emailed Gans. ("Efforting," as they used to say at Newsweek.) ... 

Semi-vitiating conclusion: I've heard back from Gans. Reader G is right--the stats measure the "percentage of citizens voting Republican," not the percentage of Republicans voting.  "But that, also, in the real world, translates into a GOP voting decline," Gans adds. Statistical proof of that is still tk, however. ...  7:56 P.M.

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How far would the stock market plummet if investors thought "Transition Economic Advisory Board" member Robert Reich actually had influence on President-Elect Obama's economic policies? ... P.S.: Reich will be hard-pressed to top the epic suck up his American Prospect co-founder Robert Kuttner delivered at President Clinton's transitional economic "summit" in December, 1992: 

"Mr. President, I -- words fail me in describing what an extraordinary event this is. This has to be the defining moment of your presidency. It is the president as teacher, as leader, as explainer, as synthesizer. This is a magical moment, and I thank you for including me and for offering this to the country."

7:26 P.M.

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Who Said 60 Isn't A Magic Number? Fail to win a couple of Senate seats and legislation starts to change shape almost immediately. From a WSJ story on the labor push for quick passage of "card check": 

With Democrats failing to win a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate, some say a compromise on the controversial card-signing provision is more likely now.

Hal Coxson, a management-side labor lawyer in Washington, said he expects the AFL-CIO to propose shortening the notice before elections to five days, which would give companies less time to campaign against a union, but allow Democrats to say they preserved secret-ballot elections. "If they overreach, they lose," Mr. Coxson said of the AFL-CIO.

Maybe they could call it the Al Franken Lost So All We Got Was This Pro Labor Act. (The truth is that even the watered down law terrifies business, largely because of its binding-arbitration provision.) ...

P.S.: Of course, Franken could still win.  And if the Dems pull out the two other unresolved Senate races, they would get to 60 after all. ...12:36 A.M.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Another message on my phone machine from my Republican friend:

It was a horrible night. I could not not not get __ to bed and I was famished and all I wanted to do was sit in front of the TV and watch returns come in and eat pizza and he just he would not go down. He kept getting out of bed. And he never does that so I don't know what the issue was. I was lying with him and trying to get him to go to sleep and everytime I thought he was asleep this little voice would pipe up: "Mommy, do you know that a farmer is like a babysitter for animals" ..."Mommy what is Barack Obama." I swear to God that was the last one. ... It was a nightmare....

Anyway, I can't believe someone hasn't blogged or written about this already because it seems incredibly obvious, but

No Bradley Effect in the presidential race

but Total Bradley Effect for Proposition 8 

Everyone I knew thought it ... wasn't going to pass and I think it was down in the polls. I could double check.

But I think most people assumed Prop. 8 would not pass and then I think it turns out that people were just sheepish about sharing their real feelings with pollsters who could be  ... I don't know I don't know exactly how the Bradley Effect works but anyway

No Bradley Effect, Presidental. Total Bradley Effect, Prop. 8. But I'm sure this has been written about already.

It has, though I hadn't seen it (but then I read the L.A. Times!) ... The Field Poll taken a few days before the election said Prop. 8 was losing 49 to 44. In the event it won by 5 points--a 10 point discrepancy. ... Even the seemingly infallible Nate Silver was kinda sorta almost fooled. ... It makes sense that the Bradley Effect would show up in this context. Telling a stranger you are going to vote for John McCain--well, there were plenty of respectable reasons to vote for John McCain. But tell a stranger you're voting against gay marriage? That's a way to either mark yourself as a bigot in polite company, or at least start a long, tedious possibly emotional fight. Who needs it? Voters learn to lie. ... [If they just replaced the secret ballot with a "card check" system--ed. Don't give anyone ideas] ... 

Backfill:  This morning E.J. Graff claimed the Bradleyesque "homo effect" has shrunk from four to two percent. ...11:43 P.M.

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Jerry Skurnik's list of "stories that the pundits and pols thought were really, really important" but weren't. ... I'd also be interested in "stories the pundits had to pretend were really, really important in order to push their candidate." 1) State licensing of plumbers.  ... 6:33 P.M.

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Office Pool: On what date will John McCain self-servingly apologize for self-servingly lying during the 2008 campaign? He's done it before! ... P.S.: To be true to form, McCain would have to self-servingly lie in the course of self-servingly apologizing for self-servingly lying--perhaps by artificially limiting the number of lies he needs to self-servingly apologize for. As in, "Only once, I believe, did I act in an unprincipled way." That worked in 2000! ... He might have to say "only twice" this time. ...

Bonus tie-breaker: How many hours after McCain's self-serving apology will Joe Klein forgive him and proclaim that "McCain has reclaimed his greatest asset, his integrity"? Entries denominated in minutes and seconds also accepted. ...

Update: Reader C.C. suggests a "perfecta option"' in which you guess the date McCain "will self-servingly apologize, and be immediately forgiven, in the course of an exclusive interview with Joe Klein." My money is on next Wednesday. ... 5:48 P.M.

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Kausfiles' Moment of Hope (It's Brief!)

Winner--The Newsom Rule: The Newsom Rule holds that it's almost always a bad idea for politicians to gloat that their side has won "whether you like it or not." That's what S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom did after a temporary gay marriage victory. Now California voters--influence by ads featuring Newsom's giddy, egomaniacal video boast-- have by a narrow margin stuck a gay marriage ban into the state constitution. ... [Is the Newsom Rule like Godwin's Law--ed Saying that anything is like Godwin's Law is itself a violation of Godwin's Law, I think] 4:19 P.M.

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Book Him on Three Counts of Failure to Transcend: Everyone wants to praise McCain's "gracious" concession speech. But it was shockingly  tin-eared--especially the good-for-you-black-people beginning:

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

He went on and on--as if Obama's victory was all about race and not about a rejection of McCain or Republican governance. As if even if it had to do with race its rejection of bigotry was mainly of interest to African Americans as opposed to all Americans. As if the most important characteristic of the man most Americans chose over McCain was his skin color, etc. ... I know I'm overreacting, but McCain's tone seemed almost tribal. ... Maybe the problem was his distancing, clanging choice of pronoun--"theirs." Not "yours," let alone "ours." ..  3:26 P.M.

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Winner: Pork! Champion bacon-conduit Ted Stevens defeats challenger, despite a fresh multiple-count felony conviction, while death-to-earmark Skywalker McCain crashes and burns ... 1:35 P.M.

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Winner: Mike Murphy. The McCain loss unfolded pretty much exactly as he predicted back in August. ...

Loser: Mike Murphy. Nobody's resented more than a dissenter who turns out to have been right. ... 1:34 P.M.

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I See. I Saw. I Didn't Get 60:  Hmm. As Obama surged to victory, further down on the ballot things were drifting in the opposite direction. Politico:

But as NRCC staffers returned to work Wednesday morning, many of them were breathing sighs of relief. A 20- or 22-seat loss is hardly a victory, but it’s not the sea-changing — and majority-robbing — 30-seat loss the Republicans suffered two years ago. Just a week ago, the NRCC staffers were braced for worse. But they say they saw the Democrats’ wave crest just a little too early — and that it was starting to recede as voters went to the polls. [E.A.}

See-Saw Effect, anyone? ... P.S.: Specifically, this would be the Downballot Hedge version of the See Saw, in which swing voters compensated for the bold, hopeful risk they took on Obama (including for overcoming any race prejudice)  by gravitating back toward Republicans in their local Senate and House races.  ... P.P.S.: Sorry, Mike! ... For background, search this post for "vertical ticket splitter," and search here for the original mirror-image version of the See Saw proposed by Reader M.  ... 1:32 P.M.

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Grant Park: I was struck by two lists of virtues used by Obama in his acceptance speech--or rather by two omissions on those lists. [Emphasis added]

1.

To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you.  To those who seek peace and security – we support you.

"Peace and security." Not "democracy" or "freedom." This is someone who doesn't want to seem in any way a neocon idealist.

2.

And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

No mention of "equality"--not even social equality. Nor "equality before the law." This is someone who doesn't want to seem in any way a leftish "redistributor." ... 1:51 A.M.

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Kinsley:

People who want divided government are afraid of politics.

I dunno. Maybe we're just afraid of card check. ... 6:09 P.M.

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kf Moment of Hope: The News. ...  6:04 P.M.

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Thank You, Ohio!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Khalidi: Pushke Comes to Shove!

Will Greg Packer Outlast the MSM? Five years after being exposed (by Ann Coulter) as "the entire media's designated 'man on the street' for all articles ever written" and banned by the AP, Greg Packer's triumph over the MSM is complete: Patterico documents his Friday humiliation of the New York Times. ... He will dance on their graves, and maybe give a celebratory quote to Mayhill Fowler. ... 2:07 P.M.

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Saturday, November 1, 2008

Went to a Halloween party dressed as The Bradley Effect. The elemental conceptual simplicity of my costume somehow failed to terrify, even in a Dem heavy Hollywood crowd. ... This may be the first election where average Web-surfing, procrastinating liberal comedy writers know more about the last Insider Advantage poll in Pennsylvania than Howard Fineman does....  Unfortunately, they thought the photo of George Deukmejian on my costume** was Robert Rubin.

**--Pinned to the red half of the costume under a blue flap that--easier to show than tell--flopped over to obscure a photo of long-serving L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, whom they mistook for an Asian man. They had been drinking. ...[Had you worn the White Liberal Guilt Effect costume, I would have been impressed.--emailer DM It was at the cleaners.]
 2:46 P.M.

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Friday, October 31, 2008

The five important people in American politics whom Mark Halperin most wants to suck up to right now -- who aren't running for president ... :2:15 P.M.

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Psst, Dittoheads: Obama has come out against reimposing the Fairness Doctrine. [Through an aide, in an email--ed. Sure. But is is better to discount and downplay the anti-Fairness pledge on those grounds, or to play it up and lock Obama in? Depends whether you want to help McCain or free speech.] 11:54 A.M.

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A year is an eternity in politics ... but it will seem like three months: NBC's First Read:

[T]oday just happens to be the one-year anniversary of the MSNBC debate in Philadelphia that tripped up Hillary Clinton on the question of drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants. It seems longer than a year, right?

Actually, it doesn't. It seems like it happened last month. I can't explain it--you'd think one implication of the Feiler Faster Thesis, much discussed in this space, is that any given period of time would seem longer because it's now typically more jampacked with twists and turns (as the campaign has, in fact, been). But all the FFT says is that we comfortably process information more quickly, which allows for the twists and turns.** It doesn't necessarily say anything about how those twists and turns will be remembered. ...

** High school poetry bonus: See A. Marvell: "Thus, though we cannot make our sun/Stand still, yet we will make him run." Would that make time seem longer, looking back? I don't think so, though the issue isn't directly addressed. ... 1:34 A.M.

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Thursday, October 30, 2008  

The See-Saw Cuts Both Ways: Republicans have been gaining in the "generic" Congressional ballot, according to The Hill.

Republicans have cut the Democratic advantage in the generic ballot question in half over the past week, according to a new GW-Battleground poll. Democrats now lead by four points, their slimmest lead in more than three years. A week ago, according to the George Washington University pool, their advantage was eight points. [E.A.]

Is this the fabled See-Saw Effect, where the more Obama goes up the more Dem Congressional candidates go down? ... As someone rooting for an Obama victory coupled with a small Dem majority in Congress, I've worried that in all the last minute confusion the See wouldn't know which way to Saw, given the countervailing possibility that ticket-splitting voters would side with McCain and compensate by voting for Dems in downballot Senate and House races. ... But if the MSM Final Push to Victory. among other factors, really does help produce a big Obama closing surge, that could (perversely!) tip the ticket-splitters' lever against Franken, Martin, etc., no? ... Update: TalkLeft points out that the very same Battleground poll does not show Obama surging, but rather has him only three points ahead of McCain. I knew that! But the ticket splitting impulse could be rising, even if Obama's lead remains constant, as the possibility of his winning looms larger in voters' minds. (The poll in question didn't show McCain surging either--he was three points behind last week as well as this week.) ... P.S.: I'm not predicting! Just speculating on possible last-minute dynamics. Obama and the downballot Dems won't necessarily rise or fall in tandem. ... 7:17 P.M.

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Pushke Comes to Shove: Regarding Rashid Khalidi, here is what a friend of mine--a Jewish Democrat involved in "mainstream Jewish ... peace work"--wrote me:

its always about rashid..who has been a  
buddy of mine for 20 years... and is from an old palestinian
family and is pro palestinian....but who has also worked with israelis  
and jews (he has a blue and white pushke in his office!)

Shocked for Barack!

No Ring. On to the DNA test! ... 1:22 P.M.

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Everybody's Pitching In (7)! Barbra Streisand is doing her part [in a non-profit, non-endorsement way of course] ...  1:15 P.M.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Kausfiles Goes Rogue!

"Redistributive Change"--Bernstein, not Sunstein: David Bernstein's take on that Obama "redistributive change" radio interivew seems sound. As Obama's defenders note, he was opposing using the courts to achieve RC, though perhaps as a practical matter and not as a matter of principle. But Obama cadre Cass Sunstein didn't do his reputation any good if he really pretended Obama only meant (in Ben Smith's summary) "narrower forms of redistribution -- education, legal filing fees, legal representation, and other issues."  Obama was clearly talking more generally--certainly when he seemed to endorse redistribution through political action. Anyway, if one of the "narrower forms of redistribution" was a constitutional right to "welfare" or a minimum income, how much broader do you have to get to violate the venerable and politically central American consensus that income should only come with work? ...

Still, as Bernstein notes, we knew Obama believed in "redistributive change." The question is always what that means. Traditionally Democratic pols leave it alarmingly vague, with no identifiable stopping place at which enough redistribution is enough. Obama is no exception. But this radio interview makes him seem both smarter and a bit less paleoliberal than most voters probably think he is.

If this is the best they've got on him ... 1:59 A.M.

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I never met Dean Barnett. I don't know what he looked like, never knew what he did for a living or, until today, when he died from cystic fibrosis<