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Showing posts with label election 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election 2008. Show all posts
President Obama
Barack Obama is now President, which is awesome. His job would be hard enough if he didn't have to clean up after one of the worst US Presidents in history. But in addition to cleaning up Bush's mess, the world is changing extremely rapidly, including in the international security realm. Michael Tanji was gracious enough to invite me to contribute to a book he edited and which is now available for purchase. So purchase away! The title is "Threats in the Age of Obama" and it's published by Nimble books. My chapter specifically looks at how a rational person can become involved in terrorism, gang violence, etc. (i.e. it's not all about "the crazy Moozlims" or "thug culture"). Click "read more" to see the book cover.
Thoughts on the election
Obama won! A few observations on the election:
A lot of people are saying "Look, now this really shows that any child can grow up to be President!" Well, no. At the same time as the U.S. elected a black man as President, a bunch of states voted for anti-gay laws. And plenty of ignorant people were still under the impression that Obama is a Muslim and that that's a bad thing. And Senator (soon to be former Senator) Dole in North Carolina attacked her challenger Kay Fagan by calling her an atheist - Hagan responded by calling it "slander". There was no Colin Powell moment in that race where someone asked "why do you care if Fagan is an atheist?" So yes, a black man won the presidency, showing we've progressed, but you probably still can't win the Presidency if you are openly atheist, openly gay, Muslim or Arab (see a poll from 2007).
A lot of people like Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are saying this was a transformational election, that the Democrats are building a new coalition just like Reagan in 1980 and FDR in 1932. Well, no. The data shows that, compared to 2004, the Democrats just got a a plus 3% handicap in pretty much every state other than states who had their own officials runing (Arizona, Alaska, Massachusetts, Hawaii), and Appalachia and Southern states (hmm).
Stratfor highlights that, even though Obama won in an electoral landslide, the popular vote was relatively close. One reason for that is going to be Obama losing a lot of areas in the South and Appalachia by much more than Kerry did 4 years ago as you can see on this map. The obvious explanation is racist voters voting against a black person in those areas. However you can see that almost no counties in North Carolina and Virginia swung in McCain's direction compared to 2004, however just across the state lines, counties right next to them voted much more heavily in favor of McCain than in 2004. And Obama targeted North Carolina and especially Virginia, and didn't really target West Virginia and Tennessee. So I think beyond racism, there is the lesson that if you target voters even in the sticks in Appalachia, they will vote for you in greater numbers than otherwise (vindicating Howard Dean's 50 state strategy).
Basically, I don't think too much has changed in terms of electoral politics. This election didn't show that we all united, it just showed that a mere 3% more of us reject Republican rule after one of the worst presidencies in history and instead will vote for a black guy if he promises to cut taxes and seems like a generally likeable fellow.
A lot of people are saying "Look, now this really shows that any child can grow up to be President!" Well, no. At the same time as the U.S. elected a black man as President, a bunch of states voted for anti-gay laws. And plenty of ignorant people were still under the impression that Obama is a Muslim and that that's a bad thing. And Senator (soon to be former Senator) Dole in North Carolina attacked her challenger Kay Fagan by calling her an atheist - Hagan responded by calling it "slander". There was no Colin Powell moment in that race where someone asked "why do you care if Fagan is an atheist?" So yes, a black man won the presidency, showing we've progressed, but you probably still can't win the Presidency if you are openly atheist, openly gay, Muslim or Arab (see a poll from 2007).
A lot of people like Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are saying this was a transformational election, that the Democrats are building a new coalition just like Reagan in 1980 and FDR in 1932. Well, no. The data shows that, compared to 2004, the Democrats just got a a plus 3% handicap in pretty much every state other than states who had their own officials runing (Arizona, Alaska, Massachusetts, Hawaii), and Appalachia and Southern states (hmm).
Stratfor highlights that, even though Obama won in an electoral landslide, the popular vote was relatively close. One reason for that is going to be Obama losing a lot of areas in the South and Appalachia by much more than Kerry did 4 years ago as you can see on this map. The obvious explanation is racist voters voting against a black person in those areas. However you can see that almost no counties in North Carolina and Virginia swung in McCain's direction compared to 2004, however just across the state lines, counties right next to them voted much more heavily in favor of McCain than in 2004. And Obama targeted North Carolina and especially Virginia, and didn't really target West Virginia and Tennessee. So I think beyond racism, there is the lesson that if you target voters even in the sticks in Appalachia, they will vote for you in greater numbers than otherwise (vindicating Howard Dean's 50 state strategy).
Basically, I don't think too much has changed in terms of electoral politics. This election didn't show that we all united, it just showed that a mere 3% more of us reject Republican rule after one of the worst presidencies in history and instead will vote for a black guy if he promises to cut taxes and seems like a generally likeable fellow.
Campaigning in Pennsylvania
Yesterday my wife and I went down to Erie, Pennsylvania, along with her parents and 3 other friends, and we campaigned for Obama.
We were given lists of Obama supporters and went door to door reminding them to vote, telling them where their polling places were, what they needed to bring, etc. Between my wife and I, we knocked on a couple hundred doors, and talked to dozens of people. We only got two McCain supporters (both hers) and one racist (mine).* I talked to one old lady who was angry that the person that called her from the Obama campaign was a black girl, so she hung up on her. Then she got even more angry when she mistakenly got a letter in the mail saying "thanks for your $150 pledge". She said it made her not want to vote, but I talked her down from the ledge (hopefully).
My wife's parents did run in to some McCain campaigners, but nothing interesting happened.
The Rochester paper had an article today about some other supporters who also went down to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Of course, as Yglesias notes, the only reason we had to go down to Pennsylvania to find people who's Presidential votes mattered is because of our screwy electoral system.
My thought as we were driving back was, after all this talk about change, what will his brand be in 2012? My guess is something like "steadiness," or "I am not a total airhead like my challenger." If Palin runs in 2012, would we have a sequel to Larry Flynt's Nailin Paylin?
*Apparently plenty of racists are supporting Obama for President over McCain.
We were given lists of Obama supporters and went door to door reminding them to vote, telling them where their polling places were, what they needed to bring, etc. Between my wife and I, we knocked on a couple hundred doors, and talked to dozens of people. We only got two McCain supporters (both hers) and one racist (mine).* I talked to one old lady who was angry that the person that called her from the Obama campaign was a black girl, so she hung up on her. Then she got even more angry when she mistakenly got a letter in the mail saying "thanks for your $150 pledge". She said it made her not want to vote, but I talked her down from the ledge (hopefully).
My wife's parents did run in to some McCain campaigners, but nothing interesting happened.
The Rochester paper had an article today about some other supporters who also went down to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Of course, as Yglesias notes, the only reason we had to go down to Pennsylvania to find people who's Presidential votes mattered is because of our screwy electoral system.
My thought as we were driving back was, after all this talk about change, what will his brand be in 2012? My guess is something like "steadiness," or "I am not a total airhead like my challenger." If Palin runs in 2012, would we have a sequel to Larry Flynt's Nailin Paylin?
*Apparently plenty of racists are supporting Obama for President over McCain.
Taxes and healthcare
I posted a rundown of the candidates' tax and health care policies over at my sister's blog, Current Conductor. Check it out here.
Don't hate on me (or ACORN)
In his paper The Political Economy of Hatred, Ed Glaeser looks at anti-Americanism in the Middle East, anti-Semitism in Europe, and anti-Black hatred in the American South and concludes that hatred is "particularly likely to spread against groups that are politicaly relevant and socially isolated." The social isolation of the object of hatred increases the costs for the in-group to debunk myths, and the political relevance of the group increases the incentives for politicians to target the out-group with hate-creating propaganda.
I think this is a useful model through which to look at McCain's propaganda regarding ACORN, the group he says is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." This propaganda has resulted in death threats against ACORN employees and vandalism of ACORN offices.
Glaeser's basic theory is that political entrepreneurs who are pro-wealth-redistribution will spread hate-creating stories about rich minorities, while anti-redistribution will spread hate-creaing stories about poor minorities. However it doesn't just have to apply to minorities classified by economics. ACORN and other community organizers are minorities, in that 99% of Americans are not ACORN volunteers or employees, and most don't know ACORN volunteers or employees either.
Glaeser's basic theory is that political entrepreneurs who are pro-wealth-redistribution will spread hate-creating stories about rich minorities, while anti-redistribution will spread hate-creaing stories about poor minorities. However it doesn't just have to apply to minorities classified by economics. ACORN and other community organizers are minorities, in that 99% of Americans are not ACORN volunteers or employees, and most don't know ACORN volunteers or employees either.
ACORN, the out-group, is politically relevant both because of their connections to Obama and the Obama campaign, but also because they registered 1.3 million new voters this year.
ACORN is also socially isolated from the target group of McCain's propaganda, not only because there are so few ACORN members in the country, but also because they tend to operate in larger cities, and the target of this propaganda is conservative/GOP voters in suburbs and rural communities (the in-group).
Glaeser's model has four steps:
1) Politicians decide whether or not to broadcast a hate-creating message. My guess is that this occured prior to the GOP national convention, when Giuliani and Palin both devoted chunks of their speeches to ridiculling community organizers. But it could also have happened whenever the campaign realized that they have no shot at winning based on issues, due to the financial/economic situation.
2) In-group members receive the message about the harmfulness of the out-group, and decide whether or not to investigate the truth of this message, and decide whether or not to take action against the out-group. False messages can succeed if in-group members have no incentive to figure out whether the messages are true or not, or if the barriers to finding out the truth are very high. Incentives would be personal, commercial, or other relationships with members of the out-group, which also lower the barriers to the truth. Since ACORN is both socially isolated and not well known by most voters outside of thecurrent voter registration story, incentives are low and barriers are high. While the truth is obviously perfectly available through online news sources, McCain's demographic probably distrusts "liberal media" like ABC (and it doesn't help that CNN bought McCain's propaganda hook, line and sinker).
3) Each group votes for their preferred candidate, and the winner's policies are implemented.
4) The losing group may be harmed by the winning group (the whole point of the propaganda). Here, the ACORN propaganda fits into McCain's larger desperation strategy of associating with people that are "different" from McCain's voters. i.e., if Obama and ACORN steal the election, something bad and vaguely associated with terrorism, socialism, high taxes and black people will happen (all examples are from the central McCain campaign, not the even more explicitly racist state and local GOP figures).
A few ending notes. First, it's important to recognize the transparently cynical nature of McCain's propaganda campaign against ACORN. This link has a video of McCain congratulating ACORN as "what makes America special" due to their efforts to get immigrants registered to vote.
Second, while McCain rails about "voter fraud" and implies that ACORN is engaged in some conspiracy to steal the election, there is a significant difference between voter fraud and voter REGISTRATION fraud (it's one thing to register Mickey Mouse, it's another thing to try to vote as Mickey Mouse), and the real victim of this voter registration fraud is ACORN itself for being tricked into paying for bogus registrations, which is why they were the ones that reported it to the Feds in the first place. ACORN is legally required in several states to turn in all registration forms, whether they think they are fradulent or not, so as to get around the possibility of organizations throwing out registrations of one party or another. They also noted forms they thought might be fradulent.
Finally, it's important to note that the GOP has a history of crying wolf over voter fraud. The US Attorneys scandal of a couple years ago was partially about Rove firing US Attorneys who were unwilling to prosecute bogus voter fraud cases.
Lady de Rothchild calls Obama "elitist"
This morning while I was eating lunch, these two things appeared right next to each other in my Google Reader, and make about the same amount of sense:
First:
First:
Matt, examining Lady de Rothchilds defection to McCain, notes that irony must be truly dead. "Lady" de Rothchilds main reason for not endorsing McCain? Obama is an elitist. More accurately elitism is dead. When a gazillionaire who insists on being IDed as "Lady" can call a black dude from the South Side, whose mother had him as a teenager an elitist, the word has no meaning.Second:
You couldn't write a better script
...for a political comedy:
McCain is the candidate of "experience" - picks VP candidate with zero national political experience
McCain is the candidate of "national security" - picks VP candidate with zero national security experience
McCain puts his "country first" - picks VP candidate who was a member of an Alaskan secessionist party
McCain is the "responsible" candidate - picks VP candidate without doing basic political background research
McCain is the "maverick" - picks VP candidate after being bullied out of his first two choices by the evangelical Right
McCain is the anti-corruption candidate - picks VP candidate who ran Ted Stevens' 527 group and who hired a member of Team Abramoff
McCain is the anti-pork candidate - picks VP candidate who won $27 million in pork for her town of 6000 and fought for the "bridge to nowhere"
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Unfortunately for comedy's sake, Palin is too young (and not Vietnamese), otherwise the perfect ending would be finding out she had been one of McCain's captors (had you heard he was a POW in Vietnam?) Feel free to add additional contradictions between McCain's rhetoric and his choice of Sarah Palin as VP in the comments.
When a candidate's relationship with the press moves beyond hostile questioning and into ridicule and satire, big chances are needed. Perhaps a third total restructuring of the McCain campaign is in the future!
McCain is the candidate of "experience" - picks VP candidate with zero national political experience
McCain is the candidate of "national security" - picks VP candidate with zero national security experience
McCain puts his "country first" - picks VP candidate who was a member of an Alaskan secessionist party
McCain is the "responsible" candidate - picks VP candidate without doing basic political background research
McCain is the "maverick" - picks VP candidate after being bullied out of his first two choices by the evangelical Right
McCain is the anti-corruption candidate - picks VP candidate who ran Ted Stevens' 527 group and who hired a member of Team Abramoff
McCain is the anti-pork candidate - picks VP candidate who won $27 million in pork for her town of 6000 and fought for the "bridge to nowhere"
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Unfortunately for comedy's sake, Palin is too young (and not Vietnamese), otherwise the perfect ending would be finding out she had been one of McCain's captors (had you heard he was a POW in Vietnam?) Feel free to add additional contradictions between McCain's rhetoric and his choice of Sarah Palin as VP in the comments.
When a candidate's relationship with the press moves beyond hostile questioning and into ridicule and satire, big chances are needed. Perhaps a third total restructuring of the McCain campaign is in the future!
Sarah Palin as VP
So McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP nominee. See her bio here. Another relevant fact is she's in a mini-scandal now for apparently firing some guy because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state Trooper.
The big issue is that she has absolutely no experience in national politics and has only been governor of Alaska for a year and a half. Basically McCain used his VP pick as a political stunt designed to steal coverage of Obama's acceptance speech. This is possibly the most short-sighted VP pick in history and in my view a colossal blunder by McCain. And since Eddie liked my line about how one should view Palin's "experience" in the executive branch in Alaska, I'll repeat it here:
The big issue is that she has absolutely no experience in national politics and has only been governor of Alaska for a year and a half. Basically McCain used his VP pick as a political stunt designed to steal coverage of Obama's acceptance speech. This is possibly the most short-sighted VP pick in history and in my view a colossal blunder by McCain. And since Eddie liked my line about how one should view Palin's "experience" in the executive branch in Alaska, I'll repeat it here:
Governing Alaska is like governing Sim City with the free money cheat. It’s easy to repeal taxes and fund infrastructure at the same time when you have a money spigot.
Change? Experience? Character?
I started this post three weeks ago and then got lazy. I figured with the convention this week it'd be a good time to do a political post though.
This election it seems that the themes each campaign has chosen correspond to their own weaknesses. John McCain is running on "experience" despite the fact that he's never held any executive or managerial position in his life. McCain's also running on character and "putting America first," despite his temper tantrums and slime-slinging campaign ads, and the fact that his chief of staff was recently a paid agent of a foreign government.
Barack Obama is running on change, and in the primary most of the positions he laid out clearly were a break from the status quo. However since then he's bought in to three major establishment ideas: immunity for telecom companies that aided the government in illegal domestic intelligence collection; the prioritizing of Israel's short-term security over that of the Middle East as a whole; and the selection of Joe Biden as his VP pick (not a bad pick, but not exactly about "change"). His staff selection also is filled with experienced Washington people - and while you definitely need some experience so you can figure out how the place works, filling your Senate staff with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle staffers doesn't exactly signal that you want to transform American politics.
John McCain's primary argument is that he's experienced and Obama's a novice who will mess everything up. A look at their campaigns suggests otherwise. Obama's been called "Machiavellian" due to his ruthlessly efficient campaign. Disputes within his office (and I'm assuming they exist) do not end up on the front page of the Washington Post or New York Times the way they do in McCain's campaign and the way they did in Hillary Clinton's. He has raised money hand over fist. His ground operations were by all accounts much better than those of his rivals. He's laying the groundwork for his reelection campaign in 2012 even before he's elected.
Contrast that to McCain's campaign, which is so disorganized he doesn't even know his own positions on key issues like birth control or climate change. He cycles through different cliques of advisers - does he want to be "the original maverick"? Or does he want Karl Rove's proteges to bring him evangelical votes? The answer changes every few months. After a series of attack ads against Obama, defenders of McCain were arguing that McCain was such an 'honorable' guy that his campaign would only put those ads out if McCain wasn't totally in control. It takes a special kind of campaign to reduce the candidate's five years in a torture cell to a farce.
McCain's character and integrity has been a sacred cow in the national press corps - despite reversing practically all of his political positions to win the Republican nomination, cheating on his first wife, his involvement in a corruption scandal, his repeated attempts to portray Obama as un-American, and various other failings of character.
Perhaps some campaigns decide to attack other candidates along certain lines in order to take the focus off their own failings. By attacking the other candidate's character or change credentials, maybe they hope they won't have to defend their own. I can't figure the exact reasoning but it definitely makes for a surreal campaign.
As an addendum, all this talking head crap on TV about a divided Democratic party is stupid. The Democratic party is divided over personalities, which can be much more easily mended than being divided over substance. The GOP on the other hand is divided over substance and the entire direction of party, which threatens to split the entire party in a national realignment.
This election it seems that the themes each campaign has chosen correspond to their own weaknesses. John McCain is running on "experience" despite the fact that he's never held any executive or managerial position in his life. McCain's also running on character and "putting America first," despite his temper tantrums and slime-slinging campaign ads, and the fact that his chief of staff was recently a paid agent of a foreign government.
Barack Obama is running on change, and in the primary most of the positions he laid out clearly were a break from the status quo. However since then he's bought in to three major establishment ideas: immunity for telecom companies that aided the government in illegal domestic intelligence collection; the prioritizing of Israel's short-term security over that of the Middle East as a whole; and the selection of Joe Biden as his VP pick (not a bad pick, but not exactly about "change"). His staff selection also is filled with experienced Washington people - and while you definitely need some experience so you can figure out how the place works, filling your Senate staff with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle staffers doesn't exactly signal that you want to transform American politics.
John McCain's primary argument is that he's experienced and Obama's a novice who will mess everything up. A look at their campaigns suggests otherwise. Obama's been called "Machiavellian" due to his ruthlessly efficient campaign. Disputes within his office (and I'm assuming they exist) do not end up on the front page of the Washington Post or New York Times the way they do in McCain's campaign and the way they did in Hillary Clinton's. He has raised money hand over fist. His ground operations were by all accounts much better than those of his rivals. He's laying the groundwork for his reelection campaign in 2012 even before he's elected.
Contrast that to McCain's campaign, which is so disorganized he doesn't even know his own positions on key issues like birth control or climate change. He cycles through different cliques of advisers - does he want to be "the original maverick"? Or does he want Karl Rove's proteges to bring him evangelical votes? The answer changes every few months. After a series of attack ads against Obama, defenders of McCain were arguing that McCain was such an 'honorable' guy that his campaign would only put those ads out if McCain wasn't totally in control. It takes a special kind of campaign to reduce the candidate's five years in a torture cell to a farce.
McCain's character and integrity has been a sacred cow in the national press corps - despite reversing practically all of his political positions to win the Republican nomination, cheating on his first wife, his involvement in a corruption scandal, his repeated attempts to portray Obama as un-American, and various other failings of character.
Perhaps some campaigns decide to attack other candidates along certain lines in order to take the focus off their own failings. By attacking the other candidate's character or change credentials, maybe they hope they won't have to defend their own. I can't figure the exact reasoning but it definitely makes for a surreal campaign.
As an addendum, all this talking head crap on TV about a divided Democratic party is stupid. The Democratic party is divided over personalities, which can be much more easily mended than being divided over substance. The GOP on the other hand is divided over substance and the entire direction of party, which threatens to split the entire party in a national realignment.
Obama's VP - how about Clark
At lunch last week with a former professor of mine, we agreed that Obama should consider Wes Clark as a Vice Presidential nominee.
The benefits of Wes Clark as Obama's running mate:
The benefits of Wes Clark as Obama's running mate:
- Perceived (perceptions > reality) national security experience balances Obama's inexperience
- Close ties with the Clintons help bridge the gap between the Obama people and the Clinton people
- Isn't associated with Washington politics, keeping the "change" theme going
- Clark's background as a poor white boy from Arkansas might help makes inroads on the bigot vote, especially if McCain picks Bobby Jindal (Brown '91!) as his VP, who is Indian
- Beloved by media types like Bill O'Reilly and CNN
- Very smart
- Experience with messy wars in Bosnia and Kosovo
- Knows a lot of the Pentagon people already
- Hasn't been slamming Obama in public - although he endorsed Clinton for President, he hasn't done any negative campaigning and has put most of his energy into targeted Congressional races and specific bills
- Isn't Dick Cheney
Derrick Ashong on Barack Obama
Via Ethan Zuckerman, here are a couple videos. The first is by some random guy interviewing another random guy outside a Clinton vs. Obama debate. The second is the interviewee's (turns out to be a Ghanaian immigrant, Derrick Ashong) response on YouTube. Videos beneath the cut.
Senator Joe Biden was reportedly amazed to find a second articulate black man.
Senator Joe Biden was reportedly amazed to find a second articulate black man.
McCain for President, cuz he's CRAZY!
Via Democracy Arsenal, Max Boot has an op-ed in the LA Times:
But if we want to elect McCain solely because he's trigger-happy and a little unbalanced, why stop at McCain? I say we resurrect Curtis LeMay from the dead and elect him. He's only slightly older than McCain anyway, and he surely would scare the rest of the world (seeing as they are insufficiently scared of our brilliant military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan).
An addendum - I find it ironic that the "crazy" candidate is publicly anti-torture, while the "reasonable" one, supported by Wall Street Republicans, wanted to double Gitmo.
President Bush has not done enough to back up his threats against Iran and Syria... part of a larger trend of Bush combining strong words with weak actions....This has a little grounding in history. For instance, Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba in part because he thought he could get away with it, because JFK was weak and inexperienced. However this seems pretty remote from the current situation, given the over-reliance on the military in our foreign policy, a good deal of which is structural/institutional, and thus not dependent on the President's personality.
It is hard to see how Bush could reverse this decline in America's "fear factor" during the remaining year of his presidency. That will be the job of the next president. And who would be the most up to the task?
To answer that question, ask yourself which presidential candidate an Ahmadinejad, Assad or Kim would fear the most. I submit it is not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee... Ironically, John McCain's bellicose aura could allow us to achieve more of our objectives peacefully because other countries would be more afraid to mess with him than with most other potential occupants of the Oval Office -- or the current one.
But if we want to elect McCain solely because he's trigger-happy and a little unbalanced, why stop at McCain? I say we resurrect Curtis LeMay from the dead and elect him. He's only slightly older than McCain anyway, and he surely would scare the rest of the world (seeing as they are insufficiently scared of our brilliant military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan).
An addendum - I find it ironic that the "crazy" candidate is publicly anti-torture, while the "reasonable" one, supported by Wall Street Republicans, wanted to double Gitmo.
My thoughts on the remaining candidates for 2008
Seems like CPAC every year lowers the political discourse into cheap name-calling, etc. Last year it was with a predictable Ann Coulter moment, this year with Mitt Romney's reprehensible "Democrats want to surrender to terrorists" concession speech (as usual Jon Stewart gives the best response). Here are my thoughts on the remaining candidates:
Barack Obama
The biggest surprise? That I agree with TDAXP!
Barack Obama
- Pros: huge upside with his potential to rally the country around him and get new people involved in politics (which will come in handy during the coming recession and exit from Iraq). Good tech policy.
- Cons: so hyped that an Obama presidency would probably be a big disappointment no matter how successful he actually is. Poor health care plan. Inexperienced.
- Pros: good health care plan. Smart and experienced. Two for one deal with Bill Clinton.
- Cons: half the country has an irrational hatred for her. Tries to pass stupid restrictions on video games. Political dynasties are bad (1981-2013 with either a Bush or Clinton in the White House).
- Pros: his nomination/election might see the implosion of the Republican party. Experienced. Surprisingly sane by the standards of today's GOP.
- Cons: trigger happy. Old. Opposes torture and suspension of habeus corpus, but caved in to Bush on the Military Commissions Act by allowing the President to define torture and exclude who retains their habeus corpus rights (rendering the Act meaningless).
- hahahahahaha.
The biggest surprise? That I agree with TDAXP!
Giuliani's out of the race!
Phew. I figured given how much I've written on this blog bashing Giuliani, I'd get to gloat a little bit at his total failure. Apparently he will endorse McCain, the winner of Florida. I guess next week it will all be decided. My guess is that it will be Obama vs. McCain, just like TDAXP hopes.
Iowa and New Hampshire
Lots of hot air has been expended on the Iowa and New Hampshire results. I don't really know much about American elections (who caucuses? just vote!), but at least I am cognizant of that fact. Our mainstream news outlets are apparently clueless about their own ignorance ("We were wrong? Must have been those New Hampshire racists!"). After Obama won Iowa, he was about to be crowned king and Hillary was finished - a few days later, and it's neck-and-neck. McCain was supposed to be finished this past summer, now he's the new front-runner.
Intrade.com has a fascinating graphic showing McCain's comeback. The graph shows how much Intrade.com traders valued contracts on McCain winning the GOP presidential nomination. The payoff of the contract, if McCain wins the nomination, is 100; otherwise it is zero. So in November and December of 2006, traders valued McCain's stock at 55ish. By July 2007 it fell to around 5, and after New Hampshire it has climbed back to around 35 - the highest of the Republican contenders.
National polls largely mirror this trend. I assume Intrade.com traders were trading on the information of national polls, Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary polls, the financial situation each candidate is in, etc. The problem is that people look at all this data and think it means more than it does, because it's all we have - and any pundit that says "I don't know" won't be invited back on TV.
Soft support for candidates means that poll numbers are flexible. High voter turnout also upsets polling data, which is based on sampling from different demographics based on who has historically turned out to vote in the past. I'm sure lots of other things confound poll numbers too. Thus the polling numbers that our chattering classes obsess over in truth don't mean very much. And so to take it one step further, the output of the chattering classes doesn't matter very much either (except to the degree that other people take it seriously).
My point is not that McCain was always going to make a comeback and that pundits should have known - there was nothing fated about his remarkable turnaround. My point is that the value-added of these pundits is minimal and that their assertions are almost always over-confident.
Intrade.com has a fascinating graphic showing McCain's comeback. The graph shows how much Intrade.com traders valued contracts on McCain winning the GOP presidential nomination. The payoff of the contract, if McCain wins the nomination, is 100; otherwise it is zero. So in November and December of 2006, traders valued McCain's stock at 55ish. By July 2007 it fell to around 5, and after New Hampshire it has climbed back to around 35 - the highest of the Republican contenders.
National polls largely mirror this trend. I assume Intrade.com traders were trading on the information of national polls, Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary polls, the financial situation each candidate is in, etc. The problem is that people look at all this data and think it means more than it does, because it's all we have - and any pundit that says "I don't know" won't be invited back on TV.
Soft support for candidates means that poll numbers are flexible. High voter turnout also upsets polling data, which is based on sampling from different demographics based on who has historically turned out to vote in the past. I'm sure lots of other things confound poll numbers too. Thus the polling numbers that our chattering classes obsess over in truth don't mean very much. And so to take it one step further, the output of the chattering classes doesn't matter very much either (except to the degree that other people take it seriously).
My point is not that McCain was always going to make a comeback and that pundits should have known - there was nothing fated about his remarkable turnaround. My point is that the value-added of these pundits is minimal and that their assertions are almost always over-confident.
An Odd Couple
Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani for President yesterday. This was a surprise to me - the only thing Robertson and Giuliani share is that they are both crazy.
This is the height of hypocrisy from both Giuliani and Robertson. Back in May, Giuliani attacked Ron Paul for suggesting that American actions started a chain of events resulting in the attacks of September Eleventh. Here's the transcript of that debate:
Here are Pat Robertson's comments shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, which are still on his website - he has never apologized for them or retracted them. He essentially blames people like Giuliani, who is pro-choice, for convincing god to lift the divine shield previously protecting the US:
Robertson also endorsed Jerry Falwell's hateful comments towards non-religious people, gays, the ACLU, etc., blaming them for September 11th as well. Robertson also called for a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States back in 2003. Giuliani, of course, is Mr. Protector-Against-Terrorism-Extraordinaire. Politics makes for strange bedfellows...
This is the height of hypocrisy from both Giuliani and Robertson. Back in May, Giuliani attacked Ron Paul for suggesting that American actions started a chain of events resulting in the attacks of September Eleventh. Here's the transcript of that debate:
REP. PAUL: ...Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East -- I think Reagan was right...
MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?
REP.
PAUL: I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it...
MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.) And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that. (Applause.)
Here are Pat Robertson's comments shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, which are still on his website - he has never apologized for them or retracted them. He essentially blames people like Giuliani, who is pro-choice, for convincing god to lift the divine shield previously protecting the US:
We have allowed rampant pornography on the Internet, and rampant secularism and the occult, etc. to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered by our society.
We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said, "We are going to legislate You out of the schools and take Your commandments from the courthouses in various states. We are not going to let little children read the commandments of God. We are not going to allow the Bible or prayer in our schools." We have insulted God at the highest level of our government. Then, we say, "Why does this happen?" It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us. Once that protection is gone, we are vulnerable because we are a free society.
...
So what we say to you today is, if you are not right with God then get your life right with God. Think of the things in your life that are wrong. Think of the careless indifference. Think of the poor who you could have helped. Think of the Scripture you have ignored. Think of the time you should have been spending in prayer, when you were watching television or focusing on pornography or tuned into the Internet. Think of the things you have done in your own life and think of the indifference to the sin of this nation that you have just passed by and said, "Well, that is just the way it is. We have to have freedom." Think of it!
Don't ask why did it happen. It happened because people are evil. It also happened because God is lifting His protection from this nation and we must pray and ask Him for revival so that once again we will be His people, the planting of His righteousness, so that He will come to our defense and protect us as a nation.
Robertson also endorsed Jerry Falwell's hateful comments towards non-religious people, gays, the ACLU, etc., blaming them for September 11th as well. Robertson also called for a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States back in 2003. Giuliani, of course, is Mr. Protector-Against-Terrorism-Extraordinaire. Politics makes for strange bedfellows...
Dialogue with Iran
US, Iran will cooperate on Iraq security
Jeff Jacoby - Why are we rewarding Iran?
Bill Richardson made a comment during the Youtube debates to the effect of "talking to people doesn't mean you're losing." Well it does mean you're losing if you see the world only in terms of power - if you don't have the power to enforce your will by force and have to talk instead, it means you lose power.
This is a conflict of two (or more) worldviews - Jacoby's hard-power-centric view of the world as run by America, doling out rewards and spanking countries when they come home after midnight, against the view of America as one of many leaders of the world, leading by example, and keeping open channels of communication with everyone we can. People that think like that don't realize that power relationships have qualitatively changed due to continuous Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) and individual superempowerement. In my view, talking is now more necessary than it has been in the past. Related to TDAXP's conception of generational warfare's relationship to the OODA loop, if countering the opponent's actions is too difficult because of the number of decentralized potential actors, its best to "go deep" and challenge the observations and orientation of the potential enemy. Treat the disease (underlying orientation) rather than the symptoms (the individual attacks), and hopefully before any symptoms manifest.
To me, it seems that if you are "professional" who makes this kind of stuff your career, you'd have to be an idiot to not understand this. But I think that is the nature of people operating in different worldviews/paradigms/whatever you call it. I and others like me are starting from X and proceeding logically (at least I hope so), and Jeff Jacoby, Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and others like them are starting from Y and proceeding logically (giving them the benefit of the doubt), and we end up talking past each other. Unfortunately I have not read Thomas Kuhn.
Jeff Jacoby - Why are we rewarding Iran?
Bill Richardson made a comment during the Youtube debates to the effect of "talking to people doesn't mean you're losing." Well it does mean you're losing if you see the world only in terms of power - if you don't have the power to enforce your will by force and have to talk instead, it means you lose power.
This is a conflict of two (or more) worldviews - Jacoby's hard-power-centric view of the world as run by America, doling out rewards and spanking countries when they come home after midnight, against the view of America as one of many leaders of the world, leading by example, and keeping open channels of communication with everyone we can. People that think like that don't realize that power relationships have qualitatively changed due to continuous Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) and individual superempowerement. In my view, talking is now more necessary than it has been in the past. Related to TDAXP's conception of generational warfare's relationship to the OODA loop, if countering the opponent's actions is too difficult because of the number of decentralized potential actors, its best to "go deep" and challenge the observations and orientation of the potential enemy. Treat the disease (underlying orientation) rather than the symptoms (the individual attacks), and hopefully before any symptoms manifest.
To me, it seems that if you are "professional" who makes this kind of stuff your career, you'd have to be an idiot to not understand this. But I think that is the nature of people operating in different worldviews/paradigms/whatever you call it. I and others like me are starting from X and proceeding logically (at least I hope so), and Jeff Jacoby, Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and others like them are starting from Y and proceeding logically (giving them the benefit of the doubt), and we end up talking past each other. Unfortunately I have not read Thomas Kuhn.
Republicans hate their candidates, part 2
At Salon, confirmation that current Republican poll numbers for 2008 are largely meaningless.
Why the Republicans don't like their candidates.
(Republicans can't stand their own candidates)
Why the Republicans don't like their candidates.
(Republicans can't stand their own candidates)
Republicans can't stand their own candidates
Why else would Fred Thompson, who hasn't even announced yet and hasn't participated in any debates, be the leading Republican candidate in South Carolina? His website has links to help you give him money, raise money for him, ask friends to give him money, call talk radio, etc., but his political positions are buried within his biography - basically nobody has any real idea of what he would do as President. They just know that he isn't Mormon (Romney), doesn't support "abortion on demand" (Giuliani), and isn't a "maverick" (McCain). As long as Fred Thompson doesn't open his mouth and try to say anything substantive, he doesn't alienate anyone. Looks like right now, that's good enough.
Obama's "New Kind of Politics"™
From Talking Points Memo (the guys who broke the attorney scandal, as well as forced Trent Lott to resign as Majority Leader):
One of the things I dislike about Obama is that he frequently uses Republican-friendly memes to criticize fellow Democrats. Kind of like when he said (paraphrasing) "Democrats are 'unserious' about national security, but I am different."
Just because a guy talks well doesn't mean he's trustworthy, or would make a good President.
We've just obtained an email that shows that the Obama campaign yesterday circulated a negative, and ultimately false, story about Bill Clinton...
Campaigns, of course, circulate negative stuff about each other all the time. This email is unusual in that it is flagging something potentially negative not about a primary rival but about the former President -- one who obviously isn't running in the Democratic primary and who remains popular with Dem primary voters.
One of the things I dislike about Obama is that he frequently uses Republican-friendly memes to criticize fellow Democrats. Kind of like when he said (paraphrasing) "Democrats are 'unserious' about national security, but I am different."
Just because a guy talks well doesn't mean he's trustworthy, or would make a good President.
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