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I’m pretty critical of things in general and politicians specifically. There is a lot Obama has done in the last month that I don’t agree with. But I thought he killed it at his press conference on the stimulus, deftly batted away McCain’s sour grapery at the fiscal summit, and I thought he was excellent tonight.
People always say Obama is great, but not quite the communicator Clinton was. Maybe I was too young for Clinton, but I think Obie does everything Clinton does, and without the occasional condescension. He’s got to be the most talented politician in a couple generations. And was Bobby JIndal selling me the Republican vision for America or a set of knives for $20 dollars if I call in the next half hour?
February 25th, 2009
SCHIP passed in the Senate on Thursday, and no trouble is expected in the House. I’m not sure John McCain would have vetoed the bill had he been elected (he wasn’t), but he did vote against it. In fact, only 9 Republican senators voted for it (Gregg was not one of them). That has to be the outside number we’re working with, in terms of hopeful crossovers, because if you won’t vote to give children health care, I’m not really sure what you will vote for.
Update: It also appears that the internet is stealing my lines.
January 31st, 2009
Ok, this is why I don’t do insta-analysis very often. Because my initial instinct is wrong so much of the time. Those who know better are saying a few things about the possible Gregg appointment. First off, Lynch is the type of governor who is very likely to either pick a Republican to replace Gregg, or choose some DINO. More likely, this is being floated to give Gregg a bargaining chip within his own party, so he has the political cover to vote for the stimulus. Which is troubling because it means they are worried they don’t have the votes.
And really, while the stimulus is far from uncontroversial, it is probably the least controversial big ticket item we’re gonna see. In other words, if there are only 59 or 60 votes for the stimulus, there probably aren’t 60 votes for card check, say. Because the controversy over the stimulus bill isn’t whether it’s needed or not, it’s whether the current bill, with all its imperfections, is still worth passing. Republicans have to at least pretend they want some sort of stimulus plan to pass.
This reminds me of an interesting point Matthew Yglesias made a while ago, that moderate Republicans in Congress just don’t have any power. I don’t think it has paid to be a moderate Republican since 93. Moderate political stances may be necessary to get elected in certain states and districts, but they don’t help one rise to power within the party.
The same doesn’t hold true for Democrats. Moderates basically control the Senate and certainly hold some important positions in the House. What’s more, the average moderate is given a lot of sway because when they threaten to split with the party on a vote, the leadership will do a lot to accomodate them and keep them in the fold.
The fallout of this is that Blue Dog coalitions get a lot of folks who are even more opportunistic than your average buffet platter of pols, because that’s where the money is. So while I may be prefer Evan Bayh and Claire McCaskill politically and ideologically to someone like Arlen Specter or Chuck Hagel, I think the case could be made that Hagel and Specter have been more principled public servants.
Now, these may seem nitpicky and as interesting as an old shoe, but this stuff does matter. We are entering a depression that is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. We need aggessive action on economic regulations and relief, climate change, health care reform and a reduction of military engagements and spending.
Bracketing my reservations for now, we have a president and a House who could conceivably achieve some of these goals. The Senate is where the rubber meets the road. We need 60 votes for bills, or we need to amend the cloture rule so that we only need 55. Or 51. And there are really only so many reasonable minds in the Senate. If Mitch McConnell is voting for a stimulus plan, it probably means there are too many unnecessary tax cuts and not enough investment in the good stuff. It probably means the bill is too small.
So there is a pretty narrow margin for error, here. And a lot of things will be important: rhetoric and behind the scenes maneuvering of the party leaders, budget reconciliation, conference committees, individual decisions to stay or break from the pack.
I’m all over the map here, so I think we’re gonna bring this sucker to a close. In sum, there’s a reason Barack has stopped smiling while giving speeches. Tough times ahead. And I don’t say that to be dramatic. Sometimes we have a tendency to look back on historical events and view them as inevitable.
But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 almost never got out of committee in the House. And it was filibustered for over 50 days in the Senate. It took clever rules manipulations, determined legislators, LBJ’s hard work, and pressure from civil rights activists to make it happen. And while there clearly seems to be a movement toward equality, democracy and sensibility over time in the course of human existence — things like climate change and home foreclosures are time sensitive. It’s not inevitable that the economy is going to bounce right back or that we will sequester enough carbon to stabilize the climate again.
The people in government are going to have to think long and hard about what kind of legacy they want to leave, how they wanted to be remembered 20 years from now. And everyone on the outside should think about it too. And probably do something. Yeah. That’s my new slogan. “Probably just do it.” Fuck Nike.
January 31st, 2009
Honestly.
December 14th, 2008
The Franken campaign got three successive pieces of good news yesterday, and it seems overwhelmingly likely that they will win the recount under the standards currently established. The Coleman campaign’s only real recourse is to fight it out in the courts (and they just filed suit with the SC of Minnesota). While this will inevitably draw out the process, I don’t see them prevailing in court, barring a blatantly partisan ruling from the justices (I believe 6 of them were appointed by Republican governors, and the other was appointed by The Body).
It’s hard to gin up excitement for these kind of things among non-political junkies, but I think this will make a significant difference in the Senate. It’s also one of the few outcomes I’ve predicted successfully, although I counted eggs just there and probably jinxed it.
Franken is really not the crazy outrageous guy people make him out to be. Check out a great profile by the Atlantic here. And for more proof that Franken is not a fringe pol, check out this article in Slate by Jon Chait, of the depressingly conventional and moderate New Republic. And here’s Minnesota wise man Garrison Keillor on Norm Coleman, Franken’s opponent. In a way this is a blessing for Coleman, because it frees him up to deal with possible corruption charges and indictments, which often turns out to be a full-time gig.
For those interested, the alternate title for this post was “I Should Have Bought Intrade Stock When Franken Was in the 30s”.
December 13th, 2008
Quick warning for you all. This is a long post about Congress. If that doesn’t sound interesting to you, it is unlikely to get more interesting as you read on.
After Nov 4, we’re looking at around 60 senators and an 80 to 100 seat majority in the House. The makeup of each chamber is extremely important in determining what kind of proposals can even be attempted, and the devil is in not just the number of Dems, but what type of Dems they are.
Thus, it is helpful to view Congress through these two metrics; the total members a party has, and the number of strongly liberal or strongly conservative members in each party. The goal of hardcore partisans on either side is to elect enough moderates in semi-hostile districts to reach bulletproof majorities, and achieve a critical mass of heavy-hitters in friendlier districts/states. So lefty Dems want the Pelosis and Kennedys of the party crafting and hammering out legislation, and the more moderate members pushing it across the finish line, ideally with few revisions.
Toward those ends, 2008 looks to be a good year for Democrats, promising close to 10 freshman senators and 20 to 30 more seats in the House. They will likely add five strong progressives to the rolls in the upper chamber, and Republicans will lose about five fierce conservatives. That’s a big deal, when reelection rates in the senate are upwards of 80 percent and open seats are a rarity. For comparison, 2006 was also seen as a big deal, when a mere 6 seats went blue, and Dems added three strong progressives and Republicans lost three strong conservatives.
The biggest items on the agenda are going to be energy and health care reform, as well as economic stimulus legislation. Big deficits are bad things, but in times of financial crisis, you need deficit spending to prop up the economy. So the Dems have to get enough senators and representatives to realize that creating green energy jobs, making health care more affordable and offering mortgage relief actually boost the whole economy, and aren’t just do-gooder initiatives to be attempted when the weather’s fine.
This is not going to be easy. There will be close to the 60 Dems needed to prevent a filibuster, and that is a good thing. But I can’t stress this enough; not all senators are created equal. Landrieu, the two Nelsons, Baucus and Lieberman are all great examples of terrible senators. There are going to be a lot of lobbyists explaining to them what a terrible time this is for big spending on hugs for trees, and handouts for irresponsible borrowers.
And while I’m not weeping for any of the Republican losses, they’ve pretty much been whittled down to the uber-conservatives. The only likely cross-overs seem to be the two distinguished ladies from Maine and Arlen Specter from PA.
Now, there are some tricks Reid can employ to avoid always needing 60 votes. He could actually force the Republicans to filibuster, which he never does. He could attach health care reform to an appropriations bill that needs a simple majority to pass. Or he could have conservative Dems vote with their party for cloture to keep things moving, but then vote against the final version of a bill, when their vote isn’t needed for its passage.
But the bottom line is that Reid is much less effective than Pelosi at using that cane to reel in wayward sheep (and she has four times the sheep!). I think the most likely big agenda item to get the proper treatment is energy/climate change. I don’t see a health care reform bill passing without being significantly watered down, unless they hitch its star to one of those aforementioned simple majority spending bills. But as Yogi Berra says, that’s what we’ll play the season to find out.
October 28th, 2008
Ted Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts of corruption and lying today; a verdict which was by no means assured after prosecutors bungled the hell out of his case. During this trial, key evidence was stricken, jury members passed a note along saying that one juror was being violent during deliberations, and one juror had to be replaced by an alternate after a death in the family.
Stevens was running almost even in the polls with opponent Mark Begich, and it was widely believed that the verdict in this trial would decide the election. So now one of the two most anti-environmental senators (right along with Inhofe in Oklahoma) will be replaced in the senate by a man who is about as green as you can get and still be a viable candidate in Alaska.
Clearly, Stevens’ big mistake was neglecting to take the Sarah Palin route. That is, preemptively holding your own investigation of yourself and finding the defendant innocent and adorable. As a commenter on the Alaskan blog Mudflats noted, it’s a shame to see Stevens’ career go down the tubes. It’s going to be a good November, folks.
October 27th, 2008
An idol of mine, Paul Krugman, won the Nobel for economics today. As I’ve written before, he was one of the first people to point out the obvious but important mistakes Bush was making, and he also introduced me to alternative news sources that were picking up the slack for a truly pitiful mainstream media. Of course, he was awarded the Nobel for his theories on international trade, not his influence on Devin Castles.
I had a lot of other things I wanted to say, but I don’t have time to say them as well as I’d like. So you can read this by Krugman himself, or check out what others had to say about him. Too many public intellectuals became public intellectuals for the wrong reasons, so it’s nice to see that Krugman has gotten so much acclaim in recent years for branching out of his comfort zone in academia for the right reasons.
Politicians are often smart people, but that doesn’t mean they understand all aspects of policy, especially something as complicated as economic policy. You see a lot of dumb conventional wisdom floating around both at high levels in Washington, and in the rare instances where the punditry actually discusses the issues. We need more smart folks like Krugman, who attempt to spread knowledge to those outside of academia, and also refuse to mold their message to reinforce the things politicians and pundits want to hear.
October 13th, 2008
Duh Bate Analysis:
I thought Gwen Ifill was pretty bad. She’s “fair and balanced”, but she just isn’t good at getting at the heart of an issue. This is a criticism I have of her show and her political coverage in general. A “Where’s the beef?” critique, if you will.
A lot of people called Hillary a bitch. Haven’t heard that word much in reference to Palin. But she’s pretty flippant about calling Biden a liar, calling Obama un-American and anti-troops and she makes some rather nasty, back-handed statements, ever-so thinly masked with this folksy veneer. Hillary could never get away with half of the shit Palin pulled tonight.
To boot, a lot of her answers sounded like the mildly awkward rephrasing of rehearsed talking points — yeah, I know, that’s what everyone does — with a lot of passive voice tossed in. No amazingly embarrassing gaffes, although I’m pretty sure General McClellan was a Civil War general (and a pretty bad one at that), and that General McKiernan is who Palin meant to refer to. And it’s clear she doesn’t know what the conservative position is even supposed to be on a number of issues.
I felt Biden’s answers varied from “meh” to better than I had expected.
I wanted to stab Palin with a moose antler a couple times, but a rather uneventful debate overall. If the Cubbies game had been close, I would have had a serious Sophie’s Choice on my hands. That is, if Sophie hadn’t been especially fond of either of her children. With Meryl Streep’s gift for understatement (like crying in every flipping movie she’s in), who can really tell what she thought of those buggers.
October 3rd, 2008
Barack calling McCain out on Iraq was the most memorable moment of the night. It’s possible that will be what sticks with voters. More please! I thought he did ok in terms of composure and command of the facts and all that. But more saber-rattling in defense of Georgia? Georgia? I’m also excited that, like Reagan, he’s for missile defense, because Star Wars was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Jesus Christ. I know Samantha Power wouldn’t have told Obama to say this stuff.
It is curious to me that Obie feels the need to sprinkle in these cynical panders about issues that I don’t think are at the top of anyone’s Christmas list. It’s less important than McCain pretending he hasn’t been for deregulation since Moses parted the Red Sea (or at least Keating 5), but it might be just as far from the truth. I don’t really know.
Plus, when Jim Lehrer gives you multiple opportunities to explain the tough decisions you are willing to make, in light of the astronomically expensive bailout we’re lurching towards, that is the time to channel FDR or JFK even, and say something meaningful. Best chance of the night for either one to step up, and neither did. No, budget freezes don’t count. Also, they should really let Walter Cronkite Lehrer moderate all the debates. Or elect him president, as TPM suggested.
Let me just conclude by saying that I’m disappointed with Obama only because I expect a lot from him. He’s my favorite presidential candidate of my lifetime, and I liked Kerry and Gore. And I’m not part of the in crowd, so I don’t have anything but an abstract idea of the pressures of a national campaign and the realities of what is politically feasible and what is not. But after watching last night’s debate I’m more inclined to agree with Mr. Penn than I would like.
September 27th, 2008
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