Speculation over cabinet appointments isn’t especially useful. And lacking any real insider knowledge, most of my guesses on what’s going on behind the scenes are amateur speculation. Or wrong. Wrong would be another word for what they are. And yet I continue. I really like the idea of Clinton as Secretary of State.
The other top choices being floated around are Bill Richardson, John Kerry and Dick Lugar. The SecState needs to be well-liked (sorry, Kerry), and perceived as strong (sorry, Kerry) and competent (sorry, Bill). And we need to give some top foreign policy jobs to Dems, so we can kill this ridiculous “Dems are weak on foreign policy” meme. Which brings us to sorry, Lugar.
No one has ever accused Clinton of being weak. And while some worry that she is too hawkish on FP, she won’t really be pushing her own agenda as Sec. Remember, Colin Powell was significantly more moderate than the rest of the Bush Administration, and yet he was still willing to sell his soul make the case for war at the UN Security Council. Because the SecState serves at the leisure of the Prez and all that.
The real question is whether she’d want to give up her seat for it. I had originally thought no, but it seems like she’s farther away a leadership role in the Senate than she deserves to be, as having seniority in the Senate means you can remember voting for FDR’s wacky New Deal.
If she could stay and help run the Senate, that’d be swell. Because she’d be a hell of a lot better than an invertebrate Mormon, say. But if that’s not in the cards, this could be a good option. I think her acceptance is still contingent on this possibly being an 8-year stint, which it usually isn’t. Who wants to give up what is basically tenure in the Senate for a four-year wham bam thank you ma’am? So this means that she has to think Obama will do well enough to earn a second term and that she’ll do well enough to earn a second term. Chris Bowers calls it a high-risk, high-reward opportunity. And as everyone knows, Chris Bowers calls em like he sees em.
Offering her the job seems like a smart move by Obama. In a way, it’s more of a sign of respect than saying be my VP, because it’s not some political shotgun marriage, and the SOS actually has some responsibility (unlike VPS and those darned community organizers). It says, you’re smart, I’m smart, let’s DO this. Now it’s up to Hil if she wants to bide her time in the Senate or take on a new challenge. Either Obama gets a good SOS out of it, or he gets points for asking. Or I don’t know what I’m talking about.
And we can all laugh at how women can’t catch a break: You want to be president, and end up someone’s secretary instead.
November 15th, 2008
The fact that it is being widely reported that Kerry is making a big push for Sec’y of State probably means one of four things:
1) He’s just not that clever about these maneuvers. No one wants it known they are actively saying, “appoint me”.
2) The Obama Team is floating his name to see if the reaction is overwhelmingly negative or just kind of negative.
3) Kerry was promised the appointment in return for his primary endorsement and doesn’t want Obama to reneg.
4) He was asked if he would take the post and wanted to say, “it depends”, but that had already gotten him in trouble. So he just said “yes”.
I actually have a lot of admiration for Kerry, and I’m almost postive I’ll prefer him to whoever else might get the job. But my feeling is that appointing Kerry would expend more political capital than it’s worth. And that’s a shame. You gotta feel some sympathy for the guy. He can’t quietly jockey for power, he can’t win outside of Massachusetts, and he can’t tell a joke to save his life. These are pretty important abilities for most pols.
November 6th, 2008
It seemed overwhelmingly likely that Obama was going to win for some time, so while I was relieved on election day, I was also mildly disappointed about a few of the other results. I didn’t want to toss out some pessimistic post and ruin anyone’s post-election high. Fortunately, in the words of Jeffrey Lebowski, certain things have come to light, and given the nature of this new shit, I have a much better feeling about where we’re headed.
As per my Congressional Primer post, I still think the best looking issue — and coincidentally the most important issue — is energy reform. Between the Cousins Udall in NM and CO, Merkley in OR, Shaheen in NH and just maybe Franken Berry in MN (in fact, I’m gonna go ahead and predict he wins the recount, and I think it will also tighten in AK for Begich), there are a lot of green freshmen entering the Senate. I’ll let that ridiculous pun sink in and then point out that another huge development is taking place in the House.
Congressman Waxman is challenging Michigan Man John Dingell for chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell is strongly sympathetic to the auto industry and has been mucking up climate change legislation and CAFE standards for years. He’s from Detroit, so it would be politically suicidal for him to do anything else. That is why we need to bring out the cane. Waxman is a complete badass, easily one of the best Congressmen in all the land. And there is no love lost between Dingell and Pelosi, so hopefully she’ll help oust him.
And if that weren’t enough, RFK Jr. is being mentioned as possible head of the EPA, the organization that in recent years censored its climate change reports and refused to let California raise emission standards. Robert is the best man I can think to turn this agency around. Obama has said that energy reform is his top priority after he takes steps to stabilize the economy, and so far I’m thinking he might be serious.
The bad news is that Obama looks to be taking a pretty middle of the road approach to the economy.
This is an oversimplification, but basically most of the economics guys who are going to be advising Obama or heading up the Treasury are the Clinton deregulators; Larry “Barefoot and Pregnant” Summers, Robert Rubin, and Tim Geithner. Now, these are all smart cats, and they have signaled that they understand the need for economic stimulus and oversight given the hole we’re in, blah blah blah. But it’s a shame that there won’t be more input from more left of center academics like Krugman and DeLong in an Obama administration. Krugman, of course, cooked his own goose by strongly criticizing Obama in the primary, and has indicated he doesn’t like advising politicians, anyway.
Really, it’s just a shame that there isn’t more ideological diversity among Obie’s economic advisors (with the notable exception of Warren Buffet). It could come from wherever, I don’t care.
Definitely a mixed bag here, but there are definitely some encouraging signs.
Update: I guess there is some opposition to RFK Jr. as head of the EPA or Sec of Interior in the scientific community, because he’s one of the people who is anti-vaccine, believing it causes autism, although there just isn’t much empirical evidence supporting that theory. This is where I feel stupid, because I really have no idea if he’s an unqualified ideologue, or this is an isolated case of bad judgment.
November 6th, 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
To hear some pundits tell it, millions of voters switched their allegiance to Ronald Reagan right after he uttered the words “There you go again.” These debates are important in part, simply because we say they are. As I’ve said, I don’t think they tell us much about any of the players and issues involved (I already knew Brokaw was a blowhard, already pretty sure I liked Obama’s health plan better than McCain’s, etc).
Some people mentioned the visual juxtaposition of a young, energetic candidate standing next to an old man. I thought it was even more disturbing to listen to to McCain’s labored breathing into the mic (Tony Soprano, anyone?), and he also sounded scatterbrained on a number of answers. Obama was pretty strong for the first few minutes — when the most people are watching — and they both seemed to get lost in uninteresting, meandering answers during the middle innings.
I still worry about all the Americans who think Obama is Muslim, or unpatriotic, or who just don’t want to vote for the black fella. I think the polls are likely to tighten before November. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to win, and he’s going to have close to a 60-seat majority in the senate as well.
With the markets in free-fall, home foreclosures continuing to cripple the economy, and more and more Americans fearing for their futures, a lot of other things just seem really unimportant. I think McCain and Palin are disrespectful and dishonest, but I only take that seriously because they are the second-most likely duo to waltz into the Oval Office in January. But McPalin isn’t really a serious ticket; it doesn’t discuss serious issues, and it doesn’t offer serious solutions.
What matters now is how forceful Obama and the Democrats are willing to be in taking the necessary measures to address the economic woes of the country and the world, and then working to create more efficient and sustainable ways of doing things. That is going to mean putting a lot of the cleanup cost for this on the backs of the rich. It’s going to mean offering real relief to a lot of home owners with unmanageable mortgages — because the economy is not going to recover without a less toxic housing market. It’s going to mean reforming health care so it isn’t nearly as big a drain on the average paycheck.
And it’s going to require serious investment in alternative energy, infrastructure rebuilding, job creation, effective regulations on financial institutions, and almost assuredly, it’s going to require temporary nationalization of the banks.
You may disagree with the solutions I propose, but most of you will probably agree with the diagnosis; we’re in deep shit. Even a more damning juxtaposition than McCain’s age and Obama’s youth, is McCain’s petulance and selfishness contrasted with the serious times we’re living in.
October 8th, 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
I think I’ve reached the point of being too cynical to render effective judgment. I just always assume McCain’s sophomoric pranks are going to work for him, because they always work for Republicans. I thought Palin would work, I thought “suspending” his campaign would work, and I thought he won the debate.
His “what the upstart from Illinois doesn’t understand” routine worked for me, although next time he might want to cut down on the seething contempt. If voters see me as a qualified and honorable man, and I really believe my opponent isn’t a qualified and honorable man and indicate as much, that can be an authentic and effective argument. Unfortunately, the only thing undercutting that line of attack for John McCain, was Barack Obama standing right beside him, appearing rather presidential and honorable.
And McCain went on and on about earmarks. Earmarks beat up your kid. Earmarks stole your parking space. To be clear, these earmark responses were avoiding the real question. But it’s something he has a record on. At the very least, the man knows enough to talk up his strengths.
I was equally enamored with “Here is a story of me doing things when I was younger. Clearly I have a reputation for doing things. And I think the solution for the future just might be ‘doing things’, my friends.” He could have used better examples (even factually accurate ones), but saying this is what I did in past crises, and that’s the kind of leadership you can look for in future crises — that is a powerful argument.
September 27th, 2008
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