Centerfield

Ricochet Effect

Dick Morris is identifies the opposite of triangulation (via Judicious Asininity)

WHY does the opposition party tend to become dominated by its own extremists when it is out of power? Why did the Democrats follow liberal leaders like Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis while Ronald Reagan was president? Why did the right under Newt Gingrich take over the Republican Party during the Clinton years? Why is Howard Dean dominating the Democrats these days?
Call it the ricochet effect. In the Clinton White House, we consciously used this theory to help the right dominate the Republican Party so that the centrists throughout America would vote to re-elect the Democratic president.

I'd quibble with the word "extremist" to describe Walter Mondale, but the basic analysis is accurate.

Blogging The Ads - What If

Over at The Blogging Of The President :2004 Bopnotes community, I've put up a link to a webcast of the new Wesley Clark ad featuring Bill Clinton. The idea of Blogging The Ads is to get independent bloggers to review ads both for accuracy, and impact on the horse race.

This one is a soft-focus ad meant to get voters all misty-eyed about Wesley Clark. It's upbeat and even Reaganesque. The narrator's voice reminds me of "Morning in America." Indeed, I think the ad might appeal more to Independents and Republicans until you come to the footage of President Clinton decorating General Clark. That's sure to make Republicans blanch. It also saves the ad from being too sugary for Democrats, who seem to be in a surly mood this year.

It also implicitly sets up a Clinton vs. Gore rivalry, with Dean in the Gore camp, Clark in the Clinton camp, and the rest of the candidates out in the field. I like it, but then, I'm an Independent.

I invite you to view the ad, and leave your comments below, or over at BOPnotes.

Don't ignore swing voters

This is one prediction about the coming presidential election that you can take to the bank!

Scot Lehigh in the Boston Globe:

This election will be won -- or lost -- among moderate, independent-minded members of the middle class, a group defined less by anger toward the current administration than anxiety about the future.

It Ain't Over 'til It's Over....

We've talked a lot about the apparent invincibility of Dean in the run-up to the convention, but to be honest, I'm starting to trend back towards my original feelings about the race. Dean is going to have trouble sustaining momentum, and both the Clinton/DLC-backed Clark and the Old Pol Gephardt are going to make life very tough for him.

All through the last few months people have given me funny looks whenever I said "Don't count out Gephardt." And on the surface, he's chanceless. But my assessment still stands--an experienced old warhorse like G has a lot of weapons in his arsenal, knows where all the bodies are buried, and knows how to pace his resources for the stretch. And I may not think much of Clark, but he sure knows how to pick the strongest set of professionals as backers. The Clintonistas don't want Dean to win the nomination, and they'll fight hard, and they have most of the party resources in their control.

So buckle your seat belts, we're in for an interesting ride!

Politics, Autism, and Science

Can't I find anything to write about other than health care and drug companies? Well, usually yes, but it's been a landmark year for blatant greed and naked political corruption by the drug companies, so fresh insults to my intelligence have inspired me lately.

The latest insult comes on the Wall Street Journal editorial page of December 29, and it's called The Politics of Autism--Lawsuits and emotion vs. science and childhood vaccines, in which the WSJ castigates three Moderate Senators for holding up a "reform" bill that would cut the pins out from under the Greedy Trial Lawyers bedeviling those pristine drug companies, and threatening our vaccine supply. It's a well-written editorial, and would normally have had me cheering for anyone who could muzzle them thar lawyers, except....

Except that I've followed the issue for years, and what is noticeably lacking is some background on the controversy. Details like the situation that led to the flap in the first place. Details such as the thorough discrediting of the (drug company sponsored) studies the Journal cites as "definitive science" of no vaccine/autism link. Details like the REAL reason Frist's VICP "reform" bill hasn't made it out of the joint House/Senate committee. Details like Senator Frist's incestuous relationship with the drug companies, and his self-interest as a major stakeholder in the Hospital Corporation Of America (HCA).

The Journal (and the Frist crowd, and the Bush administration) would have you believe that the vaccine/autism link has been totally disproved. The autism advocates would have you believe there is no possible doubt of a connection. The scientists and statisticians and analysts among us who've reviewed the data know that it may take decades to prove either way (e.g., the causative mechanism for thalidomide injuries was not found until the '90's!) and that the evidence of a link is ambiguous but by no means insubstantial. So, as Paul Harvey says, "And now, the rest of the story."

The real issue in this case is NOT whether infant vaccines and components therein can be linked to the epidemic of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Despite what you may hear from either side, the definitive science is still not there either way. The real issue is that the drug companies want a blanket immunity from ALL vaccine liability, regardless of what science may show now or in the future, and their Congressional lapdogs are quite willing to provide it. On the other side, Congressional supporters of the tort bar want to open the cash vaults of the drug companies. In the middle, thoughtful and sober moderates want to address the actual problem with a real solution, and are keeping both the drug reps and the lawyer-lovers at arm's length and stalling bad bills. And the basic problem that needs fixing is a thoroughly dysfunctional Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) desperately in need of reform and repair.

VICP was designed to compensate those injured by acute reactions to vaccinations. It has an incredibly short filing statute, 36 months maximum. It has absolutely NO provisions or mechanisms for dealing with any chronic or late-appearing vaccine injuries. None. And the average age of diagnosis for ASD aka "autism" is about four years. So parents believing their child's autism might be related to vaccines discovered that, regardless of the science, regardless of any American conception of justice, they were barred by federal law from making any legal claims anywhere except the VICP, but that they couldn't make any claims with the VICP because the filing statute ran out before their child was even diagnosed.

So the parents went searching for lawyers who could find loopholes, and they found them, and the lawyers found loopholes and proceeded to sue the bejeezus out of the drug companies. The drug companies, looking at a plaintiff's class of tens of thousands of autistic children, panicked and went running to their friends in the federal government. Specifically, to the Bush administration and Senator Frist. And the administration saw those tens of thousands of claims and realized that if they made it into the system and there was anything at all to back them up, either the drug companies or the government would have a tab of many, many billions to pay out, and that public faith in the vaccination programs would be severely shaken. So, lo and behold, in the middle of the night several clauses were anonymously inserted in the Homeland Security bill, clauses that would have forced all current and future vaccine-related claims of any kind into the VICP, where they were utterly assured of being rejected due to the time limits. A hue and cry arose from the lawyers and the parents, and the clauses were stripped out when Congress reconvened in January.

Then VICP reform bills were passed by both the House (R-Burton, IN) and Senate (R-Frist, TN) and went into joint committee in April, where they deadlocked. Burton's bill would reform the VICP to address chronic injuries, and provide for future claims on newly discovered causation. If conclusive evidence was found in the future that vaccines were implicated in autism, then claims could be made on behalf of those tens of thousands of kids without the filing statute being applied to exclude them. Frist's bill superficially looks much the same, but would only allow claims excluded in the last six years to be brought forward, and would not reform the VICP to address chronic injuries. As thimerosal was pulled from infant vaccines in 1999, the longer the bill takes to pass, the more autistic kids who received thimerosal-containing vaccines would be excluded from claims by time limits, no matter what science the future may bring. (The bulk of thimerosal claims would by definition be from children born between 1985 and 1999.) Thus, if evidence of a definitive autism/vaccine link was ever uncovered, the bulk of those injured would once again have been excluded from ever, in any venue, seeking damages or compensation.

You can guess which part of the two bills has resulted in the lack of compromise, and intense and massive lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry to pass the Frist version of the "reform" bill. Yep, the part that would allow claims based on new evidence to be allowed without applying the filing limit.

The administration, the Wall Street Journal, and Frist's favorite contributors want the Frist bill. The trial lawyers and their Congresscritters, and the "true believer" parents of autistic children want litigative blood, and an open shot at the deep pockets of the drug companies. Then there's those of us in the middle who still believe that justice is desirable in our society and would like to see Burton's bill pass, leaving the VICP open to retroactive claims if and when the science is there to support them.

The Wall Street Journal would have you believe that this is an issue of politics, lawsuits and emotions being used to trump science. The only problem is that science hasn't made any judgements yet, and the real fight is over naked politics, being played out with the lives of tens of thousands of disabled children. My hat is off to Snowe, Collins, and Chafee for holding their ground and keeping the Frist bill bottled up despite intense pressure.

Middle East Peace

UPDATE: Calling Israel a "theocracy" was a vast overstatement. It is no such thing, as rickheller correctly pointed out. Judaism is more like a Church of England kind of thing than like Islam in Talibani Afghanistan. Sorry, y'all!

What I really wanted to say was a much more limited criticism; specifically, that the Israeli identity is framed sufficiently tightly with Jewry that Israeli Arabs and Muslims are often seen as a reason for worry rather than members of the family.

That, however, is not theocracy. So why did I use the word? I was looking for something that would embody the the special relationship of Judaism with Israel, and was intellectually lazy. ..

Just saw several "Peace" and "Peace in the Middle East" signs written in Christmas lights (there's a street here in Austin that makes a particular point of lighting itself up bigtime.

That's inspired me to write Jon's Middle East Peace Prescription - how Middle East peace could be achieved if I were Prime Minister of Israel (thank God I'm not and nobody's listening to me!). There is some similarity here to the plan announced by the out-of-power, but I think that doesn't go far enough in the matter of Arab treatment in Israel.

My start would be to lay the groundwork for Israel to think of itself as a different kind of state. Instead of striving for democratic theocracy, I would try to change the country's entire mission to spreading liberal democracy throughout the Middle East. At the same time, I would:

Try hard to pass and implement reforms to make Arabs equal citizens.

Apologize for the ethnic cleansing inherent in the creation of Israel.

End government support for the settlements and patrol their borders and bulldoze new settlement construction.

Announce official support for separate Israel and Palestine, based on current settlement boundaries. I would let Palestine have a substantial chunk of Jerusalem.

I would let the people tear down the stupid Wall. I would crack down on Army discipline (it's ironic how much General Sharon has hurt the IDF by giving it an impossible mission and overlooking discipline).

Simultaneously with pushing these reforms, I would try to construct an anti-terrorist moderate and liberal coalition among Israeli Arabs.

After letting people get used to the end of Israel as a theocracy and seeing what they can do for a liberal democracy with unlinked state and church, I would start trying to open immigration doors. This would probably be really hard.

Once I have real Israeli Arab support (after 2-3 years?), I would put Arafat behind bars, and call elections in Palestine that I would provide security for. I would tell everybody that the Oslo accords have failed, that this new way of including everybody is the future.

I expect Hamas would be starved for recruits after a few years of this. I have just been reading Solzhenitsyn's 1914. He notes that terrorism was severely reduced in Czarist Russia after the Czar allowed a reprentative assembly and appointed a Prime Minister who actually cared about and worked to improve the lives of the Russian people; said Prime Minister was wiped out by a lone terrorist with no organization behind himself. Solzhenitsyn clearly implies that the Russian Revolution wouldn't have happened if that guy had lived. Well, I think that if Israeli and Palestinians could have any sort of hope of their lives improving, the terrorists would be out of work.

I know that most of the world thinks that the separate states are enough, but I can't agree. "Separate but equal" didn't work here, and tears and blood will be needed to find out that it's like that in the Middle East, too.

Terrorism springs from discontent and fear. So long as Arafat runs his own dictatorship, he can create these things for himself.

The Palestinians will see that they aren't equal to the Israelis living in democratic comfort next door and be envious. They will try to emigrate to Israel, which will then have its second-class citizenry back.

It would be deeply immoral to make Arabs leave Israel, and many won't want to. Arabs will still be 2nd-class, and Israelis will still be stuck in the medievalish position of worrying about preserving the theocracy in the face of the nasty Mussulmen out-reproducing them.

So far, Israeli politicians have disappointed me in not advocating the turn from theocratic to liberal democracy. At least the ideas of equal treatment for Arabs and Muslims, and of ending the settlements, are out there, if not in the major parties.

It is a hard issue in Israel, because the notion of Israel as a particular Jewish state is so cemented in the very self-identity of Israelis. There are many similarities between this and the former self-identities of Southern states as white states, dominated by and for whites. This self-identity was created for benevolent reasons, but, possibly because it was created at a time when Westerners saw Arabs as inferior, left out many from the outset. It's caused alot of trouble, including ethnic cleansing from the outset and evil and self-destructive terrorism. This situation cannot be wished away; it can only be worked with in the most constructive way possible.

The issue of democratic theocracy vs. conventional liberal democracy s a big one in Israel, although posed more around Zionism. A large and increasing number of Israelis on the ground are coming to support the very thing I have suggested. This is not an abstraction-from-afar, although it is an oversimplification - many other views exist on how far Israel should go in moving from Zionism, all the way out to questions of whether Israel should exist. I believe that it's there as much as any Arab nation, and can do vast good if it can change its mission.

Posted by Jon Kay at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)

Is Dean losing ground as more voters pay attention?

At the Moderate Independent Betsy R. Vasquez has a very interesting take on the current dynamics in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination:

The biggest story, though, is the beginning of the end for the Dean campaign. The first blow was landed by the Gore endorsement. Dean had painted himself, within a party still resentful of the toothless, wavering campaign Gore ran last election, as the anti-Gore, a straight-talker who wouldn’t sit by and say, “I won’t attack,” as Gore did. Indeed, Dean’s people went to great lengths early on to paint Kerry as the “Gore” in this election, pointing out he had hired much of Gore’s staff and saying he was prone to qualified double-speak as Gore often was.

Then, Gore joined the Dean team, and ever since then the weight of the double-talking loser has been lifted off of both the Kerry and Lieberman campaigns. Ferocious attacks by Kerry and others that simply point out Dean’s constant knack for emphatically saying contradictory things are devastating the man who would be the lone straight-talker. And Dean’s ability to fight back against the people attacking him is completely undermined by the fact he launched his campaign and rise in the polls with a nasty flurry of personal attacks – in particular, on Senator Kerry, painting him, as mentioned above, as someone who contradicts himself.

In the meantime, Dean’s biggest asset and the thing that earned Gore’s endorsement, the awesome, ground-breaking campaign he is running, is become less and less important. The reason, in fact, Dean’s tightly-run, highly-run campaign was so appealing to people was that it represented the opposite of Gore’s campaign. Fervent activists finally had a man who not only would speak boldly, but knew how to make a campaign that would have the ground troops and counterattacking swiftness to be able to stand up to the Bush/Limbaugh machine.

But problem number two for the Dean campaign is that the people who are just beginning to tune in now are not the activist types who pay attention to such things. Now, Democrats and Independents are tuning in simply to see the people who are running, how they present themselves, and what they have to say. And Dean’s uncharismatic nature, tendency to boldly contradict himself, and his, for many Americans just tuning in, incomprehensible stance with regard to Iraq, makes him simply seem unelectable to the late tuners.

John Kerry had gotten the early bounce and frontrunner status when people looked and saw the Democrats had a veteran in their midst who was strong on defense but also had a solid history of supporting Democratic issues domestically. Now, John is getting that bounce once again from people tuning in for the first time.

And then there is Clark, who is neutralizing Dean’s other former advantage – outsider status. Clark is just as much the outsider as Dean, and one with strong defense credentials and far more charisma.

By all practical measures, this is should now be a three man race for the top spot, but not the three the rest of the press is reporting. No, don’t include Dean in this. At this point, it should be a tight three way battle between Kerry, who is in position to pull off an Iowa and New Hampshire one/two punch, Gephardt, who has crucial Midwest support, and Clark, who can make a big showing on February 3 following a nice launch in New Hampshire.

Since Gore's endorsement of Dean, I've noticed that the press and pundits have suddenly felt obliged to place Dean's weaknesses under the magnifying glass.

That, as we said, is how things should be, but two more things have to be considered: Kerry’s anemic campaign, and Gephardt’s lack of appeal on defense issues. This weakness for Gephardt is a fatal one.

So in fact, more and more this is becoming what should be a two man race, between the two veterans, one with more military leadership experience, and one with more domestic and campaign experience. But, for some reason, what should be Kerry’s advantage is his weakness. Clark’s campaign outshines his vastly.

With all of this in play, the only thing the Clark campaign needs to really get off the ground is a media momentum builder. When the fundraising quarter closes on December 31 and he has far outraised everyone else – even Dean – this quarter, his surging campaign will hit full stride.

How can we write off the Dean campaign so early? Funny, somebody should be asking the rest of the press how they managed to write him in so early.

If Clark can make his domestic agenda case, he can win it.

If somehow the Kerry campaign – not the candidate, but the troops – manage to get it in gear, he may make it interesting. Even led by a revitalizing Cahill, they have a long, long way to go to undo the damage the previous campaign staff has done so far. But a few strides have been made in the right direction.

If they can’t do it, and Wesley Clark can stand toe to toe with the other Democrats on domestic issues, then Clark will be the Democrats’ man.

Don't Forget Dukakis

Dean is not McGovern, say his supporters. He's really more of a centrist. Gary Hart, who was McGovern's campaign manager and now supports Kerry, says:

"It's a kind of political journalism shorthand to say that Dean is the George McGovern of this year," said Hart, who has run twice for the Democratic nomination and has endorsed Dean rival John F. Kerry. "It paints a portrait of McGovern which is not true. He was a regular Democrat who got elected twice from a conservative Midwestern state, and you can't do that if you're a far lefty. On social issues, Dean has been all over the lot. You can put three or four of his positions together and paint him as a liberal, but that doesn't make him a liberal."

McGovern then, arguably, was no more liberal than Howard Dean. But they both tapped similar currents that pull to the left. Dean's latest remarks on Osama bin Laden, don't help:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," Dean said in the interview. "I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials." Dean added he is certain most Americans agree with that sentiment.

Later, Dean released a statement clarifying, "I share the outrage of all Americans. Osama bin Laden has admitted that he is responsible for killing 3,000 Americans as well as scores of men, women and children around the world. This is the exactly the kind of case that the death penalty is meant for.

I'm glad Dean added that he is outraged by Osama, because it seemed for a moment that all his outrage was reserved from the the President of the United States. In the unlikely event that Osama is captured alive, he will certainly receive a fair trial. But Dean's concern about procedure brings to mind Michael Dukakis concern for the hypothetical murderer of his wife expressed in one of the 1988 Bush/Dukakis debates.

Democrats, of whom I am not one, have got to stop, breathe, and realize that as matters stand now, Dean will go down to a solid defeat. The misfortunes of war that could get him elected are not anything we should wish on the country.

Canada, Drug Prices, & Medicare--The Rant Continues

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I've written extensively about the Medicare Bill both here and elsewhere. Now comes the confirmation that of all the things the bill is intended to do, actually lowering drug prices is NOT one of them.

To be sure, much of the stated intention of the bill is to lower drug costs to the elderly with huge drug bills. And to some extent it actually does that, by shifting the cost burden to the taxpayers. But it doesn't do a single thing to control the extortionate price of drugs that led to millions of Americans buying their drugs from Canada and other countries. Quite the opposite--by tapping into the Treasury, the bill gives pharmaceutical companies a blank check to continue making huge profits stiffing U.S. consumers with much higher prices than they sell those same drugs for elsewhere. This is why the drug companies were all in favor of the bill, and massively lobbied for its passage.

It's also why the bill specifically prohibited states and cities from negotiating price agreements on their own to reduce the cost burdens they face. Predictably, those same cities and states, faced with sharply rising drug costs both under state Medicaid programs and their own self-funded health plans and with the ban on price negotiations that by itself constitutes a huge unfunded federal mandate to pay extortion to the drug companies, are exploring and establishing their own deals with Canadian drug suppliers, which has the FDA frantic. The FDA is going to great lengths to discourage the practice, which is illegal under federal law. To do so, they not only are loudly threatening legal action against the cities and states, but also trotting out the old "foreign drugs are not safe" argument.

Canadian drugs are susbstantially cheaper for two major reasons. The first is that under the Canadian health care system, the individual provinces are allowed to negotiate prices with the drug companies. The second is that Canadians aren't stiffed the same "premium" for drug development costs that U.S. consumers are. So Canadian drugs are cheaper because they can negotiate prices, and because American consumers already subsidize the lower price of foreign drugs by soaking up those development costs themselves.

Remember, these are the same drugs, produced by the same companies, that Americans get. The drug companies tried the "foreign drugs aren't safe" argument briefly during the debate on the Medicare Bill, but quietly dropped it when people started asking why drug companies were manufacturing and selling unsafe drugs to Canadians. Now the FDA has taken up the baton to justify the support of a pharmaceutical monopoly price structure, and the massive giveaway of American tax dollars to drug companies.

And it still doesn't wash. A revolt is brewing over this massive unfunded mandate, and it's not going to get smaller. There is no good reason for Americans to be charged more than others for these drugs. If passing the development costs on to consumers in other countries is a problem, it's a problem for those countries. And there is absolutely NO good reason to ban states and cities from negotiating their own drug prices, rather than getting stuck with a full-price mandate from the federal government.

But hey, you already knew the drug companies really liked the Medicare Bill for good reasons, didn't you?

The Republican Wing of the Democratic Party

Howard Dean's head must be spinning on this question of Democrats attacking other Democrats. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire yesterday, he managed to both call for unity and criticize his moderate opponents using the dirtiest word in the Democratic lexicon -- Republican:

"One of the reasons I wish the others guys running for president would tone it down a little bit is that at the end, we're all going to have to pull together in order to beat George Bush," he told several hundred people at a packed town hall meeting.

And, he added, "even the Democratic Leadership Council, which is sort of the Republican part of the Democratic Party … the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, we're going to need them too, we really are."

You really are, huh? Really? How's it going so far?

UPDATE: An interesting reply from the DLC. They make the case quite firmly in favor of a centrist agenda. There's also some interesting background, like this:

Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has been saying this kind of thing throughout the campaign, along with other howlers like asserting that Bill Clinton wrecked the Democratic Party, and that Democratic centrists were cravenly supporting much of George W. Bush's agenda. Dean and Trippi are very smart men, and they know perfectly well that this rap is a central part of the hard left's hallucinatory revisionist interpretation of the Clinton years as one long act of surrender to conservatism.

Blogging The Numbers: Week 5

I've produced a chart examining candidate matchups by home region in the 14 presidential elections of the post-war era. It also reminds me of candy cane.

The first column shows that in races where both candidates came from outside the South (N indicates Non-southern), Republicans won 5 of 6 elections. The once exception, labelled '60, was John Kennedy's win over Richard Nixon. When a southern candidate faced one from outside the South, the Southerner prevailed in all cases except for Reagan's triumph over Carter in '80. 4 of 6 Democratic victories came when southern Democrats ran against non-southern Republicans (counting Truman vs. Dewey in '48).

As far as why southern Democrats have an advantage, I don't think it's simply because they are more centrist than non-southern Democrats. Except for Goldwater, the Republicans they defeated were relatively moderate themselves. There may simply be some sectional advantage to candidates who make southern voters comfortable without offending voters in other parts of the country.

On the other hand, the many losing non-southern Democrats have been quite liberal, and probably further from the center than the Republicans who defeated them. The single northern Democrat who won in the post-war period was John Kennedy. His narrow victory came after a campaign in which he took positions at least as muscular as the Republican on foreign policy issues. A victory by a northern anti-war Democrat in 2004 would be an astonishing reversal of the historic pattern.

A table counting blog posts mentioning the current Democratic candidates in the last week can be found at Blogging Of The President:2004

McLieb

Inspired by Vance of Begging To Differ, Mac Diva of Mac-a-ro-nies imagines a McLieb ticket combining John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

Do I believe a McLieb candidacy could win? Nah. But, Vance's idea does bring back youthful memories of having wanted to see a viable moderate-progressive third party or third party candidate emerge. I think we can all learn something about the political process in the United States by considering why neither is possible.

Permanent third parties seems to be impossible under our winner-take-all system. But ad hoc tickets are possible, and mostly deterred by the revenge of the partisans on those who would place country (or ambition) before party.

New Venues

In the last few days, we have two new places to discuss centrist politics online. Both are already hosting some remarkably vibrant discussions among moderates and centrists. They're so good so fast probably because they're connected to the organized side of the centrist movement.

First, we have the new weblog of the New Democrat Network -- one of the two leading Democratic centrist groups.

Second, we have the official weblog of Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign.

Check 'em out.

Saddam In Elba

Saddam is in his 60's, and may well live another 20 years if allowed to live out his natural life span. Once the US pulls out its troops, if Saddam is held in a prison in Iraq, there is a reasonable chance that he might be "liberated" and even restored to power. Napoleon and Mussolini both did the trick.

Saddam's record as a mass murderer would make the late Ted Bundy green with envy. If anyone is deserving of the death penalty, certainly Saddam is. If he is not executed, it would be better if he were to serve out his sentence in The Hague or in the United States. I'm not confident that an Iraqi prison can hold him, and his continued presence in Iraq would have a destabilizing effect.

Positive Fallout In Libya And Iran

While we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the surprise revelations about Libya's nuclear program, and the disclosures by Iran suggest that Bush's warmongering may be having positive fallout (excuse the pun) in increasing cooperation from these regimes. True, the Iraq War has made America even more hated in the streets of the Muslim world. But within the presidential palaces, fear of America may be a more powerful factor in behavior modification.

It's a risky strategy, and if it were to backfire in one location--let's say North Korea--that might outweigh all the benefits elsewhere. But in themselves, these appear to be positive results of Bush's "big stick" policy. I don't care for the President, and I support a different candidate in 2004, but I must admit he's having a good month.

Update: Zev Schiff reports in Haaretz

It has long been known that Libya has a nuclear development program. Among other things, it has been revealed that after Saddam Hussein put an end to the activities of the UN inspectors in Iraq in 1998, Iraqi scientists began arriving in Libya. Thereafter, it was revealed that even more extensive activities were being conducted in Libya with the help of North Korea.

If this is verified, it would appear that Saddam was lending his nuclear scientists to Libya in a sort of joint venture. While still not raising matters to the "imminent threat" level, this would give strong support to the notion was Saddam's regime was a danger to the United States in the medium-term.

The Anti-Clinton

To my mind, this has now entered the realm of the genuinely weird. With his domestic policy speech today in New Hampshire, Howard Dean signals an intention to run openly against the Clinton legacy in his party:

Some Democrats have accepted the Republican notion that the Social Contract cannot be preserved, let alone made stronger.

While Bill Clinton said that the era of big government is over, I believe we must enter a new era for the Democratic party not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families.

I reject the notion that damage control must be our credo. I call now for a new era, in which we rewrite our Social Contract. We need to provide certain basic guarantees to all those who are working hard to fulfill the promise of America.

With that kind of open philosophical break, Dean risks a strong backlash. Clinton is the most successful Democrat of the last quarter-century, presiding over an era of extraordinary peace and prosperity. He is also beloved in the party -- even the base of the party that supports Dean.

If Dean wants to run openly against Clintonism -- not just implicitly -- he's doing the rest of us quite a favor. He makes his politics clear early enough for us to organize an effective response.

UPDATE: Oliver Willis has a problem with this too, and there's an interesting discussion about it among Democrats at his site.

UPDATE #2: The Democratic Leadership Council now has a statement up about this. As usual, it's quite sharp, well-written, and right on point. And here's the New York Times article about the tensions arising in the Democratic party as a result of this speech.

Community Standards

I don't normally care for Hugh Hewitt, but I share his skepticism over the Dean blog phenomenon.

Which raises the question of whether the vast online network the Dean machine boasts of is such a good thing after all. It may have turned into a self-reinforcing hothouse of out-of-touch, marginal-but-loud cheerleading for itself. Feedback from the middle parts of the American spectrum appear to have been cut-off.

Dean's internet strategy has been impressive at mobilizing and leveraging one segment of society. But are they out of touch with the views of the general electorate? Is this a 21st century tulip folly?

I don't blame the Dean people specifically for this, nor do I think it an exclusively left-wing phenomenon. I participate in the Clark Community Blogs. Knowing the audience feels a certain way does affect what I post, and if I do post constructive criticism, I make certain to place it in bubble-wrap so as not to offend. In any community, there's a tension between the energy one receives from the support of the community, and the pressure to conform that comes from the desire to be liked. The tighter the community, the less it may understand about the outside world.

The Liberal Takeover

A couple of must-reads this morning. First, a rather harsh piece by Dick Morris on the re-McGovernization of the Democratic Party. The left-wing activists are passionate, and they're willing to risk a big loss next year to take over the party's agenda and kick the centrists out.

Calpundit, a few days ago, wrote about the distinction between Democrats and liberals. The notion of an emerging Republican majority is dubious, but a center-right majority has been in effect for quite some time. The Democrats apparently intend to nominate a candidate who is as left-of-center as they perceive President Bush to be right-of-center, but they may be mistaken where they pivot point really lies.

Update:
Dan Kennedy suggests Democrats should take solace in being right

During one of Adlai Stevenson’s unsuccessful campaigns against Dwight Eisenhower, someone is said to have called out, "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!"

Stevenson’s memorable response: "That’s not enough, madam. We need a majority."

The dilemma in which the Democrats find themselves today is remarkably similar. They may be right. They are right. But only time will tell whether being right will lead to victory — or will simply have to suffice as its own reward.

Dean's Centrist Meltdown

In its editorial today, the Washington Post gives a kind of concise chronicle of the meldown of the "Dean as centrist" notion so popular with his supporters. I'd give you an excerpt, but really you have to read the whole thing to get the flavor.

UPDATE: This is also being discussed at Ara Rubyan's E Pluribus Unum.

Centrist Ad

I was looking in our referrers, and noticed that one visitor came from a Google search for Centrist, for which Centerfield was the first entry. That's when I happened to notice this sponsored text ad:

Centrist Voter?
Learn about John Kerry's vision
for a better America for all.
www.independentsforkerry.org

Even though I run an Independents For ___ web site that directly competes with this site, I am happy to point you all to any site that is targeting centrists. Google has managed to make online advertising pay by presenting ads that are extremely relevent to searches.

They came up with a product, now known as Adwords, that allows users' search terms to trigger relevant text ads that appear onscreen to the right of the search results. It was similar to what another startup, Overture Services, was offering. Advertisers pay Google based on how many people click through to their site, allowing them to track effectiveness easily.

I'd call that ad a direct hit.

Saddam's My Lai Trial

The Blogging Of The President is hosting a blog burst on how the arrest of Saddam will affect the narrative of the 2004 campaign.

Does the capture of Saddam Hussein bear a sort of 'anti-Tet' moniker, cooling the increasingly powerful (yet still minority status) anti-war narrative? And what does the proliferation of blogs and foreign news sources mean for the media cycle around the capture of Saddam Hussein? Is his capture more or less 'spinnable', and who's doing the spinning?

Well, to say the least, the anti-war narrative will have some competition. Dick Morris, the brilliant and cynical political consultant who was interviewed on BOPnews last week, was on the BBC today discussing Saddam's capture. Morris suggests that Saddam's live capture may be a tremendous boon to the Bush campaign.

Were Saddam to have died like his sons, in a hail of gunfire, that would have been a "win" for the Bush administration. But his arrest and future trial will make the capture an ongoing story for the rest of the 2004 campaign. The trial itself may not be conducted before the election, but the collection of evidence against the former dictator will be an ongoing theme. We may see a stream of My Lai's in reverse, where evidence of Saddam's crimes focus attention on the sins of an enemy of the United States, and retroactively fortify the case for war. As Morris says, were Saddam to have died, none of this evidence would be newsworthy.

The capture of Saddam may decisively break the Vietnam analogy. In Vietnam, we never seized Hanoi or captured Ho Chi Minh. In Iraq, we've captured both the capital and the leader. Iraq may be the unVietnam.

Considering that running against an undeclared, unnecessary and unwinnable war was unfruitful in 1972, the Democratic Party would be well-advised to seek alternatives in 2004 to running against a war that is arguably unnecessary but apparently winnable.

Clarity

We've had somewhat awkward discussions here regarding Howard Dean's views on foreign policy. A few bloggers -- myself certainly included -- have criticized his views rather pointedly. The discussions are awkward because they're based on partial information. Most of us can see in it what we want to see.

Today Dean gave a detailed foreign policy address. An important event for him because the media is so focused on the capture of Saddam and will naturally include Dean's views in the wall-to-wall coverage of that event. It's an opportunity to make an impression with a segment of the electorate.

Dean said a lot of good things today -- pointing out things that very much need to be said. We need to rebuild global alliances and partnerships, improve intelligence gathering, and secure the vulnerable targets and weapons we know exist at home and abroad.

Dean -- and every Democrat -- needs to say this. They're absolutely right.

A certain amount of additional clarity came for me, however, in a few of Dean's statements. The following, for example, is the part that ran tonight on the PBS News Hour:

As our military commanders said, and the President acknowledged yesterday, the capture of Saddam does not end the difficulties from the aftermath of the administration's war to oust him. There is the continuing challenge of securing Iraq, protecting the safety of our personnel, and helping that country get on the path to stability. There is the need to repair our alliances and regain global support for American goals.

Nor, as the president also seemed to acknowledge yesterday, does Saddam's capture move us toward defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger: al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. And, nor, it seems, does Saturday's capture address the urgent need to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the risk that terrorists will acquire them.

The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will help keep our soldiers safer. But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

The capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

Now, you could make an argument to that effect if you're looking at the issue of whether we should have gone to war in the first place. It's possible that we're not safer today than we would have been had we chosen not to go to war at all.

The immediate issue is undeniable though, isn't it? We're at war in Iraq, and our efforts to win a war (and, I might add, deny a potential base to the terrorists) are improved at least somewhat after capturing Saddam.

They may be improved a little, or they may be improved a lot. We don't know yet. On the whole, though, America is probably a bit safer today than this time last week. We've taken a step in the direction of success in Iraq.

Dean's heart is really not much in this Iraq thing. He just hasn't managed to fully grasp the shift in circumstances that occurred when we went to war. Whether right or wrong, once in the war our interests dramatically shifted to a need to win. The war on terror is deeply entangled with that issue, whether it was before the war or not.

Dean's attitude was hinted at, a bit, in his initial public statement Sunday following the capture of Saddam, which included the following:

Now that the dictator is captured, we must also accelerate the transition from occupation to full Iraqi sovereignty.

The administration has already accelerated that timetable. It's six months away. I don't suppose Dean wants to do it faster, but I wonder if doing it any slower would be acceptable to him, if we were to continue to run into the kind of problems that make a quick transition unwise.

I think I have a better grasp on Dean's foreign policy now. It doesn't reflect the kind of sober realism we surely could use these days.

Credibility Gaps

The Bush administration has suffered from a credibility gap ever since the weapons of mass destruction thought to be in Iraq's possession proved impossible to find. They have one last chance to redeem themselves if Saddam chooses to talk and (fat chance) tells us where he's been hiding them.

But the capture of Saddam exposes the credibility gap on the Democratic side. It's my impression that the Democratic candidates have been circumspect with analogies of Iraq to Vietnam, but their supporters, most recently Al Gore, have been a lot quicker to use the Q-word (quagmire).

In Vietnam, we never occupied Hanoi. We're ahead of the game right there. We never captured Ho Chi Minh, and now we have Saddam. The site of his capture, a house not far from his birthplace, is indicative of the unsuitability of the landscape of Iraq for sustained guerilla warfare, as compared to Vietnam or Afghanistan.

There were and continue to be problems with the President's policy in Iraq and in the Middle East. But the strong emotions felt by anti-Bush partisans caused them to exaggerate the extent of the problem (see Al Gore's use of the word "catastrophic"). By raising expectations of disaster, these partisans no longer seem credible themselves. Why would American voters want to turn over their safety and security to them?

45-45-10

It's worth reading this interview with pollster John Zobgy, via Daily Kos, though I think it gives too much solace to the Democrats. I don't agree that 50-50 is the natural state of the voting population, because it leaves out us swing voters, who can lean either way decisively. It's more like 45-45-10.

Shadowy Democratic Attack Ads

Andrew (aka the Poorman) has the best take I've seen on the little flap regarding an attack ad aimed at Dean that's running in Iowa right now.

Here's a small piece:

Osama bin Laden's a real person. I know that you know that, but let's put this fact front and center - they didn't bring up Hitler or Skeletor here. Two years ago, Osama bin Laden killed 3,000 people in New York City, and a few hundred more between there and Washington, DC. This actually happened -- I checked -- and it represents the greatest direct threat to US national security in the world today. No relationship with or similarity to bin Laden was stated or implied. Claiming that invoking the name or graven image of Osama bin Laden in an ad about national security is somehow not kosher demonstrates a profound lack of seriousness about national security.

Read the rest.

SADDAM CAPTURED--ACE IN THE HOLE!

In case anyone has been studiously avoiding the news this morning, the breaking news is that Saddam Hussein has been captured by the 4th Infantry 1st Brigade Combat Team (Delta Force!) hiding in a hole in a basement in a town about ten miles from Tikrit.

He was caught yesterday about noon Eastern time, and the announcement delayed until this morning while his ID was confirmed.

Closer On The Glide Path

Last week, I blogged that Bush was on the glide path toward (re-)election, barring an act of mega-terrorism. Today's capture of Saddam Hussein means that the President is even closer to winning in 2004. While the Iraq War can no longer be considered a glorious victory, neither is it a quagmire, and with the capture of Saddam, we can expect the swampy spots to dry up over time.

In another recent post, I described how Nazi plans to create an anti-occupation insurgency in 1945 were short-circuited by Hitler's suicide. While Saddam's period of liberty has allowed a Baathist insurgency to develop, there is reason to hope that it will wind down as Iraqis accept that change is irreversible. There will no doubt be more American casualties, but the likelihood that American forces will be ultimately defeated is very slim. The most likely negative outcome is that the new Iraq will be an Islamic state somewhat antagonistic, but certainly not threatening, to the United States.

I myself learned last week that I will be laid off from my job on January 30. So I am no admirer of President Bush's economic policy. But many indicators suggest the economy is recovering, and I am optimistic that my period of unemployment will be short-lived. With an improving economy and a stablized Iraq, President Bush looks like a good bet for 2004, barring the wild card--an act of mega-terror which his administration failed to prevent.

Dean Addicted to Demagoguery?

This is not completely a prediction of Dean losing. I'm going to cover my ass to that extent. It is, however, a speculation explaining the high level of self-contradiction that we see from Dean. Basically, I think he has failed to execute the usual "veer left" Democratic primary maneuver correctly.

Dean seems to have had a good shot of making a good run against Bush when he started. He had viable, novel, centrist-liberal issues, notably the life partners idea and Medicare extensions, which could appeal to the base, to demonstrated belief in the importance of balancing budgets to appeal to us moderates. He has gubernatorial experience, the most important Presidential resume item these days, and has a reputation for effective leadership in NH.

The novelty, success, and nature of his Internet campaign proves that he is an excellent manager, able to attract good people and happy to take ideas that don't originate with him, as well as no micromanager - local campaigns are given wide discretion. A few days ago, the Austin campaign was handing out stickers at a very local kind of event - 1st Thursday on South Congress. That could never have happened at a campaign that had to explain 1st Thu to HQ, and sure enough no other campaign was there.

And he still has passion. He had everything Jed Bartlett on West Wing had except for the Nobel Prize (nor, we hope, MS)....

The puzzle is, what happened to those carefully-thought-out issues? Now his positions on many issues, big and small, are all over the map. When NAFTA came up for a vote, he was for it. Early in the campaign, he came out against free trade except with uniform environmental and labor standards and rates (which basically means never). Leiberman caught him on this in the NM debate, to which he had to weaken his position to be about really needing much more limited labor standards. In a recent Washington Post Q&A, Dean came down firmly on both sides of the issue: "Globalization is here to stay whether we like it or not, but the rules for globalization are not. ... Free trade won't work under the present circumstances."

Free trade is a good example, but it is by no means the only one - the list includes the Iraq War, conduct of the Iraqi occupation, conduct of the War On Terrorism, business regulation, Medicare, etc. etc..

I think the problem is that he has become addicted to paranoia and extreme politics. I think his plan for "going left" was to dirty Bush' nose and establish himself as the Anti-Bush without actually expressing extreme positions.

There is a huge egoboo in going into a room of activists and getting down and dirty on Bush and the Republicans. There is a certain amount of addiction inherent in paranoia as well. He has become addicted to saying things like, "Free trade won't work under the present circumstances." It's fun to come down and lay down the line like that, but a President can only do that on carefully considered issues and circumstances. Candidates are hurt when caught in untruths like this one - free trade is, like it or not, mostly a fact in North America and the EU.

Dean may not have expected either the addictiveness of going left, or its effects on his issues. There is a linkage between paranoia and extremism. Roughly speaking, the more he aligned what he was saying with what rooms of activists wanted to hear, even if he started out. limiting himself to just Bush and Republicans as outgrageous red-meat targets, it's natural from there to start talking about capitalist oppression, in contradiction to the distrusting but pro-capitalistic place he started. It's natural to rank on many things Bush is for, starting of course with the energy industry, but beyond that to capitalism in general, free trade, fighting wars, fighting terrorism, and exporting democracy.

Typical of me, I will first give you the technical, issue-based reason this is a problem. His issues can never solidify. Right now, nobody knows where he stands. So long as he keeps Bush-bashing, he can get the left Democratic wing to support him, but that's not enough to win the general election. He's been running for President for months now, and we have to work from guesswork on what he'd do in Iraq, because although he has sobersides daylight answers that seem likely, he also has extreme answers that would bug the living daylights out of most Americans. Given the solid-to-a-fault alternative of Bush, Dean can't win.

Then there is the paranoia problem. Most of us don't like the idea of our leaders acting from fear. If there is a 9/11/05 on Dean's watch, what will he do? Look at the evidence to assign responsibility and take appropriate action, or will he blame the oil companies? Or maybe the space aliens?

TNR &c and Ruy Texeira think he plans a Sister Souljah moment. Well, if I'm right, it's going to take more than that - I think he's becoming a Sister Souljah himself.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope we see him make the transition to a sober leader with self-consistent issues. I would rather him be the Jed Bartlett than the alcoholic chief of staff. But I won't even consider voting for him until I see at least three - better six - months of sobersidesness on his comments and policies.

Even if he does go sober when "going right", this would already be a huge problem for him - remember the ads on Leiberman changing positions from his own positions to Gore's? Those had limited effect, because loyalty was the obvious explanation for Leiberman's actions. The effect of many self-contradicting sound bites from the head of a ticket in a single Presidential campaign would be something else again. I think that kind of ad would work for me and many others. In fact, this is a big reason I think he went farther than he planned - he's a smart guy and must understand that his life is lived on tape, and the consequences.

This posting actually started out as one in which I wanted to explain why Dean couldn't win because of his issues. But I saw all the self-contradictions on issues and then started to wonder. And now that I have taken a close look, I think maybe we Democrats lost our best hope of victory in 2004 in the process described in this posting.

Blogging The Ads

I'm testing out a new idea called Blogging The Ads which I discuss on SoftPolitics. The idea is to knit together all blogs which discuss a particular TV ad in the presidential race. The first ad I've chosen is an ad by the Club For Growth entitled Tax Redux which attacks Howard Dean. This post collects a number of links which discuss the ad, and also links to video of the ad.

I note that the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org project says that despite Dean Campaign protests, the ad is mostly right.

Take a look at the ad and decide for yourself.

The Next Step in Campaign Finance Reform?

Leading sponsors of the now-victorious campaign finance bill -- Shays, Meehan, McCain, and Feingold -- have a next step in mind. They want to eliminate the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with enforcing campaign finance rules and the body that originally opened the "soft money" loophole.

In its place, they see the following:

The four lawmakers want to replace it with a three-member panel.

The new Federal Election Administration would have a chairman and two other members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The two members would come from different parties, and no appointee could come from the current FEC, have been a party employee, have been a candidate or officeholder or have worked for one.

Not a perfect plan -- the new agency would no doubt be subject to influence by the administration. On first blush, though, it seems like a good idea.

Gore Endorsement Fallout

Excellent take on the Gore endorsement from William Saletan of Slate. Here's part:

The problem isn't Gore. The problem is the myth of inevitability, which fulfills itself by undermining free will.

Tuesday, the perpetrator of that myth was Gore. Today, it's the Bush campaign. "Bush's Advisers Focus on Dean as Likely Opponent Next Year," the front page of the New York Times. "Various officials from throughout Bush's political organization said they view the former Vermont governor's nomination as all but inevitable," the Washington Post.

Bush advisers who want Dean to be the nominee are happy to make their wish come true by putting out this spin. It deflates other Democratic candidates and the people who might otherwise send them money or go the polls or caucuses for them. If you wouldn't let Bush narrow your choices this way, you shouldn't let Gore narrow them either.

Also, Lieberman is making political hay out of it, with at least modest success:

Lieberman's aides report that scores of well-wishers have contacted the campaign. Many are opening their wallets, too — the campaign reports that more than $250,000 worth of donations have come in since Gore's intention to endorse Dean was revealed Monday.

Mark Blackman of Oswego, Ill., cited the endorsement in a note accompanying a $54 contribution. "Frankly, I can't afford this contribution but in a larger sense, I can't afford not to make it," he wrote.

The Lieberman campaign is aggressively pursuing goodwill. National finance chairman Elliot Gerson sent an e-mail to his top fund-raisers Thursday saying Gore's endorsement has presented a "terrific opportunity" for them to step up their push for campaign cash. Gerson attached a sample e-mail that donor Ross Garber sent to his friends, citing "Al Gore's dirty sellout" while committing to raise $10,000 for Lieberman in 10 days.

"It will come down to a Dean vs. ??? battle," Garber wrote. "My goal is help fill in the ??? with Joe Lieberman."

Lieberman also sent a note to his e-mail list Wednesday, calling the Gore endorsement "a golden opportunity" to cast the race as Dean vs. Lieberman and asking for online contributions. The result was Lieberman's largest fund-raising day of the quarter, many in small contributions averaging $71.55.

Nazi Post-War Resistance

I've been reading The Fall of Berlin in 1945 by Antony Beevor (entitled The Downfall in its UK edition). It briefly touches on the attempt by Goebbels to create a resistance movement called Werwolf which would carry on a guerilla war against the Allied occupation. Werwolf never became more than a minor irritant

What did the Werwolf do? They sniped. They mined roads. They poured sand into the gas tanks of jeeps. (Sugar was in short supply, no doubt.) They were especially feared for the "decapitation wires" they strung across roads. They poisoned food stocks and liquor. (The Russians had the biggest problem with this.) They committed arson, though perhaps less than they are credited with: every unexplained fire or explosion associated with a military installation tended to be blamed on the Werwolf. These activities slackened off within a few months of the capitulation on May 7, though incidents were reported as late as 1947.

It's been said that the Germans were culturally not suited for partisan activity, but I don't buy that. Indeed, in the waning days of World War II, Goebbels distributed a film, Kolberg, emphasizing Prussian resistance to Napoleon. Instead, we perhaps we are lucky that Hitler chose to commit suicide, with Goebbels following soon thereafter, rather than going into hiding and try to carry on the war through terroristic means.

Directions of the Far Left

Christopher Caldwell wrote an interesting article in the Weekly Standard about France and about the extreme left going towards Islam. Of course, he predicted the deep and permanent decline of France and the Left (doesn't he wish!), but by Weekly Standard standards on these topics, it was a thoughtful and well-researched article. The topic is of interest to me because I have found that very tendency of alliance between Islamofascism and the far left to be deeply repugnant, with terrible consequences in terms of leftist debate.

I think he may be right. The tendency seems to be ideological alliance with whomever seems the most powerful US opponent; right now, that's the Islamofascists. But there is a basic ideological difficulty - they are extreme rightists - they're a mixed bag of fascists and theocrats. It takes a LOT of denial to sustain this relationship, it's up there with Hitler and the German Communists. Antizionism and anticapitalism are the only places of agreement. There is, in fact, wide discomfort among those uncomfortable with violence who were happy enough to sympathize with Communism in the form of varieties of Communism that weren't out oppressing people. The German Communist Party IIRC lost membership when it collaborated with the Nazis. I also think that this phase will be somewhat transient - as soon as another enemy happens along that is less ideologically repugnant, the alliance is dead.

Here's Chomsky, doing his bit on denial:

Q: Is anti-Semitism on the increase?

A: In the West, fortunately, it scarcely exists now, though it did in the past. There is, of course, what the Anti-Defamation League calls "the real anti-Semitism", more dangerous than the old-fashioned kind: criticism of policies of the state of Israel and US support for them, opposition to a vast US military budget, etc. In contrast, anti-Arab racism is rampant. The manifestations are shocking, in elite intellectual circles as well, but arouse little concern because they are considered legitimate: the most extreme form of racism.

He has a limited point - as I said earlier , it is a murderous form of anti-zionism that is rampant now, not the old anti-semitism. But to not even mention its murderousness, and accuse antiterrorist policies of racism is denial to the point of collaboration with Islamofascism.

Here is what I mean about discomfort. The Nation, which deserves kudos for staying away from Islamofascism, has a poster boy review this month, about Islamic terrorism, and why it happens. Although his instincts are to sympathize with anybody victimized by US policy in any way, and to give revolutionaries a break, Kimmerling is clear on the fact that the terrorists he's talking about are evil people, committing evil acts.

Thus, we see that the extreme left is in fact splintered. What's left is the most strident and violent core. This may be part of why the GOP had it so easy in 2002 - the Democratic base couldn't agree on any response to 9/11 and terrorism, the biggest issue of the day.

McCain Wins

Ara Rubyan has a nice early take on the long-awaited Supreme Court decision upholding McCain-Feingold.

Dean Disses The Center

For all the enthusiam core Democrats have for Dean, if he writes off swing voters, he's a loser.

Gore's endorsement reinforces the split within the Democratic Party. On one side are Clinton's closest advisers and adherents, who believe the key to winning national elections lies in mixing centrist policies (such as tax relief for the middle class to appeal to swing voters) with traditional party values (such as abortion rights and environmental protection to satisfy liberals).

On the other are Dean, Gore and a large number of activists who want to return to the party's roots and expand its base by fighting Bush with clear-cut alternatives. "We lost a lot of races in 2002 because we decided to go to swing voters and [thought] the base would come along later," Dean said. Democrats must stand for "those people who are with us all the time."

There is no reason to think the unmobilized Democratic base is larger than the unmobilized Republican base. An extremely polarizing campaign is likely to mobilize both. As much as Bush may govern from the hard-right, he doesn't rhetorically disparage the center (he does disparage liberals).

If Dean stands only for those who are with the Democrats "all the time" he's asking for 40+% of the vote. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate received a majority of the vote was Jimmy Carter's 50.1% in 1976. I'm not aware of any likely conservative challenger to Bush who might peel off votes in the general election, so the Democratic vote must approach a majority if the Democrats are to win.

(cross-posted with Independents For Clark)

Synchronicity

I have an annoying tendency to blog on a certain topic or theme and to really hammer on that theme repeatedly over a period of days or weeks.

It's an approach unbecoming a centrist. You expect that sort of thing from the more passionate ideologues on either side of the aisle, but not from us cool, even-tempered moderates.

Here's the curious thing. A few weeks ago my "topic of choice" was the need for a positive agenda. I talked about the difference between a reactive approach based on anger and a positive, forward-looking approach that offers vision first, and then uses that vision as a basis for contrast with your opponent.

In the next Democratic debate, a certain candidate picked up on this theme in a very specific way. He was great, too -- passionate, compelling, remarkably sharp and articulate. He brought up the topic deliberately, but managed to make it sound natural -- like he just had something he wanted to get off his chest.

Fast forward a couple weeks. I get on my soap box about the odd approach the Democrats are taking to national security. Listening to these guys, you'd think that September 11 only happened as a kind of backdrop to Bush screwing up our country. There's little discussion of the real security issues surrounding the war on terror -- few specific ideas on how to fight these shadowy figures who really are out there plotting to blow things up.

The obvious thing -- really obvious -- is to propose a forceful agenda for combating Al Qaida, and, again, to criticize the president in terms of his failure to do the things you're proposing.

So I'm watching the debate last night. And a certain candidate deliberately, but gracefully, segues into the above topic. Here's what he said:

Well, first of all, I agree with a lot of what's been said about our responsibility to internationalize this effort to get the U.N. involved in the transition period, to make sure that the security force is, in fact, an international security force, and, when that's done, to create a meaningful timeline for putting the Iraqi people in charge of their own governance.

But I want to say something about a subject that Dick Gephardt brought up just a few minutes ago. The whole issue of the war on terrorism and what needs to be done to keep the American people safe, see, this president is claiming he's taking the steps necessary to keep America safe. In fact, he's not.

A lot of the criticisms about his foreign policy have already been voiced. I embrace those. I think they're right.

It is impossible -- I was involved in investigating September 11th, why it happened, how we keep it from happening again. The reality is we will never stamp out these terrorist groups and terrorist cells that exist all over the world, in countries all over the world, unless we have a positive working relationship with those countries.

But in addition to that, there is so much that needs to be done here to keep the American people safe that's not being done. We have nuclear plants, chemical plants all over this country that are extraordinarily vulnerable. The president is not doing the things that need to be done.

This is just another example of special interests. The administration recognized there were over 100 chemical plants in America, any one of which if they were attacked could cost a million or more lives. So they wanted to do something about it. We were urging something be done. The chemical industry pushed back and as a result nothing was done. The chemical industry lobbyists pushed back.

The same thing's true with trying to protect our ports. Right here in New Hampshire that danger exists. There are thousands and thousands of containers coming through our ports every single day. And we look at 3, 4, 5 percent of them on a good day.

The reason is we don't have the people and we don't have the technology to do the job.

And I also want to say something about -- that's all defense. The question is, what are we going to do offensively about the terrorist cells that everyone on this stage knows exist all over America today, tonight, right now? I'm not talking about something that might happen. It's happening right now.

If we don't aggressively go after those cells, which in my judgment means taking that responsibility away from the FBI, giving it -- because we know that they're structurally incapable of doing it because of what we've seen happen in the past, the failures that existed before September 11th. They're a law enforcement agency. They're not in the business of fighting terrorism, and we've seen the problems that exist as a result.

And what we need to do is we need to go after these terrorist cells and have human penetration of them.

So if we want to take the steps that actually need to be taken to keep the American people safe, the steps that are not being taken by this president, we need a president who understands what needs to be done and has a clear plan for doing it.

My question is this. Does John Edwards read our blog?

Secondarily, and more seriously, is he perhaps evolving into a great candidate?

VP Sweepstakes

With the increasing likelihood of a Dean candidacy, Kevin Drum has swung into full-tilt VP speculation. He's got a thread with over 150 comments on the ideal VP choice for Dean.

Over here, we tend to have more of a maverick, independent streak. That being the case, we should come up with some unusual suggestions.

Here are mine:

1. Former Gov. Roy Barnes (Georgia)

The obvious problem with Roy Barnes is that he lost the 2002 governor's race. Of course, it's an event that can be "spun" in some ways due to his principled stand on the state flag issue and the role that changing the flag may have had in the election (his opponent promised a referendum to bring the old flag back).

I don't have any direct exposure to him, but I've been told he's an excellent politician -- personable, funny, intelligent, etc. He has a distinct (and unusually accomplished) record as a centrist southern governor.

2. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas)

The problem with Sen. Lincoln is that she's just finishing her first term in the Senate. She is remarkably strong politically -- with expectations that she will be reelected easily. What I've heard about her is that she's a real self-made politician. It's her smarts and communication skills that have gotten her where she is. In general, I think that's what we need to be looking for in a candidate -- people who are strong in their own right, rather than folks with family connections or other advantages that helped get them where they are.

3. Sen. Tom Carper (Delaware)

This would be one of the strongest choices in pure leadership terms and bring some real seasoning to the ticket. Carper was a very popular governor of Delaware before becoming Senator. While in the executive, he implemented a remarkable mix of policies that were innovative and forward-looking. His 1995 welfare reform program was a pre-cursor to the national program. He's a true fiscal conservative, having cut some taxes while increasing his state's "rainy day" fund. His education policy combined public school choice with standards, testing, and charter schools.

Carper is also a Vietnam War veteran -- with obvious advantages that brings this season.

The significant problem, of course, is that he's from the northeast and doesn't balance the ticket geographically.

4. A Moderate Republican

My final suggestion ought to be taken seriously, but won't be.

The quickest and most dramatic way to change the dynamics of this election would be for Dean to choose a moderate Republican to run with him. Pick someone with strong foreign policy credentials, and someone with a commitment to success in Iraq.

Such a selection would be an obvious opportunity for Dean to clearly define his Iraq policy and to stake a solid claim to the "stay and win" strategy.

Back in 2000 this same suggestion was made by President Clinton to Al Gore. He told Gore he should pick Bill Cohen -- the moderate Republican from Maine who had served as Clinton's Defense Secretary.

Excellent idea. Definitely thinking outside the box.

...If it aint got that swing!

Go here and scroll down (the post is "Kausfiles is for Swingers") to find Kaus's take on an article that claims that the partisan wings are becoming more important and the swing voters are losing sway. His take: sounds like wishful spin to me!

I couldn't agree more. The wingnuts don't want the centrists to exist. Going around making all that sense and admitting when the bad guys make a good point. Scandalous! They'll have their day in the sun during the primaries, and then we'll speak up when the election is on the line. Kaus also has a nice take on sloppy journalistic punditry. Check it out.

More Cake, Please

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution comes a link to an interesting article about what people really believe, and how prone they are to political views that boil down to a strong desire to both have and eat one's cake.

Lieberman Reaction

Josh Marshall has the transcript of Joe Lieberman's interview this morning on the Today Show -- basically his reaction to the Gore endorsement.

A nice, measured response. One thing you have to give Lieberman is that he knows what his campaign is about and how to stay on message. He does represent a clear point of view in this election.

Two Heavyweights

Rick and I were apparently reading the same William Safire column this morning. He was wondering whether Hillary is a centrist, and I was thinking about the odd divergence of policy between perhaps the two biggest heavyweights in the Democratic party today.

Howard Dean is a self-made heavyweight. As of a year ago, he was among the longest of longshots for the Democratic nomination. And now, with Gore's pending endorsement leaked yesterday, he's coming close to wrapping it up before the first vote is cast. That's an astonishing trajectory.

Hillary is a heavyweight by name. In the same way that Bush became a Republican heavyweight by being the son of a president, Hillary became one by being first lady.

Her "weightiness" is taking on a life of its own, now, as she brings an evident seriousness and hard work to her job in the Senate.

Hillary's weight might be comparable, or even overshadow, that of Howard Dean. Polls continue to show she would be the favorite in the Democratic field if she were to run in 2004. Here's the latest AP poll:

Hillary Rodham Clinton	41%
Howard Dean	9%
Wesley Clark	9%
Richard Gephardt	8%
John Kerry	8%
Joe Lieberman	5%
John Edwards	2%

It's curious. Here we have two liberal icons -- both dominant figures in the party. But their fundamental approach to foreign policy, and to the security of this nation, is quite different.

Hillary places herself firmly and consistently in the New Democrat camp. She voted in favor of the Iraq war, and, more recently, for the $87 billion reconstruction package. She refuses to criticize the administration's use of intelligence in the lead-up to the war, pointing out that Iraq was viewed as likely to possess WMD during her husband's administration and earlier.

She emphasizes two important factors with regards to both Iraq and Afghanistan. First, the need to work with the international community and to bring in NATO and UN support. And second, the need to stay the course and bear the sacrifices necessary to succeed in both conflicts. She is, in effect, criticizing the president from both the left and right -- the left, for his diplomatic failures, and the right for his unsteadiness and increasing willingness to quickly draw down forces and transfer authority. She favors providing the necessary resources and staying until we can bring stability to both countries.

Meanwhile, we have Howard Dean -- the party's presumptive nominee -- running ads in Iowa touting not only his opposition to the war, but the decision to vote against the reconstruction package:

"I opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm against spending another $87 billion there."

Dean is, by way of this ad, against sending money to support our forces during wartime. I say "by way of this ad" because that wasn't his position previously. He explained before that he thought we should send the money, but that we have to find budget offsets in order to afford it.

These two heavyweights have two different approaches to national security. The New Democrat approach -- the one Hillary adopts -- contains the critical core of an effective policy, which is a steadiness and determination to succeed in our current commitments overseas.

Glide Path

Al Gore's impending endorsement of Howard Dean makes words like "inevitable" come to mind in considering a Dean nomination. But is Dean a sure loser in the general election? Scott Rosenberg doesn't think so.

I think the Dean campaign's innovations have significantly outstripped the media's ability to interpret them. Something is happening, and you don't know what it is... (Chris Nolan has some choice comments on the same topic.) If six months ago, the experts thought Dean didn't have a shot at the nomination, maybe we shouldn't unquestioningly swallow today's expert line -- that, if nominated, Dean will go down to McGovern- and Dukakis-style defeat.

It's true that Dean is showing a flair that is a great asset in a candidate. Certainly, a lively liberal makes a better candidate than a wooden centrist. But I wonder now if Bush's window of vulnerability, which opened this summer, is starting to close.

It appears to me that Bush is back on the glide path toward re-election. The productivity numbers suggest that hiring will finally pick up, and that the "jobless" recovery will finally be "jobful." The public has absorbed the fact that the Iraq War is not a glorious victory, but it's not nearly as bad as Vietnam, and that didn't stop Nixon in '72. A thriving economy and a muddled foreign policy should be good enough to allow him to slide into a second term.

What could stop Bush is another major terrorist event. He doesn't get blamed for 9/11 because it was early in his term. But if another one were to happen on his watch, he'd have no excuse, particularly if people felt the Iraq War has distracted from the country's ability to pursue the War on Terror. The rally round the President instinct which happened after 9/11 would be unlikely to repeat.

But excluding that, Bush looks like a winner over all the Democratic candidates.

Hillary A Centrist?

So says William Safire about the Senator whose hawkishness seems to have been stiffened by her New York constituency.

Here is a Democrat who has no regrets for voting for the resolution empowering the president to invade Iraq; who insists repeatedly and resolutely that "failure is not an option"; who is ready to send in a substantially greater U.S. force to avert any such policy failure — and yet whose latest poll ratings show her to be the favorite of 43 percent of Democrats, three times the nomination support given front-runner Howard Dean.

What cooks? One reason is that Hillary stands aloof, hard to get, while all the others are slavering for support. Another could be that most Democrats don't yet realize she's a hard-liner at heart. A third is that her personal appeal to liberals (and apoplectic opposition from conservatives) overwhelms all Democrats' policy differences. A fourth — and don't noise this around — could be that she speaks for the silent majority of centrist Democrats who yearn for the Old Third Way without Mr. Clinton.

Centerbot Part Deux

I've done another search of Feedster looking for blogs which use the word "Centrist" Feedster only indexes blogs which have RSS feeds, which include Movable Type blogs, but typically does not include blogs that use blogger.

There's good new and bad news. The good news is that The Centrist Coalition seems to be the dominant player in the category, as many if not the majority of posts found were from this very blog. The bad news is that we're a small fish in a tiny pond.

Here's what I found (excluding posts from Centerfield)

Liberal...err Centrist Radio
From: The Rough Woodsman  December 2, 2003, 11:12 am

A few pieces have been written about the new __liberal__ radio network that many on the left are trying to start. John Rabe and NRO both had some good things to say. This story line from York's NRO article jumped...

Challenging Bush - Lieberman
From: We Are Not Sheep  December 8, 2003, 00:12 am

New York Times: A Centrist, Lieberman Fights for Votes in an Extremist Era Throughout the 1990_s, the Democratic Leadership Council had a goal of challenging the notion that the party was full of liberals. The methodology worked, enabling Democrats

A Centrist, Lieberman Fights for Votes in an Extremist Era
From: David Remer: American Political Headlines  December 8, 2003, 00:12 am

Joe Lieberman, who has built a career across ideological divides, is running at a time when many Democrats appear to have lost the appetite for conciliation. By Janny Scott. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

NYT: A Centrist Fights for Votes in an Extremist Era
From: Election Beat  December 7, 2003, 21:12 pm

It is a quiet Sunday morning in early fall on Franklin Street in Concord, N.H., and Joe Lieberman is being his indefatigably genial self, campaigning door to door __ listening intently to voters, nodding thoughtfully while a herd of...

It's Kottke (Filthy Liberal Centrist Scumbag) vs. Little Green Footballs (Filthy Right-Wing Amerika-First Scumbag) in a battle f
From: plasticbag.org links  December 6, 2003, 08:12 am

It's Kottke (Filthy Liberal Centrist Scumbag) vs. Little Green Footballs (Filthy Right-Wing Amerika-First Scumbag) in a battle for the soul of webloggery. I know which way I'll be voting...

Potpourri :: Poltical Quiz? How Do You Party?
From: Lockergnome Forums: Potpourri  December 6, 2003, 03:12 am

Posted By: SipowiczPosted On: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 07:56:08 GMT QUOTE (Sgt Schultz @ Dec 6 2003, 01:48 PM) Centrist, with Libertarian Tendencies Who would of thought?

Dean The Centrist
From: Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid  December 8, 2003, 09:12 am

As long as he doesn't allow the right to paint him into a box. They're trying, hard. Governor, You're No George McGovern Has Dean mortgaged his future to his far-left supporters? Doubtful. Liberals' enthusiasm for Dean is not necessarily the same thing..

Drawn, quartered
From: One Fine Jay  December 1, 2003, 18:12 pm

Matt plucks the Duck for his foreign policy… lunacy! That_s all I can think of, reading something like this: Dean said that “the president is about to let North Korea become a nuclear power” because of his “petulance”

So I am...
From: unix-boy.com  November 30, 2003, 03:11 am

A Centrist, that is... I used to score much further to one direction, but I see that with gained years, knowledge and wisdom (a neverending process), one probably begins to drift more to the center... ;) You can figure out...

Centrist
From: ShowMeBlog.Com  November 25, 2003, 01:11 am

I took one of those online tests. It was to pick my Political Philosophy. I am not sure how correct those tests are... I think I mess them up some how.. Not sure if i am too honest or...

CREDITTING CARTER
From: DiscountBlogger  November 24, 2003, 15:11 pm

Jon Kay has written an essay over at the Centrist Coalition describing how Carter should have received more credit for the fall of the Soviet Union. Worth the read, even if you don't necessarily agree with all of the points...

I told you guys I was a freakin' fascist.
From: the ramblings of an insane primate...  November 23, 2003, 16:11 pm

So I went exploring and came across a gem...There are some seriously whacked out places to go and discuss things here at lj. I like to watch a few select ones. There are some that I completely disagree with, yet watch to gain an alternative perspective..

After reading some of the debate about whether Hitler was a leftist
From: Rev. Dr. Adam C. Roberts, D.D. (Hon)  November 20, 2003, 15:11 pm

After reading some of the debate about whether Hitler was a leftist or a rightist, I decided to do some research. I usually define myself as an extreme Liberal but a Centrist. Here is what I was able...

Whot dahz eet ole mayeen?
From: If each person knew what others said about him or her...  November 16, 2003, 14:11 pm

According to your answers, your political philosophy is: Centrist. CentristCentrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that...

Setting an Example

You probably heard of the case of the little boy who was disciplined for telling a classmate that his mom is gay, and that being gay is "when a girl likes a girl".

Whether this event happened is a pretty curious controversy. The documents support the ACLU and their version of events, but the school board superintendent of Lafayette Parish denies everything.

Joshua of Foolippic shares some thoughts on the matter. And he has links (via The Volokh Conspiracy) to two documents from the school's disciplinary record:

Student Behavior Contract

School Behavior Report

It isn't all that surprising to me to find a teacher, somewhere, applying their personal morality in this way. It would be surprising if the school superintendent is willing to lie to cover it up.

Teachers make mistakes, like everybody else. Why not just fess up and move on?

Blogging The Numbers: Week 3

Last week, I put up a chart showing the blog posts for the Democratic candidates. This week, I'm focusing on the Republican candidate. Since most posts which mention "George Bush" may not be referring to the 2004 election, I've searched Feedster with some other terms which may more specifically reflect interest in the Republican campaign.

Clearly, "Bush-Cheney" is the preferred verbiage of the official campaign, but those who aren't paid to blog tend to drop Cheney. I suspect many of the mentions are Karl Rove are not in a positive vein, but I have no good way to automatically assess content. Unlike last week, I don't include a "grassroots blog" category, because, while there are Blogs For Bush, most of the blogs I'm picking up with Bush in their name, like Expats Against Bush, actually oppose him.

Week 3 of the Democrats numbers can be found on Blogging of the President:2004.

Medicare Drug Bill Suprises

I can hear what you're thinking already...oh, no, another rant about the Medicare Drug bill! Well, yes. More precisely, a rant about a little clause therein that no one bothered to mention (or want noticed) before President Bush signs it Monday Dec. 8, and the bill becomes law.

You've already heard about the billions in subsidies for drug companies, insurance companies, and big business that make up about half the spending in this $400 billion monstrosity, including the fact that it will likely cost much more than the claimed $400 billion. Indeed, that estimate has already increased to $436 billion in the last two months. You've already heard about the prohibition on re-importing drugs into the U.S. from Canada, something that will boost prices for all drug consumers, not just the seniors who will get benefits under the new plan, and pour billions of dollars more into the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. You may have even noticed that there's something not exactly just about all the taxes on working families required to pay for Medicare, many of whom can not afford any health insurance at all, an amount estimated to rise to as much as $4,000/yr per household under this massive unfunded behemoth.

But what seniors, the purported winners in this typically Rube Goldberg monstrosity of a pork barrel, have not yet noticed is that the new legislation that is supposed to ease their problems with high drug prices may do the exact opposite, locking them out of any alternatives. You see, not only does the bill provide a benefit with a big hole in the coverage, a hole that will grow with inflation indexing, it also prohibits seniors from buying any outside drug coverage at all to fill those gaps in the new benefit.

As reported today in the New York Times, the New Medicare Bill Bars Extra Insurance for Drugs. If you're already covered by an employer retiree policy, those expenditures don't count towards the $3600/yr deductible in the new plan. And if the drugs you're using are not part of the Medicare formulary of approved drugs, your spending on those drugs won't count towards that deductible either. So no matter what, in the complicated rules of the new plan, of the first $5,100 in annual drug expenses the patient is responsible for $3,600, period, an amount which can't be reduced by using outside coverage of any sort, and which must be spent on "approved" drugs before Medicare starts picking up 95% of the tab. So get used to generics at full "manufacturer's suggested retal price," Grandma, and don't hold your breath waiting on formulary approval of those cutting-edge drugs that the drug companies claim they must have oodles of cash to develop. Oh, they'll get the cash--the bill pretty much gaurantees them record profits--but it may take years for any of those new drugs to find their way into the Medicare formulary.

To make things even "better," low-income seniors eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare would have to obtain their drugs through Medicare, which has a more restrictive formulary offering fewer approved drugs. States will be generally prohibited from supplementing Medicare drug coverage with Medicaid drug coverage. And states will not get the discounts and rebates they now receive from manufacturers under Medicaid. So costs for state Medicaid programs will rise as well, something you won't find in the glowing reports from