Centerfield

Open Thread For Presidential Debate

Here's where to discuss the Bush-Kerry debate.

Which Allies?

A new blog called American Future discusses John Kerry's proposal to bring in allies to help us in Iraq. Marc Schulman observes that France has already stated it does not want to play ball under any circumstances, nor is Germany likely to get on board.

I'm not sure why there is so much focus on those two countries, as if their help is essential. Germany's influence is the Middle East is virtually nil, and France's major card is it's UN Security Council veto. The key alliances were need to rebuild are with Russia, which does have residual influence in the Middle East, and is involved with the Iranian nuclear program, and Arab countries.

Indeed, I do believe the best way in the long run for American troops to get out of Iraq is to turn over policing responsibilities to the Arab League. We do have the military power to continue to occupy Iraq, but we do not seem to have the political power to win Iraqi loyalties long enough for us to train an effective Iraqi army. Replacing American units with units from countries like Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt might be a way of allowing the transition to proceed to an all-Iraqi force.

On this day in History...

....66 years ago, Neville Chamberlin proclaimed "peace for our time."

49 years ago, James Dean died in a car wreck.

Kerry's Big Chance

Kevin Drum links to an interesting story in the LA Times today regarding first debate bounces. In 1960, 1980, and 2000, the candidate trailing before the first debate pulled ahead in the first Gallup Poll afterward and went on to win the election. The most significant first debate bounce came in 2000: 15 points for Bush. Wow.

Eminent Domain Update

Down below I started a thread on eminent domain, and I wanted to post an update by including a litle more info I gleaned from Abusing Eminent Domain by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. (For you scorekeepers, yup, Jacoby leans pretty far to the right. I don't always agree with him, but I do here, unless he's making up the facts, which I don't think he is.)

The story starter about the Supreme Court's decision to review eminent domain is here.

The relevant additional info that I hadn't been aware of is that the exact phrasing in the Constitution talks about taking land for public use, not simply public good. It was a later decision in 1954 that expanded the practice by inferring that public use implied public purpose. Regardless of the merits, it sure seems that this precedent took us from a concrete understanding to a much more amorphous one, and subsequent to this, governments have tended towards not being especially worried about taking people's land as long as felt they had a decent rationale. I'm not a strict constructionist, but it seems to me that taking land should be harder to do, especially if it ends up in the hands of other private owners.

Generally, I think that if you own land and someone else wants it but you don't want to sell it, as long as it is in reasonable repair and you are getting what you want out of it, you should be well within your rights to tell those other interested parties "tough sh!t, it's mine!" The only time I can see making exceptions is when the public need is clear, urgent, and can't be fulfilled via other reasonable alternatives.

Raze Spin Alley

Hat Tip to Jeff Jarvis for pointing out Jay Rosen's Raze Spin Alley, which suggests journalists eschew current debate and post-debate coverage practices. It won't save the debates, which should be changed to something much closer to "lock these guys in a room" but at least it's a start.

The idea I liked the best was "make all the pundits and partisans shut up and let someone else have a crack at it." I'd love it if the media or some bi-partisan group randomly selected a group of undecided voters to watch, and gave each of them a chance ahead of time to say what they wanted the candidates to show them. Then afterward, they could each answer a few questions and say how they felt about what occurred.

IMO, the coverage needs to change. As is, it's a largely pointless ritual pageant, as Rosen stresses.

Balanced Budget Amendment Dropped

Efforts to consider a balanced budget amendment in Congress last week were treated as a joke, and dropped

Deficit hawks were amazed that the GOP even tried, after Congress had squandered a $236 billion surplus recorded in 2000. Since 2001, overall government spending has risen 23 percent. Defense spending at Congress's discretion has increased 48 percent, while non-defense spending has jumped 27 percent.

Who determines the debate winner?

Howard Kurtz, appearing on CNN with Judy Woodruff, reminds us that public perceptions depend on what the [friggin librul!] media decide to focus on:

[JUDY] WOODRUFF: When George W. Bush and John Kerry meet for their first presidential debate this Thursday night, how they perform will matter, of course. But so will the news media's coverage of what they said and how they said it. ... What about the expectations that the media plays a role in getting out there?

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well, of course, all of America is waiting to see what you and Wolf have to say after the debate, Judy.

But more important, perhaps, is that people underestimate the role of the press, because what sound bites are we playing over and over again after the debate, what various pundits and commentators and pontificators have to say, what controversies reporters focus on in terms of any misstatements or exaggerations or charges and countercharges and the spin of the campaigns themselves, as trumpeted in the media.

All that in the 48 hours after the debate help shape our perceptions about who won, who lost and who didn't do so well.

WOODRUFF: So it's -- it's mainly, you're saying, what the media does and says after and not so much any expectations? Because both of these candidates are obviously busily lowering expectations for their own candidate.

KURTZ: I think people are pretty sophisticated these days, and they can probably see through these games of everybody saying that the other guy is the greatest debater since Cicero.

But what I think is important, and the classic example of this was four years ago in the first Bush-Gore debate. The instant polls showed a lot of people thought that Vice President Gore had won.

But the Bush team did a very skillful job of turning into a controversy, which the press then vacuumed up, various misstatements, rather minor in retrospect, that Gore had made. And that changed the whole story line to Gore had exaggerated to the point that he had to actually apologize in the second debate.

So the role of the press here is crucial, because the debate doesn't end when the candidates walk off that stage in Coral Gables.

WOODRUFF: But now you've got the campaigns very aware of this media role after the debate, and they're working hard to shape the media impression, aren't they?

KURTZ: They're absolutely going to be working the referees. I've been in these rooms during the debate. You often have campaign aides come out and distribute fact sheets, challenging what somebody said five minutes ago. It all happens in real time now. It happens on the Internet.

But I still think that the role of journalists, not just in scoring it as if they were theater critics, or to change metaphors, you know, covering some kind of boxing match.

But what are the controversies that are going to be in the second day headlines? What would you be covering the day after the debates and the day after that?

That is going to have a lasting impact as such as the people watching. And keep in mind a lot of people don't necessarily sit through all 90 minutes. They may dip in and out, and so the press coverage is going to influence their view of who was able to score points and who was able to get their issues out.

I think some of the public are becoming more and more aware of how the media chosen image, repeated over and over, contributes to our lasting impressions of this type of event.

Crashing The Parties

There's a PBS special tonight on Third Party presidential candidates, including punditry from Jesse Ventura, Micah Sifry, and James Taranto.

You may recall that I invited Jesse Ventura to blog for Centerfield when I saw him some months ago. He explained that he was just learning to type, and didn't have email down, and therefore was not prepared to step up to blogging.

WHO NEEDS TO GET ELECTED IF YOU'RE ALREADY THE KING?

by Angela Winters

With Bill Clinton being the rock star of the Democratic party, it wasn't likely anyone would get the play he did during the convention, but the coming out of Barack Obama the following night did what Democrats were hoping. Obama had them thinking about the future instead of wishing the past would return.

Clinton in 08 aside, Obama gave the Democratic party a vision of a leader that could be strong, honest and hard for the other side to denegrate. He's beyond popular; he's adored and it isn't just the left that is eager to see him on the national stage. The independents (and a few republicans in IL after feeling they have no choice) like him too. When was the last time a state legislature could say that?

There is always the fear that the beltway monster will destroy their dreams. Washington has defeated the most promising of promisers, but it isn't likely. Most critics (this one included) suggested that Barack is the new girl at school that everyone loves because they don't know anything about her. They just know she looks good, she sounds good and in a sea of undesirables, they want her to be all they wish her to be.

Style over substance? That question was answered when we heard his life story. Leadership in person and not just on paper? The DNC Convention answered that one. How he lifted himself up, how he stood by his principles and how he has represented the state of Illinois, black Americans and Americans in general has left little doubt.

Whether or not he could actually win the seat was never really in question, but there is always that fear that the more he offered the public, the more he offered his attackers. Not so, and as David Mendell of the Chicago Tribune suggests, the Democratic party has enough confidence to take him on the road and present the as yet unelected Senator as the party favor for all.

Obama takes show on road

Worse Than Vietnam?

I just caught these remarks from a Fox interview with diplomat Richard Holbrooke, whom I have great respect for (via NDN blog)

I spent three years of my life in Vietnam, Chris -- strategically and politically, the situation in Iraq is worse than it ever was in Vietnam. You can't walk the streets of the cities safely; you could in Vietnam.

Holbrooke is a leading candidate for Secretary of State in a Kerry Administration, and is of course speaking as a surrogate for the campaign. But he makes an interesting point. Saigon was unsafe during the Tet Offensive of course, but apparently okay otherwise. We did have a constituency of supporters among the South Vietnamese--many of whom ended up as exiles in the United States. I don't know if there were ever opinion polls carried out among the South Vietnamese population, but there was probably less of a cultural gap between Americans and the Vietnamese, many of whom were Catholic, than between Americans and Iraqis.

The main strategic difference is that in Vietnam, the Communists had sanctuaries in the North, and a superpower sponsor in the Soviet Union. These are big differences in terms of the long term sustainability of our effort. We probably can stay in Iraq forever, if we want to.

The O'Centrist Factor

Shot In The Dark is not happy to discover that Bill O'Reilly has centrist inclinations. On 60 Minutes,

He said he is pro-gun control, against the death penalty, for civil unions and for gay adoption (as a last resort instead of state custody). And O'Reilly said he's not necessarily voting for President Bush this November.

"I've known (Democratic presidential nominee John) Kerry for 25 years. He's a patriot. I'm listening to what he has to say," he tells Wallace.

I frequently listen to the Radio Factor, and it's evident to me that O'Reilly is a center-right swing voter. Bashing him may be good for the careers of some liberal pundits, but his listeners (he's up against Limbaugh on radio, so he doesn't get the real dittoheads) are exactly the people Democrats need to attract to regain their majority status.

If Bush pulls away as he threatens to do, I expect O'Reilly will follow. But if Kerry closes on Bush, it's possible that O'Reilly could swing his way--and claim to be the kingmaker if Kerry wins.

The religious agenda

William McKenzie has an interesting column in the mostly conservative Dallas Morning News about a recent study of religious attitudes. Very short form:

COMPASSION'S IN – No matter whether it's evangelicals, mainline Protestants, black churchgoers, Catholics or Jews, the majority of religious Americans believe government should do more to help the disadvantaged. More than 50 percent of each group said so.

...
FORGET THE CULTURE WAR – Gay rights. Abortion. Stem cells. They're our big worries, right?

Wrong. The economy and welfare issues are the top concerns of evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Latino and black Protestants, Catholics, Latino Catholics, Jews and other faiths, including Muslims.
...
GREEN MATTERS – Almost every major religious group supports more environmental regulation, and the percentage who feel this way has grown since the 2000 campaign. Conservative evangelicals. Mainline Protestants. Catholic traditionalists. They all want less pollution – and are willing for the government to do something about it.
...
THEY BELIEVE IN A SHINING CITY ON A HILL – Neoconservatives like The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Pentagon Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz should like the fact that the majority of every religious group, except Latino Protestants, think America has a special role in the world.
...
BUT ALLIES MATTER – Before the neocons swoon too much, they should consider another finding: Every religious group wants the U.S. to cooperate with international organizations. Mr. Bush and neocons tend to deride John Kerry and those who focus on enlisting allies in our global work. But that's not the way religious groups see it. They want us to work with others in leading the world.

Volokh Challenge

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy is inviting the blogosphere to give their take on Iraq pursuant to three questions they pose. I'm game:

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

Everyone is welcome to have a crack. if you want to do so, email Kerr. Or do your own post. That way we can avoid re-fighting once again all these ideas in one blog post. My answers are in the extended entry part so as not to hog the floor. I'd like to reserve the comments for responses immediately pursuant to what I say here, insofar as that is possible. I know many of you think it's not. Still.

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

First, to answer: My take is that Bush's decision was a big gamble, and that gambles are percentage plays, based on subjective judgements in this case. A gamble is a good one if you win. I support the gamble now because I REALLY don't want to lose. The outcome now is much more important than the decision, because all options were gambles.

I wasn't in favor of pursuing this course agressively both because I suspected Iraq was less of a top threat than they were being characterized as, and because I felt the prospects for success were pretty low even with a united international effort. ANY nation-building effort in the middle east was always going to be a long uncertain uphill climb, especially an effort to build a democratic nation from fractious muslims unused to and unconvinced of the merits of modern democratic ideals. The President was in a position where he had to decide whether there was greater risk to trying to do it anyway, or greater risk if we instead chose to stay out and try to effect change through negotiation. His decision was to try nation-building despite his doubts, and to go about it by signalling to the world how very serious we were by moving quickly and agressively.

I think it's fair to say that the measured, proportionate response that careful moderate people can be relied upon to advocate was judged in this instance by Bush to be inadequate for the circumstances. In my view, this is an arguable but very defensible way to have gone.

And I think it's important when discussing it to realize that the decisionmaker did not have the benefit of the hindsight that critics often rely on to make their case that the decision was obviously wrong. When I take that into account, I am inclined to give the President substantial benefit of the doubt. Especially if I don't go on to assume facts not in evidence, like the charge that we were all misled deliberately.

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

My take continues to be that it's extremely hard to get a handle on the situation in its entirety. Violence seems to be up, but we don't know for sure if it's a trend, whether it can be sustained, or whether instead if it's a stepped up effort reflecting a strategy to destabilize Iraq before it's too late. Recognizing this, I think we still need to keep a united front committed to giving democracy in Iraq its best chance, unless we are absolutely certain the game is up.

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

I continue to assume that our true goal is to establish an independent democratic Iraq and not terrorist flypaper. My sense is that the possibility of success in Iraq rests in very large part of continued pragmatic tolerance of our presence by a majority of Iraqis. So we need to keep a close eye on that. To sustain pragmatic tolerance, we need to provide security, basic needs, predictability and opportunity. If we fail, the Iraqis will tell us. And we need to see how elections go, how infrastructure is rebuilt, how commerce grows, and so on. Notice that the things I am talking about are the same things that politicians here argue and worry about: public opinion, violence, the economy, jobs, consumer confidence, gov't responsiveness to the peoples needs and feelings.

What Will The Supremes Sing?

The Supreme Cour will hear an important property rights case regarding eminent domain. The case concerns the nature of when a state may claim another's property by eminent domain, and in this case, the taking was done to further economic development.

My sense is that economic development is not a good enough reason. I can see doing so if it's the only good place for a bridge or highway etc or if the entire area is a total dump. But economic development just isn't good enough. Property rights are pretty meaningless if the govt. can take them away just because they'd like something else better there than what you have.

Iraq, as seen by Iraqis

James Robbins of NRO makes the interesting point that Iraqis are more positive about the direction their country is going than Americans are about America.

The point is that if we are going to have a public discussion of how the war is going or whether we should be optimistic about the future of Iraq (and I think we should be), our views should be based on something more substantial than off-the-cuff remarks by political spokesmen. It is understandable that news coverage will focus on violence, and administration critics will spin events as negatively as possible. But if solid majorities of Iraqis believe conditions are improving, I think we should take them at their word. They have a better grip on their own reality than we do.

In today's Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius has an interesting editorial regarding how the actions of Islamic terrorists are causing fragmentation within Islam.

Ignatius notes that this idea is being put forth by a French Arabist named Gilles Kepel. As evidence of fragmentation within Islam, Kepel points to several political shifts that he indicates are a backlash to the actions of terrorists, but I don't think we are seeing a widespread fragmentation among the masses in the Middle East. Your thoughts?

James Fallows, in The Atlantic Monthly, has an article entitled "Bush's Lost Year" in which he argues, based on interviews with "national security professionals" that the Administration has essentially blown the WOT by focusing on Iraq and ignoring Afghanistan. He argues that we are less safe than we were before the the Iraq War. The site is at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200410/fallows However, since you need a subscription to access it on line, I have excerpted fairly extensively from the article. Personally, I find it rather disturbing

Among national-security professionals there is surprisingly little controversy. Except for those in government and in the opinion industries whose job it is to defend the Administration's record, they tend to see America's response to 9/11 as a catastrophe. But about the conduct and effect of the war in Iraq one view prevails: it has increased the threats America faces, and has reduced the military, financial, and diplomatic tools with which we can respond.

The United States succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein, but at this cost: The first front in the war on terror, Afghanistan, was left to fester, as attention and money were drained toward Iraq. This in turn left more havens in Afghanistan in which terrorist groups could reconstitute themselves; a resurgent opium-poppy economy to finance them; and more of the disorder and brutality the United States had hoped to eliminate. Whether or not the strong international alliance that began the assault on the Taliban might have brought real order to Afghanistan is impossible to say. It never had the chance, because America's premature withdrawal soon fractured the alliance and curtailed postwar reconstruction. Indeed, the campaign in Afghanistan was warped and limited from the start, by a pre-existing desire to save troops for Iraq.

A full inventory of the costs of war in Iraq goes on. President Bush began 2002 with a warning that North Korea and Iran, not just Iraq, threatened the world because of the nuclear weapons they were developing. Because it lost time and squandered resources, the United States now has no good options for dealing with either country. It has fewer deployable soldiers and weapons; it has less international leverage through the "soft power" of its alliances and treaties; it even has worse intelligence, because so many resources are directed toward Iraq.

"Had we seen Afghanistan as anything other than a sideshow," says Larry Goodson, a scholar at the Army War College who spent much of 2002 in Afghanistan, "we could have stepped up both the economic and security presence much more quickly than we did. Had Iraq not been what we were ginning up for in 2002, when the security situation in Afghanistan was collapsing, we might have come much more quickly to the peacekeeping and 'nation-building' strategy we're beginning to employ now." Iraq, of course, was what we were ginning up for, and the effects on Afghanistan were more important, if subtler, than has generally been discussed.

The Administration later placed great emphasis on making Iraq a showcase of Islamic progress: a society that, once freed from tyranny, would demonstrate steady advancement toward civil order, economic improvement, and, ultimately, democracy. Although Afghanistan is a far wilder, poorer country, it might have provided a better showcase, and sooner. There was no controversy about America's involvement; the rest of the world was ready to provide aid; if it wasn't going to become rich, it could become demonstrably less poor. The amount of money and manpower sufficient to transform Afghanistan would have been a tiny fraction of what America decided to commit in Iraq. But the opportunity was missed, and Afghanistan began a descent to its pre-Taliban warlord state.

How will history judge this period, in terms of the opportunity costs of invading Iraq?" said John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, when we spoke. "I think the opportunity cost is going to be North Korea and Iran. I mean, in 2002 it became obvious that Iran has a full-blown nuclear-weapons program under way, no ifs or buts. For the next eighteen months or so, before it's running, we have the opportunity to blow it up. But this Iraq adventure will give blowing up your enemies a bad name. The concern now has to be that the 'Iraq syndrome' will make us flinch from blowing up people who really need to be blown up."

President Bush's first major speech after 9/11, on September 20, 2001, was one of the outstanding addresses given by a modern President. But it introduced a destructive concept that Bush used more and more insistently through 2002. "Why do they hate us?" he asked about the terrorists. He answered that they hate what is best in us: "They hate what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government … They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." As he boiled down this thought in subsequent comments it became "They hate us for who we are" and "They hate us because we are free."
There may be people who have studied, fought against, or tried to infiltrate al-Qaeda and who agree with Bush's statement. But I have never met any. The soldiers, spies, academics, and diplomats I have interviewed are unanimous in saying that "They hate us for who we are" is dangerous claptrap. Dangerous because it is so lazily self-justifying and self-deluding: the only thing we could possibly be doing wrong is being so excellent. Claptrap because it reflects so little knowledge of how Islamic extremism has evolved.

"There are very few people in the world who are going to kill themselves so we can't vote in the Iowa caucuses," Michael Scheuer said to me. "But there's a lot of them who are willing to die because we're helping the Israelis, or because we're helping Putin against the Chechens, or because we keep oil prices low so Muslims lose money." Jeffrey Record said, "Clearly they do not like American society. They think it's far too libertine, democratic, Christian. But that's not the reason they attack us. If it were, they would have attacked a lot of other Western countries too. I don't notice them putting bombs in Norway. It's a combination of who we are and also our behavior."

I have some problem that the article relies to some extent on anonymous sources, but I think this is an argument that won't or shouldn't go away.

Which States Are Feeding Well?

So which states get the most federal money per tax dollar gone south? These results from the Tax Foundation may surprise you. Hat tip to FARK.

New Centrist Blog - Politopics

Welcome Politopics, which offers "Centrist Political Commentary From An African-American Perspective." You'll find that Angela Winters has a very pleasant narrative voice.

Released Guantanamo Prisoner Killed in Afghanistan

Geopolitical Review has noticed an AP story reporting that a Taliban commander who'd been interned at Guantanamo, and then released, returned to Afghanistan where he has been killed in action against Afghan government forces.

This should be a big deal. It seems like we're alternating between treating prisoners harshly, and then releasing them. Shouldn't we just keep them locked up in humane conditions until we've destroyed Al Qaeda?

Blogger Cover Story In NY Times Magazine

The NY TImes Magazine cover story on bloggers.

It's almost as though, in a time of great national discord, you don't want to know both sides of an issue. The once-soothing voice of the nonideological press has become, to many readers, a secondary concern, a luxury, even something suspect. It's hard to listen to a calm and rational debate when the building is burning and your pants are smoking.

But at the same time that blogs have moved away from the political center, they have become increasingly influential in the campaigns -- James P. Rubin, John Kerry's foreign-policy adviser, told me, ''They're the first thing I read when I get up in the morning and the last thing I read at night.''

The Two Wings Of America

Philocrites discusses a column by novelist Roland Merullo comparing liberals and conservatives. Merullo, who speaks with a wicked Boston accent (I've attending a reading of his) writes

At their essence, conservatives are on guard, bristling, armed with a righteous anger, prone to mockery of their enemies, sure of themselves, unwilling to criticize America, especially by comparing it to anyplace else. The attacks of Sept. 11 only confirmed their world view: We are constantly at risk.

Liberals are mannered, sensitive, armed with intellectual cynicism, self-critical, eager to learn from other cultures, wanting there to be no pain in the world. The attacks made them sad and angry, too, but their reflex was more pensive than vengeful.

Philcrites comments:

If he were characterizing pundits, he'd be comparing apples to oranges. (Rush Lumbaugh vs. Hendrik Hertzberg? What about Fareed Zakaria vs. Michael Moore?) But he's trying to explain the cultural differences between conservatives and liberals more broadly, and that's where his contrast seems off the rails. If I'm related to more than four liberals on the entire Mormon side of my family — upwards of sixty first cousins! — I'd be amazed. (I think I know maybe a half-dozen conservative Democrats among them.) But Merullo's characterization doesn't fit them. They're conservative and deeply religious, too; we disagree on many things; but "bristling" and "prone to mockery" they're not. I respect them, and I think the ones who know me best respect me, too. Meanwhile, living in Cambridge and knowing a very large number of Unitarian Universalists and various lefty folks, I can attest that not every liberal is "mannered," "self-critical," or "pensive." If only. Some of them entertain the most remarkable conspiracy theories you've ever heard.

There's a lot of anger to go around, from both liberals and conservatives, so Merullo's portrayal of "mannered, sensitive" liberals falls flat. I think at the highest intellectual levels, Merullo's portrayal may have some merit. But most people on either side of the political spectrum are followers, and true believers in their side.

On the lighter side

- Larry David: "Are You Undecided? Or Not?" (here)
- Zych for President: "I will abolish the tyranny of alphabetical order" (here)
- "O'REILLY: Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch [the Daily Show]." (here)
- "Taiwanese told to sacrifice tea for weapons" (here)

Abortion Swings Voters

Mike McCurry, whom I interviewed at the DNC, has joined the Kerry campaign. According to Slate,

McCurry would like Kerry to talk more about abortion, about how he struggles with it because of his Catholic faith. He thinks Kerry needs to come up with a "safe, legal, and rare"-type formula that assures anti-abortion swing voters that he understands their moral concerns and isn't dismissive of them.

This is a key swing constituency. There are many voters whose economic interests lie with the Democrats, but their religious faith seems incompatible with the apparent secularism of the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party is to regain majority status, it may need to give a little bit on the abortion issue. As regards inclusivity of varying views on abortion, the tent is larger on the Republican side.
(via Theoblogical)

Open Thread

What's on your mind? Nothing is off-topic

This Is McCarthyism

The new effort by Republicans, such as Vice President Cheney, is to portray John Kerry as a traitor for not supporting the President's policys in Iraq, which is the latest development of his long line of treason stemming back to the Vietnam Era.

"I must say I was appalled at the complete lack of respect Senator Kerry showed for this man of courage, when he rushed to hold a press conference and attack the prime minister, a man America must stand beside to defeat the terrorists," Cheney told several thousand supporters.

"John Kerry is trying to tear down all the good that has been accomplished, and his words are destructive to our effort in Iraq and in the global war on terror," Cheney said. "As Prime Minister Allawi said in his speech, and I quote, 'When political leaders sound the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence.' End quote."

Joe McCarthy undermined the anti-Communist cause by making wild and inaccurate charges to advance his political career. The result of his irresponsibility is that until the archives of the Soviet Union were opened in the 1990's, many liberals were in denial about real spys like Julius Rosenberg and Alger Hiss. The Republicans of today seem to be indulging in the same sort of rhetoric, denying the opposition party its right to oppose, and charging it with treason.

More on E-vote - President chosen by a software bug? - or - May the Best Hacker Win!

At this moment, I believe that there is a very serious chance of the Presidential election being chosen by either a computer bug or deliberate hacking. I believe that there is a 99.9% chance of districts being obviously wrong in a jurisdiction that doesn't have vote counting mechanisms alternate to evoting machines (that's already happened). I believe that evote vendors probably literally have thousands of bugs (see below for analysis).

Why are things this bad? As I said here , it boils down to lack of results accuracy checking. Even with hanging chads, we knew the error was likely at worst 5%, because that's the high usual error rate for punch ballots. Because there is no checking of evote machine results against any other tallies or results, there is absolutely no limit on how mistaken the machine can be. It could be 100% off, and we could't know that. In fact, even if the vote comes out obviously flawed - 120% for Bush or 100% for Kerry, there is no backup mechanism other than a revote.

There are at least two sources of possible error: deliberate hacking and software bugs. Without a detection mechanism, it's hard to put a limit on what either of these mechanisms might do. Either a hacker or even one bug is certainly capable of completely changing the direction all jurisdictions using a particular kind of machine go in the vote tally.

I'm not sure I can assign an overall likelihood of hacking, except to note that it's a pretty tempting target, and an easier one than the vendors say it is ( more here) . Now, bugs I know well. The e-vote vendors very likely have at least thousands of bugs; the secretive testing process evote vendors have is likely to have only taken them down to at best 1 bug per 100 lines of software source code, and they probably have at least hundreds of thousands of lines of source code. They may well have more, since new software starts at about 1 bug per 10 lines. Most bugs are fairly harmless, but there are many severe bugs in any product of any complexity, especially in new products like evote machines.

So how about that "serious chance" of the election being changed? Well, because the election appears to be close, it looks like it'll take relatively few ballots to change this one. My gut (from dealing with many large, buggy computer systems over the years, and from reading articles about major failures and poor testing levels - bad tests generally mean lots of bugs) thinks that there is a 2/3 chance of there being bugs or hacks big enough to affect a larger fraction of ballots than the margins of victory in swing states. And, of course, it could go to the guy who should win or the guy who should lose, taking the chance of a change down to 1/3. Of course, that's a WAG. The thousands of bugs bit is rather better-founded.

I tell you, Bush and Kerry should be out working machine rooms, canvassing the computer vote.

Allawi's Speech and Kerry's Reaction

Today further convinced me that Kerry faces a huge competitive disadvantage in this race. I say that in large part based on the fact that Kerry seems to have accepted the fact that Iraq will be the issue that decides the election.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi gave a speech to a joint session of Congress today. The speech emphasized gratitude and optimism. Assuming for the sake of this post that Allawi's stated optimism was to at least some extent exaggerated, what can Kerry say? "Allawi is right" is not a good option, politically. So, instead, we get this: "Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic."

It looks to me like Kerry is cornered. There is almost nothing that he can say about Iraq that will not lose him as many votes as he gains in the process. A "more troops, fix the mess" message would sap energy from the base. A "cut our losses approach" would deter swing voters. An "I will do better" argument is just too vague. We may be approaching "checkmate."

Reining in the Drug Companies

This article in The New Republic www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040927&s=rothman092704

suggests how a Kerry Administration might be different from a Bush Administration. The gist of the story (or the book that it is reviewing)is that the pharmaceutical companies are using their power and influence in the Administration to maintain high drug prices, while at the same time doing little innovation to justify the high prices:

Not much should be expected of the FDA. It has increasingly bent to political control, responding almost reflexively to Bush-administration directives. The FDA has been fighting vigorously to prevent the re-importation of drugs from Canada on the really frivolous ground that it could not guarantee product safety. (As one wag asked, where are the graves in Canada?) The agency has denied Vermont the right to establish its pilot drug-distribution plan with a Canadian company. In August the state's governor and attorney general announced that they are suing to get the decision reversed. So, too, the FDA did not allow the morning-after pill to be sold over the counter, despite the recommendation of its advisory board. And The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front-page story recounting how the FDA caved in to the complaints of a medical-device maker and removed from its website an article that raised questions about the safety of the company's product.

There are bills in the congressional hopper that would better serve the citizenry: both the House and the Senate have bills that would allow the re-importation of drugs from Canada, where they are substantially less expensive, and John Kerry is trying to make this a campaign issue. Yet it is doubtful that reform will ever make it to the floor, and be passed by both houses, and be signed by this presidentIt seems to me that this is one of the ways Kerry should be differentiating himself from Bush. The drug companies are not popular and the Administration has been working to block plans to reimport drugs from Canada and to allow the government to negotiate lower prices.

Many say that the Bush Administration is moderate because of all the spending legislation that it has pushed, e.g., the prescription drug plan. But it seems to me that much of this legislation has been designed to forestall more far reaching reforms.

Women Voters and Security Issues

In 2000, Gore beat Bush by 11 points among women. It appears that things may be different this year:

In the last few weeks, Kerry campaign officials have been nervously eyeing polls that show an erosion of the senator's support among women, one of the Democratic Party's most reliable constituencies. In a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted last week, women who are registered to vote were more likely to say they would vote on the day they were polled for Bush than for Kerry, with 48 percent favoring Bush and 43 percent favoring Kerry.

In 2000, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, the Democrat, while 43 percent voted for Bush.

Democratic and Republican pollsters say the reason this is happening is that an issue that Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message -- which candidate would be best able to protect America from terrorists -- has become a particularly compelling one to women.

Several said that a confluence of two events, a convention that was loaded with provocative scenes of the Sept. 11 tragedy and a terrorist attack on children in Russia, has recast the electoral dynamic among this critical group in a way that has created a new challenge for the Kerry camp.

Sun Microsystems does the Darth Maul

This is a bit of an experiment, as this post is about a big computer company rather than politics. Let me know if you think this is a waste of space, and I won't repeat it.

Sun Microsystems is doomed. After today, I believe that in ten years, it will have been sold for its assets like Digital was a decade ago. The remains of Sun may even prove just as toxic as DEC was to Compaq.

For those who don't know what Sun is, they sell workstations. Twenty years ago, they were the cool new business, newly enabled by the cool new 32-bit microprocessors of the time (Motorola 68k series was what they used). I was in heaven learning Unix and X on their 68010 and 68020 boxen; at one point, I even had my own Sun 3/60 (20MHz MC68020, 8M mem, 144M disk). Sun was deeply innovative from the moment of its founding to, well, when they pursued litation instead of innovation.

But one key to their success is that the PCs of the time were no threat. PCs were slower, and had much less memory and diskspace; they couldn't run anything much more powerful than original DOS, while Sun workstations ran Unix; in fact, all succesful workstations ran much better operating systems than DOS. But that difference has vanished. You can run Unix easily on the cheapest new PCs, in fact, more easily than Windows; for that matter, Microsoft finally has caught up to many of the things Unix workstations had.

Therefore, there's little point to paying extra to buy a workstation at this point. You can easily get a much faster Linux box than Sun workstation, paying less for the Linux box than you do to Sun. Sun still has staying power because there are customers that are still prefer compatibility to cost-effectiveness, and Sun has climbed the server value chain to the high end. But these strategies are both temporary staying measures. PC architectures have powered more cost-efficient and completely practical high-end servers for five years or so.

The reason they did Java was to try and move to a new product area, like Apple did with iTunes recently. Of course, Java was a limited success in the end; it delays, but doesn't end, their problem. Sun still needs to find some kind of business plan with long-term promise if they want to be around much longer.

I read an interesting article on their newest business plan. Here's a summary of what he says the strategy is:

Step No. 1: Make the argument that Linux equals Red Hat. ... Sun's view is that Linux is nothing more than Red Hat. The operating system is not about world peace and the charitable work of the world's great programmers. It's like every other operating system ever created: It's about the foibles, greed, mistakes and engineering prowess (or lack thereof) of one vendor -- in this case, Red Hat.

Step No. 2: Belittle Red Hat. By collapsing Linux into Red Hat, Sun now has a clear target. ... according to Sun, Red Hat is a very vulnerable target -- a company with limited resources, engineering talent, world coverage and capabilities -- with potentially serious intellectual-property issues.

Sometimes FUD works. Even so, this is so not going to work because Linux ISN'T Red Hat, and it's increasingly clear to people outside Sun. Hell, even if they succeed in making Red Hat look bad, that would just be good news for SuSe and Mandrake and the tons of other Linux distros out there. Sun will still be dead man walking. Red Hat provides a minority of Linux resources. But this will hurt Sun by distorting their view of their competition.

Step No. 4: Play up the OS-plus-platform advantage. ... The company is saying that you cannot be a legitimate, long-term player without controlling and harmonising the operating system and the platform.

...everybody knows how horribly Microsoft, Dell and Intel have turned out. This FUD won't make it beyond the press releases.

Step No. 5: Disrupt the market with a new pricing model. Sun wants its server pricing to mirror mobile phone pricing. When you buy a cell phone, you do two things: One, buy the operating system and the phone together; and two, subscribe to mobile services for monthly fees.

Remember, when you copy Red Hat, don't forget to say you're innovating.

Step No. 6: Feature customer choice. Sun ... is offering choice at the high end and at the low end. It is offering not only Solaris but also Linux and Windows for the operating system. And it is finally offering x86 via the Opteron chip from Advanced Micro Devices.

The only good point here, but it won't save them on its own - they need to give people a reason to buy Sun long-term, and the rest of the biz plan is sheer denial on that.

Step No. 7: Feature engineering. Sun is playing an old game here, too: "My tech is better than yours." It is saying that it will out-engineer not only at the operating-system level with Solaris but also on the hardware front. ...

They lost on the hardware front a decade ago. Now they're in crisis; their next-gen high-performance processor design was so buggy they had to can it. They're betting the farm on a somewhat experimental hyperthreading design that's all they have left. The Intel box on my desk already has hyperthreading; Intel's hyperthreading probably isn't as good as Sun's, but Intel is so much faster on single-thread perf, that I can't see how these will be overall faster for anything notable.

Sun still holds a slight advantage on the software front, but it fades with each year. I can't see it lasting before the kinds of resources that go into Linux.

On the x86 front, Sun is saying that Opteron -- AMD's answer to Intel's Itanium -- is superior to what Intel has to offer and that, through its long-term engineering experience, it is going to produce x86 products superior to those of Dell, HP and IBM. ...

AMD Opterons are so good that HP and numerous other vendors're already selling 'em. No Sun advantage here! Worse, it's very hard to get a big advantage in the PC market. It just doesn't happen, especially to giants like Sun, at least not without a much better plan. If they think Dell or other high-end PC vendors kinda slap things together thoughtlessly, they'll fare even worse than Compaq did.

Step No. 8: Feature the Microsoft-Sun deal. The money flowing from Microsoft to Sun will help. But more importantly, watch for Microsoft and Sun to concoct some tough frontal attacks on IBM, their avowed common enemy.

Welcome to the Evil Empire, Sun. Hope you end better than Darth Maul, sacrificed for that scum Attakin, but I wouldn't count on it.

What they need to be doing is continually looking for whole new product categories. Continual innovation. Why did they stop after Java? This plan is just an excuse to sit and yell at IBM and Linux for being so damned innovative and providing so well for their customers.

What is your question?

kos presents a good question:

Be serious for a second. You are at the debates and given the microphone. The whole nation is watching, and the way you ask and phrase your question will reflect on [people who generally think like you].

What would you ask?

Here is my question: "What is the best long-term approach for the United States to take to defeat the threat posed by Islamic facism?"

What is your question?

Progressive Centrism

William Galson has written an interesting piece describing the difficulties Democrats have holding together a coalition of upscale professionals and downscale workers. He concludes:

If Democrats are to become a stable governing majority once again, a new synthesis is surely necessary, and the “progressive centrism” of Judis and Teixeira is perhaps the beginning of wisdom. But speaking as someone who has labored with others of like mind for 15 years to help make progressive centrism the heart of a new majority, I must admit that the terms of a synthesis that is politically as well as intellectually viable are not yet clear. Bill Clinton campaigned, won, and sought to govern on the basis of a program many elements of which enjoyed more support in the country than in his own party. Despite the efforts of Democratic leaders, and the undeniable successes of the Clinton presidency, party renewal remains a work in progress.

Beyond the defense of marriage

Andrew Sullivan notes:

Slowly but surely, the Bush administration is trying to undo the protections that gay government employees gained under Clinton.

Media ethics

Andrew Cline writes:

It's rather easy to accuse Dan [Rather] et. al. of neglecting the fundamentals of reporting because it is so clearly the case. But Dan's a big boy, knows the score, and so I think there's probably something(s) else going on here--yet to be fully understood. At SMS we teach students that the ethical and professional practice of journalism requires a discipline of verification. You don't write what you can't prove.

Unfortunately, that's not the lesson that students see in the news media. Regarding political coverage, they see numerous examples every day in all media in which reporters fail to verify the information they gather--information usually gathered in the form of quotes from sources. They report what's said and leave it for the public to figure out on their own what's true. But figuring it out is what journalism is supposed to be doing for the public.

Because journalists have abandoned this basic practice of the profession, citizens go looking elsewhere for the fact-checking and verification that's so necessary to making informed political decisions. And some of them find it on the internet on weblogs.

Yep...I teach my students the fundamentals. I just hope they can find places to work that will insist they apply them.

Cline is an assistant professor of journalism at Southwest Missouri State University.

Another beheading

Yesterday brought news of the beheading of another American. These people are not only evil, they are stupid. Rising casualties among U.S. military personnel gradually weakens resolve in the United States as people begin to wonder whether we can win this war. Videotaped murder immediately restores resolve as people are reminded how absolutely critical it is that we do.

UPDATE: And another one.

Moral Relativism an Over-rated Trump Card?

This is a good one for the bookmarks, IMO. Eugene Volokh is guest-blogging at GlennReynolds.com, and he takes on what he considers an uncompelling trump card too often used by the right, so-called moral relativism. His conclusion?

I’ll say it again:  I disagree with most liberals on many things.  I think their moral and empirical judgments are often mistaken.  I think they undervalue certain human rights, such as the right to have the tools needed to defend yourself against criminals, and invent human rights that really shouldn’t be seen as human rights, such as the right to be paid some wage.  I think they also undervalue certain social interests and overvalue others.

But that’s what the debate among conservatives, libertarians, and liberals should be about:  Which moral claims are right or wrong, not whether one side is supposedly “morally relativist” or not.

Nearly all of us believe that some actions in some circumstances are immoral (killing, rape, theft), and that all of us are entitled -- either personally or through the legal system -- to impose this morality on others.  Nearly all of us believe that other actions in other circumstances should be matters for private choice.  Nearly all of us recognize that moral rules often require controversial moral distinctions and exceptions.  Let’s not pretend that the other side is in the grip of some methodological fallacy, when they’re really doing the same sort of thing that we are.

Like they say, read the whole thing. And you know what, feed it to others!

Electoral Tweaking Time?

In the wake of 2000 there are a lot more people apoplectic about the electoral college system than in years past. I thought Peter Canellos' Globe article on a Colorado change effort had some interesting tidbits:

Despite its quirks, the Electoral College did not differ from the popular vote for president between 1888 and 2000 -- a 112-year period during which the United States grew from a boisterous federation of states into the world's only superpower.

So despite protestations that the sytem is an artifact and a subversion of the people's will, it's proven fairly robust, and a decent way to compromise in balancing the rights of the smaller states.

Under the current system, 48 states plus the District of Columbia allocate all their electoral votes to the winner of that state or district's popular vote. Meanwhile, two states -- Maine and Nebraska -- give two of their electoral votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of the presidential tally in each congressional district.

It seems to me that Maine and Nebraska might be on to something. I think it's an elegant way to preserve the electoral college compromise honoring smaller states' rights, but still bring retail politics back to the fore. If each state gave some votes to the statewide popular winner, that recognizes the state as important. But giving some portion to congressional districts would make each district matter. There'd be lots more battlegrounds. Lots more involvement. Candidates would not ignore whole states. The problems of the winner-take-all system would be solved.

Of course, we'd have to do something about gerrymandering.

Move On, Dan Rather, Move On, George W. Bush

Remember when MoveOn was founded, to try to move the national conversation on from where it was stalled around the impeachement of Bill Clinton. Well, in these precious waning days of the campaign, I hope we can move on from these distractions.

Dan Rather should take responsibility for his mistakes, and move on from his anchor position.

George W. Bush should be forced to take responsibility for his mistakes with regards to the Iraq War, and move on to the status of ex-President.

Lots of people with better performance records are losing their jobs these days. There's no reason these two guys should have tenure.

Rathergate Is Off-Topic Squared

CBS admits it got it wrong. Who has to go?

The NY Times has the real story of the youthful George W. Bush. His was a careless, privileged youth seemingly out of The Great Gatsby. Still, sometimes a Prince Hal grows up to be a Henry V. The youthful exploits of Bush and Kerry are off-topic compared to the real issues of our day. Rathergate, which is a story about the reporting of that story, is a second order of off-topicality.

Considering the dangerous world we live in, its disheartening that this is the worst election season I've ever seen with regard to having a real discussion of our nations future.

Chaffee may vote for a Republican other than Bush

Here.

Kerry's Iraq Strategy

In a speech today at NYU, Kerry laid out his four-part strategy for Iraq. Here is his summary:

If the President would move in this direction … if he would [1] bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and forces … [2] train the Iraqis to provide their own security …[3] develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people … and [4] take the steps necessary to hold credible elections next year … we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years. . . .

George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do.

The debates are going to be really interesting.

More on Polls & why not to obsess on them

A pair of decent takes on the problem of obsessing about the polls or trying to use them as predictors, from a pair of right-leaning pubs.

First is a Wall Street Journal article on the increasing difficulty of polling in the computer age.

Next is a Washington Times article on the confusion amongst professional politicos with the apparently skewed and inconsistent polls of late.

GOP Majority Safe In House

According to the Washington Post

Analysts say there are fewer than 35 competitive House races this fall, with each party defending 15 to 17 at-risk seats. For Democrats to regain the majority they lost a decade ago, "they would have to win everything in the open seats and hold all their own," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the GOP's House campaign committee. They do not need a breeze, he said, "they need a monsoon."

The Democrats' task is more daunting than Reynolds suggested. They could win all eight of the competitive open seats (Republicans now hold five of those), and reelect each of their endangered incumbents, and still fall well short of the majority. To control the House, Democrats must do all of that, plus topple several GOP incumbents.

This Congress has not been able to keep President Bush on a fiscally responsible path. However, one can be confident that if Kerry is elected, he will not be able to push any hugh spending initiatives (e.g. socialized medicine) though the House. It's likely that a Kerry Administration would be fiscally responsible as a result. Kerry can't say this out loud, but perhaps he could adopt some coded language about anticipating working as a partner with a Congress that will provide tough fiscal oversight.

Dr. Coburn

The GOP Senate candidate in Oklahoma, according to his losing primary opponent:

"He's kind of a cult hero in the conservative portion of our party, not just in Oklahoma," Mr. Humphreys said. "You can't get right of the guy."

Buckhead Identified

The Moderate Voice has excerpts of the LA Times story identifying the Freeper who first raised the charge that the CBS memos were forgeries

It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service — a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

My head is spinning. While entertaining, this ultimately is not important. What's important is the story in Iraq.

So where are the undecideds going?

Semi-weekly update on the electoral projections:

IMO, the number of battleground states showing a small or considerable Bush trend is now too great to dismiss it, but note the most recent Ohio poll shows a tie. So the Bush trend may be transient, and we may be in for a dogfight yet. The newest trend may be a general tightening as much as or moreso than a Bush sway. We'll have to stay tuned, as always.

In watching these state-by-state polls tracking via EC (electoral college) model, I have this vague sense that many of the states numbers are creeping up, in other words, there are more 48-46 numbers instead of 45-43 numbers. But I can't be at all sure of this as the site does not give numeric results for past polls, as far as I can tell at a glance. Has anyone seen any data that is tracking whether the undecided numbers are going down or not, and if so, whether they are breaking one way or the other?

The other idea that strikes me as interesting is the suggestion at electoral-vote.com that the current poll sampling methods may be biased because younger voters are getting underrepresented due to their greater preference for exclusive cell phone usage. Not sure what to make of that, presumedly poll takers are able to construct a representative sample from land line calls, but such a sample would then be assuming that young voters that are accessible via land lines are representative of young voters who have only cell phones. Hmm...anyway, I'm not at all sure that the cell-phone only young voter crowd is disproportionately a Kerry crowd.

What's On Your Mind?

As always, nothing is off topic. Sports guys, I enjoyed this.

What Time is It?

Someone over at Totten named bkw (not me) cited a recent joke by Dennis Miller, that I thought was a good one:

Who was it that came up with the clock analogy? I think it was Dennis Miller:

On a clock, you've got your centrists at 12:00. Your normal, every day folks. As your politics head more and more left, you go to 11, 10, 9, etc. As your politics head more and more right, you go to 1, 2, 3, etc.

But no matter how you get there, by the time you get to 6 o'clock, you're an asshole.

This works for me.

Substance: Iraq

With all the distractions of political gamemanship, the NY Times article about the new and pessimistic, even defeatist prospects in Iraq from the National Intelligence Estimate call for a return to discussion about substance. Republican Senators Lugar and Hagel are highly critical of aspects of the Iraq policy. And for a glimpse of the difficulties our troops face relating to Iraqis, read this interview with a Sunni rebel who once admired the US, but now fights against it, in part it seems because of racial hatred of African-American GI's.

What is to be done? My feeling is that elections should go ahead in January in the areas which are reasonably secure. That's like during the US Civil War. It's not perfect, but delaying the vote means that an even less legitimate leadership is in charge. If the Sunnis are underrepresented, that's their fault.

Dirty Tactics

Carla at Premptive Karma has a post on alleged Republican voter supression efforts, particularly those aimed at African-Americans. If true, it would certainly be immoral and possibly illegal.

Given that the presidential race is shaping up to be the most negative one I've ever seen, I expect both sides will be indulging in dirty tactics, under the rationalization of the ends justifying the means. It seems to me that the Republicans are better at this, with Karl Rove having learned hardball from his participation in the Nixon campaign. But Democrats are motivated to reciprocate, and the allegedly forged documents reported by CBS could be one such attempts.

What dirty tactics have you seen so far? What do you anticipate before this is over?

Tony Coelho

Item.

“There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other,” says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign. . . .

“Our problem here is a national message,” Coelho says. “What is it that we [Democrats] are?"

For Tony Coelho to go public with this rant at this time seems fairly significant to me.

I am so disheartened that, in what I view as the most important election of my lifetime, this is a campaign between two unattractive candidates in which a serious discussion of their respective positions on the most important issues facing the country has been largely lost.

A Different Party?

In the September 6 issue of The New Republic, John Judis writes an article titled “Freed Radicals” in which he argues that the Republican Party has changed substantially since the Reagan Administration and is now much more conservative than it was during the Reagan Administration.

First, he argues that the Reagan party was much more moderate. This he attributes to greater diversity within the party, e.g., Goldwater social libertarians, Bob Dole Old Guard Republicans who supported the New Deal, and some Northeast liberals. As a result, he claims that conservatives and the religious right were largely shut out. Today, he argues that the conservatives and religious right have been absorbed into the policy making machinery and largely run the party.

Second, this diversity was reflected in the Reagan Administration itself but that the White House was dominated by moderates, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and George Shultz. In addition, the Republicans in Congress were led by moderates such as Dole and Howard Baker. Obviously, he contrasts this with today where he asserts Congress and the White House are dominated by extreme conservatives.

Third, the reason for the change from the Reagan party to the Bush party is that the party’s geographical and political base changed with the 1994 election. He claims that Reagan’s party, while based in the Sun Belt and traditional Republican states, also received support from other parts of the country. Now, he claims, the party is much more heavily dependent on the South, which is much more economically and socially conservative than the rest of the country and which not basically controls the party. (In particular, he notes that, in the South, working class and middle class voters are just as anti-government as the upper classes. Judis attributes this to the fact that whites resented paying taxes to fund programs that benefitted blacks.) Judis claims this southern dominance has forced the party much farther to the right and reduced or eliminated moderate or liberal influences from the rest of the country.

Judis argues that the result of this is that the party is dominated by the extreme right. Although he doesn’t say it, I am sure he assumes the presence of Giuliani at the GOP convention was just window dressing. In fact, there is another article in this issue talking about how the party “bought Giuliani off.” As a result, he thinks that the party will ultimately have trouble fashioning a winning electoral coalition.

It should be noted that Judis is highly partisan and wrote a book with Ruy Teixiera predicting that the Democrats would eventually become the majority party again. There are some points in the article that clearly reflect his partisan bias. For example, it’s not clear to me why having the conservatives and religious right shut out of the Reagan Administration means the party was more diverse. Obviously, he doesn’t like the conservatives and the religious right so he approved their exclusion. Also, as someone who grew up in the South, I think he is right about the anti-government feeling that pervades all classes, but I think it’s a little unfair to attribute it just to racism. Also, there is a certain hypocrisy in retrospectively saying the Reagan Administration was moderate; I’m sure Judis was not saying that at the time.

Nevertheless, I think it’s an interesting article and, IMHO, pretty accurate about the state of the current GOP. I suspect, however, that we will have some disagreement on that.

(BTW, I am still having problems linking cites. TNR requires a subscription, but I tried to link and something real weird happened with my post. Obviously, I am doing something wrong, but will keep trying. I have tried to accurately recount the author's key points.)

New Minnesota Poll

The StarTribune published its most recent poll results today: Kerry – 50; Bush - 41.

I don’t doubt that Kerry is ahead here, but I suspect that this poll exaggerates his lead. Gore beat Bush by only 2.4 percent in 2000, and I think that the state has, if anything, trended Republican since then. The most recent Rasmussen poll gives Kerry a four point lead in Minnesota, and the most recent St. Paul Pioneer Press Poll published in July gave Kerry a one point lead. The average of the three polls is Kerry 48, Bush 43, which seems about right to me.

UPDATE: More evidence that the StarTribune poll is not accurate: "USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll Shows Bush and Kerry in Dead Heat in Minnesota"

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Pioneer Press today: Bush 46, Kerry 44.

Not all polling data is the same

Ruy Teixeira, author of The Emerging Democratic Majority (2002), posts a very good discussion of the different ways poll results are reported, focusing on likely voter (LV) versus registered voter (RV) results and weighting by party identification. His summary of the presidential race at the moment:

In short, these LV figures, especially from Gallup, are contributing mightily to the impression that Bush has built a substantial lead and is even surging ahead in some of the key swing states. But, as we have seen, these LV data are fundamentally inappropriate for measuring the state of the race, and how it is changing, this far ahead of election day. For that, you need the RV data and they suggest something far different: the race is damn close and Bush's substantial lead is a myth.

See the full text for his reasoning. Obviously, his assessment suggests that neither side should either give up or claim victory at the moment.

(Note due to objections to my previous linking to a partisan site: Readers who believe that having a partisan affiliation -- as Teixeira does -- translates into the inability to express a rational thought are encouraged to simply ignore this post!)

In a subsequent post, Teixeira responds to reader comments.

Trackback Fixed

I guess the Trackback feature hasn't been working since we moved to the new hosting service. I fixed it.

If you have noticed any other technical problems with this site, leave a comment.

Republican Moderates?

This story in the Washinton Post, House Plans Gun Vote, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ notes that Rep. Mark Souder, Republican from Indiana, is introducing legislation that would repeal virtually all gun ownership restrictions in the District of Columbia, which has among the most stringent handgun rules in the country.

Accourding to Souter, "this is a constitutional issue, not a home rule question. The fact is, we didn't allow the District to have home rule on the selling of slaves, either."

I find this disturbing on a number of levels. First, Rep. Souder is right that slavery in the District was not a home rule issue. In fact, it was legal until until the passage of the 13th Amendment. It's nice to know, however, that Rep. Souder is against slavery.

Second, isn't it just a bit arrogant for Rep. Souder and the Republicans to decide that Congress can simply ignore the wishes of the residents of DC (and have no doubt about it, the vast majority of DC residents are in favor of gun restrictions). The idea that DC is just a vast "plantation" on which Congress can do what it pleases should distress people who believe in democracy, even if Congress is within its legal rights. And, please don't tell me it's about the Constitution. This is one interpretation of the Second Amendment that has never been endorsed by the Supreme Court. Is it so important to provide District residents with the right to bear arms that it justifies running roughshod over the expressed will of those residents?

Third, what does this say about the ostensible "moderation" of the GOP that people on this blog have been touting? The Republicans are gun happy. First, they are allowing the national assault weapons ban to expire--again in clear defiance of the majority of the population. (And I credit the Republicans because they are clearly the driving force; the Democrats are going along out of fear). Then, they are not even willing to allow local ordinances that run counter to the wishes of the NRA.

This has nothing really to do with the merits of the gun restrictions. I don't think gun control is a panacea for crime and obviously the gun restrictions haven't reduced crime in the District (although maybe it would have been worse without the restrictions). But can you seriously argue that the Republicans embrace of all gun ownership short of tanks and nuclear weapons (but that might come next) is an example of moderation? Especially when it is clear that this policy is being driven by the NRA and the right wing of the party. Where are the moderates here? They seem to have been driven into hiding by the right wing.

Wrong Choice

Both Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall agree that Kerry's new ad (video) suggesting that the money spent on the Iraq War could have been better spent on domestic programs is tone-deaf. Given the public's heightened concerns about security, it would have been better to point out that the money could have been spent on the hunt for bin Laden and homeland security. As scripted, it undercuts Kerry's claim to be strong on national security.

Zakaria's Latest Iraq Analysis

Regular readers of Fareed Zakaria's column in Newsweek will tell you he's taken a rather skeptical view of Iraq policy, and of the Iraq situation, over most of the past year.

He has another analysis of it today, and it's not, on the whole, that encouraging.

I tend to take his views fairly seriously, because he's not one of those people who routinely follows either party line, or who appears to get his talking points from one side of the debate.

For example, he supported going to war in Iraq. And I can remember the presidential debates in the 2000 election, when Fareed was one of those who vouched for the reasonableness of Bush's foreign policy views, and even seemed rather intrigued by them.

He has stong opinions -- but calls it like he sees 'em. And he's among the very brightest foreign policy observers we have right now.

Don't Let Putin Sucker Us In

There have been a lot of articles in the last few days about anti-western sentiment in Russia in the wake of the horrible school terrorist attack. The gist of the sentiment seems to be that we have been appeasing Chechen terrorists and, at least, indirectly encouraging them. The implication seems to be that we need to stop our criticism of Russian policy in Chechnya and see it as a part of the War on Terrorism.

I think we need to avoid falling into this trap. Terrorism is not all of a piece and, while it is bad wherever it occurs, it does not all spring from the same sources. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush Administration developed alliances with some appalling people, foremost among them Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. Karimov was a communist appartchik who became a nationalist with the fall of the Soviet Union. The article, “Behind the Silk Curtain,” in The National Interest, http://www.nationalinterest.org/ME2/default.asp (subscription required), shows just how terrible this guy is and he has been able to sucker in the U.S. by by portraying himself as an ally in the war on terror. He has literally boiled people alive. There is no democracy in Uzbekistan or any human rights. Yet, Karimov has received hundreds of million of dollars in aid from the U.S. because of his willingness to let us have bases.

More importantly, as the article makes clear, Karimov has pursued his own war against his political enemies, including Islamists, by calling them terrorists and trying to link them to transnational terrorist groups. The article notes that there are such groups operating in Uzbekistan. But Karimov has been able to go after any group, especially Muslim, that opposes his rule and have the U.S. finance it simply by lumping them as terrorists. Fortunately, the U.S. has become taking notice and calling Karimov to account for his most egregious human rights violations. But it took too long.

Although Putin is not as bad as Karimov, the same dynamic seems to be taking place. The Russians have been waging a mindless war in Chechnya for years and Putin is using the latest terrorist attacks to essentially forestall criticism from the U.S., for example, by comparing the school attack to 9/11. The attack was horrible and unforgiveable and the Russians are certainly justified in taking strong action against the perpetrators. But it’s not unfair to suggest that Russian policy is making things worse not better in Chechnya. There is no evidence that I have seen linking the Chechens to Al Quaida or other international terrorists. (Although I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some links.) .

I fear that that, in waging the War on Terrorism, we are making the same mistakes we made during the Cold War, where we justified any alliance of convenience, regardless of how unsavory, on the grounds that it furthered our anti-Communist agenda. Some of those alliances ended up costing us dearly in the long run. To the extent that the War on Terror is also a war for the hearts and minds of Muslims, supporting people like Karimov can only hurt our position because it suggests to Muslims that the war is against Islam, not terrorists. I’m not suggesting that we have to insist on moral purity from all of our alliance partners. But, at a minimum we need to make sure that our alliances don’t make things worse. That’s why, as anxious as we might be to enlist the Russians and the Chinese (who have their own issues with Muslim groups that they want to call extremists), we need to avoid the temptation of saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In particular, we need to recognize the difference between terrorism or extremism originating from specific local grievances that may be amenable to local solutions and transnational terrorism stemming from Al Quaida.

Everyone is a Stakeholder?

Centrists.org recently brought light on a piece of legislation sponsored by Senators Rick Santorum and Jon Corzine, and Representatives Thomas Petri, Phil English, Harold Ford Jr. (a Democrat I could vote for), and Patrick Kennedy called the ASPIRE Act.

What is the idea?

Create a savings account for every child born in America that government will contribute $500 to. The family of the child could contribute up to $1,000 per year. The funds would not be available for withdrawal until the child turns 18.

In addittion:

"A child will qualify for a one-time supplemental contribution if their household income is below the national median income. The maximum supplemental contribution will be $500. The bonus amount will be evenly pro-rated so that a child receives the full amount if their household income is at or below 50% of the national median Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) and a lesser amount as the household income approaches 100% of the national median AGI.

Eligible account holders can receive a one-to-one match on private contributions to their accounts of up to $500 on an annual basis until the account holder reaches the age of 18. Account holders with household incomes up to 100% of the national median AGI will receive a dollar for dollar match on private contributions up to $500. Account holders with households incomes between 100% and 105% of national median AGI will have their match rate phased out at the same ratio as their income exceeds 100% of national median AGI."

A range of investment options will be provided similar to those offered by the Thrift Savings Plan (federal worker investment), including a government securities fund, a fixed income investment fund, a common stock fund, and other funds that may be created by the Board.

Parents and legal guardians will serve as account custodians and make investment decisions until the accountholder reaches the age of 18. The account custodian shall elect how money in the KIDS Account is invested. If no election is made, a life cycle investment option will be specified as a default.

What is the result?

For example, take a child born into a low-income family that voluntarily contributed $250 a year to her account. By age 18, her "stake" would be $14,000 in today's dollars, assuming a "real" (inflation-adjusted) interest rate of 3 percent. If the family contributed $500 a year, the stake would be $26,000. If, by good fortune, the account earned a 5 percent real rate of return, the child's stake at age 18 would total $32,000 in today's dollars, assuming the family kicked in $500 a year.

How much does it cost?

"Reid Cramer, research director for the asset building project at the New America Foundation, pegs the 10-year cost at $37.5 billion, and the 20-year cost at about $85 billion. Compared with recent tax cut and spending bills, that is a relatively small amount. However, like any worthy expenditure, the ASPIRE Act should be "paid for" via spending cuts or tax increases."

I like it.

The New American Foundation has been pushing this idea for a while, and it was written about in the book The Radical Center. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (one of my heroes) and the former Senator Bob Kerrey (another Democrat I could voter for) where the original creators of this idea.

If anything, I think it is a worth while discussion, and an interesting way to encourage savings and investment. A big problem, that I gave credit to Kerry for mentioning a while back, is that Americans today spend more than they take in, which is tragic for our economy. It is to bad that both Bush and Kerry aren't talking about ideas, such as these, as opposed to who was the dumbest 22-year old forty some years ago.

Your thoughts?

Why Doesn't God Help Him Out?

I find this quite amusing. I have no other comment at all.

Televangelist Paul Crouch Attempts to Keep Accuser Quiet

On the lighter side

- A conversation between Clinton and Kerry (here)
- Secret recipe used by Kerry to shake up his campaign (here)
- Utah may revoke Santa's aviation exemption (here)
- Scrappleface: 1972 Email Casts Doubt on Bush Guard Service (here)

Anniversaries

I have marked three anniversaries during the last three days. On Thursday, I marked the 40th anniversary of my birth. On Friday, I marked the 10th anniversary of my marriage. Today, I marked the 3rd anniversary of the most historic day of my lifetime. I had a good time on Thursday and Friday, but I was reminded of the turbulent world we live in when I woke up today to a flag flying at half-staff at the place where we were staying.

Here is a nice memorial for the 9/11 victims.

Back to the Mainstream?

Bill said a few weeks ago that it seemed the chance to elect centrists would come from the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Erasmus has said that one reason he is voting Democrat this year is that the Republicans need to get killed at the ballot box so they will see the error of their conservative ways and move to the center; much like the Democrats did with Clinton in the 90's. Personally, as a Republican that has been very involved at the grassroots level as well as working for a few Republican elected officials, it has been my feeling that under George W. Bush the GOP has moved closer to the center while the Democrats have tacked to the left with Al Gore resorting to the class warfare arguments of the eighties in the 2000 election, and the embracement of the anti-war Howard Dean movement.

Regardless of all of our opinions on the state of the GOP, we seem to agree that the center of the party is still too far to the extreme right, as is evident with reckless tax policies that focus too much on ideology and ridiculous moves to change the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage. Tom Delay isn't helping the cause either.

If you are a centrist Democrat, and you really do not care if the GOP moves to the center than this will not interest you, but if you would like to see the Republican's come back to the days of Nelson Rockefeller and Dwight Eisenhower here is your chance to do something about it.

A group of former Republican elected officials including my political hero, former Washington State Governor and US Senator Dan Evans, have come together to move the GOP "Back to the Mainstream." I think with elected officials like Chuck Hagel and George Pataki already showing interest in 2008 there is a real chance that the GOP will nominate a centrist, but not if like minded individuals do not start getting involved now and begin planning and organizing. Back to the Mainstream may be an avenue to start this process.

Other centrist Republican organizations...

-Bull Moose Republicans
-Republican Youth Majority
-Republican Main Street Partnership
-Republican Majority for Choice
-Republicans for Environmental Protection
-Log Cabin Republicans
-Republican Unity Coalition

Numbers People vs. Word People

David Brooks has a great column contrasting the occupational status of donors to the Democrats and Republicans (using real data from contribution forms)

I subscribe, however, to the mondo-neo-Marxist theory of information-age class conflict. According to this view, people who majored in liberal arts subjects like English and history naturally loathe people who majored in econ, business and the other "hard" fields. This loathing turns political in adult life and explains just about everything you need to know about political conflict today.

It should be added that not everybody fits predictably into the political camp indicated by a profession. I myself am thinking of founding the Class Traitors Association, made up of conservative writers, liberal accountants and other people so filled with self-loathing that they ally politically with social and cultural rivals.

I'm an engineer who can write, which should make me a moderate Republican by this analysis, which isn't too far off. But I'm highly disappointed in my fellow numbers people in supporting records deficits. That's a policy that doesn't add up.

Not-Entirely-Unlike-MST3K-Local Great Comedy Act Sued

Here is a bit of localblogging on a matter of grave concern to me, to wit, the Mr Sinus act sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse, a local combined bar and moviehouse (I recommend both highly, if you make it to Austin).

Here's the Austin Business Journal writeup, and here's the Slashdot thread.

Apparently, at first, Mr. Sinus was comple