Miscellany: 10/31/10

Quote of the Day

New ideas are as valuable as any others, but they should not be adopted simply because they are new.
Robert Heller

Election Watch

Let's start with the Senate races, which have become very interesting. The California race where Boxer seemed to be opening up a small lead has tightened, with RCP putting it back in the toss up category, shortening the Dem lead to 48-45. The Connecticut Senate race also has come back into play (and interestingly enough, the Republican candidate for governor (Foley) has taken a small lead).

Most interestingly, Lisa Murkowski, as Republican write-in, has taken an improbable 10-point lead in the Alaska race. This is interesting if nothing else but for its symbolic value: it is no wonder Sarah Palin, after the earlier freeze in response to Miller's sidestep of the Palin for President question, has gone back stumping for Miller; I think this poll probably reflects relatively late breaking disclosures in Miller's work background. If Lisa Murkowski wins, for only the second write-in win in 50 years, it will be a telling rebuke, not only of the Tea Party Express but to Sarah Palin's  credentials in her own home state. Sarah Palin's battle probably has more to do with the intrastate rivalry for political influence with the Murkowski clan, in particular, former Senator/Governor Frank Murkowski.

The Democrats got some breathing room as the GOP lean/likely/safe shrank by 3: 221-171 with 3 more added to toss-ups, raising the toss up total to 43. (There were also offsetting switches between lean-Dem and toss up.) Some tightening is to be expected as we close into the election. But if you look at the cumulative lean/likely/safe's, the highest the Dems have achieved in the last 2 weeks are 2 points where they briefly rallied up to 180 seats and then fell back.

There are some regional/state stories I'm following, besides a possible GOP beachhead back into New England; I'm especially interested in a possible flip of the at-large seats in the Dakotas, and a resurgence of the GOP in New Mexico since they lost the governor's race and a couple of congressional seats a few weeks back. It looks likely that New Mexico, after two terms of Bill Richardson, will pick a Republican as governor, and Republicans have tentative leads in two Congressional races.

Obama Asserts that Conservatives Are Enemies of Latinos...


Ted Sorenson, JFK's former speechwriter who died today, may have had a hand in writing the late President's signature line:

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

President Obama, the post-partisan president, the unifier, has his own signature line of bringing the country together:

If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ … then I think it’s gonna be harder. -  Barack Obama

Let me be clear: Ronald Reagan nominated the first Latino (Linda Chavez) to a US Cabinet (whom also ran as the GOP Senate candidate against Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski in 1986), former Florida Governor Jeb Bush married a Latina decades ago, George W. Bush nominated Miguel Estrada (a first-generation Honduran-American) to the US Court of Appeals (the Democrats scotched the nomination in part due to fears that Bush was grooming him as the first Latino to the Supreme Court) and the first Latino Attorney General (Albert Gonzales). Republican Latinos have served as mayor, governor, in Congress and state legislatures, multiple subsequent Cabinet positions and sub-Cabinet positions (e.g., US Treasurer), ambassadors, and chair of the California Republican Party; Latino Republicans also include well-known actors, singers, and television reporters.

Why would Latinos be interested in being part of the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., the minority party that provided critical support for landmark civil rights legislation? Consider this essay extraction from Congresslink.org:

The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. Only one Republican senator participated in the filibuster against the bill. In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 % of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 % of the votes.

Now I'm not writing this as a Republican shill; the GOP can speak for itself. But, Mr. Obama, what you have done is engage in a political smear; it's pathetic and brings dishonor on the Office of the President.

In addition to the historical sensitivity and inclusiveness of Republicans, Latinos have other reasons to support the GOP: for example, a large plurality/majority of Latinos are Roman Catholic, hold social conservative views (e.g., abortion, traditional marriage, etc.) and share a number of traditional values, including hard work, integrity and self-reliance. I am not speaking on behalf of Latinos; Linda Chavez and others can speak from the authenticity of their experiences. But I attended high school in a Laredo suburban high school, and all 4 of my university degrees came from Texas colleges (in fact, OLLU is located in the southwestern/barrio section of San Antonio). Some of my best friends were Latinos, and I asked out multiple Latinas.

Quite frankly, Mr. Obama, I am strongly pro-immigration, and I backed the 2007 compromise that you yourself sabotaged by helping kick out key Democratic concessions. I am well-aware of how certain Republican politicians (e.g., Pete Wilson and Tom Tancredo), supported by similarly irresponsible media conservatives, have alienated immigrant Americans; I understand that we have a broken-down temporary worker program. I'm wondering when Latino Democrats will come to realize that union opposition to the worker quotas is part of the problem (i.e., they believe low-skill immigrant labor undermines wages).

The second issue is more complex and to a degree I argue against many immigrants. Currently the law is biased towards chained immigration, i.e., relatives, regardless of their skill sets, education or ability to speak English, are given preferential treatment over more qualified applicants. I understand many immigrants want their extended families to be on the fast track towards citizenship; we need to balance that with our need to recruit our fair share of entrepreneurs and other professionals with the knowledge, experience and skill sets to expand the production of products and services, including related well-paying, tax-generating income. Just like many people may reject nepotism as an unfair management practice, we economic libertarians see chained immigration as unfair to other applicants eager for a shot at the American dream.

The border protection issue has become an issue, not so much about barring farmers, gardeners, maids or construction workers from existing vacant positions, but the need to address the growing involvement of organized crime in human smuggling (including prospective terrorists looking for workarounds to security-enhanced entry points).

Going back to a desperate President who seems confused about Latinos as he was about gun- and Bible-clinging small town Americans in Pennsylvania: don't they similarly realize it's in their best interests to vote for Democrats? Well, let's think about it for a minute. Businesses and high-income people who hire (say, gardeners, maids or construction workers) don't generate as many jobs in a tough economy; so if, say, immigrants want to work but can't find a job because of a clueless progressive President and Congress whom don't understand fundamental business and economics, why do they think another 2 years will turn out any better? And Obama thinks all he needs to tap a flood of Latino votes is to pay lip service to "immigration reform". The "enemy"? The GOP... never mind the fact that a Republican President, George W. Bush, put up more of an effort to pass immigration reform, with a Democratic-controlled Congress, than Obama did with a super-majority in both the House and the Senate.

If I was Latino, I would find the President's condescending, over-simplifying rhetoric insulting. Latinos know better than Obama does about what they should consider in the election; they don't need paternalistic liberals telling them what they should consider. What does he know about the Latino community? Latinos have concerns over and beyond immigration legislation; for example, a number of them are small business owners, affected by Draconian business health care mandate penalties, federal paperwork requirements, possible higher tax rate increases, etc. Democrats need to deliver for their support, not pay attention to them a week or two before election day with lip service on immigration reform, thinking that's the password that delivers the predictable bank of Latino votes.

Barbara Mikulski: Knock Off the Feminist Ideology on Health Care Issues

 Ideological feminists are very predictable; so let me get a few points out of the way. First, I am aware of our impasse on the issue of abortion. A baby has different DNA than her mother from the point of conception; this has nothing to do with my religious upbringing--it's a scientific fact. And I believe that society has an interest in protecting young lives without bias in terms of stage of development, before or after birth. I also believe that woman who engage in sex, with the possibility of pregnancy, should take responsibility for their decisions, taking into account risks (including STD's) and relative effectiveness of various contraceptive methods and technologies. I also believe that males themselves should accept full responsibility for their own role in sex, including a shared responsibility in pregnancy and child rearing.

As a conservative/libertarian, I am not comfortable with Big Nanny deciding or mandating preventive measures. For example, it may be prudent for someone over the age of 50 to have a colonoscopy as a preventive measure. If the argument is that the public picks up the dime for the high costs of undiagnosed colon cancer, aren't we just a slippery slope away from Big Nanny prescribing penalties to someone not having a colonoscopy? I don't want to write a full post on this time on this issue, but let's point out there are costs and risks associated with colonscopies (not to mention complications, e.g., the doctor makes a procedural mistake on someone with a healthy colon).

I have a philosophical difference with progressives, like Pelosi and Mikulski, whom prescribe "free" colonoscopies, mammograms, etc. First of all, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Professionals' time is money; diagnostic tests are not free, etc. You can certain argue that treating a disease in its earlier stages is more cost-effective and humane. Again, I don't want to go to excessive detail here, but ultimately you have to balance the costs and benefits, including the risks of unintended consequences, medical errors, side effects in treatment, etc. This often involves an understanding of context--say, for example, what's magic about one year between mammograms? Maybe it should be 6 months, 18 months or every other year for most women, assuming women with genetic or correlated factors are tested more frequently and/or women report any interim unusual symptoms promptly. I really don't want Big Nanny telling doctors how to treat their patients.

Mikulski, in her recent TV ad brag sheet, starts talking about discriminatory pricing towards female patients. I don't want to get too much in the weeds in discussing this issue, but I would expect there are some intrinsic gender-based differences in terms of certain conditions (e.g., pregnancy), longer lifespans for women, etc. The only reason that doctors would charge women more is because of related cost factors. Just for the sake of argument, let's say a male exam takes 15 minutes and a female exam takes 20 minutes. Why should a male pay the same as a female? The doctor spends 33% more time with the woman; if I'm told I have to charge the same, then it makes more sense for me to see only male patients to maximize my revenues. Perhaps strident feminists believe that the self-actualized women should demand that men pick up part of her health bill tab, just like they should share the cost of her dinner...

But of course, life isn't fair. That's why Big Health Insurance wants insurance mandates, e.g., relatively healthy younger people having to pay into the system at a cost higher than their real costs, to subsidize more costly, older people.... (Let me point out, though, that it costs me more to buy life or health insurance than it did 20 years ago.)

What got me on this topic was an AP news story of whether contraceptives should be included as "free" preventive care. For those of us who are social conservatives, there are a number of relevant issues, e.g., federal payment for the "morning after" pill, which we regard as abortion, not contraceptive, or conscience exceptions for pharmacists and medical professionals (the ones that still believe in the Hippocratic Oath's prohibitions against aiding and abetting the termination of unborn lives). Barbara Mikulski insists that her amendment to the Democratic Party Health Care Bill clearly implies female contraceptives should be "free".

There are so many things wrong here one hardly knows where to start. The first one that immediately comes to mind is why the American taxpayer should be subsidizing the costs of voluntary, extramarital sex acts. Second, as the article also notes, it implies that the unborn child is a DISEASE, not a blessing from God, not to mention a future taxpayer. It may be preventive in terms of pregnancy and/or STD's, but guess what? There is one foolproof method to avoid pregnancy or STD's: not to engage in risky sex behavior. If you engage in risky sex behavior, covering the cost of that risk should come out of your pocket. As to the guys, do you want to avoid the costs of raising a child to the age of 18? Weigh the costs of condoms or better yet, a vasectomy. None of this "I'll have a vasectomy if Uncle Sam pays for it." Uncle Sam shouldn't pay for a number of things, including breast augmentations, facelifts and vasectomies.

Quiz of the Day

What song will they play to introduce Sharron Angle on her first visit to The View? Click here.

Political Humor

A few originals:

• This year's Halloween costume party at the White House was unbelievable: Donald Trump came dressed as Jimmy McMillan of "The Rent is Too Damn High" Party; ICE Director John Morton pretended to be Sheriff Joe Arpaio; and President Barack Obama showed up as 2008 Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
• Fox News also had a Halloween party with the theme of  "come as someone whom you personally admire". Sean Hannity came as Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin dressed up like Hillary Clinton--and even Barack Obama showed up, as himself.

Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonders

Ferrante & Teicher, "Exodus"

Miscellany: 10/30/10

Quote of the Day

You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.
Marvin Minsky

Election Watch

The RCP House count shows the lean/likely/safe GOP lead stretching by 4: 225-171, as 2 toss-ups switch to lean-GOP and two more shift from lean-Dem to toss up, including the second, more conservative Maine district where Jason Levesque has cut Congressman Michaud's lead from almost 20 points two weeks ago to 4 points. Yesterday, RCP also cut MA-4 (Barney Frank's district) from likely to lean-Dem. I think the Scott Brown-like surge, which I also noted in yesterday's post, reflects undecided voters breaking in favor of the out-of-power GOP, as one might expect in a tough economy.

No change in the RCP Senate count, still showing 49-45 with 6 toss-ups. Of the 6 toss-ups, 4 have been consistently led by the GOP challengers by 3 or 4 points in recent polls; in the Washington race, Patty Murray and Dino Rossi have been swapping 1-point leads, and popular conservative Democratic Governor  Joe Manchin, whom initially broke out to a massive lead, had more recently been trailing novice Republican John Raese but has since regained a small lead by running to the right of all the Senate Democrats, reversing his earlier support for the Obama agenda.

No one is predicting this, but I would not at all be surprised to see Manchin, win or lose, eventually change his party affiliation; he in effect would be the lone Blue Dog in the Senate and would have almost no leverage in his own caucus. You have a very small group of Democrats (Nelson (NE), Landrieu (LA) and Lieberman (CN)) whom are moderate on an ad hoc, inconsistent, incohesive basis; I think they're afraid of being sniped like Lieberman was in 2006 by progressive activists, so on the big issues they'll play hard to get but will eventually fall in line after winning some face-saving concession. I think what John Raese has to do is to remind dissatisfied West Virginia voters that they need to send a national message to Barack Obama and to beware of Manchin's election eve conversion: why didn't he speak up sooner, when Obama and the Congressional Democrats were steamrolling their agenda? If Raese does win, I think Manchin could set his sights on retiring Jay Rockefeller.

I saw in the Baltimore Sun that Maryland GOP Senate candidate Dr. Eric Wargotz did have a recent unremarkable short debate with Barbara Mikulski on local public television and has finally started airing his first general commercial (which I had to view on the web). I guess they didn't or couldn't license Pink Floyd's The Wall. I have already given my take on how Wargotz should approach the campaign. It's not exactly clear where Wargotz is going on the foreclosure angle, other than as a surrogate for a struggling economy; it just seems to serve up the ball to the progressive Democrats' bank-bashing argument and their dubious claim that their "financial reform" bill has addressed the core issues. Anyone reading this blog on a regular basis knows that I would be going after Obama and the progressive Dems' crony capitalism, the nationalization of student loans, the takeover of AIG, the car companies, and the GSE's, the growing dependence on foreign-produced energy resources,  the Dems' picking winners and losers in the marketplace, their ineffectual overspending, etc. Wargotz is not going to beat a populist Democrat with a populist campaign; he needs to point out that he is running against a professional politician whom has been in Washington for 3 decades; children born and raised during Mikulski's tenure now are looking for work and towards a troubled financial future, a staggering national debt to service, and chronically underfunded entitlements. Maryland needs more of an independent voice, not a passive rubber stamp for a morally hazardous, presumptuous progressive agenda, corrosive of American traditional values, i.e., the self-made, self-reliant man, initiative, thriftiness, integrity, etc.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

A Democratic House string of all-time record deficits spanning four years and, with Obama in the White House, the first two trillion-dollar plus deficits? Where's all that job growth from "shovel-ready projects" and throwing money at green energy companies dependent on tax subsidies to turn a profit? What about 2000-page bills and a flood of new rules and regulations, health care mandates or penalties and onerous paperwork, nonstop attacks on business, and continued government intervention in the marketplace?  Obama is playing a game of chicken with the GOP over continuing the tax policies in place over the past decade versus partial reinstatement of the Clinton tax hikes, while businesses wait on the outcome. The GOP would agree to a 2-year extension of the Bush cuts in a heartbeat; they would prefer the tax cuts be made permanent; Obama insists on excluding the top tax brackets, nonnegotiable, never mind the fact most small businesses report on an individual tax basis. The Democrats argue that some small businesses (those with lesser income) are more equal than others in terms of tax cuts.

Class is not what you come to expect from leftist websites or rallies... Reported signs of House GOP leader (Jewish) Eric Cantor with a Hitler mustache and "I masturbate to Christine O'Donnell" are indicative of the uncivil, presumptuous, arrogant, judgmental nature of many, if not most progressives. (Whatever issues I have with Christine O'Donnell, they don't involve the substance of her political views. If I was voting in Delaware Tuesday, I would cast a vote for Christine O'Donnell. On a side note, in response to some ungentlemanly anonymous comments on a website I refuse to cite, I think she is a very attractive, kissable young woman brought up with the right values; I have no shot, of course, but my mom would approve of me dating a fellow Catholic.)

Congressional Witness Steve Colbert and Obama Interviewer Jon Stewart
The In-Sanity Rally in DC Today: More of the Same Two Years?
Think Progressive Political Malpractice Isn't a Joke? Vote Tuesday!

One of my favorite relevant songs



The Left Tries to Stir Up Trouble Between the Tea Party and the GOP

Frank Rich is one of the stable of irrelevant strident New York Times columnists, along with "Mr. Nobel Prize" Paul "Enron Consultant" Krugman, whom has been battling the G-20 to overspend their way to "prosperity" , and Maureen Dowd, whom, instead of tracking bureaucratic incompetence and inertia in the federal government, tries to find a conspiracy in how the Catholic Church and/or the current pope handled proceedings against rogue priests accused of sexual misconduct nearly 30 years ago.

Frank Rich wrote a typically vacuous column which I hardly want to dignify with a discussion, but I did want to stress a couple of points. First, Frank Rich is repeating the same old same old talking points that the GOP is being disingenuous about spending and that it wants to retreat to the same "failed policies". It is true that Bush increased the deficit more than under Clinton, but people forget that those budget surpluses weren't due to Clinton, but to a disciplined GOP House in power for 6 of Clinton's 8 years, which more than anything else left Clinton without a majority he needed to expand government programs. In fact, the GOP is largely responsible for blocking Clinton's ill-conceived health care "reform", which would have vastly increased federal spending.

So, during the 12 years the Republicans controlled Congress, you can divide the 6 years under Clinton, where Republicans were very effective at fiscal discipline, versus the first 6 years under Bush. When the Democrats point at the "8 years under Bush", the first thing they conveniently want you to forget is the last two years were under a Democratic-controlled Congress, and the recession started in December 2007, and Bush had to contend with a Democratic-controlled Senate the first 2 years (after Jeffords' defection given a split Senate, tenuously controlled by the Republicans with VP Cheney presiding). So you can only really count 2003-2006. The Democrats seem to mean by "policies" the Bush tax cuts, which the Republicans can validly point to as stimulating 52 straight months of job growth and increasing the burden of the federal revenue burden paid by higher-income people (but apparently that's not good enough for Barack Obama, whom seems to think they should pay even more...)

A big-ticket item was Bush's expansion of Medicare prescription drug support. But keep in mind Bush ran into considerable resistance from his own GOP conservative base which balked at adding the new entitlement--and the objections from the Democrats didn't mirror conservative concerns but complained that Bush's plan wasn't generous enough. There was also conservative disagreement with the establishment of the super-bureaucracy of DHS; the Democrats also pushed for government union interests (work rules, etc.), which effectively raised government operational costs.

Part of what went on in the Bush era had to do with asset bubbles that actually started under Clinton's era, not Bush's: the NASDAQ surged past 5000 and 10 years later is struggling to attain half that level. We had the  9/11 tragedy which nearly brought down the air travel and hospitality sectors and cost the economy nearly $700B dollars. The housing market bubble was already well under way; when I moved to Santa Clara in 1999, houses in Silicon Valley started at around half a million dollars. If we didn't have very aggressive lending to less-qualified applicants, in part enabled by GSE purchases and progressive lending preferences, with the federal government implicitly on the hook, the housing bubble would have been much more manageable. That's why conservatives like me have been harping on the need to reform (preferably privatize) the GSE's. Instead, what we have seen is increased government meddling in the real estate market.

The GOP did increase domestic spending in the Bush era, and there were also the costs of the wars; why did many (but not all) Republicans lose their way? I think, in part, it reflected a desire to do whatever it took to retain support of the voters back home which translated into government investments, goods and services. The point remains, which Frank Rich and the other progressives will never acknowledge, that the Democrats fought for MORE spending every step of the way--for obvious reasons.

Now let's get to the real point: Frank Rich is really saying that the Republicans won't deliver on fiscal discipline. Tell me, if you are a grade-conscious student, would you sign up to take a course under a professor whom promised more work and a lower grade-distribution? Are you going to give your mom and dad bigger presents when they promise to ground you for violating your curfew?

What you can take to the bank is there never would have been a $1.3T deficit under a GOP Congress. Look at all the fights that have been taking place: the Republicans have put blocks on unemployment compensation increases that required NEW funding; the Democrats have made a procedural farce out of pay-go, routinely trying to pass new spending as "emergency"/exempted in nature.

David Cameron, Britain's freshman Prime Minister, did not broadcast austerity before the elections. The fact is, everybody knows that current spending is unsustainable, but look what Nancy Pelosi has gone around promising: no raising the retirement age, even though with longer lives the government can't afford to pay out the same benefits without additional funding.  The point is, you have to stretch out payments, e.g., by lowering disbursement and/or increase contributions and payment adjustments (e.g., the relative payroll tax, the number or level of contributors, etc.) and/or delay eligibility.

There are a variety of reasons John Boehner and Mitch McConnell won't be specific. In part, what they can deliver in part depends on the nature and extent of Tuesday's mandate; for example, it's still questionable whether the GOP can win control of the Senate this cycle. But high spending is routinely among the top 2 or 3 issues voters are discussing. The trouble is that you run into resistance when you get to specifics, because there is tremendous resistance to change the status quo. Congressmen and Senators argue passionately against military base closures affecting their district or state, even though if you ask them as a principle whether the military should have the right to close bases no longer needed strategically.

Boehner has already hinted that there will be action taken on the federal hiring spree and unsustainable compensation packages. I also think that you will see budget freezes and/or cutbacks. I do believe that Republicans will need to make cuts across the board and most of these will be politically unpopular. Frank Rich and other progressives have an implicit self-interest in daring the GOP leadership to be more forthcoming. In essence, what Boehner and others need to do is bundle the austerity package in such a way  as to be seen as a fair sharing of the burden.

Boehner and McConnell will also argue that we need tax reform and halt government intervention in the private sector to enable business with the clarity and confidence they need to start investing more. In part they are looking to stimulate business growth to increase business tax revenue and also employee tax revenue.

The second point I want to raise deals with the "old-guard"/Karl Rove Republicans and the Tea Party insurgents. I have a very strong reaction myself, not to the Tea Party, but an affiliated political organization, the Tea Party Express. I think any party doesn't like an external organization interfering with its candidate nominations. Take the state of Delaware; there aren't that many candidates with the name recognition and statewide appeal like Mike Castle. According to one dated reference, about 45% of Delaware's voters are registered Democrats and 31% are Republicans. You can say all you want that maybe 16% of the voters in the state went for Christine O'Donnell. The bottom line is, on a party-line ballot basis, a Democratic nominee needs only 1 out of 4 independents. A Republican is going to need an extraordinary turnout, the clear majority of moderates/independents and probably some Democratic votes as well. Sean Hannity and other media conservative demagogues can say all they want about Castle being a "sore loser" for failing to endorse a dubiously qualified candidate resulting from a manipulated election: you have to ask, what kind of conservative can win in Delaware? Probably a fiscal conservative, social moderate, just like Mike Castle and most New England Republicans (other than an occasional Sununu). The most optimistic polls have O'Donnell behind by at least 10 points with mere days left. A lot depends on voter turnout Tuesday, and we can normally expect some surprises any election, but I would be shocked if O'Donnell managed to pull the upset. There do seem to be a Scott Brown-like surges occurring all over the Northeast.

I am not part of the "country club" Republicans. I agree with most of the Tea Party principles. I disagree with the political organization Tea Party Express; in many cases, it has backed candidates which are having trouble reaching 50% in one of the biggest turnover elections of the last 100 years. We are seeing things like John Raese blowing a lead in West Virgina by (among other things) hiring actors to play stereotype characters, Rand Paul talking about the Civil Rights Act and Aqua Buddha, Joe Miller having to discuss his bodyguards arresting a member of the press and dealing with revelations from his personnel file late in the campaign, Christine O'Donnell having to address witchcraft and masturbation and expressing confusion over the First Amendment, Sharron Angle talking about abortion and illegal immigration, etc.

It is true even veteran politicians run into problems, e.g., Charlie Rangel, Richard Blumenthal, Mark Kirk, etc. But you have to vet your candidates, and you have to stick to the core talking points of limited government and fiscal responsibility. By far, the most appealing Tea Party-backed candidate has been Marco Rubio whom was the GOP Speaker of the Florida House; Charlie Crist, arguably the most popular Republican in the state until about a year ago, has burned bridges. He probably needs to take a sabbatical; most people thought Nixon was done after losing two high-profile elections in the early 60's, but he came back in 1968.

Political Cartoon

A few originals:

• Frank Capri, Democratic candidate for Rhode Island, and Lincoln Chafee (independent) showed up at the White House for Halloween trick-or-treat. Barack Obama dropped a "hope and change" bumper sticker in each of their bags, insisting that he had to treat his 2008 supporters the same. Capri wanted his treat from the endorsement jar and told Obama what he could do with his bumper sticker. It's too bad he didn't check out the White House lawn. A number of Blue Dog Democratic candidates like Joe Manchin had dropped by earlier, looking for treats from Obama's money jar; when they instead found his endorsement in their bag, they dropped it and ran as fast as they could away from it.
• The morning after Halloween, Sasha and Malia woke up to catch Barack Obama munching on candy from their trick-or-treat bags. The girls complained that they hadn't gotten much candy because Michelle had insisted on their getting a lot of healthy snacks like apples and raisins. Their dad explained that he had found their candy bags while looking for a cigarette. "Dad, wasn't it bad enough when that thief broke into our piggy banks?" Barack patiently repeated, one more time, that it wasn't a thief but an IRS agent...

Musical Interlude: Instrumental/One-Hit Wonders Series

Frank Mills, "Music Box Dancer". What I remember in particular about this song is someone had anonymously left this song years back in its entirety on my answering machine. I suspect it was left by my girlfriend at the time, Kathryn. I first met her at a Catholic Newman Center across the street from the UH campus. Kathryn was tall (5' 10.5") and gorgeous; she was wearing jean cutoffs that showed off her gloriously long legs. She introduced herself, saying that she had noticed me at Mass (I often wore suits, unlike many guys) but said that I probably hadn't noticed her because she was "freakishly tall" (a little taller than me: not a problem). I eventually broke off the relationship (for unspecified reasons dealing with her emotional style); unsurprisingly, she was determined to have the last word. (How many guys get a break-up letter typewritten on office letterhead?) She even started wearing high heels to Mass...

Miscellany: 10/29/10

Quote of the Day

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you make them feel.
Carol Buchner

Election Watch

The RCP House GOP projections of lean/likely/safe lead widened by 2 to 222-173 as 2 New England seats  (in Maine and Rhode Island) shifted from lean-Dem to toss up, raising the number of toss ups back up to 40, all but 2 of which are currently Democratic-led seats. In particular,  RI-1, currently held by retiring, scandal-prone Patrick Kennedy, has seen John Loughlin (R) close all but 2 out of an initial 23-point lead by Democrat David Cicilline in a Scott Brown-like surge. The New England surge is notable because of a stunning wipeout in the 2008 election which left New England without a Republican (among 22 House members) for the first time since the nineteenth century. Shays (CT) was the sole survivor in 2006 (when 2 Connecticut and 2 New Hampshire Republicans were ousted). This year one of the 2 New Hampshire is leaning-GOP, the other remains in play (former Congressman Bass had been leading until the most recent poll), MA-10 (where Brown got 60% of the vote) is competitive, and two Connecticut races are rated toss ups. This means potentially a pickup of up to 7 seats (not counting the uphill battle to retire Barney Frank).

There are some lessons here for the Tea Party Express; first and most importantly,  sniping more pragmatic/moderate candidates (e.g., Mike Castle, Bob Bennett and Lisa Murkowski) was extremely counterproductive. If the Democrats had fielded a stronger candidate in Florida and/or Crist had adopted a more Murkowski-style (independent Republican) campaign, Rubio would be in big trouble. The Tea Party gained nothing in Utah, because that seat would have been won by any Republican. Rand Paul can probably attribute a more comfortable margin to a critical faux pas late in the race by Attorney General Conway. Sharron Angle and Ken Buck may pull out their elections, but their challengers would have clinched the election.

The story was that the Tea Party represented a mainstream movement including disaffected Democrats and independents. What we have seen is more of an ideological Tea Party Express and/or Sarah Palin trying to knock off moderate Republicans; the only reason that Senate California and New Hampshire seats are still in play (not to mention the Maryland governor's seat) is because more ideological candidates were defeated.

I'm hearing warnings from the ideologues that they'll be sniping more moderate Republicans. No one bothered noticing that Congressman Castle's pragmatic Republicanism was compatible with Scott Brown's, but Mike Castle's vote is less important than Scott Brown's? We have seen bizarre, idiosyncratic issues surface in Kentucky, Delaware, Alaska, Nevada, West Virginia and South Carolina races that rarely happen with vetted, experienced candidates. There was a reason the Harry Reid camp was ecstatic about Sharron Angle's nomination, just as the Chris Coon's campaign celebrated going from a 15-point underdog to a 20-point favorite.

Congressmen Mark Kirk and Mike Castle have particularly drawn fire for votes on cap-and-trade, but one should never underestimate the political impact of environmental concerns in coastal areas (in Kirk's case, Lake Michigan). Unfortunately, the Tea Party Express did not recognize the reality of earlier Tea Party guidelines which were more flexible in terms of a political agenda.

I don't think the Tea Party Express took the right approach to the election; sniping at Republicans largely in agreement with fiscal restraint (there's a big difference between $500B and $1.4T deficits) was counterproductive. Look at typical tax-and-spender Democrats receiving modest competition (I have to reluctantly include my favorite in the Maryland US Senate race, Eric Wargotz, whom I still haven't seen in a TV commercial during the general campaign): both New York Senate seats, Vermont, Maryland, and Hawaii. Why wasn't the Tea Party Express trying to snipe incumbent progressives and replace them with moderate or conservative Democrats which would have been a far more effective use of their time and resources?

What the Tea Party Express failed to grasp is that over the next 2 years, Obama retains the veto as a weapon. I think Obama will cut a budget deal with Republicans rather than hand trillion-dollar deficits to his 2012 race opponent on a silver platter, but the GOP needs to avoid a Gingrich-style confrontation. The point is, does anyone really believe that ideologues like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul are going to lead in coming to a necessary compromise with a sitting President wielding a veto?  I find it far more likely they'll see any compromise as a sellout and vote against it. We need pragmatic legislators, with negotiation skills, whom are able to strike the best deal possible with a progressive President.

It's Dude-in-Chief to You, Jon...

No, Obama didn't say "we are the ones whom delivered what we've been waiting for", but you get the same old same old political spin about "comprehensive" health/financial "reform". Somehow yet another interview fails to question Obama why he insists all his problems are due to "greedy Wall Street" but his "reform" doesn't address the companies that have most fed off the federal teat--i.e., AIG, the auto makers, and the GSE's, when only a tiny fraction of his $860B stimulus plan, his "saving us from another Depression", had been spent by the time that government economists had declared the recession over, and when his health care "reform" not only aggravates inflationary pressures in the sector but is paid for by politically-promised, unprecedented cuts in Medicare which is in and of itself all but insolvent?

Jon Stewart let him get away with lame defenses of job growth in the private sector that don't even reach the minimum number of 120,000 or so just to accommodate new job seekers in the market. How many times is Obama going to try to drive that car, before the repo man from China tows it out of the ditch? What's his winning motto for 2012: "yes, we can...spend your money"? Why hasn't the President acted sooner on tax cuts due to expire in 2 months? What has he specifically done to foster broad-based business growth?

No, I really didn't expect much more than a fawning interview from a progressive comedian like Jon Stewart. But I will point out that Obama has spent more time making unprecedented visits to shows like The View and the Daily Show than negotiating with Republicans. And what has he said that we haven't already heard ad nauseam dozens of times? He still doesn't think after 30 speeches on health care the American people don't buy his health care program; he just hasn't found the right words--it certainly can't be they actually don't like his program... It's rather like Joy Behar trying to explain to The View audience that her use of the term 'bitch' with respect to Sharron Angle was actually a term of endearment she uses with her closest friends...

But letting Jon Stewart at one point get away with calling him "dude"? Well, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that Obama didn't say, "Don't call me 'dude'; call me by my title: Mr. President. I worked so hard to earn that title..."



Spoof on the Dems via "The Real Housewives of Washington DC"



Political Humor

A few originals:

• The Obama's have finally installed family-safe filters on their cable. It's not just that Bristol Palin is on "Dancing With the Stars" and Sarah Palin's innumerable appearances as a contributor on Fox News Channel; these days you can't even trust TLC, with their new series, "Sarah Palin's Alaska".
• I'm not saying incumbent Alaska US Senator and Republican write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski is rethinking her stand on education, but some constituents are misspelling her surname 'Mercowsky'. And they're her relatives....

Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonders

Henry Mancini, "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet"

Miscellany: 10/28/10

Quote of the Day

Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.
Albert Camus

Election Watch

The RCP House battle of projected lean/likely/strong shows the margin remaining the same, but each side losing 3 to toss ups: 222-175 in favor of the GOP, with another 2 Dem seats shifting from safe to likely.

If you have caught Karl Rove in recent appearances on Fox News' prime-time news commentary shows, he has made reference to the 70% rule. If we take the House seats in play as the lean Dem-toss up-lean Rep category (111 in the RCP count), this would suggest the GOP would win 78 seats. Of the 111 seats, 10 are Republican, which means a net gain of 68; with the current House count of 178 Republicans, we are looking at a prospective 246 seats for the Republicans to 189 for the Democrats. Of course, there are different estimates; Charlie Cook posits about 100 seats in play; assuming the same 10 seats held by the GOP, this means a 60 seat pickup to 238-197. (You can build confidence bands using the Dem share of 72% in the 2006 elections to the 64% figure in the 2008 elections.)

As for the RCP Senate count, if we take a dozen seats in play, 8 of the 12  minus the 4 currently held by Republicans plus the safe 2 seat takeaways (North Dakota and Arkansas) results in an estimated 47 seats for the GOP, leaving the Dems in control with 53.

All this, of course, is speculation. The Democrats usually field a strong turnout and have been more adept at the use of information technology, and it's difficult to know the effects of early voting, although there's no doubt which base is more motivated.

Fox News and Hypersensitive Nonsense

First of all, I want to say that I believe in civility. I don't believe in (or particularly like) narcissistic political leaders like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I welcome readers but wasn't happy to find that one of them found me by searching for 'Obama is a jackass'. It probably had to do with the fact most of my posts reference Obama, and I've made up a tongue-in-cheek 'Jackass of the Year' award for a particularly obnoxious Democrat; however, I will not treat the President like most Democrats, including him, have done to former President Bush. I will poke fun at Obama, which I'm sure partisans don't like, but I've also criticized and mocked certain Republicans as well. I will also take shots at certain people like Glenn Beck (next segment), whom get a little too full of themselves.

There are several examples that can be cited, but a few will make the general point: there were leaks of alleged diva-like behavior from Sarah Palin, that she had rebelled in her handling (in fact, that's consistent with the fact that the campaign was slow in making her available to the press, and after Palin's disastrous interviews with ABC and CBS, McCain joined her for the last interview sequence with NBC; only Fox News with its fawning interviews were given wider access. ) Bill O'Reilly, on multiple occasions, not only tacitly assumed that the criticisms had no merit, but personally attacked McCain for not taking sides in a disagreements among his supporters. Then, several months later, David Letterman made a bad joke about one of Palin's daughters (keep in mind several comedians mocked the same daughter, Bristol, a year earlier without any response); Sarah Palin immediately seized on the fact that Letterman hadn't fact-checked which  (underaged) Palin daughter attended the Yankee game in question with her, accused him of  deliberately telling a rape joke involving a 13-year-old girl, and even when she accepted Letterman's public apology, she did it using politically correct rhetoric and tacitly repeated her smear of Letterman.

I think that Sarah Palin would have been better served to respond graciously and with tact in both of the circumstances. I don't like the feminist and politically correct rhetoric; Sarah Palin hasn't quite figured out yet that the politically correct police aren't her friends and a number of people, including myself, have had our fill with empty, abstract rhetoric and political spin. That is the absolute last thing we need after electing a President whom saturates the airwaves daily with 'hope', 'change', 'we are the ones we've been waiting for',  whipping boys, and straw men...

I often have a habit of using anecdotes from my own experience in my posts. I'll give one minor example: there was a situation where I had been involved in a group presentation; I had an issue with certain promotional material being used in a scholarly context, and the leaders responded by breaking a commitment to me. The situation was resolved by an agreement to separate the presentations. The group went first--and then preempted my presentation by presenting my own ideas (which included some unique concepts not part of the literature). I had not expected the swerve, and what made the situation even worse was when I followed up with my own presentation, the group, now sitting in the front row, basically started loudly talking in the front row, blatantly interrupting me, ignoring and disrespecting me in front of the rest of the audience. (The moderator made no effort to address this adolescent behavior.) I made no attempt to confront the group after the presentation, although I rebuked the sheepish moderator for mishandling the situation. [As an aside, one of the MBA students who shared my office told me weeks later that Elizabeth, one of the women in the group, was attracted to me, and I should call her. Not a chance.] I could give many other examples, but what amazes me is that politicians generally have better people skills than most of us geeks but they let other people pull their chains.

I'm tired of the pettiness. Jerry Brown's campaign has been worried that Meg Whitman would do an end run around them and cut a pension reform deal with key public unions. That was the context for the now infamous "whore" remark made by one of his staffers in a meeting attended by Brown on an accidentally recorded tape. The term was not meant to denigrate Whitman personally but to suggest that she was willing to do or say almost anything to get elected. I think there are better ways to get one's point across, even in private discussions not knowing one is being recorded without his or her consent.

Then there are the infamous multiple "bitch" references to Sharron Angle by The View's Joy Behar. Now, seriously: did anyone think that Joy Behar wasn't thinking that, even if she hadn't said it? I don't want the politically correct police giving coarse language any more power by putting it (like Fox News does) on heavy rotation. Do you honestly think that liberals/progressives whom used to joke about Bush and monkeys, or Whoopi Goldberg's crass humor making a play on words between female anatomy and the former President's surname, are more restrained in private? And we're not even talking about the prior breach of professionalism on The View when Joy and Whoopi walked out on Bill O'Reilly...

We get it: liberals/progressives aren't always nice people. The same can also be said about some conservatives: look at what Senators Vitter and Ensign and Governor Sanford did, as family value conservatives, to violate their marital vows. As Pope John XXIII once told an architect, whom submitted a plan--without a bathroom: "we are not angels".

What drives me crazy about Fox News is, instead of looking at the pension crisis in California in detail, they're spending much more airtime making much ado about nothing. Politicians should have thicker skin.
Don't sweat the small stuff.

Beck's Populist Rant on China and Manufacturing

I wrote a couple of segments that got lost due to browser or Blogger issues yesterday in the process of posting. His talk show does very well; he is a prolific author and sells out lecture halls. His websites probably get more hits in 5 minutes than mine do all day. I subscribe to his daily email, and one of my brothers in law has friended one of his Facebook groups. But I dislike populism with a passion.

But when Beck on Wednesday's show started one of his trademark doomsday scenarios, you could almost hear a neo-Perot "giant sucking sound" of American manufacturing jobs headed to China. Faithful readers of this blog probably already know the truth. The nature and extent of labor in manufacturing is changing, but we can no longer globally compete on the manufacture of certain goods with significant labor costs involving low-skilled labor. At one point, a significant amount of manpower was employed in agriculture, and those who would control the economy worried that laid-off farm workers would never be able to find jobs in the cities and towns.

We are creating a vibrant value-added manufacturing system with a need for a more efficient, higher-skilled labor force. While Beck contemptuously equates service jobs with working the lunch shift at McDonald's, I got a PhD in an interdisciplinary academic field that didn't have a program when I was in high school, and I've been working for several years in a profession (as an Oracle DBA) that also didn't exist a few decades back.

I'm not especially worried about most shoes or cellphones being manufactured outside of the US. Believe me, if and when American businessmen see money to be made on manufacturing shoes or cellphones (say, through creative destruction), they will do so.

So, Glenn, stop the madness: be more responsible in your current role as a radio/television host, and don't spread panic or wild conspiracy theories.

Political Humor

A few originals:

• The Washington DC area was under a tornado watch the other day. But the real storm is coming mid-term election night: the tornado is going to land the House of Representatives on top of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then we're off on the road to 2012 to battle the Wizard of Id, Ego and Super-Ego.
• I remember when I was a kid, we would sometimes trick-or-treat at Halloween for a charity like UNICEF. Things have changed since then. In Democratic neighborhoods you now see kids going door-to-door in George W. Bush masks, asking for donations for the Committee to Reelect Barack Obama.
• It's World Series time again. You know what that means: the Democrats are coming up for their final at bats before the midterms, with Harry Reid in the batter's box, Nancy Pelosi on deck, and Barack Obama in the hole. A big, deep hole he in fact can't drive out of; today Obama met with some of the American heroes involved with the Chilean miner rescue; he wants to know if they also happen to be political consultants...
• I'm not saying that game shows are getting easier, but when Richard Blumenthal and Mark Kirk are two of the challengers in a revival of "To Tell the Truth"...
• Sharron Angle's campaign attorney is slamming the Nevada Democratic Secretary of State looking the other way on allegations of free food and gift cards by unions and other Harry Reid supporters. Hearing that, jealous California voters turning out for Proposition 19 are demanding free munchies. 
• Harry Reid needs a catchy name for his supporters' food and gift card bribes to Nevada voters, after having recently negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, and Gator-Aid. For those voting for a another Reid term in the Senate, may I suggest the Gamblers' Free Buffet? After 4 times of wasting taxpayer money, surely this term will be a winner...
• I'm sure next week some California voters will be quoted saying, "Dude! Jerry Brown is on the ballot! I told you I didn't miss the vote for his reelection!"
• Obama was widely quoted telling the Republicans that they can't drive, that they have to sit in the back of the car. No doubt he learned something from his conversation with Shirley Sherrod; he also won't give American voters the full force of what he can do after the midterm elections...
• Alexi Giannoulias, Democratic candidate for Illinois' US Senate seat, once occupied by Peter Fitzgerald, wants everyone to know how well-qualified he is for the office: after presiding over the failure of his family-owned bank and the abysmal status quo of Illinois' state finances, he is ready for the challenge of the $13.6T national debt...

Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonders

Hot Butter, "Popcorn"

Miscellany: 10/27/10

Quote of the Day

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.
Malcolm S. Forbes

Election Watch

RCP Senate watch shows the California Senate race shifting from toss up to lean Dem for a 49-45 lead--which means that the GOP would need to run the table on the toss ups to gain control, which is unlikely. I still believe that both Brown and Boxer are beatable (I've only seen an oddball poll or two where Brown or Boxer has exceeded 50%), although I've only seen 1 poll over the past 2 to 3 weeks where one of the Republican candidates (Fiorina) had a lead. This could be one of those states where polls are misleading. I'm not sure I agree that the people in struggling California are willing to go with the same old same old, decades-old professional politicians; it's hard to know if, in this year, the people aren't going to send the failing Democratic Party in California a message, when they are going to do so. I think Fiorina has better chances of success than Whitman, but if I was running their campaigns, I would pull the negative ads and end on an optimistic, upbeat note and ask the people to join them in a new start with a pro-growth philosophy that reaffirms the primacy of the private sector, not government, in California's future.

The RCP House race shows the GOP with a widening lead of 225-178 of lean/likely/strong seats. The net number of toss ups shrinks by 2 with an additional offsetting exchange between lean Dem and toss up. One of the newly classified lean seats is NJ-3 where the GOP candidate, Jon Runyan, a former pro football player, facing freshman Democrat John Adler. Adler succeeded a long-tenure Republican, Jim Saxton.

The Adler campaign has engaged in sleazy tactics, fronting a faux Tea Party candidate, Peter DeStefano, in a blatant attempt to draw sympathetic conservative votes away from Runyan. According to the Star-Ledger:

Republicans have charged that Adler’s campaign, in a tight 3rd District race with GOP’s John Runyan, conjured up DeStefano’s candidacy — talking the no-name into running, captaining his petitions and feeding him talking points...Until now, the only accusation was dirty politics, and that’s not against the law...Democrats with knowledge of the Adler campaign have told the Courier-Post that Adler’s campaign manager Geoff Mackler and consultant Steve Ayscue helped launch DeStefano’s candidacy. The [FEC] complaint insists that Adler was essentially paying people to work on DeStefano’s campaign and has failed to report that contribution.

Of 3 October polls, Runyan has led by small margins in two and in the other trailed by 1 point. A freshman incumbent (Adler) running in a lean-Republican district, whose high point in the polls to date is 46%? I like Runyan's chances.

The same sleazy tactics have been tried and/or implemented in several other races in Pennsylvania, Michigan and (surprise, surprise) my Jackass of the Year winner, Alan Grayson (D-FL).

Third parties, of course, have had notorious impacts on elections: for example, the Democrats still have not forgiven Ralph Nader, the notorious consumer activist, whom ran as the Green Party candidate for President, for allegedly siphoning off votes from Al Gore in Florida, and a Green Party candidate is drawing a small but important number of votes in the Illinois US Senate race, possibly benefiting Mark Kirk. However, I disagree with comparing legitimate third parties with contrived parties, intentionally created to confuse voters. For example, Ralph Nader had also run for President in 1996.

French Parliament Passes Pension Reform: Thumbs UP!

President Sarkozy is faced with a problem faced by many developed economies: an aging population and an underfunded pension system for the original criteria and actuarial realities of longer lives and expected benefits. With lifetimes now extending roughly to 78 for men and 85 for women, the French have decided to raise the earlier/lower pension age from 60 to 62 and full pension age from 65 to 67, but not without massive protests from socialists and unions. (I love the response of one Frenchman, whom when pressed to explain why French workers should retire earlier than other Europeans said, "Because we are French, and we are the best, you know?")

Political Humor

There are strikes all over France because the government wants to raise the retirement age. The strikes are threatening the French way of life. Yesterday, an American had to walk all the way across Paris without getting insulted. - Craig Ferguson

[French strikers are already complaining about their 30-hour weeks on the picket line, but they have another vacation coming up. Frenchmen are simply being more subtle about their anti-Americanism: Noting the Democratic opposition to social security reform in 2005, they have started referring to their President, whom has proposed increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62, as "Nicolas W. Sarkozy".]

Some originals:

• I'm not saying Barack Obama is nervous about next week's election, but Sasha and Malia have been told they can't invite friends over for a tea party.
• Sarah Palin insists she's focused on getting Republicans elected next week, but after recently seeing Barack Obama on TV, she tweeted, "I can see the White House from my house."
• They were all there--Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner; Scott Brown had brought them over in his truck... Michelle Obama shook a screaming Barack awake, saying, "Barack, what did I say about watching the news before going to bed?"
• Obama is definitely worried about the election. At the annual Halloween party, the women came wearing bear costumes, and the guys brought six-packs of beer.

Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonders

The Ventures, Theme From 'Hawaii Five O'

Miscellany: 10/26/10

Quote of the Day

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.
Henry Van Dyke

Election Watch

The RCP race of lean/likely/safe seats slightly widens to 223-178 in favor of the GOP , with another toss up shifting to lean GOP along with a net one loss between lean Dem and toss ups. The Senate race goes to 48-45 in favor of the Dems, with RCP shifting Kentucky (Rand Paul) from toss up to lean GOP.

There's an embarrassing debate kerfuffle involving Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink battling Rick Scott, former Columbia/HCA CEO,  perhaps more familiar to readers as having led CPR (Conservatives for Patients' Rights), a prominent group opposed to Obamacare ; Rick Scott noticed that Alex had gotten a message (against debate rules) during a break; the Scott people subsequently made humorous reference to iCheat (although FactCheck, probably to the few whom really care about such nitpicking trivia, will surely point out that the phone in question was a Droid, not an iPhone) No doubt Joe Biden finds a kindred spirit in Alex Sink...

Rhode Island Democratic nominee for governor, Frank Caprio, is steamed at Barack Obama, whom had earlier decided not to endorse a candidate out of respect for independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, a former moderate Republican Senator whom endorsed him in 2008; Caprio said that Obama could take his endorsement and "shove it".

Proof of Citizenship to Vote an Onerous Burden? THUMBS DOWN!

A 2004 Arizona state proposition, requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration, was overturned by a split decision of a 3-judge panel, including retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (voting with the majority). The majority held that Arizona had established an undue burden over and beyond the federal National Voter Registration Law, which established a perjury penalty for fraudulent registration. This seems to be yet another judicial activist departure from common sense. I have to file an I-9 (proof of my legal right to work), with appropriate documentation, typically on a first day of work. I understand that the Congress was interested in ensuring as many legitimately eligible voters as possible are able to vote in a timely fashion, but I believe that the risk of fraud undermining the integrity of any election outweighs say, the inconvenience in assuming the same type of burden of someone starting a new job. I believe that the barriers to voter fraud in the federal law are low, and penalties to fraud are ineffective if the government isn't seriously and proactively enforcing the law but simply paying lip service; it is a moral requirement for any republic to ensure the integrity of elections.

James O'Keefe and "Teacher Unions Gone Wild"

James O'Keefe is a modern-day conservative activist muckraker, perhaps best known for his ACORN exposé, where he posed as a pimp and associate Hannah Giles as a prostitute, meeting with lower-level ACORN employees, soliciting advice in 6 different offices on how to work around authorities on a variety of crimes. I should note that O'Keefe doesn't view himself as a conservative but as one whom exposes hypocrisy or hidden agenda wherever it leads him, in the public or private sector; he is founder of the Project Veritas website. More recently he was famously caught in a kerfuffle involving Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (the recipient of the infamous "Louisiana Purchase" in corrupt deal making during the Senate health care deliberations); he was caught trying to get evidence that the Landrieu office wasn't paying attention to constituent feedback during the debate.

This work focuses on self-serving New Jersey teacher unions, allegedly at the NJEA conference.  Any faithful reader of this blog knows that I am, by most orthodox standards, more of a radical educational reformer whom opposes tenure, pay materially out of step with market supply and demand, or raises not earned by performance, wants a more globally competitive school year and a laser focus on objective measures of student performance and criteria such as graduation rates, believes in real educational choice, and does not believe any public servant (including the military, police, fireman, or teachers) deserves exemption from public sacrifice.

WARNING: This video captures a teacher or union representative using an inappropriate term for a person of color.



Political Humor

The Census says that college educated young adults are the most likely to be married. That just shows there is a big difference between being book smart and having common sense. - Jim Barach

[They also tend to vote for Democrats; isn't it obvious to any educated person that you should vote for someone with less than 4 years in Congress and no administrative background or experience President? Or you would put in charge of the nation's pursestrings the Democrats, whom have not balanced the books in decades?]

They now say the Titanic sank because the captain had a big problem when he tried to turn way to the left. To which President Obama said, "Tell me about it." - Jay Leno

[The federal bureaucracy was designed by some of the world's best Democratic progressives, staffed by the career government employees with better compensation packages and job security than in the private sector, and run by lawyers and others without significant experience in the private sector. Clearly, the Obama Administration, like the Titanic, is "too big to fail"...


Seriously, could you imagine Obama as captain of the Titanic? First, he would have blamed the McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft Administrations for having recklessly failed to regulate shipbuilding. Second, he would have blamed the fact of the freakish iceberg on those same Republican Administrations for having failed to enact global warming legislation. Finally, you can predict the kind of excuses Obama would make if anyone pointed out that his ship had room on lifeboats for only 1178 of the 2227 people on board: Obama would have blamed the GOP Congress for not allowing the ship's administration sufficient time to count the lifeboats before leaving port...]


A bonus original:

• Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink got caught cheating when an aide sent a text message to Alex via her makeup artist's cell phone (see Election Watch above). Alex explained that she had watched "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" earlier in the day and mistakingly thought she was entitled to one "phone-a-friend" lifeline.

Musical Interlude: The Instrumental/One-Hit Wonder Series.

Maynard Ferguson, "Gonna Fly Now" (Theme from 'Rocky')

Miscellany: 10/25/10

Quote of the Day

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the opposition he has encountered and the courage with which he has maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
Orrison Swett Marden

Election Watch

The RCP House lead for the GOP (lean/likely/safe) is now 222-179, as two shift from toss up to lean Dem and one goes the other direction. It's not clear exactly what factors are underlying status changes. For example, the only poll I've seen on IL-8 shows the GOP challenger Joe Walsh tied with Melissa Bean in a district long held by Republican Phil Crane (first elected in 1969 and narrowly defeated by Bean in 2004). I personally think that any Democrat in a purple or red district, particularly one held for less than 10 years, is in danger during the coming election; whereas Obama in 2008 did better than his overall margin elsewhere, I think that reflects more on Obama's favorite son status, and a more reliable indicator was Bush's bigger-than-elsewhere wins in 2000 and 2004.

It looks like Jerry Brown, third-time gubernatorial nominee in California, and Richard Blumenthal, US Senate candidate in Connecticut, are beginning to pull away from their former female CEO GOP competitors. I don't live in those states, so I only see occasional ads, but Brown and Blumenthal have been extraordinarily successful politicians and given they are running in states where Democrats have huge registration advantages, it's challenging to run against them. Jerry Brown also has an advantage in this being a change election year (after 2 terms of a Republican governor), and he wants to push any link from Whitman to unpopular Governor Schwarzenegger, particularly the fact that Schwarzenegger was a political novice just like Whitman. I think if she hasn't already, Whitman has point out the risk of one-party rule (in particular, the Dems' abysmal failure in Washington), she's got to link Brown with the unsustainable pension plans of public sector employees in California, and there's a difference between an actor playing a businessman or a professional politician living off the people's taxes and being a successful businesswoman.

Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer have almost consistently carried a small lead over their opponents, although Rossi and Fiorina have occasionally polled ahead. I'm not prepared to predict a victory for Rossi and Fiorina, but neither incumbent is polling ahead of 50%, and I think if you're an incumbent and you haven't sealed the deal by the last 2 days before an election, chances are the undecideds break in favor of the challenger.

On the Maryland front, it also looks like Martin O'Malley is beginning to pull away from Bob Ehrlich, although I have not studied the methodology of the poll (e.g., likely vs. regular voter samples). I actually like a lot of the spots Ehrlich is running. As an armchair analyst, I don't think Bob Ehrlich has anticipated and/or effectively responded the predictable flood of negative ads that O'Malley is running. This is the typical thing any unpopular incumbent will do (e.g., Rod Blagojevich and Gray Davis). I also don't think Ehrlich has really focused on the highly unpopular tax hikes that at the time dropped O'Malley's approval rate to the 30's (he's done it in general, not focused terms). O'Malley has been hammering Ehrlich on education cuts and has the audacity to attack "misleading" Ehrlich ads. I also think Ehrlich needs to tap into this year's taxpayer desire for getting spending under control and O'Malley's difficulty in cutting the budget because of his special interest supporters (i.e., union leadership). Ehrlich also should do a better job comparing and contrasting how he would have approached the last 4 years.

In Tribute of Barney "Roll the Dice on the GSE's" Frank



Man Up, Mr. President!

Sample direct/paraphrased definitions from Urban Dictionary:

• Be strong, take control of a (the) situation, be strong, rise to the moment
• Be a leader, step up to the plate when no one else will, give it your best shot
• Work through impediments and obstacles without whining, even if it is someone else's fault
• Don't cry and moan about something out of your control; knock it off
• Acknowledge and take responsibility for your own actions; don't blame others for your own mistakes, problems, or issues

From a Friday public appearance:

PRES. OBAMA: The Republican leaders in Washington, they made a different calculation. They, they looked around at the mess that they had made, at the mess that they had left me, and they said, "Boy, this is a really big mess." And they said, "It's going to take a long time to fix, so maybe if we just sit on the sidelines, say no to everything, and then point our fingers at Obama and say he's to blame," they figure that maybe y'all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place, and they'd be able to ride anger all the way to election time.

Obama, besides the absurdity of the straw man, you are rewriting history. "By their fruits shall ye know them." (Matthew 7:16) Marc Thiessen does a reality check in today's Washington Post:

The decline of the Obama presidency can be traced to a meeting at the White House just three days after the inauguration, when the new president gathered congressional leaders of both parties to discuss his proposed economic stimulus. House Republican Whip Eric Cantor gave President Obama a list of modest proposals for the bill. Obama said he would consider the GOP ideas, but told the assembled Republicans that "elections have consequences" and "I won."

In fashioning and passing a convoluted, oversized stimulus package within a month of taking office, Obama refused to negotiate with the Republicans; instead, there was a deliberate, ultimately successful attempt to peel off the three most liberal Republicans (the Maine senators and Arlen Specter, before he jumped parties) to move past the filibuster, the only leverage the GOP had . Remember how he constantly promoted "shovel-ready projects", only to admit recently in a New York Times magazine interview that there is "no such thing as shovel-ready projects"? The stimulus package was also famously hyped to cap unemployment at 8% (which it promptly blew past on its way to 10%, now standing at 9.6%, some 16 months after economists declared the recession was over).

Republican amendments have routinely been battered down by party-line votes, and Obama and Reid even lost the initially cooperative Maine senators as Reid kept a restrictive quota on GOP amendments. Then even after independents and moderates sent a strong warning message to the Democrats by electing Republicans in 3 high-profile blue/purple statewide elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama and the Democrats then passed the current unpopular health care law (in conjunction with an abuse of the budget reconciliation process to sidestep a potential Senate filibuster after Scott Brown ran as the 41st vote against Obamacare) without a single Republican vote, unprecedented on any major legislation.

Obama's nonstop Bush bashing, "failed policies of the last 8 years", intentionally misleading half-truths (e.g., that the GOP opposed small business tax cuts, when in fact they were opposed to the $30B of $42B which constituted a de facto corruptible community bank TARP, and in fact have repeatedly voted to extend ALL the Bush tax cuts, including the small business owners, most of whom report their business income through individual returns), and constant whining about Republicans as obstructionists and the "Party of No", instead of coming to grips with the fact that Republicans were presented with no real choice: voting for partisan Democratic legislative laws (versus bipartisan) or not, are not the stuff of bipartisanship, particularly by a leader whom ran on a materially misleading post-partisan platform.

And I guess you can't blame a guy for trying to sneak past such a manifestly absurd, totally unsupported claim that the GOP "caused the mess in the first place". The real estate bubble, like the Internet stock bubble, was well underway during the Clinton Administration; the Democrats resisted reforms at the government-subsidized GSE's, which raised the taxpayers' exposure to nearly half of the mortgage market, and the GSE's purchased a number of subprime mortgage notes, repackaged them and sold them to investors, here and abroad; the Bush Administration did not control the independently-run Federal Reserve, which has significant influence over money supply and interest rates, state bank regulators, credit raters or auditors; the Democrats specifically sponsored legislation politicizing home ownership to traditional high-risk/lower-income groups; the recession started several months after the Democrats had assumed control of both houses of Congress.

Let's put to rest this irrational conspiracy theory that the GOP decided to ride of wave of anger. First of all, Obama had huge majorities in both houses of Congress (unlike Bush whom not only inherited a sour economy after the stock market meltdown but faced uncooperative Democrats after a controversial Presidential election with an evenly-split Senate and then a Democratic-controlled Senate after Jim Jeffords defected.)  Clinton strategist James Carville was promoting his book predicting "40 More Years" of Democratic control. After Specter's defection put the Senate at a filibuster-proof majority, the Democrats proceeded to pass a raft of progressive bills, and Obama's patently false partisan attacks that the Republicans had no constructive ideas and simply objected to Democratic bills for partisan reasons were telling; Gallup shows that GOP approval ratings were at their high point at 36% at the beginning of the Obama Presidency and the Dems have never trailed (through last month). There seem to be two major reasons for voter discontent: (1) the Congress seemed to lose focus on the struggling economy after passing the massive stimulus bill shortly after Obama's inauguration; (2) the Democrats miscalculated by forcing a highly unpopular health care bill in the face of Scott Brown's election and polls showing strong disapproval.

Does the likely GOP recapture of the House constitute an unequivocal acceptance of an ideological conservative agenda? No; I think independents and moderates are making the difference in this election. I think they bought into Obama's centrist, apolitical vision and did not foresee the progressive agenda that came forth, including a radical overhaul of their popular private sector health care insurance system, cap-and-trade, unprecedented deficits, etc. They assigned the primary blame for the recession on the back of the GOP, however unfair that might be; they gave the Democrats a chance to carry the ball. The Dems went into 2009 knowing there would be a voter evaluation after 2 years; the public simply doesn't want excuses or hear from Obama, after his giving 30 speeches they happen to disagree with, that they just don't get it. The reasons the Republicans will be given a second chance after 4 years in exile are: (1) to send Obama and the Dems a message about their priorities and ineffectiveness over the past 2 years; (2) to give the Republicans a chance to see what they can do with the ball; and (3) to restore checks and balances to Washington.

Let's Make It "Senator Demeritus Barbara Boxer"



Political Humor

"In Washington, President Obama's recent speech to a women’s conference was interrupted when his presidential seal on the podium fell off -- two years early." –Seth Meyers

[It was just another empirical validation of Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation. Other examples include Obama's falling job approval numbers and several bad apples falling out of the White House tree (e.g., Christina Romer, Larry Summers, David Orszag, Rahm Emanuel, Anita Dunn, Van Jones, etc.)]

"An amazing week for idiocy in America. Glenn Beck said that evolution is ridiculous because he's never seen a half-man, half-monkey. Christine O'Donnell did not know that the First Amendment was in the First Amendment. We are truly one nation indivisible on the short bus." –Bill Maher

[And Chris Coons and other Democrats don't get the Tenth Amendment is still in the Constitution and think non-transactions (not buying insurance) are covered by the commerce clause; go figure. And Bill Maher doesn't know the Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association isn't part of the First Amendment, enacted on December 15, 1791.]

Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960s Series. This is the last segment in this series (the choice was inspired by a 2003 British comedy that played on cable over the weekend, Love Actually). My next series will focus on hit instrumentals and other one-hit wonders.

The Troggs, "Love is All Around"

Miscellany: 10/24/10

Quote of the Day

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
Charles de Montesquieu

Election Watch

The RCP House count has the GOP House lead (lean/likely/safe) increasing by 3 as two toss ups lean GOP and one lean DEM moving to toss up (222-177). One of the 2 moved to "lean GOP" is NY-23, which I've discussed on multiple occasions in recent posts. I didn't see any new polls posted on NY-23 (the last I saw was Owens ahead by about 5 points), but in recent posts I wasn't aware that even though Hoffman remains on the ballot, Hoffman formally dropped out on October 5 and endorsed Doheny. (I had seen an earlier post-election post saying Hoffman was determined to stay in the race. Given the fact that Hoffman barely lost to Owens, whom subsequently voted for the highly unpopular health care bill, that last poll may not reflect the effect of the Hoffman announcement.)

Well, I finally saw a first ad from Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) trying to rationalize her irresponsible vote for the corrupt Democratic Party Healthcare Law, taking pride in warding off cost-based restrictions on mammograms and ending restrictions on preexisting conditions. Just to reprise points made during the debate: there are multiple studies that indicate certain medical tests, which result in a significant number of traumatic false positives, are often unnecessarily recommended for younger-aged adults (e.g., without relevant family histories) or more frequently administered to at-risk groups than necessary. As for preexisting conditions, that seems to be fair--until you consider that people who wait until they are ill to apply for insurance are no better than those whom wait on flood insurance until a major storm approaches (fortunately, the federal government does not allow a homeowner to socialize their costs at the last minute). In both cases, you have individuals in the interim knowingly pocketing what they should have been spending on insurance premiums and then wanting to dump their expected large medical bills for a fraction of the cost (i.e., an insurance premium). It's a perversion of the very concept of insurance and a moral hazard.

Does that mean conservatives don't have a solution to ensure insurance coverage to high-risk individuals/families at reasonable cost? Of course not. Several states or regions have high risk pools; these offer subsidized coverage (e.g., via taxes on regular premiums and/or government contributions), typically with initially smaller premiums for those whom can show proof of recent coverage. The differences of conservatives with progressives focus on the nature and extent of federal involvement in health care; we need a fair means of spreading the costs of the most serious health risks across the whole US population, but we don't want a federal bureaucracy micromanaging health care costs, politicizing health care mandates or second-guessing decision making by more local medical providers.

I have not seen a single TV ad during the general campaign to date from my favored candidate, Eric Wargotz. Barbara Mikulski, up by 35 in the only recent poll, in the fine tradition of Douglas and Lincoln, is refusing to debate Wargotz, playing a game of prevent defense.

Yesterday's Rally for Kathleen Edward, America's Sweetheart

Photo Courtesy of Cheyla Wagner, Facebook Group "We Love You, Kathleen"
Kathleen Edward's official website 

I have written a couple of segments on Kathleen Edward, the 7-year-old girl dying from Huntington's disease, which also claimed her late mother last year. The beautiful gift from God has been treated to a princess party with a real princess, a visit from the Detroit Tigers' mascot, has been the beneficiary of a pharmacy promotion to help the Edward family with Kathleen's medical bills and was the guest of honor at a huge rally yesterday in the Detroit area.

The Petkov's, the Edward family antagonists, have not fared as well. Jennifer, who has been charged with attempting to run over a neighbor on her way to visit the Edward household, has had custody of her two oldest children temporarily awarded to their father, her prior significant other. Jennifer's current husband Scott, who had parked his truck with a coffin in front of the Edward home, has lost his job.





Jeremy Warner: "Will Someone Please Shut Krugman Up?"  TWO THUMBS UP!


The title, in and of itself, is enough to win my "hear, hear". Apparently Paul Krugman, dissatisfied with the fact that the only Western leader listening to him about a quantum leap forward in superspending to jumpstart demand is Barack Obama, is now lecturing to Britain about the foolhardy nature of their newfound fiscal discipline. Mr. Warner, I'm not sure I would agree that the great bulk of Americans are socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I do believe it is true of independents and moderates and a small number of legislators on both sides of the aisle. (It is certainly true of Northeast Republicans, including the recently ousted Mike Castle as the leading candidate for US Senate from Delaware.)  Krugman seems to promoting spending for the very sake of spending. He ignores the obvious fact that uncertainties in tax policies (e.g., new health care mandates/penalties, Bush tax cut status, etc.) adversely affect demand.

The fact is that progressive states like California never found time to create rainy day funds like a more conservative state like Texas; they simply kept voting to appease their public employees with unsustainable pension promises allowing many to qualify for 6-digit retirement salaries for life--which the ordinary American will never see in social security, even though they have to wait until 62 or later to file. Projections are that for the first time in decades, California will not gain any new Congressional seats while Texas is gaining four. Texas is continuing to draw more corporate offices with its business-friendly policies.

Mr. Warner overlooks how American progressives try to build up support for their fiscally reckless policies: they don't focus on hard decisions of how to pay for their spending; instead, they'll ask questions like 'don't you think Grandma needs a raise in social security?' or 'are you in favor of a lower teacher-to-student ratio? or more police on the streets?' If you ask Americans if they should go on diets, they'll quickly agree; but if you ask them whether they want a complimentary dessert with their meal, they'll give a contradictory response. That's the problem we American fiscal conservatives have: we want to push fiscal responsibility, but there are 1001 special interest groups fighting any serious cuts.


Political Humor

A couple of originals:

• Harry Reid notes,"It doesn't give [Nevada voters] comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression." Depression? Why were banks forced to take TARP money they didn't want or need (and quickly paid off when allowed to do so, DESPITE an ongoing housing correction, a tough economy and increasing unemployment--unlike the GSE's and AIG)? Most banks weren't operating in the red; the large majority of their loans (including any mortgage loans) were being paid off. The runs on banks weren't by panicked customers, but by desperate policymakers. The real worldwide depression? The idea that Nevada voters, facing 15% unemployment, might actually send an ineffectual, corrupt deal making, mega tax-and-spender back to the Senate for 6 more years (let's hope Sharon goes into her closet and gives Harry his very own pink slip...) We'll become the Prozac nation. 
• Robert Gibbs on last Sunday's Meet the Press said, "I think that, come election night, we'll retain control of both the House and the Senate." It sounds to me that Robert Gibbs has been living in Obama's 57th state: the State of Denial.

Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960's Series

The Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby"