Quote of the Day
Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.
Albert Einstein
A Rant on Voters, Hannity, Obama
When a very intelligent, articulate blogger like myself, a natural administrator and problem solver, looks at the polls, watches the newscasts, and sees how GOP and Tea Party routinely fecklessly misplay their hand and lose the propaganda war against a grossly incompetent President Obama time after time, one almost loses faith in the American voter. I mean, how stupid are people to rationally consider grossly incompetent and unqualified candidates like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann for President? How stupid do you have to be to have been a Delaware GOP primary voter whom voted for Christine O'Donnell or a Nevada GOP primary voter whom voted for Sharron Angle? I understand the activists want more ideological purity but nominating polarizing candidates or gadfly politicians is literally throwing elections away. How could you not beat a highly unpopular corrupt deal-making Harry Reid in Nevada with unemployment around 14%? In what sense is the right thing to do to target a Mike Castle in Delaware whom had won several statewide elections as governor and Congressmen and has voted the "right way" 50% of the time and is routing the Democratic candidate whom votes the right way only 10% of the time?
I understand there are people whom genuinely like these women and like what they have to say, but think of this: the same people who mocked Obama for using a teleprompter and being inexperienced are seriously thinking of voting for President women whom have been hyping having an Air Force Base in Alaska and obscure trade mission as military and foreign policy experience? Or a family-owned mental health clinic significantly dependent on government payments as the equivalent of, say, Romney turning around the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City or launching or turning around well-known companies as a venture capitalist?
After seeing Obama, a similar lightweight with no meaningful executive experience, functionally incapable of working with the opposition and with little ability more than to deliver a prepared speech that anyone could write, why would we trust someone whom couldn't stand up to the political pressure in a sparsely populated state which doesn't even have a state income tax for a full term? Because Sarah Palin can write a catchy tweet? What on earth makes anyone think she can handle a $3.5T budget, deal with the Palestinian issue or deal with Senate Democrats whom after the 2012 election will at least have filibuster privileges? She had problems dealing with the majority GOP leadership in the Alaskan legislature; she couldn't even get her nominee as state attorney general confirmed. It's one thing to deliver a speech--it's another thing to get things done.
There's also a question of temperament and judgment. While governor, she spent the better part of a week or two going after a late night talk show host comedian whom used a Palin unwed mother as the target of a joke about a promiscuous major league baseball player. Why would any sane, intelligent person even go there? Why would a responsible mother want that joke that would have quickly died the death of any joke in bad taste to become part of the national headlines? Don't sweat the small stuff; choose your battles. If you can't deal with a David Letterman, how can you deal with a Qaddafi? Can you imagine a President Palin more concerned about a Chavez tweet intentionally calling her daughter a whore than his troublemaking policies in South America?
Don't get me started about Bachmann; with all the issues in a liberal state like Minnesota, her more prominent issue was trying to pass a constitutional amendment against gay marriage--in a state where there was no short-term prospect of gay marriage passing the legislature. Bachmann is playing a dangerous game of chicken over a possible government default, which could result in potentially soaring, economy-crippling interest rate hikes, when no one pretends we can trim a $1.6T or so deficit overnight: we know there's no way we can cut a 40% deficit when 60% of the budget involves entitlements where a simple modest cut is essentially off the table. What we need is a grown-up like me, not petulant ideologues like Obama or Bachmann.
Now what the GOP needs to do is avoid looking as the inflexible person in the room; I saw one poll where Obama led the GOP in terms of whom was handling the crisis better (Obama was in the mid-40's and the GOP in the 30's). I just can't believe how ineptly this is being handled. First, how do you lose a message war when Obama is back to the same old same old class warfare nonsense he was saying against the GOP back in 2008? The GOP fails to point out that the deficit during the Bush Administration, with, as Obama once again railed against, "unpaid income tax cuts" (never mind over 75% of tax cuts that went to the middle class have never been paid for--if Obama had even an ounce of integrity, he would argue for ALL the Bush tax cuts revoked across the board, which really would be the grown-up in the room), "unpaid wars" (which don't even account for 10% of the deficit and, by the way, he hasn't reduced), etc. And we continue to hear about tax loopholes, but only for companies Obama doesn't support like oil companies, which he continues to throw money down the rathole of green energy as "investments". Obama continues to play games: what givebacks has Obama done AT ALL from unspent, say, allocated stimulus bill or TARP funding? None really.
No, he insists, with a $1.6T deficit to rail against $70B of upper-income potential higher income taxes. Never mind the deficit has more than doubled under Obama, holding tax policy constant, holding the war funding constant, etc. He rails against tax breaks for private jets (started, by the way, under his own stimulus program) and oil companies--but these are more artifacts of accounting items like depreciation. Not, for example, sugar or ethanol subsidies. But even if you ignore his deliberately misleading discussion of these items, first of all, note he is talking about TAX REVENUES, NOT SPENDING CUTS. Second, his cherry-picked items don't even amount to a rounding error in a $1.6T federal deficit.
So when Obama is talking about lack of flexibility from the Republicans on the revenue side--he conveniently fails to put out that the spending cuts he's talked about are deferred, not near-term, and unlikely (e.g., unrealistic cuts in government program piecemeal payments, already underwater with provider cuts). He's not talking about what businesses talk about when tightening the belt: no salary cuts or benefit freezes, hiring freezes, selling assets, shuttering operations, etc.
FNC Special Report looked at the support for the balanced budget amendment: it showed strong support--until you throw in spending cuts and/or tax increases. How does one think a budget get balanced?
Finally on Hannity tonight, there was one of those Frank Luntz focus group events. One of them focused on Colorado Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), including coverage of an ad Frank Luntz described as one of the best in the 2010 electoral campaign. It really annoyed me because it exactly referenced something I ranted against yesterday: what I called the "eat your own dog food" nonsense. E.g., for the Congressman choose the same health plan choices as everyone else, not work as lobbyists after their Congressional career, etc.
This is the political equivalent of cotton candy; it doesn't amount to a significant rounding error and distracts from policy substance. "Lobbyists", "special interests", and "shared sacrifice" are misleading, cynical Democratic attempts to hijack/co-opt plain English understandings of the terms. You see, when Obama is making deals with unions (remember the auto bankruptcies and generous exemptions for gold-plated health care benefits?), AARP, pharmaceuticals or organizations like ACORN, those weren't "lobbyists" or "special interests".
"Shared sacrifice" doesn't mean the 50% of workers whom don't pay a single penny in income taxes to defray the costs of the federal government: it is okay, of course, for entitled workers to pay their own groceries or rent, but not government goods and services that directly benefit them, because, of course, the government is run by magic fairies. Poor people are frugal when it comes to buying groceries or where they choose to live, but why should they care how frugal the government is in providing "free water" from the tap? Of course, conservatives try in vain to explain if the government isn't frugal, sooner or later there will be no more "free water"; in reality the water they're getting is not free and there is no "free water" fairy. And heaven help us if we ask the people whom have come to believe in the "free water" fairy to engage in REAL shared sacrifice (e.g., REAL user fee) and offset a portion of the costs in providing that "free water": after all, we're ENTITLED to "free water" because Barack "Fairy Godfather" Obama and Nancy "Fairy Godmother" Pelosi, representing the land of the fairies, not the gun-toting, Bible-believing Midwesterners, said so!
The reason I mentioned 'lobbyists' here--a key part of the cotton candy Bennet ad--is because the way you control for things like lobbyists is substantive reform--e.g., arcane Senate seniority rules which gives some members more clout than others or tax simplification which does away with the Sally Brown "all I want is my fair share" gold rush for government largesse. The unconstitutional policies Bennet is advocating here would treat only the symptoms, not the underlying disease. Where was the grown-up Bennet ad attacking the corrupt deal making during the health care "reform" debate? It's simply easier to scapegoat former legislators like Trent Lott than deal with the real underlying issues...
Never mind the fact that Bennet voted for ObamaCare. All of this is nonsense--politicians do not vote based on how they are personally affected by legislation; Mitt Romney in 2008 spent tens of millions in assets to compete for the Presidency, a job which pays less than $500K per year; Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire whom is in his third term as NYC mayor. They are most likely motivated by political self-interest, and the way you keep your seat is by co-opting possible challengers, often ideologues with activist backing. The classic textbook case has to be Mike Castle in Delaware where activists, irritated by his more moderate views, backed unelectable Christine O'Donnell, whom barely nipped him in the primary. The way you make a difference is by being able to reach across the aisle--which is rejected out of hand by ideologues.
Finally, Congressman McCarthy (R-CA) started talking about cuts and the Department of Education by pointing out the number of $100K employees. This is true insofar as it goes, but the broader point is why we have a Department of Education in the first place. Education is at the state/local level, and there are a number of private institutions at all levels. Is the emperor wearing clothes? Public schools compete unfairly to begin with. It would be far more efficient and better to privatize education and provide assistance for less able students.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ELO, "Wild West Hero"
