Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them,
but I can look up and see the beauty,
believe in them
and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott
Political Potpourri
Just a few comments about some of the latest key polls listed for RCP. The Bloomberg poll is a real outlier and not reliable: for example, they have Obama's job approval rating at 53%, and I don't think I've seen one like that in months. I've very occasionally seen one at 50-51%, but this is following worsening job numbers and falling consumer confidence. The four I've seen released today ranged from 43-49%. The four general matchups between Romney and Obama show the results split: 2-2. I would be worried if I was Obama at this point. There are clear signs that Romney could sweep the upper-Midwest (Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio); right now Minnesota and Illinois seem out of reach. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida are doable. I think Romney even has an outside shot at pulling off California. I think that the Democratic governor and state legislature are in deep trouble, and the longer these problems persist through November, Obama is at risk. The exception seems to be New York, and I don't understand.
The odd thing is that Rasmussen is showing a decided advantage for the GOP in Congress and a couple of other polls show the mirror opposite. I tend to believe Rasmussen; I personally think that any Democratic Senate incumbent or challenger at less than 51-52% will go down. The GOP will probably get most of the undecideds. With the possible exception of Maine, I see the GOP holding their Senate seats and we'll probably see a mirror image of 2006, this time the GOP of winning the narrow races in Virginia and the northern US states.
I think despite the advantage of the incumbency, Obama is in very deep trouble that hasn't shown up in the polls yet, and I believe that the polls are understating Romney's real advantage. I think that the burden of proof is on Obama that he can deliver what he couldn't deliver in the last session of Congress. "Finish the job?" Hardly. The only thing this guy knows how to do is spend money that he doesn't have. (I realize that I have a vested interest here, but this is my honest analysis.) What will be relevant is the employment figures on election day 2008 and the same numbers going into the election. What we know is the GOP will likely control Congress after this election, which means Obama has only one weapon at his disposal: the veto. Do the American people really want to spend the next 2 years in a stalemate between the Congress and the White House? That leaves the Congress and Obama pointing fingers at each other for the 2014 elections. I honestly think, no matter what the polls say, that most American voters will say, four years ago we gave this guy every advantage to get the job done; instead, our household wealth is way down during his Presidency; the labor force participation rate is at its lowest in decades. Your best argument is that a guy who made a small fortune helping build or turn around companies is scarier than the main trend we are in now with sky-high deficits and national debt, deteriorating finances for entitlement programs, feeble economic growth, and a jobless recovery barely able to keep pace with new workers in the work force, never mind millions chronically out of work for years?
Rand Paul is getting heat from pro-liberty conservatives because he announced--after Romney clinched the nomination almost a month ago--his support for Romney, switching from supporting his Dad. Okay, I haven't mentioned this to my fellow pro-liberty people but couldn't you just imagine Romney naming Ron Paul his Secretary of the Treasury? (I would buy tickets to see that show!) Or--get this: naming him the next Fed Reserve chairman. I've mentioned on multiple occasions: on policies, I'm mostly with Ron Paul. I'm somewhat amused by people trying to portray Romney as unprincipled. You do not make the kind of money Romney made over his career by being indecisive. I am a libertarian-conservative; I am fully convinced that a guy who could work with an 85% Democratic state legislature in Massachusetts and get the job done with almost empty veto power can get results in a Congress by threatening to veto spending bills. I'm pragmatic in nature: I don't think that Romney can steamroll the Democrats like the Dems steamrolled the GOP in the 111th Congress, but he can negotiate a good bargain with a strong hand in Congress. I'm pragmatic; personally I would like to fold current Cabinet departments into a handful. But if anyone has the background to streamline the federal government, it's Romney. So I don't really care what Romney says from a policy standpoint (although the anti-China stuff needs to be kept in check); I'm more interested in results. And Romney knows how to get results.
Progressives and a General Problem of Incivility
I am not going to argue that conservatives are angels. But any impartial comparison, say, of the MSNBC and Fox News prime-time opinion show anchors, or Gray Lady columnist Maureen Dowd versus Charles Krauthammer or George Will, there's a palpable difference in style and tone. The same holds true of politicians (Alan Grayson's characterization of the GOP health plan--or Debbie Wasserman Schultz whom I don't think has ever been in a joint interview without interrupting and talking over the other person, whom is abiding by the rules on his own.) Progressive White House spokesmen (like David Plouffe or Robert Gibbs) talk in nonstop rehearsed political soundbites vs., e.g., Karl Rove, whom I consider to be the most articulate political commentator. There is no doubt where Will, Krauthammer or Rove stand on Obama, but I've rarely heard or read them say something against him personally: They'll disagree on his policies and actions. I have been more blunt and judgmental about Obama (and I'll occasionally mock him when I think he's a little too full of himself), but I carefully document points of disagreement and quote him in context. I've listed points of agreement on several occasions, and I've consistently refuted the birther nonsense every step of the way.
Any faithful reader of this blog knows that I am not a Sarah Palin fan (as a politician). The Republicans are a very interesting group: the Democrats have a very thin bench of talent. Their top 2 candidates in 2008 never served as public sector executives and had only one full Senate term between them. Look at the GOP: they are so deep, it's unbelievable. Bobby Jindal just may be the brainiest American politician today; you have very successful multiple-term governors like Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour and Jeb Bush. There are brilliant rising stars like Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie.
But one advantage Sarah Palin has is unbelievable charisma. She's just as aware of her charisma as Obama is of his, and both of them want to control their emotions in front of the people. You almost never see Palin go after her critics in public, and you almost never see her lose it in public. (Well, there was the Letterman thing, but one thing about that: this once obscure Alaskan politician had this decades-long veteran comedian on his heels and making multiple attempts to apologize.)
Her oldest daughter, single mother Bristol Palin has a reality show on Lifetime TV. I don't think I set out to watch her first show late last night. I turned on "Coming Home", a show that focuses on imaginative reunions of soldiers with their families after serving on isolated tours (mostly in Afghanistan), after watching the second episode of Dallas on TNT. While I was working on a blog post, there was a rerun of her first show. The first show shows her leaving her Alaska home to work for a charity project for a short time in the Los Angeles area (I believe dealing with homeless people). I hadn't seen the younger Palin daughters Willow and Piper since the 2008 campaign and there are occasional cameo appearances of Sarah Palin. I hadn't seen Sarah interact with her kids, and I was impressed: I saw enough to know that she's a really good mother. I loved her little corny bit comparing Bristol's visit to Los Angeles with the "Beverly Hillbillies"; I found her utterly charming and funny.
What was not at all funny was the show segment dealing with Bristol and Willow (I think; she's there to be nephew Tripp's nanny while Bristol works at the charity) having a good time at a Hollywood restaurant. As far as I can tell, they are just there minding there own business, when Bristol found herself being screamed at by some patron at the bar. Bristol goes up to the bully in question and calmly asks him to give her one good reason he had for cursing out her mother. This seems to be met with even more profanity, some of which was personally directed at Bristol. She asks him if it's because he's a homosexual (she later explains that gays have been especially upset against her mother because Sarah Palin believes in the traditional definition of marriage).
According to Hollywood.TV, "Bristol got on the mechanical bull and rode it, but as she fell off, an apparently inebriated dude from the bar started shouting things to her such as "Your mother is a whore!" "Did you ride Levi like that?" and "Your mother is a f***ing devil."" Celebrity Buzz identifies the 47-year-old heckler at popular Hollywood restaurant Saddle Ranch as talent manager Stephen Hanks, whom also allegedly added "If there is a hell, which I don’t believe there is, [your mother] will be there" and "You’re a white trash from Wasila. F*** you you f***ing b***h." (In fairness, I want to point out that it has been reported that Hanks apologized to Bristol Palin after the confrontation.)
Kudos to Bristol Palin for sticking up for her family and not responding in kind to the uncivil behavior of a man whom should have known better, old enough to be her father. It must break Sarah's heart to see abusive behavior directed at her kids through no fault of their own; they didn't choose to live in a public fish bowl. Yes, I realize that she's doing a reality show, and Bristol has opportunities that she never would have had without her famous mother. But publicly attacking a politician's child? Out of bounds.
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
- Yesterday's Post: Let's Put an End to Anti-Competitive State Licensing Practices. The Institute for Justice explains that they have filed a FEDERAL lawsuit against Nevada on grounds of free speech and unreasonable regulation of the teaching of makeup artistry. Let me translate the latter for my fellow non-lawyers.
Progressives usually disdain the so-called Lochner Era. New York, in its Big Nanny wisdom, decided that it should regulate the number of hours a baker could work. Bakers argued that this was a violation of their economic liberty: the government was dictating how much they could earn (for the bakers' own good, of course!) The Lochner v NY decision set an era over the next 3 decades of prosperity while state and federal progressives found themselves stymied from trying to impose all sorts of meddling restrictions on businesses. FDR couldn't stand the fact that SCOTUS didn't give him due deference over economic rights and their legal precedents, rejecting parts of his ultimately ineffective "New Deal" program and threatened to pack the Court with New Deal crony judges. Under pressure, one of the justices (Owen Roberts) "switched in time to save 9", i.e., flipped on his principles in the 1937 West Coast Hotel and stayed the rest of the course.
This set up another one of the worst SCOTUS decisions of all time, Carolene Products. The federal government in the 1923 Filled Milk Act forbade the sale of filled milk products across state lines. Filled milk products (including evaporated milk, ice cream, sour cream, whipping cream, and half-and-half ) used cheaper non-dairy milk or cream substitutes (in particular, at the time, cheap coconut oil from the Philippines). Distribution of liquid milk at the time was limited (for refrigeration and other reasons). Big Dairy, furious about the lower-priced competition, particularly in evaporated milk, lobbied for protectionist bans of filled milk products within and across states (i.e., the 1923 act), rationalizing it with dubious public health concerns ("The butterfat portion of milk was the only source of essential vitamins contained in milk. The Act also sought to aid the interests of milk producers and to protect the consuming public from deception and confusion believed inherent in the sale of imitation dairy products." (cf. followup (1944) Carolene case ).)
Carolene Products was charged with breaking the 1923 Act (from Litchfield, Illinois to Muncie, Indiana) and argued an unconstitutional violation of economic liberty through the commerce and due process clause, plus the Tenth and Fourteenth Amendments. (On the first point (and the Tenth Amendment), they were arguing that the Congress was in fact trumping traditional state regulation/policing of filled milk production. On the second point, they were arguing (as throughout the Lockner Era) the unenumerated right to contract and the limited nature of Congress' authority.)
The district and appeals courts agreed with Carolene Products and the federal government appealed to SCOTUS. The majority overturned the decision in favor of Congress: in the process, it decided to set rules for subsequent cases, under Footnote 4 (easily the WORST footnote in human history). It decided to give the legislature broad discretion on economic regulation by a low level of judicial scrutiny called "rational basis" and additional conditions to warrant higher court review ("strict scrutiny"), e.g., a conflict in ENUMERATED rights, corrupted political processes, or violations of minority rights. In this case, "applying rational-basis review, the Court held that the law was supported by substantial public-health evidence, and was not arbitrary or irrational."
[As an aside: in 1972 Milnot Co. v Richardson, the Federal Filled Milk Act was declared unconstitutional on grounds of equal protection and due process: for example, if "real dairy" and filled milk evaporated milk served functionally equivalent purposes, the prohibition of latter to the benefit of the former was unconstitutionally discriminatory. There are other similar arguments: for instance, if there was no general prohibition of the same ingredients in Milnot found in, say, baked goods, how could you discriminate between say, separate ingredients or a mixture? (There were responses to Big Dairy: foods can be fortified with fat-soluble vitamins and/or there are other ways to obtain the vitamins of butterfat in baking, butterfat had its own health issues, and nutritional claims about the harmful substitution of vegetable/coconut oil were disproven). Carolene Products in 1950 changed its name to Milnot , now a subsidiary of Smuckers, and uses soybean oil vs. coconut oil.]
I just wrote all of the above to explain why the Institute for Justice lawyers are attacking the unreasonable nature of a law regulating the teaching of an unregulated occupation, i.e., makeup artist: the Institute anticipates that the state will allege the lowest level of judicial scrutiny, rational basis. I'm sure that a number of arguments would suffice. Here's just one off the top of my head: makeup artists can earn a living without formal training in their craft. The state's requirements would impose a high cost on the trainers not directly related to the students' training. The trainers would be forced to pass along those unrelated costs to their students. The extra costs would make it less likely for existing or prospective makeup artists to seek out elective training. If we argued that the most reasonable goal would be trained professionals, the state's policy is counterproductive and hence unreasonable.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Tom Petty, "Free Falling"
