Quote of the Day
There is no worse tyranny than that of a majority.
The test of democracy is not that the majority should always get its way
but how far minorities are respected.
John Stuart Mill
Possible Interruption in Blog Publishing
Due to Hurricane Sandy
The projected path I see is north through New Jersey and Pennsylvania but all of Maryland is within range. Having experienced Hurricane Alicia as a PhD student in Houston, and seeing an earlier multi-day outage of a few days, I do not underestimate the possibility of high winds and falling trees causing another publication gap.
True Leadership vs Obama
Romney has been talking about lowering globally noncompetitive business tax rates for years, and Obama, after 4 years, the first 2 with super-majorities in both chambers of Congress never making it a priority, says he's now has a plan, too. Yeah, right. Go through the 2000 pages of legal fine-print: exclusions, caps, tax burden shifting. Do you honestly believe he's going to stop subsidizing green energy companies, shifting their tax burden onto others? Do you think he's going to stop his hypocritical attacks on decades-old accounting treatment on oil drillers/producers? Note that energy companies often pay at the high end of corporate tax rates while green energy companies are net takers from government policies. I don't believe in government subsidies
We have seen Obama repeatedly attempt to co-opt conservative language and concepts: "fair and balanced" or "shared sacrifice" becomes some convoluted concept of class warfare with alleged middle class victimization, Medicare fraud, medical malpractice reform, increased domestic energy production, etc. For example, when drilling on federal lands declines on your watch, you put an unauthorized moratorium on Gulf drilling, even on already granted permits, and you only open up only 5% of desired offshore and none off blue state coasts, it is completely disingenuous to claim an all-of-the-above solution.
By the way, I want to rant about terms like "all-of-the-above" strategies. What I want to hear is a free market in energy--no subsidies to Big Green, no subsidized loans to Big Nuclear, no tax breaks for any company (including Big Oil). That's not a strategy: it's a free market
Obama has clearly been reactive, not proactive as President: spending bills during the last Congress contained earmarks which he swore off during the 2008 campaign; ObamaCare contained an individual mandate he similarly opposed, he failed to make immigration a priority, he did nothing to back Simpson-Bowles or present a comparable alternative. We saw Obama playing a game of chicken over the extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2010, which had employers scrambling for contingency plans; he then played chicken over the debt ceiling increase; and 2 months before the Bush cuts and mandatory spending cuts are triggered by the debt ceiling deal, we once again have Obama procrastinating.
I cannot even imagine this kind of managerial incompetence under a competent executive like Romney, never minding the fact that 40 cents of every dollar Obama spends is borrowed from future taxpayers...
So Obama is finally discussing a second term agenda, but as I predicted a long time ago, this is more of the same, more attempts to spend money he doesn't have on key special interest priorities, trying to control traditionally state/local administrated public schools, more throwing good money over bad in Big Green Energy, and make-work money-losing Infrastructure plays, like high speed rail. First of all, these are politically dead on arrival, assuming at minimum 40 GOP senators. Second, any money Obama could get would be negligible in the context of a $15T economy.
If Obama had a clue on leading the country he would have shown it by now. He hired Clinton's best economists.Why did he wait until the last weeks of the campaign to release a plan? Why has he spent the last 5 months running negative ads against Romney instead of articulating a specific, positive agenda? He's no better than my former students waiting until the day before an exam to start studying.
Political Potpourri
Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking have Romney at 50 or better with at least a 4-point lead, and both show Obama approval ratings at 47 or lower. There could be a number of factors, but clearly the last two debates haven't helped Obama's standing in the polls. Romney is within a nickel or so in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and a dime in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Oregon; even California is within a dozen. I think Romney will win New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida now. I think Romney will win a majority within a dime; I would not be surprised to see Romney flip Obama's 2008 victory, winning 53% of the vote and over 320 electoral votes. I think that Romney is on a mini-Reagan surge, due in part to the Obama/Biden obnoxious behavior during the debates. Romney's net favorables are now above Obama's, which I attribute to Obama's unpresidential behavior.
Drudge is linking to a number of different stories: e.g., illegal voting by non-citizen Somalis in Ohio, Dems burning or defacing Romney signs and burning accompanying American flags, threats to riot if Romney is elected, Dems buying votes with pizza, etc.. Probably the most interesting unusual story is Moshe Shak's Bible code prediction of Romney's victory; let's just say the GOP needs to get out the vote and not wait for divine intervention.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Carpenters, "Looking for Love". I thought about waiting to present the Carpenters for a duets theme, but Richard rarely sang in the foreground. I remember singing Carpenter hits in high school choir, I got a cassette from the rest of my family when my Dad got assigned to an AFB in Germany when I was at OLL with the family singing "Sing". My cousin Jacquie was the vocalist for a trio (doing gigs like wedding receptions) and performed a number of Carpenter covers. The Carpenters mostly covered other people's material (including a few remakes), but Richard was a talented songwriter, too (one of my favorite originals is "I Need to be in Love"--I felt that the song described me). I was unfamiliar with their first single (below) written by Richad, a faster pace than their trademark hits. What can you say about Karen's voice? Rolling Stone characterized her voice as "chocolate-and-cream alto", her as a new type of torch singer. I remember that just like Olivia Newton-John, Karen was unhappy with her squeaky clean, girl next door image, but it was part of her charm: in my favorite hit "Close to You", for a few minutes I could pretend that she was singing about my "eyes of blue": Karen was the kind of girl you dream of marrying and having a family with. Done far too soon, tragically dying of anorexia. That's the fear I've had for my nieces, all beautiful young ladies at a healthy weight, a couple of them already taken--that some thoughtless person's comments would undermine their self-confidence; my oldest niece, now the married mother of 3, was taunted over her weight in high school.
