Politics

Obama Fat Cats

I've been supporting Obama for President for several months now, and now that he's decided to give up public funding for his campaign he's going to need a lot of help from the "fat cats," big donors with deep pockets willing to give lots of money.

Who are these "fat cats," and how can we identify them?

For the Obama campaign, the average donation is in the neighborhood of $150. Given that, I think anyone who gives $250 or more to the Obama campaign qualifies as a "fat cat."

In order to identify these people I'm going to give an "Obama Fat Cat" car magnet to anyone who has given over $250 to the Obama campaign. Why? Because it's important to get out the message that this is a campaign with tens of thousands of "fat cats," not just the usual bunch of highly connected donors.

I don't have a design yet, but I was thinking of something cute and cartoony (suggestions are welcome--leave them in the comments).

If you've given $250 to Obama's campaign, send me an e-mail with your name and address to , and I'll mail you a magnet when I have them ready (I reserve the right to verify your fat cat status against one of the Internet databases of campaign donors).

This is something I'm doing totally on my own, and I don't have any connection to the Obama campaign other than some of my own dollars going to their coffers.

Please pass this around. The more fat cats the better!

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | |

Inscribed on Charlton Heston's Tombstone

Okay, you can take my gun now.

Posted at 02:10 PM | Permalink | |

Aviation Denial of Service Attack

You may have heard about the Swedish guy who told the FBI his son-in-law was a terrorist in order to prevent a business trip to the Untied States. A blog entry at Discourse.net raises an interesting point: we've now become so paranoid about air travel and border crossings that anyone (and I mean anyone) can have someone arrested, hassled, and denied entry or deported. It doesn't matter how credible the threat is, our security apparatus has determined that any threat has to be treated as true.

This effectively gives Those Who Wish To Do Others Harm a powerful weapon, effectively a simple denial-of-service attack against air travel (and probably train and bus travel, for that matter). Even better, this attack can be carried out anonymously, even from the safety of a village in a third-world country.

But I don't think Michael at Discourse thought this through entirely. It's easy to see that this could become a crippling attack against our entire aviation infrastructure. If an enemy's goal is to disrupt rather than actually kill, it can be extremely effective, cost nothing, and present little or no risk to the attackers' lives or even liberty.

Consider these attack scenarios:

1) An e-mail is sent to the TSA claiming that a terrorist will be checking a suitcase packed with 50 lbs of high explosive onto a flight departing LaGuardia airport at 10 AM on a specified date. The bomb is set to detonate in or near the baggage screening area, killing people and severely damaging part of the terminal building. The threat contains enough details to be considered credible, but not enough to pin it to an exact passenger or flight. The threat might even contain previously unknown but confirmable details about some terrorist organization (to better establish the legitimacy of the sender).

Likely impact: Some or all of LaGuardia airport is shut down for several hours, canceling hundreds of flights and delaying hundreds more, causing airlines, the TSA, and passengers substantial financial losses. Since delays at LaGuardia tend to ripple across the entire flight schedule of several airlines, many flights are canceled or delayed which go nowhere near New York.

2) Now suppose that the threat claims that this will be a coordinated attack on several of the largest hub airports in the U.S.: LaGuardia, Logan, O'Hare, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. Since a coordinated exploding suitcase attack is well within the means of even a small terrorist organization, this doesn't diminish the credibility of the threat much.

Likely Impact: Total disruption of the national air system for most (possibly all) of the day. Depending on how credible the terrorists make the threat, a one-day grounding of all commercial flights isn't out of the question.

3) A terrorist network uses a communication channel which they know is compromised to implicate targeted individuals (for example, prominent businessmen, key opponents) as part of a sleeper cell or other plot. This kind of disinformation campaign was actually used in WWII very successfully against the axis countries, and can be extremely effective if the covert listener doesn't know that the enemy knows about its listening. (Disinformation in a compromised channel can also be used to deliver the threats for attacks #1 or #2.)

Likely impact: Targeted individuals will find it difficult or impossible to travel to/within the United States, and may even be arrested (and possibly tortured these days).

4) Simultaneously in several airports around the country, someone rushes past security screening. This usually causes the airport to shut down for a time until the individual is arrested (and with simultaneous incidents it may trigger a more thorough security sweep and further disruption). This is not zero-risk for the attackers, since they are likely to be arrested and tried, and there's an outside chance of being shot, but it's still a lot better odds than a suicide attack.

Likely impact: Major disruption of the national air system for several hours at least. The coordinated attack could lead to a complete shutdown until the authorities decide there's no larger plot.

The bottom line is that it's now very easy for anyone to create major headaches for anyone else trying to travel in the U.S., and the authorities seem to care little that their overzealousness can cause big problems for a few people here and there. Worse, a highly credible threat could lead to a service disruption which might be more expensive and deadly(*) than an actual terrorist attack.

(*) Disrupting air service might actually be deadly when you consider things like (1) people who decide to drive instead of fly, since driving is something like ten times as dangerous per mile; (2) disruption in life-saving medical treatments, like patients traveling to a distant hospital and organs traveling to distant patients; and (3) the combination of paranoid security personnel with angry mobs of passengers possibly leading to someone accidentally getting shot.

Posted at 01:09 PM | Permalink | |

Ron Paul: The Ultimate alt.conspiracy Troll?

Back in my college days, long enough ago that if you were on the Internet then you were either at a university or technology company, I used to occasionally read the Usenet newsgroup alt.conspiracy for entertainment.

Back then (and maybe still today), alt.conspiracy was a wonderful hodgepodge of fringe beliefs, clinically paranoid rants, sincere debunkers, and the occasional troll.

The trolls were often the most entertaining: they would invent absurd conspiracies out of whole cloth, in a deliberate effort to see who might take their absurdities seriously. The game was to see how crazy you could make your conspiracy theory and still have someone think you were serious or (even better) believe you.

I was reminded of this by an article today about how Ron Paul's presidential campaign seems to have a knack for attracting the lunatic fringe.

By the way, when I say "lunatic fringe," I don't mean folks who hold somewhat mainstream but silly beliefs like supply-side economics. I mean folks who, in a literal sense, need to check the dosage of their medications. Black helicopters, the United Nations is coming to take your guns, Bill Clinton molested young boys in a secret ritual with the Pope, etc.

So far it does not seem that Paul himself is quite so far gone, but he hasn't done much to discourage his crazier supporters either.

So what I'm wondering is: Does Ron Paul believe the same theories as his supporters, or is he just doing a very effective job of drawing them out.

In other words, is he nuts, or just the ultimate alt.conspiracy troll?

Posted at 04:48 PM | Permalink | |

Absolut Power. Absolut Secrecy

Mildly inspired by a turn of phrase in this article, I took out my Photoshop skills on an old stock photo of Dear Leader and his Main Henchman.

Posted at 02:52 PM | Permalink | |

The Law of Unintended Consequences

We're only three short months from the beginning of the primary season (have we really been in full-bore campaign mode for almost a year already?). The calendar is still unclear, mostly because different states keep trying to move to the front of the line in order to gain the perceived advantage of holding their primaries first.

The result looks like it's going to be a highly compressed series of primaries, with most of the delegates being chosen within the space of less than a month. Supposedly this will reduce the problem where states with late primaries voted after one candidate had already locked up the nomination. It's also supposed to extend the time the nominee has to campaign for president ahead of the convention.

I see a different situation possibly evolving, however.

Part of the reason the early primary states have such influence over the nominating process is that they help weed out the weaker candidates. Think Howard Dean in 2004: even though he seemed to have a lot of momentum and fund raising ability going into the Iowa caucus, that didn't translate into strength among the voters, and he dropped out of the race not too long after his poor showing.

Even candidates who don't formally withdraw after losing badly in Iowa or New Hampshire will find their fundraising drying up, and are effectively forced to stop campaigning.

The net effect is to narrow the field to just a couple of frontrunners in each party for the next round of primaries, and this smaller field makes it possible for one candidate to win the necessary delegates before the convention.

This year, though, with the compressed schedule and wide open races in both parties (though I think the Republicans are having more trouble than the Democrats finding a suitable candidate), there may not be enough time for this weeding-out process to take place before the bulk of the delegates are selected. With only a few weeks of primaries, the weaker candidates may be tempted to tough it out, hoping for some good fortune (or a more friendly state) to turn their campaign around.

It's much harder to win a majority of the delegates in a four-way race than when there's only two viable candidates, and this could lead to the first contested nominating convention in decades, where no candidate has enough delegates to lock up the nomination.

The eventual nominee would then be chosen based on deals and politicking at the convention itself. We might not know the lineup of major candidates until September 2008--only two months before the national election.

That's because of a quirk in the federal election financing rules which encourage the parties to wait as long as possible to formally name their nominees, since spending before the nomination is counted separately from spending after the nomination. Of course, when the parties scheduled their conventions they assumed that there would be a de-facto nominee long before the convention itself, giving the candidate more time to campaign on the "pre-nomination" budget.

Instead, we could have a long confusing summer with multiple viable candidates and no clear nominee from one party or the other, followed by a short, hot campaign once the final candidates are chosen.

It could be a very interesting year.

Posted at 01:57 PM | Permalink | |

Scary Statistic

Here's a shocking and scary statistic from a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation:

The money spent so far on the war in Iraq (about $500 billion) would have been enough to install enough photovoltaic panels to supply about 5% of the electricity the United States consumes (at today's retail prices for installed PV systems).

Spending the money on solar cells would have improved our energy security. The war in Iraq? Not so much.

Committing half a trillion dollars to solar power implies something akin to a Manhattan Project for renewable energy. If we can afford to pour half a trillion dollars down a rathole in the Middle East, we sure should be able to afford to get serious about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels.

So what's wrong with this picture?

Posted at 11:50 AM | Permalink | |

Bush administration stonewalling to backfire for Republicans in 2008?

The big political news this week is that the Bush administration has not only invoked Executive Privilege for a number of congressional subpoenas, but asserted that (in effect) when the President invokes Executive Privilege there's nothing anyone can do.

This sets up an almost inevitable court showdown, and it's probably just a matter of time before the Supreme Court weighs in on the matter.

As near as I can tell, the strategy on the part of the Bush Administration seems to be to run out the clock: with only 18 months or so left before the next President is sworn in, Bush and Cheney are betting that these congressional investigations will be rendered moot by the political process before they have to give anything up to Congress.

I think they're risking a terrible miscalculation, though, since these congressional investigations will only increase in intensity over the next six months. As the wheels of the process grind on, this sets up the possibility of a very high profile Supreme Court hearing right in the middle of the primary season.

Even if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the President, this will be a huge distraction for all the Republican candidates, and an unbeatable rhetorical foil for the Democrats--all coming right when the public's attention to the political process is peaking.

The problem for the Republicans is that even if the Executive Privilege claim proves valid, it looks and smells bad. Like taking the Fifth on national TV, it makes it look like the President has something to hide. This will put every Republican up for election in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between abandoning the President and looking like he's enabling a cover-up.

2008 is going to be a tough year to be a Republican (barring a political earthquake between now and then), but this continued digging in by the President is only going to make things worse.

Posted at 12:51 PM | Permalink | |

War Funding

Aside from the little kerfuffle at the Department of Justice right now, the most substantive issue in national politics at the moment is the supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq.

I am amazed at the corner Bush painted himself into on this one. Under the U.S. Constitution, not a penny can be spent without authorization from Congress--and what's more, Congress can't authorize more than two years' of money for the army at a time (this is a holdover from the suspicion our founding fathers had of a standing army).

In an apparent attempt to mask the true cost of the war, the President didn't include Iraq funding in his regular budget request, which means he needs Congress to pass a separate law to fund the war effort.

When Republicans were the majority, this wasn't an issue. But now that the Democrats control the agenda, it creates a huge opening for all sorts of political mischief.

The bill which looks likely to pass right now has a provision attached setting a hard deadline for bringing the troops home. This is a provision which may be somewhat unwise, but plays very well to the overwhelming unpopularity of the war. Bush says he'll veto the bill if it comes with strings.

The problem is that Bush needs the money. Sooner or later, he must sign a spending bill to fund the war--otherwise, the military can't buy munitions, feed the troops in Iraq (or pay them), or do much of anything else in Iraq. Sure, there are games which can be played by shifting spending authority from other places, but the war is just too expensive to fund for long with accounting maneuvers.

So when Bush vetoes this spending bill, he still needs Congress to pass another one.

And what assurance is there that the next spending bill won't come with other conditions, perhaps more onerous than the one he vetoed?

As long as the President insists on plowing ahead with the war no matter what, and vetoing any spending bill which comes with strings attached, he's just inviting the Democrats to see what they can pin on him.

Veto a timetable to withdraw from Iraq? That's in the bag.

How about getting the President to veto a law requiring all soldiers to have 12 months at home between deployments?

Or a law forbidding the deployment of units which don't have a minimum level of equipment and training?

These are all common sense ideas which most Americans support, but Bush is setting himself--and the Republican party--up as the guys eager to fight the war, but not take care of the soldiers. The 2008 Republican presidential candidate will likely wind up defending why his party opposed all these measures.

I have to applaud the Democrats, since as political gamesmanship this is brilliant. As for the Republicans, this is utter insanity. They should never have allowed themselves to be maneuvered into this position.

Posted at 09:28 PM | Permalink | |

Security, Flying, and Terrorism

I'm traveling on business this week, which means one of my least-favorite activities: dealing with airport security.

I was going to write a whole rant about the pointlessness of the entire process, the arbitrary and meaningless restrictions, and the obnoxiousness of not knowing what it's going to take this week to get to the gate on time.

But then Bruce Schneier wrote the article for me, and better than I could have: CYA Security.

Go read it, and pretend it was my idea.

Posted at 11:07 PM | Permalink | |

Hillary Clinton in 2008?

A lot of people are talking about Hillary Clinton running for president in 2008.

I'm not surprised. Right now it looks like she's the only person who can save the Republican party.

Posted at 10:23 PM | Permalink | |

Election Reaction

This was a very satisfying outcome.

Not so much because the Democrats won big (but that's part of it), but because the right Republicans won, too.

Recall that I cast my vote in favor of divided government, since I think recent events prove that it can be dangerous to have one party controlling everything.

The Democrats taking over the U.S. Congress restores divided government on the national level, and we're already seeing change for the better with Donald Rumsfeld's ejection as secretary of defense.

At the state level, though, I was concerned that the Democrats would sweep both the legislature and the governorship. But Republican Pawlenty held on to his job (just barely), ensuring at least another two years of divided government at the state level, too.

One other thing: remember two years ago, when I suggested that Pawlenty might make good presidential material in 2008? As one of the few Republican governors left standing in a Democratic state this year, it seems that he's suddenly on everybody's short list.

Just remember that you heard it here first.

Posted at 09:18 PM | Permalink | |

Tomorrow

Election day is finally upon us, bringing to an end the ugliest political season I can remember.

I've decided how I'm going to vote: a straight ticket for divided government.

That means Democrats in federal races, but Republicans for several of the state offices (including Governor Pawlenty).

There's only one rational conclusion I think you can draw from the political events of the past four years: the government functions best when there are real and credible checks and balances in place, and one important check is that no one political party controls all the instruments of power.

That's because debate and opposition is good for the country.

Compromise is good for the country.

Political competition is good for the country.

Fresh air and sunlight is good for the country.

Deliberation on important issues is good for the country.

Respect for process, rules, and institutional traditions is good for the country.

But when the political process gets too one-sided, all these things become secondary to political expediency, corruption, greed, and power.

When we get to the point (probably within the next decade) when the Democrats control all the branches of the federal government, I expect to cast my votes, once again, for divided government. Even if, by that point, they haven't succumbed to the inner rot which seems to be infecting today's Republican party structure.

Posted at 04:37 PM | Permalink | |

A Politician Does the Right Thing (eventually)

Here's an exchange I had over the weekend with Bill Cullen, the Republican challenger for our local seat in the state legislature; commentary and context at the end:

Subject: You lost my vote

Date: October 1, 2006 8:44:56 AM CDT

To: Bill Cullen

Bill:

I wanted to let you know that I've decided not to vote for you this year.

I had been considering how to vote, and you made a positive impression on me when you visited our home a couple weeks ago. But in yesterday's mail, we received what I consider a fairly nasty, gratuitous attack mailer against your opponent.

I recognize that your campaign did not send this mailer, and that you have no direct control over it.

On the other hand, had you decided that this is not the kind of campaign you want to conduct, I'm sure the state Republican party would not have sent it. The fact that it was sent speaks volumes to me about your character--and that is not the kind of person I want representing me in St. Paul.

My mother, Peggy Leppik, honorably served 12 years as a Republican state representative in a swing district (Golden Valley), and she never felt the need to resort to distorting her opponent's record or sending negative campaign materials.

I think that if we want to have a meaningful debate about the issues that matter to us, the candidates themselves need to take a stand on the kind of campaign they want to conduct. Clearly you have not done so.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you will take my message to heart should you run for office again.

-Peter

Subject: RE: You lost my vote

Date: October 1, 2006 12:26:30 PM CDT

To: Peter Leppik

Peter,

If I had seen this piece before it went out, I would have tried to stop it. Unfortunately, campaign finance laws make it so I cannot review material. I see it when you do.

I have told the caucus that I approve talking about Rep Ruud's record -- but I do not approve of personal attacks. This piece is factually correct, but it appears misleading to me. And I see no reason to mislead. I wish the party had shown the difference in our beliefs in a more professional manner.

This year the fight in the state is for control of the House. It appears (to me) that Pawlenty is likely to win and the Senate is unlikely to turn over enough seats either way to change control. So, the battle is in the house.

This seat is one of a few House seats identified as competitive. Therefore, the independent expenditures are coming out fast and furious in this race. It will continue on both sides. The DFL has already done push-polling in this district -- saying clear lies about me. I have also seen photographers at my investment properties -- so it appears they plan on attacking my business (which I think is way out of bounds). I think these tactics are even more blatantly out of line -- agree?

Like I said, I do not approve of this literature piece. I hope you consider the whole candidate and what I have to say, and not base your decision on one literature piece which I had nothing to do with.

I do appreciate engaged voters such as yourself. Please call me anytime. 952-934-xxxx.

Best regards, Bill Cullen.

Subject: Re: You lost my vote

Date: October 1, 2006 1:22:07 PM CDT

To: Bill Cullen

Bill:

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I appreciate the nuances of campaign finance laws, but the fact remains that had you personally decided that this campaign would not be run this way, the mailer--which we both agree was misleading--would not have been sent out. You did not make such a stand, and the mailer went out.

I don't think it helps anybody to engage in a debate about whose dirty tricks are less dirty.

What we need is someone to show the leadership to put a stake in the ground and say "we will have an honest debate about the issues and a clean campaign, and I don't want anyone to do these sleazy campaign tactics for my benefit."

Even though both parties seem to have put short-term gain ahead of what's best for Minnesota, you, as your party's candidate, have a unique chance to take a stand in the opposite direction. Yet you have not done so.

-Peter

Subject: RE: You lost my vote

Date: October 1, 2006 1:37:26 PM CDT

To: Peter Leppik

Peter, I have decided on a clean campaign and have already sent a complaint to the party for the piece they sent out.

I gave them permission to talk about records, but not mislead the voter. There is a wide difference. This piece does not have my support. It never did.

Best regards, Bill.

Commentary & Context
On Saturday we got an attack ad against the incumbent, Maria Ruud, sent by the state Republican party. The mailer was so over-the-top as to be practically a caricature of itself--for example, it implied that Ruud was anti-school, anti-children, anti-environment, and anti-roads.

It turns out, I learned later, that almost identical mailers targeting at least a half-dozen other Democrats were also sent out. I'm not sure what's more insulting: that a Republican operative apparently thought I would believe such blatant distortion, or that it wasn't even original distortion.

I had been considering how to cast my ballot, and I thought that both Ruud and Cullen were strong candidates. But the instant I saw this attack piece, I was turned off and decided to vote for Ruud. I could not, in good conscience, reward the party behind this with my vote.

Having met Cullen briefly, and feeling that he was fundamentally a decent guy, I decided to let him know the damage his party was doing. I kind of feel for the candidate in this situation: campaign finance laws make it illegal for the candidate to know what the party might be planning to do to benefit his campaign (since they're not allowed to coordinate campaigns paid for out of different pots of money). On the other hand, it is possible for the candidate to preemptively quash this sort of thing by making it very clear in advance that he'll accept none of it.

One candidate I know of actually told the party that she would withdraw from the race if there were any attacks on her opponent. It takes some guts to do this, but it is a potent threat (finding good people willing to go through the wringer of a political campaign is not easy), and it was a clean race.

So that's the context of my first e-mail. I was surprised that the response--polite as it was--basically boiled down to "I didn't like it either, but look at all the nasty stuff the Democrats are doing."

[As an aside, it seems odd that Cullen thinks his workplace should be off-limits. He is, after all, claiming his experience as a business owner as his primary qualification.]

To his credit, Cullen did eventually do what he should have done in the first place--renounce the mailer and complain to the party--but I was dismayed that we had to go through this in the first place. Maybe I'm overly idealistic, but I've always felt that Minnesota is a place where we can have honest debates about the issues.

As for my vote--I'll still be voting for Ruud, and I've put up one of her lawn signs (something I rarely do). I still don't think that the Republicans deserve my vote.

Posted at 02:47 PM | Permalink | |

Warning! Stampeding Herd of Elephants!

The GOP is going to have its 2008 national convention in the Twin Cities.

For the locals, the main impact will be several days of even worse traffic than usual.

For the Republicans, this can only lead to disaster, as the last national political convention held here nominated President Harrison (also a Republican) for a second term in 1892, which he lost.

Posted at 12:56 PM | Permalink | |

Canadian Parliament Accidentally Passes Budget by Unanimous Consent

I don't know if a parliamentary system is better or worse than the three-branch system we have in the U.S.

But one thing is for sure: Canada's parliament is a lot more entertaining than Congress. Today's Exhibit A: Parliament accidentally passed the Canadian federal budget by unanimous consent.

(Just to be clear: the mistake was the "unanimous consent," and the budget would have passed anyway. But two of the opposition parties which intended to vote against the budget managed to screw up and not object to the bill in time, so the budget passed without any opposition.)

Posted at 03:31 PM | Permalink | |

2006 Hurricane Season

We're off to a bang with Alberto.

Here's a suggestion: in honor of last year's record-breaking hurricane season, I humbly propose that hurricanes this year be named after members of the Bush administration. Alberto is a start. Next up: Brown (or Brownie, if you prefer), Cheney, Donald, etc.

And the 23rd named storm of the season can be simply called "W".

Posted at 03:32 PM | Permalink | |

Suicide as an Act of War?

Three inmates at the Guantanamo prison camp hung themselves yesterday. That fact alone is tragic and does not speak well for the way the camp is being run.

This quote from the base commander really takes the cake, though: "They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

What an astonishing notion! Killing oneself (in a way that harms nobody else) is an act of war! We should be so fortunate if all religious extremists were to wage war in this fashion!

The commander is right to be worried about this: three suicides will inevitably refocus world (and U.S.) attention on the poor conditions and hopeless plight of the people housed at Guantanamo. That can only have negative repercussions for the prison camp--but not because of any act of aggression, but because of the disinfecting power of shining sunlight on what goes on there.

Posted at 08:10 AM | Permalink | |

Strategic Energy

Despite the hype, the world is in no immediate danger of running out of fossil fuels. Oil--the most transportable and most usable fossil fuel--is becoming more expensive, and natural gas--less transportable than oil--has been subject to some localized shortages. What is happening is that the easy oil and gas (that is, the oil which is cheap to extract, and the natural gas close to the markets which consume it) is becoming scarcer. As a result, prices are going up, making it more economical to extract and transport the more expensive reserves and enriching those countries which still have easy oil and gas.

Another consequence has been more overlooked: the reemergence of fossil fuel reserves as a strategic asset. A couple days ago, Bolivia nationalized its natural gas industry, and Russia has effectively nationalized its natural gas industry over the past couple years through political maneuvering.

Neither country is one which can be trusted (under current leadership) to refrain from trying to leverage this control into political advantage.

And that fact should scare anyone living in Brazil or Europe. In fact, I would lay odds that the people whose job it is to be scared of things like energy shortages are busy being very scared right now. Bolivia exports most of its natural gas to Brazil; and many European countries depend mostly or completely on Russia for their natural gas (several former soviet-block countries get 100% of their natural gas from Russia).

The unintended side-effect of this state of affairs is likely going to be a dramatic acceleration in the development of alternative energy sources in some countries.

If you're Poland, and you get 100% of your natural gas from Russia, a country with recent memories of former imperial glory and a political system structured very much like the Sicilian Mafia, you're going to be doing two things right now. On the one hand, you're going to be very very careful to not annoy your neighbor to the East. And on the other hand, you're going to be scrambling like mad to find something to replace Russian gas in order to remove that particular claw from the bear.

I don't know what those alternatives might be, but I suspect some combination of new gas pipelines to other countries and investment in alternative energy sources. Even if alternative energy is significantly more expensive than the fossil fuel sources, it will be worth it for them to remove the political and strategic risk.

Posted at 10:31 AM | Permalink | |

Health Coverage

I'm not an expert in health insurance, but noise about the topic has grown almost unbearable as we approach the President's State of the Union. Speculation is that he will heavily promote Health Savings Accounts as a better way to pay for medical care in the United States.

I'm not sure if there is a political middle ground on the topic of health care finance. On the one hand, you have free-market types who believe that the way to improve health coverage is to move to a more market-driven system. That means that people will have to make their own health care decisions, and live with the results (good or bad). On the other side, you have people who believe that it is a moral imperative to ensure that everyone gets basic medical care, regardless of income, intelligence, or luck.

The two positions are mutually exclusive. If you want to have a market-driven health system, then you have to let people make mistakes. That's inherent in a market. And you can't bail out people who (through bad luck or ignorance) happen to make a bad decision, since to do otherwise removes the incentive to make the right decision.

A health savings account system is promoted as a sort of middle ground, with a high-deductible insurance plan combined with a tax-advantaged savings account to cover medical expenses up to the deductible on the insurance. The devil, though, is always in the details.

I've spent a lot of time looking at HSAs as an alternative to the traditional medical coverage I provide my employees. As currently designed, there are a number of drawbacks:

1) I have an employee with chronic health problems. Unless the company subsidizes everyone's out-of-pocket expenses to a substantial degree, his out-of-pocket expenses under an HSA will be substantially higher than they are today. In my mind this violates the fairness test: there's nothing he can do about his chronic condition, he can't afford the extra cost, so it isn't fair to penalize him. If we were to subsidize the medical expenses enough to make this employee whole, then we would spend substantially more on health care than we do today.

As an aside, you will note that nearly everyone promoting the use of HSAs is young, rich, and/or healthy enough that they are likely to come out ahead under this scheme.

2) The fundamental premise of HSAs is that people who have to pay for their own medical expenses will make better decisions. But it is almost impossible for a consumer to find out how much health care costs before going to the doctor. In fact, the doctor might not even know. Our crazy system uses an intricate web of negotiated rates, and the price you pay will depend on which doctor you see and which health coverage you have. Until it is easy for consumers to get meaningful cost information, it is impossible to make informed decisions.

3) Much of the cost of providing health care in the U.S. does not go to optional treatments. I heard a statistic recently that 80% of medical dollars go to treat chronic and/or catastrophic illness. I don't know if this is the right number, but it is certainly a high proportion, and you can't significantly cut the cost of our medical system without addressing this point.

4) From what I've heard, the paperwork of actually using an HSA can be nightmarish. Some plans are better than others, and this is generally getting better, but if someone in your family is hit with a sudden illness, the last thing you want is to be worrying about filling out the right forms. And just as with any other kind of insurance, the insurance company has an incentive to deny claims whenever possible--and an overwhelming paperwork burden is one mechanism that works to the insurance company's advantage.

I think that HSAs are an intriguing experiment, but I am skeptical that they are a "magic bullet" for reducing health care costs in this country. The fundamental problem is that health care doesn't respond to market forces in the same way as, say, laundry detergent or copper futures. In the U.S., we have one of the most market-driven health care systems in the developed world (most developed countries have some sort of national health care system), yet we spend about 15% of GDP on health care as compared to about 10% in most developed countries. That doesn't speak well to the ability of market forces to control health care spending overall.

So how do other countries control spending? They negotiate big discounts on drugs (essentially free-riding on the higher prices U.S. consumers pay), they limit access to doctors and expensive treatments, and they don't offer the latest and greatest technology. Every society has to ration healthcare somehow, since it would crush any economy to provide every possible treatment to everyone who wanted or needed it. In the U.S. we ration based on your employer's willingness to pick up the tab. Elsewhere they ration based on how old or sick you are, or how willing to wait in line (without dying first).

HSAs don't fundamentally change the way we in the U.S. provide healthcare, they just shift the burden around a little.

Posted at 01:11 AM | Permalink | |

bin Laden dead?

There's a rumor circulating (no I won't link to it, because I don't know how true it is) that Osama bin Laden died three weeks ago of kidney failure and was buried in Iran.

This is very disturbing. Something is seriously wrong when the man who launched the biggest terrorist attack in history and killed thousands of Americans can die a free man of natural causes.

I'm just saying.

Posted at 10:12 AM | Permalink | |

Padilla Indicted

Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber" has finally been indicted, ending the Bush administration's strange effort to detain an American citizen on American soil indefinitely without charge.

Bloody well about time. This should have happened years ago (literally!).

It seems that, having lost in every single court, and facing the prospect of a charge-him-or-free-him deadline and an inevitable loss in the Supreme Court, Bush blinked.

All Americans should be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Had the administration won, it would effectively mean that any American citizen could be detained for any period of time without being charged with a crime and (potentially) without access to a lawyer. All that would be required would be a determination that the individual is an "enemy combatant," a designation which is not defined anywhere in our laws, and which requires no evidence, no trial, no judge, no hearing, and indeed nothing more than the President's say-so.

To say that such a system is ripe for abuse is putting it mildly. Maybe you trust the current President to only designate true enemies as "enemy combatants," but do you trust the next President? Or the one after that? Or the one after that?

I've written about this case many times in the past: Why the Jose Padilla Case Is Important, and The System Works! are the two biggies.

Posted at 08:56 PM | Permalink | |

Sam Alito: Wow

Well, Bush certainly fixed his not-radical-enough-for-the-base problem when he nominated Sam Alito for Supreme Court.

Maybe I'm just too much of an optimistic centrist, but I expected Bush to nominate someone who at least had something to offer people to the left of Genghis Khan.

But this nomination has a lot to offer political observers: we're going to see an interesting fight in the Senate. Pass the popcorn....

The battle lines are already being drawn. On the drive into work, NPR was interviewing commentators from both the hard right and the hard left. The hard-right guy was practically cackling with glee. "This is everything we've ever wanted," he said, and proceeded to rattle off a list of conservative code-words: he has the right views on "life" (abortion), "self-defense" (guns), and "state's rights" (civil rights).

The woman on the left didn't have to work hard to portray Alito as "extreme." She cited his ruling to uphold a law requiring a woman to notify her husband before having an abortion, and against the Family and Medical Leave Act. Most Americans are likely to view those rulings as fairly extreme--even if his judicial logic had nothing to do with the political issues.

My prediction (for what it's worth): Alito will be confirmed. He may pick up a very small number of Democratic votes, if he can make the case that he's a thoughtful scholar. But because he has a long record of judicial writing, he can't hide his views. Expect a long and drawn-out confirmation hearing where he'll be asked to discuss at great length many of his rulings. But because he lacks the intellectual fluffiness of Meirs, at least 51 senators will go along with the President's prerogative to nominate the justice of his choice.

And the net result will be lots and lots of soundbites which Democrats will use to portray the Republican party as dangerously extreme.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr at Volokh seems to think that Alito isn't nearly as conservative as he is being initially portrayed. If that's true, then I'm pleased. But I still get nervous when either side describes someone as exactly what they want.

Posted at 10:04 AM | Permalink | |

Supreme Court Nominee

Harriet Meirs proved to be the Supreme Court nominee who could unite both ends of the political spectrum. Unfortunately for her, the politicians were not united with Meirs herself, and now she's out of the running.

The question now is who will be the next nominee?

I personally don't subscribe to the theory that Meirs was a red herring so that Bush could nominate someone from the hard right and get away with it. That strategy would require a level of competence this administration has not been demonstrating lately. Meirs was a screw-up from top to bottom.

I think the next nomination will tacitly acknowledge the fundamental political reality of 2005: The President is politically very weak right now. With approval ratings under 40%, scandals beginning to creep as far as the Vice President's office, and open revolt among congressional Republicans, Bush simply does not have any political capital left with which to sell a Supreme Court nominee.

So we will see someone who can attract a broad spectrum of support. Someone like Roberts, someone who is highly qualified and doesn't have any baggage which would upset either extreme.

There are a lot of people on the hard right end of the political spectrum who are taking credit for sinking Meirs and demanding someone to their liking. But I just don't see that happening. Meirs sank because nobody thought she was a good nomination (even though the hard right screamed louder than most), and someone far to the right would be hard to get through a closely divided Senate. Bush simply doesn't have the power to push through a divisive nominee.

Posted at 09:47 PM | Permalink | |

Justice Harriet Miers

Bush has nominated white house counsel Harriet Miers to the supreme court, and the reaction from the political windbags (left and right) has been....

Harriet who?

Followed closely by suspicion and disappointment (from both left and right).

I don't claim to have been following this to any great degree, I'm not the slightest bit surprised that Bush would select a relative unknown from his own staff. The actions of this administration have shown over and over that the one thing that Bush values more than anything else--above politics, above ideology, above partisanship, and even above competence--is personal loyalty.

If you're personally loyal to the President, then almost nothing else matters, unless you become an actual and serious liability (like Mike Brown).

So Miers has the two most important qualities for a supreme court justice: she is personally loyal to Bush, and she can probably get through the Senate (unlike Alberto "Torture is OK" Gonzales).

The only thing surprising is that so many people are surprised.

ASIDE: It will be interesting to see just how loyal Bush's supreme court picks are once they no longer need Bush for anything. One of the beautiful things about the way the Supreme Court works is that the justices, once on the court, no longer need anyone else for employment or advancement. This makes the court remarkably free from the politics and corruption which tend to infect the other branches--often to the frustration of politicians.

Posted at 09:41 AM | Permalink | |

What went wrong in Katrina?

They're still fishing bodies out of the floodwater, but already the jockeying for political advantage in the aftermath of Katrina has begun. Don't believe either party when they claim it isn't about politics: it is always about politics.

(As an aside, my personal opinion is that the Republicans are far and away more likely to come away the losers in this. They've had control of all branches of the federal government for years, and therefore any federal screw-ups are going to stick to them. And there are screw-ups aplenty to go around.)

But before we get too mired in the unpleasant sight of politicians arguing over whose policies killed more people, everyone should read this extremely insightful comment on the Intel Dump blog.

I don't know if the poster's math checks out, but the basic point is sound: even a small amount of foresight could have gone a long way to improving the response in the critical first 24-48 hours. Even though nobody knew what the scope of the disaster was going to be in the couple days before Katrina hit, everyone knew that some sort of disaster was likely. Yet apparently the simple steps to preposition basic supplies and equipment were not taken.

Posted at 09:33 AM | Permalink | |

Filibuster compromise changes Senate landscape

News is just out that a group of at least a dozen moderate Republican and Democratic Senators have reached a compromise which will avoid a showdown over the judicial filibusters. More than anything else, this is a win for America, as it brings us a step back from the game of political brinksmanship we've been seeing since the election.

But more interesting is how this compromise could potentially change the landscape of the Senate. If there are a dozen moderates from both parties willing to compromise on important issues, then the leadership of both the Republicans and the Democrats in the Senate is effectively stripped of much of its power. This group of senators has the votes to either kill any bill supported by the Republicans, or break any filibuster led by the Democrats.

In other words, any time these twelve moderate Senators agree to something, they effectively control the Senate. We now have a situation where the only way to get things done will be through compromise and moderation.

What a concept!

Posted at 08:50 PM | Permalink | |

Nuclear option forces a constitutional crisis?

In a detailed and cogent article on Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy makes a strong case that the so-called "nuclear option" of eliminating judicial filibusters may itself violate the rules of the Senate. I am not an expert in these matters, and don't even know where to begin to evaluate whether the argument is correct, but the jist of it is that the same Senate rules which require a 3/5 majority (60 votes) to end a filibuster also require a 2/3 majority (67 votes) to end a filibuster of a change in the Senate rules. As a result, the only way to invoke the "nuclear option" (which involves a change to Senate rules) is through parliamentary maneuvering to prevent any debate on the rule change at all.

Whether this interpretation of Senate rules is correct or not, there's a persuasive case in there that invoking the "nuclear option" would either break or bypass Senate rules. In this scenario, it is very plausible that you could have one side recognizing one set of Senate rules (rules which prohibit judicial filibusters), while the other side recognizes a different set (the rules as they are today unchanged) claiming that the change to the rules was improper and therefore invalid.

The Constitution gives the Senate the power to make its own rules, but does not specify what process would be used to adjudicate a dispute over the mechanism used to change the rules. A lawsuit is a highly probable outcome, which would put the courts (probably the Supreme Court) in the odd position of having to decide an internal dispute in the Senate.

There is likely to be some question as to whether the Supreme Court even has the authority to rule on such a case, since the Constitution only recognizes the Senate's power to make its own rules. The Supreme Court could very well decline to hear the case on the theory that they have no jurisdiction (and that the Senators are supposed to be grown-ups anyway). It is extremely unlikely that the Senate itself could resolve such a dispute in a manner which all sides agree is fair. Thus you could be left with two disputed sets of Senate rules, and no way to resolve the issue.

At this point, the speculation starts to go off into lala land.

You could get a situation (for example) where the Senate votes to confirm a judicial nominee under the new set of rules, but the minority doesn't recognize the confirmation because under the old rules the nominee would have never been brought to a vote. Who then decides if the judicial nominee takes a seat on the court or not? (Presumably the judiciary itself can rule whether a nominee has been properly confirmed--after all, congress gets to decide if its own members were properly elected).

Things get even weirder if the rule change is extended to eliminating all filibusters. You could have laws which pass under one set of rules but not others, leaving situations where the courts have to decide not just hot to apply the law, but what the law actually is.

This whole process is very much like watching the Senate getting sucked into a vortex of hyper-politicization. None of the Senators seem to really want to go in this direction, but external forces (particularly the extreme activists on both sides) won't let them stop. When I see things like this "not one dime" campaign, it truly saddens me to see how far we've already gone down the road of zero-compromise, zero-tolerance politics ruled by the most extreme elements. This is not good for Democracy, and it is not good for our country.

Posted at 04:10 PM | Permalink | |

St. Mom

An op-ed in yesterday's Star Tribune featured a classy political move by none other than my mother--who is a classy lady, so such things are to be expected.

I missed the opinion piece the first time around, but when She Who Puts Up With Me read it, She commented that the STrib was all but nominating mom for sainthood.

I'd be all for that. After all, she did raise me, which is strong evidence of divinely-inspired patience; and I made it to become a productive member of society, which may qualify as miraculous under the guidelines of the Catholic Church.

Posted at 07:05 PM | Permalink | |

Voter Registration

This article on Obsidian Wings reminded me of a common fallacy about voter registration.

Many people seem to believe that someone's name appearing on a voter registration list is not just a necessary condition for being allowed to vote (i.e. only people who are registered can vote), but also that being on a voter registration list is a sufficient condition (i.e. if someone's name is on the list, then that is proof that s/he is eligible to vote).

Not so.

There are many things which can make someone ineligible to vote despite being properly registered. For example, dying (as in this case), moving to a different precinct, or being convicted of a felony. There are also many ways to become registered to vote without being eligible: lying about your citizenship or residence are good examples.

Many jurisdictions make at least some effort to purge voter rolls of ineligible voters, though these efforts may be ineffective or halfhearted (for example, I once got called up for jury duty in Illinois four years after I had moved out of state. They even sent it to my Minnesota address, as evidently nobody made the obvious connection that a Minnesota resident shouldn't be registered to vote or called for jury duty in Illinois).

As a result, being registered to vote is not proof that one is eligible to vote (though in practice it is often treated that way--our voting system relies to a large degree on the honor system). Lots of ineligible voters are registered all over the place.

Keep this in mind the next time you see a breathless or outraged article about dead people, out-of-state residents, or Mickey Mouse being registered to vote somewhere.

Posted at 01:00 PM | Permalink | |

Political Capital

Shortly after the election, Bush said, "I've earned political capital in this election, and I'm going to spend it."

An interesting metaphor, one which suggests a politician's power is like a bank account where he can save up his influence or choose to consume it to get some agenda passed. Bush was clearly indicating he planned to take the latter course.

But how apt is this power-as-bank-account metaphor?

Earning Political Capital
To begin, we need to define what Political Capital (or PC for short) is. PC is the ability to influence the outcome of political events. As such, it is basically the perception of a politician's power.

Elected offices come with a certain amount of inherent PC, through the ability to vote on (or veto) legislation. A politician earns more PC in one basic way: by winning. Winning an election always earns PC, since it shows that a plurality of the voters in the politician's district back him or her. Plus, it means that the politician will be sticking around for another two, four, or six years. In contrast, losing an election wipes out all PC, for obvious reasons.

PC can also be earned by winning important (and especially controversial) votes in the legislature. If a politician pushes an issue hard (like Social Security reform) and wins, that increases his or her perceived power, and hence earns PC. In this case, spending PC can actually earn PC--but at a risk. If the politician loses, then the PC is gone forever, as losing an important vote decreases his perceived power (this is sometimes called "overreaching").

Finally, PC can be traded, but not in the usual sense. Since a successful trade can help both sides advance their agendas, trading PC can actually increase the total PC for both sides. People who don't hold political office (lobbyists, for example) can earn PC through trading with politicians. People who are especially good at trading PC are often called "power brokers."

Spending Political Capital
A politician spends Political Capital to influence the outcome of political events. This takes the form of trying to convince other politicians to vote in a particular way.

For example, a newly-reelected President may spend his PC by arguing to a Senator that it would be foolish to vote against the will of the voters. Or one congressman might offer to trade a vote on a particular bill for a vote on a different bill.

In all cases, when a politician spends PC, it isn't necessarily gone. If the outcome is what the politician wanted, that may actually increase his PC, since everyone will perceive him as being more powerful as a result. On the other hand, if the politician loses, the spent PC is gone for good.

In this respect, the power-as-bank-account metaphor breaks down. A better metaphor might be power-as-poker-chips: one way to get more PC is to risk it, and if you win, you get more.

Saving Political Capital
Unlike real capital, you can't really save Political Capital. If you've got it and don't use (or trade) it, it goes away.

This isn't to say that a politician has to be engaged on every single issue, but that power which is never used is really no power at all. PC certainly doesn't earn interest the way a bank account does.

So really, PC isn't that much like a bank account after all. But as a rhetorical device, it turns out to be a great hook into writing a long article.

Posted at 12:26 PM | Permalink | |

I Hereby Accept the Title of Worst Political Prognosticator Ever

Why This Election Won't Be Close

And, of course, who can forget my Election Prediction for the California Recall.

Posted at 03:27 PM | Permalink | |

A memo to the Republican party

Mr. or Ms. Republican:

Congratulations on your recent win. After such a hard-fought campaign, it feels wonderful to win nearly everything you set out to win on the national level. Celebrate now, but be prepared for a difficult few years. Remember that the Republican control of all three branches of the federal government conceals an electorate which is still bitterly (and narrowly) divided.

You are now thrust into an unusual role in American politics, but one which is common in many European countries: the Ruling Party.

Even though it sounds like a good position to be in--and it is--I suspect you will find that being the Ruling Party is far more difficult than you expect. You will be held accountable for everything which happens in the country between now and the next election, even if events are beyond your control. Meanwhile, the Democrats will assume the mantle of Minority Opposition, which has no particular responsibility beyond getting in your way. The simple presence of a Minority Opposition will prevent you from passing many elements of your agenda, and make it more difficult to hold on to power in future elections. The Democrats are now free to do everything they can to undermine you, knowing that they will not be held accountable for the outcome.

Yours is a difficult job, especially given the serious problems our country faces. To hold on to power in future elections, you will have to think long-term about the effects of your policies, and work to build bridges to the more moderate elements of the electorate. The next congressional election is in only two years, and if events go against you, you will not have the luxury of blaming the Democrats.

I hope you enjoy hard work, since there is bound to be plenty of it the next few years.

Posted at 03:06 PM | Permalink | |

A memo to the Democratic party

Mr. or Ms. Democrat:

My sympathies on your recent loss. After all the effort and energy that went into this year's election, your failure to achieve any important advances on the national level must feel like a stinging rebuke. It is important to keep in mind that the Republican control of all three branches of the federal government conceals an electorate which is still bitterly (and narrowly) divided.

For the next two years at least, your role will be a common one in many European countries, but an unusual one in American politics: the Minority Opposition.

While it might not seem so today, I suspect you will find this role more rewarding--and more fun--than you expect. As the Minority Opposition, you do not have any of the responsibilities which come with governing, and need not be held accountable for any of the policies of the current government. Your job is to gleefully lob brickbats at the Ruling Party from the peanut gallery, blocking the more egregious policies they may try to advance, and otherwise reminding them that they will be held accountable for everything which happens over the next few years.

This is a serious job. Your mere presence will moderate the more extreme impulses of the Ruling Party, and by building bridges to centrist voters, you can set yourselves up for a return to actual power in 2006 or 2008.

Enjoy the ride: it's bound to be exciting.

Posted at 02:48 PM | Permalink | |

Worst Possible Outcome

What this country needed more than anything this Presidential campaign was a decisive victory for one candidate or another. We didn't get it.

As of this writing, 5 AM central time on Wednesday, C-Span and NPR haven't called Ohio for either candidate, leaving the electoral college tally at 252-254 (270 needed to win). Bush is ahead in Ohio, but by fewer votes than the number of provisional ballots cast. Whomever wins Ohio wins the race.

This means that we're likely in for another set of court fights over which ballots to count and which to ignore. It may be days or weeks before we know the outcome, and no matter the final result there will be a sizable fraction of the population who will think they've been robbed. This will hurt confidence in our system, and will only serve to increase partisan polarization.

Now for the aftermath....

Despite the uncertainty at this point, it looks likely that Bush will win. Republicans will rejoice, Democrats will begin the self-flagellations.

Even though the Republican victory was by the skin of their teeth, they continue to control all three branches of the federal government, and have the ability to govern as though they have a huge mandate. There's no reason to expect Republicans to offer concessions to the narrowness of the victory (why should they?), and Democratic anger will simmer for another four years. I'm sure the search has already begun for that elusive Democrat who can reach across party lines in four years to forge a national coalition (Hillary? Absolutely not, but even the suggestion will make the Republicans' blood boil).

In that respect, Edwards may have been the better candidate than Kerry, but I'm not sure if any of the Democrats running this year were really coalition-builders the way Clinton was.

The New Electoral Map
With Florida going to Bush this year, the electoral map has completed its transformation into an almost completely polarized reflection of the country's psyche. The West Coast, Northeast, and Great Lakes states are solidly Democratic, while everything else is strong Republican. Ohio straddles the Midwest and the South, and determines the outcome. A handful of other states which lie on or near geographic boundaries (Virginia, Missouri, Nevada) plus Florida are the new swing states.

The biggest cities (New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco) are all in solidly Democratic states. Rural states are solidly Republican. This means that big-city problems are unlikely to stir the federal government to action.

The high-tech growth corridors are mainly in Democratic states. No surprise. Probably the best the tech industry can hope for in the next four years is benign neglect.

If a future president is to bring the country together (as opposed to tearing it further apart), he will probably have to be either a moderate Republican from the West Coast or Northeast (except that Arnold isn't eligible) or a conservative Democrat from the South. Perhaps I should be the first to put the name of Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota, into the ring for 2008. Tim, your country needs you....

Upsetting the Apple Cart
If there's one rule of politics, its that you should expect the unexpected. September 11th transformed a caretaker president with no mandate into one of the most forceful agents of change (for good and bad) in recent memory. Even though 9/11 couldn't remake the electoral map, other events could change the short-term political dynamic:

* A major Watergate-scale scandal.

* A humiliating defeat in Iraq.

* A major turn (for worse) in the economy.

Competence?
I supported Kerry this time around, and while there were many reasons, the biggest one in my mind was the sheer incompetence of the Bush administration. I might not agree with Kerry on all the issues, but at least he would probably do a better job.

This is troubling for the next four years, since I see several potential problems which will require some finesse to handle well: extracting us from Iraq, trimming the federal deficit, keeping China and our other creditors buying U.S. debt, etc.

I only hope that with the prospect of re-election gone (and Cheney having announced he won't seek his boss's job), this administration won't feel as bound by political considerations in carrying out the business of the country.

Unfortunately, I expect that both sides will take exactly the wrong lessons from this election:

* Pandering to the base is more important than reaching across party lines.

* Saving face is more important than doing a good job.

* You can run as a moderate and govern as a radical and get away with it.

* Win at any cost.

Posted at 06:16 AM | Permalink | |

Why This Election Won't Be Close

Top Reasons Why This Election Will Be a Landslide

1. The conventional wisdom is that the election will be very close. Conventional wisdom in politics is nearly always wrong.

2. The electoral college system tends to magnify the apparent margin of victory. A popular win of even a couple points can translate into a big margin in the electoral college (not necessarily a bad thing, by the way).

3. If the turnout is as big as everyone thinks it will be, then all the polling models are useless, since they were calibrated in years with lower turnout and voter interest.

4. The media, the incumbent, and the challenger all have a vested interest in making it look close as long as possible, so news that it will be a landslide doesn't get as much play. The candidates need it to look close to motivate their voters to vote; and the media needs to keep it a close race to maintain viewer/reader interest.

5. Another close race could be very bad for confidence in our system; therefore, wishful thinking demands a landslide.

Posted at 09:33 PM | Permalink | |

The Rituals of Democracy

The script for election day is a familiar one. During the day, voters will stream into polling places and go through the ritual of indicating their choices for president, representative, and maybe senator, governor, mayor, councilperson, dogcatcher, and so forth all down the ballot. Little rituals at the polling place reinforce the ideals of our elections: we register to vote so that each person gets only one vote; we pull a curtain around us when marking our ballots to ensure our votes are secret; hawk-eyed old ladies watch the entire process because every vote must be counted.

Starting between 7 and 8 PM Eastern, we start clicking on our TV sets to watch the results come in. State by state, as the polls close, the networks announce projected winners and maps start getting colored blue and red--colors which seemed somewhat arbitrary once, but which now have the force of tradition and will probably never change.

At some point, probably after 10 PM Eastern, one of the networks will cut to its most experienced anchor. He (for they are all "he's") will pause a moment to emphasize the enormity of his next words, which will be exactly these:

"Ladies and gentlemen, based on exit polls and early returns with [XX] states reporting in, we're calling the election for [George Bush or John Kerry]." This statement may be repeated once or twice for emphasis.

This statement will be followed by an infographic showing how the winning candidate now has over 270 electoral votes in the bag. Within minutes all the other networks will follow suit. With the dramatic tension relieved, coverage will shift to senate and congressional races, with the occasional mop-up presidential result.

About a half-hour later, the losing candidate will make his final speech of the campaign. He will thank his volunteers, his family, and his staff for all their hard work. He will say that everyone fought hard, but that it is now time to come together and work with the [new or re-elected] president to meet the challenges we all face as a nation. The mood will be somber, but gracious.

Shortly after that, the winning candidate will also make a short speech. He will also thank his volunteers, family, and staff, and promise to work with the opposing side to come together as a nation and face our problems head-on. The mood will be festive, with cheering and partying visible in the room.

And then the majority of us will turn off our TV sets and go to bed, secure in the knowledge that our country has made its decision (for good or ill) and we can move on with the rest of our lives. Only the die-hards will stay up to catch the late returns from Alaska and Hawaii.

Four years ago, these rituals were short-circuited in the ignominious spectacle of a concession which was retracted, and an acceptance which didn't quite happen. We then watched for weeks as lawyers and partisans argued over who really won the election, culminating in an unprecedented Supreme Court decision which left nobody except the winners happy.

But these rituals of democracy are important. The function of rituals is to reinforce shared expectations, and create clearly understood demarcations in our lives. When the losing candidate concedes, he isn't just stating the obvious. He's telling everyone--especially his supporters--that he accepts the outcome and that it is time to start working towards shared goals instead of against the opponent. When the winner accepts, he's telling his supporters that he'll govern for everyone, not just his partisans. In our system, the President is President of all of us, not just one party.

I wouldn't blame all the partisanship of the past four years on the failure of election night to follow the script. But it certainly didn't get the current administration off to a good start.

After this most bitterly political campaign, what America most needs is a truly decisive election--for either party. We need a margin of victory wide enough that neither party will see it as worth challenging in the courts: 100 or more electoral votes would do nicely. I know this isn't what the latest polls say will happen, but polls have a funny way of being wrong when it comes to "close" elections.

And tomorrow evening, I hope and pray that before I go to bed, I will hear one candidate or the other thank his supporters for their hard work, and urge them to work with the winner to solve our many problems. That's when I'll know we can truly put the past year behind us.

Posted at 02:31 PM | Permalink | |

An article everyone should read

This article sums up what I've been feeling for a long time. I suspect I'm not the only one.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Posted at 08:41 AM | Permalink | |

Election Fatigue

No doubt about it, I'm suffering from Election Fatigue. There's only so much high drama one can take before burning out completely. Thankfully, there's only about two weeks left.

Our neighborhood has become a virtual forest of Bush and Kerry lawn signs.

I'm seriously thinking of making one which says, "November 3rd, One Nation Again." That sums up my sentiments perfectly.

As for myself, I'm fairly well convinced that my decision to vote for Kerry will be the right one. But whomever wins, I hope it a reasonably decisive election. I don't think we can stand another 2000-style contentious outcome.

I also have a very bad feeling about what a second Bush administration might wreak upon our political system. There seem to be a lot of very serious scandals which have been put on hold until after the election: Abu Gharib, faulty pre-war intelligence in Iraq, insufficient troops and resources to stabilize the country, among others. Without the distraction of the election (and two full years before the next elections), congressional Republicans who had been avoiding these issues may find them a priority again. Depending on what they find, the outcome could range from a year of national soul-searching, to a weakened and ineffective Bush administration, all the way to a Nixonian-style implosion.

Not that four years under Kerry will be a cakewalk. As a nation, we're in a serious pickle in Iraq and with our budget deficit, and it is going to take gumption, skill, and sacrifices to get us out. In that kind of situation, I'd much rather have someone like Kerry, who takes the time to understand the issues and steer a thoughtful course, than Bush, who shoots from the hip and doesn't tolerate internal dissent.

But either way, in two and a half weeks, it will be over. I hope.

Posted at 09:17 AM | Permalink | |

Campaign Finance Reform? Or Truth-in-Politics?

If the goal of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law was to create a better-informed and more meaningful debate about political issues, then it has failed utterly. This is the first Presidential campaign under McCain-Feingold, and it is easily the dirtiest, loudest, and least issue-focused campaign in recent memory. Judging from the sound and fury emanating from the campaigns, the most important issues this year revolve around the Vietnam war. Funny, I thought that war ended 30 years ago.

Just as bad, when the candidates do talk about issues, it tends to be in fuzzy platitudes rather than concrete proposals. Saying that you're going to cut the deficit in half is great, but I'd like to know how each candidate actually proposes to do it. So far, I've been unimpressed.

Even though (unequal distribution of/over-reliance upon) money is a major problem in our system, I'm becoming more and more convinced that campaign finance reform is the wrong way to fix the system. There are two fundamental problems with attacking the money flow: (1) Money is fungible, that is to say, it can flow freely. If you squeeze the money flow in one place, it goes elsewhere (as we are learning with the "527" political organizations this year). (2) You can't restrict how a private individual spends his or her personal money on a political campaign, because that's a violation of the First Amendment. So there will always be the risk of a Bill Gates running for president on his own dime, and blowing the opposition out of the water (financially speaking) with completely unrestricted spending.

But if changing the money flow isn't going to give us more issue-oriented political campaigns, then what will?

I have a few ideas which go after the style of the discourse. In the spirit of our constitutional system, the basic idea is to create checks and balances on political speech, which would moderate the excesses of campaign advertising, and encourage a more grown-up form of discourse.

Modest Proposal #1: A Chain of Accountability
Political speech in general enjoys very strong constitutional protections. Anonymous political speech, however, seems to just ask for trouble. Whether it is candidates running nasty mud-slinging ads without including their own names (as in the pre-McCain-Feingold days) or big partisan donors hiding behind 527s (as is happening today), even a veneer of anonymity seems to create the temptation to say things that one wouldn't dare say under one's own name. We need to make it as simple as possible to connect political ads to the individuals responsible for them.

McCain-Feingold did a lot of good here, but I think we need to do more. For example, groups now take credit for their own ads; and it is possible to find out who the big donors are to campaigns and political organizations. But what we really need is a real-time database, available to all, which would allow anyone with a web browser to look up any political organization, find out who gave the money, and cross-reference those individuals to other political organizations. There should be a very short window for organizations to report their contributions to the database: days at the most. Furthermore, if organization X gives money to organization Y, then all the donors to X will be listed in the database as direct contributors to Y, making it harder to obscure a money trail through multiple layers of political organizations.

The intent is that when you see the ad sponsored by "Left Handed Albanians for The American Way," you should be able to instantly log on and discover who gives money to LHAFTAW, and what other organizations those same people gave money to.

Modest Proposal #2: Guaranteed Rebuttals
Any time a campaign or other political organization buys an advertisement, opposing groups must be given the opportunity to purchase a rebuttal ad. The rebuttal would run immediately after (on TV or radio) or next to (in print or online) the original ad. Media outlets would be required to sell the rebuttal at a rate no higher than the rate for the original ad, and allow rebuttals to be smaller or shorter than the original (if technically possible) at a reduced price. Rebuttals would only apply to paid advertising, so newspapers don't have to rebut their own editorials, for example, or bloggers wouldn't be obligated to allow an opponent to rebut their articles on the same page.

One immediate issue is who qualifies as an "opposing group" and how do you give them the opportunity to rebut. Since we don't want government in the game of deciding how political dividing lines should be drawn, it is best to allow any organization with the money and inclination to buy a rebuttal. Ideally, there would be a central clearinghouse where ads would be posted 48 hours in advance, along with rate information and technical details. Prime-time advertising by major candidates could expect multiple rebuttals, but more obscure ads would likely often go unchallenged. At the end of the day, campaigns would have to decide whether to allocate money to rebuttals of opposing messages or their own ads. The usual rules about accountability and identifying who paid for the ad would apply to rebuttals.

Guaranteeing space for political rebuttals would do two things: first, it would eliminate surprise "gotcha" advertising. Mature political discourse shouldn't depend on catching your opponent off-guard. Second, it would encourage political advertising to focus on substance rather than emotion or wild claims. Arguments based on facts tend to be more immune to rebuttal; and raw emotional appeals would be blunted if immediately followed by an opposing counterclaim.

Posted at 09:36 PM | Permalink | |

Clinton suffers heart attack, goes in for bypass surgery

God, Jesus, and Allah forgive me (and maybe Cthulu, too). I am truly a heartless, twisted, scheming soul.

When I first heard that Clinton suffered a heart attack and is getting an emergency bypass less than 24 hours after Bush's acceptance speech, thus neatly removing the GOP convention from the headlines, my first reaction was:

"Doesn't this man ever do anything which isn't political?"

[Editor's note: If he dies two days before the election, we'll know the answer is "No."]

Posted at 01:55 PM | Permalink | |

Recall Norm?

As a barometer of how politically charged this year's Presidential election has become, I point you to the ongoing saga of St. Paul's mayor, Norm Coleman.

St. Paul is a heavily Democratic city, but Norm (also nominally a Democrat) recently endorsed Bush for re-election. Mayors endorse other candidates all the time, and a few even will cross party lines. But this particular endorsement has brought down a firestorm from the Democratic faithful.

The horror! That an elected official should actually think for himself rather than mindlessly mouthing the party line!

At any rate, the first major consequence was something of a revolt within the City Council. Some who had been in are now out, and vice-versa. It also sounds like the City Council Picnic will be a little frostier than usual this year, and not just because of the weather (though that would be good enough reason). So far, not too unexpected.

But this morning, I heard that a group has been formed to recall Norm as a direct consequence of the endorsement. They don't even bother arguing that he's been a bad mayor, or stole money from the tip jar at Starbucks, or anything like that. The argument is simply that Norm Coleman was wrong to endorse President Bush for re-election.

They also make the argument that he shouldn't have been endorsing anyone, but the NPR interviewer was more than a little incredulous at the group's claims to be nonpartisan.

I will grant that Norm's endorsement might not have been the smartest thing politically for St. Paul--unless (cough) he's contemplating a run for governor in a few years--and I happen to disagree with him, and he's never struck me as the sharpest knife in the drawer, but at least grant the man his right to have an opinion. Yeesh.

Posted at 09:40 AM | Permalink | |

The Presidential Rally Project

As much as it is starting to get on my nerves living in a battleground state, I realized I have a unique opportunity this year. Given Minnesota's political history, this is the first time in decades when both major candidates are making multiple stops here. Depending on how the political winds shift, it could also be the last time for decades. As a generally-nonpartisan centrist, this gives me the chance to do something unique and worthwhile: see both candidates speak in person before the election.

It is true that I'm leaning towards voting for Kerry....but I'm also willing to change my mind based on new things I learn. I am what they call "persuadable."

So, I'm making it my goal to see both Bush and Kerry speak before the election. In addition, I'd also like to see Cheney and Edwards in person, too. Given that one of these four people seems to swing through Minnesota almost every week, this seems doable in principle.

In practice, it may be much harder. Media reports are that the campaigns have been screening attendees this year: rather than reaching out to undecided voters, they're just rallying the base (and making sure the right image gets on the news). That said, I'm sure there must be a way for an undecided voter in a battleground state to get to see the candidates. If nothing else, it will be interesting to try.

I have no idea what to expect, or even how to begin. The last presidential campaign rally I attended was in 1980 with John Anderson. I was 10 at the time. I assume that the first steps are to call the respective campaign headquarters and just ask.

If anyone can get me tickets to any upcoming events, please let me know. I'll keep everyone posted.

P.S. In reading this, it seems that I may be terribly naive about either campaign actually wanting a persuadable voter to attend a rally and hear the candidate speak. I hope we haven't sunk to that level in American politics, but I'm afraid we might have. That just makes it a more interesting experiment to see how hard it will be to get in.

Posted at 09:38 PM | Permalink | |

Who is Bill O'Reilly Talking To?

Am I the only one who find Fox News' Bill O'Reilly almost completely unwatchable? I admit to having only seen a handful of his interviews (mainly because they make me sick), but this seems to be the usual script:

BILL O'REILLY: Let's welcome my guest tonight, who has recently [written a book/made allegations/been quoted] about [President Bush/9-11/Iraq].

GUEST: Glad to be here.

BO: I invited you on my show tonight because there's something I want to understand. You said [absurd misrepresentation of what GUEST actually said or wrote]. Do you really believe that?

GUEST: Actually, that's not really what I said, if you....

BO: [getting angry] Are you calling me a liar?

GUEST: I think if you [read my book/listen to my statement], you'll see that what I said was [begins quoting himself]....

BO: [stabs finger at GUEST] I'm not going to sit here and argue semantics with you. Did you or didn't you say [absurd mischaracterization of GUEST's position].

GUEST: No, that's not what I said.

BO: [getting red in face, shouting] Listen, you can't come on MY SHOW and call me a LIAR! I won't have it!

GUEST: Look, if you'd just [read my book/listen to the tape]....

BO: [really upset now, practically foaming at the mouth] SHUT UP! I invited you on MY SHOW to have a civil debate, and practically the first thing you do is call me a LIAR!

GUEST: But....

BO: Can we turn off his mike? Someone turn off his mike....

This makes great theater, but when the guest isn't part of the game, it just comes across as ugly. Like watching the playground bully shake down kids for lunch money. I suppose there are people who enjoy watching that kind of spectacle, but I find it supremely distasteful.

But perhaps the thing which bothers me most is the pretense that this bullying is somehow advancing the political discourse. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As host of the show, O'Reilly has the deck stacked in his favor in any confrontation: he can set the agenda, ask the questions, impose a time limit, and even cut off the guest's mike. If all that fails to produce "victory," he can re-edit the interview to make the guest look bad.

Rather than using this control to encourage a thoughtful "spin-free" interview (as he likes to claim), instead he uses it to create outrageously one-sided confrontations, which he naturally "wins" (he could hardly lose under those circumstances), and then crow about how he demolished the opposing viewpoint. A sort of political Jerry Springer show.

Professional wrestling displays more fairness.

But the fact is that the man draws an audience. The reason he gets away with his juvenile behavior (my 2-year-olds display more maturity), and the reason why guests who should know better agree to appear, is that people watch the show.

Going out on a limb (not really!), I'm guessing that most of his viewers aren't the sort of people who are really open to thoughtful, reasoned debate in the first place. In all likelihood, they're watching because they enjoy the spectacle of seeing someone with an opposing viewpoint humiliated in front of a national audience. And that's about all they get.

These are not swing voters, in other words.

So if your own views happen to differ from those of Bill O'Reilly, my advice is to not get too worked up over his antics. He's not changing anybody's mind, just putting on a great show for the true believers on the right.

And if you ever get invited to appear on his show, I suggest you very politely decline.

Posted at 10:20 PM | Permalink | |

Jumping the shark on Swift Boats

Let me see if I have this straight. A well-funded Republican-sympathizing group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth issues a book and 60-second TV commercial basically claiming that Kerry isn't such a great war hero after all. The Kerry campaign counters with "are so!" John McCain blows the whistle and calls for a penalty, calling it a dirty trick and asking the Bush campaign to repudiate the commercial.

With me so far?

So how in the world did this morph into a huge debate (mostly promoted, as far as I can tell, by the right wing) as to whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Day in 1968? To the point where Glenn Reynolds went to the law library on a weekend to photograph the "incriminating" page in the Congressional Record to post on Instapundit.

I mean, WTF? The whole Swift Boat argument (I hesitate to dignify it by calling it a "debate") is a sideshow at best. But this is a sideshow to a sideshow. At best.

Oh, and here's a free clue to partisan Republicans: The longer you keep arguing about where Kerry was on Christmas Day 1968, the more likely someone is going to ask "Where was George W. on Christmas Day 1968?" And I can promise that the answer won't make for a flattering comparison.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has a more complete discussion of the question, but no less mystified. I still think the Democratic response to "Where was Kerry on Christmas 1968" should be "Where was Bush?"

Posted at 09:15 PM | Permalink | |

Gracious Loser? Not!

The Twin Cities recently inaugurated its first rail transit system in decades with the opening of the Hiawatha line, currently connecting downtown Minneapolis and Ft. Snelling, and soon to connect Downtown with the airport and the Mall of America. By any measure, the line is a hit. They've been far exceeding daily traffic projections for 2005 despite the fact that a quarter of the line and several high traffic stations have yet to open.

Apparently Rep. Phil Krinkie, a state legislator from the western suburbs, hasn't gotten the memo yet, since he continues to fight a quixotic battle against the light rail system despite having lost in the legislature five years ago. On opening weekend, Krinkie posed for a photo-op with a luxury SUV, claiming that the cost of the line would have bought a fancy new truck for every new transit rider. The "truth" of this claim depended on a somewhat creative interpretation of a "new transit rider," on ridership being at the low end of projections (already far exceeded), and ignoring the fact that the rail line can be expected to last 20+ years whereas a new car would need to be replaced much sooner. Whatever.

The latest from Krinkie is that the state government conspired to hide data from 1999 showing that the rail line would cause congestion on cross streets. It is true that the first couple weeks saw complaints about cross-street congestion, but apparently the problem has been largely solved since then, as complaints have dropped to almost nothing according to Minneapolis' traffic operations engineer.

The deeper question, however, is what in the world is Krinkie trying to accomplish? The rail line is built, and is proving to be far more popular than anyone believed it would be. It's not like we're going to un-build it.

Furthermore, traffic congestion in and around the Twin Cities is rapidly approaching Seattle-like levels. Even mid-day, major arteries are clogged all over the place, and rush hour is snarled up pretty much everywhere. Adding enough new traffic lanes to accommodate all of today's traffic would be far more expensive than mass transit, and that's not even considering the fact that some of the worst chokepoints (like the Lowry Hill tunnel) are physically impossible to expand.

A gracious politician is one who is willing to admit mistakes, take defeat in stride, and work to forward his agenda on future issues. Someone needs to send Krinkie a ticket for the cluetrain:

Dear Rep. Krinkie,

As much as I admire your willingness to fight for the issues you believe in, I feel obligated to point out that you are wasting your time. The Hiawatha Line has been built, the money is spent, and furthermore, Twin Cities residents are voting with their feet in favor of light rail. Perhaps it is time to focus on a different issue.

Respectfully Yours,
The Cluemaster

Posted at 09:01 PM | Permalink | |

Cool Tool

The electoral vote predictor.

They compile state-by-state surveys and tally the electoral votes for the major candidates.

You can argue about some of the details of the methodology, but it is a far more meaningful approach than the national opinion survey.

(via Atrios, via Skippy)

Posted at 09:56 AM | Permalink | |

The Anti-Shenanigan Ammendment

Minnesota's concealed-carry law just got struck down today, not based on any fundamental constitutional problem with the law, but because it violated what I call the Anti-Shenanigan Clause of Minnesota's state constitution.

Our constitution has an interesting bit which requires that all laws passed by the state legislature be about exactly one topic. As it turns out, concealed-carry was not passed on its own merits, but as a rider to an unrelated technical corrections bill for the state Department of Natural Resources. In other words, a very controversial new law was passed through the parliamentary trick of attaching it to a completely noncontroversial bill to fix mistakes in earlier laws.

Whatever you think of Minnesota's concealed carry law (I opposed it because it took the discretion away from local law enforcement where it belongs), you have to admit that this anti-shenanigan clause can prevent a lot of, well, shenanigans. Legislators shouldn't be forced to vote for a controversial law simply because it is tied to something unrelated which everyone admits is needed.

Now if we could only get this passed on the federal level....

Posted at 09:32 PM | Permalink | |

When to get involved in the Republican party again?

E. J. Dionne makes the case in the Washington Post that the November could see a surprising victory for the Democrats. I have to agree with many of his observations (though the conclusion is at least colored by a degree of optimism), and I think there's a good chance that the election will swing more Democratic than most people think right now.

For me, I will be glad to be rid of George W. Bush. But I also come from Republican roots. The main reason I consider myself an Independent today is because for the last 20 years the wingnuts have been pushing the moderates out of the Republican party. In fact, my mother, whom I consider the very model of a modern moderate Republican, was thinking of switching to the Democratic party because she felt no longer welcome in her local precinct caucus.

That was in 1990. Then she was asked to run for state legislature, won, and distinguished herself over 12 years, as a moderate Republican. In the mean while, though, the party has only gotten more ideological.

But let's suppose the voters give the Republican party a big spanking this year. Massive defeat, down in flames, that kind of thing. The Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress (farfetched? Maybe).

That might be just the time for moderates like myself to get active in the party again. Such an event would probably make the Republicans think long and hard about centrist positions and the "big tent," and marginalize the rabid right. Just like the defeats in 2000 and 2002 made the Democrats value electability over purity.

An intriguing thought. I would like to be more active politically, if I could only find a home. Perhaps in December, I'll have the chance to help make one.

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink | |

WTF?

I read this article in Slate (via Obsidian Wings) about the Bush TV ad, "Kerry's Coalition of the Wild-Eyed."

And after watching the ad, I have to add my voice to those who are asking, "What in the world are the Bush people thinking?" Of course, as an acknowledged but reluctant Kerry supporter, I watch it with some bias. Still, the ad is so over the top, so frankly laughable, that it is a wonder it got beyond the snort-your-coffee-up-your-nose test.

The ad begins by stating that these statement are those made by some Kerry supporters, and then has several clips of passionate statements by Democratic politicians like Gore and Dean. The doubled-over-with-laughter point comes with a clip of Hitler, making a subliminal association between Democratic luminaries and Hitler himself, as though Hitler would vote for Kerry were he alive today.

Of course, if you read the fine print, that's not precisely what the ad is saying. The Hitler video is attributed to a moveon.org commercial, even though that organization did not produce the commercial and has expressly repudiated it (the Hitler ad was one of about 1,500 submitted in a contest moveon.org sponsored for anti-Bush ads). So the ad is technically saying that some people who currently support Kerry once compared Hitler to Bush. But that's not really true, either, since as far as I know the people who actually made the Hitler ad haven't publicly announced their support for Kerry, and moveon.org, which does support Kerry, doesn't endorse that ad.

Anyway, I'm waiting for the counter-ad from the Kerry campaign, the one which begins "This is an actual ad the Bush campaign ran against John Kerry" followed by the entire Bush ad. I think Bush running this ad will be much more effective in winning support for Kerry than Bush, and if I was running Kerry's campaign, I might just be willing to pay the Bush campaign to run it more.

Here's a democratic response to Bush's "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed" ad. At about the same level of maturity and sophistication, too. Actually, I think Ann Coulter is pretty hot. Did she have those fangs whitened? And the cute little horns are just so perky.

So what would it look like if the Kerry campaign ran a similar ad? Well, I've taken the liberty of putting something together which approximates the level of discourse and sophisticated political argument seen in the Bush ad. Click on the image for a larger version.

(as an aside, I post this image knowing full well that there's the chance someone else will take it out of context in an attempt to smear the Democrats. Whatever.)

Posted at 12:15 PM | Permalink | |

Sat - June 21, 2008 10:51 AM

Obama Fat Cats

Mon - April 7, 2008 02:10 PM

Inscribed on Charlton Heston's Tombstone

Wed - November 7, 2007 01:09 PM

Aviation Denial of Service Attack

Thu - November 1, 2007 04:48 PM

Ron Paul: The Ultimate alt.conspiracy Troll?

Tue - October 23, 2007 02:52 PM

Absolut Power. Absolut Secrecy

Wed - October 10, 2007 01:57 PM

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Tue - July 31, 2007 11:50 AM

Scary Statistic

Fri - July 20, 2007 12:51 PM

Bush administration stonewalling to backfire for Republicans in 2008?

Thu - March 22, 2007 09:28 PM

War Funding

Thu - February 22, 2007 11:07 PM

Security, Flying, and Terrorism

Sat - December 9, 2006 10:23 PM

Hillary Clinton in 2008?

Thu - November 9, 2006 09:18 PM

Election Reaction

Mon - November 6, 2006 04:37 PM

Tomorrow

Wed - October 4, 2006 02:47 PM

A Politician Does the Right Thing (eventually)

Wed - September 27, 2006 12:56 PM

Warning! Stampeding Herd of Elephants!

Wed - June 14, 2006 03:31 PM

Canadian Parliament Accidentally Passes Budget by Unanimous Consent

Mon - June 12, 2006 03:32 PM

2006 Hurricane Season

Sun - June 11, 2006 08:10 AM

Suicide as an Act of War?

Wed - May 3, 2006 10:31 AM

Strategic Energy

Sun - January 29, 2006 01:11 AM

Health Coverage

Mon - January 9, 2006 10:12 AM

bin Laden dead?

Tue - November 22, 2005 08:56 PM

Padilla Indicted

Mon - October 31, 2005 10:04 AM

Sam Alito: Wow

Thu - October 27, 2005 09:47 PM

Supreme Court Nominee

Mon - October 3, 2005 09:41 AM

Justice Harriet Miers

Fri - September 9, 2005 09:33 AM

What went wrong in Katrina?

Mon - May 23, 2005 08:50 PM

Filibuster compromise changes Senate landscape

Wed - May 18, 2005 04:10 PM

Nuclear option forces a constitutional crisis?

Fri - February 18, 2005 07:05 PM

St. Mom

Wed - February 2, 2005 01:00 PM

Voter Registration

12:26 PM

Political Capital

Wed - November 3, 2004 03:27 PM

I Hereby Accept the Title of Worst Political Prognosticator Ever

03:06 PM

A memo to the Republican party

02:48 PM

A memo to the Democratic party

06:16 AM

Worst Possible Outcome

Mon - November 1, 2004 09:33 PM

Why This Election Won't Be Close

02:31 PM

The Rituals of Democracy

Fri - October 22, 2004 08:41 AM

An article everyone should read

Sun - October 17, 2004 09:17 AM

Election Fatigue

Sun - September 19, 2004 09:36 PM

Campaign Finance Reform? Or Truth-in-Politics?