What a sad spectacle. The financial crisis deepened today as the rescue effort was voted down. Another major pillar, Wachovia, crashed and was sold at bargain basement prices. A trillion, with a "t," dollars in market equity vanished as the Dow took its biggest single day loss. Ever. The crisis spread globally, with Australian and Asian markets plummeting on news from Washington and New York. We have been here before. This is what it felt like in 1929.
The no vote this morning was the 2008 equivalent of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff response to the Crash of '29, a cut off your nose to spite your face middle finger to the infernal fates. And just as effective.
This morning the Congress, led by 2/3 of the Republicans but also including 40% of the Democrats, voted not to commit the $700 billion. It immediately cost the economy a trillion. In case they didn't notice, that is $300 billion more than they saved. It will continue to cost like that every day until they do something or until it's too late, whichever comes first. That is because the lenders cannot move money until they clear the bad loans out of their systems. Without loans no cars sell. No homes are bought. Construction projects shut down. Expansion plans are shelved. Then workers get laid off and it's 1932 again.
Most of the money won't be lost, anyway. Most of the loans are good. The treasury will buy large blocks of them. After they identify and dispose of the bad ones, they will eventually sell the good ones back to the banks, probably at a profit. At least 70% of the funds will be returned to the federal treasury. That's about $500 billion out of the total. So the real long-term cost is more like $200 billion at a maximum. Lay that against the market loss of $1 trillion in a day and you get an idea of what is at stake here. And that is before employment totally crashes and brings economic Armageddon. But hey, I'm sure it felt good to give 'em the old what for, right?
John McCain's take on all this was to blame Barack Obama. He was "mailing it in," we were told. This is the fellow who has had a remarkable series of revelations over the past week or two. First he said the economy was strong. Then he said it was in a crisis. Next he said he would stop campaigning, but didn't. Then he said he would not debate, but did. He said he would go to Washington to get both sides together but never went to Capitol Hill. Minutes before the vote this morning he was taking credit for bringing the Republicans along to support the deal. Then when two-thirds of them voted it down he said it was all Obama's fault. Really now. Is this the kind of leadership we need?
For his part, Obama complimented the congressional leadership for working hard to try to get something in place. He said he believes a deal will be forthcoming because it is essential; we have to have one. He said the legislative process can be slow, but must continue now with greater urgency until the economy is saved.
It is not difficult to see which approach is more likely to bring the results we have to have. And make no mistake, there is no sufferable alternative. If it makes them feel better, they can string up the CEOs and CFOs while they're at it, but one way or the other the sand must be washed out of the gears. Otherwise the
whole lumbering machine will grind to a halt. And at that point, the only thing in plentiful supply will be the one commodity Washington is never short of: blame.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Youth Vote Could Surprise
I was just wondering whether the polls we see are giving us an accurate picture. You know, the national polls we've seen after Friday's debate are all showing Obama with leads in the six-to-eight-percent range. That includes pretty reputable polls like the Gallup tracking poll. It occurs to me to wonder whether Obama's lead might actually be higher. Yes, significantly higher.
Have you ever heard the story of the Literary Digest magazine and its famous 1936 poll? They polled 2.3 million people, an absolutely huge sample, and predicted that Kansas Governor Alf Landon, the Republican, would defeat the incumbent Democrat Franklin Roosevelt by 57-43%. Of course, FDR piled up an enormous landslide, winning 62% of the popular vote. How could the Digest have been so wrong? Well, they sent out 10 million ballots to four types of people: their subscribers, people in the phone book, registered voters and people off the auto registration lists, and got 2.3 million of them back. The problem, of course, was with their sample. People who owned cars and telephones, and people who subscribed to the Literary Digest were substantially better off than the average American in that Depression year of 1936. And people who were well off were extremely more likely to vote Republican.
I'm wondering whether these surveys are properly counting younger people, for a couple of reasons. First, these surveys are done by land line telephone. A growing number of people do not own one of those, and I tend to think these are disproportionally younger people. Fox News reported back in August of 2007 about a survey done by Mediamark Research that found 12.3% of homes had only a land line while 14% had only cell phone or cell phones. Are these surveys missing 14% of the potential electorate, and the 14% most likely to be for Obama?
My second concern is youth voter turnout. The pollster has to estimate what percentage of each age group will actually come to the polls. What if 16% of the Democratic vote is youthful voters aged 18-29 as in the primaries this year, instead of the 11% it was in the 2004 primaries, or the 9% of the electorate that showed up in earlier elections? And what if these younger voters continued their preference for the Democrats, as they did in the primaries, by better than 30%? Or even by the 20% edge that current surveys report for Obama over McCain?
The result would be a large under reporting of Obama's support, roughly in the neighborhood of four percent of the aggregate popular vote. If you increase Obama's national average edge from 5% to 9%, or if you add 4 points to his showings on a state by state basis he not only widens his leads to safe levels in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but also pulls ahead in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Virginia and even North Carolina and Missouri. A close electoral contest turns into a rout. That is, if the people with only cell phones are indeed a younger crowd, and if younger people in general are going to vote with greater regularity this year than they have in the past. I have a sneaking hunch both those "ifs" will be answered in the affirmative. We'll find out soon enough.
Addendum: Since this was first posted I received word of a study that has been done on this topic from reader Carol E. It appears that the inclusion of "cell phone only" voters gives Obama a 2 to 3% bump. See the numbers here.
Have you ever heard the story of the Literary Digest magazine and its famous 1936 poll? They polled 2.3 million people, an absolutely huge sample, and predicted that Kansas Governor Alf Landon, the Republican, would defeat the incumbent Democrat Franklin Roosevelt by 57-43%. Of course, FDR piled up an enormous landslide, winning 62% of the popular vote. How could the Digest have been so wrong? Well, they sent out 10 million ballots to four types of people: their subscribers, people in the phone book, registered voters and people off the auto registration lists, and got 2.3 million of them back. The problem, of course, was with their sample. People who owned cars and telephones, and people who subscribed to the Literary Digest were substantially better off than the average American in that Depression year of 1936. And people who were well off were extremely more likely to vote Republican.
I'm wondering whether these surveys are properly counting younger people, for a couple of reasons. First, these surveys are done by land line telephone. A growing number of people do not own one of those, and I tend to think these are disproportionally younger people. Fox News reported back in August of 2007 about a survey done by Mediamark Research that found 12.3% of homes had only a land line while 14% had only cell phone or cell phones. Are these surveys missing 14% of the potential electorate, and the 14% most likely to be for Obama?
My second concern is youth voter turnout. The pollster has to estimate what percentage of each age group will actually come to the polls. What if 16% of the Democratic vote is youthful voters aged 18-29 as in the primaries this year, instead of the 11% it was in the 2004 primaries, or the 9% of the electorate that showed up in earlier elections? And what if these younger voters continued their preference for the Democrats, as they did in the primaries, by better than 30%? Or even by the 20% edge that current surveys report for Obama over McCain?
The result would be a large under reporting of Obama's support, roughly in the neighborhood of four percent of the aggregate popular vote. If you increase Obama's national average edge from 5% to 9%, or if you add 4 points to his showings on a state by state basis he not only widens his leads to safe levels in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but also pulls ahead in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Virginia and even North Carolina and Missouri. A close electoral contest turns into a rout. That is, if the people with only cell phones are indeed a younger crowd, and if younger people in general are going to vote with greater regularity this year than they have in the past. I have a sneaking hunch both those "ifs" will be answered in the affirmative. We'll find out soon enough.
Addendum: Since this was first posted I received word of a study that has been done on this topic from reader Carol E. It appears that the inclusion of "cell phone only" voters gives Obama a 2 to 3% bump. See the numbers here.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Debate: Tie Goes to Obama
John McCain and Barack Obama squared off last night in their first debate. The mood was sober, serious and earnest. There was precious little levity. They started out on the economy before spending most of their time on foreign policy. I feel they stated their familiar positions and each appealed effectively to his own supporters. The bottom line is that they battled more or less to a draw, a result that helps Obama more than McCain. That's because McCain is behind and needs to make up some ground.
On domestic matters, McCain needed to espouse conservative principles while demonstrating some independence from the unpopular President Bush. He was able to make these cases fairly well, shoring up the base by insisting he could pay for everything folks want while cutting taxes and calling Obama liberal.
McCain needed to show commanding familiarity on international and defense matters, since that is the core of his candidacy. This he did. He enunciated his hard line positions with firmness, as always. Those who like a father figure willing to rattle the cages of all the meanies in a dangerous world were comforted.
On matters close to home, Obama portrayed himself as the champion of regular folks. He was at pains to show his tax and spending priorities are in line with the needs of average Americans and McCain's with the wealthy few. He also persistently tried to tie McCain together with Bush, a tactic McCain kept evading with some success.
In the international arena Obama made his longstanding case that Iraq is a colossal strategic mistake that has diverted us from our actual terrorist enemies. He also stuck to his new vision of foreign relations calling for greater engagement, even with rival nations. He and McCain sparred repeatedly on these approaches. Obama wanted to appear knowledgeable and possessing sufficient gravitas for people to imagine him as president. He passed these tests easily.
A problem area for McCain was his tendency to smirk and act dismissively of Obama's views. He repeatedly began remarks with, "Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that..." His condescension was no doubt intended to put the young upstart in his place, but may instead have come off to many as disrespectful and arrogant.
Obama had potential trouble spots too. One interesting occurrence was that several times he began remarks with, "I agree with Senator McCain" or "I agree with John" about a certain issue, for instance about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. This could either show an intelligent openness that people could appreciate or it could play to McCain's advantage by conceding him expertise points. Obama's other possible fault was allowing a bit of annoyance to break his usually unflappable cool.
The early polls out this morning seem to show continued strength for Obama, though the effect of the debate may not have been measured yet. We'll see in the next few days whether this has been a game-changer, but I doubt it. This debate treaded water for both contenders.
On domestic matters, McCain needed to espouse conservative principles while demonstrating some independence from the unpopular President Bush. He was able to make these cases fairly well, shoring up the base by insisting he could pay for everything folks want while cutting taxes and calling Obama liberal.
McCain needed to show commanding familiarity on international and defense matters, since that is the core of his candidacy. This he did. He enunciated his hard line positions with firmness, as always. Those who like a father figure willing to rattle the cages of all the meanies in a dangerous world were comforted.
On matters close to home, Obama portrayed himself as the champion of regular folks. He was at pains to show his tax and spending priorities are in line with the needs of average Americans and McCain's with the wealthy few. He also persistently tried to tie McCain together with Bush, a tactic McCain kept evading with some success.
In the international arena Obama made his longstanding case that Iraq is a colossal strategic mistake that has diverted us from our actual terrorist enemies. He also stuck to his new vision of foreign relations calling for greater engagement, even with rival nations. He and McCain sparred repeatedly on these approaches. Obama wanted to appear knowledgeable and possessing sufficient gravitas for people to imagine him as president. He passed these tests easily.
A problem area for McCain was his tendency to smirk and act dismissively of Obama's views. He repeatedly began remarks with, "Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that..." His condescension was no doubt intended to put the young upstart in his place, but may instead have come off to many as disrespectful and arrogant.
Obama had potential trouble spots too. One interesting occurrence was that several times he began remarks with, "I agree with Senator McCain" or "I agree with John" about a certain issue, for instance about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. This could either show an intelligent openness that people could appreciate or it could play to McCain's advantage by conceding him expertise points. Obama's other possible fault was allowing a bit of annoyance to break his usually unflappable cool.
The early polls out this morning seem to show continued strength for Obama, though the effect of the debate may not have been measured yet. We'll see in the next few days whether this has been a game-changer, but I doubt it. This debate treaded water for both contenders.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Daughters
My wife and I are going to visit our single, young adult daughters this weekend. We live in Visalia, roughly in the middle of the state. We'll stop by Jeanette's for lunch in the eastern suburban Los Angeles area after about a three and a half hour drive. We will want to discuss arrangements with her. She is finishing up classes at a community college and getting ready to transfer to a four-year school. We'll then proceed down to San Diego and check into a hotel. Hopefully the presidential debate will go on as scheduled, since I'm looking forward to it.
Saturday morning we'll get together with Marie. That afternoon we'll see a matinee performance of a play at the Globe Theater she's stage managing. It's called "Back, Back, Back" and has a baseball theme. That is probably one reason she wanted me to see it. We'll likely spend some more time with her in the late afternoon before she has to go back for the evening performance. She is immersed in her chosen work and off to a good start on her career path. Then it will be back home on Sunday.
It's too bad how family arrangements change and make maintaining relationships more difficult. I suppose it is a natural part of life. Kids eventually move out and start lives of their own. That is a good thing, of course, since one of the main reasons you are raising them is to help them become capably independent. It makes me realize how easy it was to take for granted having them around the house for eighteen years. Now it's a big production to make connections.
The lesson for me is to cherish the times we do have together and to be grateful for the the wonderful relationship my wife and I have. When all is said and done, I'm feeling that a satisfying family situation is probably the best thing in life.
Saturday morning we'll get together with Marie. That afternoon we'll see a matinee performance of a play at the Globe Theater she's stage managing. It's called "Back, Back, Back" and has a baseball theme. That is probably one reason she wanted me to see it. We'll likely spend some more time with her in the late afternoon before she has to go back for the evening performance. She is immersed in her chosen work and off to a good start on her career path. Then it will be back home on Sunday.
It's too bad how family arrangements change and make maintaining relationships more difficult. I suppose it is a natural part of life. Kids eventually move out and start lives of their own. That is a good thing, of course, since one of the main reasons you are raising them is to help them become capably independent. It makes me realize how easy it was to take for granted having them around the house for eighteen years. Now it's a big production to make connections.
The lesson for me is to cherish the times we do have together and to be grateful for the the wonderful relationship my wife and I have. When all is said and done, I'm feeling that a satisfying family situation is probably the best thing in life.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
George Will Says McCain Unfit for Presidency
George F. Will is one of the most respected deans of American journalism. The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and commentator's credentials go all the way back to the National Review in 1972. He has written an erudite and thoughtfully conservative column twice a week in the Washington Post for nearly thirty years, and also appears weekly on television as a panelist on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopolous. His conservatism stresses civic virtue, moral responsibility and the preservation of American institutions. For a fuller biography see this.
Given Will's prominence and his long conservative record, his extremely harsh criticism of John McCain this week-essentially stating that the man's personality and character ought to disqualify him from the presidency-thus struck the Arizona Senator's campaign a surprising and painful blow.
Will had apparently been doing some serious thinking about McCain's responses to the financial crisis. First McCain denied the problem, saying, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." He then tried to correct by laughably explaining that by "fundamentals" he meant American workers. His next tack was to tout his credentials as a "fundamental deregulator." When it became apparent that most people ascribed the crisis to a lack of effective regulation, McCain immediately flip-flopped and called for strict oversight. When his contradictions, sometimes coming in the same day, began to draw ridicule McCain then lashed out at corporate greed and called for the firing of Chris Cox, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It was this barely coherent sequence that so troubled Will. On Stephanopolous he mused,
After some discussion by the other panel members, Will summed up with this: "John McCain showed his personality this week, and made some of us fearful."
Having broken the ice verbally, Will then set his thoughts down in print in his Post column the next day, Monday the 23rd. He began with a quote from Alice in Wonderland. "The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around." If you have ever read much from Will, the scathing nature of the rest of the essay will come as nothing less than a shock.
He describes McCain's behavior and thought processes as "untethered-disconnected from knowledge and principle," "childish" and "unpresidential." His tactics are characterized as "fact-free slander" that relies on "smear."
Will senses in these outbursts "a harbinger of a McCain presidency," one in which McCain's politics consist of "always pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public trust, two categories that seem to be exhaustive--there are no other people," and are the products of his "Manichean worldview."
Will posits that conservatives increasingly have little to say in McCain's defense other than that he "will make excellent judicial selections." Then he continues, "But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either."
Will concludes by dropping a rather amazing hint that may be seriously considering voting for Barack Obama. He states it thus:
Given Will's prominence and his long conservative record, his extremely harsh criticism of John McCain this week-essentially stating that the man's personality and character ought to disqualify him from the presidency-thus struck the Arizona Senator's campaign a surprising and painful blow.
Will had apparently been doing some serious thinking about McCain's responses to the financial crisis. First McCain denied the problem, saying, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." He then tried to correct by laughably explaining that by "fundamentals" he meant American workers. His next tack was to tout his credentials as a "fundamental deregulator." When it became apparent that most people ascribed the crisis to a lack of effective regulation, McCain immediately flip-flopped and called for strict oversight. When his contradictions, sometimes coming in the same day, began to draw ridicule McCain then lashed out at corporate greed and called for the firing of Chris Cox, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It was this barely coherent sequence that so troubled Will. On Stephanopolous he mused,
"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience. The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain, who, as usual substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And he picked one of the most experienced people in the administration, Chris Cox, for no apparent reason...It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate."
After some discussion by the other panel members, Will summed up with this: "John McCain showed his personality this week, and made some of us fearful."
Having broken the ice verbally, Will then set his thoughts down in print in his Post column the next day, Monday the 23rd. He began with a quote from Alice in Wonderland. "The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around." If you have ever read much from Will, the scathing nature of the rest of the essay will come as nothing less than a shock.
He describes McCain's behavior and thought processes as "untethered-disconnected from knowledge and principle," "childish" and "unpresidential." His tactics are characterized as "fact-free slander" that relies on "smear."
Will senses in these outbursts "a harbinger of a McCain presidency," one in which McCain's politics consist of "always pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public trust, two categories that seem to be exhaustive--there are no other people," and are the products of his "Manichean worldview."
Will posits that conservatives increasingly have little to say in McCain's defense other than that he "will make excellent judicial selections." Then he continues, "But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either."
Will concludes by dropping a rather amazing hint that may be seriously considering voting for Barack Obama. He states it thus:
"It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"
Monday, September 22, 2008
Three Ideas for Fixing the Crisis
How should we go about fixing the financial meltdown and ensuring it doesn't happen again? The Bush Administration wants massive bailouts of financial corporations based on the decisions of one man, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. John McCain wants to fire the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and complains about how greedy too many business people are and how much money some of the heads of these companies make. Barack Obama says we need clear and firm rules about what is permissible and what is not, and insists that all expenditures of money such as for bailouts, be taken to Congress for their approval on a case by case basis. Both McCain and Obama call for greater "transparency."
The Administration case represents its normal advocacy of unlimited executive power. As usual, one man is to make decisions without accountability to anyone. The legislation presented specifically states that the Secretary's decisions may not be appealed in court and are not subject to congressional approval. If there is a difference between this kind of decision-making and a dictatorship I would like to know what it is. And it is not as though this Administration's decisions have been so sterling as to give it the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, congress will not be stampeded once again into passing something based on breathless panic-mongering that the nation will later regret. These proposals should be rejected out of hand.
McCain's prescriptions are strangely off the point. They personalize the problem, as though one man's firing could reform the lending practices of companies he does not work for. They state the obvious, that business people are greedy (duh) and that executives have made enormous salaries while leading firms into disaster due to aggressively lending money to people without the means to pay it back other than an expectation of the endlessly escalating value of their homes. Does the Senator advocate passing laws telling business people not to be so greedy, or companies how much they may pay their executives? Certainly not. In fact, his comments on the matter offer no solution at all. They are merely grousing. In truth, what more can a "fundamental deregulator" offer?
Obama's opinion that firm rules need to be established more realistically gets to the heart of the matter. If by that he means that some basic qualifications should be met before a loan may be approved, and that derivatives should be regulated as strictly as market transactions, he is on the right track. Though it would be nice to see more specificity from him, Obama's basic approach is certainly what the situation cries out for. Merely jawboning traders not to be so greedy is about as effective as beseeching football players not to be so violent. Without clear penalties, mayhem reigns. His other point that the Constitution rather than authoritarian fiat ought to be followed, is similarly refreshing. There is no reason to allow this to be another opportunity for the Bush Administration to use it to further erode the checks and balances set up to safeguard our liberty.
The Administration case represents its normal advocacy of unlimited executive power. As usual, one man is to make decisions without accountability to anyone. The legislation presented specifically states that the Secretary's decisions may not be appealed in court and are not subject to congressional approval. If there is a difference between this kind of decision-making and a dictatorship I would like to know what it is. And it is not as though this Administration's decisions have been so sterling as to give it the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, congress will not be stampeded once again into passing something based on breathless panic-mongering that the nation will later regret. These proposals should be rejected out of hand.
McCain's prescriptions are strangely off the point. They personalize the problem, as though one man's firing could reform the lending practices of companies he does not work for. They state the obvious, that business people are greedy (duh) and that executives have made enormous salaries while leading firms into disaster due to aggressively lending money to people without the means to pay it back other than an expectation of the endlessly escalating value of their homes. Does the Senator advocate passing laws telling business people not to be so greedy, or companies how much they may pay their executives? Certainly not. In fact, his comments on the matter offer no solution at all. They are merely grousing. In truth, what more can a "fundamental deregulator" offer?
Obama's opinion that firm rules need to be established more realistically gets to the heart of the matter. If by that he means that some basic qualifications should be met before a loan may be approved, and that derivatives should be regulated as strictly as market transactions, he is on the right track. Though it would be nice to see more specificity from him, Obama's basic approach is certainly what the situation cries out for. Merely jawboning traders not to be so greedy is about as effective as beseeching football players not to be so violent. Without clear penalties, mayhem reigns. His other point that the Constitution rather than authoritarian fiat ought to be followed, is similarly refreshing. There is no reason to allow this to be another opportunity for the Bush Administration to use it to further erode the checks and balances set up to safeguard our liberty.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Race's Effect on the Campaign
How much is race affecting the 2008 presidential election? Described on the Fox News site and on MSNBC, an extensive Stanford University survey of 2,227 Americans indicates it could be around six percent.
Political scientists are interested, given the dynamics of national trends this year, in why the Democratic nominee is not farther ahead in most polls. The current president is one of the most unpopular since polling began. The economy is bad and apparently getting worse. Over eighty percent of the public feels the country is on the wrong track. There are more Democrats than Republicans. The nation is in a war it wants out of. The Republican nominee is of the same political party as the incumbent and closely shares his policy views, views that most voters associate with these unfavorable conditions.
Stanford politcal scientist Paul Sniderman, who worked on the analysis team, said, "There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots." As many as four in ten white independents evidenced at least some negative attitudes towards African-Americans. About one-third of white Democrats did. The researchers were able to correlate these stereotypical negative views with other factors to arrive at the 6 percent approximation of the effect it is having on people's election preferences.
For instance, some subscribed to some prejudicial views but still planned to vote for Obama. And some with prejudicial views would be voting against him even without those views, based either on disagreements with his ideology or questions about his experience for the presidency. Republicans, for instance, had higher rates of prejudicial attitudes but few would be voting for any Democrat of any race, the study found, because of political views. 85% of Republicans solidly back McCain, according to the study, while only 70% of Democrats as strongly support Obama.
The study attempted to use sophisticated techniques for assessing racial views. There were upfront questions such as, "Would you describe most blacks as violent?" But there were also such methods as recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen. The study also took into account the positive racial effects of Obama's candidacy on African-Americans. The group normally supports the Democratic nominee 89-90%, but this year backs Obama nearly unanimously. This counteracts the negative effect with whites a bit, but still leaves Obama with roughly a 6% handicap in the election due to his race.
So, what is the effect? Obama's Real Clear Politics lead in the aggregate of national polls is currently 2.2% and the electoral count is nip and tuck, with Obama projected in the lead in states with 273 electoral votes to McCain's 265. If he were white he would likely have an 8% lead and an extremely comfortable margin in the Electoral College.
These are simply the political facts of life in America. One take on this is to decry that there is still racism. Another is to rejoice that its virulence has relaxed enough that a candidate with Obama's heritage does have a realistic chance to get elected or defeated on his merits and views. His chances are not as good as they would otherwise be, but the chance is there and despite the impediment, he still leads. That, undeniably, is prgoress.
Political scientists are interested, given the dynamics of national trends this year, in why the Democratic nominee is not farther ahead in most polls. The current president is one of the most unpopular since polling began. The economy is bad and apparently getting worse. Over eighty percent of the public feels the country is on the wrong track. There are more Democrats than Republicans. The nation is in a war it wants out of. The Republican nominee is of the same political party as the incumbent and closely shares his policy views, views that most voters associate with these unfavorable conditions.
Stanford politcal scientist Paul Sniderman, who worked on the analysis team, said, "There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots." As many as four in ten white independents evidenced at least some negative attitudes towards African-Americans. About one-third of white Democrats did. The researchers were able to correlate these stereotypical negative views with other factors to arrive at the 6 percent approximation of the effect it is having on people's election preferences.
For instance, some subscribed to some prejudicial views but still planned to vote for Obama. And some with prejudicial views would be voting against him even without those views, based either on disagreements with his ideology or questions about his experience for the presidency. Republicans, for instance, had higher rates of prejudicial attitudes but few would be voting for any Democrat of any race, the study found, because of political views. 85% of Republicans solidly back McCain, according to the study, while only 70% of Democrats as strongly support Obama.
The study attempted to use sophisticated techniques for assessing racial views. There were upfront questions such as, "Would you describe most blacks as violent?" But there were also such methods as recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen. The study also took into account the positive racial effects of Obama's candidacy on African-Americans. The group normally supports the Democratic nominee 89-90%, but this year backs Obama nearly unanimously. This counteracts the negative effect with whites a bit, but still leaves Obama with roughly a 6% handicap in the election due to his race.
So, what is the effect? Obama's Real Clear Politics lead in the aggregate of national polls is currently 2.2% and the electoral count is nip and tuck, with Obama projected in the lead in states with 273 electoral votes to McCain's 265. If he were white he would likely have an 8% lead and an extremely comfortable margin in the Electoral College.
These are simply the political facts of life in America. One take on this is to decry that there is still racism. Another is to rejoice that its virulence has relaxed enough that a candidate with Obama's heritage does have a realistic chance to get elected or defeated on his merits and views. His chances are not as good as they would otherwise be, but the chance is there and despite the impediment, he still leads. That, undeniably, is prgoress.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Foxholes and Recessons
It is often said there are no atheists in foxholes. We now see there are no libertarians in a recession. It's been enlightening to watch the anything-goes free marketeers come running to Uncle Sam for help now that the consequences of their recklessly unrestricted fast buck strategems have caught up with them.
These once swashbuckling laissez-faire entrepreneurs have been reduced to so many piglets at the teats of a sow they once affected to scorn. Funny how fair-weather conservatives can turn into out and out socialists when it's their own arses in a sling.
First IndyMac. Then Bear Stearns. Next Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG. It all adds up to a lot, and it's all in billions. $29 for Bear Stearns. $150 in no-question loans for investment banks (they're unregulated) at the Fed discount window as long as they have mortgage backed "securities" as collateral. That's right, backed by the crumbling paper that touched the whole mess off. $200 to back Fannie and Freddie. $85 for AIG. Up to $300 from the FHA for troubled borrowers. It comes to nearly $800 billion so far, and there will most likely be more. For instance, another $25 billion in loans for the auto industry, which is getting slammed by the credit repercussions of all this, is in the works.
Just as in the 1920s and again with the S & L crisis of the late 80s, a buccaneer decade of deregulation has ended in overreach and meltdown. The Financial Modernization Act repealed FDR's Glass-Steagall Act. This let commercial banks get into real estate and investment brokering. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act allowed the unregulated trading of the derivatives that have become worthless. No income needed, just make a sale at subprime then re-sell the mortgage off to another financial entity. Whoever gets stuck with the hot potato when the music stops loses. Oops, we're all holding hot potatoes?
Phil Gramm wrote this stuff as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Robert Rubin midwifed it. Alan Greenspan enabled it. Bill Clinton triangulated it and he and George Bush signed off on the parts of it. A number of CEOs from these firms are golden parachuting out with tens of millions in their pockets. Meanwhile, eight hundred thousand have lost their jobs this year and two million more are losing their homes. A trillion in stock equity has evaporated. All so the kids could play by their own rules.
Analysis shows the entire financial edifice will implode if this is allowed to play itself out. And that can't be allowed to happen. This transpired because instead of admitting that sensible regulation helps capitalism rather than hurts it, the apostles of Milton Friedman pushed an ideology that argued that any at all was anathema. So now even devotees like Bush and Bernanke are having to nationalize much of the financial sector and socialize its risk, protecting it, if you will, from itself.
We told you so. And no, it doesn't hurt to say it. It feels good, in fact. Your theories don't work. Thank God Congress at least had the good sense not to let them privatize Social Security and throw it to the wolves, too. Where would the American people be if that were also evaporating in the meltdown?
So now, if we are fortunate and wisdom prevails, we may get a return to the sober and common sensical restrictions that permitted fifty years of growth and prosperity without the ruinous boom and bust cycles of the pre-Depression days. We were doing what worked. Then ideologues imposed a theoretical solution to a problem that didn't exist. Now we are all paying the price.
Let's hope we have learned our lesson this time, for the true believers in this snake oil have not. They will be back to try it again because they understand neither history nor human nature. Unswayed by fact or the record, they believe what they believe. Indeed, a major party ticket with precisely these same discredited beliefs is running this very year. And our foxholes may not be deep enough to withstand another four years of shelling.
These once swashbuckling laissez-faire entrepreneurs have been reduced to so many piglets at the teats of a sow they once affected to scorn. Funny how fair-weather conservatives can turn into out and out socialists when it's their own arses in a sling.
First IndyMac. Then Bear Stearns. Next Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG. It all adds up to a lot, and it's all in billions. $29 for Bear Stearns. $150 in no-question loans for investment banks (they're unregulated) at the Fed discount window as long as they have mortgage backed "securities" as collateral. That's right, backed by the crumbling paper that touched the whole mess off. $200 to back Fannie and Freddie. $85 for AIG. Up to $300 from the FHA for troubled borrowers. It comes to nearly $800 billion so far, and there will most likely be more. For instance, another $25 billion in loans for the auto industry, which is getting slammed by the credit repercussions of all this, is in the works.
Just as in the 1920s and again with the S & L crisis of the late 80s, a buccaneer decade of deregulation has ended in overreach and meltdown. The Financial Modernization Act repealed FDR's Glass-Steagall Act. This let commercial banks get into real estate and investment brokering. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act allowed the unregulated trading of the derivatives that have become worthless. No income needed, just make a sale at subprime then re-sell the mortgage off to another financial entity. Whoever gets stuck with the hot potato when the music stops loses. Oops, we're all holding hot potatoes?
Phil Gramm wrote this stuff as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Robert Rubin midwifed it. Alan Greenspan enabled it. Bill Clinton triangulated it and he and George Bush signed off on the parts of it. A number of CEOs from these firms are golden parachuting out with tens of millions in their pockets. Meanwhile, eight hundred thousand have lost their jobs this year and two million more are losing their homes. A trillion in stock equity has evaporated. All so the kids could play by their own rules.
Analysis shows the entire financial edifice will implode if this is allowed to play itself out. And that can't be allowed to happen. This transpired because instead of admitting that sensible regulation helps capitalism rather than hurts it, the apostles of Milton Friedman pushed an ideology that argued that any at all was anathema. So now even devotees like Bush and Bernanke are having to nationalize much of the financial sector and socialize its risk, protecting it, if you will, from itself.
We told you so. And no, it doesn't hurt to say it. It feels good, in fact. Your theories don't work. Thank God Congress at least had the good sense not to let them privatize Social Security and throw it to the wolves, too. Where would the American people be if that were also evaporating in the meltdown?
So now, if we are fortunate and wisdom prevails, we may get a return to the sober and common sensical restrictions that permitted fifty years of growth and prosperity without the ruinous boom and bust cycles of the pre-Depression days. We were doing what worked. Then ideologues imposed a theoretical solution to a problem that didn't exist. Now we are all paying the price.
Let's hope we have learned our lesson this time, for the true believers in this snake oil have not. They will be back to try it again because they understand neither history nor human nature. Unswayed by fact or the record, they believe what they believe. Indeed, a major party ticket with precisely these same discredited beliefs is running this very year. And our foxholes may not be deep enough to withstand another four years of shelling.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Obama Noses Back Ahead
Last week the McCain-Palin ticket seemed to have grabbed the edge in the national race; now Obama-Biden looks to have regained it. What are the reasons? Is this just a blip in the horse race, or is it a portent for the weeks ahead?
Obama had maintained a rather consistent lead in the three to four percent range for quite some time. Coming out of the Democratic Convention, Obama enjoyed his biggest lead on September 2, when his aggregate margin (the average of national polls conducted at or near that date) rose to 6.4%. That was the first full day of the Republican Convention. McCain began eating into that lead during his convention September 3-5 and seized the lead on September 7. He held it until the 16th, enjoying his biggest aggregate margin on September 8 at 2.9%. The 17th was a national tie and today the 18th Obama re-established a 1.9% lead. You can peruse the data here.
Both campaigns got bounces out of their conventions, especially McCain's. Obama added at most 4% to the lead with which he entered his convention. McCain erased that and garnered nearly an additional 3% lead, for a total bounce of 7%.
At the Democratic Convention, the restoration of peace with the Clintons and a passing of the torch from Ted Kennedy did a good job of clearing the decks for Obama and unifying the faithful. The institutional party speakers relentlessly hammered home the theme of Republican misgovernance and tied McCain to it by highlighting his usual support for President Bush's policies. Obama's choice of Joe Biden for Vice President was a reassuring one. That left Obama free to do what he does best, and he did not disappoint with a scintillating acceptance speech highlighting vision, empathy and solutions at Invesco Mile High Stadium.
At the Republican Convention the emphasis was on biography. Speaker after speaker referenced McCain's record of service and sacrifice and belittled Obama's by comparison. McCain's stunning pick of the little-known Sarah Palin for his running mate was initially greeted with incredulity and then caught fire, especially with the social conservative base. McCain's own acceptance speech was a fine compendium of his life and views, and may have been seen by even more nationwide television viewers than Obama's a week before. The restoration of enthusiasm in the Republican base energized the entire campaign and together with added support for Palin among undecided women it rapidly assumed a narrow lead.
Yet now things are moving back the other way. Why is that?
One reason is the Palin bloom faded some. The novelty wore off. While her combative style delighted the base it also drove up her negatives. Next, her frequent pattern of stretching or ignoring the truth began to attract attention. Finally, when she finally began giving interviews her ignorance on a number of topics began raising the same kind of questions about competence and experience that had greeted her selection in the first place.
Second, McCain may have gone too negative too soon himself. Numerous low blows, smears and deceptions coming from the candidate, the campaign and it advertisements seem to have backfired to some extent, especially when Obama responded quickly and forcefully, but not in kind. For its part, the press proved reasonably diligent in pointing out the erroneous material, thus putting the McCain campaign back on the defensive.
That set the stage for the third blow in the triple whammy, more disastrous news on the economic/financial front. When the economy assumes top importance McCain is on his weakest ground and the Democrats on their strongest. This is both because of his identification with the party in power and also because the anti-regulatory stance he shares with the unpopular Bush Administration is widely regarded as an important factor in the subprime and derivatives meltdowns.
In all likelihood the economy will not get appreciably better between now and election day, and may get a lot worse as new revelations surface about more companies and even the financial structure itself. Thus the overall dynamics of the race still favor Obama. There will be vicissitudes but the field of play ought to keep Obama in the lead from here on out.
It will be the McCain campaign's job to see that doesn't happen. Opportunity one comes on Friday the 26th when the first debate between the principals takes place at 9:00 P.M. Eastern Time. Since it will focus on foreign policy, McCain's strongest issue set in the eyes of the public, it gives McCain his best chance to demonstrate superiority over his rival.
Wild card events could also intervene. A major terrorist attack might play to McCain's advantage. So might the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. An unexpected upturn in the economy could work to his benefit. Sarah Palin could favorably surprise if she holds her own in the Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden. The expectations for her will certainly be low enough against the veteran Senator to make that a possibility.
But suppose McCain is unable to make defense the top issue and none of the wild cards materialize. In that case we can expect him to return to character attacks on Obama and the normal Republican red meat cultural differences appeals he was beginning to make before the dreadful economic news took the spotlight. Everyone will have to run on change this year, but he cannot do it as convincingly as Obama. His economic views are virtually identical to Bush's. He likes to threaten the military option in foreign affairs at a time when the majority of the country is rather tired of that.
In short, if the election is about "what," McCain probably can't win. If it's about "who" he has a chance. My feeling is he will eventually have nowhere else to go but to try to paint Obama as incompetent, scary, or "not enough like us" to be president. It will get nasty and it may be close, but he will in all likelihood succumb to the massive surge in Democratic voter registration the country has seen in 2008. As of now the smart money is back on Obama to ride this hand to victory on November 4.
Obama had maintained a rather consistent lead in the three to four percent range for quite some time. Coming out of the Democratic Convention, Obama enjoyed his biggest lead on September 2, when his aggregate margin (the average of national polls conducted at or near that date) rose to 6.4%. That was the first full day of the Republican Convention. McCain began eating into that lead during his convention September 3-5 and seized the lead on September 7. He held it until the 16th, enjoying his biggest aggregate margin on September 8 at 2.9%. The 17th was a national tie and today the 18th Obama re-established a 1.9% lead. You can peruse the data here.
Both campaigns got bounces out of their conventions, especially McCain's. Obama added at most 4% to the lead with which he entered his convention. McCain erased that and garnered nearly an additional 3% lead, for a total bounce of 7%.
At the Democratic Convention, the restoration of peace with the Clintons and a passing of the torch from Ted Kennedy did a good job of clearing the decks for Obama and unifying the faithful. The institutional party speakers relentlessly hammered home the theme of Republican misgovernance and tied McCain to it by highlighting his usual support for President Bush's policies. Obama's choice of Joe Biden for Vice President was a reassuring one. That left Obama free to do what he does best, and he did not disappoint with a scintillating acceptance speech highlighting vision, empathy and solutions at Invesco Mile High Stadium.
At the Republican Convention the emphasis was on biography. Speaker after speaker referenced McCain's record of service and sacrifice and belittled Obama's by comparison. McCain's stunning pick of the little-known Sarah Palin for his running mate was initially greeted with incredulity and then caught fire, especially with the social conservative base. McCain's own acceptance speech was a fine compendium of his life and views, and may have been seen by even more nationwide television viewers than Obama's a week before. The restoration of enthusiasm in the Republican base energized the entire campaign and together with added support for Palin among undecided women it rapidly assumed a narrow lead.
Yet now things are moving back the other way. Why is that?
One reason is the Palin bloom faded some. The novelty wore off. While her combative style delighted the base it also drove up her negatives. Next, her frequent pattern of stretching or ignoring the truth began to attract attention. Finally, when she finally began giving interviews her ignorance on a number of topics began raising the same kind of questions about competence and experience that had greeted her selection in the first place.
Second, McCain may have gone too negative too soon himself. Numerous low blows, smears and deceptions coming from the candidate, the campaign and it advertisements seem to have backfired to some extent, especially when Obama responded quickly and forcefully, but not in kind. For its part, the press proved reasonably diligent in pointing out the erroneous material, thus putting the McCain campaign back on the defensive.
That set the stage for the third blow in the triple whammy, more disastrous news on the economic/financial front. When the economy assumes top importance McCain is on his weakest ground and the Democrats on their strongest. This is both because of his identification with the party in power and also because the anti-regulatory stance he shares with the unpopular Bush Administration is widely regarded as an important factor in the subprime and derivatives meltdowns.
In all likelihood the economy will not get appreciably better between now and election day, and may get a lot worse as new revelations surface about more companies and even the financial structure itself. Thus the overall dynamics of the race still favor Obama. There will be vicissitudes but the field of play ought to keep Obama in the lead from here on out.
It will be the McCain campaign's job to see that doesn't happen. Opportunity one comes on Friday the 26th when the first debate between the principals takes place at 9:00 P.M. Eastern Time. Since it will focus on foreign policy, McCain's strongest issue set in the eyes of the public, it gives McCain his best chance to demonstrate superiority over his rival.
Wild card events could also intervene. A major terrorist attack might play to McCain's advantage. So might the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. An unexpected upturn in the economy could work to his benefit. Sarah Palin could favorably surprise if she holds her own in the Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden. The expectations for her will certainly be low enough against the veteran Senator to make that a possibility.
But suppose McCain is unable to make defense the top issue and none of the wild cards materialize. In that case we can expect him to return to character attacks on Obama and the normal Republican red meat cultural differences appeals he was beginning to make before the dreadful economic news took the spotlight. Everyone will have to run on change this year, but he cannot do it as convincingly as Obama. His economic views are virtually identical to Bush's. He likes to threaten the military option in foreign affairs at a time when the majority of the country is rather tired of that.
In short, if the election is about "what," McCain probably can't win. If it's about "who" he has a chance. My feeling is he will eventually have nowhere else to go but to try to paint Obama as incompetent, scary, or "not enough like us" to be president. It will get nasty and it may be close, but he will in all likelihood succumb to the massive surge in Democratic voter registration the country has seen in 2008. As of now the smart money is back on Obama to ride this hand to victory on November 4.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Cheney's Iraq Role Revealed
Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman has published a book called Angler. In it, he provides an account from a top Republican source that Vice President Dick Cheney told demonstrable lies in order to secure congressional authorization for the Iraq War. While it has long been alleged that Cheney fabricated justifications for the invasion, the report marks the first time a high-ranking Republican source has provided first-person corroboration for the suspicions.
The source is none other than former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). According to the Los Angeles Times characterization of the book, "Armey had spoken out against the war, and his opposition gave cover to Democrats who feared the political costs of appearing to be weak." Armey reversed his position, however, after a private meeting in Cheney's Capitol office. In that meeting, Cheney assured Armey "that the threat from Iraq actually was more imminent than we want to portray to the public at large."
Cheney went on to describe that Iraq's "ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear," had been "substantially refined since the Gulf War," and would soon result in "packages that could be moved even by ground personnel." In other words, the dreaded "suitcase" nuclear bomb. There has never been a shred of U.S. intelligence to indicate Iraq possessed any such capacity.
Armey said he now believes Cheney intentionally misled him by stating, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon." Armey is quoted as summarizing, "Did Dick Cheney...purposely tell me things hew knew to be untrue? I seriously feel that may be the case...Had I known then or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed the (war) resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it."
We are now in the home stretch of a highly charged presidential election campaign and so close to the end of Cheney's term that an impeachment trial is politically out of the question. Nonetheless, it would serve the country well to prosecute the Vice President for war crimes once he and President Bush leave office. There needs to be a strong example of serious personal consequences on the record the next time a constitutional officer contemplates committing the nation to a war based on a falsified and fabricated rationale. Over 4,500 Americans are dead as a result of these lies, nearly 1,600 more than were killed by Al-Qaeda operatives at the behest of Osama bin Laden on 9/11. As the President himself might say, it is time for all the evildoers to be brought to justice.
The source is none other than former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). According to the Los Angeles Times characterization of the book, "Armey had spoken out against the war, and his opposition gave cover to Democrats who feared the political costs of appearing to be weak." Armey reversed his position, however, after a private meeting in Cheney's Capitol office. In that meeting, Cheney assured Armey "that the threat from Iraq actually was more imminent than we want to portray to the public at large."
Cheney went on to describe that Iraq's "ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear," had been "substantially refined since the Gulf War," and would soon result in "packages that could be moved even by ground personnel." In other words, the dreaded "suitcase" nuclear bomb. There has never been a shred of U.S. intelligence to indicate Iraq possessed any such capacity.
Armey said he now believes Cheney intentionally misled him by stating, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon." Armey is quoted as summarizing, "Did Dick Cheney...purposely tell me things hew knew to be untrue? I seriously feel that may be the case...Had I known then or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed the (war) resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it."
We are now in the home stretch of a highly charged presidential election campaign and so close to the end of Cheney's term that an impeachment trial is politically out of the question. Nonetheless, it would serve the country well to prosecute the Vice President for war crimes once he and President Bush leave office. There needs to be a strong example of serious personal consequences on the record the next time a constitutional officer contemplates committing the nation to a war based on a falsified and fabricated rationale. Over 4,500 Americans are dead as a result of these lies, nearly 1,600 more than were killed by Al-Qaeda operatives at the behest of Osama bin Laden on 9/11. As the President himself might say, it is time for all the evildoers to be brought to justice.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Financial Implosion Gathers Steam
The other shoes keep dropping. Today the Dow lost 500 points, Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch at fire sale terms and Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. This all follows a $150 billion stimulus package, the forced takeover of Bear Stearns and federal bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--all of which appear to have accomplished little more than to put bandaids on the metastasizing tumors that currently riddle the American financial system.
In other news, John McCain declared the economy "fundamentally strong." His economic plan remains a mix of the George W. Bush tax policies that exploded the deficit, the Phil Gramm deregulation scheme that led to the mortgage meltdown and the Alan Greenspan liquidity mantra that has allowed financial institutions to leverage themselves into the houses of cards we now see going down.
Despite the supposed strong fundamentals the Arizona Senator also called the economic situation "a crisis" that can only be solved by sending the 26-year capitol veteran back again to "clean up Washington" as only an "outsider" and "maverick" like himself can accomplish. This comical formulation led Hillary Clinton, campaigning for Barack Obama in Florida, to quip that putting McCain and the rest of the Republicans back in power to fix the economy is, "like sending the iceberg to rescue the Titanic."
For the best concise summation I've seen in a good long while of where things stand and what's at stake, take a look at what Thomas Friedman had to say today.
In other news, John McCain declared the economy "fundamentally strong." His economic plan remains a mix of the George W. Bush tax policies that exploded the deficit, the Phil Gramm deregulation scheme that led to the mortgage meltdown and the Alan Greenspan liquidity mantra that has allowed financial institutions to leverage themselves into the houses of cards we now see going down.
Despite the supposed strong fundamentals the Arizona Senator also called the economic situation "a crisis" that can only be solved by sending the 26-year capitol veteran back again to "clean up Washington" as only an "outsider" and "maverick" like himself can accomplish. This comical formulation led Hillary Clinton, campaigning for Barack Obama in Florida, to quip that putting McCain and the rest of the Republicans back in power to fix the economy is, "like sending the iceberg to rescue the Titanic."
For the best concise summation I've seen in a good long while of where things stand and what's at stake, take a look at what Thomas Friedman had to say today.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
McCain Lies Independently Confirmed
You know things are bad when Karl Rove says a fellow Republican is playing fast and loose with the truth. Rove, the political strategist President Bush called "the architect" of his election victories, and a practitioner of sometimes scurrilous attack politics himself, commented on Fox News that, "McCain has gone too far in some of his ads-similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test." You can read more about it here.
My blog on September 5, "Tapestry of Lies," called attention to the large number of untruths the McCain campaign was spinning about its own record and Barack Obama's. Reader Webfoot suggested I go to FactCheck.org to get a nonpartisan, unbiased accounting of the campaign claims made by both sides. That was an excellent idea. You can see FactCheck for yourself here.
For the record, FactCheck finds John McCain, Sarah Palin and their principal convention surrogates responsible for fifteen such lies and distortions. It finds the Obama campaign responsible for one. Here they are, so you can judge for yourself the importance of the misperceptions that are being fostered. And go to the FactCheck link above if you want confirmation of what you read here.
John McCain himself: McCain's own lies include, at the Republican convention: 1. The claim that Obama's health plan burdens small business. In fact it exempts small business. 2. Said that Obama voted for corporate welfare for oil companies. The truth is Obama voted to raise taxes on oil companies by $300 million. 3. Says his own plan encourages a switch to "wind, tidal and solar" energy. The truth is, his energy plan devotes not $1 to these sources.
Exagerrations included, 4. Claimed that Alaska, under Palin, produces 20% of U.S. energy. In fact, it produces 14% of the oil and 3.5% of total energy. 5. Said we import $700 billion worth of oil a year from "countries that don't like us very much." The truth is our oil imports were $536 billion and 1/3 of that comes from Canada and Mexico.
McCain made unfounded claims on, 6. Says he will reduce spending and failed programs. FactCheck finds he has never cited a single cut nor indentified a single program for such attention. 7. Charged that Obama would "close markets" by changing trade agreements. In reality, Obama has suggested he would renegotiate trade accords to better protect American workers but has never advocated suspending trade with such countries.
The McCain Campaign: FactCheck finds the McCain campaign lied by, 8. Charging Obama with voting to teach inappropriate sex education to kindergartners. The truth is that the program in question would, at that grade level, only have trained children in "age appropriate" ways to understand and resist the advances of sexual predators. 9. Charging the Obama campaign with making a groundless attack on Palin for claiming she had supported the "Bridge to Nowhere." She did in fact support it and then lied by saying she hadn't. 10. Charging the Obama campaign with concocting viral internet material derogatory of Palin. FactCheck finds the charges "completely false" because none of the material came from the Obama campaign.
Sarah Palin: At the convention and on the campaign trail, finds she lied about 11. Opposing the "Bridge to Nowhere" which she actually fought for. 12. Claiming she said, "no thanks" for the money for the bridge when she actually accepted it and used it for other purposes. 13. Stating that Obama had passed "no laws" in congress when he authored a sweeping ethics law that was passed.
Convention Surrogates: Says that Mike Huckabee exagerrated by, 14. Claiming that Biden got fewer votes for President in the primaries than Palin did for Mayor of Wasilla. Palin got 651 votes in 1996 and 909 votes in 1999. Biden got 79,754 votes in the Iowa Caucuses. FactCheck also found that Rudy Giuliani, 15. Distorted Obama's record on Georgia when in reality his and McCain's statements were substantively equivalent.
As compared to this record, FactCheck has been able to catch Barack Obama, Joe Biden or their campaign in only one distortion. It finds the Obama Campaign has 1. "Played fast and loose" with McCain's record on Education by claiming he voted to cut education when in fact he voted not to increase it.
All in all, the comparison makes it clear who is making up talking points without regard for the truth in a wholesale way. It is reminiscent of the kind of campaigns George W. Bush ran in 2000 and 2004. And, as columnist Paul Krugman reminds us, "How a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern," and that under the Rove-trained Rick Davis, the McCain-Palin ticket "is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class."
My blog on September 5, "Tapestry of Lies," called attention to the large number of untruths the McCain campaign was spinning about its own record and Barack Obama's. Reader Webfoot suggested I go to FactCheck.org to get a nonpartisan, unbiased accounting of the campaign claims made by both sides. That was an excellent idea. You can see FactCheck for yourself here.
For the record, FactCheck finds John McCain, Sarah Palin and their principal convention surrogates responsible for fifteen such lies and distortions. It finds the Obama campaign responsible for one. Here they are, so you can judge for yourself the importance of the misperceptions that are being fostered. And go to the FactCheck link above if you want confirmation of what you read here.
John McCain himself: McCain's own lies include, at the Republican convention: 1. The claim that Obama's health plan burdens small business. In fact it exempts small business. 2. Said that Obama voted for corporate welfare for oil companies. The truth is Obama voted to raise taxes on oil companies by $300 million. 3. Says his own plan encourages a switch to "wind, tidal and solar" energy. The truth is, his energy plan devotes not $1 to these sources.
Exagerrations included, 4. Claimed that Alaska, under Palin, produces 20% of U.S. energy. In fact, it produces 14% of the oil and 3.5% of total energy. 5. Said we import $700 billion worth of oil a year from "countries that don't like us very much." The truth is our oil imports were $536 billion and 1/3 of that comes from Canada and Mexico.
McCain made unfounded claims on, 6. Says he will reduce spending and failed programs. FactCheck finds he has never cited a single cut nor indentified a single program for such attention. 7. Charged that Obama would "close markets" by changing trade agreements. In reality, Obama has suggested he would renegotiate trade accords to better protect American workers but has never advocated suspending trade with such countries.
The McCain Campaign: FactCheck finds the McCain campaign lied by, 8. Charging Obama with voting to teach inappropriate sex education to kindergartners. The truth is that the program in question would, at that grade level, only have trained children in "age appropriate" ways to understand and resist the advances of sexual predators. 9. Charging the Obama campaign with making a groundless attack on Palin for claiming she had supported the "Bridge to Nowhere." She did in fact support it and then lied by saying she hadn't. 10. Charging the Obama campaign with concocting viral internet material derogatory of Palin. FactCheck finds the charges "completely false" because none of the material came from the Obama campaign.
Sarah Palin: At the convention and on the campaign trail, finds she lied about 11. Opposing the "Bridge to Nowhere" which she actually fought for. 12. Claiming she said, "no thanks" for the money for the bridge when she actually accepted it and used it for other purposes. 13. Stating that Obama had passed "no laws" in congress when he authored a sweeping ethics law that was passed.
Convention Surrogates: Says that Mike Huckabee exagerrated by, 14. Claiming that Biden got fewer votes for President in the primaries than Palin did for Mayor of Wasilla. Palin got 651 votes in 1996 and 909 votes in 1999. Biden got 79,754 votes in the Iowa Caucuses. FactCheck also found that Rudy Giuliani, 15. Distorted Obama's record on Georgia when in reality his and McCain's statements were substantively equivalent.
As compared to this record, FactCheck has been able to catch Barack Obama, Joe Biden or their campaign in only one distortion. It finds the Obama Campaign has 1. "Played fast and loose" with McCain's record on Education by claiming he voted to cut education when in fact he voted not to increase it.
All in all, the comparison makes it clear who is making up talking points without regard for the truth in a wholesale way. It is reminiscent of the kind of campaigns George W. Bush ran in 2000 and 2004. And, as columnist Paul Krugman reminds us, "How a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern," and that under the Rove-trained Rick Davis, the McCain-Palin ticket "is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Going to the Big Game
My wife and I will be joining another couple this evening for one of the great American fall rituals: college football. Our local heroes, the Fresno State (California) Bulldogs are hosting the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Bulldog Stadium will be a sea of red as 2,500 traveling Badger boosters and 42,000 Bulldog faithful, almost all clad in crimson on both sides, cheer on their teams.
This is actually an important contest as these things go. Wisconsin is ranked tenth in the country. They need to win their third straight game to enter Big 10 Conference play with momentum. What is more, if they want (as they certainly do!) to finish the season with a trip to one of the major Bowl Championship Series games, they can ill afford to lose a game to a team like Fresno State from a "mid-major" conference. Such schools rank a notch below the vaunted BCS conference squads. The BCS bowls in early January on prime time are not only financially lucrative for the athletic program and the university, they also showcase your team for the best high school players in the country, who will then be more likely recruitment targets to keep the team strong.
The fear for Wisconsin is that Fresno State is much better than the typical non-BCS conference team. They are good enough to win, particularly in front of their maniacally noisy fans. We'll try to be four of them, for that matter. Fresno State has pulled upsets of BCS schools before, thirteen times since head coach Pat Hill arrived in 1997, in fact, including their last game vs. well-regarded Rutgers. So the Badgers likely have a tougher game ahead of them than they would like for a non-conference contest. They are "expected" to win by most of the pundits and will get little credit for doing so, but a defeat would be devastating for them. If it stays close, the longer it does the greater the pressure on the visitors with a ranking to protect.
From Fresno's perspective, this is the kind of game that could vault them into serious consideration for a BCS bowl game berth themselves. The have actually beaten Wisconsin before, but not when the Badgers were ranked as highly as this. If they were to knock off Wisconsin after defeating Rutgers on the road and follow that up with wins over another of the perennially best mid-major schools, Toledo, next week and then UCLA of the great PAC-10 conference the next week, the Bulldogs would be set up to go to the first BCS bowl of their history. The financial and recruiting impact to a school like theirs would be relatively even greater than for a major conference university like Wisconsin. This is the team that has nothing to lose and everything to gain and will play with reckless abandon.
More than this, college football has a great atmosphere that professional football, for example, cannot really duplicate. The bands, cheer squads, alumni, and current students have a sense of community beyond just the football team. There is the sense that the team and game stand for something beyond themselves, an institution of higher learning whose purposes dwarf the outcome of a game. You see this on the way into a college game, as you walk past not the sterile environment of a downtown pro stadium with its adjacent parking garages and city streets, but over lawns flanked by tradition-laden ivy-covered walls or cutting edge scientific laboratories.
I can hardly wait to smell the hot dogs and hear the bands. Speaking of which, Wisconsin has one of the great school fight songs in the nation, and they use it to celebrate when they score. I'm hoping we don't hear it played too much today.
This is actually an important contest as these things go. Wisconsin is ranked tenth in the country. They need to win their third straight game to enter Big 10 Conference play with momentum. What is more, if they want (as they certainly do!) to finish the season with a trip to one of the major Bowl Championship Series games, they can ill afford to lose a game to a team like Fresno State from a "mid-major" conference. Such schools rank a notch below the vaunted BCS conference squads. The BCS bowls in early January on prime time are not only financially lucrative for the athletic program and the university, they also showcase your team for the best high school players in the country, who will then be more likely recruitment targets to keep the team strong.
The fear for Wisconsin is that Fresno State is much better than the typical non-BCS conference team. They are good enough to win, particularly in front of their maniacally noisy fans. We'll try to be four of them, for that matter. Fresno State has pulled upsets of BCS schools before, thirteen times since head coach Pat Hill arrived in 1997, in fact, including their last game vs. well-regarded Rutgers. So the Badgers likely have a tougher game ahead of them than they would like for a non-conference contest. They are "expected" to win by most of the pundits and will get little credit for doing so, but a defeat would be devastating for them. If it stays close, the longer it does the greater the pressure on the visitors with a ranking to protect.
From Fresno's perspective, this is the kind of game that could vault them into serious consideration for a BCS bowl game berth themselves. The have actually beaten Wisconsin before, but not when the Badgers were ranked as highly as this. If they were to knock off Wisconsin after defeating Rutgers on the road and follow that up with wins over another of the perennially best mid-major schools, Toledo, next week and then UCLA of the great PAC-10 conference the next week, the Bulldogs would be set up to go to the first BCS bowl of their history. The financial and recruiting impact to a school like theirs would be relatively even greater than for a major conference university like Wisconsin. This is the team that has nothing to lose and everything to gain and will play with reckless abandon.
More than this, college football has a great atmosphere that professional football, for example, cannot really duplicate. The bands, cheer squads, alumni, and current students have a sense of community beyond just the football team. There is the sense that the team and game stand for something beyond themselves, an institution of higher learning whose purposes dwarf the outcome of a game. You see this on the way into a college game, as you walk past not the sterile environment of a downtown pro stadium with its adjacent parking garages and city streets, but over lawns flanked by tradition-laden ivy-covered walls or cutting edge scientific laboratories.
I can hardly wait to smell the hot dogs and hear the bands. Speaking of which, Wisconsin has one of the great school fight songs in the nation, and they use it to celebrate when they score. I'm hoping we don't hear it played too much today.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
9-11 Plus Seven
Today's seventh commemoration of the terrorist attacks of 2001 are no less a time for remembrance than they are of grief. That day of shock and horror still casts a long shadow over our nation and world seven Septembers later. We remember because we can't help it and we grieve because we must.
We remember our stupification at what was happening. We remember the dawning realization that we had always known at some level that something like this was inevitable sooner or later. We remember our tears, and images of citizens applauding fire trucks going by in the streets, and thousands of pictures of the missing taped up on fences, and silent vigils with candles across America, and grimy men in yellow fire hats with sagging shoulders and tears running down their cheeks digging through mountains of smoldering wreckage.
We remember our resolve to pull together. For comfort. To do something for the families of the lost. And yes, to get those responsible. To get them once and for all. To wipe the smirks off their faces and end them.
We grieve for the dead. We especially grieve for the heroes who charged up the stairs into infernos to save others. We grieve for people who didn't deserve to die like that, and for families without a mom, or husband, or grandfather, or child. We grieve for the wounds our country and its greatest city suffered, and for the passengers on a plane called Flight 93 who gave their all and probably saved our Capitol Building or White House. They also make us proud.
We grieve also for what might have been but is not. We grieve for the unity we had and have lost. We grieve that we have lost our way and that we were let down. We grieve for having let the perpetrators get away. Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Omar yet live. Our president could have asked anything of us and we would have responded. But nothing was asked.
Instead, from the very first day, the catastrophe was seen as a golden opportunity to provide an excuse for the obsession of a few intellectuals and government officials to launch an invasion of Iraq. Some of their names are Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush. There are others. A Senator named McCain began making that same case beginning September 12.
The obsession has cost us dearly. It first divided us from the world, and then from one another. We let the killers off the hook and tied our marvelous army down in a defensive posture in Mesopotamia. Along the way we gave up some principles and rights. We forgot who we are and behaved in ways that have brought us shame. And for this we grieve most of all.
We remember our stupification at what was happening. We remember the dawning realization that we had always known at some level that something like this was inevitable sooner or later. We remember our tears, and images of citizens applauding fire trucks going by in the streets, and thousands of pictures of the missing taped up on fences, and silent vigils with candles across America, and grimy men in yellow fire hats with sagging shoulders and tears running down their cheeks digging through mountains of smoldering wreckage.
We remember our resolve to pull together. For comfort. To do something for the families of the lost. And yes, to get those responsible. To get them once and for all. To wipe the smirks off their faces and end them.
We grieve for the dead. We especially grieve for the heroes who charged up the stairs into infernos to save others. We grieve for people who didn't deserve to die like that, and for families without a mom, or husband, or grandfather, or child. We grieve for the wounds our country and its greatest city suffered, and for the passengers on a plane called Flight 93 who gave their all and probably saved our Capitol Building or White House. They also make us proud.
We grieve also for what might have been but is not. We grieve for the unity we had and have lost. We grieve that we have lost our way and that we were let down. We grieve for having let the perpetrators get away. Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Omar yet live. Our president could have asked anything of us and we would have responded. But nothing was asked.
Instead, from the very first day, the catastrophe was seen as a golden opportunity to provide an excuse for the obsession of a few intellectuals and government officials to launch an invasion of Iraq. Some of their names are Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush. There are others. A Senator named McCain began making that same case beginning September 12.
The obsession has cost us dearly. It first divided us from the world, and then from one another. We let the killers off the hook and tied our marvelous army down in a defensive posture in Mesopotamia. Along the way we gave up some principles and rights. We forgot who we are and behaved in ways that have brought us shame. And for this we grieve most of all.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Seven Weeks, Seven States
With 55 days to go the election contest is shaping up as a cliffhanger. While there are always daily developments, including the latest revelations and the charges and counter charges that may lead to swings of momentum, the basic state by state fundamentals have gelled. Mostly gone are the overly optimistic hopes that Obama could compete in Georgia and Montana, or that McCain could put Iowa and Oregon in play. What it boils down to is this: seven states will decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be the 44th President of the United States.
Based on the Real Clear Politics averages of state polls, which you can find here, Barack Obama has leads of 5.1 percent or better in 17 states plus the District of Columbia for a total of 217 solid electoral votes. He has leads of three to five percent in two other states (Pennsylvania and New Hampshire) worth 25 electoral votes. That gives him a pretty solid claim on 242 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.
John McCain has leads of 5.1 percent or more in 22 states totalling 186 electoral votes. He holds three to five percent leads in two others (Indiana and North Dakota) worth 14. This adds up to an even 200 electoral votes that look pretty safe for him.
Therefore, absent a massive groundswell that would carry the nation away in one direction or the other, all that's left are seven states comprising 96 electoral votes that are still effectively up for grabs. If Obama is to win, he needs to garner 28 of these 96. McCain needs to corral 70 of them. That's what it all boils down to. So which states are these, and how are they trending?
Three of the seven are leaning toward Obama. These are Michigan (17 EV) where Obama leads in the average of recent polls by 2.0%, Colorado, 9 EV and 1.0% and New Mexico, 5 EV and 2.3%. If Obama can hold onto his narrow leads in all three places he will come in with 273 electoral votes-three more than needed for election.
Four of the seven are leaning McCain's way. These are Florida, 27 EV and a 3.0% lead, Ohio, 20 EV and 1.3%, Virginia, 13 EV and 2.6% and Nevada, 5 EV and 1.0%. By taking all four McCain would finish Election Night with 265 electoral votes, five short of victory. To win he could hang on to all four and take one of Obama's three away from him.
There are other possibilities, too. If McCain were to win Michigan, for instance, he could afford to lose Nevada and still win with a tally of 277. There is even a real potential for an Electoral College tie. If McCain were to win Michigan and Obama take Virginia, for instance, both would wind up with 269. In that case the Constitution directs that the election would be decided by the House of Representatives with each of the fifty states having one vote. Talk about a political nightmare!
Watch for the candidates to increasingly concentrate their appearances and ads on these seven states, perhaps expanded to include Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana and Missouri or North Dakota in the next two months. And on election night, don't be surprised if it comes down to every network and global news service glued to the returns coming in from Carson City, Nevada, population 54,939, to learn who will take Nevada and thereby become the next President of the United States.
Based on the Real Clear Politics averages of state polls, which you can find here, Barack Obama has leads of 5.1 percent or better in 17 states plus the District of Columbia for a total of 217 solid electoral votes. He has leads of three to five percent in two other states (Pennsylvania and New Hampshire) worth 25 electoral votes. That gives him a pretty solid claim on 242 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.
John McCain has leads of 5.1 percent or more in 22 states totalling 186 electoral votes. He holds three to five percent leads in two others (Indiana and North Dakota) worth 14. This adds up to an even 200 electoral votes that look pretty safe for him.
Therefore, absent a massive groundswell that would carry the nation away in one direction or the other, all that's left are seven states comprising 96 electoral votes that are still effectively up for grabs. If Obama is to win, he needs to garner 28 of these 96. McCain needs to corral 70 of them. That's what it all boils down to. So which states are these, and how are they trending?
Three of the seven are leaning toward Obama. These are Michigan (17 EV) where Obama leads in the average of recent polls by 2.0%, Colorado, 9 EV and 1.0% and New Mexico, 5 EV and 2.3%. If Obama can hold onto his narrow leads in all three places he will come in with 273 electoral votes-three more than needed for election.
Four of the seven are leaning McCain's way. These are Florida, 27 EV and a 3.0% lead, Ohio, 20 EV and 1.3%, Virginia, 13 EV and 2.6% and Nevada, 5 EV and 1.0%. By taking all four McCain would finish Election Night with 265 electoral votes, five short of victory. To win he could hang on to all four and take one of Obama's three away from him.
There are other possibilities, too. If McCain were to win Michigan, for instance, he could afford to lose Nevada and still win with a tally of 277. There is even a real potential for an Electoral College tie. If McCain were to win Michigan and Obama take Virginia, for instance, both would wind up with 269. In that case the Constitution directs that the election would be decided by the House of Representatives with each of the fifty states having one vote. Talk about a political nightmare!
Watch for the candidates to increasingly concentrate their appearances and ads on these seven states, perhaps expanded to include Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana and Missouri or North Dakota in the next two months. And on election night, don't be surprised if it comes down to every network and global news service glued to the returns coming in from Carson City, Nevada, population 54,939, to learn who will take Nevada and thereby become the next President of the United States.
Monday, September 8, 2008
You Have Power
The election race is tight again. There are about 44-45% for McCain and 44-45% for Obama. That leaves 10-12% undecided. With millions of dollars and millions of voters in play, people typically feel they really can't have much of an impact as individuals. And while that is probably true, those individuals acting in the aggregate can have an enormous impact. Here's a plea for getting involved.
There are always a lot of people unregistered. According to the census bureau, in the last presidential election in 2004, 28% of the people weren't registered as you can see here. There are also always a lot of people who are registered but don't vote. Even in the most high-interest presidential elections that's usually more than 40%. In 2004 again, the same Census Bureau report finds that 63% of the voting age population actually did turn out. And that was the most since 1992.
So, what am I getting at? Well, in the past three weeks I've registered five people to vote. All I had to do was go to the county office, get some forms and have them available. You know, it turns out a lot of people, particularly younger ones, have never been asked to register. They just need someone to invite them to and make it convenient and friendly. I recommended they all register for vote by mail, too. This they all did. That makes it more likely they actually will vote. I've heard that Oregon, which is all VBM, gets turnouts of 86%.
So suppose you are a McCain or Obama fan. The 44% of the people who are for your guy is really only 44% of the likely voters, in other words, 44% of the 63%. Of the total population that works out to about 28% for each candidate and 8% likely to vote but undecided. That leaves a whopping 36% who aren't likely to vote. That's more people than are for either major party candidate! There are a lot of potential voters out there for your guy. In raw numbers that means there are currently 70 million people for McCain, 70 million for Obama, 20 million who will pretty surely vote who are still trying to make up their minds, and 90 million who probably aren't going to vote.
Now suppose just 1% of your candidate's supporters go out and do what I did. That would mean 700,000 people would go out and sign up five family, friends, co-workers, people at the coffee shop, or what have you. That would mean an extra THREE AND A HALF MILLION VOTES for your guy. A close election turns into a clear win with just that much minimum effort by 1% of his supporters.
And I'm not talking about going door to door or setting up a table outside a store and sitting there all day. I'm just talking about maybe wearing a button for your favorite. It's a conversation starter among people who like your guy. You get around to asking if they're registered, you have a few forms in you car, purse, briefcase, tool box or what have you, and bingo. You can even feel like you're getting really involved by taking down their phone number and calling them when the absentees are mailed out, saying, "Hi, remember me?" and reminding them to fill out the ballot and send it in.
I've signed up five in three weeks, and there are still eight weeks to go. What do you think you might be able to do? Want to feel like you're making a difference? Go ahead and give it a try. If you're like me you'll be glad you did.
There are always a lot of people unregistered. According to the census bureau, in the last presidential election in 2004, 28% of the people weren't registered as you can see here. There are also always a lot of people who are registered but don't vote. Even in the most high-interest presidential elections that's usually more than 40%. In 2004 again, the same Census Bureau report finds that 63% of the voting age population actually did turn out. And that was the most since 1992.
So, what am I getting at? Well, in the past three weeks I've registered five people to vote. All I had to do was go to the county office, get some forms and have them available. You know, it turns out a lot of people, particularly younger ones, have never been asked to register. They just need someone to invite them to and make it convenient and friendly. I recommended they all register for vote by mail, too. This they all did. That makes it more likely they actually will vote. I've heard that Oregon, which is all VBM, gets turnouts of 86%.
So suppose you are a McCain or Obama fan. The 44% of the people who are for your guy is really only 44% of the likely voters, in other words, 44% of the 63%. Of the total population that works out to about 28% for each candidate and 8% likely to vote but undecided. That leaves a whopping 36% who aren't likely to vote. That's more people than are for either major party candidate! There are a lot of potential voters out there for your guy. In raw numbers that means there are currently 70 million people for McCain, 70 million for Obama, 20 million who will pretty surely vote who are still trying to make up their minds, and 90 million who probably aren't going to vote.
Now suppose just 1% of your candidate's supporters go out and do what I did. That would mean 700,000 people would go out and sign up five family, friends, co-workers, people at the coffee shop, or what have you. That would mean an extra THREE AND A HALF MILLION VOTES for your guy. A close election turns into a clear win with just that much minimum effort by 1% of his supporters.
And I'm not talking about going door to door or setting up a table outside a store and sitting there all day. I'm just talking about maybe wearing a button for your favorite. It's a conversation starter among people who like your guy. You get around to asking if they're registered, you have a few forms in you car, purse, briefcase, tool box or what have you, and bingo. You can even feel like you're getting really involved by taking down their phone number and calling them when the absentees are mailed out, saying, "Hi, remember me?" and reminding them to fill out the ballot and send it in.
I've signed up five in three weeks, and there are still eight weeks to go. What do you think you might be able to do? Want to feel like you're making a difference? Go ahead and give it a try. If you're like me you'll be glad you did.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Catch Up Day
I haven't got time for much of a post tonight. One of the classes I teach is History 18, U.S. History since the Civil War. They turned in essays last Wednesday and have another set due this Wednesday upcoming. I want to get the first ones back to them tomorrow so my students will have some feedback to go on before they hand in their second one. I had about 150 of these to grade and have about 25 left, so I'm hopeful I can get the last class finished before they meet at 12:10 tomorrow.
The topic was women's issues. They had five sources to read. One was "Two Speeches" by Sojourner Truth, a former slave woman who spoke out for women's rights and abolition before the Civil War. Another is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Demand for the Vote," a speech she delivered to Congress. Then there is a short story called "A New England Nun" by Mary Wilkins Freeman. It's not actually about a nun, but a nineteenth century woman who decides she would rather live her own life on her own terms than get married to a man she doesn't love. She is other wise a conventional woman, but that alone singles her out as a strong feminist for the late 1800s.
The fourth reading is a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks called "The Mother." In it she explores the feelings unleashed in a woman who has an abortion. Finally is "Interview With Alice Paul" by Robert Gallagher. Paul was a leader during the end stages of the suffrage movement who lived to see women get the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
As one might expect, these 2-page essays range from very good to disappointing. One thing they have in common is that these community college students are having to grapple with ideas like equality, rights, tradition, and gender expectations in a systematic way that many have not had to consider before.
Well, time's a-wasting. Got to get back to work. I'll check back in tomorrow night.
The topic was women's issues. They had five sources to read. One was "Two Speeches" by Sojourner Truth, a former slave woman who spoke out for women's rights and abolition before the Civil War. Another is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Demand for the Vote," a speech she delivered to Congress. Then there is a short story called "A New England Nun" by Mary Wilkins Freeman. It's not actually about a nun, but a nineteenth century woman who decides she would rather live her own life on her own terms than get married to a man she doesn't love. She is other wise a conventional woman, but that alone singles her out as a strong feminist for the late 1800s.
The fourth reading is a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks called "The Mother." In it she explores the feelings unleashed in a woman who has an abortion. Finally is "Interview With Alice Paul" by Robert Gallagher. Paul was a leader during the end stages of the suffrage movement who lived to see women get the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
As one might expect, these 2-page essays range from very good to disappointing. One thing they have in common is that these community college students are having to grapple with ideas like equality, rights, tradition, and gender expectations in a systematic way that many have not had to consider before.
Well, time's a-wasting. Got to get back to work. I'll check back in tomorrow night.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Tapestry of Lies
The Wednesday-Thursday one-two punch of Palin and McCain at the Republican Convention has most of the punditocracy abuzz as we begin the final sixty days of the long election cycle. The ticket presents a bit of a quandary. First, are they more about the hard right views and hard hitting attacks of Palin, or about the more centrist views and more accommodating approach of McCain? Secondly, some ask whether a Republican can run against the record of own party as the agent of change for that party. Yet both these questions are off the mark. It is about neither.
It is, for the discerning, about the truth; a commodity held in such disregard by both aspirants it is clear that in the most important department, this team offers no change from "the Washington culture" (i.e., the Bush Administration) at all. For the fabric of their campaign is held together primarily by a tapestry of lies: knowing, intentional, self-serving lies of the kind that reveal the emptiness of Senator McCain's promises of a new dawn of bipartisan understanding and conciliation. It looks a lot more like win at all costs and the devil take the hindmost.
Consider the lies told just in the first week since Palin was named as running mate. In his stump speech McCain says Obama has written no legislation, has never worked across party lines and will raise everyone's taxes. These are lies and McCain knows it. Obama wrote sweeping ethics legislation that has been adopted. He worked with Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana on that and on passing a bill to fund securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Obama's tax plan would raise taxes on less than 5% of the people, not everyone. McCain could just tell the truth and argue against Obama's policies, but he does not. The lie, "Obama never has" will sell better, if believed. So he tells it.
Consider now the lies Palin is telling. She relates, and McCain repeats, her story of getting rid of the previous governor's designated state jet plane on e-bay for a profit. She says she was against the "Bridge to Nowhere" and returned the money. She claims to have been against "wasteful earmarks" and says she refused to associate with Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, currently under indictment. All in her first week, and all blatant lies.
The truth is she offered the plane on e-bay but couldn't sell it there and wound up dealing it to one of her campaign contributors, not for a profit but for $600,000 under cost. She supported the bridge and fought for its passage. When public outcry over it went national she took the $300 million dollars anyway and spent it. One of the things it went for was the access road that was to have led to the ill-fated bridge. She was not against earmarks, but instead hired a lobbyist who succeeded in bringing more earmarks to Alaska per capita than any other state. To complete the story, she appears on tape with Senator Stevens as a director of his 527 committee.
Other pearls soon to come out include her husband's membership in a treasonous organization (a group dedicated to the secession of Alaska from the Union) and a number of fundamentalist nut case assertions of Palin's, saying such things as the Iraq War is part of God's plan, God prefers her pipeline proposal, and that Israel has a lot of terrorism because Jews don't accept Jesus.
It is small wonder that Rick Davis, McCain's campaign chief, now says the campaign "should be about personality" and that the campaign has refused to allow reporters to interview the Governor. The campaign released a statement saying, "We will make her available to the press when it is in our interest."
It is disheartening to have to report that far from portending a new movement to "change Washington," the present Republican ticket bears all the hallmarks of the unethical and corrupt administration it seeks to replace. The way most of the media seems to be portraying it, Palin and McCain's convention performances have made them the current darlings and they are a breath of fresh air. Yet in spite of this, an ABC poll shows the people may not be buying it. Palin had a 50% favorable rating to 37% unfavorable, for a +13. Joe Biden's comparable numbers were 54% and 30%, a +24. When asked if the two veep candidates had "the right experience to assume the presidency" if necessary, respondents said "no" 50% to 42% for Palin but "yes" 66% to 21% Biden.
It is, for the discerning, about the truth; a commodity held in such disregard by both aspirants it is clear that in the most important department, this team offers no change from "the Washington culture" (i.e., the Bush Administration) at all. For the fabric of their campaign is held together primarily by a tapestry of lies: knowing, intentional, self-serving lies of the kind that reveal the emptiness of Senator McCain's promises of a new dawn of bipartisan understanding and conciliation. It looks a lot more like win at all costs and the devil take the hindmost.
Consider the lies told just in the first week since Palin was named as running mate. In his stump speech McCain says Obama has written no legislation, has never worked across party lines and will raise everyone's taxes. These are lies and McCain knows it. Obama wrote sweeping ethics legislation that has been adopted. He worked with Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana on that and on passing a bill to fund securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Obama's tax plan would raise taxes on less than 5% of the people, not everyone. McCain could just tell the truth and argue against Obama's policies, but he does not. The lie, "Obama never has" will sell better, if believed. So he tells it.
Consider now the lies Palin is telling. She relates, and McCain repeats, her story of getting rid of the previous governor's designated state jet plane on e-bay for a profit. She says she was against the "Bridge to Nowhere" and returned the money. She claims to have been against "wasteful earmarks" and says she refused to associate with Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, currently under indictment. All in her first week, and all blatant lies.
The truth is she offered the plane on e-bay but couldn't sell it there and wound up dealing it to one of her campaign contributors, not for a profit but for $600,000 under cost. She supported the bridge and fought for its passage. When public outcry over it went national she took the $300 million dollars anyway and spent it. One of the things it went for was the access road that was to have led to the ill-fated bridge. She was not against earmarks, but instead hired a lobbyist who succeeded in bringing more earmarks to Alaska per capita than any other state. To complete the story, she appears on tape with Senator Stevens as a director of his 527 committee.
Other pearls soon to come out include her husband's membership in a treasonous organization (a group dedicated to the secession of Alaska from the Union) and a number of fundamentalist nut case assertions of Palin's, saying such things as the Iraq War is part of God's plan, God prefers her pipeline proposal, and that Israel has a lot of terrorism because Jews don't accept Jesus.
It is small wonder that Rick Davis, McCain's campaign chief, now says the campaign "should be about personality" and that the campaign has refused to allow reporters to interview the Governor. The campaign released a statement saying, "We will make her available to the press when it is in our interest."
It is disheartening to have to report that far from portending a new movement to "change Washington," the present Republican ticket bears all the hallmarks of the unethical and corrupt administration it seeks to replace. The way most of the media seems to be portraying it, Palin and McCain's convention performances have made them the current darlings and they are a breath of fresh air. Yet in spite of this, an ABC poll shows the people may not be buying it. Palin had a 50% favorable rating to 37% unfavorable, for a +13. Joe Biden's comparable numbers were 54% and 30%, a +24. When asked if the two veep candidates had "the right experience to assume the presidency" if necessary, respondents said "no" 50% to 42% for Palin but "yes" 66% to 21% Biden.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
McCain's Fine Acceptance Speech
John McCain capped his nine-year quest for the Republican nomination for president this evening with a marvelous acceptance speech to the convention in St. Paul. His address should earn him the affection of most Republicans while exerting a strong appeal to independents. It was one of his finest hours in public life.
McCain's talk exuded sincerity, reasonability and purpose. His tone was gentlemanly toward his opponent, honest with regard to the failings and possibilities of government as he sees them, and often self-deprecating in that winning way that reflects well on the teller. This was McCain at his best.
The Republican nominee offered specific examples of policy proposals on energy, taxes, education and the economy. He sounded his well-known foreign policy themes, though endeavoring to soften them by stating, "I hate war" and, "I will work to keep relations with Russia on a good footing and prevent relapse into the Cold War."
He drew distinctions with Barack Obama, but without resorting to the sarcasm and distortion that marked his running mate Sarah Palin's address last night. There were only two such instances: when he said Obama opposes nuclear power when he is actually open to it, and when he said Obama favors letting "bureaucrats and unions" determine education policy. For a partisan Republican speech to mischaracterize Democratic positions only twice is an exceptionally high degree of decorum.
Instead, McCain concentrated on the task at hand should he be elected, highlighting his willingness and history of working across the aisle to accomplish needed change. He obliquely though strongly criticized recent Republican misgovernance, declaring, "We came to Washington to change it and let it change us." He rebuked the record of special interest favoritism and policy failures. He did not specifically name his party but his meaning was clear. In so doing, he largely succeeded in rebranding the Republican Party as a conceivable engine of reform, at least with him now at its head. He underscored again and again his commitment to service and his declaration, "I don't work for any particular party," not only to distance himself from President Bush, whom he complimented once, but to reassure the voters that he would try his best not to be as polarizing as Bush has been.
He spoke effectively of his life's story and the lessons he learned as a POW in a way sure to win the hearts of many Americans. He stoked the enthusiasm of the assembled delegates by shouting, "Make no mistake, we are going to win this election!" He concluded on an inspiring and positive note urging the arena with a call to "Stand up! Stand up!" and fight the good fight.
Last night Sarah Palin gave an inflammatory and divisive speech. It riled up the hard right Republican base and inspired a McCain campaign record $4 million in contributions in the following 24 hours. However, it also aroused the Democratic faithful, who poured an even more amazing $8 million into Obama's coffers in the same time period.
Tonight was different. McCain's appeal was to the middle, with a conservative emphasis, to be sure, but to the moderate, undecided people who are still mulling things over. He came across as caring and sensible. I expect he will be rewarded with polls in the next few days that show him pulling back very close or even in the race again.
The first debate will be in three weeks, on Friday the 25th. The topic? Foreign policy.
McCain's talk exuded sincerity, reasonability and purpose. His tone was gentlemanly toward his opponent, honest with regard to the failings and possibilities of government as he sees them, and often self-deprecating in that winning way that reflects well on the teller. This was McCain at his best.
The Republican nominee offered specific examples of policy proposals on energy, taxes, education and the economy. He sounded his well-known foreign policy themes, though endeavoring to soften them by stating, "I hate war" and, "I will work to keep relations with Russia on a good footing and prevent relapse into the Cold War."
He drew distinctions with Barack Obama, but without resorting to the sarcasm and distortion that marked his running mate Sarah Palin's address last night. There were only two such instances: when he said Obama opposes nuclear power when he is actually open to it, and when he said Obama favors letting "bureaucrats and unions" determine education policy. For a partisan Republican speech to mischaracterize Democratic positions only twice is an exceptionally high degree of decorum.
Instead, McCain concentrated on the task at hand should he be elected, highlighting his willingness and history of working across the aisle to accomplish needed change. He obliquely though strongly criticized recent Republican misgovernance, declaring, "We came to Washington to change it and let it change us." He rebuked the record of special interest favoritism and policy failures. He did not specifically name his party but his meaning was clear. In so doing, he largely succeeded in rebranding the Republican Party as a conceivable engine of reform, at least with him now at its head. He underscored again and again his commitment to service and his declaration, "I don't work for any particular party," not only to distance himself from President Bush, whom he complimented once, but to reassure the voters that he would try his best not to be as polarizing as Bush has been.
He spoke effectively of his life's story and the lessons he learned as a POW in a way sure to win the hearts of many Americans. He stoked the enthusiasm of the assembled delegates by shouting, "Make no mistake, we are going to win this election!" He concluded on an inspiring and positive note urging the arena with a call to "Stand up! Stand up!" and fight the good fight.
Last night Sarah Palin gave an inflammatory and divisive speech. It riled up the hard right Republican base and inspired a McCain campaign record $4 million in contributions in the following 24 hours. However, it also aroused the Democratic faithful, who poured an even more amazing $8 million into Obama's coffers in the same time period.
Tonight was different. McCain's appeal was to the middle, with a conservative emphasis, to be sure, but to the moderate, undecided people who are still mulling things over. He came across as caring and sensible. I expect he will be rewarded with polls in the next few days that show him pulling back very close or even in the race again.
The first debate will be in three weeks, on Friday the 25th. The topic? Foreign policy.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Palin's Convention Speech
Sarah Palin introduced herself to the American public tonight in a combative speech that makes it clear she will fill the attack dog role for the Republican ticket. Her other main job is to personify the social conservative worldview and thereby to energize the base. With nominee John McCain delivering his acceptance speech tomorrow, tonight was set up for Palin. The next few days will tell whether her punches landed or hammered air.
Her basic approach followed the RNC's emphasis on painting a dark and threatening picture of a dangerous world that only a bellicose former warrior can deal with. McCain's posture of standing up and talking tough to Russia, Iran and terrorists was contrasted with caricatured images of an effete Obama more concerned with "reading them their rights" than defending against enemies. It was sophomoric on the factual level but red meat to the convention partisans and they ate it up.
A corollary line followed Fred Thompson's keynote speech yesterday, insisting that whatever he or his plans say, Obama will impose ruinous taxes on the great bulk of the American people. This line is repeated by virtually every Republican speaker in an effort to ensure it is strongly imprinted on the mind of every viewer. Once again, the facts of Obama's proposals are ignored in favor of constant repetition of the desired negative message. As always, the Democrats are made to inspire fear, a fear that can only be dispelled by turning to the wise and courageous protector.
Palin conjoined her record to the image of a tough spending hawk as Alaska governor. She touted her opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere," somehow omitting that she lobbied hard for it before it became a focus of national outrage. She spoke of her and McCain's unpopularity with professional lobbyists, forgetting to mention that McCain's campaign is actually run by lobbyists and that Alaska's paid lobbyists have brought home the bacon in a big way to her home state, whose largess from the federal government is per capita the highest in the nation.
But more than these, her sarcastic descriptions of Obama's popularity, vision and effective speaking style were meant to establish a cultural barrier against his electoral appeal. She is down home folks. Obama is Ivy League elite. She is a hockey mom. Obama and Biden are dyed in the wool beltway politicos. She and McCain are people of strong character. Obama is a preening memoir writer. The snide personal insults came hot and heavy. The kernel of her real message was not policy, it was fear and resentment: fear of lurking enemies that no one else will dare to fight and resentment against fancy pants stuffed shirts who think they are better than you. It was, in short, the usual Republican campaign appeal. The only question to be settled is whether Palin is the right messenger for it this particular year.
After Palin was finished McCain joined her family onstage to bask in the audience's enthusiastic applause. Then a country band took the stage. The virtually all-white crowd of delegates, many sporting cowboy hats, joined in the fun. All was well in GOP world and it was just as though the good old days were back.
Her basic approach followed the RNC's emphasis on painting a dark and threatening picture of a dangerous world that only a bellicose former warrior can deal with. McCain's posture of standing up and talking tough to Russia, Iran and terrorists was contrasted with caricatured images of an effete Obama more concerned with "reading them their rights" than defending against enemies. It was sophomoric on the factual level but red meat to the convention partisans and they ate it up.
A corollary line followed Fred Thompson's keynote speech yesterday, insisting that whatever he or his plans say, Obama will impose ruinous taxes on the great bulk of the American people. This line is repeated by virtually every Republican speaker in an effort to ensure it is strongly imprinted on the mind of every viewer. Once again, the facts of Obama's proposals are ignored in favor of constant repetition of the desired negative message. As always, the Democrats are made to inspire fear, a fear that can only be dispelled by turning to the wise and courageous protector.
Palin conjoined her record to the image of a tough spending hawk as Alaska governor. She touted her opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere," somehow omitting that she lobbied hard for it before it became a focus of national outrage. She spoke of her and McCain's unpopularity with professional lobbyists, forgetting to mention that McCain's campaign is actually run by lobbyists and that Alaska's paid lobbyists have brought home the bacon in a big way to her home state, whose largess from the federal government is per capita the highest in the nation.
But more than these, her sarcastic descriptions of Obama's popularity, vision and effective speaking style were meant to establish a cultural barrier against his electoral appeal. She is down home folks. Obama is Ivy League elite. She is a hockey mom. Obama and Biden are dyed in the wool beltway politicos. She and McCain are people of strong character. Obama is a preening memoir writer. The snide personal insults came hot and heavy. The kernel of her real message was not policy, it was fear and resentment: fear of lurking enemies that no one else will dare to fight and resentment against fancy pants stuffed shirts who think they are better than you. It was, in short, the usual Republican campaign appeal. The only question to be settled is whether Palin is the right messenger for it this particular year.
After Palin was finished McCain joined her family onstage to bask in the audience's enthusiastic applause. Then a country band took the stage. The virtually all-white crowd of delegates, many sporting cowboy hats, joined in the fun. All was well in GOP world and it was just as though the good old days were back.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Polls Show Obama Widening Lead
A spate of five polls released Tuesday all tell the same story: the Democratic ticket of Obama and Biden is currently surging back into a strong nationwide lead. The average of the five surveys has the Democrats up by 7.6%.
Obama led in all five polls. The results were: Gallup Tracking 50-42 (+8), Rasmussen Tracking 51-45 (+6), USA Today/Gallup 50-43 (+7), Hotline 48-39 (+9) and CBS News 48-40 (+8). Tracking polls are an average of polling done by telephone over a three-day period. The similar results obtained in so many reputable polls at the same time constitute convincing evidence to insiders that the findings are valid.
The Democratic Convention appears to have consolidated the party vote. Obama-Biden now has the support of 85% of Democrats, up from 80% before the Denver gathering. This has almost erased McCain's intraparty advantage of having 86% support among Republicans. The Democrats' unity theme, including strong endorsements from Bill and Hillary Clinton, seems to have paid off.
On the other hand, the fallout from John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate looks to have damaged the Republican ticket in its first days. The tracking polls show McCain losing one or two points in the initial days after the Palin announcement and Obama gaining one or two.
Obama went into his convention on August 25 with a dwindling average lead in the polls of only 2.5%. After he delivered his acceptance speech on the 28th his average lead rose to 6%. Then in the three days since the Palin announcement the Democratic ticket picked up another 1.6%.
It is most important for the McCain-Palin campaign to calm misgivings about the Alaska Governor among independents and get a "bounce" coming out of St. Paul. Her addition to the ticket has, by most accounts, played quite well with the Republican social conservative base. That McCain is still losing support and Obama gaining is an indication of how poorly she may be playing with other groups.
Great stakes thus ride for the Republican campaign on Palin's address to the convention Wednesday night. She has to pass the smell test as someone who could conceivably occupy the president's chair if McCain is unable to complete a term in office. If the Republican duo doesn't leave Minnesota within three or four points of the Democrats their chances do not look good.
Obama led in all five polls. The results were: Gallup Tracking 50-42 (+8), Rasmussen Tracking 51-45 (+6), USA Today/Gallup 50-43 (+7), Hotline 48-39 (+9) and CBS News 48-40 (+8). Tracking polls are an average of polling done by telephone over a three-day period. The similar results obtained in so many reputable polls at the same time constitute convincing evidence to insiders that the findings are valid.
The Democratic Convention appears to have consolidated the party vote. Obama-Biden now has the support of 85% of Democrats, up from 80% before the Denver gathering. This has almost erased McCain's intraparty advantage of having 86% support among Republicans. The Democrats' unity theme, including strong endorsements from Bill and Hillary Clinton, seems to have paid off.
On the other hand, the fallout from John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate looks to have damaged the Republican ticket in its first days. The tracking polls show McCain losing one or two points in the initial days after the Palin announcement and Obama gaining one or two.
Obama went into his convention on August 25 with a dwindling average lead in the polls of only 2.5%. After he delivered his acceptance speech on the 28th his average lead rose to 6%. Then in the three days since the Palin announcement the Democratic ticket picked up another 1.6%.
It is most important for the McCain-Palin campaign to calm misgivings about the Alaska Governor among independents and get a "bounce" coming out of St. Paul. Her addition to the ticket has, by most accounts, played quite well with the Republican social conservative base. That McCain is still losing support and Obama gaining is an indication of how poorly she may be playing with other groups.
Great stakes thus ride for the Republican campaign on Palin's address to the convention Wednesday night. She has to pass the smell test as someone who could conceivably occupy the president's chair if McCain is unable to complete a term in office. If the Republican duo doesn't leave Minnesota within three or four points of the Democrats their chances do not look good.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Living In Harm's Way
Thankfully, the latest hurricane to approach New Orleans was just a category two. Its eye passed 30-50 miles west of the city instead of more or less directly over it. This time there was plenty of warning and help to get everyone out who wasn't dead set on staying. Many lessons were learned and applied to Gustav that were cavalierly ignored three years ago during Katrina. This time it is estimated that eight lives were lost, rather than over a thousand.
Yet even still, there was footage of the waters of the Industrial Canal lapping over the levee. Other shots showed parking lots with cars submerged up to the windows, and beach areas under ocean waves for a hundred yards inland. If Gustav had been a category four or the eye wall had passed over the Big Easy, much of it would again be at the bottom of Davey Jones' Locker. And if that had happened, as it someday almost certainly will, we would be left to seriously contemplate the wisdom of continuing to encourage millions of people to live in harm's way.
Certain areas are consistently disaster-prone. One such area is the Gulf Coast at sea level and below. Another comprises similar stretches along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to the Carolinas. There are extremely high fire danger areas of brush and dry forest throughout the West. Several large rivers, such as the Mississippi, have deadly floodplains that regularly become torrents.
Many times, the risk associated with such areas is specifically localized. A strand of beach may be unsavable from a hurricane's tidal surge, but the bluffs only 50 yards from the shore may be perfectly safe from it. Why then do we allow people to build there and be protected and insured at public expense? The answers, of course, are that people like to have beach houses and that such construction is good for local tax bases. Like many other practices in our country, it is good for short-term finances.
But the fact is that once the inevitable disaster occurs--Hurricane Katrina, the Oakland Hills Fire, the latest Mississippi flood--the rest of the people are assessed tens or hundreds of billions of dollars so that the newly homeless can rebuild in the same foolish places. This happens through higher insurance premiums for the rest of us or often through federal disaster relief and its associated loans.
It might be sensible to begin zoning these areas to prevent the construction of new residential developments. To the extent that these risky behaviors are voluntary, it ought to be made clear that people who insist on locating there anyway are on their financial own from now on. If they cannot get private insurance to build there, that ought to tell them something.
I realize that people already on a piece of land may not have the easy option of relocating, and that the public may have to continue to provide for them when disaster next strikes. But to the extent that we can keep more from putting their own lives and those of emergency personnel at risk, we ought to do it. If they go ahead and do so anyway, it might be a good idea to make clear that in that event there will be no government financial help the next time there is a next time. Enough is enough already.
Yet even still, there was footage of the waters of the Industrial Canal lapping over the levee. Other shots showed parking lots with cars submerged up to the windows, and beach areas under ocean waves for a hundred yards inland. If Gustav had been a category four or the eye wall had passed over the Big Easy, much of it would again be at the bottom of Davey Jones' Locker. And if that had happened, as it someday almost certainly will, we would be left to seriously contemplate the wisdom of continuing to encourage millions of people to live in harm's way.
Certain areas are consistently disaster-prone. One such area is the Gulf Coast at sea level and below. Another comprises similar stretches along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to the Carolinas. There are extremely high fire danger areas of brush and dry forest throughout the West. Several large rivers, such as the Mississippi, have deadly floodplains that regularly become torrents.
Many times, the risk associated with such areas is specifically localized. A strand of beach may be unsavable from a hurricane's tidal surge, but the bluffs only 50 yards from the shore may be perfectly safe from it. Why then do we allow people to build there and be protected and insured at public expense? The answers, of course, are that people like to have beach houses and that such construction is good for local tax bases. Like many other practices in our country, it is good for short-term finances.
But the fact is that once the inevitable disaster occurs--Hurricane Katrina, the Oakland Hills Fire, the latest Mississippi flood--the rest of the people are assessed tens or hundreds of billions of dollars so that the newly homeless can rebuild in the same foolish places. This happens through higher insurance premiums for the rest of us or often through federal disaster relief and its associated loans.
It might be sensible to begin zoning these areas to prevent the construction of new residential developments. To the extent that these risky behaviors are voluntary, it ought to be made clear that people who insist on locating there anyway are on their financial own from now on. If they cannot get private insurance to build there, that ought to tell them something.
I realize that people already on a piece of land may not have the easy option of relocating, and that the public may have to continue to provide for them when disaster next strikes. But to the extent that we can keep more from putting their own lives and those of emergency personnel at risk, we ought to do it. If they go ahead and do so anyway, it might be a good idea to make clear that in that event there will be no government financial help the next time there is a next time. Enough is enough already.
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