Married to the Economy?

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Somehow, Obama’s re-entry into campaign politics has changed the political air. The usually relatively moderate and independent are leaning to their familiar sides. High minded debates about the long term future of the nation are taking shape in the nation’s major newspapers. The gay marriage debate, sparked by Biden and then Obama, is far removed from those debates about the structural nature of our country, but speaks to a cultural divide that is noteworthy.

The GOP’s favorite media enforcer of the moment, Florida senator Marco Rubio, has accused Obama of distracting the national discourse from the real issues. Rubio is entirely right that Obama has and will continue to distract from the most substantive and important issues facing the country right now. Student loans was not one of them, that arose organically. I’m also not sure that his recent statement supporting gay marriage was a calculated attempt to distract either. Obama has a case to make as a Democrat and as the personification of modernity.

As Daily Beast columnist David Frum notes, the brand ID of the democrats continues to be one of cultural modernity. Treating homosexuality as taboo is no longer accepted in modern culture. People from every generation have begun to change their attitude of aversion towards homosexuality. For those under 30 the taboo against homosexuality has largely been reversed, with 64 percent supporting gay marriage.

 

So, in many ways, this issue has increasingly become a matter of accepting modernity rather than a genuine policy disagreement. Young Republicans and independents alike share this perspective and will probably respect Obama for coming out in support of gay marriage. While his new position is likely to do very little with regards to concrete policy changes, it is not, as senator Rubio claimed, some politically motivated attempt to divide America. That rebuttal is one of no substance (in this case, as gay marriage is a legitimate social issue to raise) and reserved for those who find themselves on an increasingly difficult side of an issue.

UPDATE:

In this post I said,

“Jobs” based rhetoric is almost always empty. It can tacked on to virtually any piece of spending as an ancillary benefit. Its usage is essentially synonymous with “I think this is a good idea,” which we knew already. I’m perpetually disappointed by virtually everyone’s willingness to let claims about jobs fly. Unfortunately, it is a claim easily backed up with casual logic and debunked by only relatively complex economic logic foreign to nearly everyone.

With “jobs and “the economy” being nearly synonymous in the mainstream media, it should be no surprise that articles are popping up drawing a line between gay marriage and the economy. Absurd? Yes.

“Even Jimmy Carter Would Have Given That Order!”

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That quote is from who else but Mitt Romney responding to a reporter’s question whether he would have replicated Obama’s order to send the military into Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden.

Somehow the general election spectacle has moved its sights onto Barack Obama’s authorization of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination. On the left, Obama has been touting the decision in ads and surrogates have it as a permanent part of the “accomplishment” talking points. I suspect the usage of the Osama decision is almost entirely Axelrod’s doing. When it became public that Osama had been taken out everyone gave Obama credit for the decision to go into Pakistan and the nation as a whole experienced a moment of relief from justice being served. Obama’s personal hand in that operation and the universal positivity of the whole affair makes it a topic far too mouthwatering for someone like Axelrod to leave alone. But it is getting Obama in a bit of trouble.

On the right and on the left Obama is being criticized for over-doing the celebration and using for political purposes. This criticism is legitimate, but line being crossed here is a subtle one. The distinction that Arianna Huffington is agreeable. Giving access to americans and the media about what went into the decision is okay, it is a matter of history and public interest. However, turning decisions like kill orders, or alternatively, the decision to drop atomic weapons on an enemy nation into a political attack ad is entirely un-presidential. It does not respect the gravity and essential humanity intrinsic to situations that have executives making kill orders on behalf of the nation. Moreover, this is not up for debate. Both Obama and Romney are reasonable men with leadership experience. The decision in question is not a matter of policy difference or philosophy, nor is it part of any established rhetorical conflict. The entire attack sounds like spin and most importantly, does not speak to an issue that retains saliency for Americans that are only half paying attention to general election politics.

Obama ought to use the Osama call as inoculation to anyone who says he is unfit to lead and make executive decisions. That line of attack is over. He can also mention it as a part of his efforts to end our wars in the middle east. These are political wins for him that are clean. However, the “what decision would Romney have made” is not. The negative media coverage of it make the entire message a net negative for the campaign and plays into conservative predictions that Obama would be running a horrible, no-good, negative campaign.

There are plenty of good things to go after Romney about, this is not one of them.

Governing By Campaigning

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Sometimes in passing, sometimes directly, conservative talking heads have criticized President Obama for “campaigning,” which implies Mr. Obama is not doing his real job of governing. To make matters worse, Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, actively grants these criticisms  legitimacy by actually denying that Obama’s public events are not part of his campaign. But attempts to distinguish Obama’s public appearances as part of his job as president and his public appearances as part of his re-election effort is like sorting sand that has been mixed with dirt. Carney would do well to reject the premise of this entire line of criticism.

Being the president is an inherently public and political job. This is a bogus claim that belongs with the other sophomorish criticisms of Obama (and prior presidents), such as taking too many vacations or playing too much golf. The claims, when made by the right and the left are ad hominiem and hypocritical. Some might remember the Bush campaign was expert at using politically charged public appearances to support every effort of his governance. I even read a book about it.

To be fair, both sides seem to love political bromide such as this. They are useable talking points available to any challenger. However, anyone who uses it can be fairly labeled as being carelessly partisan.

Giving Liberals a Bad Name pt. 2

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As I said in part one of this essay, liberals harbor an ugliness that is far more difficult address without resulting to hyperbole or acidic rhetoric. That being said, despite the mine field before me I hope to address that ugliness scrupulously.

It is usually only those moderate conservatives that have intellectual integrity and job stability to spare that would even imagine grappling with such issues or standing up to this wrongness. Yet, such occurred on, of all places, on the Bill Maher Show on HBO. During which, Bill Maher called out hate crimes as a policy that reflects a philosophy that “gives liberals a bad name.” Then, Andrew Sullivan proceded to call our Wendy Schiller for playing the sex card. Something she did with a smug rightness which is ugly beyond words.

In both instances Sullivan and Maher came together to oppose what is so obviously wrong, but so difficult to vocally oppose. This is our society’s overcompensation towards racism, sexism and other social ills. Thomas Sowell described it earlier as our nation’s “invisible dogma.” But, the dogma goes further in common discussion and outright statements. In so many ways, we have institutionalized and unceremoniously accepted in the liberal mainstream “wrong for wrong.” In these areas, liberals lose their sense of moderation of personal bias, they lose their respect for precision, but most importantly – they lose their usually admirable kantian moral philosophy. Indeed, they completely abandon the kantian principle that prejudice towards people is wrong.

Prejudice: An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts

This became acutely apparent in the last couple weeks where the ugliness of this became more real than I have ever seen in my short life. After the killing of Trayvon Martin became national news we saw just how this works. Certain outspoken racial activists took to passing immediate judgement about what happened. Somehow, before everyone else, they knew this was a hate crime.

Few would call this what it was – prejudice. I am deeply saddened by the fact that speaking out against this is often seen as racist in and of itself. Intellectual debate or discussion is subjugated by “you v me” and “black v white” debates. Our discourse, our politics, our intellectualism, our liberalism, and our country is stained and hurt by this.

No one should succumb to arguing that there is a false equivalency being made here. The wrongness at hand is the judgement. Those who argue over the degrees of the wrongness are usually those engaged in exactly what they recognize as wrong but, as they argue, is wrong to a lesser degree than those who they oppose. If you want to know what is wrong with the world, look no further than that attitude of unapologetically justifying means with ends amplified a million times. It shouldn’t be a typical liberal attitude. But, today, it is what gives liberals a bad name.

Giving Liberals a Bad Name pt. 1

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Yesterday, Obama clearly articulated what many of his surrogates and allies in the media have been hinting at for years now. That is, the republican party has changed. The radicals have taken over. They are impossible to work with and are the source of much of the gridlock we currently see in Washington. Republican responses to this line of attack have usually either ignored the premise or sheepishly confirmed the assertion.

However, this is a hard case to make. It is inherently antagonistic against a massive group of people and it takes a lot of knowledge to even begin the conversation. Much of the evidence is anecdotal: Cap and trade was proposed by a republican. Individual mandates were supported by Romney and originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation. Republicans are apparently chemically tax-phobic. Budgets are regressive. All stimulus is balked at. Not raising the debt ceiling is a means to deficit reduction (not actually that bad), but considered a reasonable thing to use as a bargaining chip. Both sides said the other was unwilling to compromise. But it is clear that the republicans refused to break their tax-phobic stance, where as democrats were willing to compromise on entitlements. Liberal heros like Krugman have become noticeably talented at calling republicans out on these things and have turned the otherwise scattered narrative into cogent, undeniable reality. More importantly, moderate conservatives have begun to lament that which they know to be true but cant explicitly state. (This is something that has been chronicled on this blog to a point where I want to talk about something else, but find it hard to.)

Genuinely moderate conservatives like Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, are choosing to leave politics. It is as if these talented former public servants are giving up on a party they no longer feel a part of.

Despite the clear shift to almost militant attitudes and the abundance of evidence, to the public most of this is just noise. Republicans can deny till they die, and survive off enthusiasm generated by sloganeering and radicalization. Only those who are professional observers and commentators have the outside perspective and understanding of the ebbs and flows of today’s political happenings to fully understand what is going on. Others can simply ignore some of the radicalization, selectively hearing familiar tunes such as “capitalism v. socialism,” “Christianity v. secularism” and “big government v small government.” But for those paying attention, the change is close to being intellectually untenable.

There now exists a public cohort of otherwise unconnected conservatives who have the intellectual honestly that will not allow them to deny what is patently obvious, albiet complicated. This unhappy company of moderate conservatives find themselves living on a political island that is quite lonely. David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Scarborough and others all find the undeniable exactly that, but are uncomfortable with it. You can see them struggle with their conflicting interests of intellectual integrity, professional mortality and now shaken party identity (which is often a result of culture rather than ideology). Most still self-identify as conservatives, but what do they really have in common with tea partiers and Rick Santorum?

It is almost painful to watch those hanging on to the conservatism that once was. But the reason they continue to hang on is too important to ignore. They see a dark side. It is what they have criticized and even fought against their entire lives. Emotionally, this dark side makes them far more uncomfortable and self-righteous than the failings of their own side, which they are used to. Liberalism has its own brand of incoherent populism that is far more difficult to debunk and increasingly intrinsic to mainstream liberalism. In the past several weeks this populism has become acutely apparent and reminder to those in the center right why they ended up or stayed there in the first place.

What Santorum is Getting Right

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After several weeks of chatter about the growing potential for a contested convention and Romney’s weakness as a frontrunner, Romney’s win in Illinois has cast further doubts on Santorum’s viability. Mr. Santorum’s poor showing in Illinois can be connected to the rough couple of news cycles that he has had to deal with. Essentially, the same thing we saw with the other “non-Romney’s” has occurred. The media has focused in on Santorum, and relentlessly examined what they feel makes him a “radical” conservative. However, Santorum is less like Cain, Bachmann and Perry, and more like Gingrich in that he actually has a significant well of knowledge to draw from, but is often combative in his defense of his worldview. Although, to be fair, those interviewing Santorum often take the attitude of “explain yourself” in their lines of questioning. Nonetheless, this combativeness has only intensified as a result of “slut-gate,” and media’s general inability to appreciate complexity and nuance.

The media did this again when Santorum got in trouble for saying that he did not care about the unemployment numbers. This was a poor choice of words, similar to the “I dont care about the very poor” statement made by Mitt Romney. But, in reality, it reamins a story with no substance behind it. Santorum was making a relatively innocuous statement that his priorities lay in the realm of increasing overall freedom and that moving particular indicators such as monthly unemployment numbers is relatively unimportant in comparison. Similarly, Romney was saying that his priority was the development of the middle class, not the very poor. Maybe consultants will create a new rule where the phrase “I don’t care” is forbidden (I’ve noticed that Mitt Romney has refrained from naming Santorum when he refers to him).

What is lost in scandalization is a critical evaluation of what Santorum has been doing right. If I can say anything positive about Santorum, it is that he is a strong and credible embodiment of a vocal and powerful intellectual wing of republicanism. Moreover, in many ways he is actually unapologetically principaled. For instance, Santorum has been the only candidate that is actively rejecting the all but universally accepted narrative that this presidential election is about jobs. Time and time again he has asserted that the president has an extremely limited ability to create jobs and control the economy, and any suggestion otherwise is contradictory to fundamental conservative assumptions about how the economy operates.

Consultant wisdom is that talking about jobs and economy is REALLY important. See "it's the economy, stupid." In truth, economic prosperity can often be one of the most important influencers of job approval numbers, but not always.

Not only is this an impressive display of disregard for populist rhetoric in favor for anti-Keneysian ideological coherence, it is also true. While virtually everyone else in American politics is touting their ability to create jobs, Santorum is the only one (other than Ron Paul) who rejects the rhetoric and says what everyone knows to be true. Presidents have almost no ability to create jobs.

Ezra Klein’s piece on this issue outlines how both liberal and conservative economists alike agree. One could reasonably argue that the president’s overall stewardship over the country and his ability to create an “environment” that conducive to business can impact the economy and jobs. However, the positive results from this would only be seen long after their term in office. Not to mention, if you’re really really conservative, you probably don’t even have confidence in stimulus as a tool to boost aggregate demand! The idea that presidents can have massive short-to-medium term impacts on the economy is the bogus-claim cousin to the claim that Obama’s policies have increased gas prices. It is just less obvious.

“Jobs” based rhetoric is almost always empty. It can tacked on to virtually any piece of spending as an ancillary benefit. Its usage is essentially synonymous with “I think this is a good idea,” which we knew already. I’m perpetually disappointed by virtually everyone’s willingness to let claims about jobs fly. Unfortunately, it is a claim easily backed up with casual logic and debunked by only relatively complex economic logic foreign to nearly everyone.

No matter which economic philosophy citizens subscribe to, they should all be disturbed by the fact that leaders are all purporting a philosophy that does not really exist. Apparently, except for Santorum. Most of the time.

The Major Variables

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Numbers come out and the media tells us what they mean. The numbers come each month, so, each month the talking heads have something to talk about. In some way, the number of jobs created this month, Obama’s job approval numbers and the price of gasoline are intrinsically important. Unfortunately, the media has the habit of looking at two or three months of data and using that micro trend as a premise for analyzing the election. However, as Mary Matalin pointed out last week on “This Week,” those seriously following the election ought not to look to at these monthly numbers as predictive of what will happen in November.

Obviously, the economy will play a very significant role in how the election turns out. But members of Mrs. Matalin’s “reality zone” know that the most americans have no idea what these numbers are or mean. As with all politics, perception is reality, and often times perception is more important than reality altogether. The conventional wisdom is that the perception of the direction and the momentum of the economy is more important than its actual performance. Our economy has seen a brief and minor trend towards the positive end of things. However, I think we are far enough away from November that how the state of the economy will impact the election is still yet to be seen. The fact that no republican or professional journalist wants to admit is the following: the performance of the economy over the summer will (probably) be the single most important factor in the presidential election and no one really knows what is going to happen. This is in part because our own economy’s performance will be heavily influenced by Europe, which is an even bigger question mark than our own economy. Beyond the economy, I think the other major factors that remain are the potential for conflict with Iran and the eventual outcome of the GOP nomination process.

Iran seems to be an issue that gets only cyclical coverage. One week, it is all anyone can talk about. The next, not a single major story develops on the subject. Even when the media is saturated with coverage of Iran, my experience has been that almost no one is considering the potential political implications that Iran could have on the election. Such an event could sky rocket Obama’s approval ratings and put him in a position to demonstrate his capacity for leadership. Such a situation, if not a disaster, could ruin the Republicans’ chances. Unfortunately, the real nature of Iran’s nuclear program and the likelihood of conflict are murky. Some have claimed that a military strike on Iran is a matter of Summer or Fall, while others retain the position that diplomacy may allow the United States to avoid any such conflict altogether. I expect there to be some degree of confrontation and temporary resolution, but in reality this is another situation which has an outcome that is entirely up in the air.

Lastly, the other major factor in how the general election turns out is the eventual result of the Republican nomination. I am hesitant to make any statement about the landscape of the election because of its predictably unpredictable nature. Frankly, I dont even think it matters at this point. The “delegate math” message that Romney’s camp is touting should probably be abandoned for a real issue, but it is more or less correct. A great piece by Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics finds that Romney himself will have a very difficult time securing the number of delegates necessary. In essence, his analysis and the current numbers confirm what we have known all along. While Romney may be weak, the other candidates have no chance of winning, barring some sort of spectacular contested convention showdown. Either potential outcome is so far removed from the other, how it turns out will have a very significant impact on the general election.

A Gloomy GOP

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Hopefully, tonight we will receive primary results from Michigan and Arizona [moments after posting, Romney was declared the winner of both]. These contests are the newest states to be hailed by the media as exceptionally important and potentially deadly for Romney. It is hard to say if this is truly accurate. The most consistant aspects of this race have been unpredictability and rapid changes of fortune. However, Romney is and has been in trouble since he lost both Iowa (after a recount) and South Carolina in rapid succession. But, his trouble started long before even that, as polling showed huge (but temporary) swings behind virtually every “non-Romney” candidate in the race. More and more, the narrative of this race seems to be the story of how Mitt Romney somehow did not become the GOP nominee. Despite these troubles, the widespread declaration of Romney’s inevitability was not based on flimsy logic. He is, and continues to be, the only reasonable and responsible choice that the republicans have. His inability to secure a victory is the result of trends within the GOP that have come to a head over the last three years.

David Brooks‘ last column was largely a personal lamentation on this subject. My interpretation of his column is that the GOP has retained two destructive trends that have only grown larger and more destructive. Primarily, the republicans have adopted an increasingly pragmatic attitude in their practice of politics, and a willingness justify means with ends. Ironically, this has resulted in the adoption of increasingly impractical rhetoric that they calculate helps them win elections. Those who refuse to adopt this rhetoric are publicly vilified.

That which composes the checklist of positions considered to be part of the new rhetoric or “republican purity test” that Brooks refers to is inconsistant, often archaic, and requires a great deal of cognitive dissonance to accept. The principal origins of conservatism/republicanism have been perverted into slogans and boiled down talking points that no longer represent the application of a once nuanced system of logic and values. The party of principals has transformed into a party that represents little more than a confused tapestry of populism.

In congress, this system can have tremendous results for the GOP. The party is more cohesive and members are less willing to break rank. I suspect this is often because many members see their reelection and potentially permanent incumbency as a near certainty if they remain within the protective enclosure of their party’s rhetoric. But in the presidential primary, as Books said, “It’s a series of heresy trials in which each of the candidates accuse the others of tribal impurity.” The practical results of this are undeniably bad for the Republican’s presidential prospects. The fragments of republican party, which have now been conditioned to never accept compromise, find it impossible to coalesce. This a problem of the GOP’s own design.

When Obama was elected, many of the more mentally maleable pundits suggested that the Republican party had reached a point of such weakness that there was great potential for it to devolve into an impotent regional party. Those statements were asinine and never repeated after the emergence of the Tea Party and the GOPs many congressional victories. That is, until now. While it is extremely unlikely that some sort of regional and neutered GOP will emerge in the near future, its current path is untenable. If Romney fails to be the nominee these trends will only get worse before they get better in the “not democrats” party.

 

 

Love and the War Over Contraception

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A belated happy Valentines day to all our readers. How fitting that the debate over contraception erupted just as we were approaching the week of the holiday of love?

This story first entered the mainstream about two weeks ago, within a week Obama had announced a “compromise.” Some of the smartest talking heads were left confused as to why Obama had chosen to announce the move in the way they did. Republican’s reaction to this story have generally boiled down to claiming that this move was Obama continuing a war on religion.   No matter your opinion on the issue of the federal government respecting a Catholic claim of “conscience clause” violation, some of the rhetoric used has been without shame.

On “This Week” Mitch McConnell did, as expected, an tremendous job at explicitly stating the rhetoric which is generally only implicitly referenced by his like because of how indefensible it is.

He said, “the government dosn’t get to decide what religious people what their religious beliefs are, they get to decide that…this is about the free exercise of religion.” Somehow, for McConnell, a religious organization paying an insurance for contraceptives for its employees is equal to the government dictating religious beliefs. This kind of rhetoric begs the question – what he would say about a theocracy that actually dictates religious beliefs? Mr. McConnell’s willingness to be so loose in his portrayal of this issue is a perfect example of how legitimate discussions often devolve into zealotry and mud slinging. I suspect Mr. McConnell is making this claim because he knows that if the debate is about contraception he will lose, but if it is about religious freedom he can win it.

On the other hand, those lamenting this as what you get when you have a national healthcare system actually have a case to make. Indeed, national standards in health care mean precisely that everyone’s health care coverage will be in some way standardized. This means a base line that not everyone will agree with. Where that baseline should be is definitely up for debate, and whether or not we should even have that baseline is an important budgetary and moral discussion.

However, notion that there exists a widely acknoledged constitutional “conscience clause” principal is patently false. During the Bush administration, laws were passed that specifically allowed for conscience clause like benefits for Catholic institutions. These laws would have been unnecessary if such a right existed in our constitution. But, even the republicans know, there is no constitutional right not to follow federal law because you have a religious or moral objection to it. This kind of provision is only done on a case by case basis because as a potential constitutional principal it is horribly problematic. That, and the small fact that it is simply NOT within the constitution.

 

Obama’s Modest Proposals

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This time last week, President Obama gave his State of the Union. It seems like a lot longer ago than that because the speech basically went unnoticed by the time the weekend came around. Reactions were mixed, but the chief criticism seems to be that the speech amounted to little more than several popular and small proposals. Krauthammer, Brooks and others were unsatisfied by the lack of grandeur that once characterized Obama’s policy oriented rhetoric.

But the reality is that any large scale mandate is out of the question at this point. It would end up being opposed by Republicans out of the spirit of turning Obama into a one term president by making him look legislatively impotent and it would work. Any large enough piece of legislation would have something in that could be labeled as unforgivably objectionable and Republicans would harp on it or they would just lie (death panels! – Politifact’s lie of the year).

Most people are tired of broad rhetoric and want a specific plan of action.

What Obama has done is exactly what he should be doing. Despite what my crush over at ABC (Amy Walter) thinks, this was Clintonian triangulation at its finest. Obama is trying to make it as difficult as possible for the GOP to claim ideological differences to bills as possible. This way, when the Republicans attempt to prevent a entirely agreeable bill (e.g., The Puppies Are Cute 2012 bill) from passing Mitch McConnell will have a hard time claiming that it is socialism or otherwise ideologically objectionable. More than anything, Obama needs to show leadership, action and progress… this comes from congress passing bills. One deal can lead to a second and a third.

So yes, he is starting this new legislative “age” with what should be relatively easy stuff.

The proposals that he has suggested are unquestionably bi-partisan and have genuine support from both sides. In fact, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (a Republican who was on the super committee) said, “Like most of the other speeches, I find myself agreeing with about 80 percent of what he says, but disagreeing with about 80 percent of what he does.” While I’m not sure about the second half of that quote, the first half, at the very least, demonstrates agreement on the broad strokes. Most notable are Obama’s long standing proposals concerning tax reform.

Klein points out in Mitch Daniel’s response he actually flat out agreed with Obama’s proposal to cut tax exemptions from the wealthy. You might be wondering how that does not count as class warfare…I don’t know either. Nonetheless, this is a great first step towards equity in the tax code and such a move would bring in an estimated non-trivial amount of 30 billion dollars a year; that’s to say nothing of what might be gained by closing loopholes for major corporations. In fact, a study concluded that if the government was able to make evasion (/avoidance) impossible top tax rates could be raised over to nearly 83% without impacting the economy. That’s probably not completely accurate (nor possible), but it suggests that the impact Obama’s “Buffett tax” on the economy is not nearly as horrible as many Republicans are suggesting.

But therein lies the slippery slope that the rich and republicans fear. What follows is the real line of thinking that prompts the banal “class warfare” and “soaking the rich” arguments: If we can practically draw the line at 30%, why not 83%? How can government possibly justify TAKING more private property when it is so disagreeably utilized today?

I addressed many these ideas in “Seven Compelling Reasons to Tax the Rich” because they are legitimate and really important questions about personal property and the social contract America wants to have with its most powerful individuals. Indeed, it is dangerous for the government to begin to think that it knows the proper amount of money for people to be earning. The government should not take a tax increase on anyone (even the rich) lightly. We should also recognize that many of the individuals whose income is above 1m do not find themselves in that income group every year. But at the very least, no matter how you earn it, those taking in astonishing sums of money should be paying at least what those taking in significantly less should be paying. We can safely draw the line there. For all 235,413 of you.