Full Blows (With Distinction)

Posted by on . No comments.

During most of the Republican primary, one of the main lines of attack against Romney by the more conservative candidates focused on Romney’s potential inability to distinguish himself from Obama. Certainly, now that each campaign has taken the “gloves” off we can see distinguishing the two candidates has not been a problem. The media has an interest in playing up the conflict between the two campaigns in favor of some academic and limitedly useful narrative about the two candidates being similar. That conflict has surrounded around the obvious: healthcare, taxes, Romney’s time at Bain, Obama’s handling of the economy and commentary on the political conflicts of the day (e.g., fast and furious). Unsurprisingly, many of the attacks provide for a great deal of a sizzle, but little else. In the worst cases, attacks with the least substance actually rely on partisan about-faces. While these rhetorical battles over cable media have drawn clear partisan lines in the sand for the media and attentive followers, they have done little to grab the public’s attention and move numbers.

The most meaningful battle ought to be over the economy. However, there are big problems with this simple statement (which is so often repeated with such confidence one might be forgiven to assume its irreproachability). Yes, in general, the state of economy is unquestionably the most salient issue in voter’s minds, but it is unclear how we correlate the economic data with voting. Unemployment numbers are frequently used and will be harped on by the Republicans, but the continued release of unhappy unemployment numbers do not seem to be terribly effective in impacting Obama’s political numbers. But monthly unemployment reports are not the only economic measuring tool, nor are they arguably the best. Not by a long shot. Rather, they are an easy topic of conversation for pundits to pontificate about each month. Actually measuring the state of economy and how it will impact voters is a far more complicated process, as described by The New York Times’ Nate Silver.

What is most striking to me comes from a Fox News poll that shows voter’s confidence in each candidate’s “plan for the economy.” While Obama’s numbers were low, with only 41 percent saying he has a clear plan for the economy, Romney’s numbers were even worse. Only 27 percent said that Romney had a clear plan for the economy. This is a critical number for a campaign that is running as the immediate solution to the “Obama economy” problem. At the end of this election, Romney has no choice but to actually introduce himself and something that resembles a cogent plan for the economy. His reluctance to go into any detail now is smart. The Democrats can not criticize a plan that has yet to be detailed, and criticism for being vague is far from salient. But “the plan” has to come out right after voters begin to pay attention and before the media landscape becomes totally unwieldy.

Elizabeth Warren Heritage Controversy Round-up

Posted by on . No comments.

Despite its enormous publicity, the Massachusetts’ race for US Senate between incumbent Senator Scott Brown and challenger Elizabeth Warren has not had a public poll conducted in nearly half a month. The last polls provided overwhelming evidence that the race was then (and probably currently as well) a tie. This is good news for Warren, who was down by as much as 17 points in some polls only three months ago.

Warren has benefited from receiving an unequivocal nomination from her party via 95 percent of the Massachusetts Democratic Convention’s delegates and from her recent influx of money. As a archetypical Democrat running in the liberal haven that is Massachusetts, she has been fully embraced the democratic political machine. Yet, the number one story out of this campaign has unquestionably been about questions concerning Warren’s heritage. Thus far, her candidacy has largely been defined by her self-identification as a Cherokee. This story quickly went from a scandalous accusation from the Boston Herald to a story that received widespread national attention.

The facts of the case seem to be relatively clear. Warren had, inspired and informed via family lore, self-identified as a Cherokee for her entire life. Her ensuing actions reflect someone of that mindset: she had a hand in writing a Cherokee cookbook and she identified as a Cherokee in official documents (including applications to law school). However, it is seems possible that her identification is an erroneous one. Without any proof offered by her, the unearthing of evidence that contradicts some prior claims made regarding the Warren heritage and a reversal of New England Historical Genealogical Society’s position on the matter to “no evidence” and “no opinion,” all that is left is family lore. But it is understandable, if not admirable, that even in the face of a media controversy, Warren would not reverse her self-identification like a controversial political position. When asked directly about this controversy on Morning Joe she said, “This is how I grew up, Joe. I’m not backing off from my family. It became clear I didn’t get anything for law school applications or for college or for any of the jobs I was hired for.” Indeed, she shouldn’t back off her family and the facts seem to indicate that this was a fairly innocent aspect of her life. However, the second part is not accurate. To third-party observers that must rely on the news, those facts have not been presented clearly at all. That case has yet to be made. Nor was it accurate when she later said in the interview “we got the facts out there early on it.”

Warren goes on to blame Brown and the Herald for exploiting the issue. But upon looking back at how the initial questions and controversy was handled, I concluded that Warren herself largely sparked the controversy. Her initial responses to reporters were evasive and often times inarticulate to the point of inaccurate. The statement later released by her campaign was good, but late, and seldom repeated in front of cameras or reporters. Unfortunately, this was very much a message that needed repeating. Instead, the candidate appeared to deliberately avoid addressing the issue head-on and in-person. The handling of the issue was so poor that the Boston Globe eventually reversed its position that the the issue was a non-story and made it a front-page story. Even today, many remain unclear as to the facts because Warren has not repeated them and the news has no reason to report the death of a controversy.

It is yet to be seen whether this will have any impact on the actual election. Currently polling indicates that it probably wont. There is a lot of time and money separating now and our inevitably intense political Fall. Warren should be able to move on from this.

Bain, Booker and backtracking

Posted by on . 5 comments.

The story of the day originates once again from Meet The Press. Yesterday, Newark mayor Cory Booker criticized the Obama campaign for their ads attacking Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital. Almost immediately after, the rising-star in the Democratic party put out a YouTube video to reaffirm his support for Obama and clarify his comments. Thus arrived a made-for-cable-news story of how the media powerhouse that is Cory Booker drew outside of the party lines and had likely his knuckles rapped across by the Obama camp.

The YouTube video has an unequivocal title, “Mayor Booker Expands on his Support for President Obama.” Contrived enough that it made me a little uncomfortable. Not Booker’s typical politics. While a different interpretation could be had, its playing in the media like a massive flip. This morning Scarborough called it a hostage video.

The Obama camp wants to get rid of this story. They sent Axelrod out to comment and he essentially dodged the question of whether it was the campaign who instigated the backtrack. His calculus is that this will be a 1-2 day story, so he doesn’t have to explicitly state that the Obama camp asked Booker to backtrack. I agree with this, as there is more meat to the original story of Booker contradicting the anti-Bain narrative.

The anti-Bain ads in questionattack Romney as a robber baron. The accuracy of the characterization of Bain capital and Romney’s tenure there is questionable, but the effectiveness of this line of attack is solid. There is a pre-existing narrative established by Newt Gingrich and the Occupy Wall Street movement that Obama’s team is utilizing and adapting for presidential politics. Without a big media story that provides widespread clarification (and inoculation) as to the exact nature of Bain Capital’s operations, this narrative is the one that will stick. This is a huge problem for Romney in his attempt to capture middle-to-low income independents in states like New Hampshire. But this message has limited persuasive ability. Moderate conservatives, including Reagan Democrats, will see the nuanced point Booker was trying to make, which is that an attack on all of private equity is not fair. In fact, that is precisely what the Republican statement in response to all of this said, along with the continuously laughable claim that Obama wants destroy the free market economy.

Some might say Romney needs to provide a palatable message about what he did at Bain Capital. A far better strategy has Romney waiting until the country starts paying attention and moving to the middle to make a simple yet salient argument about the role of government in helping those left behind by efficient capitalism. But, in all likelihood, precisely what Booker was criticizing will happen – the GOP will take this as support for their message that Obama is attacking the free market.

Negative, ham-handed, perhaps even nauseating.

EDIT: GOP rapid response video. Unclear if they continue to run with this. 

Married to the Economy?

Posted by on . 5 comments.

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!”

Posted by on . No comments.

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

Posted by on . No comments.

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

Posted by on . No comments.

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

Posted by on . No comments.

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

Posted by on . No comments.

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.