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The Mistake: What will Hillary Clinton bring to the Obama administration? British sourcing on this one--an unnamed "veteran" Obama "aide" tells "a friend"--but the ring of truth:
"He's making a mistake." As one of the [Obama aides] participants told a friend later that night: "She'll do a good job but she'll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can't bear the drama again." ... [snip]
The Obama aides who went for coffee on Wednesday discussed how the initial tentative talks between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were leaked by the Clinton camp, then how every twist and turn of the financial vetting found its way into the media. ...[snip]
They can't help themselves," the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. "Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They're positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm." [E.A.]
Where is Gina Gershon now that we need her? ... [via Lucianne] 11:50 A.M.
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Saturday, November 22, 2008
More signs of the Gran Salida of Illegal Immigrants: Emergency room visits are dropping. In Arizona
In the Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, the director of the ED commented that 45% of adults and 80% of children seeking ED care at the hospital emergency department are Hispanic. The economy in the area is getting worse and the hospital believes that many of the patients that usually come to the ED have left town
It's not just Arizona--a commenter from North Carolina notes:
Around NC, the poor economy has illegals leaving in droves…no work.
Our ED volumes are down. Most ED patients are those without insurance (lay-offs), so the family doctors won’t see them. Hospital census is down by my estimated guess, 10%. We have 3 ICUs, one is completely closed, the other two at about 60%. Hours being cut throughout.
P.S.: There's a less entrada too--"Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years ..." [Thanks to alert reader W.O.] 11:53 P.M.
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Friday, November 21, 2008
The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.
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Mickey's Assignment Desk: 2000 words on "The Agony of Richard Holbrooke." He can't just be sitting still and patiently waiting for Hillary to make up her mind about whether she wants to be Secretary of State. ... Assigned to: Lloyd Grove. David Ignatius. Or someone young, who doesn't want a foreign policy job someday. (Michael Crowley?) ... Update: Reader emails that "[H]olbrooke WANTS hillary to take sec of state -- that's the only way he gets back into the state dept." OK. Bet he's still been in agony! 11:53 A.M.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mitt Romney writes that in a "managed bankruptcy" of the auto industry
[M]anagement as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.
Why "must" Alan Mulally of Ford go? He practically just got there (in late 2006). He's not a Detroit lifer like GM's Rick Wagoner. He can't be held responsible for Ford's sorry condition--he was brought in to fix Ford's sorry condition. A new face recruited from a successful outside company (Boeing) he seems like just the sort of person Romney says should be hired. Is Romney really sure recruiting another new CEO--who'll have to relearn whatever Mulally has learned--will be so much better? Maybe Romney knows something about Mullaly that I don't. Or maybe he's failing to discriminate among three different companies in a way that can't be the mark of a good "turnaround" artist. ... P.S.: For one thing, Mulally hasn't killed off Ford's new products the way GM and Chrysler seem to be doing--perhaps because Ford has more hope of actually selling its new products. ... 1:43 A.M.
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Crocodiles: Good to see my father's most famous quote back in the news. It's about how hard it was for him as a judge to be uninfluenced by the possibility that voters might boot him from office if they don't like his decision. The quote is freshly relevant because everybody's wondering whether the current California Supreme Court has the balls to invalidate Proposition 8, which reversed that same Court's ruling on gay marriage.
Now the moderately conservative state Supreme Court is being asked to take an even riskier step -- to overturn the November voter initiative that reinstated the gay-marriage ban and possibly provoke a voter revolt that could eject one or more of the justices from the bench. ... [snip]
Kaus later said that as hard as he tried to decide cases impartially, he was never sure whether the threat of a recall election was influencing his votes.
"It was like finding a crocodile in your bathtub when you go to shave in the morning," Kaus said. "You know it's there, and you try not to think about it, but it's hard to think about much else while you're shaving."
I suspect the crocodile effect won't even come into play in the state court's review of Prop. 8. True, the court could throw it out if they decide it amounts to a wholesale "revision" of the state constitution, rather than a mere "amendment." But the arguments that it's a "revision" are implausible. (See Prof. Volokh's analysis.) Precedent and reptile are in accord. I'll be shocked if Prop. 8 isn't upheld.
Does that mean gay-marriage advocates should stop bringing lawsuits? Prof. Althouse asks:
Why should a minority group that perceives itself as oppressed accept the will of the majority? Why should the intransigency of the political majority convince them that they should refrain from using the courts?
The answer is it shouldn't. Gay rights groups remain perfectly free to argue that Prop. 8 is invalid under the federal Equal Protection clause. But they don't want to argue that case, apparently, because they are worried they'll lose.
Gay rights lawyers, fearful that a high court defeat on same-sex marriage would set the movement back decades, have urged supporters to stay out of federal court.
With state constitutions amended, they may have no other judicial remedy. But it still seems simpler, and preferable just to wait a couple of years and overturn Prop. 8 at the ballot box. A democratic resolution will tend to stick. A judicial resolution will produce an ongoing, painful social battle (what abortion has been ever since Roe). ... 1:14 A.M.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Still not black enough! Sasha Frere-Jones disses Will.i.am. .. 10:23 P.M.
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Rahm: Yes on universal health care, noncommittal on card check. ... The hesitancy about card check would be more significant if Emanuel hadn't been talking to a business group. Still. ... 10:09 P.M.
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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Automobile is offering subscriptions for $6 annually. That includes a free tire gauge. I'm waiting until they offer free tires. ... P.S.: The way things are going could also throw in the New York Times. (Not just a subscription to the New York Times. The New York Times.) ... 8:39 P.M.
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Excitability + Aflatoxin = Iraq War Hillary! Atlantic backscratchers Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg are swooning over Secretary of State Clinton. Sullivan says it's "an inspired idea." Goldberg cites a passage that he says demonstrates Clinton has a "simultaneous mastery of the smallest details and of the biggest themes" that is "beyond impressive." Read it for yourself. Does it reflect Hillary's "uncommon knowledge"? Or is it, rather, an unremarkable politicians' statement that either tells Goldberg what he wants to hear ("You do not get people into a process ... unless the other side knows that your commitment to Israel is unshakable.") or makes Hillary someone Goldberg might like to promote for either political or beat-sweetening reasons? You make the call! ... P.S.: It does seem like he's always selling somethin'! ... P.P.S.: And Holbrooke doesn't know about the Middle East? ... Update: Dick Morris is making sense. Always a troubling sign. ...
Goldberg responds: "I plead guilty to the charge of political promotion." ... :6:28 P.M.
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A young Facebook/PayPal mogul is catching flak from his Silicon Valley peers for his alleged support of ... not Prop. 8**, but Numbers U.S.A., the highly effective "restrictionist" lobbying group. In particular, the mogul is said to have fallen under the sway of a "Christian right wing thinker" named "Rob" Morrow:
Earlier this year, Morrow wrote a paper called "The Bull Market in Politics." His thesis was that "government influence — over trade policy, social programs, decisions of war and peace — becomes much more important" to investors. One key policy area: immigration, where Morrow thinks there is a rising consensus for restrictions.
A politically driven drop in immigration has broad economic implications, especially on the housing market; with less population growth, housing prices will continue to suffer for much longer than most anticipate.
The Northern California beef against Morrow is that he's "not merely forecasting the market. He has cajoled his influential boss to spend money to make his forecast a reality." OK, but what about the forecast? The timing more or less fits, no? Real estate prices started to plummet just as expectations of imminent semi-amnesty were turning into the reality of harsher enforcement. Schools in immigrant heavy areas of L.A. for example, reported declining enrollments in 2006. The nationwide character of the Gran Salida became apparent, even to the press by early 2008. . It seems highly plausible to me that there is some non-trivial causality running between the decrease in the net inflow of illegal immigrants and the real estate bust--all the immigrants who have disappeared would have had to live somewhere. Even if they were renters, not buyers, they would ordinarily have bolstered the value of housing stock. (And some were buyers--search for "this borrower has gone back to Mexico and has no intention of returning.")
But you don't hear many MSM analysts making this obvious connection. It's odd, because you'd think the reporters who favor legalizing illegals and increasing immigration would want to be able to say, "We need more hard-working immigrants to buy our damn houses!" But they aren't saying it. Why? Is it because a) admitting that immigrant populations are declining contradicts the reigning bipartisan right-thinking line that illegal immigrants are here to stay, they're never going back, so therefore we have no choice but to legalize them? Also, b) once you admit that immigration flows affect the real estate market, you might also have to admit that they can affect other markets, like the labor market--where more immigrants would have the likely effect of driving down wages, especially for the unskilled workers who've been doing relatively badly recently. ...
**--The Prop. 8 list is here, though, for those who want to engage in distasteful and counterproductive boycotts. ... 12:58 A.M.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Lieberman keeps chair after anonymous private vote of Senate Dem caucus. Netroots unhappy. Uh, oh. Now they'll really hate the secret ballot. ... 11:53 A.M.
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"How Hard Can It Be?" Ex-National Reviewer David Frum tries to put his finger on what annoys him about what Sarah Palin symbolizes in the GOP (and why she's like Harriet Miers) ... 1:22 A.M.
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Monday, November 17, 2008
James Carville explains why Hillary's nomination as Secretary of State might be complicated by her husband's business dealings:
"She's not married to Todd Palin," Carville said, referring to the oil field worker and snowmobile champion who is married to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee.
Maybe that just accidentally came out sounding like snobby Clintonite arrogance. ... Hadn't had a dose of that for a few months--I didn't miss it. Did you? ... P.S.: Will the Clintonites--those who haven't defected to Obama--now be more obnoxious because they lost? ...11:50 A.M.
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Forget the "Fairness Doctrine," says the American Thinker. The Dems will try to knock out Rush Limbaugh with "localism." Even discounting for right-wing paranoia, you have to think that making broadcasters consult with "leaders in the civic, religious, and non-profit sectors that regularly serve the needs of the community" is a recipe for a lot of makework meetings with self-promoting complainers and shakedown artists.**
There are three more interesting wrinkles, however:
1) The conservative strategy is to delay regulations until Obama is in power! Why this seemingly perverse approach?
The delay is critical, since once it is the Obama Administration leading the fight for rules which would shut down conservative talk radio, Republican Congressmen and Senators will find it easier to fight back. [E.A.]
Hmm. The same non-intuitive logic might apply to another issue I could think of. ...
2) Some broadcasters think McCain would have been worse, from their point of view, than Obama:
One broadcast lobbyist thinks broadcasters will be better off with Obama "only because you know where McCain's from on the issues. At least you're starting off with somewhat of a fresh slate with the Obama folks. There's not that instinctive 'let's go after the broadcasters.' "
3) There's a potential fratricidal conflict between "localism" requirements and minority broadcasters--or at least the Heritage Foundation thinks so:
"An Obama administration would definitely push stricter broadcaster controls on ownership and take more aggressive efforts on diversity, says James Gattuso, senior fellow for regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
"The question is what would an Obama administration do on localism: Would an Obama FCC pursue the moveon.org agenda of strong regulation to enforce local news and content?" he asks."Or would it side more with minority or smaller broadcasters who point out that the cost of regulation would fall disproportionately on minority- and women-owned stations."
**--It's not that diversity and consolidation don't seem valid issues. I wouldn't have a problem with a strict ownership limit that would require Clear Channel, say, to sell half its stations. Just unload them. Whether or not they were serving the "community," No complaints, no hearings, no self-appointed "representatives," no fuss, no muss. The problem is the tendency of liberals to promote not so much de-consolidation as the empowerment and consequent enrichment of their non profit allies.... 10:56 P.M.
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Autoshow Shocker: Ford debuts the new Mustang and it's ... not ugly. 10:10 P.M.
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Vodkapundit makes the basic point about Obama's Blackberry. ... You want the President to rely solely on information passed up the official chain through the White House gatekeepers? That way lies the Bay of Pigs! The chain of command is a lousy way to find out bad news. Emailing around seems like a pretty good way. Is it that much harder to secure than a phone call? Aren't Presidents trusted with the telephone? ... Paranoid P.S.: You have to wonder whether on some level this isn't an an attempt by the White House bureaucracy to control Obama. ... [via Insta] 8:28 P.M.
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Academics are always the last to know! Today, kf. Tomorrow ...
Kausfiles, Nov. 3--"Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004."
David Rohde, Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University and Director of the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Nov. 17--"Let's call John Kerry's loss in 2004 what it is: the luckiest thing to happen to Democrats in 40 years."
10:23 A.M.
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The NYT gloats that Chris Buckley and David Frum's exit suggests National Review has become an un-erudite "megaphone for Republican party orthodoxy" and "'intellectual defender of the Bush administration.'" I can name one issue where that was definitely not true, in part because there was no party orthodoxy and in part because most of the magazine's editors openly disagreed with the Bush administration. Begins with an "i." (And it's not Iraq. Or Iran.) . ... P.S.: Buckley seems to be basking in his Strange New Respect. If Frum wants to keep his street cred on The Corner, which I suspect he does, I counsel him not to follow suit. ... [via Gawker, which has suddenly become much more substantive. What happened to Julia Allison?.] 2:12 A.M.
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I dunno, I'm having trouble figuring out what Obama supporter Marty Peretz really thinks of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:
[T]he young Hillary was a fashionable leftie. No, she wasn't Bill Ayers. But her Wellesley commencement address was especially trite when trite was the rule. She worked for a communist law firm. She was faddish when independent thinking was what the country needed.
Hillary then went to Little Rock, armed with a Yale Law School diploma, and worked for another law firm, this one positively sleazy.
It goes on from there ...
Now, if Barack Obama has actually offered Hillary the post of secretary of state, he has reversed what most Americans thought was one of the much sought-after consequences of his nomination and his electoral victory. That is, sought after by the voters. And this was to end the Clinton dominion in American politics. That's certainly what the primaries were about. Once Obama freed himself and the party from the vice presidential blackmail almost everyone assumed that, with Joe Biden as their candidate's running-mate, the Democratic nominee did not need the experience of someone who'd visited 81 capitals for a day or two or who'd been to Bosnia "under fire" or who kissed Suha Arafat right only moments after the pampered lady had accused Israel of spreading cancer in the West Bank. ...
I believe Barack is playing with fire.
He's for Holbrooke. ... P.S: Don't recent events tend to support Marty's view? We're already worrying whether Hillary is scheming to maniuplate Barack (by making public the possibility of her becoming Secretary of State and implicitly threatening a rupture if she's not picked) before she even has the job. Maybe LBJ was wrong. Sometimes you want them outside the tent p------g in. ...The very reasons she might want the job (i.e., she doesn't have that much seniority or power in the Senate) are the reasons she couldn't do that much damage from the outside. ... 12:44 A.M.
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Future Unrecanters of America? On reflection, does Peter Beinart's well written Time cover essay on "The New Liberal Order" say anything other than, in essence, 'If Obama and the Democrats succeed in restoring the economy and stabilizing the government's finances without cutting popular programs or producing social disorder, they'll keep being reelected for decades'? Well, yeah. ... Beinart abstracts from the question of whether Obama and Democratic policies can actually achieve this winning result. It's one thing to say that if Obama tries to "shore up the American welfare state" it "won't divide his political coaliton." (They like the welfare state.) It's another thing to recognize that Medicare is heading for deep deficits and to figure out how to pay for it without imposing intolerable rationing. ... And of course Beinart just assumes that if Democrats give labor more power it won't significantly gum up the economy. Or that some Democrats won't reestablish no-work cash welfare under another name, giving the Republicans back one of their more potent issues. ...
P.S.: Beinart says
Obama doesn't have to turn the economy around overnight. After all, Roosevelt hadn't ended the Depression by 1936. Obama just needs modest economic improvement by the time he starts running for re-election ....
Are we sure of that? In a time of Faster Politics voters may want Faster Results. They're certainly not going to give Obama the time they gave FDR. ...
P.P.S.: I thought Dems would only succeed if they put a war against "Islamist totalitarianism" at "the center of their hopes for a better world"! Oh, well. Another day, another weltanschauung. ...
P.P.P.S.: Aren't now-recanted Iraq War supporters like Beinart about to unrecant their support, now that the war is going better? ... A prize for the reader who correctly guesses the first recantation-recanter. ... 11:42 P.M.
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Poor "Pulitzer" Chuck Philips! Patterico is on Philips' case, he doesn't seem about to give up, and he has a hot doc. ... P.S.: This isn't the embarrassing Philips screw-up that led to a spectacular LAT retraction in April. This is another, potentially more-than-embarrassing, incident--but also related to the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murder stories. ... 9:46 P.M.
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Sorry to miss the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon! ....9:34 P.M.
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Winner--The Newsom Rule: The Newsom Rule holds that it's almost always a bad idea for politicians to gloat that their side has won "whether you like it or not." That's what S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom did after a temporary gay marriage victory. Now California voters--influence by ads featuring Newsom's giddy, egomaniacal video boast-- have by a narrow margin stuck a gay marriage ban into the state constitution. ... [Is the Newsom Rule like Godwin's Law--ed Saying that anything is like Godwin's Law is itself a violation of Godwin's Law, I think] 4:19 P.M.
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Book Him on Three Counts of Failure to Transcend: Everyone wants to praise McCain's "gracious" concession speech. But it was shockingly tin-eared--especially the good-for-you-black-people beginning:
This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.
He went on and on--as if Obama's victory was all about race and not about a rejection of McCain or Republican governance. As if even if it had to do with race its rejection of bigotry was mainly of interest to African Americans as opposed to all Americans. As if the most important characteristic of the man most Americans chose over McCain was his skin color, etc. ... I know I'm overreacting, but McCain's tone seemed almost tribal. ... Maybe the problem was his distancing, clanging choice of pronoun--"theirs." Not "yours," let alone "ours." .. 3:26 P.M.
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Winner: Pork! Champion bacon-conduit Ted Stevens defeats challenger, despite a fresh multiple-count felony conviction, while death-to-earmark Skywalker McCain crashes and burns ... 1:35 P.M.
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Winner: Mike Murphy. The McCain loss unfolded pretty much exactly as he predicted back in August. ...
Loser: Mike Murphy. Nobody's resented more than a dissenter who turns out to have been right. ... 1:34 P.M.
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I See. I Saw. I Didn't Get 60: Hmm. As Obama surged to victory, further down on the ballot things were drifting in the opposite direction. Politico:
But as NRCC staffers returned to work Wednesday morning, many of them were breathing sighs of relief. A 20- or 22-seat loss is hardly a victory, but it’s not the sea-changing — and majority-robbing — 30-seat loss the Republicans suffered two years ago. Just a week ago, the NRCC staffers were braced for worse. But they say they saw the Democrats’ wave crest just a little too early — and that it was starting to recede as voters went to the polls. [E.A.}
See-Saw Effect, anyone? ... P.S.: Specifically, this would be the Downballot Hedge version of the See Saw, in which swing voters compensated for the bold, hopeful risk they took on Obama (including for overcoming any race prejudice) by gravitating back toward Republicans in their local Senate and House races. ... P.P.S.: Sorry, Mike! ... For background, search this post for "vertical ticket splitter," and search here for the original mirror-image version of the See Saw proposed by Reader M. ... 1:32 P.M.
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Grant Park: I was struck by two lists of virtues used by Obama in his acceptance speech--or rather by two omissions on those lists. [Emphasis added]
1.
To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you.
"Peace and security." Not "democracy" or "freedom." This is someone who doesn't want to seem in any way a neocon idealist.
2.
And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
No mention of "equality"--not even social equality. Nor "equality before the law." This is someone who doesn't want to seem in any way a leftish "redistributor." ... 1:51 A.M.
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Kinsley:
People who want divided government are afraid of politics.
I dunno. Maybe we're just afraid of card check. ... 6:09 P.M.
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kf Moment of Hope: The News. ... 6:04 P.M.
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Props: If California's Proposition 11--redistricting reform--passes, that will be at least a partial redemption of Gov. Schwarzenegger's reformist promise, squandered in his disastrous 2005 "year of reform." Prop. 11 doesn't apply to Congressional redistricting--Nancy wouldn't allow it. It only applies to state officeholders. But it's a start. ... Drug policy expert Mark Kleiman is torn about Prop. 5, in theory designed to end incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. (He calls it a "crock," but might vote for it anyway). ... Race preference opponent Ward Connerly comes out strongly against the anti-gay-marriage initiative (Prop. 8)--and without kausfiles' tortured legalism:
In an interview today with The Times, Connerly said he made the decision without telling the No-on-8 campaign consultants, and against the wishes of some of his political advisors.
“There are times when you have consider who you are,” Connerly said.
Connerly, whose wife is white, noted that when he got married in 1962, “the government in many parts of our country did not legally allow us to do that. I have never forgotten that.”
Kevin Drum has generally sensible recommendations on the other California ballot questions. (The only one I'm torn on is Prop. 4, for Patterico's reasons.) ... 2:49 P.M.
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My Obama Hangup: My main hangup in voting for Obama today is his support of "card check" legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. That would be both a violation of democratic priinciples and a practical drag on the economy, threatening to spread Detroit/UAW-like inefficiencies while reviving the wage-price spiral of the '70s.
If Obama wins, and Democrats gain the expected majorities in Congress, "card check" will be hard to stop. I'll even concede that it will be harder to stop "card check" under Obama than it would be to stop the equally significant, equally misguided "comprehensive immigration reform" under McCain. But there's still a chance--even a good chance. It's not easy to defend "card check" in public. Will Democrats want the public to know that carrying Big Labor's water was their first priority upon gaining unified control of the government? Press coverage won't help their cause. Some moderate Democratic Senators--Mark Warner?--might balk at cloture-time.
But suppose "card check" passes, and unions mount their expected organizing campaigns. If the new law has the expected semi-disastrous consequences, its impact will be partially self-limiting (unionized firms will lose business). And Democrats won't be able to avoid accountability for any economic deterioriation. It will certainly be a lot easier to reverse "card check" than reverse the impact of a failed immigration semi-amnesty. Misguided labor laws can be repealed (think Taft-Hartley). If a failed immigration law legalizes 12 million new Americans and attracts another 12 million illegals hoping to become legal, that will create irrevocable 'facts on the ground"--including millions of new voters and political support for further amnesty.
Isn't a focus on these discrete legislative issues inappropriate, given the grand election themes of war, peace, justice, liberty, hope and change? Not really. If you look at what Clinton actually accomplished in his 8 years, you could be excused for giving a prominence to the welfare reform of 1996--a prominence vastly exceeding the issue's coverage in the press. The same would be true of "card check," though I suspect with a different historical verdict. Both laws alter fundamental economic institutions, with consequences that tend to outlive presidencies.
Still, Obama's virtues outweigh the threat of this one bill. He promises to calm down the world in a way John Kerry, say, could not--and I supported Kerry in 2004 largely because of his global hatred-lowering potential. His choice of advisers, so far, is confidence-inspring. It's hard to predict what he'll do once elected--maybe he'll replace Jason Furman with Amiri Baraka. But all indications suggest he's a steady, inclusive, perhaps overly cautious and conventional leader. (Examples: Jim Johnson as veep-vetter, Joe Biden as VP--and: John Kerry,rumored to be Obama's Secretary of State. A Trifecta of Usual Suspects.) And don't forget health care.
Time to go vote for him. With hope, even. 10:45 A.M.
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Sister Sagjah: There was some sniping when Mary Battiata suggested an Obama victory might render unfashionable
heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit.
Here's Obama in Nevada last Saturday (in an interview broadcast Monday):
"I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. ... [snip] Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What's wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don't have to pass a law, but that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear -- I'm one of them." [E.A.]
It's not clear anyone will pay attention to Obama on this. But it's not clear they won't. ...12:44 A.M.
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Monday, November 3, 20008
Thank you, Ohio! Tomorrow, if all goes as expected, Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004. What would have happened if Kerry had won? 1) He would have presided over a slow motion loss, or continuing stalemate, in Iraq. No way Kerry would ever have approved the "surge." 2) He would also have presided over the current housing and financial collapse that has both broken economic growth and, apparently, destroyed any chances of the incumbent party retaining the White House. Democrats don't bear the main blame for this crisis, but is there any reason to think they would have prevented it? I can't think of one. We'd be looking at a Republican wave instead of a Democratic sweep. ... 7:46 P.M.
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The Tamar Jacoby Prize: The Republican candidate for president seems poised to lose the Latino vote despite his longtime championing of illegal immigrant legalization. Some would argue this demonstrates the poverty of attempting to win the Latino vote by championing illegal immigrant legalization. (Maybe Latino voters, like other Americans, worry mainly about the economy, the war, and schools.) But sophisticated policy journalists know this is plodding, linear thinking. The coveted kausfiles Tamar Jacoby Prize goes to the first writer to argue, as if it were self-evident, that McCain's abject failure pursuing a Rovian Hispandering strategy dramatically vindicates the Rovian Hispandering strategy. ... I mean, that strategy must be right, because unless politicans are convinced of it, you know, there's not much hope of actually passing illegal immigrant legalization, which is bipartisan and therefore good. ... [Offer void where applicable. Tamar Jacoby and members of her immediate family are eligible!] 3:34 P.M.
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MSNBC's "First Read" on how the early voting results seem to mirror its overall poll results:
One more thing: 30% say they’ve already voted, and those voters break [for Obama] by an identical 51%-43% margin.
Hmm. Is this breakdown in early voting really such good news for Obama? You'd think, given the enthusiasm gap between the two candidates' supporters, that Obama voters would tend to be early voters. That means the voters left to vote on election day will be the more undecided, more pro-McCain voters, no? The final results should be less pro-Obama than the early results. Which means if the early voting is 51-43, then the overall MSNBC poll showing a 51-43 Obama edge is off--and Obama is actually less than 8 points ahead, no? Just asking! ... 2:24 P.M.
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Greg Sargent is shocked by John McCain's "lying."** Those of us who opposed McCain's campaigns for illegal immigrant legalization--sorry, "comprehensive reform"--are maybe less shocked. McCain routinely lied during the immigration debate when it suited him--saying the illegals he legalized would "not be in any way rewarded for illegal behavior" (BS), that they'd have to go to the "back of the line behind everybody else" (not the most important line), and that he does "not support nor would I ever support any services provided to someone who came to this country illegally" (BS he does and BS he did). ... He got away with this serial dissembling because most reporters thought he was on the right and compassionate side of the issue. And, of course, that he got away with it may help explain why he dissembled in the first place--he knew he wouldn't be punished by the press if he deceived to get what he wanted. ... Now he knows he'll be punished, but he feels he has no choice (if he's going to get what he wants). ... That's a distinction, I guess. But not necessarily a moral one. ...
**--If the "lie" Sargent complains about isn't good enough for you, here's a better one. ...12:26 P.M.
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Sunday, November 2, 2008
Dept. of Heterodoxy: Anti-liberal, anti-Obama, anti-LAT blogger Patterico comes out against California's Prop. 8, which would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage (after the state Supreme Court ruled the constitution required gay marriage):
I am angry about the California Supreme Court’s attempt to take this matter out of voters’ hands, and part of me wants to support the measure just to flip the bird to the justices. Ultimately, however, I support the right of homosexuals to marry one another, and so I will be voting no.
I'm pretty sure I will too, for similar reasons. The problem is that if the state Supreme Court is sustained in creating this right, it will be inevitably tempted to create other, more problematic constitutional rights. ("Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them," says a man who may soon be in a position to insure this "expansion" picks up steam.) We'll wind up in a Rose Bird world in which almost all significant disputes involve contending "rights" and are therefore to be decided by judges, not voters. ... I'd vote for a ballot proposition that merely reversed the Court and kicked the gay marriage issue back to the legislature and the voters. But that's not what we're being asked to vote on. We're being asked to keep the matter out of the legislature's hands--just in the other direction. ... P.S.: Patterico got 267 comments. Those are HuffPo numbers, no? ... P.P.S.: Patterico also supports California's animal rights Proposition 2. Come home, Matthew Scully! ...
Update: Alert reader G.D. notes that the gay marriage issue was already out of the legislature's hands even before the Court ruling, thanks to Proposition 22, which amended the Family Code in 2000 to define marriage as man-woman only. Because it passed as an initiative statute, Prop. 22 could not have been simply overturned by the legislature. Prop. 22 was what the state Supreme Court overturned, declaring that it violated the state constitution. Prop. 8--being voted on Tuesday--would write the gay marriage ban into the state constitution, thus overturning theCcourt. But--a big caveat--it would only take a majority vote on another constitutional initiative, in the future, to overturn Prop. 8. The California Constitution is easy! ... Which leads to G.D.'s implicit question: What's the big difference between the solution of merely reversing the Court decision--which would leave an initiative statute (Prop 22) in place that could only be overturned by a majority of the voters--and Prop. 8's solution, which would leave a constitutional ban in place that could also be overturned by a majority of voters? Either way, there's a ban, the state Court couldn't reverse it, but 50% + 1 of the voters could. My answer: I'm willing to vote to overturn the Court's decision, rendering the state constitution mute on the subject of gay marriage. I'm not willing to write a gay marriage ban into the constitution. I'm for gay marriage. I wouldn't vote for the statutory ban of Prop 22 either. Why ask me to do it--especially if you could achieve the same practical effect by just reversing the Court's decision? ... And of course you could write an inititiative constitutional amendment that voided both the Court's decision and Prop. 22, leaving the issue for the legislature to decide. ... 10:38 P.M.
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Isn't it pretty clear that the reason Obama is contesting McCain's home state of Arizona isn't to humiliate McCain or because Arizona might actually be decisive (those scenarios are fairly complicated) but as a media strategy to generate Election Week MSM stories about how McCain is on the defensive, etc.--stories that will demoralize Republicans and help Obama win the real battleground states? ... P.S.: It's working. On MTP, Tom Brokaw had "Arizona" at the top of his list of contested states, as part of a how-things-have-changed-for-McCain analysis. It's almost as if the MSM is playing along! .. .8:46 P.M.
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Not over! At this point in New Hampshire, had Hillary even cried yet? No. ... [Don't give McCain any ideas--ed. He's tried A! He's tried B. ...] ... P.S.: Remember that the Two Electorates Theory (those not following the election are less well informed than in the past) plus the Feiler Faster Thesis (they can inform themselves very quickly at the last minute) = Volatility and Unpredictability. ... 7:35 P.M.
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