Kausfiles: A mostly political weblog.

New York is the New Friday

Why watch Saturday Night Live in L.A. when the twitters from back East say it's weak? Does that mean TV shows now have a New York problem like movies have a Friday problem? Movies: If twitterers don't like on Friday, it will die on Saturday. TV: If the East doesn't like it, it will die in West? Just asking! Not my industry. ... 1:45 A.M.

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I agree with Charlie Cook that redistricting reform--an end to gerrymandering--is at least as important as campaign finance reform. Safe seats mean more voter alienation (voting doesn't produce changes) and less moderation (competitive districts will tend to produce candidates who fight for the center). But I didn't understand this Cook complaint:

There is more straight-ticket voting now than in the past. Few voters seem to value electing a candidate with the willingness and temperament to reach across the aisle. When President George W. Bush's policies and politics became unpopular, moderate-to-liberal Republicans were the ones who paid the highest price at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008.

Likewise, if President Obama or congressional Democrats are out of favor in November 2010, conservative-to-moderate Democrats will lose in far greater numbers than their liberal colleagues. And the cycle of hyperpartisanship will continue.

If gerrymandering were eliminated, that would mean more swing districts won by moderate Dems or moderate GOPs--but that would mean more moderate Dems losing in a Republican year, not fewer, no? That's what having a competitive district means. It would also mean more moderate Republicans losing in a Democratic year. It's the swing districts that swing!  Moderates of either party have a shorter life expectancy. Redistricting reform doesn't change that. And reform would mean more swing districts. ...

P.S.: I understand that Cook is lamenting the rise of straight ticket voting, but why? We want competitive districts, I always thought, in part so voters can have an impact by throwing more of the bums out, not so voters can elect bipartisan moderates who hold their seats for life whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. In itself, party line voting seems like something to be encouraged, because it makes it more likely that an incoming President will have a Congress that is, at least initially, supportive. That would make the ideas of the national parties, as elaborated in national campaigns mean more.  ... Another way to put it (I think): The problem Cook's discussing isn't really an excess of partisanship, it's an artificial shortage of centrists within each party, which is not necessarily the same thing. ... [Jesus, you're sounding like Ezra Klein-ed Tentative yet condescending! Took years to perfect.]

P.P.S.; Good Cook point about how the gerrymandered House makes even the un-gerrymandered Senate more partisan less moderate. ....2:26 A.M.

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Why the 6-Week Deadline for Health Care Matters

"Orszag Sees Health Law in Six Weeks" (Bloomberg): OMB Director Peter Orszag didn't really predict a health care law in six weeks--he said "The goal would be, yes, over the next six weeks or so, maybe sooner." We know all about "goals." But the 6-week frame is not an accident, because something happens in 6 weeks: elections. If Democrats lose big gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, that could produce a new wave of jitters among already skittish Congressional swing Democrats (a possibility Charles Lane pointed to months ago). That's one of the extraneous factors left out of some sophisticated positive assessments of the bill's chances. Better to get it done before the ax might fall. ... Meanwhile, Ezra Klein says we're on the 10 yard line. Sure! But we are playing 43-man Squamish. ... 1:06 A.M.

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The Grants of Others: Lynne Munson's suggested NEA apology is a whole lot better than actual National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman's actual statement, which is just a tad unapologetic and defensive about the Breitbart.com conference call scoop:

a) These were organizations that depend on the NEA for grants. It's not that they were explicitly asked by NEA and other government officials to support the president's policy agenda. It's that they were asked to vaguely but passionately get with the program by people who seemed to have an uncomfortably flimsy idea of the boundaries between promoting the President's public service plans and making art and community organizing ... and supporting the president's policy agenda. Maybe it's all one big activity--the president's "very aggressive agenda" at the national level, with "service" at the local level meaning being an "agent of change" and learning to "connect with ... progressive groups" (as White House official Buffy Wicks put it on the conference call). Praxis! Cue will.i.am. ...

b) I don't read the what's said on the conference transcript as an explicit call to support Obamacare (though several grantees did just that a few days later). It's a call to support the public service initiative. But what if you are a potential NEA grant applicant and you don't believe there should be a public service initiative? Maybe, like the late Jack Kemp, you think it's a waste of talent. That particular political conviction is apparently officially inconceivable. If you share it, don't expect a fat grant anytime soon. Robert Heinlein interpreters hoping to stage a community theater production of Stranger in A Strange Land: The Musical are advised to look elsewhere.

c) It's obviously not just the fault of the one NEA official who participated in the call and has now been relieved of his assignment, but rather a problem in the culture of the incoming Obamaites--at least the incoming Obamaites who are sufficiently low-level and unwonkish to be assigned to the NEA. Maybe Landesman should order a viewing of The Lives of Others to underscore to them what (in admittedly extreme form) people who worry about politicizing funding for the arts are worried about.

d) Sure, the meeting tarnished the NEA but it also tarnished Obama's public service initiative, which now looks like it's being propped up by subtly coerced participation from government grantees, and steered into being an "agent of change" for "progressive" causes. I await the strongly-worded denunciation from prominent fellow national service supporters like Newsweek's Jon Meacham.

e) Who is this "former NEA Director of Communications" that Landesman keeps referring to? Does he have a name? Is he an un-person? Are they airbrushing him out of group photos? Is his name an unpronounceable symbol, like Prince's? Landesman has only been on the job a few days and he's sounding East German already. 

5:07 P.M.

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