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Thursday, May 08, 2008

The Next Right
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Patrick Ruffini, Soren Dayton and I are launching a new project, The Next Right.


Soren Dayton
says the "Republican Party is at a transitional point" - that the Right's "interest groups have become profoundly transactional and trivial in scope" and that we are heading for a significant reorientation.

I agree. In many ways, the Right has lost its logic. When tax rates were up to 70%, and the unintended consequences of the New Deal, Great Society programs and other social engineering policies were wreaking havoc across the economy, there was plenty of motivating energy for the Right to create and mobilize a Movement. But when, during a period of full employment and general growth, you're debating, say, whether tax rates should be 39.6% or 35.6%...well, you've got a less compelling raison d'etre for your Movement.

Meanwhile, Republicans have pursued the Iron Law of Oligarchy: it is the tendency of organization to devolve power to smaller groups of people, due to the "technical indispensability of leadership, the tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests". It's pretty basic public choice theory. Much of the DC-based infrastructure on the Right - Republican politicians, the advocacy organizations and non-profits, the massive, campaign-oriented fundraising machines that spring up in each cycle - has become the entrenched bureaucracy seeking its own promulgation.

That is not a sustainable state of affairs. The Republican Party isn't serving the Right, and the Right isn't likely to continue serving the Republican Party.

From time to time, when it becomes necessary to throw off such entrenched politicians, we must provide new guards to ensure our future security. What those new guards may be, nobody knows. But I hope The Next Right will be a useful place to discuss what the Right has become, what the Right could still be and how we can get it there.

Announcing the site,
Patrick Ruffini
writes...
Put simply, the party, and in many cases, the movement, has lost its moorings. Earmarks exploded ten-fold, and it wasn't under a Democratic Congress. In this winter's primary, we saw the once mighty fiscal-social-national conservative coalition turned in on itself, with economic conservatives pitted against social conservatives. And too many of the "experts" in the Presidential campaigns this cycle failed to modernize the way the party does business, clinging to the old top-down rostrums of direct mail and fundraising-by-cocktail-party in an increasingly networked and crowdsourced world.
[...]
We're calling the site The Next Right because much of this story will be written in the future tense. Our analysis will be as much about looking ten and fifteen years down the road as it will be about dissecting the mechanics of the 2008 contest. What are the coalitions, strategies, and tactics the right needs to win again? How does the party need to change to attract a generation of voters who could very well be lost to us if we don't move fast? Where do we find the candidates who will lead a resurgent right in the 2010 and 2012 elections and beyond?
...
In that spirit, we're opening the doors to anyone who wants to blog on The Next Right. Users will be able to create their own blogs on the site, an ability only a handful of conservative sites offer today. We're also looking for a great stable of front-page writers who can write smart, savvy analysis on a consistent basis - email us if you think you fit the bill. We want to open this up as much as possible.
...
We don't think this alone will solve the activism gap. ... What we're hoping to do is create momentum and an intellectual framework for action - because action ultimately starts with narratives and ideas. We want grassroots conservatives and libertarians to start believing that they can make a difference again - a sense all too many have lost. ... The Next Right is about creating a vision for a 21st century Republican Party and conservative movement.
Like Soren said, "I think that we have somewhat different views of what exactly this means." That's probably true. My political opinions imply nothing about Soren, Ruffini or anybody else who blogs there. Their opinions don't imply anything about my views. We probably have somewhat different views of the ideal composition of the coalition, and of what policies should, and should not, be pursued.

However, I believe we all have a pretty consistent view of what the Movement needs to do in the short term, particularly online. Where we're being crucified.

Whittaker Chambers once wrote "I am not a conservative ... I am a man of the Right." Likewise, I am neither a Conservative nor a Republican. I am a Man of the Right. Ideologically, I am a libertarian, and I believe I can be most effective on the most pressing issues by working to reorient the Republican Party in a better direction by rebuilding a Movement - The Next Right.

We'll debut the site soon. In the meantime, go there and sign up for updates and an email notification as soon as we go live.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 12 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: New Media

 
QandO
 
Respected in the World! [UPDATED]
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
When the European Union is bashing you for protectionism, you're not really that concerned about being "respected in the world", about honoring international agreements or about reducing poverty...
Peter Mandelson, European trade commissioner, has said the protectionist stances taken by the US presidential candidates risk taking the world trading system back by decades.

In an interview with the BBC's Hardtalk programme to be broadcast on Thursday, Mr Mandelson said: "It is irresponsible to be pretending to people you can erect new protection, new tariff barriers around your economy in this 21st century global age and still succeed in sustaining peoples' living standards and jobs. It is a mirage and they know it."
[...]
Mr Mandelson said that even the rhetoric of protectionism was damaging. "It is very irresponsible in my view to pretend to people that we can disengage from international trade, we can create barriers around our economy and then be surprised when people retaliate by doing the same," he said. "It is going to lead us into a vicious spiral of beggar-thy-neighbour policies which will take us decades back in terms of trade growth."

I expect the list of demands Democrats advocated under Bush and quickly abandoned under Democratic control will grow quite long.

UPDATE:

Citing Speaker Pelosi's attempts to "[exclude Republicans] from opportunities to participate in the crafting of the war funding bill" and "jam the bill" through, Rep. Randy Kuhl offers another example of the distance between Democratic promises and delivery.
Speaker Pelosi also said in "A New Direction for America:"
  • "Every person in America has a right to have his or her voice heard. No Member of Congress should be silenced on the floor.guaranteeing that the voices of all the people are heard."

  • "Regular meetings between Chairs and Ranking Members of committees and staff should be held.

  • "Members should have at least 24 hours to examine bill and conference report text prior to floor consideration. Rules governing floor debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a bill to be considered the following day."

Well, the most recent supplemental appropriation bill is proving that these statements are raging falsities. Instead of allowing an open and transparent discussion on funding for our brave men and women serving this country, Speaker Pelosi would rather send a vital funding bill to the President without the opportunity for amendments.
Contrast this with the promises of "Change" that Nancy Pelosi made in 2006...
House Republicans might have their doubts, but Minority Leader Pelosi says a Democratic majority next year would place a heavy emphasis on bipartisanship — and would offer the Republicans minority rights often denied Democrats now.
[...]
In perhaps the biggest break from the current practices of GOP leaders, Pelosi said she would be willing to lose votes on the floor.
"Absolutely," she said. "It's not about a defeat, it's about a decision. I certainly would not say that we can't bring things to the floor because we'll lose
... [Republicans] are afraid of ideas. That's why we can't have amendments, substitutes, and all the rest for the most part."
She didn't mean it.

Politicians always promise Change when they're running for office. When they're actually elected to the office, they always hew to the Iron Law of Oligarchy. The problem isn't convincing politicians to say what you want them to say when they need your votes, but convincing them to follow through on it afterwards.

The Left and the Progressive blogosphere has given a great deal of thought to how to get their allies elected, but very little apparent thought to how to prevent them from becoming as bad as the politicians they replaced.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 8 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Trade

 
QandO
 
Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Now! Hampshire
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
New Media political consultant Patrick Hynes has just rolled out a new site, Now! Hampshire - essentially, a citizen media project asking "citizen[s] in the Granite State to take up their pens and note pads-along with the video and audio recorders-and start a news beat of their own."

He starts it up with an interview with Sen. Sununu and an interview with Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

It's a very good idea. The democratization of the media is a valuable development and sites like Now! Hampshire have the potential to recreate the way we think about, consume and participate in the news.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: New Media

 
QandO
 
Monday, May 05, 2008

The Legislative Capture of the Limited Government Movement
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
As Fred Thompson often said, Republicans went to Washington to drain the swamp, and they ended up partnering with the alligators. Robert Novak has the latest sordid details.
Operating outside public view, the House Democratic majority is taking extraordinary steps to maintain spending as usual while awaiting a Democrat as president. Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.

There has been little or no public Republican protest over seizure of the appropriating process by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her clique. [...] All Republican leaders voted against [a bill to expand medicaid spending], but their vaunted whip operation was dormant. With a rare opportunity to go on record against entitlements, House Republicans voted 128 to 62 for spending.
[...]
House Republicans had another chance last Thursday to demonstrate interest in restoring anti-waste credentials [by voting for Jeff Flakes proposal to limit direct farm payments]. ... The state of the GOP is indicated by the fact that the 104 to 86 vote by Republicans was seen as progress, while Flake's proposal failed. ... Another motion to lower farm subsidies, by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, was pending Thursday afternoon when the House adjourned for its usual long weekend of fundraising, politicking and recreation. Unchanged in Nancy Pelosi's House is bipartisan devotion to the three-day week.
Congressional Republicans are in the tank for the status quo. All I'm hearing from Congressional Republican is...
  • "Please, sir, can I have another earmark?"

  • "Please, sir, can I have another term?"

Reelecting these guys is like sending Norm Peterson to lead an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They're whipped by Democrats and by the public choice incentives. There's just no significant ambition to limit government. More importantly, they have no ideas for how to limit the size of government.

To some extent, that's a failure of the existing Republican leadership. But it's more of a failure of the larger Limited Government movement that has been captured by Washington, DC. We've developed an entrenched bureaucracy devoted more to sustaining and propagating itself than to actually limiting government.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 14 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Congress

 
QandO
 
Friday, May 02, 2008

Democrats and the Netroots: a stylistic divide
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
The Politico picks up on the struggle between the Leftroots and the Democratic Presidential candidates...
The nation's top Democrats are suddenly rushing to appear on the Fox News Channel, which they once had shunned as enemy territory as the nemesis of liberal bloggers. The détente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party's leaders are turning their backs on the base - and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate - in a quest for a few swing votes.
The Democratic Presidential nominees present a real problem to the Leftroots. The problem is not one of policy, necessarily, but one of style. I described it last month while guest-blogging at The Atlantic...
The problem for the netroots - and Progressives in general - is that, despite both being very satisfactory in important ways, both Clinton and Obama reject the Progressive and netroots movement in some important way.

Fundamentally, what the netroots want is a Fighting Progressive. They want an unabashed liberal who will go toe to toe with the Republicans and punch them in the nose.

But what they have is a choice between a Fighting Pragmatist (Hillary Clinton) and a Kumbaya Progressive (Barack Obama).
No matter who wins, it will represent a rejection of a core interest of the Progressive Netroots.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 6 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: New Media

 
QandO
 
Jeremiah Wright: a black or white story?
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Leonce Gaiter, Ezra Klein and James Joyner are having an interesting discussion over whether the Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama story would be a big deal had they been white. Klein thinks it would still have been a problem, but for the non-racial issues, "rather than a story of racial strife", but that the "Wright [will likely] be used by racists in the election". Gaiter thinks it's only a story because Wright is black...
If Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his former disciple, Barack Obama were white, this would not be a story. [...] White pastors have been spewing hateful bile and filth for generations. But it's white bile, and that makes all the difference.
For the moment, let's leave aside the fact that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Bob Jones, and many others have been the subject of many media storms and Left-of-Center criticism. Repeatedly. [James Joyner has more on this]

Let's just contemplate the firestorm that would have occurred if a Republican candidate had gone to a church that taught this...

Prayerfully, we have called upon the wisdom of all past generations of suffering [Whites] for guidance in fashioning an instrument of [White] self-determination, the [White] Value System.
[...]
These [White] Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever [Whites] are gathered. They consist of the following concepts:
[...]
2. Commitment to the [White] Community. The highest level of achievement for any [White] person must be a contribution of strength and continuity of the [White] Community.
3. Commitment to the [White] Family.
[...]
4. ... Basic education for all [Whites] should include Mathematics, Science, Logic, General Semantics, Participative Politics, Economics and Finance, and the Care and Nurture of [White] minds.
[...]
6. Adherence to the [White] Work Ethic. [....]
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect. ... Self-discipline, coupled with a respect for self, will enable each of us to be an instrument of [White] Progress and a model for [White] Youth.
[...]
9. Pledge to Make the Fruits of All Developing and Acquired Skills Available to the [White] Community.
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting [White] Institutions.
11. Pledge Allegiance to All [White] Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the [White] Value System.
12. Personal Commitment to Embracement of the [White] Value System. To measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the [White] Community and the Advancement of [White] People towards freedom.
That is the philosophy of Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, with the word "White" substituted for the word "Black". As a general rule of thumb, if an emphasis on white skin color and group identity sounds racist to you, then an equivalent emphasis on black skin color and group identity should also be objectionable to you.

I understand that African-Americans have a unique experience, and that the tragic cultural legacy of codified racism - and the ongoing tragedy of social racism - certainly make group self-segregation and an emphasis on common identity psychologically understandable. But that doesn't make it ultimately healthy, and that doesn't mean people shouldn't be disturbed by the racial line-drawing.

NOTE: I am also not claiming that this TUCC philosophy necessarily reflects Barack Obama's policy views.

Our society has come far enough that we recognize, publicize and stigmatize such behavior from what Gaither calls "White pastors". It's hard to imagine that a "white pastor" equivalent to this kind of rhetoric on race would not be a major, disqualifying story for a white candidate.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 25 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Race

 
QandO
 
Thursday, May 01, 2008

Heritage Foundation Praises Paul Krugman
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
The Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog quotes and praises Paul Krugman on a policy issue. Yes, really.
Visiting Heritage scholar Wendell Cox has a new paper out titled "How Smart Growth Exacerbated the International Financial Crisis" in which he praises New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's prescience on diagnosing the role of land use regulation in driving the housing bubble.
[Insert comment about an alternate blogosphere where Spock has a beard]
 

Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Miscellaneous

 
QandO
 
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Josh Marshall calls DNC ad "whining"!
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Josh Marshall, on the DNC's new anti-McCain ad...
"Completely ... Whining"
Josh Marshall also claims it shows...
"Completely honest ... Republicans"
The above quotes are every bit as reasonable and accurate as the quotes in the commercial that Josh Marshall cites.

Brendan Nyhan also points out that, during a recent Meet the Press appearance, "DNC chairman Howard Dean was forced to admit what McCain actually said"...but he left that part out of the ad.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey realizes it can be fun to play by the Dowd Rules!

UPDATE II: The paragons of decency at Moveon.org are also getting into the game. Matt Lewis points out that at least McCain has the decency to condemn ads of which he does not approve.

Note that it was Hillary Clinton who distanced herself from Moveon.org. Obama, not so much.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Elections

 
QandO
 
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Factcheck.org: the DNC is lying, they know it, but they don’t care
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
After years of progressives, Democrats and particularly the Democratic Party claiming to be outraged by deceptive ads and rhetoric from Republicans, the Democratic Party demonstrates that they are not, and never really were, above that sort of thing.

Factcheck.org is kind enough not to explicitly call the DNC brazen liars, but that's what it amounts to.
The Democratic National Committee has produced two TV ads against McCain, hoping to soften him up while the party figures out who its own presidential nominee will be.

  • One ad shows selected portions of McCain's comments that a 100-year U.S. presence in Iraq would be "fine with me." The ad uses dramatic images of war and violence, and omits any mention that McCain was speaking of a peaceful presence like that in Japan or Korea.

  • An earlier ad attacks McCain for saying the nation's economy is "prosperous" and "better off overall" than eight years ago. The ad uses a couple of incorrect statistics to argue otherwise. It says the country has lost 1.8 million jobs when, in fact, it has gained nearly 5.4 million, and it says gasoline prices have risen 200 percent, when the actual figure is 139 percent.

Presumably, the people who work at the DNC are feeling pretty embarrassed today about being associated with that kind of dishonest hackery. If they're decent people, they'll probably demand the DNC do the decent thing and stop lying to the American public. I guess we'll find out how that works out.

For Bonus Points: some enterprising blogger might go looking through the 2002-2004-2006 campaign cycles to find Democrats fainting over the use of 9/11 imagery in campaign commercials.

Any Democrats who feigned offense at that imagery before should have their nose held in this ad.

For Super Bonus Points: find either (a) a statement from the Democratic Party specifically denouncing this kind of imagery in a campaign ad, or (b) a quote from Howard Dean, including prior to his tenure with the DNC, responding to these ads.

The embarrassing evidence of opportunism, hypocrisy and credibility-destroying hackery is out there for you to find!
 

Permalink | Comments ( 35 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Elections

 
QandO
 
History started in 1998
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
In his book The Argument, Matt Bai wrote that the "political consciousness of most of the bloggers seemed to begin sometime around impeachment, when they had first tuned in."

Apparently, Open Left's Chris Bowers tuned in after that...



Bob Barr was "one of the House managers during the Clinton impeachment trial." In fairness, of course, there are hundreds of US Congressmen I couldn't name, either.

Via Patrick Ruffini on Twitter.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 5 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Miscellaneous

 
QandO
 
Monday, April 28, 2008

The Value of the Extended Democratic Primary
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Congressional Quarterly says some Republicans believe the drawn-out Democratic primary campaign is going to hurt Democrats in the general election...
When the returns from Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary rolled in last week, they cast a ray of hope into, of all places, the doleful offices of the people plotting this year's Republican congressional campaign.
[...]
Their calculation is that, if the Clinton vs. Obama contest drags on for months more, with each senator working to damage the other in search of an advantage, both will end up bloodied and bruised no matter which one is awarded the nomination.
I think this is a seriously misguided calculation.

While it's certainly possible that the primary season attacks could diminish Democratic turnout in some respects, I'm not sure the media-dominating, soap opera, pop phenomenon nature of the Democratic primary fight is going to ultimately diminish turnout.

But that misses the real value of this drawn-out primary. Every time the Barack Obama VS Hillary Clinton primary campaign drags on to another State, that's one more place that two incredibly effective organizing and mobilization operations get to reach, recruit and organize tens of thousands of new Democratic voters.

Democrats have invested a lot of time, money and resources in new tools, new activists and a renewed prioritization of grassroots organizing and mobilization. Sure, they may be burning some bridges among those who pay attention this early in the campaign cycle, but every contested State in the Democratic primary is a State in which the Democrats have two powerful operations drilling for news voters. That's going to benefit Democrats in November, both in the Presidential race and down-ticket, too.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 22 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Elections

 
QandO
 
Friday, April 25, 2008

Hillary On Freedom
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Why hasn't this quote from Hillary Clinton gotten more press...
"We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can't take a sick child to the doctor?" she asked.
Via David Boaz who says Hillary "dismisses the great promises of the Declaration of Independence, the founding principles of the United States, as rhetorical flourishes, mere garnishes on the real stuff of life."
 

Permalink | Comments ( 10 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Freedom and Liberty

 
QandO
 
Paul Krugman Rationalizes Democratic attacks
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Paul Krugman rationalizes...
But how negative has the Clinton campaign been, really? Yes, it ran an ad that included Osama bin Laden in a montage of crisis images that also included the Great Depression and Hurricane Katrina. To listen to some pundits, you'd think that ad was practically the same as the famous G.O.P. ad accusing Max Cleland of being weak on national security.
But wait. They were exactly the same. The "famous G.O.P. ad accusing Max Cleland of being weak on national security" was nothing more than an ad "that included Osama bin Laden in a montage of crisis images".

Paul Krugman doesn't even pretend to make a distinction between the two.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 11 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Elections

 
QandO
 
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Accusations of Racism
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Mike Turk has a sad story of racism.

On one hand, I think it illustrates how far we've come from the days when racism was far worse, but when society did far less to reject it.

On the other hand, I worry that it also illustrates how far we're going in the wrong direction. While we have generally succeeded in making racism socially unacceptable, the presence of that social stigma has produced a destructive tendency to cheapen the social stigma as many indiscriminately and inappropriately cry 'racism' with little regard for substantive evidence or for the seriousness of the charge. That kind of behavior cheapens the charge, ultimately reducing the power of the social stigma against racism.

And so, instead of spending our social capital fighting real racism, you get stupid situations like the one described by Turk.
 

Permalink | Comments ( 5 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 ) | Category: Race

 
QandO
 
About that Ice Age
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
(via Glenn Reynolds) Following up on the "Ice Age" story, it's worth reading the other side...
EMILY BOURKE: David Karoly from Melbourne University's School of Earth Sciences is outraged.

DAVID KAROLY: This is misinterpretation or misrepresentation and miscommunication of the factors that influence global temperature. It appears to be an opinion of Phil Chapman and he's welcome to his opinion, but in terms of climate variations and an approaching ice age, he is sadly misinformed.

EMILY BOURKE: He argues the figures have been misinterpreted and he dismisses the theory.

DAVID KAROLY: Yes, the climate system did cool from January 2007 to January 2008 quite dramatically. That cooling was associated with changes in the ocean temperatures in the Pacific, a well known phenomenon, the El Nino to La Nina switch. It isn't unprecedented.

EMILY BOURKE: But you're not attributing that in any way to sunspot activity.

DAVID KAROLY: We know it is not due to sunspot activity. Sunspot variations do not lead to the sorts of temperature variations seen from January 2007 to 2008. They don't lead to those large temperature variations, even on an 11-year sunspot cycle.

And so in terms of increasing greenhouse gases, we can also see that effect because the most recent La Nina, the current La Nina, is warmer than earlier La Nina episodes of the same strength. We're actually seeing a warming even in these cool periods associated with La Nina.
Yes, scientists have considered and accounted for the impact of the sun.
 

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QandO
 
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Clinton Campaign Praises Fox News. Again.
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
A few weeks back, Pennsylvania Governor (and Clinton campaign surrogate) Ed Rendell said Fox News "has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks." The Leftroots were not pleased.

Last night, it happened again. Hillary Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe praised Fox News. (video at The Politico)
"You were the first ones to call it for Hillary Clinton," McAuliffe said, "Fair and balanced Fox. You beat them all."

One comment might be enthusiasm. Repetition, however, suggests this is a Clinton campaign talking point...and a rejection of the Leftroots attitude towards Fox News.
 

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QandO
 
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Freedom of Consumer Choice
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Don Boudreaux posts a letter he sent to the Washington Post...
Emily DeRocco complains that "The April 9 Business article 'Don't Blame NAFTA for Downturn, Many Economists Say' quoted politicians, economists and labor representatives but not a single manufacturer - those at the heart of this wrenching debate" (Letters, April 12).

She's mistaken. Those at the heart of this debate aren't manufacturers (or politicians, economists, or labor representatives). Those at the heart of this debate are consumers. Or, those at the heart of this debate should be consumers. Unfortunately, consumers are too large in number and too disparate in interests to organize effectively for political purposes.
John McCain ought to respond to the Know-Nothing protectionists he's running against by saying: "My opponents believe that Americans should not be allowed to buy or sell some products from some foreigners. That kind of prejudice against people by nationality is not helpful to American consumers, and I don't believe that is a choice politicians ought to be given. I support the right of Americans to make that decision for themselves."
 

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QandO
 
Monday, April 21, 2008

Campaign Moments: "moral authority"
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Via the always enjoyable Playbook, I see more infighting...
On an Obama conference call with reporters Saturday, Gen. Walter Stewart said Clinton's misstatements about her trip to Bosnia as First Lady mean she "lacks the moral authority" to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Since a Democrat said it, there's a bit of tut-tutting going on, but it's not a big deal. Of course, had a Republican said it, it would have been evidence of a concerted Republican strategy to portray their opponents as unpatriotic, troop-hating traitors.

  • Matt Yglesias and Josh Marshall would have spent the next few days discussing its deeper meaning. Was it a dogwhistle to the base, or a strategy to (fill in the blank with something plausible only to the paranoid).


  • Glenn Greenwald would have written 3 very long posts (and maybe a book) explaining why this was a coordinated Republican plot to slander Democrats


  • Media Matters would have pinged every media outlet that failed to pick up their press release about it


  • Atrios would have worked the phrase "because of the moral authority!" into every 3rd (non-Open Thread) post for the foreseeable future


  • And the rest of the Leftosphere would spend the next few days explaining how this was a dogwhistle to the base and the campaign only distanced themselves from the statement to protect McCain from the press.

But it was a Democratic campaign, so never mind.
 

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QandO
 
Sunday, April 20, 2008

Obama Campaign building Oppo Research on critics
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Under increased scrutiny for his previous connections to Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and others, the Barack Obama campaign has decided to fight back. But how they're fighting back is quite instructive.
The Obama campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in order to repel attacks it anticipates over his ties to 1960s radical Bill Ayers, indicted developer Antoin Rezko and other figures from his past.
You don't expand your research and rapid response staff in order to find out what your own candidate knows and has done. You expand your research and rapid response staff so you can do oppo research on your opponents and critics.

The Obama campaign is preparing to do what Sen. Rockefeller advised [pdf] the Clinton Administration (and Hillary Clinton, in particular) do in the 1990's - that is, "use classic opposition research" to attack critics and to "expose lifestyles, tactics and motives" in order to "deflect criticism."

It's a new kind of campaign...with the old kind of tactics. Maybe Newsweek should have explained that a bit more.
 

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QandO
 
Friday, April 18, 2008

New Guards
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
MSNBC's First Read acknowledges the truth...
The left-wing blogosphere is MUCH more powerful than what you see on the right this cycle and it reminds us of the advantage Bush had in '04. While we all know about that so-called right-wing voice machine, don't forget that there is now a left-wing noise machine (on the internet) as well. And it has found its voice.
The Politico's Ben Smith points to the media bulldozing on the Left and says "It's just a small glimpse, I think, of the level of heat the media is going to take in the general election, and John McCain doesn't seem to have any equivalent."

That's true. The Right has what might informally be called a "noise machine", but it is a product of the time in which it was created: the 70's, 80's and 90's. It has never really evolved.

Meanwhile, the Left - in particular, the Progressives - have built a very powerful, very effective noise machine and they have built it both online and off. There are many cultivated (funded, strategic) elements to it, but the base - the underlying elements that make the cultivated, funded elements really effective - is basically organic. The Right, I fear, is going to try to reproduce those organic elements through cultivation - or, worse, by funding the existing infrastructure to "do something online" - and they're going to fail. Miserably. I'd be glad to change my mind about this, but almost everything I've seen suggests that the Right just doesn't understand why the Left has been successful at this, so they're throwing their resources at misguided projects.

Meanwhile, the Leftosphere continues to have an impact, with the Leftroots effectively (and regularly) pressuring politicians and candidates to adopt the agenda they create and promote.

So why - with very rare exceptions - can't the Rightosphere do that? Fundamentally, the Rightosphere can't do that (effectively) because the Right doesn't have the gravitational pull to draw candidates to its agenda. The Left has a well-organized blogosphere that can do three things for Progressive candidates:

  1. Messaging - between Moveon.org, the blogs and the many issue-advocacy outfits, the Leftosphere has a very powerful communication mechanism for candidates and issues. They have messaging and distribution capacity and it is well-coordinated with advocacy and awareness elements of their coalition.


  2. Money - the Presidential money is high-profile and not every candidate gets a lot of online money, but the Leftroots can move significant sums of money to the challengers that hit the right notes, make the right friends, and jump into the hot progressive issues. They have succeeded in tapping the long tail to move fundraising - and the financial incentive machine - outside of the establishment channels.


  3. Mobilization - the Progressives are passionate, energized, over their ideas. They have a story they're excited about, they have effectively tied their stories together and they're tightly wedded to the (dangerous) tactic of populism. They're unified around that mission, so they can and do mobilize people. Again, that moves significant power outside the traditional channels.

The Leftroots can deliver messaging, money and mobilization, so Democratic candidates become path-dependent on them. They have sufficient power to move politicians to their ideas. The Right does not.

Meanwhile, what is the Right passionate about right now? Not much. To build an online infrastructure as effective as the Leftosphere, the Right must find its own story to tell - an organic story, relevant to current grievances, with politically viable solutions - about which people can be passionate, around which a coalition can rally.

The Right can accomplish the same thing, but it cannot start on third base. The Right has to develop the gravitational pull before it tries to pull the political system into its orbit. That may be complicated, but I don't believe it is actually difficult to do. However, it is not something that can be done simply by funding more of the same Old Guards. If the Right is to do something about the current long train of abuses and bad government, it must, to borrow from the Declaration of Independence, "provide new Guards".
 

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QandO
 
Economics 101 for an Economist
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
Economists are supposed to be smarter than this
"What Milton Friedman said was that government should not interfere," said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics Inc., a consulting group. "It didn't work. We now are looking at one of the greatest real estate busts of all time. The free market is not geared to take care of the casualties, because there's no profit motive. There's no market incentive to deal with the unemployed or those who have lost their homes."
What about the incentive of the unemployed people to find jobs and the incentive of the people who have lost their homes to make better decisions? Those seem like pretty important components of a free market.
 

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QandO
 
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Defending Jimmy Carter
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
I'm not one to defend post-1980 President Carter very often, but I think he's being unfairly maligned by quite a few people for this quote...
Now the 2002 Nobel laureate is in reprise mode. "In a democracy, I realize you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels," he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snubbed by most of Israel's top leadership and reprimanded by its president, Shimon Peres. "When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people."
A lot of people have criticized Carter over this, but beyond "that was an unfortunately inartful thing to say", I'm not sure there's really legitimate grounds for criticism about this quote. Jimmy Carter is saying one of two things here:

The dictator "speaks for all the people" because the people agree with the dictator, or...

The dictator "speaks for all the people" because the dictator controls the people.

The second interpretation is far, far more plausible. And from the standpoint of diplomatic negotiations, it's also correct. In a reasonably entrenched dictatorship, you have to deal with the dictator to enact political change. That's unfortunate, but it's absurd to pretend that "the people" within the dictatorship have opinions that are offered candidly, politically actionable or relevant to potential policy changes.

There are many better reasons to criticize Jimmy Carter. We don't need to invent another by tendentiously misinterpreting this particular quote.
 

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QandO
 
Lying about Iraq
Posted by: Jon Henke
 
I think this passage from Phil Carter, quoting an interview with President Bush, is important to see...
RADDATZ: All during that period — April, May, June, July [of 2006] — when things were really going downhill, people were talking about there being civil war. [...] You were saying, 'We're winning. We have a plan for victory. We are winning,' up through October.
[...]
BUSH: Well, yes. I think we — and I wanted — that's as much trying to bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well as — look, you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing either, "It's not worth it," or, "You're losing." I mean, what does that do for morale? I'm the commander in chief of the military as well, obviously, as, you know, somebody who speaks to the country. And if you look at my remarks, they were balanced. They weren't Pollyannaish. [...]
There you have it folks. The president of the United States admitting that his own certainty about th