Politics Blog

Category: Politics

In case Michigan government needs another stupid idea ...

An agency of state government in New Hampshire has agreed to give a loan guarantee to yet another business. That's bad enough. What's worse is that it's being made to a newspaper.

Is anyone concerned about freedom of the press anymore?

Category: Politics

The Lesson of Creigh Deeds

It seems painfully clear that the Congressional Democrats took the wrong lesson from Creigh Deeds loss in Virginia, as evidenced by the health care reform vote. Even today the media is full of stories embracing the wrongheaded conventional wisdom inside the Beltway that the Democratic Party needs to get more "moderate," which in the parlance of The Village means vote more like Republicans. This is a surefire prescription for a major bloodbath in 2010.

This PCCC poll of Virginia Democrats and Independents who voted for Obama in 2008 but didn't turn out for Creigh Deeds in 2009 tells the real story. Here's what they found:

* A huge majority of these voters thought Deeds "wasn't progressive enough."

* Many of these voters will decide whether to vote in 2010 based on whether or not Democrats pass a public option

* Many said they were less excited to vote for Deeds after he said he would "opt out" Virginia from the public option.

Democratic politicians who value their jobs should read the rest of the supporting documentation at Down With Tyranny's post. This isn't 2004 anymore. The base who gave the Democrats a majority don't care if they keep it if they don't deliver the promised changes. We can afford to let them take those losses to make the greater point.

Caving to the GOP isn't going to win any Republican votes, nor will it impress the swing Independents who respect courage over cowardice. The bottom line for Democrats is, everybody is going to wail and complain about change. However, if they boldly deliver good liberal policies that actually improve their constituents lives, the voters will reward them in the end. If they don't, the Obama voters of 08 are simply not going to show up and the conservative minority will win by default.

Category: Politics

Washington versus private business

When you absolutely, positively, need to crush your business competitors ... get the federal government involved.


UPDATE: I see "refiman1" has taken a page from Libby Spencer's book: When your position is under fire, attack the messenger. But recall that even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while, so being "Mr. Silver Spoon" doesn't automatically invalidate a claim from the guy in the video--or for that matter, one from of the Kennedys. (Funny how inherited wealth is always bad except if it's used for lefty causes.)

"Refi" doesn't address the fundamental point of the video, which is to explain an unfortunately common business practice this day: Sic the government on your competitors. It works because government has grown so powerful it can do it.

And then we wonder why lobbyists swarm our public offices.

Category: Politics

Freedom lost and freedom won

Today's the 20th anniversary of the "fall" of the Berlin Wall. It didn't fall as much as it was pushed by the so-called "captive nations" who refused to remain captive, assisted by the moral encouragement of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II. (Here's a flashback to an article I wrote praising JP II shortly after his death.)

In 1988, I visited the nation of Hungary for about a week. I met many fine people, all, to a person, cynical about the promises of an all-encompassing, all-providing state.

The next year, on November 9, I met two of those people in the lounge of a dorm somewhere in Iowa, where they were students.

While we were talking, a large-screen TV was droning on in the background. Suddenly background noise came to the forefront, as I heard Tom Brokaw say something about "on top of the wall."

Curious, I stopped our conversation and we turned to the TV, where we saw images of East Germans walking and dancing on top of the hated Berlin Wall.

My friends and I knew that sight meant a new era had dawned. It was a great day.

Since then, Eastern Europe has seen many changes and some ugliness. Then again, freedom is never tidy and free of pain. Still, you'll get people who, even today, say the East Germans lost a lot.

Year--like fear of getting shot for the simple act of trying to leave the country. (My favorite reader response: "Just think of all the secret police officers who haven't been able to find regular work since 1989.")

Category: Politics

Media misses on election analysis

I try not to read any post election analysis before I write my own obligatory observations, but a quick scan of the headlines tells me the major media is drawing the wrong lessons from yesterday's elections. Starting with the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey -- no this is not an indictment of Obama's presidency and it most definitely doesn't mean that the Democrats need to go further right or some call it "centrist" to get out the vote. Rather the opposite.

The lesson for the Democrats is that the days of the Blue Dog Democrats are over. The new voters mobilized in 08 by Obama's candidacy were driven by the promise of change and an implied shift towards more liberal policies. Deeds ran as a GOP lite style candidate. While the conventional wisdom suggested this would be a winning strategy in a traditionally very conservative state, the fact is the Obama voters are not going to show up for anything less than true progressives. The Dems made a big mistake in not finding someone more like Alan Grayson to carry their banner. A candidate like that may still have lost, but it would have fired up the progressive and youth base they need in order to keep the "purple" momentum going into 2010.

As for Corzine, I don't really follow NJ politics that closely but I have enough internet friends from the state to speculate that his problems were more rooted in issues around corruption (real and/or imagined) and his connections to bankster Goldman Sachs. This was very much a race based on state politics and has no real analytical value for the national scene. Also, it appears Corzine ran a sloppy and stupid campaign. From what I saw, it looked like it his message was pretty much, vote for me because my opponent is fat. Frankly, I'm not shedding any tears over that loss. Never much cared for the guy myself, based pretty solely on anecdotes about his style of governance.

Which brings me to what that means for 2010? Absolutely nothing. So the two Republicans won the governor's seat, but now they have to govern. I'm guessing it will take less than a year for the voters of both states to realize that Republicans just don't govern well. For example, see Romney, Mitt. I doubt he would have won re-election to a second term. Didn't take all that long for the voters to sour on his failed promises. In any event, the exit polling in both states showed clearly that there was no meaningful Obama backlash in the vote.

Category: Politics

Pro-freedom versus pro-rent seeking

I'm in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina to attend the annual meeting of the State Policy Network.

Here's one item that might surprise those of you who believe in stereotypes of the center-right side of things: There's a fair amount of disgust here with the Republican Party among attendees.

As for conservatives and libertarians being the robots of some corporate overlords, I'll repeat something I heard from one of the speakers: Entrepreneurs are pro-freedom; corporate leaders are rent-seekers.

An entrepreneur pursues financial self-enrichment by building a better mousetrap. A rent-seeker pursues financial self-enrichment by getting government to require everyone to buy a mouse trap, or at least his particular style of mouse trap.

To see rent-seeking in action, look at the decision by three major utility companies to endorse cap and tax.

Category: Politics

Don't blame the feds for private industry failures

Not sure why George is blaming the federal government for the shortage of flu vaccine. The feds aren't producing the vaccine themselves. They contracted production out to five different pharmaceutical corporations and they're distributing it just as fast as they get it. Seems to me the pharma corps are dragging their feet on the production line because they can charge a premium for "rush jobs" and this is just another example of why we can't trust the "free market."

As for war and the economy, let's not be so generic about pinning down the failures. It's useful to recall these loser "wars" and the economic meltdown happened when the Republicans were in control. Maybe we could give a Democratic administration a little more time to fix it before we universally condemn "big government."

Category: Politics

Abortion politics more complicated than that

Libby Spencer applies a rather simplistic approach to the abortion debate. Note, for example, that she labels her post movement conservatism despite the fact that the sponsor of pro-life legislation, Rep. Jim Slezak, is a Democrat.

OK, a few elected Democrats in this country might be considered conservatives, so it's not impossible for Slezak to be a "movement conservative." I've not studied his record, so I'll let others comment.

It is simply not true that all pro-life people are "movement conservatives." Some are feminists, a group (like Democrats) not usually thought of as dominated by conservatives.

There's even a raging debate, apparently (I've not followed it), over one can be a pro-life progressive. (As of just now, there are roughly 575,000 Google hits for the phrase "pro-life progressive."

Heck, I remember that in 1980 or so, Jesse Jackson, Jr. (he would qualify as "progressive," no?), was pro-life. He outlined his views in an essay published by Sojourners magazine, which has been the standard-bearer for left-wing evangelical protestants for quite a while.

And depending on how you define the word "conservative," many famous conservatives, such as Barry Goldwater and James Kilpatrick (is he still alive?) have been pro-choice.

Now I will admit that if you know a person's general political outlook, you can more often than not predict their stand on the abortion question. But it's not foolproof.

Category: Politics

Putting the ratings in perspective

I have to admit I've been a bit bemused by the triumphant chest beating of the Fox loyalists over their ratings rise since the Fox versus the White House "battle" has begun. Today, DetNews blog alumnus John Scalzi posts one of the better pieces on this little skirmish.

Scalzi puts it into context. He notes, "the actual number of viewers is minuscule. [Only] 2.5 million Americans watch Fox News, which means that 297.5 million Americans don't. ...For perspective this means that it has roughly the same audience as your average Dollhouse episode, which was just yanked by Fox (the broadcast network, not the cable news network), so that its ratings wouldn't stink up November Sweeps."

To put it another way, cheering over a 14% rise in ratings is like feeling wealthy because you have a dollar in your pocket and found 14 cents under the sofa cushion. Your total wealth just rose by 14% but you're still not rich.

Which is not to say that Fox doesn't benefit from the rise in ratings, but it comes at a cost. Fox has to maintain and even amp up its extremism to keep those viewers and the more they're connected with GOP ideology, the faster moderates will flee the party. So anyone who thinks Obama is losing this battle is probably forgetting that our President is said to be a superior poker player. If memory serves, a successful strategy in that game is to sometimes fold your cards on a small pot, in order to win the big ante later on. In other words, just because Fox won something, doesn't mean President Obama is losing.

Category: Politics

Who made Obama the media god?

Here's what's troubling about the White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News: People with the highest level of political power in this country are attempting to define who is a "legitimate" news organization and who is not.

Anyone see the inherent conflict of interest in this? Or the danger of censorship? Bullying? It's one thing to complain about the treatment you get from the press; it's another to say that the press people you like aren't really the press.

With the financial collapse of traditional broadsheet newspapers and the rise of bloggers, the question "Who is a journalist" may be worth asking. But the answer should come from the public and from within the industry (such as it is) of journalism.

What we have with a political campaign, from the highest office of the land, to define who is and isn't a "news organization" is simply an abuse of power.

(Again for the record, I don't watch Fox News, or any TV news for that matter.)