What liberals cling to

Mickey Kaus spazzes because, it turns out, as a Marxist, it turns out he's condescending like Obama. Being condescending is inherent to being a Marxist because of the belief that the cultural "superstructure" is determined by the economic "base"--i.e., if people had well-paying jobs and no economic anxiety, they wouldn't "cling" to silly beliefs in things like God and religion. His easy test for whether you're a "Vulgar Marxist" in this sense: (1) Do you believe China can remain Communist as it becomes capitalist; (2) Do you believe Islamic fundamentalism will fade when its adherents have better economic conditions. If you tend to think yes to both, then you're likely to think Obama was right that working class folks will think differently about cultural issues once they're better-paid.

Aside from the obvious problem that there isn't much of a correlation between poverty and belief in God and/or guns (you're telling me NRA lobbyists don't have food in their bellies?), this also assumes that the well-off don't have a cultural superstructure of their own. According to the Marxist account, we don't "cling" to anything because we have the enlightenment that comes with privilege! But rich urbanites cling to all kinds of silly things (not least of which is the belief that they know everything.) A short list of them can be found here.

Breaking: Media abdicates responsibility for Iraq War coverage!

The lede is buried in today's NYT scoop on the cozy relationship between media military analysts and the Pentagon:

Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts’ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.

“The worst conflict of interest was no interest.”

Gee, I can't imagine why the Times would ignore the most significant aspect of the story: that the network/cable news channels' handling of the massive misinformation campaign waged by the Pentagon was at best, negligent and at worst, deceptive. Could it be because the liberal media (including the Times itself, which published at least nine op-eds by "military analysts") comes off as either willfully blind or really, really stupid? No doubt the media had an interest in being able to put on "experts" with access to internal Pentagon goings-on; but to not critically examine what those analysts were saying--or even notice that they were all repeating the same Administration talking points--isn't exactly journalism, is it? The self-righteous tone of the article--we should be outraged that the Bushies would try to control messaging about the war??--is sort of hilarious when you think about how the most incompetent presidential administration in history was so easily able to make the media its bitch.

Opting out

Linda Hirschman continues throwing bombs at women who quit their day jobs in order to raise the kids/support the careers of their ambitious husbands. It does feel a little like twisting the knife in poor Silda Spitzer (also, why does Hirschman keep cattily calling her a "blond upper East Side mother" when she's clearly not blond??), but it also re-raises the old critique of well-educated, smart, successful career women who opt out of the working world to have a family. I'm secretly sympathetic to the claim that it's bad for women when opt-out "revolutionaries" exercise the "choice" to stop working and start breeding, for a few reasons: it makes it seem like working and raising kids have to be mutually exclusive if you're going to do a good job at either (a terrible message to send your daughters); it reinforces to employers that it's stupid to invest lots of money in training females when there's a guy available for the same job who's not going to leave the workforce in three years; and it absolves men from sharing family responsibilities by forcing them to be primary breadwinners.

But I also wonder if Hirschman's argument isn't a generational/class thing that doesn't apply in such force to the middle-class, well-educated group of young professionals I'm familiar with. This group was raised with more of an ethos to do what they want for self-fulfillment as opposed to supporting a family; as a result, the men aren't more likely to have well-paying jobs (or greater earning potential) than the women. And that means that more subtle planning has to go in to the calculation to have a family--plans that include more shared responsibilities and compromise in terms of who works and who stays home that have more to do with the stage of career each spouse is in than with whether they are male or female.

The Politics of Hope as unilateral disarmament

I think that's the thrust of the Clinton campaign's implicit (or maybe explicit) argument--that the Republicans aren't going to play nice just because Obama has galvanized a movement to reinvent politics, and that you need someone as dirty as they (the Clintons) are to advance a progressive agenda. That's what bitter partisans like Paul Krugman are on about too. You kind of have to admire someone who is able to capitalize on Americans' cynicism about the political process so effectively that she's been able to convince people that liberal ideals can only be achieved through a knife fight.

Thing is, for process-obsessives like me, Obama's promise of a better, cleaner, more transparent, more deliberative process of governance is pretty much the only reason to vote Democratic. I don't really want Bush-style tactics in the service of hugely problematic policies like universal health care. If my taxes are going to go up, I'd at least like to know that it's for a policy that comes out of a good process--one that balances the concerns and interests of people on both sides of the aisle. I don't want a policy that comes out of a process that looks anything like the way the Clinton campaign has been run--i.e., through secrecy, backstabbing, a total lack of discipline and, ultimately, reliance on shady and anti-democratic tactics.

I mean, if Clinton wins, it's a victory for the school of Rove and an affirmation of the Bush years, because she's basically promising us the same old crap, but with a higher price tag. She's repudiating the take-away message from her husband's years in power, which was, "a coherent political philosophy works." Until I see some evidence that she stands for more than just petty partisanship on behalf of short-sighted Great Society-style policies, I think I'm reserving my general election vote if she wins the nomination...

Why carbon taxes won't work

This is a well-reasoned argument for why carbon taxes aren't a feasible option for decreasing carbon emissions, despite seemingly widespread consensus among economists that taxes are better than a cap-and-trade system. Among its points:

1) The politics of implementing a carbon tax will require huge, economy-distorting compromises that will limit its effectiveness;

2) We have no clue what the optimal price is;

3) A carbon tax designed for the expected case can safely be avoided for decades, while a carbon tax high enough to ameliorate a low-odds disaster scenario would be insanely expensive. I had to read this one a few extra times to understand it, but I think the argument is that it is cheaper and more effective to invest in alternative technologies for the next 40 years than to implement a gradual tax over that time that probably wouldn't do much and would cost a lot. The problem, of course, is that this doesn't account for the costs of transition at that point. Also, if you believe that the private sector is best place for these new technologies to be developed, then you have to give them an incentive to develop them, for example by making it more expensive to stick with the status quo.

I suppose you could also just give the money directly to the private sector to do the research. Maybe by taking away direct and indirect subsidies for emissions-producing practices? (Though that, again, raises prices for consumers.) Regardless, it's a thought-provoking way to think about how the current proposals for tackling global warming aren't necessarily compatible with political or economic reality.

Side thought: I wonder if our broken patent system is ready to deal with the prospect of alternative energy technologies... will the AET industry fall more on the side of biotech (pushing for stronger patent protections) or Silicon Valley tech (pushing for weaker patent protections)?

Oh, snap!

You have to love the Clinton campaign for managing to pull Obama's people down to their level, high-minded language about "a different kind of politics" nonwithstanding. In response to the absurd plagiarism charges that the Clinton campaign aired Monday in a conference call with reporters, Obama campaign manager David Axelrod hilariously insulted Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson:

Without naming him, Axelrod then took a shot at Wolfson: "Our buddy in the ugly sweater will show up on your show and try to make this and other things an issue. Anything they can grab on to now."

Though really, he's not wrong.

The Republican Nader

No, I don't specifically have one in mind, but doesn't it seem like the time is ripe for one to appear? This TNR article cataloguing the many conservative heresies of John McCain over the years should remind us of why most Republicans hate him so much. Add that to statements by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter about supporting the Democrat if McCain gets the nomination, not to mention the fact that Huckabee (Huckabee!!) is managing to still win primaries, and you have to wonder whether there aren't some conservative wingnuts out there contemplating a spoiler third-party run. It wouldn't be hard to argue to disgruntled conservatives that there is no difference between McCain and the Democrats, and that electing either one will have the effect of destroying core Republican values and killing the party.

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Pat Buchanan?

P.S. Here is a great satirical version of the Obama "Yes We Can" video featuring McCain.

Obama and transcending race--where are the Asians and Hispanics?

As an Obama supporter, I am of course excited by his strong showing tonight and optimistic that his message is resonating more widely than I thought possible. As a California voter from San Jose, I was sort of shocked at a stat that I saw on CNN that showed that he had lost to Clinton by something like 30 points among Hispanics, and really shocked at the stat that he had lost to her by over 50 points to Asian-Americans. Of course we'd been hearing about how he was going to lose the Hispanic vote for ages, but why no word about Asians? They are truly the lost demographic, despite recent increases in their numbers and political clout.

Watching his speech from Chicago tonight, this issue really struck me--Obama speaks about transcending race, but only makes reference to black-white relations: "This isn't about black children, this isn't about white children, it's about all children" etc. This is not a message that resonates with Hispanic and Asian voters, especially politically-organized Hispanic and Asian voters who feel entitled to be part of a larger dialogue about race in America. For these groups, issues like immigration and affirmative action are much more complex than the black-white dichotomy that the Obama campaign has managed to "transcend." (See, for example, the tension between Hispanics and blacks on illegal immigration and wage effects, or the fact that most Asian-American political organizations have come out strongly against affirmative action because Asians are disproportionately hurt by it.) If Obama is truly going to be the post-racial president, he must recognize that and reach out to these groups, rather than snubbing them. The Clintons get it, and are able to capitalize on (irresponsible speculation alert) both groups' natural cultural conservatism and suspicion of "revolutionary" talk.

Of course, the Obama campaign may have made the calculation that none of this matters (at least now on) because California is reliably blue and will swing for whoever the Democratic nominee is regardless. But I'm not so sure this truism holds where the Republican nominee is McCain--the face of comprehensive immigration reform and a conservative that liberals can get behind. If the 2008 election is going to be a fight for independents and moderates, then Asians and Hispanics are groups that Obama absolutely needs to win; and they are groups he probably shouldn't continue taking for granted.

Playing dirty

Ugh. I had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't get to enjoy for long my schadenfreude at how badly the media got bludgeoned after New Hampshire because, Clintons being Clintons, they would turn a hard-earned victory into an opportunity to showcase the worst fault lines in the Democratic party. From making inexplicably stupid remarks about MLK and the civil rights movement (yes, as a practical matter both men were necessary but not sufficient in bringing formal equality to African-Americans, but why on earth diminish MLK in order to make a cheap point?) to using proxies at every turn to bring up the drug use issue to making it clear that they plan to exploit tensions between the Hispanic and African-American communities, the Clinton campaign appears to be channeling the spirit of Karl Rove. "Change" at all costs, eh?

If my feelings on this are any kind of weathervane, then I suspect that these tactics will repel the women voters who turned New Hampshire around for her. Or at least they should. Obama has played a remarkably clean game so far, and it redounds a great deal to his credit that he has stayed more or less above the fray and seems committed to not engaging in destructive racial politics in order to beat her back. One good thing--if he survives and wins the nomination, no one can say he isn't ready to face the Republicans.

Last word on Hillary

Rebecca Traister has an awesome op-ed in Salon on how infuriated women flipped the bird at the media (in particular, the creepily obsessed, clearly-not-getting-any Chris Matthews) and gave New Hampshire to Hillary. I've had a surprisingly impossible time convincing (liberal) men that it was perfectly reasonable for women to feel the way they did about the media's coverage of Hillary, but I suppose "girls are idiots" is a comfortable enough meme. (Seriously, the theme of the male-pundit-dominated commentary appears to be, "Everyone in New Hampshire was on their period!")

Anyway, as long as the media ignores the fact that the way Clinton is portrayed elicits a powerful--and rational!!--reaction in the women who are watching, they're going to keep being shocked and dismayed each time she beats expectations. Traister makes this point with the best line in the piece (which is titled "The witch ain't dead, and Chris Matthews is a ding-dong"):

But here's a message from the women of New Hampshire, and me, to Hillary Clinton's exuberant media antagonists: You have no power here. Now be gone, before somebody drops a house on you!

Paradoxes in Political Science

Kevin Drum wonders at the perplexing results of the exit polls from New Hampshire that show that Democrats who want quick withdrawal from in Iraq supported Hillary by substantial margins, while Democrats who want a more gradual withdrawal or to keep troops in Iraq voted for Obama by substantial margins. The same trend occurred on the Republican side--voters who disapproved for the war supported McCain, and voters who approved supported Romney. He asks, "huh?"

I think this might be explained by a phenomenon in political science called "Nixon-in-China" syndrome: the public trusts the leader to take action that he is least ideologically predisposed to. It took Nixon to go to to China because the right could trust him not to betray American interests; similarly, it takes left-leaning governments to undertake reforms in areas like labor and welfare because it is easier for them to sell such programs to liberal interest groups (since left-leaning governments ostensibly have those groups' interests as a priority). That's why it also took uber-hawk Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Gaza, and why it will probably take someone who opposed the war to make the decision to tough it out if that's what the situation calls for; and vice versa.

The Two Obamas

The Obama who takes this approach in beating back Clinton's charges that he was raising "false hopes" (""Did JFK look up at the moon and say, 'Ah, false hope. Too far. Reality check. Can't do it.'?") is a stark contrast to the Obama profiled in the New Yorker several months ago. That Obama learned several lessons from his tragically idealistic parents, and adopted an incremental-change view of governance:

In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.

That was the Obama that appealed to me, the one who adopted his process-oriented, democracy-enhancing political philosophy from Alexander Bickel and John Hart Ely (guys that con law nerds such as myself get excited about). But it sounds nothing like the Obama we hear on the trail now, the one who seems to be promising the Second Coming (of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Jesus Christ, or some combo of all three.) Maybe this is an example of the whole "campaigning in poetry and governing in prose" idea, but I sort of miss the other Obama, which might explain why I sound grumpy whenever I read idiotic posts like this one.

Dream Team

It's too bad Clinton and Obama have developed, from all accounts, such personal animosity towards each other; a Clinton-Obama ticket could be unstoppable and combine all the things that the voters are looking for--a sense of history-making (double dose!), and the style plus substance to achieve the policy goals they both share (which, as far as I can tell, is all of them.)

In addition, it makes the Obama the presumptive incumbent in 2016. This interesting Atlantic piece points out that that was something Hillary may have thought all along, until Obama "jumped the queue" and decided to take her on. Unfortunately, they probably won't be able to get over the nastiness this race has engendered. Not to mention the possibility that Americans can maaaaybe make one leap, but not two...

Hillary wins NH; media makes omelet from egg on its face

Hillary defies expectations and pulls off what no one in the media predicted, and they still aren't gracious enough to print a picture of her that doesn't make her look she's been in the kiln too long.

The narrative is that her tearful moment on the trail helped win over women. The subtext appears to be: Trust chicks to act irrationally. No one seems to think it's a good thing that women turned out so overwhelmingly for her, despite the fact that five days earlier they were heralding the unprecedented numbers of young voters who had supported Obama. Yes, it's nice when college kids put down the bong long enough to do their civic duty, but it's not clear to me why their collective judgment is so much better than that of soccer moms (especially since the latter group is the one that's supposed to hate her so much.)

An optimistic view is that the voters of New Hampshire didn't want the debate to be over, and wanted a candidate to emerge from the campaign thoroughly vetted. A pessimistic view is that they were so sick of the media's self-righteous anointing of Obama (and the thoroughly egregious pile-on of Hillary) after Iowa that they voted for her just to be contrarian. Can't say that I blame them.

Loose definitions of "change"

Mitt Romney on how he is a "change agent"

He went on to highlight how, as a venture capitalist, he helped finance the start of Staples, which shifted how consumers buy their office supplies.

"I was part of that, I saw that firsthand, experienced it. I see how change can change an industry," Romney said.

Further evidence that he is the candidate for change: he changes his socks, and can also make change for a twenty.

Cynical thoughts

The best comment I've heard so far on the prospect of electing either the first woman president or the first black president was from one of my law school friends (who is black and female). I asked her who she was supporting and she responded darkly, "It depends on whether I can stomach eight years of racism or eight years of sexism."

Inevitable Harry Potter analogy

This depressing account of how much the juvenile political press hates Hillary (even when she brings them bagels and coffee!) makes me think that she is the Hermione Granger of the 2008 campaign--the know-it-all, hardworking student that everyone despises. I guess that makes Barack Obama Harry Potter: the "Chosen One".

[Yes, it is sad that of all the thoughts I've had about the candidates in the past few days, this was the one I wrote down.]