The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
— The Declaration of Independence
Friday, July 04, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Madison Edition
So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts
— James Madison, Federalist No. 10; Madison then went on to help create the Democratic-Republicans.
The Road to Sixty
I don't just think it's possible that we'll get to 60 seats in the Senate this November, I think it's likely. Here's why:
1. Sheer Numbers. In 2006, we needed 6 seats to take back the Senate, but over two-thirds of the seats up for election were Democrats. That meant we had to defend all of our seats and win over half of the remaining 11 races. We did, but just barely (and I say we in the real sense — I went canvassing for McCaskill). This time, however, we're only playing defense in 12 seats, while the Republicans are defending 23.
2. 2002 Echo. The Senate class elected in 2002 represents a different country — one traumatized by 9/11 and massively in favor of invading Iraq. A lot of these guys scraped by on Bush's popularity that year, so the fact that this will be a Democratic year will hit them particularly hard. Freshman Senators like John Sununu and Norm Coleman are screwed.
3. A Better Campaign. During the Summer and Fall of 2006 an intra-party fight roiled the Democrats, with congresscritters like Rahmbo and Chuck Schumer (chairs of the Congressional Campaign Committees) fought with DNC Chair Howard Dean and progressive activists about where and how to compete. Marginal races like John Tester in Montana and Jim Webb in Virginia were originally funded solely by activists, with the party chairs ignoring them. This year Barack Obama is running ads and campaigning in states like Mississippi, where he has no shot of winning, just to swing the Senate race there. The dirty secret about 2006 is that we could have had an even bigger majority if the D.c. types had had any balls. Now Chicago is running the show.
4. Generic Ballot. We won every seat in 2006 where the incumbent polled less than 50% over the summer (plus Webb over Allen and Whitehouse over Chaffee). That's because the public at large preferred the Democrats to the Republicans, and so if there was any fundamental weakness in an incumbent, the voting public eventually decided to throw the bum out. So, for instance, when we see John Cornyn easily beating Dem challenger Rick Noriega 48-35, that's really good news for Noriega (and why Barack Obama plans to organize 10,000 volunteers in the state for him). Ignore who's "winning" any poll with a challenger versus an incumbent — the only important thing at this point is whether or not the incumbent is above fifty.
I've surfed around and seen a lot of Senate Predictions, and they all seem very conservative to me (remember, in 2006 the most optimistic estimates were that we'd gain four seats). So here are my early predictions.
The Lone Worry
Poor Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Normally she'd be safe in a year like this (she barely squeaked by in 2002, but that was a heavy Republican year), unfortunately a huge chunk of her base got washed away by Katrina. I still think she'll pull it out, mainly because the GOP can't find anybody decent to run against her.
The Gimmes
Several Republicans saw the apocalypse coming and decided not to run for re-election. Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico are as good as ours already.
The Santorum
Jeanne Shaheen has been crushing Sununu for months in polls in New Hampshire. Much like Santorum's slow death spiral in 2006, this race will continue to be fought half-heartedly for the rest of the year.
The Chaffees
Lincoln Chaffee, from Rhode Island, was the only Republican to vote against the Iraq War. Unfortunately for him, he still had an R behind his name, and he lost in 2006. Susan Collins (ME) and Gordon Smith (OR) will have similar problems.
The Conrad Burns
The Tubes! The Tubes! Ted's toast. The mayor of Anchorage is going to make Mackensen's year.
That's SEVEN seats right there, and I'm reasonably confident that we'll win all of them. Add in to the mix these toss-ups:
Minnesota's Norm Coleman, who would certainly be a goner if Al Franken was a better candidate. I'm ok with the risk here, though, because Franken's a movement progressive and if he manages to pull it out he'll be one of the best Senators in the country.
Mississippi's Roger Wicker, an appointee to fill Trent Lott's position, has never won statewide office. Ronnie Musgrove, his Democratic challenger, is the former Governor.
Kentucky's Mitch McConnell — if there's one Senator who can't successfully separate themselves from the national party, it's the minority leader. And he's taking it on the chin.
North Carolina's Elizabeth Dole is a horrible campaigner, and as a 2002 Freshman, would certainly be doomed if her state wasn't so reliably Republican. Even so, North Carolina looks to be turning a bit purple.
Texas's John "Big John" Cornyn, as mentioned earlier, is being threatened by Hispanic War Vet, Rick Noriega. The Obama camp thinks he can win, and so do I.
We only need 3 of those 5 toss-ups to win, although in "wave" or "nationalized" elections, like this year, toss-ups tend to all fall one way or the other (in 2006 we won all of them). So that's why my betting prediction is for 62 Democrats next year (I count Sanders but not Lieberman).
And finally, in addition to all that, there are four more seats we have a chance to take, but probably won't: open seats in Idaho and Nebraska, and fairly strong challengers in Kansas and Oklahoma. But who knows? "Macaca" didn't happen until mid-August in 2006...
1. Sheer Numbers. In 2006, we needed 6 seats to take back the Senate, but over two-thirds of the seats up for election were Democrats. That meant we had to defend all of our seats and win over half of the remaining 11 races. We did, but just barely (and I say we in the real sense — I went canvassing for McCaskill). This time, however, we're only playing defense in 12 seats, while the Republicans are defending 23.
2. 2002 Echo. The Senate class elected in 2002 represents a different country — one traumatized by 9/11 and massively in favor of invading Iraq. A lot of these guys scraped by on Bush's popularity that year, so the fact that this will be a Democratic year will hit them particularly hard. Freshman Senators like John Sununu and Norm Coleman are screwed.
3. A Better Campaign. During the Summer and Fall of 2006 an intra-party fight roiled the Democrats, with congresscritters like Rahmbo and Chuck Schumer (chairs of the Congressional Campaign Committees) fought with DNC Chair Howard Dean and progressive activists about where and how to compete. Marginal races like John Tester in Montana and Jim Webb in Virginia were originally funded solely by activists, with the party chairs ignoring them. This year Barack Obama is running ads and campaigning in states like Mississippi, where he has no shot of winning, just to swing the Senate race there. The dirty secret about 2006 is that we could have had an even bigger majority if the D.c. types had had any balls. Now Chicago is running the show.
4. Generic Ballot. We won every seat in 2006 where the incumbent polled less than 50% over the summer (plus Webb over Allen and Whitehouse over Chaffee). That's because the public at large preferred the Democrats to the Republicans, and so if there was any fundamental weakness in an incumbent, the voting public eventually decided to throw the bum out. So, for instance, when we see John Cornyn easily beating Dem challenger Rick Noriega 48-35, that's really good news for Noriega (and why Barack Obama plans to organize 10,000 volunteers in the state for him). Ignore who's "winning" any poll with a challenger versus an incumbent — the only important thing at this point is whether or not the incumbent is above fifty.
I've surfed around and seen a lot of Senate Predictions, and they all seem very conservative to me (remember, in 2006 the most optimistic estimates were that we'd gain four seats). So here are my early predictions.
The Lone Worry
Poor Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Normally she'd be safe in a year like this (she barely squeaked by in 2002, but that was a heavy Republican year), unfortunately a huge chunk of her base got washed away by Katrina. I still think she'll pull it out, mainly because the GOP can't find anybody decent to run against her.
The Gimmes
Several Republicans saw the apocalypse coming and decided not to run for re-election. Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico are as good as ours already.
The Santorum
Jeanne Shaheen has been crushing Sununu for months in polls in New Hampshire. Much like Santorum's slow death spiral in 2006, this race will continue to be fought half-heartedly for the rest of the year.
The Chaffees
Lincoln Chaffee, from Rhode Island, was the only Republican to vote against the Iraq War. Unfortunately for him, he still had an R behind his name, and he lost in 2006. Susan Collins (ME) and Gordon Smith (OR) will have similar problems.
The Conrad Burns
The Tubes! The Tubes! Ted's toast. The mayor of Anchorage is going to make Mackensen's year.
That's SEVEN seats right there, and I'm reasonably confident that we'll win all of them. Add in to the mix these toss-ups:
Minnesota's Norm Coleman, who would certainly be a goner if Al Franken was a better candidate. I'm ok with the risk here, though, because Franken's a movement progressive and if he manages to pull it out he'll be one of the best Senators in the country.
Mississippi's Roger Wicker, an appointee to fill Trent Lott's position, has never won statewide office. Ronnie Musgrove, his Democratic challenger, is the former Governor.
Kentucky's Mitch McConnell — if there's one Senator who can't successfully separate themselves from the national party, it's the minority leader. And he's taking it on the chin.
North Carolina's Elizabeth Dole is a horrible campaigner, and as a 2002 Freshman, would certainly be doomed if her state wasn't so reliably Republican. Even so, North Carolina looks to be turning a bit purple.
Texas's John "Big John" Cornyn, as mentioned earlier, is being threatened by Hispanic War Vet, Rick Noriega. The Obama camp thinks he can win, and so do I.
We only need 3 of those 5 toss-ups to win, although in "wave" or "nationalized" elections, like this year, toss-ups tend to all fall one way or the other (in 2006 we won all of them). So that's why my betting prediction is for 62 Democrats next year (I count Sanders but not Lieberman).
And finally, in addition to all that, there are four more seats we have a chance to take, but probably won't: open seats in Idaho and Nebraska, and fairly strong challengers in Kansas and Oklahoma. But who knows? "Macaca" didn't happen until mid-August in 2006...
Political Philosophy
Chris Bertram writes:
See also: Hobbes, Machiavelli, Madison, Marx, Popper, etc.
Political Philosophers don't have a problem engaging with reality. But Kantians do.
I’ve recently had to advise some students who wanted to write papers on the topic of humanitarian intervention. Not for the first time, it brought home to me how strong the disciplinary pressures towards a particular perspective can be. Political philosophy (of the Rawlsian/Kantian variety) isn’t an entirely fact-free zone, but the way we often discuss matters of principle tends to push us towards favouring policies independently of the way things actually are. So we might ask, what should be the foreign policy of a just liberal state and what attitude should such a state have to “outlaw regimes” which are engaged in systematic human rights violations. And, in the light of such thinking, what would the laws of a just international order look like? What rights against interference would states have? When would there be a duty to intervene? And so on.Ahem. This seems to me to be more of a flaw of Political philosophy (of the Rawlsian/Kantian variety) rather than Political Philosophy in and of itself. Utilitarians like myself don't have any problem at all engaging with, you know, actual facts.
Straightforward answers come easily and slickly along: states don’t have any immunity to intervention as such, since they only exist for the protection and benefit of their citizens. If they are actively harming their citizens and we can act to stop this, then we, the just liberal state, should do so. And maybe there should be special permissions granted to bona fide democracies, giving them more extensive rights of intervention than other states. Etc etc. (I rather agree with some of this in the abstract, but it is not hard to see how one might thereby build up enthusiasm for the Iraq war—to pick an example at random—without ever troubling to acquire further information about the country, its history, people, society etc.)
See also: Hobbes, Machiavelli, Madison, Marx, Popper, etc.
Political Philosophers don't have a problem engaging with reality. But Kantians do.
Question of the Day
What would you call an intense dislike that is akin to hate, but it originates through massive annoyance rather than the darker impulses that metastasize into hate?
I need a word for how I feel about the woman who sits next to me at work.
I need a word for how I feel about the woman who sits next to me at work.
In November...
1. The current over/under spread on fivethirtyeight.com is 314 for Obama. I'll take the over bet.
BMS currently owes me $10 for the primaries, let's see what he'll go for the general. My crazy right-wing uncle already bet me a Jackson for a straight up victory, but I kinda think my friends are going to want a point spread. Maybe I'll write something up for this weekend...
2. I'll go balls-out for Senators and predict we get to 60. I actually think we'll get 62, if the trend from 2006 holds.
3. Chris Shays is toast. After this election, New England will be GOP-free in the House.
BMS currently owes me $10 for the primaries, let's see what he'll go for the general. My crazy right-wing uncle already bet me a Jackson for a straight up victory, but I kinda think my friends are going to want a point spread. Maybe I'll write something up for this weekend...
2. I'll go balls-out for Senators and predict we get to 60. I actually think we'll get 62, if the trend from 2006 holds.
3. Chris Shays is toast. After this election, New England will be GOP-free in the House.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Lobbyist Edition
If you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, fuck their women, and then come in here the next day and vote against them, you don't belong here.
— Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California Assembly (sometimes mis-attributed to Sam Rayburn)
Roll yer own veep
Fresh off the success of their delegate counter: Slate's VP Selector.
Unsurprisingly, my choices narrowed it down to Klobuchar, McCaskill, Napolitano, and Sebelius.
I do disagree with their "how well known" someone is question — after all the press she's gotten (including giving the response to the State of the Nation), isn't Sebelius somewhat more known than a newbie Senator like Klobuchar?
Unsurprisingly, my choices narrowed it down to Klobuchar, McCaskill, Napolitano, and Sebelius.
I do disagree with their "how well known" someone is question — after all the press she's gotten (including giving the response to the State of the Nation), isn't Sebelius somewhat more known than a newbie Senator like Klobuchar?
The United States of America Tortures People
Snitchens undergoes waterboarding:
Believe Me, It's Torture: Politics: "I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."Seriously, after January, some motherfuckers better go to jail.
Revolt on the Left!
Surveillance Protest Group Tops Obama Website: "Protesters are storming Barack Obama's website. But they all support Obama.I joined the group a few days ago. It'll be interesting to see what comes of it.
A grassroots group of activists has been organizing on MyBo, Obama's official social networking portal, to protest the Senator's recent decision to back controversial legislation granting the President more spying powers. The effort hit a big milestone on Tuesday afternoon: It is now the largest self-organized group on Obama's website, topping networks that were launched over a year ago."
I'm more optimistic than most, as I think Feingold and The Dodd still have a pretty good chance of killing immunity in the Senate. I was always under the impression that Obama would vote no on immunity. The real question is whether or not he'll join the fillibuster.
It's pretty clear Obama doesn't want to be in this situation — he originally opposed FISA and sided with the Dodd a while back, but he was pretty much forced this time to agree to the resolution or risk alienating the House Dem Leadership. If Grandma Nancy had been against this latest bill, I'm sure Obama would be as well. Now, of course, the situation is different, because if Obama faces a full-scale base revolt over this, he'll have the perfect excuse to shift gears and oppose the bill in the Senate.
Science!
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Doubt over date for Brit invasion: "The traditional view is that Caesar landed in Britain on 26-27 August, but researchers from Texas State University say this cannot be right.I had previously thought that the British Invasion happenned in 1964, when The Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan Show. Shows what I know.
Dr Donald Olson, an expert on tides, says that the English Channel was flowing the wrong way on these dates.
An invasion of the south coast at Deal on August 22-23 is favoured instead."
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Duel Edition
I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel.— Sen. Zell Miller, to Chris Matthews on Hardball; I watched this live, and it really was one of the most surreal things I've ever seen on cable news.
SCOTUS STILL SUCKS
Mackensen says in comments to this SCOTUS SUCKUS:
For example, while the D.C. gun ban was ineffectual, the court's decision includes a first amendment type right to bear arms — an invention of right-wing psychopathy made law by the narrowest of majorities. Or take the Exxon case — the court has seriously disrupted our tort-based de facto corporate regulatory regime. And overturning the millionaire's amendment to CFR while leaving Voter ID laws alone is just an insane class-ist interference in the voting process.
And we haven't even seen what Anthony Kennedy, our current little tyrant, will do after Congress and the Presidency swing to the left next year. One doesn't have to believe in a secretive "Constitution in Exile" cabal to see that Kennedy is likely to disagree with some of the more economically progressive legislation set to come out of Congress. What if the court decides that Health Care Mandates are unconstitutional, for example?
Thus far the Democrats haven't tried much, because getting to 60 in the Senate is so hard, and even then the veto pen waits. The Roberts (Kennedy) Court has yet to encounter really liberal legislation. Only time will tell, but I'd wager that the Court is set to seriously fuck with the Democrats in a way they never even contemplated during Bush's term.
"I think he meant the pesky Commerce Clause, or the specific enumeration of powers. Regardless, I feel obliged to stand with Rehnquist on this one (ack): if Congress can create a gun-free zone, then it can do anything, but given specific enumeration of powers this cannot be the case.Congress shouldn't be able to do literally anything, but the Court has seriously overstepped its bounds already.
Jonathan Adler (at Volokh) is skeptical."
For example, while the D.C. gun ban was ineffectual, the court's decision includes a first amendment type right to bear arms — an invention of right-wing psychopathy made law by the narrowest of majorities. Or take the Exxon case — the court has seriously disrupted our tort-based de facto corporate regulatory regime. And overturning the millionaire's amendment to CFR while leaving Voter ID laws alone is just an insane class-ist interference in the voting process.
And we haven't even seen what Anthony Kennedy, our current little tyrant, will do after Congress and the Presidency swing to the left next year. One doesn't have to believe in a secretive "Constitution in Exile" cabal to see that Kennedy is likely to disagree with some of the more economically progressive legislation set to come out of Congress. What if the court decides that Health Care Mandates are unconstitutional, for example?
Thus far the Democrats haven't tried much, because getting to 60 in the Senate is so hard, and even then the veto pen waits. The Roberts (Kennedy) Court has yet to encounter really liberal legislation. Only time will tell, but I'd wager that the Court is set to seriously fuck with the Democrats in a way they never even contemplated during Bush's term.
Feminism on the march
Hmmm. It appears that Grandma Nancy wrote a book: Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters
Whistle Past Dixie
Tom Schaller is the best contemporary working Political Scientist, and he says:
And Georgia is winnable, but only if Bob Barr cockblocks McCain, which is seeming increasingly less likely.
Why Obama Will Be the Latest Democrat to Lose in Dixie - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "THE interim between the primaries and the parties’ nominating conventions is, according to ancient writ, a fertile period for presidential campaigns to talk about how they plan to expand the political map in the fall. This year is no different. Barack Obama’s strategists are suggesting that the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party can parlay increased turnout among black voters into a string of victories in the South.I think the Obama campaign knows this — they've sort of explicitly acknowledged that their activities in Mississippi are aimed more at winning the state's Senate seat than its electoral votes.
Given that roughly half of all African-Americans live in the 11 former Confederate states, the idea seems intuitive enough. It’s also wrong."
And Georgia is winnable, but only if Bob Barr cockblocks McCain, which is seeming increasingly less likely.
SCOTUS SUCKUS
E. J. sez:
The Court vs. Voters: "The spate of 5 to 4 conservative decisions during the Supreme Court term just ended should stand as a warning that we may soon revisit the fights of 70 years ago. Yet almost nobody is talking about this danger. To the extent that judges have been a campaign issue in recent elections, the focus has been on a few hot-button issues, notably abortion. After last week's decision in the sharply contested Second Amendment case, perhaps gun rights will join the list.It's true, this is important, but nobody's talking about it. Except for me. I talk about it all the time! I should have a TV show.
But the more important question is whether conservative judges will see fit to do exactly what conservative courts did for much of the New Deal era by using a narrow, 19th-century definition of property rights to void progressive economic, environmental and labor regulation."
BOOM!
100 years of Tunguska.
The background is interesting, but it's sort of obviously a spaceship exploding. A blast that large, and we didn't know about it for 20 years? If the ship had landed anywhere else on Earth, we would have (if it had landed in the water, it would have created a civilization-destroying Tsunami). So not only did aliens* visit Earth, but they knew enough about our civilizations to know where to crash land.
What else explains the effect of a meteor crash in the remotest land mass on Earth, without an impact crater or meteor remains?
*Please note that it might not be aliens, but could also be time-travelling humans from the future doing grad school research.
The background is interesting, but it's sort of obviously a spaceship exploding. A blast that large, and we didn't know about it for 20 years? If the ship had landed anywhere else on Earth, we would have (if it had landed in the water, it would have created a civilization-destroying Tsunami). So not only did aliens* visit Earth, but they knew enough about our civilizations to know where to crash land.
What else explains the effect of a meteor crash in the remotest land mass on Earth, without an impact crater or meteor remains?
*Please note that it might not be aliens, but could also be time-travelling humans from the future doing grad school research.
Monday, June 30, 2008
GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: NOT Kennedy Edition
Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.
— Lloyd Bentsen, in the 1988 Vice-Presidential Debate with Dan Quayle, after Quayle compared his level of experience with Kennedy's.
Ghoulist Perspective
The vast majority of the bills I'm processing today are for people who are already dead.
I just processed a long series of bills that started in a hospital, got progressively more expensive, then moved to an "End Stage Care Facility", then suddenly stopped.
I just processed a long series of bills that started in a hospital, got progressively more expensive, then moved to an "End Stage Care Facility", then suddenly stopped.
Budget/Dollar/Oil
At the bar the other night I made the argument that gas prices would probably dip down a little if we engaged in some Clintonian-style deficit reduction, as that would raise the dollar. Now I see Ben Stein's making the same argument, so it's almost certainly wrong.
The Husseinification of America
See? I'm not the only one:
Obama Supporters Take His Middle Name as Their Own - NYTimes.com: "Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.Now that is some hard-hitting investigative reporting.
“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.
With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name."
Sunday, June 29, 2008
GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Goddamn Bitch Set Me Up Edition
Goddamn setup... I'll be goddamn. Bitch set me up!
— Marion Barry, mayor of Washington D.C., live on camera, after being caught in a hotel room smoking crack with a hooker. Barry went to jail, but was later elected to a fourth term as mayor. He currently sits on the D.C. council.
McCain outspending Obama?
In Missouri, at least:
Since his visit to southwest Missouri last week, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has aired more than three times as many campaign ads in the state as his Democratic rival, Barack Obama.Why is this?
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