Romney Takes Wyoming

Mitt Romney won the first state race in the 2008 primaries, an achievement nobody outside political junkies are paying attention to since the Granite State dominates headlines:

Mitt Romney captured his first win of the Republican presidential race, gaining most of Wyoming's delegates at stake in GOP caucuses on Saturday.

The former Massachusetts governor won six of the first eight delegates to be selected. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and California Rep. Duncan Hunter won one apiece, meaning no other candidate could beat Romney. Caucuses were still being held to decide all 12 delegates at stake.

Coming two days after the Iowa caucuses and three days before the New Hampshire primary, the early date of the Wyoming GOP county conventions was intended to draw candidates' attention to the state but had only modest results.

Republican hopefuls Romney, Hunter, Fred Thompson and Ron Paul all stopped by the state—visits they probably wouldn't have made except for this year's early conventions—and candidates have sent Wyoming's GOP voters a flood of campaign mail.

Wyoming had moved its primary forward to try and gain national attention, but ended up remaining mostly obscure.  Hardly any of the GOP candidates spent time in Wyoming.  Ron Paul had conducted some extensive politicking in a state predisposed to agree with is positions given their libertarian tendencies, but he ended up worse than he did in Iowa (all the worse given that the frontrunners except Romney didn't compete against him).  With all precincts reporting, Romney won 67% of the vote, followed by Thompson at 25% and Duncan Hunter at 8%.  With twelve delegates at stake, this gives Romney eight of them, Thompson three, and Hunter one.  Eight delegates probably won't give Romney an edge, especially since candidates need over one thousand delegates to win.  The Democrats will visit Wyoming in March.

Political Poetry

Want to know why Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are doing so well?  Peter Schramm thinks he has an answer.

Fred Thompson’s comment "We just got our ticket to the next dance," reminds to say a brief word on the language used by both Huckabee and Thompson, and why it appeals to folks. Romney (and Hillary) speak in platitudes and abstractions, and this, in large measure, explains why their campaigns don’t seem to have energy. Their words don’t bring forth images. They are too abstract, stiff, cold. Her rhetoric always gives the impression that she is talking at you, rather than having a conversation with you. A candidate should be able to talk with people in a way that also gives the (honest) impression that he is having a conversation with not only them, but also with himself. This mode verges on poetry, not just rhetoric. I recollect Fred Thompson’s statement a few days ago that although he wanted to be president he really didn’t like campaigning (Peter Lawler noticed this); he was questioning himself, hence seemed very honest, authentic. (That it was misunderstood by the MSM is another matter). (snip)

This, I assert, is one of the reasons why Huckabee and Thompson are liked (and is also related to why Obama is liked, but that is a more complicated story) and explains why their supporters are more enthusiastic and why such candidates are said to be more "authentic." I don’t mean to say that the candidates’ positions, etc., don’t have anything to do with it, but "white papers" can’t seduce, only spoken words can in a campaign.

This lack of poetry in our language is one of the reasons, perhaps, people feel alienated and frustrated  about our politics.  That "seductive" language, that language that reforms our view of reality, that puts complicated matters into imagery that is both understandable and inspiring is sorely lacking.  As Prof. Schramm indicates, most of our politicians use rhetoric that rarely moves beyond insipidity.  This is what happens when your language is dictated to you by consultants who have market tested various appeals with multiple focus groups.  You are likely to get something that sounds average, trite,  pre-packaged.

Think of the language of Lincoln, surely the greatest poet president.  Phrases such as "mystical chords of memory," "last best hope of earth," "those who gave the last full measure of devotion," "with malice toward none, with charity for all," "a house divided cannot stand" (ok, he stole that last one), speak to the soul.   It was Mark Steyn (go to the 34th minute) recently who pointed out that the great songwriter E.Y. Harburg (you'll know him as the man who wrote the lyrics to "Over The Rainbow") argued that "music makes you feel a feeling, words make you think a thought, song makes you feel a thought."  Political rhetoric is similar to song.  Inspiring rhetoric marries those two appeals to both the head and the heart. While I might argue that Huckabee and Obama are more heart than head, Schramm's larger point remains. 

The dearth of poetic politics perhaps is a natural outcome of our post-literacy visual age.  We don't know how to read, say, or hear words, and so it is no accident that there are so few of them that are the least inspirational.

Update: Welcome to the National Review readers.  Tour our site and see if you like it.  And just for you I edited some of my typos.     

Reforming The Reform

I have the following comments on Prof. Blanchard's post on primary reforms. First, he dismisses the notion that regional primaries would produce regional nominees. He too readily rejects the notion of momentum, that a person who swept the first region because he is a native son would find himself at a decided advantage over his opponents.  As for Prof. Blanchard's second point, that one month between regional primaries is enough for low funded candidates to make the one-on-one appeal that I desire, this is true only because Prof. Blanchard is moving toward my suggestion of various small regional primaries.  Most proponents of regional primaries, such as the leadership of the South Dakota parties, favor four large regions. Prof. Blanchard suggests seven regions of seven to eight states from January to July.  This is movement toward my suggestion of regions of four to eight states (which means about eight primaries) over the course of six months.  I am not concerned with specific numbers, but rather moving toward a longer process with smaller regions that allows for a more deliberative judgment by the people.  I am in favor of regional primaries as long as we hold to the principle of deliberation. 

Primary Reform

The national party organizations have actually tried to impose some discipline on the state party organizations this year, which I believe is unprecedented, and may mean that serious reform is coming down the pike.  Of the two parties, the Democrats have been more courageous.  Several states, including Florida and Michigan, have been stripped of all their votes at the coming National Convention.  The Republicans have been half as courageous, stripping the respective states of half their delegates. 

Everyone knows what we ought to move to: a system in which the states rotate with each election, so that every state gets to go first eventually.  The question is how to arrange that. 

My SDP colleague Jason Heppler proposes a single national primary day. 

Perhaps holding a single primary election day for the entire nation would be useful.  The primary could be scheduled in the middle of the year and conventions can be held immediately afterward, giving candidates and parties ample time to conduct a general-election campaign.  This way, no single state like Iowa or New Hampshire can tank someone's run for office and this forces candidates to present their policies (not soundbites) to voters in all states.  This has the added benefits of taking an emphasis off early campaigning and removing the problem of front-loading.  If a clear winner doesn't emerge, then delegates at the convention can debate and decide the winner (like things were before the Age of the Image).

That is indeed a proposal worth considering.  But I think it is much better to string the nomination process along a half a year period.  We would have a lot better chance to see the strengths and weaknesses of the various candidates emerge. 

My original proposal was to divide the states into groups, each including states in various regions and of various sizes.  Each group would hold a common primary on the first Tuesday of each month from January or February to June or July.  The order of the groups would rotate with each election, so everyone gets to go first eventually.  A variation would organize the groups according to region.  Professor Schaff doesn't like this idea. 

First, regional primaries are more likely to produce regional candidates, surely not good for the polity.  While the first primary would rotate among the regions, some region must go first and a candidate from that region would have a decided advantage.  Second, regional primaries would favor those with the most money to buy television advertising.  Likely the regions developed for such a system would be so large as to make retail politics of limited use.  Thus candidates would be encouraged to engage in mass appeals through mass advertising.

I respectfully dissent. If regions are inclined to vote for regional candidates, they will do so no matter how the systems is arranged.  No doubt some candidates will benefit if a region in which they are strong goes first; but that advantage will disappear as soon as the next region takes its turn.  By the second or third month of the election schedule, voters in each region will be thinking nationally. 

Second, regional primaries would favor candidates with less money or name recognition.  Candidates would have a full month to cover each region.  Where states are itty bitty, like in New England, they could cover the ground by bus.  It's alright to be itty bitty. Regional primaries would have the same effect as the electoral college: they would force candidates to focus on groups of states rather than on the nation as a whole. 

So lets divide the election year into seven primary dates, from January to July.  Then divide the states into seven regions of seven states each (and one of eight, with maybe Wyoming), rotating with each election.  I think that would keep the best features of the present system, and supply its defects.  A variation would be to increase the number of primary dates and corresponding state groups.  We could have two state primaries (or caucuses) every week from January to July.

I think there is a very small chance that such a system will be adopted. But if it is, let's call it the Blanchard Plan. 

Iowa Interpreted 2

How you read the results in Iowa depends a lot on how you read the New Hampshire primary and other contests, in advance.  See Fred Barnes:

Let's start with Obama. Pre-Iowa, polls showed him trailing Clinton in New Hampshire. He's likely to jump ahead of her now, though New Hampshire voters occasionally show a contrarian streak. If he wins the primary, Obama will become the prohibitive favorite for the nomination. For the past 36 years, a candidate, Republican or Democrat, who wins in Iowa and New Hampshire has always won the nomination.

That is one of those statistics that isn't very helpful without context.  When a candidate wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, it usually means that all opposition has collapsed.  Kerry represents the classic case.  Going into Iowa, the 2004 Democratic side was a two man race: Kerry and Dean.  Kerry's back to back victories meant that the establishment candidate was the clear favorite over the radical challenger. 

Maybe that works in reverse for the challenger, Obama.  If he wins big in New Hampshire, that certainly makes him the front runner and Hillary the underdog.  The problem is this: Obama represents change.  At least that is what everyone is saying.  But change is an amorphous idea.  It tells you what it isn't (the status quo), but not what it is.  So far the press and, apparently, the Iowa caucuses, have focused mostly on the fact that Obama is young and beautiful. If he wins in New Hampshire, we will have to start asking what an Obama presidency would be like. 

Senator Clinton, by contrast, is all compromise, contradiction, and recorded votes.  But that is the stuff out of which real policy is really forged.  We can guess what a Clinton 2 presidency would look like.  I think that Kerry lost the last presidential election precisely because he could never quite say what he would do about the issue (Iraq) that as most in voter's minds.  Bush's policy, popular or not, beat no policy.  Senator Obama tells us what he would do about Iraq: bring the troops home, regardless of the circumstances.  Maybe that's a winning position.  But Iraq is no longer the key issue, and with the war going much better than it was, Obama may be forced to qualify his position is a Kerry-like way. 

Like my colleague, Professor Schaff, I am by no means ready to count Senator Clinton out.  Were it not for the fact that her personality comes across to many voters like finger nails on a chalk board, I would put good money on her nomination.  But she does come across that way, and maybe that means that change will get its chance. 

Peggy Noonan on Huckabee's Victory

Today's OpinionJournal piece by Peggy Noonan, "Out With the Old, In With the New" makes a key point about Huckabee's win last night in Iowa: 

From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

...

[W]hile the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America. That is something conservatives used to know.

Indeed.  It doesn't make sense for evangelicals to rally around a candidate that's strong on social issues yet weak on others.  It isn't that social issues aren't important, but if voters focus on a candidate who pours his efforts into things that cannot be changed from the Oval Office, they have wasted their time and their votes.

A Few Other Notes on the Primaries

The Republican candidates are off to Wyoming on Saturday.  Everybody thinks that the Granite State is next in line on Tuesday, but Wyoming holds its caucus on Saturday.  It's getting very little attention, but some candidates are taking it seriously:

Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson spent $10,000 each to acquire a list of the names and contact information for party members who will help select the national delegates. Romney set up a state office in Casper, Cubin said.

There have also been calls on behalf of candidates from national GOP figures - including Mary Matalin, a former counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, who is supporting Thompson, the former U.S. senator from Tennessee.

"The response has been terrific," Matalin said by telephone Thursday, noting that state GOP members have been keenly interested in Thompson's stance on important national issues. "The thing about Wyoming people, they just like the straight talk. I'm not spinning anybody and not offering any pointers."

Nobody has conducted polls in Wyoming, so the winner is up in the air.  My only other observation for now is that if Hillary fails in New Hampshire, the need for an anti-Hillary on the Republican side is diminished, which I think puts Giuliani in a very precarious position.  Many Republicans were willing to overlook Rudy's social liberalism because they felt he could take on Hillary and win.  One state doesn't suggest anything conclusive, but it's possible that Obama's victory could have damaged both the Clinton and Giuliani candidacies last night.

I Admit That Ioway I Owe A Lot To You

You are probably experiencing Iowa fatigue, so I will keep this brief as I have little to add to the reams of Iowa commentary out there.  Prof. Blanchard's post is comprehensive enough.  I simply want to point out that the reported demise of Sen. Clinton is surely premature.  She is still the overwhelming favorite of national Democrats.  Certainly it has to feel better to be Barack Obama today than in Hillary Clinton, but I'd put them as co-favorites rather than placing Obama as the lead horse in this race.  I still maintain that there is a "Hillary Comeback" story to be written by the media. 

Obnoxious South Dakota

Right Wing News' list of 40 Obnoxious Quotes of 2007 has a couple South Dakota references.  Coming in at #29:

"Well, because the Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs. It's a racist sort of thing, really racist – you know, picking out these 19 or 20 terrorists – they were terrorists – and saying all the Arabs are like them." -- Former [South Dakota] Democratic Senator James Abourezk on Hizbullah TV

And at #27:

"Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to (Democratic Senator Tim Johnson)? ...I know what this [Republican] party is capable of." -- Joy Behar on The View

Teacher Pay In South Dakota

The Argus editorializes in favor of higher teacher pay:

This is how far behind we've fallen: There is no realistic raise in the amount of money spent on K-12 education that this year would vault South Dakota out of its long-held last-place national ranking in teacher pay.

We are so far behind - 10 percent behind 50th-ranked North Dakota - that catching up in one swoop would break us.

Gov. Mike Rounds proposal - increase the amount of money sent to school districts by 2.5 percent more than last year - at best maintains the status quo. Meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties are planning counterproposals to raise that number to 4.5 percent.

That latter figure is the minimum amount the Legislature should authorize.

To add clarity, the Argus should demand that any extra increase in educations spending go to teachers, not to administration or overhead. 

I have been a consistent advocate on this blog of higher teacher pay.  South Dakota teacher pay should be competitive, if not necessarily equitable, with our surrounding states. It currently is not.  But the people of South Dakota should not allow themselves to be distracted by this issue, however important it may be. Educational performance has much more to do with what is being taught and how it is taught than the salary of the person in front of the room.  One also cannot stress too much the importance of the first teachers, parents, who do that work for free.  Parents with an active roll in their child's education are more important than teacher salary. 

Iowa

Not exactly a big surprise: Huckabee wins the Republican caucus.  From Washington Post:

Mike Huckabee  34%
Mitt Romney       25%,
Fred Thompson   13%
John McCain     13% 
Ron Paul             10%.

Obama wins big on the Democratic side.

Barack Obama  38%
John Edwards    30% 
Hillary Clinton   29%

First, the Winners. 

Huckabee and Obama both have something to cheer about.  Huckabee beat long odds to finally achieve front runner status where it really counts: in delegate totals.  I confess that I expected otherwise.  I thought his very bad no good week would turn him into this year's Howard Dean.  Shows you what I know.  Obama has seemed like a sure thing in Iowa for a long time, but his eight percent looks pretty convincing. Both parties voted for "change," which  is more often a sign of disaffection than of preference. 

Beyond that, Huckabee still has a lot further to go than Obama.  He seems to have been carried to victory in Iowa almost entirely by the evangelical vote.  That can happen only in a caucus state.  To keep winning he has to enjoy a surge of support in the coming primary states, beginning with New Hampshire where he is still in fourth place in the polls.  Maybe the big Mo will produce such a surge, but I will be a little surprised. 

Obama, by contrast, looks to have a lot of assets that he can exploit in the coming contests.  Black voters tend to support more establishment candidates, and abandon them for someone like Jesse Jackson only when the latter is "authentic."  Obama's background is hardly the traditional Black experience.  On the other hand, will Black voters really pass up a chance to elect the first Black president?  If Black voters do swing his way, Senator Clinton is in deep trouble. Moreover, Obama is in a much better position in New Hampshire than Huckabee.  If he pulls ahead there, Hillary becomes the underdog.

On the other hand, and here I hedge my bets, Ms. Clinton did much better among older voters than Senator Obama did.  Older voters will be increasingly represented in primaries, and even more so in the general election.  She has all the baggage of a Clinton, with none of the charm.  Short of a personality transplant, she will always repel a lot of the support she needs.  But she has paid her dues, and is by all reasonable accounts the more qualified candidate.   I wouldn't count Ms. Clinton out.

The Runners Up.

Romney looks to have taken a tumble, but in fact he remains where he had been for most of the last year.  He has significant but insufficient support, and can't seem to improve on it.  They say you ain't out till you are out of money, and he has deep pockets.  But if he loses to McCain in New Hampshire, I am guessing he is out of it.  Right now McCain is the Republican to watch.  His tie for third was probably good enough for the venue, and a victory in New Hampshire puts him back on the board.  Giuliani has been out of the news loop for weeks, and neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is likely to put him back in.  Fred Thompson, the Hamlet of Hollywood, is out of money and I don't think that is going to change.

Edwards is finished.  It looks like he couldn't even carry the union vote in Iowa, and if not that and there, then what and where?  He will hang in there for a while, but the Democratic race looks to be a two person contest from here on out.

Signs of Social Progress

When I heard Juan Williams on Fox comment that the Democratic race has come down to a Black candidate and a woman, my first reaction was: "Oh."  I wasn't thinking about that, and most of the media mind wasn't thinking about it either.  Nor were the voters.  Iowa is only slightly less White than your average polar bear, so it's hard to tell about the race thing.  But it looks like most of the women who showed up for the Democratic caucus voted for Obama.  The truth is that we are all thinking of Obama and Clinton as candidates, not as representatives of their demographic identities.  That is a new thing, I think.  We may be finally moving out of the race and sex consciousness that has haunted American politics for many decades.  I would call that progress. 

Push-Polling in Iowa

We're a few hours out from the results of the Iowa caucuses and the Clinton campaign appears to be making good use of the time.  Our friend Ed Morrissey notes that push-polling calls have gone out to Iowans warning of the troubles voters will face from a John Edwards or Barack Obama nomination.  Morrissey wonders if Clinton is behind the calls:

Let's see ... who would benefit from last-minute push-polling against John Edwards and Barack Obama? Whose campaign could get so desperate as to reach for a transparently negative approach in a state famous for disdaining such tactics? Which candidate sees the inevitability of the nomination vanishing like the fog of an Iowa morn?

Could it be ... Hillary Clinton?

Meanwhile, the Attorney General in New Hampshire is moving forward with the investigation into push-poll calls that went out around Thanksgiving "asking" voters if they had awareness of some aspects of the Mormon religion.  Both Mitt Romney and John McCain filed complains with the state AG for violations of New Hampshire law's against push-polling.  The AG has found the next-level cutout and wants witnesses who can show where it leads.  They're looking for who hired Moore Information, the company that allegedly conducted the push-poll.  Jim Geraghty over at NRO has a client list that's almost exclusively Republican, doing most of their work in the interior West.  The only current presidential candidate on the list is Ron Paul, but that's certainly not enough to prove conclusive linkage to the push polling.  If the AG succeeds in finding a link to a candidate, they can kiss their presidential future good-bye.

UPDATE:  A roundup of Iowa predictions.

UPDATE:  IowaHawk is liveblogging the caucuses.  Meanwhile, as of 6:36 Central Time, Drudge has the early numbers:

RESULTS:
Clinton 0; Obama 0; Edwards 0
Huckabee 0; Romney 0; McCain 0; Paul 0; Thompson 0;  Giuliani 0

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey is liveblogging the caucus results.  Fox, CNN, and ABC News are projecting Huckabee to win Iowa.  As of 8:05 pm with 15% percent of GOP precincts reporting, Huckabee leads Romney 36%-23%, followed by Thompson at 15%, McCain at 12%, and Paul with 11%.  The Dems are split with 22% of precincts reporting, with Edwards a point ahead of Clinton and Obama, 33-32-32.  If Thompson maintains the ever-important third place, Iowa will turn out to be a huge pickup for him.

UPDATE (8:24 pm):  With 57% of Democratic precincts reporting, Obama leads Edwards and Clinton, 35-31-31.  With 41% of GOP precincts reporting, Giuliani has received a large bump upwards, now running at 11%.

UPDATE (8:51 pm):  CNN calls it for Obama, with 73% of precincts reporting.  Hillary runs in third so far.  If she remains there, the rest of the race will be a big problem for her.  A New Hampshire win for Obama might cause the rest of the nation may reconsider their support for Clinton.  With 65% of GOP precincts reporting, Huckabee maintains a nine-point lead over Romney.  Thompson is hanging on to third place.

Denver Post Advocates Regional Primaries

The Denver Post joins Ken Blanchard, USA Today, and South Dakota party officials in advocating regional primaries.  Excerpt:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 1988, describes the current system as "nuts." Few Americans living outside of Iowa and New Hampshire would dispute him. The question is: How can we fix this broken system?

Dukakis, like many other observers, favors a plan by the National Association of Secretaries of State that would feature four regional primaries, with the East, South, Midwest and West rotating every four years so a different region votes first after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The regional primaries would be conducted in March, April, May and June.

This plan assumes that Iowa and New Hampshire still keep their one-two positions — while ensuring that their contests aren't immediately overshadowed by high-spending campaigns like those now gearing up for Feb. 5.

At a bare minimum, Congress should reform the system so that Iowans caucus no earlier than March 5, 2012, with New Hampshire weighing in on March 13 and the regional contests commencing later that month.

Otherwise, the next Iowa caucus may occur before Turkey Day in 2011. While that might seem appropriate, it would further undercut public faith in our political process.

Both Professor Blanchard and Professor Schaff have thought-provoking posts below about the benefits and drawbacks to regional primaries.  Might I add a third option for consideration?  Perhaps holding a single primary election day for the entire nation would be useful.  The primary could be scheduled in the middle of the year and conventions can be held immediately afterward, giving candidates and parties ample time to conduct a general-election campaign.  This way, no single state like Iowa or New Hampshire can tank someone's run for office and this forces candidates to present their policies (not soundbites) to voters in all states.  This has the added benefits of taking an emphasis off early campaigning and removing the problem of front-loading.  If a clear winner doesn't emerge, then delegates at the convention can debate and decide the winner (like things were before the Age of the Image).  There are certainly disadvantages to this plan: more federal control would be exerted on what is normally considered state elections, nominees might be chosen in the smoke-filled back rooms, and populous states will consolidate power, to name a few I'm concerned about.  However, in terms of presidential elections, federal control to ensure equal treatment of voters might not be bad thing.  The issue of populous states carrying more weight is inevitable since they represent more voters, but this can be alleviated by not allowing a winner-take-all rule in the primaries and tasking political parties to decide.

It may not be the perfect plan, but I think worthy of consideration.  This plan allows for a broader choice of candidates to a greater share of voters and restores some sanity to the nomination system.  If Primary Day is sent far enough into the year, say June or July, it will shorten up the presidential campaign and force nominees to become more efficient.  It has its flaws, but it's an improvement over our current system.

Property Taxes Lead Issue For South Dakota Legislature

What the South Dakota media will cover in the upcoming legislative session is anyone's guess.  If the media cover the most contentious issue that draws the most attention from the legislators then property taxes will lead the coverage.  Faithful legislature watchers will recall that last year there were various proposals to reform the state's property tax method.  An interim study group analyzed the situation and released this report.  The short hand, as I understand it, is that the study group ended up endorsing something similar to SB 173 from last year, which I wrote about here last February.  This is not altogether surprising as Sen. Dave Knudson and Rep. Larry Rhoden chaired the study group and were chief proponents of SB 173. 

The complaint last year about SB 173 is that it was taking three fictitious numbers and multiplying them together to get an "accurate" assessment of property value.  Under the current proposal instead of asking farmers to report the rent value of their land, SDSU would be commissioned to come up with a number. That is an improvement on last year's bill, yet one wonder why the legislature cannot simply empower the county assessors, whose job is to assess land value, to use their professional training and come up with a number for tax purposes.  Further, that value will still be multiplied by factor numbers completely made up by the legislature. 

The new bill will likely have plentiful initial support.  One will want to watch how the various farm groups react to the bill as it is their land that is most effected by the proposal.  Other property tax reform bill are going to be offered.  So watch for more reporting on this complex but highly important issue. 

Pander Bear

I also wrote yesterday that the American people say they want a candidate that won't pander to them like Santa Claus, yet that is often whom we end up supporting.  Little did I know that there was a Hillary Clinton Chirstimas ad where she actually is wrapping her presents to the American people, such as universal health care, universal pre-school, and alternative energy.  For cogent analysis, see David Innes.

This ad, friends, is a perfect argument why Hillary Clinton should not be president. First, she confirms P.J. O'Rourke's old joke that God is a Republican but Santa Claus is a Democrat.  Here is Hillary Clinton "giving" gifts of government programs to the American people.  When the joke becomes reality it is no longer funny.  Second, as Innes points out, these are portrayed as free gifts.  There is nothing in the ad that discusses the costs or the constitutional ramifications of these proposals.  Let's be clear: President Hillary Clinton will not "give" us universal health care.  She will take our money, give it to a government bureaucracy who will then give our own money back to us in the form of government health insurance after siphoning off a good chunk for overhead. That is not giving; that's taking.  Lastly, the appeal of this ad is debasing to the American people.  Sen. Clinton portrays herself as the kindly mother wrapping presents for her children.  There can be nothing more insulting to the American people than to infantilize them, treating them as if they are children whom Mrs. Clinton must care for.   This ad represents the most crass pandering one can imagine.  "Vote for me and I will give you presents."    A free people will reject this kind of appeal.  It starts today in Iowa. 

 

Building A Better Election Part II

A couple notions that I articulated yesterday in this post on our election system get touched on somewhere else today. 

Yesterday I argued against regional primaries.  One of my arguments was that the likely regions that would make up such a system would be so big that they would exacerbate the problems of the current system.  Now South Dakota party officials are talking about a regional primary, and what do you know, the suggestion seems to be to break up the nation into four enormous regions. 

Chris Nelson, secretary of state, said Wednesday that the political parties should switch to rotating regional primaries among four clusters of states.

Every four years, one of those clusters would hold primaries on the earliest date, perhaps in early February or March, and the other regions would follow suit at one-month intervals, said Nelson, a Republican.

"It would really force the candidates to get out and visit states across the country, as opposed to focusing on a couple of early states," he said.

I beg to differ with our fine secretary of state.  This proposal would force candidates to run a lot of television ads in those regions, but no one can adequately cover the enormous territory covered by the regions in a way that voters can really get to know them.  Also, only high money candidates could afford to run such a race since it requires being able to run in multiple states right off the bat.  So a candidate cannot start slowly and build a following. 

Yesterday I suggested that regional primaries would lead to more image campaigning through television.  I also suggested that the problem with our presidential selection process was not too little democracy, but perhaps too much. Here is former television writer William Katz arguing that television distorts the candidates.  He also suggests, as I did, that party leaders can serve a useful purpose by weeding out unserious and unqualified candidates.  Katz is describing why in our modern age of technology and information we know less about our candidates than before.  Some snippets:

But why do they seem so distant?  I think there are three reasons.  First, the TV myth.  Television, we're told, brings us closer to events. No, it doesn't. It brings us closer to the coverage of events, and the staging of events. But the very staging of something for TV separates us from the candidate. That, of course, is the purpose – to create illusion, not reality. (snip)

The second reason for the distance between public and candidate is a routine demeaning of the American voter. Voters, we're told, are impatient, they won't listen, they're not interested, so let's reduce everything to sound bites. Strange, but Lincoln and Douglas debated for hours, and people listened, often in blazing Illinois heat. (snip) Yet, every time something happens in a campaign, the polls instantly change. People are interested, they do follow, they do react. The press should respond by presenting a more detailed picture of each candidate, not the CliffsNotes version we see today. (snip)

The third reason for the distance, and the most important, in my view, is that the concept of "knowing" the candidates has changed, in part because the selection process has changed. (snip) There were, if I may I use the term, professional politicians standing between the people and the candidates, and one role they played was to screen out the hopeless cases. Yes, I know, I know, the process wasn't all that democratic. And yes, there were so-called "bosses" involved, and they controlled blocks of delegates. Richard Daley in Chicago and Carmine De Sapio in New York were not Jeffersonian. But they were, despite their sins, men who had a kind of professional pride. They would not go to a national convention and nominate a jerk.

Read the whole thing to get an illustrative story about former Illinois Senator Paul Douglas that helps illuminate Katz's last point.

Ron Paul On The Civil War

OK, this is very late, but that's what Christmas vacation can do to you.  A couple weeks ago Ron Paul was on Meet The Press when he was asked about comments he had made about the Civil War and the end of slavery.  I can't seem to get the You Tube video to load.  Go here to see it.  Here is the transcript:

MR. RUSSERT:  I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln.  "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."

REP. PAUL:  Absolutely.  Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war.  No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war.  He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.  I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..

MR. RUSSERT:  We'd still have slavery.

REP. PAUL:  Oh, come on, Tim.  Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world.  And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did.  You, you buy the slaves and release them.  How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years?  I mean, the hatred and all that existed.  So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war.  I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.

Paul seems to be drinking from the Thomas Dilorenzo Kool-Aid.  Dilorenzo is a neo-Confederate who teaches economic history at George Mason.  His book The Real Lincoln is a fairly popular screed against Lincoln that makes the same arguments, and more, as does Ron Paul.  For a strong rebuttal to Dilorenzo see this review from the Claremont Review of Books.  Read the review if only for the pure joy of seeing a skillful reviewer destroy what is a poorly researched and poorly written book, which is what The Real Lincoln is.  Given their ideological sympathies, I wouldn't be surprised if Paul has read Dilorenzo and is parroting the book. 

Let's look at Paul's arguments point by point.
1. Lincoln fought the war to destroy the original intent of the Republic.  The original intent of the Republic is best summed up, I think, in the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  Lincoln was fighting to uphold this proposition, the Confederacy to undermine it. 
2. Slavery was phased out all over the world and every other country ended slavery without civil war.  Not true, and to the extent it is true this ignores the fact that unlike with the British, to use Paul's example, slavery had become an intrinsic part of Southern society.  Paul imagines a South that would give up slavery only if asked nicely.  To say this least, the evidence is against this.   
3. The US government should have bought the slaves and then released them.  That's called "compensated emancipation" and that's what Lincoln was for.  The South went to war to combat any attempt to end slavery.

Overall, Paul suggests that the Civil War was unnecessary and a waste of life and treasure.  True enough. But Paul betrays a profound ignorance of the depth of the antebellum South's commitment to slavery. He also shows that he is part of the neo-Confederate libertarian fringe and by virtue of that fact alone not fit for the presidency. 

The Gay Divorcee

It just goes to show you, it's always something.  Now that gay couples have the right to marry in Massachusetts, a new problem has arisen: divorce.  For example, how do courts resolve disputes over the custody of children?  From the Washington Post:

For years, family court judges leaned toward a maternal preference when it came to custody disputes. But what to do when both parents are women, or neither is? Judges in Massachusetts have been grappling with that question since gay and lesbian couples began filing for divorce in 2004, seven months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Now I figure this will be worked out the way the strike zone is worked out in baseball: it is what the ump calls. But this story gives rise to one of the dumbest things I have ever heard and educated person say:

"One of the benefits of marriage is divorce," said Joyce Kauffman, a Boston divorce lawyer who has handled a dozen same-sex divorce cases. "But for a lot of couples, that benefit is very complicated and very costly in ways that heterosexual couples would never have to experience."

That is a little bit like saying that high speed collisions are one of the benefits of driving.  But it is typical of all that is wrong with the gay marriage argument.  The left sees marriage as a large collection of benefits, to which gay persons ought to be entitled.  In this view, divorce becomes one more benefit.  But marriage is not about benefits at all.  It is about mutual obligations between individuals that are reinforced by social as well as legal sanction.  In that sense it is like any contract.  But contracts involve benefits only to the degree that they bind the various parties.  The left has worked assiduously to undo the ties that bind for a long time now. 

I am in favor of gay marriage because I think that homosexual couples ought to have access to some of the benefits of the marriage contract.  Rights of access in medical emergencies, power of attorney, and medical consent, that sort of thing.  But when custody rights and other matters involving children are raised, some very funny stuff pops up. 

In the case of the doctor, she and her spouse each gave birth to a boy fathered by the same sperm donor. They then adopted one another's sons. Biologically, their children are half-siblings; legally, they are full brothers.

Now  biology is real, and if the law says the two young men are full brothers, then the law is an ass.  As the article noted above, courts have tended to give preference to mothers in custody disputes.  This is in part a consequence of the cultural idea that mothers are the primary caregivers.  But that in turn has its origins in biology.  For most of human history, it was always a lot easier to tell who the real mother is than who the real father is.  On the other hand, adoption is even easier since it is established by legal fiat.  So the court was probably reasonable in its solution. 

While the parties are litigating, a family court in Boston has come up with a Solomonic ruling, saying that each of the women can spend half the week alone in the family home with the children.

The term Solomonic is unintentionally ironic.  Divorce may on occasion be necessary for the protection of children.  More often, it benefits one or more parent while cutting the children in half. 

Do The Dakota Women Speak For Dakota Women?

This is the question posed by Mr. Powers.  Does the site Dakota Women actually speak for the women of the Dakotas?  He notices the preponderance of abortion/reproductive freedom talk at that site.  Don't women care about more than these issues?  He asks which issues qualify as "women's issues"? 

As to whether the website Dakota Women actually speaks for the women of Dakota, I defer to K who rightly argues that, hey, you gotta choose a name, and Dakota Women is as good as any for a bunch of female bloggers from the Dakotas. 

As to which issues are "women's issues" here is one of the rare moments when political science can actually help.  In voting studies we look at the notion of "saliency," which issues are salient, i.e, particularly important, to particular groups.  In this case we'd look at which issues are specially motivating for women and for men as women and men.  It turns out abortion isn't one of them.  As an issue, their position on abortion is not significantly related to how women or men vote.  Those issues that are salient for women include social welfare spending, education, and the environment.  For men it tends to be national defense and taxes.  These differences indicate why, generally speaking, Democrats do better among women and Republicans do better among men.  The issue of particular importance to the respective parties happen to match a divide between men and women regarding issue saliency. 

I note that the discussion above deals only with men and women as voters.  Of course we are not just voters and if we studied other behavior the results might be different. 

Building A Better Election

A couple days ago I noted the virtues of Fred Thompson as a candidate.  Now Glenn Reynolds directs us to this piece that argues that Fred Thompson is the only sane candidate as he is the only one dismissive towards a process you'd have to be crazy to love.  Reynolds' analysis is both penetrating and damning:

Thompson is running the kind of campaign -- substantive, policy-laden, not based on gimmicks or sound-bites -- that pundits and journalists say they want, but he's getting no credit for it from the people who claim that's what they want.

The people and the media clamor for a candidate who does not try to manipulate them, who doesn't run a campaign based on consultants and opinion polls.  We say we want a candidate of substance who gives us honest answers to tough questions rather than just pandering to us like Santa Claus.  And when we get that candidate we ignore him because he is too boring.  It just goes to show the truth of what I often say: there is nothing the American people say they want more than a politician who acts with conviction rather than pandering to the opinion polls, and there is nothing we will punish more severely than a candidate or office holder who does just that. 

Then there is the discussion of Iowa and caucuses, summed up nicely by Ken Blanchard. The question on the table is whether caucuses the proper way of selecting presidential nominees.  Let me first point this out: caucuses are most definitely not "undemocratic."  They are less democratic than primaries, but that does not make them un-democratic. Anyone can  join a party and anyone can caucus.  But the argument, apparently, is that it is too much to ask a free people to give up one night every four years to choose their party's nominee.  And so there must something strange, even undemocratic, about a process that asks them to do so. But does it occur to people who gripe about the selection process that the problem is not too little democracy but too much?  This is no doubt an unpopular opinion, but it is not proven false for being so.  The supplanting of party meetings such as caucuses with primary elections has changed the way in which candidates seek the nomination.  Rather than appealing to party leaders, i.e., office holders and those with formal party positions, the current system asks candidates to make their appeals directly to the people, and thanks to the front loading and condensing of the process, this is done more through media than through actual talking to voters (the virtue of Iowa and New Hampshire is that they are conspicuous exceptions to this rule as actual retail politics occurs in these two states).  Thus the trend is toward empty image campaigns and pandering to the voter.  On the contrary, party leaders are quite adept at picking candidates who will speak to the broad party coalition and who are competent to do the job. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a quieter and less public selection process may actually produce better candidates.

Some of the discussion above forms the basis of my rejection of regional primaries as suggested by USA Today and Prof. Blanchard.   First, regional primaries are more likely to produce regional candidates, surely not good for the polity.  While the first primary would rotate among the regions, some region must go first and a candidate from that region would have a decided advantage.  Second, regional primaries would favor those with the most money to buy television advertising.  Likely the regions developed for such a system would be so large as to make retail politics of limited use.  Thus candidates would be encouraged to engage in mass appeals through mass advertising.  If we wish to make the process better, the best thing we could do is to repeal all contribution limits on fund raising so all candidates can raise sufficient funds to run a campaign and make the process longer.  That means working against front-loading. If we are worried about the undue influence of Iowa and New Hampshire, make the process longer so the immediate results of these two early contests can be overcome by the "losing" candidates through time and effort in the succeeding states.  But the process is so truncated now that "momentum" is everything.  A regional primary makes sense only if the regions are sufficiently small (say 4-8 states, depending on size of states) and the process takes place over an extended period of time, say January to June.  This is six months of sober choosing rather than six weeks of pell mell, as we are soon to see. 

Bloomberg For President?

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering a run for presidency. I don't know what kind of an impact such an effort might have, although I suspect it would be minimal.  The mayor is apparently being urged to run by former centrist Democratic Senators David Boren and Sam Nunn:

Former Senator David L. Boren of Oklahoma, who organized the session with former Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat of Georgia, suggested in an interview that if the prospective major party nominees failed within two months to formally embrace bipartisanship and address the fundamental challenges facing the nation, “I would be among those who would urge Mr. Bloomberg to very seriously consider running for president as an independent.”

We sometimes hear that there is an opportunity for a viable third party because the major parties are not doing the people's business, as is suggested by Mr. Boren.  Without assessing the truth of that claim, it makes me wonder whether there was ever a time in America when there was no third party movement.  Off the top of my head the I can think of two eras: the "Era of Good Feelings" in the early 19th Century, and perhaps immediately following the Civil War until the 1890s.  In American history we have had the Liberty Party, The Free Soil Party, The American Party (aka Know Nothings), the Populists, Progressives, Bull Moose, and the Southern Populism (with strong flavoring of segregationism) of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. That essentially gets us to the modern era of third party candidates John Anderson, Ross Perot and Ralph Nadar.  And let us not forget that at one time the current Republican party was a third party.  It seems some sort of third party movement is the rule rather than the exception.  And yet the two party system remains intact.  Only once, when the Republicans supplanted the Whigs as the viable second party, has a minor party proven consistently successful.  That fact is instructive.   

SDP Jazz Note: 2007 Obituaries

The past year saw the passing of a number of great jazz artists.  Ken Laster does a nice tribute to them at In The Grove: Jazz and Beyond.  You can hear selections from Oscar Peterson, Max Roach, Alice Coltrane, Michael Brecker, and  Joe Zawinul.   I know the work of all but the last.  Oscar Peterson was the best known jazz man to pass this last year.  I listened to a lot of Oscar Peterson's piano when I was first getting into jazz, in the 1980's.  Drummer Max Roach probably had the greatest reputation among jazz fans, if only for his long tenure. 

To this list I would add Frank Morgan, alto sax player from the Twin Cities.  I confess that I only heard his work just after he died.  You can get a good taste of his music at YouAreWhatYouHear, where you can find a lot of live jazz.  This link takes you too a recording of Morgan in Switzerland, in 2003.  Whatever complaints I may have about Europe, they are better custodians of jazz and than we Americans often are.  At that same site you can also find a marvelous concert by Oscar Peterson, at Cologne, in 1970.

The heroic period in jazz is long over.  It has proven almost impossible for jazz artists who emerged since the 1950's to establish the same status as those who worked in that fertile period from the 30's to the mid-60's.  The task for jazz fans now is to give proper respect to contemporary artists.  But that is retarded by hero worship.  None of this means that we shouldn't pour our libations to the heroes as they go to the heavens.   

Huckabysmal Ignorance 2

Intrepid reader Blarney Bob, who is determined to keep me honest in spite of myself, had this to say about my post on the Rendezvous rib joint in Memphis:

It is Nathan Bedford Forrest and he was the  first grand imperial wizard of the KKK.

Thanks, BB.  I corrected the spelling.  More substantive was this message, in reply to my post on Mike Huckabee's ignorance of Pakistan:

Interesting post Dr. Blanchard. You are at your best when quoting others.

Maybe so, BB.  But you get what you pay for, and I ain't gettin' paid nothin' for my own writing on this blog.  I criticized the Incredible Huck for his silly comments on Pakistan. 

What are your thoughts then, concerning your favorite "alpha dog" on steroids W, who when asked (in the 2000 election)who is the leader of Pakistan? Bush did not know the answer and walked off in a huff. Is this an acceptable level of ignorance for a presidential candidate? Perhaps he would have a better memory if he had not spent decades drinking alcoholically and taking illegal drugs? What a paragon of virtue! It is safe to say that he has secured his place in history along with Grant, Harding and Buchanan!

At the risk of spoiling your obvious joy at tearing President Bush a new exit strategy, I must point out that he is not a candidate in the coming election.  He will be judged on his Presidency, and not on how much fun he had in college.  As was the case for Clinton-haters (among whom I am not included), you are now faced with diminishing emotional returns on your rants.

You raise a good question regarding how to judge the aptitude of candidates for the White House.  We aren't electing a candidate for the next round of Jeopardy. I am reasonably well-informed about world politics, but just right now I couldn't name the two candidates in the recent Kenyan election.  Can you, off the top of your head?  Maybe we should have scrutinized Bush a lot more carefully before the 2000 election.  But what we should have looked for was not a good partner in Trivial Pursuit, but whether Bush and his staff were digesting current political events.

Huckabee and his staff had every reason to know that his knowledge of foreign policy issues was a weakness.  He should several competent someones working on such issues.  He should have been woken up and briefed when Pakistan, an important part of current American policy, entered a crisis.  Clearly he was not so prepared.  That is a more significant matter right now than Bush's college escapades.

Again, thanks for the comments. 

Reflections on Iowa

Perhaps because the nominations still seem so much in the air, the Iowa caucus is receiving an unusual amount of criticism on procedural grounds.  Some, but not all of this is fair.  First this from Christopher Hitchens at Slate:

It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses.

It is quite true that the Iowa caucuses are undemocratic.  That is precisely because it is a partisan affair.  Caucuses and primaries are not supposed to reflect the will of the majority; they are supposed to express the will of the parties.  When the Greens, Libertarians, Communists, and Transcendental meditation adherents choose their candidates, they don't have to care what the rest of us think. Unless, of course, they want to have some effect on the outcome.  But that is a pragmatic matter, and has nothing to do with legitimacy. 

Hitchens' subtitle, "The Undemocratic Caucuses are a Terrible Way to Choose a Presidential Candidate" compounds the error.  Iowa is not choosing a Presidential candidate.  It is choosing delegates to the national convention.  The convention will choose the candidate. 

Second, the Iowa caucuses are criticized because they are a terrible way to select delegates for the national convention.  This point is made by Mickey Kaus, also in Slate:

Letting the presidential nominee be picked by the Iowa caucusers is like letting your antiwar tactics be picked by the last people left at the end of a 4-hour SDS meeting in 1970. The result: the leftist radicals win! [But you were all leftist radicals. It was an SDS meeting--ed Oh, right.  I mean, the most committed partisans who have nothing better to do with their time win! In Iowa these people are proven fools, remember.]

This strikes me as correct, but the problem here is precisely that the procedure is too democratic.  Originally caucuses were just party meetings, open to activists and power brokers.  Such folks were reasonably good at balancing party principles and objectives with political reality.  That was the system that gave us Abraham Lincoln.  The Iowa system opens the doors to the smoke-filled room (no doubt tobacco free in most or all places today) to pretty much anyone, but only for one night.  I suspect it does have the effect that Kaus complains about. 

Third, the Iowa caucus is criticized because it does not accurately predict who will win the election or even the nomination.  This is the point of my inestimable Keloland colleague, Todd Epp.

In nine election cycles, it was dead wrong 1/3d of the time—it picked neither nominee.  It picked both nominees only 2/9ths of the time in years where there wasn’t an incumbent running—1976 and 2004—only 2/9ths of the time.

Todd's point is not that there is anything wrong with Iowans voting they way they vote, but that there is no reason the rest of us should take their choices so seriously.  I haven't analyzed his numbers but I certainly agree with this argument, which should probably worry him. The point of the caucus system, like the primaries, is for voters to choose who they want to win, not for them to guess who will win.

There is a fourth criticism: that it gives the people of Iowa too much power over the nominating process.  I think Todd Epp's piece puts this to rest.  Iowa has power, briefly, only over the news industry.  After Thursday, the carbon footprint of Iowa will shrink as all the famous faces crowd back into first class seats on the flights out of Des Moines. 

People who are willing to invest more of their time and resources in the political process can have a disproportionate impact of that process.  This is undemocratic, but it's also perfectly fair and very difficult to correct for.  The two valid criticisms of the Iowa caucus are 1) it's a bad way for for Iowans to chose delegates to the national convention, and 2) it's bad that this process consumes so much national attention at this point in the election cycle.  On the first point, since Iowa isn't going back to the old smoke filled room, it should probably go to a primary election.  Primaries have at least one virtue: they give us some real idea of the public support for the various candidates. 

On the second point, the only corrective is to re-engineer the nomination process to remove Iowa's ridiculously inflated celebrity.  I have long been advocating a system of rotating primaries. I note that USAToday has decided to join me.

If political parties made New Year's resolutions, a worthy one would be to end this absurdity by devising a system of rotating regional primaries that would be in place by 2012.

A more diverse and varied system for selecting nominees would help both parties, improve the public policy debate and make voters less cynical. It would also allow more people to share in the privilege of being first.

I have favored dividing states into an order of five or six groups, with a mix of regions and state sizes in each group, and with a new group moving to the top of the cue (say, the first Tuesday of January) at each election.  An alternative would be to divide the states by regions, with New England going first in 2012, and then the Southwest in 2016, etc.  In either case a lottery would determine the order. 

For now, we have to face the inescapable fact.  Today is the first day of the rest of the election. 

Mrs. Clinton on Pakistan

Last week, observers were quick to jump on Mike Huckabee for his response to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  He offered "apologies" to Pakistan (later clarifying he meant "condolences") and then placed Afghanistan on Pakistan's eastern border rather than western.  If his mistakes received headline treatment, so should Senator Clinton's gaff.  Over at the Politico, Ben Smith notes that "Clinton errs on Pakistan":

Senator Hillary Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details.

But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot."

In fact, Musharraf was re-elected to the presidency in October.

Ouch.  Not good for a candidate who based her entire campaign on the idea she's the best person qualified for the White House.  She loses credibility when she can't differentiate between a presidential election and a parliamentary election in a nation critical to the War on Terror.  It's even worse when she makes the mistake twice in three days.  If she can't get Pakistan right, then she's not prepared for the Oval Office.  And this reminds us that none of the three Democratic frontrunners have meaningful national office or executive office experience, compared to John McCain, Rudy Giulani, and Mitt Romney.  Even Mike Huckabee served as governor longer than any of the front three Dems served in national public office.  We'll see if any reporters other than Ben Smith pick up the story.

DMR Poll Puts Huckabee, Obama At Top

With two days to go before the Iowa caucuses, the Des Moines Register has published a survey showing Mike Huckabee outpolling Mitt Romney among Republicans and Barack Obama leading over Hillary Clinton among Democrats.  Although John Edwards has tried to argue his candidacy is surging in Iowa, he remains at the same levels as the last Register poll.   Edwards must win Iowa if he hopes to have a chance in the early primary states.  According to this poll, Obama is carrying the momentum over Clinton and Edwards.

For the Republicans, John McCain seems to be gaining traction in Iowa.  The Register shows he's nearly doubled his support from November and (as I argued the other day) a third-place finish will give him a push in New Hampshire.  Huckabee's lead remains virtually unchanged since the last Register poll.  Fred Thompson has also improved in Iowa, though I don't know if it'll be enough to remain a key player.  He'll need third-place or better to tap into momentum, but right now he's tied with Ron Paul at 9%.

Happy New Year!

To all our readers!  I hope everyone is having a great and safe celebration.  Thanks to all of you.  Without you, this site wouldn't be possible.  May 2008 be a good one and best wishes to you and yours.

UPDATE:  Give thanks that these folks can celebrate the New Year:

It was something not seen in Baghdad since before the 2003 invasion — people publicly welcoming a new year with singing, dancing and general revelry. The ballrooms of two landmark hotels — the Palestine and the Sheraton — were full of people for the first New Year's Eve celebrations after four years of violence that has bloodied Iraq.

"This place is now more secure," said Zahraa, 23, adorned with heavy black eyeliner and red lipstick, sitting with colleagues at the Palestine hotel, which was the target of huge car bombs in 2005. "Yes, we are still afraid, but we need to lighten our moods occasionally."

Santayana And History

Faithful reader Gary writes in to offer a mild correction to this post of mine on Churchill and the study of history.

I’ve just read your post for December 19^th on Winston Churchill and I feel I must digress and pick a nit with your use of George Santayana’s quote. Though commonly misquoted as you have done, the correct quote is as follows: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If you read it in its original context you can see that Santayana does not quite mean what you and others claim.

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience. - George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

The use of the words “cannot remember” implies an inability not a capability as the words “cannot learn” seem to imply. For those who are capable but unwilling to learn, history is just ignored. For those unable to remember, like infants or a person suffering from Alzheimer’s, every day starts anew. Since nothing is retained, there is no history, nothing to improve upon and all actions are merely instinctive and reflexive. Every day is literally the same or as Santayana calls it, “repeating the past”

Thanks for all the great posts in your blog, they really provoke a lot of thought.

I agree with everything Gary says, especially the last sentence.  The accurate quotation from Santayana along with Gary's interpretation actually lends more credence to the point I was deriving from Churchill, namely that an historically ignorant people can only live in the present and this limited perspective makes them susceptible to easy manipulation and immoderation in their politics. 

Waterboarding: The Adult Speaks

Mark Bowden has a rare sober and cogent analysis of the use of waterboarding as a means of coercing information from terror suspects. Bowden is responding to critics of his position that waterboarding is acceptable in rare circumstances. His conclusion is telling.

There is no question that something important is lost when we as a nation accede to tactics considered reprehensible. One correspondent asked: "What is the harm done to the citizens of the country whose agents have a policy that allows torture?" This correspondent argued that we ought to accept impending tragedy in the name of honoring a high-minded policy.

In my column, I raised the example of the German police chief who threatened a captured kidnapper with torture because he refused to reveal where he had buried alive his 12-year-old victim. The kidnapper promptly gave the location. The German police chief lost his job for making the threat.

It may well have been more noble on some level for him not to have made the threat, but I prefer a less rigid concept of morality. I would not have fired the police chief, or prosecuted him. I agree completely with his actions, even though torture is repulsive. The boy's life matters more than my rectitude or peace of mind.

This is what in Machiavelli is known as the problem of "dirty hands."  The art of politics, especially when it comes to war (in Machiavelli's time politics and war were more inseparable than today), one must get one's hands dirty to do what is necessary.  Those who are unwilling to accept this reality are better off in a monastery than in politics.  While Machiavelli may go to far there is a truth in what he says.  Bowden's argument is that waterboarding should be considered wrong yet tolerated in extreme circumstances.  His is the opinion of one who does not confuse morality with feeling good about one's self.  That is the difference between morality and moralism. My own views on waterboarding are here, although Bowden is causing me to reassess them.

The Case For Thompson

Fred Thompson has played the coy suitor to Republican voters in this primary campaign.  The fact that his is the most conventionally conservative and with some personal cache (hey, this dude was in Hunt For Red October) had Republicans (including this author) begging him to run to make up for the lack of these credentials amongst the then announced candidates.  But his apparent lack of zeal for the presidency and his lethargic campaigning have turned off some of the very voters who this past summer were begging him to run.

Thompson has recently addressed this issue in a way that is compelling.  The late Eugene McCarthy once said that the very desire to be president should disqualify a candidate for the job.  Thompson, in the vein of Cinninatus and George Washington, is the reluctant candidate.  He does not burn with a passion for power, yet he believes he has the capacity to wield it well and his sense of duty to his posterity drives him to do what no ordinary person does, namely run for president.  The attractiveness of Thompson, besides what one may think of his policy prescriptions, is that he has contempt for a contemptuous process. The current system, for reasons beyond the purview of this post, degrades candidates by encouraging them to announce far before the first votes are cast, creating an interminable campaign doomed by its very length to become tedious and to turn on the most trivial of matters (e.g., was that a cross or a bookshelf behind Mike Huckabee in his Christmas video).  Thompson's contempt was seen in the famous "hand show" episode in the recent Iowa debate.  The virtues of Fred Thompson include his unwillingness to pander for votes by making promises that he can't keep and we couldn't afford if he did keep them.  He speaks about reforming entitlements when no other candidate will touch the subject for fear of offending any voters.  Not being consumed with ambition he makes himself more to be trusted with power.  As Peter Robinson points out, Thompson is actually talking to voters as if they are adults, asking them to think and look to the long term.   This stands in ready contrast to the many candidates who see the voters as children who need to be taken care of or given goodies so they will stop crying and be content.  Like John McCain, Thompson tells people things they don't want to hear.  That is highly admirable in a candidate.

Thompson has made a video for his last appeal to Iowans before the caucuses.  Another sign of Thompson's seriousness is that his appeal is not a 30 second ad that amounts to little more than an image appeal, but a seventeen minute speech.  It takes some time, but is worth watching.

Rendezvous at the Rendezvous Rib Joint

If Jazz if America's great contribution to music, and the Europeans certainly think it is, Barbecue is America's great contribution to the global kitchen.  The best pork ribs I have ever tasted in a restaurant were served to me Thursday afternoon at Charles Vergo's Rendezvous Charcoal Ribs, in Memphis Tennessee.  Here is my cohort outside the august establishment, down the alley.

And here is my young man with Big Bob, who has been serving the perfect expression of the art of the barbecue to hungry patrons for the last forty-five years. 

The Rendezvous Ribs are the result of a Zen simplicity.  I don't think there is much more on 'em than paprika, garlic powder, salt, and hours of slow smoking.  That, and more than fifty years of alchemical research. I can produce a reasonable facsimile on my Weber grill.  But if you find yourself anywhere near Memphis, make it to the Vergo's old haunt.  If you can't manage that, you can use the link above to have them delivered.  Either way, you'll owe me.

If you want to find the Rendezvous, look for this sign. It is just to one side of the entrance. 

General Washburn's Escape Alley is name after Cadwallader Colburn Washburn, who, according to legend, escape down that alley during a daring raid by Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Forest was, by some accounts, one of the founders of the KKK.  Looking at my three images, you will get a better idea of the juices in which the Rendezvous ribs are cookin'.   

SDP Jazz Note: The Bible of Jazz

I have frequently mentioned my friend Ken Laster, DJ at WHUS in Storrs, Connecticut, and host of my favorite radio show/podcast, In The Groove: Jazz & Beyond.  I listened to Ken's holiday post yesterday, on the way back from Arkansas.  I was delighted to hear him mention my post 10 Best Jazz CDs for Christmas.  Ken played a cut from Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil, which was number 4 on my list.  He also kindly gave SDP a plug.  I was very happy to bring that album to his attention, as it is Shorter's best, and Shorter is my favorite jazz man.

In an e-mail note, Ken had some very kind words to say about my post on Dicken's Christmas Carol. He is always cautious to point out that my politics are not his politics.  That hasn't stopped him from enjoying my blog posts, or me from enjoying his wonderful podcasts.  In fact, the difference in our political orientation makes the friendship all the more fun, in my view.  Let me return all the many favors he has sent my way.  He is an excellent DJ and a generous human being.  I think his program is the very best jazz site on the web, and it is a great service to the music we love.  I have purchased many jazz albums after hearing samples on his show, so the artists and record companies should rejoice at Ken's work.  If you like jazz or you are curious, go to the link above and you will find an treasure trove of this marvelous music.

Ken also turned me onto eMusic, a legal download service where you can get about 7 or 8 albums of classic jazz for the price of one each month.  But if you are trying to build a solid jazz library, what do you buy?  That leads me to one of my Christmas presents this year, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, by Richard Cook and Brian Morton.  This book packs over 14,000 reviews of jazz on compact disk into 15,000 pages.  It is alphabetical by artist (Juhani Aaltonen to Mark Zubek), with an index if you get the 8th edition.  Each recording gets one to four stars, but readers are discouraged from investing in anything with less than three.  It immediately passed the acid test: most of the jazz discs I already own got four.  Even more useful was the "core collection" designation given to about two hundred discs.  Buy only these, and you will have a very respectable collection of jazz.   I was somewhat tickled to see that the authors stuck a small crown next to some of the four star entries.  These indicate their personal favorites. 

One of the strengths of jazz recording is precisely the fact that jazz artists produce a remarkable number of albums.  Another is that jazz encompasses so wide a range of musical styles.  But those strengths are also weaknesses.  A lot of jazz albums are not well made, even when they feature the stars you think you should be able to depend on.  The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz have more generous tastes than mine, but they provide a marauder's map to the vast and innumerable corridors of America's great music.  Listen to In The Groove, and get a copy of The Penguin Guide.  You will be a jazz nerd like me in no time. 

ps.  Anyone interested in eMusic should send me a note at my Gmail address.  I'll get you set up.  Perhaps you should know that there is something in it for me. 

pps.  Happy New Year to David Newquist, to whom I am grateful for encouraging me to listen to Lester Young. 

Bill Kristol Joins the Gray Lady

Ed Morrissey:  Are They That Afraid Of Bill Kristol?

Statistical Dead Head in Iowa

A new McClatchy-MSNBC poll shows a statistical dead head in Iowa in the Democratic presidential race and a shift in the Republican race.  John Edwars leads with 24%, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton with 23%.  Since the last poll in early December, Edwards gained three points while Clinton lost four points and Obama lost 3 points.

Mitt Romney has regained the lead over Mike Huckabee, who has "lost momentum and support, even among evangelical Christians who had propelled him into the top spot just weeks ago."  Romney leads with 27%, followed by Huckabee at 23%, Fred Thompson at 14%, and Sen. John McCain at 13%.  Huckabee has fallen eight points since earlier this month, while Romney has risen seven points.

Several other polls suggests that the race in Iowa remains a toss-up.  In a different poll with a larger sample, a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll says the race remains tight for both Democrats and Republicans.  There's a three-way statistical tie between Sen. Clinton (30.7%), Sen. Obama (26.8%), and Edwards (24.2%).  Among Republicans, there's also a tie for first place.  Huckabee leads with 27.7%, followed by Romney at 26.6%, McCain at 10.9%, Thompson at 7.8%, and Giuliani at 7.3%.  Robert Novak reports on a massive polling effort that surveyed 15,000 pledged attendees of the Iowa caucuses.  The poll suggests that Huckabee (26%) is slipping to Romney (30%).  McCain comes in third with twelve percent, and Giuliani fourth with nine percent.  Thompson had only one percent, slightly less than Ron Paul's one percent.  When asked about their second choice candidate, Iowans chose McCain for both Huckabee and Romney voters.

Together, I think this suggests that McCain is becoming a greater factor than pundits originally thought.  Although he's running in the middle of these polls, that's far better than what he was polling a few months ago.  It's also significant that McCain is the second-choice candidate.  I would submit that if he can pitch against either Huckabee or Romney he might leave Iowa with a lot of momentum, which threatens Romney in New Hampshire.  The polls also suggest that the Huckasurge is dwindling among Iowa caucus-goers, which is giving Romney a slight advantage -- but he still needs to tread carefully.

Make sure to keep the coffee brewing Thursday.  This will go on late.

UPDATE:  The New York Times reports on the candidates' organized effort to turn out their supporters.  Governor Chet Culver remarked:  "I've never seen anything like it.  The get-out-the-vote efforts are going to be the best ever."

SD Delegation Had A Good Year

Argus Leader excerpt:

Work by South Dakota's congressional delegation in 2007 means the state's ethanol producers will sell a lot more biofuel next year, military veterans will get better medical care and an important regional water purveyor will get a significant increase in federal money.

Despite political differences, South Dakota lawmakers worked together to pass an energy bill that doubles the amount of corn ethanol the nation's oil companies will be required to blend with their gasoline in the next 14 years. The increase gives an economic boost to rural farm communities in South Dakota, the nation's fourth-largest producer of ethanol after Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois.

The legislation, passed days before Congress took its Christmas break, also sets new requirements for oil companies to begin using advanced biofuels - cellulosic ethanol made from woody plant materials and biodiesel made from oil seeds.

A Bhutto Successor

Time reports that Bhutto's nineteen-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto, will take over the leadership of her Pakistan People's Party:

A senior official of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) told TIME late Saturday that the slain former prime minister's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, will likely be named as her political heir and the new party leader on Sunday. PPP members are due to meet to discuss the party's future and to give Bilawal, a student at Oxford, a chance to read his mother's last will and testament.

A Pakistani television news channel also carried reports that Bilawal will be made the new leader, which the channel said accorded with Benazir Bhutto's wishes. If confirmed, the teenager will become the third leader of the 40-year-old center-left party, one of Pakistan's most powerful. Bilawal will follow his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967, led Pakistan as Prime Minister for four years in the mid 1970s and was hanged in 1979 by a military government, and Benazir, who took over from her father and was killed in a shooting and suicide bomb attack two days ago.

The New York Times says the assassination of Bhutto demonstrates Pakistan's terrorism problem has spread beyond foreign fanatics to encompass local militants.  An American intelligence official suggests that her assassination wasn't motivated by her eliminaiton but to destabilize the government with civil unrest.