South Dakota Politics

A Brief Exchange on Evolution

In a recent exchange with Cory Heidelberger I made these comments:

I am opposed to creationism in the public curriculum, and likewise I oppose intelligent design theory.  On the other hand, I know from experience that students who favor the Biblical creation story over Darwinian evolution get much more interested in the discussion of evolution when the two stories are brought together in the classroom.  Governor Palin suggested in a debate that there was no reason the two "theories" could not be taught together.  I think that was a risky suggestion.  It needs to be made clear that evolution is what is being taught in science classes, because evolution is science and the Biblical story is not.

This, I suspect, was what drew a reader to send me this e-mail:

Evolution is not science.  Period.  (DB).

To which I replied:

Yes it is.  Colon.  It has a theory, and the theory generates a vast number of research programs which you can read about in lots of places.  It is the foundation of all the modern life sciences.  There are surely tens of thousands of biologists teaching, and doing research across the globe.  You might find a few hundred who have some significant doubts some aspects of the theory, just as you will find a few physicists who think that the theory of relativity is flawed.  None of them will argue that evolution is not science.  Even the Intelligent Design folks will readily admit that evolution is a genuine science, and that most of it is in fact sound and correct.  They challenge only the proposition of macroevolution due to random mutation.  I have to say that this is good enough for me. 

Not only is Darwinian evolution a science, but it is one of the most successful sciences over the last century.  That is about all I can say in reply without knowing more about the grounds of your claim. 

Thanks for the note.

Ken

Palin ain’t Failin’

Let me begin with a big caveat: the McCain campaign still faces big structural obstacles.  The Republican base is shrunken like a week old tomato on a sunlit window sill.  Obama still has a bit of a lead in most recent polls, and despite the fact that his lead has always been narrow, and despite the fact that, on paper, his lead ought to be a lot larger, it is still better to hold a lead than to lose it.  Nor did McCain's choice of a much younger running mate make him any younger, and his age remains his most serious burden.  Finally, the recent rise in unemployment stats clearly hurts the Republican ticket.  So if someone gave me a cool hundred and said: "bet it, using Vegas odds," I'd have to put the C note on Obama. 

All that said, there is no doubt that the McCain organization has played much better ball over the last month than Obama Inc.  McCain's choice of Governor Sarah Palin was a brilliant decision.  Or maybe it was just dumb luck.  There is a saying in baseball that a manager is as smart as his closing pitcher is good.  Palin turned out to be good, and that makes McCain smart. 

How smart?  The timing took almost all the wind of out Obama's acceptance speech, severely limiting any bounce "the one" might otherwise have enjoyed.  Moreover, the announcement drove the drove the left into a frenzy, ratcheting up Palin and McCain's visibility.  All the early attacks on her failed to make a dent, leaving her stronger than she would have been if the Democrats had had the sense to ignore her. 

Palin's speech was an astounding success.  I did not think that, as piece of rhetoric, it was exceptional.  It was just good.  But it was clear after a few minutes into the thing that, suddenly, there was something in the 2008 presidential race at least as interesting as Obama.  The early ratings put her audience at around 37.2 million, just short of Obama's 38.4.  But it turns out that that didn't include PBS, which added about 4 million more views to each total.  Now I would like someone to tell us how that compares to previous conventions.  I am guessing that a VP nominee getting as large an audience as the first place candidate for the opposing party is unprecedented.  Biden's audience was more than ten million short, at 24 million viewers. 

And the good news for Republicans didn't end there.  McCain drew 38.9 million voters, a cool 500 thousand more than Obama.  Suddenly, it seemed, a lot of Americans wanted a good look at John McCain.  We are just now learning whether they liked what they saw.  The RCP average of polls has Obama's lead down to 2.6 points, statistically insignificant.  CNN polls Obama to a one point advantage, and a CBS poll has the race tied. 

Here is the problem for the Democratic ticket just now.  Joe Biden is pretty good on the trail, but beyond that he has brought nothing to the campaign.  He has shrunk to invisibility in the news.  It is now Palin and Obama that get compared with one another.  However you cut the experience thing, it's about fifty/fifty.  And after a year of Obama, Palin has the advantage of freshness.  Arianna Huffington is right: the Democrats should start ignoring Palin immediately.  That leaves McCain pretty much on his own.  And there is no doubt that he cuts a much more impressive figure than anyone else in the race.  For better or worse, we are looking at a man writ large here.  The Democrats have to focus on bringing McCain down, and they have to hope that palinomania fades real quickly.  But that will mean resisting the urge to take swipes at her.  Don't expect it. 

Winston Churchill once said that you can't guarantee victory, you can only deserve it.  Right now John McCain deserves it more than Barack Obama. 

A Wider Shade of Palin

While the McCain speech percolates through the neocortex of the punditocracy, I will respond to Cory's recent notes.  In an earlier post, Cory took Governor Palin to task for the following ( I am quoting myself here):

During a interview, Governor Palin giggled as the interviewer called Lyda Green (Republican State President) a "cancer" and a bitch.

Far from disagreeing with Cory, I emphatically supported his point.

Governor Palin should have taken them to task in the sternest way possible.  Her failure to do so was a lapse in political and moral judgment.

But I drew a comparison with this episode, and Barack Obama's association with the good Revered Wright.

It's kinda like listening to someone say that the U.S. invented the AIDS virus in order to kill Blacks and keeping quiet instead of raising an objection.

In response, Cory produces Governor Palin's greeting to the Alaskan Independence Party. 

The difference, my dear Dr. Blanchard, between Governor Palin's wacky friends and Senator Obama's erstwhile pastor Jeremiah Wright is that we have Senator Obama on record disavowing Rev. Wright's "damning" of America (although, as you'll recall from April, I'm not convinced Wright said anything that needed disavowing). Governor Palin, meanwhile, explicitly welcomes a party that disavows America and slaps America's institutions with the d-word.

The weakness of this reply suggests that Governor Palin has nothing to worry about on this front.  I don't know why the Governor of Alaska thought it necessary to welcome the Alaskan Independence Party, but I note that, contrary to the New York Times, she was never a member of that party, nor did she attend the convention.  And in the clip Cory links to, she is very careful not to endorse any of that party's bizarre ideas.  She points out the few things that she and the AIP agree on.  That is "reaching across the aisle."  And I note again: this is one brief address.

Barack Obama sat before Jeremiah Wright for twenty years.  Does Cory really believe or imagine that in all that time, the good Reverend said nothing that needed disavowing?  That the U.S. government created the AIDs virus?  That the U.S., not Japan, was responsible for the war in the Pacific?  Yes, Obama finally did get around to disavowing Reverend Wright (why, if there was no need?).  But he did so only when Wright had become a political liability.  For twenty years, Obama went along to get along.  Palin's sins pale in comparison.

But Cory makes a second, watery charge:

Pretty soon all McCain-Palin will have left to run on is moose burgers and creationism. And at this point, nothing could be more ironic than a McCain campaign touting "intelligent design."

The claim here is that Governor Palin is an advocate of teaching creationism in public schools.  Now this is a matter of some importance to me.  I am opposed to creationism in the public curriculum, and likewise I oppose intelligent design theory.  On the other hand, I know from experience that students who favor the Biblical creation story over Darwinian evolution get much more interested in the discussion of evolution when the two stories are brought together in the classroom.  Governor Palin suggested in a debate that there was no reason the two "theories" could not be taught together.  I think that was a risky suggestion.  It needs to be made clear that evolution is what is being taught in science classes, because evolution is science and the Biblical story is not. 

However, Governor Palin pledged not to push for teaching creationism in public schools.  Is there any evidence that she did push for that?  Did she encourage legislation to put intelligent design on the curriculum?  Has Governor Palin said anything at all about "intelligent design theory"?  I have seen no evidence of anything like this.  If you have to put words in your opponents mouth, that's a pretty good indication that you haven't got the goods. 

My friend and favorite nemesis, BB, says this:

Palin may have "aroused" something "primal" but I fear it is not fear! … What an excellent pick. No value added and extensive liabilities. She even believes that creationism should be taught in schools! That should "energize" the base! In a democracy you get the kind of government you deserve..

I think the spectacle of Sally Quinn arguing that Palin is unfit to be president because has a pregnant daughter and a Downs Syndrome child is evidence enough that Palin is driving some Democrats off the rails.  But if they aren't afraid of Palin, then they are stupid.  Maybe there is a genuine skeleton in her closet, as opposed to the cardboard ones they have been cutting out.  But if not, she is someone to be reckoned with. 

Living Blogging on McCain’s Speech

The Economist, I believe, had this headline on its last cover: "Bring back the real McCain."  As I write this, I am listening to McCain's speech, and it is clear that is his endgame.  He is presenting himself as what he has always been: a Republican who challenges own his party. It this, more than anything else I suspect, that led him to choose Governor Palin as his running mate. Palin is, I understand, the most popular governor in the nation; but she is not so popular with Alaska Republicans just as McCain began the race with a lot of resistance from the national party. It's not a bad pitch.

Obama responded to Governor Palin's speech today by saying "she talked a lot about me, but she didn't talk about you." Good jab. McCain is making sure to cover that point. He is also talking a lot about specific policies, economic and otherwise. He hit the Democrats on oil and nuclear power.

Just now he is talking above foreign policy. He has the problem that Republicans always face: how to look tougher than the Democrats (easy), but not look trigger happy (hard). It's hard not to err on one side or the other. My impression as I listen is that he is pushing the toughness point hard, while shoring up against the latter problem by emphasizing that peace is the goal.

He is also emphasizing the "I will reach across the aisle" idea.

Now he is bringing up his war story. I had thought it was better to let others do that, but it is obviously part of the strategy to contrast his experience with Obama's. I still think so, but he hit the right note. The experience, he tells us, made him a better person by showing him how dependent he was on the support of others. The argument here is that he once was a hothead, but this hard experience made him sober. Again, not a bad pitch.

Now he contrasts his sales' pitch with Obama's: I am not running because I have been anointed to save the world. That's a paraphrase.

Okay, it's over now. I would say that, for better or worse, this is what McCain has got. We'll soon see whether it was enough.

Who Has Experience

My latest in the American News considers the importance of experience in a presidential and vice-presidential candidate.

Palin's Speech was very good

She has the most important asset for candidate: when she gets going behind the podium, she obviously likes it.  Best non-partisan zinger: "what's the difference between a soccer mom and a pit bull?  Lipstick."  Best partisan zinger: "when the stadium lights go out, and they haul the Greek columns back to the studio..." 

GOP: Night One

Blog quotes of the night:

Ramesh Ponnuru: "Thompson on McCain's Time as a POW: He makes it sound almost as impressive as turning down a Wall Street job."

Jim Lindgren: "To say that the press is doing the Democrats’ work for them would be an understatement."

Glenn Reynolds: "HOW THEY COULD HAVE KEPT THE PALIN PREGNANCY STORY OUT OF THE PRESS:  Leaked it that John Edwards was the father . . . .."

One piece of evidence in Jim Lindgren's favor is that apparently a couple of the cable networks didn't even bother showing the Fred Thompson speech, instead choosing to discuss Sarah Palin's daughter.  So, here is Fred Thompson:

And here is Joe Lieberman:

Dissent

Anne from Ohio thinks Prof. Blanchard and I are wrong that Sarah Palin neutralizes the experience argument for Team McCain:

I disagree with you and Prof Blanchard about the nomination of Sarah Palin neutralizing the experience issue.  I think it emphasizes it.  It has the Democrats furiously insisting that Sen Obama is so too more experienced than Governor Palin.  Well, that has them comparing the top of their ticket to the bottom of the Republicans'.  Eventually people will recall that Sen McCain exceeds them all in both experience and judgment.

I only hope that Anne is right and we are wrong.  Given our track record, that is a highly likely occurrance. 

Sally Quinn Says to Palin: “Stay in the Nursery”

Allow me to turn to a national voice on these matters, Sally Quinn, at the Newsweek/Washington Post site, "On Faith."

From what little we know about her, [Palin] seems to be a bright, attractive, impressive person. She certainly has been successful in her 44 years. But is she ready to be president?

And now we learn the 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. She and the father of the child plan to marry. This may be a hard one for the Republican conservative family-values crowd to swallow. Of course, this can happen in any family. But it must certainly raise the question among the evangelical base about whether Sarah Palin has been enough of a hands-on mother.

But in fact, that awful "evangelical base" is not the least bit offended. Why should they be? Bristol Palin is having her baby, and a marriage with the biological father is in the works. That's a success story. It is only Ms. Quinn who sees something wrong. And there is more that Ms. Quinn is worried about:

McCain claims he knew about the pregnancy, and was not at all concerned. Why not? Not only do we have a woman with five children, including an infant with special needs, but a woman whose 17-year-old child will need her even more in the coming months. Not to mention the grandchild. This would inevitably be an enormous distraction for a new vice president (or president) in a time of global turmoil. Not only in terms of her job, but from a media standpoint as well.

So let me get this straight: a woman with a pregnant daughter is not fit to be Vice President because she will have to be attending to her family. A woman with a pregnant daughter and a child "with special needs" (Down's syndrome) is doubly unfit. This is the view of someone who believes in the rights of women? Sally Quinn is so afraid of a McCain presidency that she is willing to make a stay in the home argument against women in politics. If this were one of those evangelicals talking, feminists would be screaming bloody murder!

There is no doubt that the Palin choice has aroused primal fear in the Left. I am warming to Governor Palin quite a lot.

Palin Comparison

I don't know whether Sarah Palin was a smart pick for Veep or not, but it's pretty clear that she scares the clogs off of some of my dear friends on the left hand of the local blogosphere.  At least they are dumping on her with a watery discharge that makes our treatment of Joe Biden look like a hagiography.  See Professor Schaff on Biden ("good pick"); and mine (where I defend Biden against an old charge). 

Cory Heidelberger brings a charge against Palin that is worth taking seriously.  During a interview, Governor Palin giggled as the interviewer called Lyda Green (Republican State President) a "cancer" and a bitch.  Governor Palin should have taken them to task in the sternest way possible.  Her failure to do so was a lapse in political and moral judgment.  It's kinda like listening to someone say that the U.S. invented the AIDS virus in order to kill Blacks and keeping quiet instead of raising an objection.  Cory produces a couple pieces of evidence occurring over a span of, at most two years.  Barack Obama listened to Jeremiah Wright for twenty years; and if he ever took issue with the Reverend's noxious venom, there is no record of it.  Obama went along to get along, for a long time.  Palin did the same.  It was correct for Cory to point this out.  But he obviously doesn't take this sort of thing seriously, except when Republicans do it. 

My bud Todd Epp weighs in with that same item, and a few more.  He says that "Palin said she was for the bridge to nowhere but then said she wasn't."  Well, I went to the link that Todd provides, but all I found there was a bunch of people who would have benefited from the bridge claiming that the Governor had been for it when she ran for office.  Did she in fact come out in support of the bridge?  I don't know yet, and neither does Todd.  But if true, does Todd really think that this is a good reason to drop a candidate?  Todd's man crush Barack Obama claimed that he supported some limitations on late term abortions, but in fact he had never done so as a state legislature.  When a pro-life group called him on it, he accused them of lying.  His campaign later had to admit that they got it right.  I am guessing that this doesn't take the bloom off of Todd's rose. 

Oh, but Palin's perfidy goes deeper than that.  "She apparently failed to tell Sen. John McCain that her unmarried 17 year old daughter was pregnant."  Todd links to his own Kansas blog, which in turn links to a Huffington post piece.  On the latter, I found this:

The McCain team asserted that he knew about the pregnancy when he selected Palin. She has five children and now a grandchild coming as she hits the campaign trail.

Oops.  McCain did know.  And besides, should this really have figured into McCain's decision?  I know that political considerations are sometimes ugly, but what should we have thought of McCain if he rejected Palin because her daughter was pregnant out of wedlock? 

I don't blame my Keloland colleagues for not noticing that the instant oatmeal they whipped up to throw at Governor Palin sticks just as easily to their own favored candidate.  But when one of them starts talking like the church lady, that's a sign that the Palin choice is deeply disturbing to their world view.  And it's not only the local blogosphere.  Sally Quinn at the Washington Post goes full tilt into left-wing Archie Bunkerism.  But that's for the next post. McCain's choice is starting to look like genius. 

SDP Jazz Note: Jazz Noire

Blanchard's theory of genres begins with the axiom that there a platonic idea at the bottom of every genre. With horror, it's the idea of evil made physically manifest. With science fiction, it's the idea that the physical laws that govern the ordinary world can or soon will make the fantastic possible. Some genres depend largely on a coherent image or set of images. Give me hats, horses, and handguns, I'll give you a Western. Musical genres are harder to pin down, largely because the "language" of music isn't really language and doesn't translate into language.

It is very helpful, then, when a musical genre is somehow tied to a story-telling genre. Jazz is rather closely tied to the Noire genre, the school of film making that arose out of the collision between German cinematography and the "hard-boiled" American crime novel. And I would argue that the idea underlying the film noire is very simple: it is the idea of human loneliness and fear in a world without piety. Film noire characters are distinguished by the fact that they live without believing in anything. The police and politicians (higher levels of social organization are rarely mentioned) are corrupt. Goodness is possible; indeed, it frequently shines like a torch in a hero like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. But the hero is almost inevitably jaded, and with good reason. In the long run, his heroism is entirely hopeless. The most he can achieve are small acts of justice and mercy. Like everyone else, he lives without piety; but he has to go on living, and what makes it possible is observing. He finds his satisfaction in seeing things just the way they are.

Jazz is born and grows in pretty much the same time period as the noire genre, and I think it springs from much the same existential stance. Classical music is unthinkable without God or (what is much the same thing), an orderly universe. It's landscapes are those of the day, even if the sky is full of dark clouds. And while it may be played in Paris, it frequently finds itself recreating the countryside. Jazz begins and perhaps ends with lonely human beings, walking down a city street at night under no illumination other than that of a neon sign. I am of course exagerating my case. To be sure, a lot of jazz is happy and a lot of classical music stirs up existentially ambigous currents. But I think I get the two genres right in general.

One of the best examples of the marriage between jazz and film noire is the French film Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, or Elevator to the Gallows. A young man commits a murder but gets stuck in an elevator while trying to leave the scene. His gorgeous accomplice and lover walks the streets of Paris, increasingly convinced that ... Watch it! Miles Davis created the soundtrack, playing while he watched the film projected on a wall. If you get the DVD, you can see a short clip of Miles in this process. Behind Miles was a group consisting of Barney Wilen ts, Rene Urtreger p, Pierre Michelot b, and Kenny Clarke d.

A more recent example of jazz noire is Terrence Blanchard's marvelous disc, Jazz in Film. All of the numbers are soundtracks, most of them from straight noire films. Having listened to it a dozen times recently, I now find myself looking for the DVDs. Here is a clip from the disc: a Duke Ellington composition for the film of the same name.

Terrence Blanchard t, Donald Harrison as, Steve Turre tb, Kenny Kirkland p, Reginald Veal b, and Carl Allen d. Both discs are excellent, so if you like the clips, buy the whole thing.

You Just Gotta See The Headline

From my favorite Dubuque, Iowa, newspaper, the Telegraph Herald: 

SDP Poll: Will Palin Help the Campaign?

UPDATE & BUMP:  In case you missed it over the weekend.

To borrow a page from Glenn Reynolds:

Will Sarah Palin Help the McCain Campaign?
	Yes, a brilliant choice.
	Yes, somewhat.
	A short-term victory.
	No impact.
	No, it will damage the campaign somewhat.
	No, it was ill-advised.
pollcode.com free polls

Real Classy

Former DNC Chairman Don Fowler has apologized for his comments.  I doubt we'll see the same from Michael Moore.  Another interesting note: blogs led this story and forced a public apology before the mainstream media picked up on it.

Palin 2: The Case for Substance

The City Journal, coming out of New York, is one of the best conservative publications going right now.  Here is Lisa Schiffren's take on the Palin choice:

By putting the relatively unknown governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, on his presidential ticket, John McCain has demonstrated that rarest of all political qualities: willingness to take a real risk on a serious new venture with great potential. It's a sign of confidence, not desperation.

If the response from the conservative base is any indication, McCain has hit a home run with the Palin selection. A sullen GOP, set to vote reluctantly, if at all, for the "maverick" (some say unprincipled) senator from Arizona, has suddenly become electrified. In the first 36 hours after McCain announced his pick, $7 million in new contributions poured in online. This isn't because Palin is making history as the first woman on a GOP ticket. It's because of the type of woman and politician that she is. She's a normal person, a mother and wife, who entered politics in 1992 by running for city council in Wasilla, Alaska to oppose tax hikes. She became mayor and swept a bunch of cronies out of the bureaucracy. She ran for, and lost, a race for lieutenant governor. She served on the state's Oil and Gas Commission, where she went after the corrupt state GOP chairman, who had taken money from oil companies. In 2006, she ran for governor and won, after first beating the Republican incumbent for the nomination.

Throughout, she hewed to a few clear principles. She championed fiscal responsibility, cutting pork in the form of capital projects as well as larger symbols of waste, such as the infamous "bridge to nowhere" sponsored by Republican senator Ted Stevens. In a state that has been awash in oil money and political corruption, she also demanded real ethical standards and sent people who didn't meet them to jail, never hesitating to challenge Republicans who were corrupt or ineffective. And she was pro-development, supporting drilling in ANWR; for that matter, she has dealt extensively with the tricky energy issues that have become central to this year's election, and she understands them better than anyone else on either ticket.

Is it too late to post on Palin?

I was setting up camp in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Unit, when Obama gave his acceptance speech.  I only found out about McCain's VP choice on Friday because the temperature in the Little Missouri River valley broke the triple digit mark.  My intrepid band of explores left the trail and broke for Watford City and ice cream. 

I just got back in town, and "Palin isn't yet in my spell check dictionary, but here is my take on the action.  I agree with Professor Schaff that this choice has one great weakness, and I would add another.  The most obvious is that it partially neutralizes the "inexperience" argument that the Republicans have been using against Obama.  Cory Heidelberger points out that the VP needs to have all the qualifications for President that the Presidential candidate has.  That is sound constitutional doctrine.  But voters don't weigh the running mate with nearly as much attention as they weigh the candidate himself.  On paper, McCain still looks a lot more experienced in all sorts of ways than Obama, and that will in the end sway some voters.  So I say the experience thing is only partially neutralized.  However, this makes it very hard for the Republicans to continue to make the experience argument, and that is a significant weakness. 

The other weakness is that the choice looks to be all strategy and no statesmanship.  Does anyone think that McCain chose Palin because he really thought that she was most fit to be President out of all his choices?  It would have been nice to find someone whom the American people fully trust to take over if McCain vapor-locks sometime after his inauguration.  Maybe Palin can build that trust, but I wouldn't bet on it. 

That said, it isn't easy to think of persons with the right experience to be president.  There are really only two jobs that provide that kind of experience: Vice President, and Supreme Allied Commander.  Both parties have shallow benches.

So what does Palin bring to the ticket?  I am still shaking sand and bison fur out of my hiking boots, but I can see three strategic dimensions to this choice.  First, Palin is a woman and there is some chance that some independent minded voters, miffed at the collapse of the Clinton campaign, might care enough about the gender thing to vote for Palin.  She surely does stand a chance of becoming the first Vice President with two X chromosomes, and thus gets in the express lane toward being the first Madam President.  Wouldn't it be delicious if the Republicans put the first woman in the White House? 

Second, Palin is going to energize the Republican base.  If your average social conservative were consulting a dating service, he (or she!) would be looking for someone just like Sarah Palin. 

Finally, the announcement took almost all the wind (and I do mean wind) out of the Democratic convention.  McCain is playing political chess, and just right now he looks to be playing pretty well.  It looks like Obama got no bounce out of his convention. 

Of course, the first is speculative and weak, and the second will largely neutralize it.  Certainly very few Clinton voters will cross party lines for a woman who is strongly pro-life.  And if McCain has killed Obama's convention bounce (no small matter, that), he still has to get a bounce of his own. 

I agree with my SDP colleague Mr. Heppler that one can make a case for Palin over Obama.  She has more executive experience than the rest of the field put together, and I think, at first glance, that she is a more substantial person than Obama.  She won't have to explain why she spent decades listening to sermons that she didn't believe in.  But she hasn't shown any ability to fill stadiums with admirers yet, either.  A lot will depend on how well she does in front of the national camera.  If she is good, then this may be the move that decided the match in his favor.  If she isn't, then Professor Schaff will turn out to be right: this is the moment that McCain lost the election.