Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Neftali Feliz, 24, who gave the Blue Sox (and, I suppose, the Rangers) two solid years out of the bullpen.

Good stuff?


1. Interesting observation from Ezra Klein: columnists produced by the Bush Administration were mostly speechwriters and other p.r. specialists, while those produced by the Obama Administration were substantive experts, mostly economists. Might be true!

2. Paul Krugman debates Ron Paul, and realizes the uselessness of debates. True enough, although I'm in favor of candidate debates despite their uselessness.

3. Shira Toeplitz on how the Dick Lugar campaign went wrong. Big question: if Lugar loses, which seems very likely now, who will win the spin? Will GOP Senators take it as a warning to never cross the Tea Partiers, or a warning to keep a house back home, take the campaign seriously, and other non-ideological stuff? 

4. And you all wanted to know the answer to Roman inflation in the third century, didn't you? Matt Yglesias has it.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Barbara Hale, 90 (I think; one of my regular sources that I thought was safe says 91, but I'll go with imdb).

Right to the good stuff:

1. Andrew Gelman had the same reaction to Richard Lugar's re-election bid that I did, I think.

2. Cool demographic stuff about party preference and consumer preferences, from Tom Edsall. Via Seth, who ads his two cents.

3. I think Sean Trende is basically correct here -- it's opinions of the incumbent that drive presidential elections -- but then again basically correct leaves plenty of room for other effects. If Romney winds up being perceived as ideologically extreme, it will cost him some.

4. Scott Lemieux is correct about health care reform; Barney Frank is wrong.

5. And E.J. Graff on equal pay.

Lugar vs. Christie?

Paul Waldman has an interesting theory that the reasons movement conservatives have turned against Dick Lugar  is because, gosh, he's just too nice a guy. Waldman draws the contrast with Chris Christie, who conservatives love even though he's not actually all that conservative on the issues:

But you know who else is a moderate? New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who's pro-choice, among other things. But Christie enjoys yelling at people, particularly teachers, and generally acts like a jerk when the cameras are on (granting that in private, Christie might be just the sweetest guy in the world). That has made him a hero to the right.

Perhaps. But Scott Brown was a hero to the right last year, and he was a moderate as a state legislator and has turned out to be a moderate as a Senator -- and as far as I know, he's never yelled at anyone. He certainly has more of a nice guy than a tough guy image. What Brown and Christie have in common is winning in Democratic states, along with being new on the scene. My guess is that Christie's act wouldn't get him very far in national politics, at least unless he adopted the issue positions he would need at that level.

I really don't think there's any need to look to hard for reasons for Lugar's trouble. He's a traditional 1970s, Reagan-style conservative in a 21st century party that isn't very keen on international treaties and organizations and has little tolerance for any ideological divergence at all -- Lugar voted for Barack Obama's judicial appointments, for TARP, and has some other "bad" votes to defend. And for whatever reason, Lugar has chosen not to grovel to the Tea Partiers.

I still think Lugar would be better off switching parties if he wants to remain in office.

Switch?

If I were advising Barack Obama, I'd suggest that he should be spending time -- a lot of time -- in constantly wooing Dick Lugar and Olympia Snowe. Both of them appear to be iffy, at best, for renomination (here's the latest on Lugar). And that's before what's likely to be a bitter government shutdown fight in March, which will probably make the position of GOP moderates even more tenuous.

Both would be locks in the general election as long as they could get nominated, but that's more likely -- much more likely, in Lugar's case, I think -- on the Democratic side. Of course, the problem here is Arlen Specter's fate last year, when he switched parties and then was defeated in the Democratic primary. But Obama should be doing what he can to clear the way.

Is it plausible that they might switch? I think so, even though both have deep ties to the GOP, because their version of the party is close to extinct. And because, when it comes down to it, most politicians really like winning elections a whole lot more than they like losing elections. That hardly means it's a sure thing, but it does mean that it's probably worth some presidential time and energy. Especially since the payoff would be very nice for the Dems.

(Switching was discouraged by the Pennsylvania Senate results, but switching in the other direction seems entirely implausible. Does anyone think that Ben Nelson could win a GOP primary for Senate? I wouldn't give him a 10% chance).