As I mentioned, I have a new column up at TNR about the GOP field and how it got that way. Elias Isquith has a response sketching out some of the damage that can come from having a field filled with vanity and (in Jonathan Chait's phrase) "business plan" candidates. Good points!
More good stuff:
1. Lots and lots of WH 2012. Andrew Sprung on Romney and David S. Bernstein on Romney and gay Republicans; Conor Friedersdorf reads Herman Cain's old columns and Dan Drezner reads Cain's foreign policy plan. Also Nate Silver on New Hampshire.
2. Josh Putnam's overview of the schedule situation, and you all know to check out his FHQ for updates.
3. Remembering Bill Clinton's actual first term, from Seth Masket; Brendan Nyhan shoots down Truman comparisons.
4. Listen to Stan Collender: budget process reforms are no substitute for policy agreement.
5. Paul Krugman, evidence-based Keynesian. Amity Shlaes? Not so much with the evidence; see a nice graph from Mike Kimel.
6. CLASS Act demise: how does it affect ACA financing? Jonathan Cohn has it. And Sarah Kliff with an important update on ACA implementation in the states.
7. Wonderful Garrett Epps essay about the Constitution. And Matt Glassman on one of the technical things the Constitution got wrong.
8. Al Kamen has a judicial nominations update.
9. And Kevin Drum marvels at everything coming up culture war.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Debate Wrap Extra and a bit of Housekeeping
Just a couple of quick links to where else I've been writing today: my debate wrap for Plum Line, in which I made Anderson Cooper the big loser for messing up the 47% statistic, and a new column at TNR about why the GOP field wound up the way it did. I figured I'd also put up this post if anyone has any comments on the GOP debate.
I haven't done the question count yet, but the usual CNN themes were there: a long, annoying introduction; an unusually large number of basic issue questions, and few if any gotcha questions; and a noisy audience. Other than the question I complained about on substantive grounds, the other question I hated was a political question at the end from Cooper about which of them would be best to take on Barack Obama. I hate that stuff. On the other hand, I miss the silly personal questions. I guess they dropped them after all the mocking, and you sort of have to mock them, but I didn't mind them very much.
While I'm here later at night than usual, I'll mention that anyone who read my criticism of Alec MacGillis's piece yesterday should read his response today. Also, a piece of housekeeping...I've been meaning to get this on the record at some point: thanks to everyone who sends me notice of my (many) typos, either in comments or via email. My policy is that pure typo corrections I make cleanly (without, that is, noting that I've corrected it), while if there's any substantive correction to make I'll indicate the correction clearly; if it's a very significant correction, I'll not only note it clearly in the original post but also write a new post to point it out. While I'm at it -- I try to remember anything that I say that's phrased as a prediction, so that I can 'fess up if I get it wrong, but I don't do it systematically.
And with that, I'm off to thank whoever is in charge of these things for sparing us any more GOP debates for a few weeks. Also, happy Hoshanah Rabah to all.
I haven't done the question count yet, but the usual CNN themes were there: a long, annoying introduction; an unusually large number of basic issue questions, and few if any gotcha questions; and a noisy audience. Other than the question I complained about on substantive grounds, the other question I hated was a political question at the end from Cooper about which of them would be best to take on Barack Obama. I hate that stuff. On the other hand, I miss the silly personal questions. I guess they dropped them after all the mocking, and you sort of have to mock them, but I didn't mind them very much.
While I'm here later at night than usual, I'll mention that anyone who read my criticism of Alec MacGillis's piece yesterday should read his response today. Also, a piece of housekeeping...I've been meaning to get this on the record at some point: thanks to everyone who sends me notice of my (many) typos, either in comments or via email. My policy is that pure typo corrections I make cleanly (without, that is, noting that I've corrected it), while if there's any substantive correction to make I'll indicate the correction clearly; if it's a very significant correction, I'll not only note it clearly in the original post but also write a new post to point it out. While I'm at it -- I try to remember anything that I say that's phrased as a prediction, so that I can 'fess up if I get it wrong, but I don't do it systematically.
And with that, I'm off to thank whoever is in charge of these things for sparing us any more GOP debates for a few weeks. Also, happy Hoshanah Rabah to all.
Voices Carry
Nate Silver had a interesting comment yesterday:
The point that it suggests has to do with the real limits on the president's ability to focus elite (or mass) conversation.
Now, in some ways the bully pulpit is both real and quite powerful. If presidents have something they want everyone to be thinking about and talking about, they are far more able to do it than anyone else in the political system. It's not even close; the president can, if its important enough to him, still get carried live on the broadcast networks -- and he frequently gets covered live on the cable nets. He has a whole press corps assigned to him, and a large staff who can amplify and spin his message, along with a party apparatus and same-party politicians and operatives who are often happy to stick to the message he chooses. So if the president really wants to drive attention to something, he has the means to do it.
It's also true that among insiders, presidential mentions of an issue can have real consequences, because it signals that the president cares about it. So for example if the Senate is considering taking up a nominee, then a presidential mention might influence which nominee it will confirm.
However, there are real limits to all of this. You might have seen Elisabeth Rosenthal's essay in the Sunday NYT on why climate change has largely disappeared as an issue. And no question, presidential rhetorical inattention is a part of that. Had Obama decided to devote the attention to global warming that he's put into the economy this year, we can be fairly certain that her article would never have been written. But while presidential attention to climate would surely have "shifted the narrative," it's very unlikely that it could have produced legislative success. Nor is there any guarantee that the presidential attention, and therefore press attention, would have produced more people who agreed with him -- indeed, there is research that suggests presidential attention produces polarized public opinion. And there are real opportunity costs, too; a president focused on climate can't be also a president rhetorically focused on jobs. And there's another cost, too. A president focused on an issue on which he can't get results may hurt his reputation and prestige. After all, part of the advantage for Obama in his current jobs focus is how popular his positions are, both on what to do and how to pay for it.
The point is that while presidents certainly can affect what people are talking about, they need to make strategic choices -- and after all, their goals are usually to either change policy or to get re-elected, not to affect what people are talking about. So while drawing attention to a neglected issue is certainly a useful thing for activists to do (although not necessarily more useful than nominating candidates dedicated to that issue), presidents just have other things that usually take priority.
Observation: Occupy has had more success in "shifting the narrative" than either (i) Obama or (ii) the "Professional Left".See also a more detailed case for this from David Dayen. I'm mostly interested in the first part of that. I'm not completely certain he's right; note that talk about deficits seems to have faded severely ever since the president started talking up his jobs bill nonstop. But it's at least plausibly true, right?
The point that it suggests has to do with the real limits on the president's ability to focus elite (or mass) conversation.
Now, in some ways the bully pulpit is both real and quite powerful. If presidents have something they want everyone to be thinking about and talking about, they are far more able to do it than anyone else in the political system. It's not even close; the president can, if its important enough to him, still get carried live on the broadcast networks -- and he frequently gets covered live on the cable nets. He has a whole press corps assigned to him, and a large staff who can amplify and spin his message, along with a party apparatus and same-party politicians and operatives who are often happy to stick to the message he chooses. So if the president really wants to drive attention to something, he has the means to do it.
It's also true that among insiders, presidential mentions of an issue can have real consequences, because it signals that the president cares about it. So for example if the Senate is considering taking up a nominee, then a presidential mention might influence which nominee it will confirm.
However, there are real limits to all of this. You might have seen Elisabeth Rosenthal's essay in the Sunday NYT on why climate change has largely disappeared as an issue. And no question, presidential rhetorical inattention is a part of that. Had Obama decided to devote the attention to global warming that he's put into the economy this year, we can be fairly certain that her article would never have been written. But while presidential attention to climate would surely have "shifted the narrative," it's very unlikely that it could have produced legislative success. Nor is there any guarantee that the presidential attention, and therefore press attention, would have produced more people who agreed with him -- indeed, there is research that suggests presidential attention produces polarized public opinion. And there are real opportunity costs, too; a president focused on climate can't be also a president rhetorically focused on jobs. And there's another cost, too. A president focused on an issue on which he can't get results may hurt his reputation and prestige. After all, part of the advantage for Obama in his current jobs focus is how popular his positions are, both on what to do and how to pay for it.
The point is that while presidents certainly can affect what people are talking about, they need to make strategic choices -- and after all, their goals are usually to either change policy or to get re-elected, not to affect what people are talking about. So while drawing attention to a neglected issue is certainly a useful thing for activists to do (although not necessarily more useful than nominating candidates dedicated to that issue), presidents just have other things that usually take priority.
Australia! Australia! We Love You!
A little history detour, for those interested. I have to nitpick a bit, or at least add some context, to Jill Lepore's claim in the Sunday NYT that "[Henry] George is why, on Election Day, your polling place supplies you with a ballot that you mark in secret."
I know virtually nothing about Henry George, but I know about the adoption of the Australian ballot -- because I've read Alan Ware's wonderful The American Direct Primary, which tells the story of the primary as the intertwined with the adoption of the new ballot procedure. It's true that George played a part. Ware says that "The Australian Ballot appears to have been advocated first by the Philadelphia Civil Service Reform Association in 1882, and then, among others, by Henry George," citing a 1917 book about that reform.
It's possible that George was more important in the initial spread of the idea than Ware's sources and research revealed, and it is true, per Ware, that New York was an important state in the adoption of the new ballot. But as Ware explains it, the reformers were only at best half the story behind the adoption of the new system. The real driving force was...the parties. You see, the old system, in which the parties supplied the ballots pre-filled in for their own candidates, had a serious flaw; it was impossible for parties to control their nominations. That's because nothing prevented local groups from either printing up their own ballots (with their own candidates) or from taking the centrally printed ballots and altering them, replacing the party's official candidate with a local candidate who had lost out in the "official" nomination battle, or even with the other party's candidate for some offices. (Voters might not even know that they had voted for the "wrong" candidate if they didn't check their ballot carefully; it was also possible for deliberate fraud, in which someone could print up ballots that looked like the party's proper ones but had the names of the other party's candidates). All of these problems increased as the US began moving, after the Civil War, from a society based on in-person, one-on-one contacts, to large-scale mass society.
Switching from party-supplied ballots to state-provided ballots, then, had a major advantage for the parties: the government would accept whoever the party's official nominees were, and would automatically place those names on every single ballot. Which is why when reformers (including Henry George) proposed the Australian ballot, the parties for the most part saw it as a solution to their own problems, and didn't oppose it -- but did alter it to suit their own needs and preferences. If you want the details, see Ware.
The next step of the story comes when the parties, now in the possession of an official line on state-supplied official ballots, need a better way to officially nominate someone for that line, which becomes the story of the adoption of the direct primary. But once again, if you want to know more, consult Ware.
I know virtually nothing about Henry George, but I know about the adoption of the Australian ballot -- because I've read Alan Ware's wonderful The American Direct Primary, which tells the story of the primary as the intertwined with the adoption of the new ballot procedure. It's true that George played a part. Ware says that "The Australian Ballot appears to have been advocated first by the Philadelphia Civil Service Reform Association in 1882, and then, among others, by Henry George," citing a 1917 book about that reform.
It's possible that George was more important in the initial spread of the idea than Ware's sources and research revealed, and it is true, per Ware, that New York was an important state in the adoption of the new ballot. But as Ware explains it, the reformers were only at best half the story behind the adoption of the new system. The real driving force was...the parties. You see, the old system, in which the parties supplied the ballots pre-filled in for their own candidates, had a serious flaw; it was impossible for parties to control their nominations. That's because nothing prevented local groups from either printing up their own ballots (with their own candidates) or from taking the centrally printed ballots and altering them, replacing the party's official candidate with a local candidate who had lost out in the "official" nomination battle, or even with the other party's candidate for some offices. (Voters might not even know that they had voted for the "wrong" candidate if they didn't check their ballot carefully; it was also possible for deliberate fraud, in which someone could print up ballots that looked like the party's proper ones but had the names of the other party's candidates). All of these problems increased as the US began moving, after the Civil War, from a society based on in-person, one-on-one contacts, to large-scale mass society.
Switching from party-supplied ballots to state-provided ballots, then, had a major advantage for the parties: the government would accept whoever the party's official nominees were, and would automatically place those names on every single ballot. Which is why when reformers (including Henry George) proposed the Australian ballot, the parties for the most part saw it as a solution to their own problems, and didn't oppose it -- but did alter it to suit their own needs and preferences. If you want the details, see Ware.
The next step of the story comes when the parties, now in the possession of an official line on state-supplied official ballots, need a better way to officially nominate someone for that line, which becomes the story of the adoption of the direct primary. But once again, if you want to know more, consult Ware.
Ahead-of-the-Curve Hackery
I've seen plenty of solidly argued pieces in favor of parliamentary systems over the US system, although I usually disagree with them. And I've seen lots of well-argued pieces in favor of a more majoritarian US Senate, which I generally sort of half-agree with. But what's new to me is a abrupt jump from a long argument for Canadian superiority to the US system to:
Sort of.
It's really an awesome effort. After 1600 words devoted to arguing that parliamentary systems are superior, the last three operative paragraphs drop that entirely and make a practical partisan argument for conservatives to support a majoritarian Senate based on the idea that conservatives have a larger agenda than do liberals and therefore will benefit from making it easier to pass laws. At least after they win!
I'm not sure whether Andrew Sullivan has an award for this kind of advanced hackery, but if he does this piece really deserves serious consideration.
Those who defend the filibuster tend to pick out some instances where it cut their way. It hurt us when our side was on top, they tell us, but go back a bit further and you'll find an example where it cut our way. If I'm correct, however, it systematically hurts the country. In particular, conservatives who want to undo the legislative mess of the last few years will want to put their finger on the nuclear option to blow up the filibuster...That is why, if the 2012 election turns out as I expect, the first order of business for then-Senate Majority Leader McConnell should be a return to simple majoritarian rule and the elimination of the filibuster.That's F.H. Buckley, a law prof at George Mason, who is clearly ahead of the curve here. After all, we all do expect a fair amount of flipping on these issues if, indeed, the 2012 elections result in unified GOP control (prediction: Dem pols would flip, but a fair number of Dem bloggers would remain anti-filibuster and lament what they see as a foolishly short-sided choice by Dem Senators). But it takes far more talent than most to come up with a principled, or at least a principled-looking, argument for why the filibuster should be eliminated as soon as control of the Senate flips, but not a moment before. Buckley, unlike most, will be able (should the elections go that way) to parade around next winter calling for abolition of the filibuster and honestly claiming that he called for it way back when the Democrats held the White House and the Senate.
Sort of.
It's really an awesome effort. After 1600 words devoted to arguing that parliamentary systems are superior, the last three operative paragraphs drop that entirely and make a practical partisan argument for conservatives to support a majoritarian Senate based on the idea that conservatives have a larger agenda than do liberals and therefore will benefit from making it easier to pass laws. At least after they win!
I'm not sure whether Andrew Sullivan has an award for this kind of advanced hackery, but if he does this piece really deserves serious consideration.
Automatic, So Automatic
Ezra Klein this morning lays out the case for aid to state and local governments targeted to teachers as justified by the extraordinary unemployment situation:
Now, states could budget for recessions; the flip side of this is that their revenues soar (again, automatically) when the economy booms, and they could all be responsible about putting away that money for the future. But, we know, they mostly don't. The federal government could help, via some sort of triggered automatic scheme, which would give money to the states during recessions and then get paid back when the threat was over.
Now, in practice, when recessions are short and mild, all of this becomes unnecessary. In fact, the nature of state budget cycles probably winds up saving them from themselves. After all, the cuts aren't needed until the budget year following the downturn, and by the time the cuts take effect odds are that the economy is already recovering. Still, it's dangerous to the economy during a prolonged downturn, and even when there's no danger to the larger economy it still is most likely inefficient for states to embrace the boom-and-bust.
To be clear: a scheme to automatically stabilize state budgets isn't what Barack Obama has asked Congress for and therefore isn't what Klein is specifically talking about. However, in terms of lessons from the economic disaster of the last few yeas, in my view the effects of state budgeting should go very high on the list of obvious and relatively easy things to fix.
By the way, I'm still wondering whether any economist has estimated the total effects of state and local layoffs on the overall economy, including the indirect effect of still-employed teachers and others who stopped spending because of fears of future cuts.
It's a "now-and-hopefully-never-again" idea. Of all the things you could do with federal dollars, helping state and local governments rehire people they have fired or expand their public-safety payrolls seems like the most absurd. In normal times, if the public-sector is downsizing, that's probably a good thing. But this is not a normal time.That's reasonable, but I think there's a different and better case to be made for this sort of thing as a standard tool during all recessions, not just the unusual present one. I'm not sure why Klein believes that the public sector at the state and local level is inherently too large; I'd think that the federal government should be, probably, relatively neutral about that. But regardless, the long-term problem here is that since state governments can't run deficits, they're prone to boom and bust cycles, with perverse consequences: during recessions their revenues shrink automatically with decreasing economic activity, which then forces them to lay off employees, which in turn decreases economic activity.
Now, states could budget for recessions; the flip side of this is that their revenues soar (again, automatically) when the economy booms, and they could all be responsible about putting away that money for the future. But, we know, they mostly don't. The federal government could help, via some sort of triggered automatic scheme, which would give money to the states during recessions and then get paid back when the threat was over.
Now, in practice, when recessions are short and mild, all of this becomes unnecessary. In fact, the nature of state budget cycles probably winds up saving them from themselves. After all, the cuts aren't needed until the budget year following the downturn, and by the time the cuts take effect odds are that the economy is already recovering. Still, it's dangerous to the economy during a prolonged downturn, and even when there's no danger to the larger economy it still is most likely inefficient for states to embrace the boom-and-bust.
To be clear: a scheme to automatically stabilize state budgets isn't what Barack Obama has asked Congress for and therefore isn't what Klein is specifically talking about. However, in terms of lessons from the economic disaster of the last few yeas, in my view the effects of state budgeting should go very high on the list of obvious and relatively easy things to fix.
By the way, I'm still wondering whether any economist has estimated the total effects of state and local layoffs on the overall economy, including the indirect effect of still-employed teachers and others who stopped spending because of fears of future cuts.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Monday Movie Post
Ready? I am -- I'm going to try to revive this feature, only slightly because the great Seth Masket has been putting me to shame lately with a few great posts.
So: while Seth is up to date and all with a post on a movie currently in theaters, what I watched for this...well, it's not recent. It's Louisiana Purchase, a Bob Hope movie from 1941 (from Paramount).
Okay, here goes. First the movie...I don't know. I really don't get Bob Hope -- that is, what all the fuss was about. I sort of get him as an Oscar host, or something like that, but as a major movie star? So this is a silly little comedy/romance/musical with really very little going for it, as a movie. At least unless you love Bob Hope, I guess. Well, there are Irving Berlin songs, but to tell the truth they didn't do much for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.
As far as the politics...it's about a crooked scam that Hope is the inadvertent front man for, and the US Senator who comes to New Orleans to expose it. As regular readers know, I love stuff about corruption, but I'm not really seeing much of interest here. I suppose the obvious hook, however, is that it ends with a Jimmy Stewart type filibuster, by Hope (who is in the Louisiana legislature)...no, I have no idea whether LA had filibusters then or now, but if you want a (slightly) comic take on the classic Jimmy Stewart filibuster, here's your movie. Again, it's a 1941 movie, just two years after Mr. Smith.
What I actually found interesting were two jokes. I have no idea how to properly interpret them, but (and again, 1941) I thought they were worth the trip. My transcription, if I get any of it wrong:
Marina von Minden (a refugee from Vienna):
I have my first citizen papers already.
In a few years, I get my second papers.
And then I go on...relief.
Heil Roosevelt!
Republican US Senator Oliver Loganberrry:
...ah, Coolidge and Hoover.
Well, in those days it was still legal for a Republican to be President.
Yvonne Bordelaise:
Why, isn't it legal anymore?
Loganberry:
It hasn't come up recently.
But if it ever does, I don't think the new Supreme Court would declare it Constitutional.
So: I can't really recommend this one, but as I said I'm just not a huge Bob Hope fan, so perhaps others would like it more than I did. It's fine, but just not something that I'd go out of my way for at all. As for the politics...mostly if you're really interested in popular representations of filibusters. But still, I thought the FDR jokes were interesting, so that made it worth it for me.
I have a few things stacked up to watch, so perhaps I'll get back to making this feature more regular for a while, at least during the off-season.
So: while Seth is up to date and all with a post on a movie currently in theaters, what I watched for this...well, it's not recent. It's Louisiana Purchase, a Bob Hope movie from 1941 (from Paramount).
Okay, here goes. First the movie...I don't know. I really don't get Bob Hope -- that is, what all the fuss was about. I sort of get him as an Oscar host, or something like that, but as a major movie star? So this is a silly little comedy/romance/musical with really very little going for it, as a movie. At least unless you love Bob Hope, I guess. Well, there are Irving Berlin songs, but to tell the truth they didn't do much for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.
As far as the politics...it's about a crooked scam that Hope is the inadvertent front man for, and the US Senator who comes to New Orleans to expose it. As regular readers know, I love stuff about corruption, but I'm not really seeing much of interest here. I suppose the obvious hook, however, is that it ends with a Jimmy Stewart type filibuster, by Hope (who is in the Louisiana legislature)...no, I have no idea whether LA had filibusters then or now, but if you want a (slightly) comic take on the classic Jimmy Stewart filibuster, here's your movie. Again, it's a 1941 movie, just two years after Mr. Smith.
What I actually found interesting were two jokes. I have no idea how to properly interpret them, but (and again, 1941) I thought they were worth the trip. My transcription, if I get any of it wrong:
Marina von Minden (a refugee from Vienna):
I have my first citizen papers already.
In a few years, I get my second papers.
And then I go on...relief.
Heil Roosevelt!
Republican US Senator Oliver Loganberrry:
...ah, Coolidge and Hoover.
Well, in those days it was still legal for a Republican to be President.
Yvonne Bordelaise:
Why, isn't it legal anymore?
Loganberry:
It hasn't come up recently.
But if it ever does, I don't think the new Supreme Court would declare it Constitutional.
So: I can't really recommend this one, but as I said I'm just not a huge Bob Hope fan, so perhaps others would like it more than I did. It's fine, but just not something that I'd go out of my way for at all. As for the politics...mostly if you're really interested in popular representations of filibusters. But still, I thought the FDR jokes were interesting, so that made it worth it for me.
I have a few things stacked up to watch, so perhaps I'll get back to making this feature more regular for a while, at least during the off-season.
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