Context
The mixed results achieved Tuesday means that the two parties will have to work together to pass bills into law. Had Republicans won control of both chambers, it is possible that legislation could have cleared both chambers with minimal Democratic support before arriving at the White House for presidential action. However, with Democratic control over the Senate, Republicans will be unable to pass legislation without real backing from the party of President Obama; this prospect renders impossible the already difficult prospect of the excesses of the Affordable Care Act.
Nonetheless, the divided outcome resulting from the elections conducted last Tuesday is significant for another reason; this has been a year of hard-fought elections resulting in mixed outcomes. The British election held in May resulted in the first coalition government in the United Kingdom since the Second World War. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has led a minority government since her Labour Party lost seats in an election conducted this past August. Minority coalition governments in the Netherlands and Sweden are similarly reliant on small new parties to remain in power following elections in those countries earlier this year.
The Blame Game
After suffering a net of not less than sixty seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, leaders in the Democratic Party have started assigning blame for Tuesday’s results. Some Democrats blame the economy while others eerily suggest that the agenda of President Obama has not been progressive enough in the policies he has supported. Presumably, it is the latter group who are supporting Nancy Pelosi’s ill-conceived to again become minority leader after a four-year tenure as Speaker. Already before Tuesday, other Democrats were faulting Ms. Pelosi for dragging down the electoral prospects of their party nationally; The Speaker featured prominently in television spots around the country meant to associate local Democratic members of Congress with her progressive politics. By making a bid to remain the leader of the Democrats in the lower House of Congress, Ms. Pelosi will either force out one of her lieutenants, either outgoing Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) or outgoing Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), or face an embarrassing loss when members of the Democratic caucus vote on leadership in January.
Meanwhile, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) from leading the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee after serving at its helm for two election cycles. Van Hollen makes a convenient fall guy if President Obama really believes that Tuesday’s outcome resulted from a failure on his part to promote the actions of his administration. Somewhat surprisingly, Senator seems poised to remain Majority Leader in the United States Senate despite a reduction in his majority there.
The Tempest in a Teapot
Analysts have used to describe the outcome of the 2010 midterms. Regardless of the term used, describing Tuesday’s events as a “rout” would be incorrect.
The election ought to have resulted in a rout, but Republicans fell short. With the exception of HI-02, every seat shown having changed in this video should be in Republican hands come January. Unfortunately, Republicans fell short. Writing in The Wall Street Journal Friday, Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan that the correct message is not enough to win an election; the quality of the messenger matters too. While this conclusion is essentially correct, a deeper analysis in support of it is required.
Proponents of the Tea Party movement contend that many of the U.S. House candidates involved or associated with that group were successfully elected on Tuesday. This is obstensibly correct, but such candidates were often either incumbents or were elected to represent right-leaning congressional districts. Due to their size and often arbitrary design, congressional districts often lean liberal or lean conservative, regardless of overall trends in the states containing them. For example, the first and sixth congressional districts in Maryland presently trend conservative while the State of Maryland as a whole trends liberal. Thus, it follows that Tea Party candidates did well in conservative congressional districts.
Whereas the relatively small populations of congressional districts allow them to trend right or left, states in general are less bound to ideology due to the diverse views and professional backgrounds of their comparatively larger populations. Most states, as is true of most U.S. senators, trend toward the middle politically. As a result, Tea Party senate candidates were resounding failures in states which do not lean conservative. Thus, for every Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Mike Lee (Utah), there was a Sharon Angle (Nevada) and Christine O’Donnell (Delaware).
One of the better aspects of the Tea Party movement when it started was that it was decentralized and without clear leaders. To some extent, this is still true, but Tea Party Express and Tea Party Nation have tried to direct the movement to their own ends. While the latter was largely discredited by their for-profit “National Tea Party Convention” held in February, the former was a driving force in making the primary candidacies of and . Suddenly, a truly grassroots, bottom-up movement was ironically usurped by a national movement aiming to undermine popular local candidates and prop up more rightward, less popular individuals.
Somewhere along the way, the movement which pragmatically rallied behind Scott Brown in January abandoned its successful formula throughout the summer and autumn to back candidates other than those who could win win relatively liberal states. Much of the impetus to get Scott Brown elected was to derail the health reform excesses proposed and since enacted by the Democratic Congress. Any chance of successfully amending or repealing that horrid law required Republican control over both houses of Congress with only the presidency standing those efforts.
Conservatives and Republicans have long subscribed to the idea that their candidates and ideas are not regarded fairly in reporting by much of the national media. Yet, proponents of candidacies for federal offices by people like Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell seem to forget this. The only way Republicans can survive in a hostile media climate is by rallying behind candidates who can win, and those interested who have local bases of support. One cannot help but accept the premise that the controversy surrounding far too many unsuccessful GOP candidates this term derailed viable candidacies elsewhere.
The national funding, for example, that went into dispelling Democratic propaganda linking to Christine O’Donnell could have been spent propping up Ruth McClung against Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the congressman who called for a boycott of his home state following its controversial efforts this year to enforce immigration laws. McClung, a rocket scientist, was one of many viable candidates in this wave year who lost narrowly. One is left to conclude that the constant press assaults on easy Republican targets this election cycle hindered support for promising first-time candidates and potential future leaders. Thus, Christine O’Donnell and the like not only weighed down GOP efforts to recapture the U.S. Senate, but also weakened prospects for a true rout in the House of Representatives.
Several gubernatorial candidates around the country lost in close races. Each of these too were probably weighed down by the “extremist” narrative so easily spun by press elites willing to ignore an administration too willing to use and to implement policies unfathomable to the electorate. One may recall, for example, that Tom Emmer of Minnesota was caught up in a contrived corporate funding controversy which allowed the media leeway to portray him as a man far outside the American mainstream. That Chris Dudley nearly won the governorship of increasingly liberal Oregon also suggests that voters on the margins were impacted by lousy candidacies elsewhere. The same could also be true of Bill Brady in Illinois and Tom Foley in Connecticut, who also seem to have narrowly lost.
Reapportionment
Following publication of the decennial Census, each state is tasked with reapportionment following the announcement of how many congressional eats, if any, are gained or lost. The process of reapportionment, which varies by states, often results in states being able to manipulate the prospects within their state for one party or the other in what os often called Gerrymandering. Named for Elbridge Gerry, the specific idea is to prevent members of the other party from being elected or reelected by redrawing their districts so that their partisan or ideological base of support is diminished. With states like Oregon, Illinois, and Connecticut now remaining in Democratic hands, it could be quite easy to reverse Republican gains made this year in 2012.
Consequences
Since the Republican wave fell short, Democrats still in power are free to think that the election results were something than a of President Obama’s policies thus far. That said, there are moving forward several areas in which Republicans can find common ground with President Obama in the next Congress. The of several trade agreements have been stalled by Democrats in Congress since the final years of the George W. Bush administration. With Republican control of the U.S. House, and a reduced Democratic majority in the Senate, these deals have a chance at raification and could help to lift the U.S. economy. There seems to be potential for cooperation on education reform too. Whether or not this movement to the center could help President Obama remains in doubt, however.
2011
The current year is not yet over, and already, American politicians are looking to the next two years. While much national attention since Tuesday has been focused on the presidential election now just under two years away, 2011 could be a very pivotal year. Three states have gubernatorial races next year; Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Of the three, two are now governed by Republicans. Events in the coming year will shape the 2012 election cycle, for better or worse.
]]>This blog reported in earlier months on other Obama flunkies with no sense of irony, but now it seems that even the administration and its congressional allies have stooped to the level of crackpots and kooks in its effort to achieve victory in the election next month. This is a particularly troubling development for a President who faced so much unwarranted malignancy not two years ago when campaigning for the office he now holds. John McCain was rightly criticised-and likely lost votes-over the conduct of his presidential campaign. To those critics, Senator McCain said whatever he thought necessary to win, and did nothing to combat rumors on the campaign trail about his openent, then-Senator Obama, that had no basis in fact.
Now, not two years later, the man who has to bring hope in the wake of recession has resorted to those same tactics. Sadly, too few of those who rightly criticized McCain during the last election cycle have similarly chided Obama. Yet, rather than solutions to the problem facing the nation, all Democrats have offered for months has been fearmongering.
First, the American people were told that the frustrations expressed by Americans over the past two years in protests and rallies around the country were contrived, artificial constructs of conservative interest groups. When that strategy unraveled, the plan shifted to accusing the Tea Party set uniformly as racist. The timing of that bogus allegation may have helped to saddle this republic with an unredeemable health care reform law. Even if it shifted the vote tallies slightly on the health reform measure, this strategy ultimately failed; the legislation correctly unpopular.
Next, the new crop of Republican candidates were painted as extremists and their fellow partisans already in Congress were branded as obstructionists. Now that some of these grassroots candidates have expressed flexibility in their views, allegations of hypocrisy have been levelled by members and supporters of the other party. But when the press is not portraying protesters as kooks, it’s acknowledging the mainstream views the ralliers hold.
Meanwhile, the , an organization which spent fifty years seeking to undermine this nation, sponsors a the reputable media as being of the Democratic agenda. This alarming development was met with silence rather than condemnation by leaders in the Democratic Party. After on claims that the new health care law would add rather than reduce coverage options for older Americans, desperate Democrats are signing onto a not to bring much needed reform to Social Security.
As if trying to scare American retirees and baby boomers about a never-responsible government program was not enough, the party in power has resorted to more spurious allegations. Senior Adviser to the President David Axelrod has repeatedly pushed the allegation that the United States Chamber of Commerce has funnelled foreign funds into congressional campaigns this year. As the New York Times , however, the claim by Axelrod has no basis in fact.
When confronted on this by Bob Schieffer of CBS News, the White House official that it was up to the Chamber of Commerce to provide exonerating evidence, rather than for the administration to support its contention. The unfortunate tactics to which Mr. Axelrod has resorted reek of birtherism, the crazy conspiracy theory, with no basis in fact, which asserts that the 44th President of the United States was born in Africa rather than Hawaii. Like supporters of that preposterous, repeatedly discredited notion, David Axelrod has asserted that it’s up to the side being accused of wrongdoing to prove innocence, rather than for the accuser to produce evidence of guilt. Such is a fundamental perversion of even the most basic notions of American jurisprudence. In this republic, the accused are innocent until proven guilty.
There is, however, a deeper problem with the despicable allegations the White House has yet to rescind against the Chamber of Commerce; Democrats have been endorsed by and received funding from the pro-business interest group. If what David Axelrod alleged had any basis in fact, then Democratic candidates endorsed by the Chamer of Commerce would be renouncing the support offered, and dispensing with related campaign funding. This, however, has not happened.
In recent days, a new allegation was levelled by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee suggesting that a group concerned about illegal immigration has ties to racists and Neo-Nazis. The DCCC has criticized Republican candiates endorsed by the group, but has said nothing about the Democratic candidates by the same interest group. Instead, Democrats in the Kentucky U.S. Senate race are up with a television advertisement that implicitly belief in Christianity should be a prerequisite to Senate election. The party allegedly of diversity and tolerance should not stoop so low.
One is left to conclude that either the Democratic Party is influenced by foreigners and phantom fascists, or that candidates and elected officials in that party will say whatever is necessary to win. There is no hope in that; only fear. Democrats may be banking on young people to vote on the basis of impulse next month. But, if it is hope and not fear which the electorate seeks, then the Republicans will win back control of Congress this cycle.
]]>This idea has found its way into debates over policy. During the George W. Bush administration, critics contended that the proposed surge strategy in Iraq would fail because it was seeking to do the same thing while achieving a different result. However, the Iraq surge was not the same as what had been done before. Once the Ba’athist regime was defeated, providing stability in Iraq had become a daunting task costing thousands of lives. A new strategy was needed, and that is what the Bush team proposed. The surge was not the same thing as had happened; indeed the new approach entailed a counterinsurgency strategy and provided the stability necessary for Iraq to be governable. It is this very surge, which then-Senator Obama opposed, that made it possible for an American draw-down from Iraq earlier this year.
In a press conference Friday, President Obama offered his support for a fresh round of economic stimulus spending. There’s just one problem; more of the same has not and will not end this recession. The fact that the administration in Washington is from calling the proposed new stimulus package such suggests that there is a lack of confidence regarding its level of effectiveness. If, as President Obama has suggested, his latest proposals include a tax cut for the middle class and, again as he has contended, the Recovery Act did so too, then the White House will be seeking to do the same thing while hoping for a different result.
The $800 billion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this administration promised, was necessary to keep unemployment under eight percent and put people back to work. With unemployment now hovering around ten percent nationally, this clearly has not happened. The Obama administration now the job shortage to remain for quite some time.
The trillion-dollar Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed with the promise that it would bend downward the health care cost curve thereby costs for the taxpayer and the ecomony at large. Thus far, the has and to happen. Democrats nationally are so confident about the rationale given for the passage of that travesty, that they are either running against the reform law or avoiding the topic entirely.
It should be clear that the approach offered by this administration for ending the recession has not worked. In response to , President Obama has thus far offered only more of the same, and Republicans for opposing his ideas. The last eighteen months have validated such opposition. Keep that in mind when voting in November.
]]>Following the 2006 elections, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) promised to the most ethical Congress in history. With two prominent liberal members of her party now facing ethics charges, and another member having resigned earlier over unwelcomed “tickle fights” with male staffers, it would be slightly more accurate to describe this Congress as the most venal in history. While the present Congress is technically the second one during which Ms. Pelosi has been the Speaker, scandals and ethics inquiries easily take more than two years to develop. Thus, the controversies of this Congress already existed in the one previous. Furthermore, if it is true that (D-CA) and (D-NY) have been singled out to face ethics charges on account of their race, then it follows that other members not (yet) facing charges have behaved less than ethically. But, as seasoned readers of this blog know, the current Speaker of the House has a way with words.
Just this week, Speaker Pelosi personally the last administration, and Republicans in Congress for the ongoing recession. , however, suggests that the policies of this administration and its lackeys on Capitol Hill are to blame. It is true that President Obama inherited from his predecessor this recession, but it is also true that American allies have better weathered this downturn. Countries such as and that have practiced fiscal austerity since the recession are so far making a stronger recovery than has this republic to date. Britain under Gordon Brown’s Labour Party took an approach like that of the Obama administration, and, fortunately for the people of the United Kingdom, the new government there has a different policy.
By now, readers inclined to support the agenda of Democrats in Washington are thinking that strides were taken by Congress to constrain the costs of its new programs, particularly with respect to health reform. It is now known, however, that the cost estimates put forward by the administration and Congress were smaller than ever was realistic. An IRS report that current budget allocations in health reform are too small for that agency to fulfill its responsibilities under the excessive new law. of a separate report from an agency overseeing federal social spending further suggests that the cost savings of health reform were grossly exaggerated. Another consequence of that irresponsibly expansive legislation was that pediatric hospitals were inadvertedly from certain discount eligibility relating to drug purchases.
Naturally, challenges to the new law, which no thinking person can seriously claim will reduce health care expenditures, are ongoing. While states begin to various requirements under the legislation, others have sought to escape its draconian impositions. Voters in the Missouri primaries Tuesday, overwhelmingly voted for a ballot initiative meant to relieve its residents of the individual mandate imposed by the new law. To put this into perspective, President Obama only narrowly lost Missouri in the last presidential election, while more than 70% of those who turned out Tuesday the individual mandate. A Democratic candidate for Congress was that majority.
The ongoing problems with the health reform law should have alerted the press to the need to hold legislators to account for their deeds. Sadly, the fourth estate remains a fifth column for sleazy, self-interested politicians and their government-growing cohorts, to the detriment of the essential liberty possessed by the American people. Evidence of this became apparent following the financial reform bill passed last month.
The Securities & Exchange Commission, in a pornography scandal recently, secured a from Freedom of Information Act in the financial reform legislation. Congressional Democrats that they will now hold hearings on the issue, but the challenges of the legislative process and lingering policy priorities may stymy any change to the law this year. Were the press actually accountable, this issue would have arisen prior to passage. While a slow legislative process was meant to serve the American people, so too was the free press. A regulatory agency which did little to reprimand emplyees who surfed the web for pornography while the financial market collapsed is not one which merits greater secrecy. Of course, in a just world, financial regulatory reform would require greater accountability on the part of existing regulators and agencies before creating more of what already exists.
Supporters of the the often Tea Party Movement say that they want legislators to read the bills on which said lawmakers vote. The demand, however, should be for people outside of Congress to read proposed legislation. Flaws and problems in legislation should be noticed before bills are passed into law. Whether intended or not, legislators and their staffs will rarely catch all potential pitfalls present in bills, and when they are caught, the lawmaker weighs that provision against the broader measure. Compromise should be a welcomed aspect of the lawmaking process, but the public should know precisely what is being compromised. Media exists to fill that role, but has failed to so often enough in recent years. To make matters worse, video surfaced this week of a town hall meeting in which another prominent Democratic member of Congress, Pete Stark (D-CA) suggested that the powers of the federal government are substantial limitation.
The task before Republicans this November may not be insurmountable, but will be difficult given political conditions. Democrats, nonetheless, seem to be making things easier. Henry Waxman (D-CA) seems to believe that a of conservative Democrats in November could be desirable. Waxman is not alone. It seems that the Democratic congressional leadership is in the ideas members seeking fiscally responsible policies. This sort of arrogance cost Republicans their majority in Congress nearly four years ago.
]]>In 1973, the highest court in the U.S. judiciary reached a decision which still today impacts electoral politics. That case was Roe v. Wade. Even at this early stage, parallels are apparent between the Roe and McDonald decisions.
Both Roe and McDonald had companion cases asking related questions which have been (or will be in the latter instance) largely forgotten in the popular discourse. Like abortion rights, the right to keep and bear arms was gaining steady statutory support in the United States already at the time that the Supreme Court reached its decision. Also, both Roe and McDonald reached the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal from lower federal courts. Furthermore, the constitutional justifications offered in the Roe and McDonald cases for the majority position was less than some observers thought should be the case. Indeed, whether or not abortion should be legal remains a very distinct question from whether the reasons put forward by the Court for its decision legalizing abortion were .
In both majority opinions, recent court dictrines or approaches to legal evaluation were used so to avoid their application in broader contexts. For the decision reached in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court used a vastly different, privacy related case, Griswold v. Connecticut, in 1965. The problem posed by the reasoning offered for the decision reached in Roe v. Wade is that its constitutional foundation, already weak if based on Amendments four and nine, is rendered rather more dubious by being thoroughly within judicial precedent. The question posed in Griswold dealt with the right of married couples to use birth control, a clear matter of privacy, and one which is distinct from the termination of pregnancy as it dealt with efforts aimed at prevention. Even Cass Sunstein, a lawyer and liberal legal scholar in the employ of the Obama administration, has been of the view that the Roe decision was justified.
As Elena Kagan in the past has , the judicial appointment process has its curiosities. Potential appointees routinely dodge questions and distance themselves from past controversies. Both justices appointed by President Obama’s predecessor dodged questions pertaining to abortion rights, or stated that the matter is now “settled law.” As justices, however, John Roberts and Samuel Alito have ruled in of restricting abortion rights. Asked about the Court’s holding in McDonald v. Chicago, Justice-to-be Kagan declared that the individual right to keep and bear arms is “.”
In some respects, the decision reached by the U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago renders the controversial judicial doctrine of incorporation more credible and less arbitrary. What the effects will be long term are less than certain, however. To be brief, the doctrine of incorporation has been used by federal courts to hold the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights against state governments citing as a legal basis the “due process” clause of the . Building on the reached in District of Columbia v. Heller, the majority opinion in McDonald v. Chicago assures that Second Amendment protections are fundamental rights of American citizens in good mental health or never found guilty of a felony offense.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas offered a , more in line with originalist thought, for the decision reached by the majority. As with the majority, Thomas asserted that there is a clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which justifies applying the individual right to keep and bear arms against the states. Justice Thomas sought to apply the effectively nullified “priviledges and immunities” clause, reduced to nothingness in the nineteenth century by jurists to uphold limitations on the legal rights of African-Americans. While use of this clause by the majority in its decision would have been appropriate due to the racially-charged history of gun control laws in the United States, doing so would have opened up challenges to laws and policies having nothing at all to do with gun rights. Justice Scalia to such a possibility in his own concurrence addressing the contentions raised in John Paul Stevens’ last authored dissent.
I join the Court’s opinion. Despite my misgivings about Substantive Due Process as an original matter, I have acquiesced in the Court’s incorporation of certain guarantees in the Bill of Rights “because it is both long established and narrowly limited.” Albright v. Oliver, (SCALIA, J., concurring). This case does not require me to reconsider that view, since straightforward application of settled doctrine suffices to decide it.
On the basis of reasoning applied, and the concerted effort of the judiciary past and present to narrowly apply its rulings, it cannot be doubted that gun control will remain a contentious political issue for years if not decades to come. Already this week, Chicago began investigating ways of implementing short of outright prohibitions. Citing her record in the Clinton administration, the National Rifle Association is senators to vote against the conformation of Elena Kagan.
There can be no doubt that proponents of gun control will fundraise off of the McDonald v. Chicago decision. Needless to say, those dollars will flow into the coffers of candidates and causes inclined against private firearms ownership. Rather than render gun control a non-issue, the U.S. Supreme Court may have actually reignited a policy debate Democrats likely wanted to avoid in an election year as potentially as 2010.
]]>On the left and the right today, there are grandiose motivations offered as to the hidden ambitions or backgrounds of political opponents. Much as some Tea Partiers have accused the current administration of being socialist in outlook, commentators on the left have been throwing around the term fascist to criticize those opposing the policies of the Obama administration. The irony is that fascists would accuse their opponents of socialism, and socialists would accuse their staunchest critics of fascism. Commentators in the employ of reputable newspapers ought to be smarter than to confuse the legitimate qualms many have with the current administration for the bellicose ideology that dominated Europe in the nineteen thirties. If recent polls are an indication, Tea Partiers too, as a whole, ought to know better than to deride their political opponents in some of the ways that they have.
In reality, there is nothing fascist about over runaway spending in Washington. Though it is curious that on specific costly programs, there is support from Tea Partiers for their continuation, indications are that Americans in general who are concerned about spending are reluctant to alter the cost burdens of Social Security and Medicare in any serious way. Interestingly, those maligned as fascists also seem to be with present levels of federal income tax if recent polling data is correct. The immediate response to this could be itself frustrating. However, as a group concerned over long-term fiscal policy, Tea Partiers are right to worry about the hidden costs of health reform and financial reform down the road, regardless of how they feel about present levels of federal taxation. Except for in overall wealth, education level, and racial composition, Tea Partiers may well be within the American mainstream after all. Indeed, Republicans are not alone in their concern over the fiscal health of the United States in the coming years and decades.
Press accounts offering a fairer representation of the citizens demonstrating peacefully around the country still don’t get entirely right, however. While it is true that the Ron Paul supporters have been visible critics of this administration, it is to identify the socially inclusive and fiscally conservative among Tea Partiers as in any way affiliated with the rather more paleoconservative movement championed by the Texas physician. In that sense, identifying Tea Partiers with Sarah Palin is equally as ridiculous when considering how polling has found them to stand on the of a potential presidential bid by the former Alaska governor.
Much to the chagrin of some, President Barack Obama cannot accurately be portrayed as a Socialist. In one recent attempt to dispell the myth regarding the ideology of the present U.S. President, . Political ideology is far more complex a picture than mere party identification, particularly in the United States where party discipline is low, and the parties themselves are relatively weak when compared to parties internationally. Nonetheless, CNN reached an accurate conclusion despite making a lousy case for it. President Obama is not a revolutionary, and is committed to maintaining private industry as a significant force in the U.S. economy. Barack Obama, like the allegedly fascist Tea Party set, is committed to the democratic process, in the sense of being firmly committed to electoral politics.
Pegging the political ideology of Presidents of the United States is a daunting task, though most are pragmatists, governing with only nominal commitments to a party base. George W. Bush presents an interesting example. While not pragmatic in his foreign policy, the latter President Bush sought a middle course in the most significant of his domestic policy pursuits. A national crisis early in his administration put on hold some of the policy priorities of George W. Bush. The most sweeping of Bush-era reforms came in the area of national security policy, reacting directly to the crisis faced. Despite the bipartisan support offered to his domestic reforms, and the similarity of his platform to that of his principal opponent in 2000, George W. Bush increasingly came to be seen as a partisan figure, in no small part due to congressional leaders.
With this in mind, analyzing the Obama administration thus far becomes rather interesting. While not a socialist, the current President of the United States is not exactly a pragmatist either. Nothing in the policy priorities nor approach of the Obama administration thus far suggest pragmatism. While it is true that President Obama has continued the Iraq policy of his predecessor, Bush had committed to a tentative draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq. If something goes wrong in the coming months of years regarding Iraq, the Obama administration is in the clear to blame it on Bush.
While socialism is the wrong label, so too is liberalism. Just as it is not pragmatic to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy merely to provide insurance to ten percent of the American people, it is not liberal to new business monopolies. Republicans that the new health care law practically amounts to a government takeover of healthcare with respect to the sheer levels of regulation imposed on insurers. Indeed, insurance companies are to remain in the private sector, however nominally, under Obamacare. While this would ordinarily seem to be a bad deal for any business, the effect is to prevent potential new competitors from entering the market, and prop-up existing businesses as costs inevitably rise. In essence, the health insurance industry now constitutes a federally-managed, regulated utility.
Thus, Barack Obama is perhaps best characterized as a proponent of the Third Way, that trend in politics popularized by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. While billing itself as “centrist”, the Third Way is better described as a progressive acceptance of the realities of globalization. The problem with the Third Way approach is that it retains all of the wrong assumptions made by champions of stronger state control over the economy while also seeking the benefits of the free market. Indeed, the third way is an ideology in which no crisis can be to go to waste. However, the Third Way is an idea which seeks progressive ends through means.
What makes the free market strong is not private ownership alone, but its coupling with private management. Bailouts render private businesses little more than government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The United States Senate this week is the topic of . Lacking in these discussions is a narrow, precise focus on the causes of the housing bubble that triggered a worldwide economic slump. Instead of focusing on a narrow problem, Democrats are once again using a to try and get their pet causes put into law. It is this that will make elections in 2010 and 2012 so interesting, and that has diminished the of President Obama with the American public.
]]>I’ve held off jumping into the iPad fray for the most part, waiting until I can actually buy the 3G version outright before making my own conclusions. But there was always one thing I knew the iPad could truly revolutionize- and it’s already in development.
According to via -
Project Vote, which describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that promotes higher voter registration rates in low-income and minority communities, announced last week that they are working on a mobile-device-friendly voter registration application, according to a press release, that will work on anything from the BlackBerry to the magical iPad.
But a magic wand it ain’t: In the release, Project Vote admits that there are only four states (Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) that allow electronic voter registration. …
Using a mobile voter registration application, a volunteer canvassing a neighborhood […] is supposed to be able to collect the information of a prospective voter right there on his iPad, then electronically transmit that information along to that state’s board of elections, or secretary of state, or whichever group is responsible for administering elections and voter registration.
Pretty impressive, no? This could truly revolutionize the way we think of political volunteerism. This has already been used in small part in several races recently- from the McDonnell to the Scott Brown race- I even was able to use a blackberry in a local special election.
However, while the Project Vote organization calls itself “a nonpartisan organization”, when you do more digging you find
Working with our field partner, the community organization ACORN, Project Vote in 2007-2008 conducted the largest and most comprehensive voter registration drive in the history of our two organizations, a 21-state community-based operation that succeeded in collecting over 1.3 million voter registration applications.
That’s right- the same Acorn that was recently involved in the prostitution scandals, and more importantly, embroiled in the over the last few elections. Project Vote for the surge in support for Obama campaign in the last election, and was , bringing in more than 150,000 new African American voters. While Politifact says that Project Vote is in 1992, their relationship since then has been rather murky, with Project Vote defending accusations against ACORN as - even as the FBI launched a probe into the allegations of fraud.
The simple truth is that it’s just a matter of time before we have an entirely paperless campaign experience. Volunteers might be able to download an application onto their own devices and head out to targeted areas near them via their GPS-enabled Google Maps service. From there, they can go door-to-door, armed with an entire visual interactive experience for constituents. Or perhaps they’ll collect names and signatures for ballot initiatives or primary ballots, showing a compelling video that leads directly into a signup form. All of this will come directly from a single paperless device that broadcasts the signature to the database instantaneously.
But what happens when this tool is first used by the same people who infamously in Nevada? The potential for abuse is tremendous. This will be something Republicans need to watch carefully, as oversight on matters like this will be hard to scale. As a developer of iPhone applications, the potential excites me- I would love to have a client that would recognize the potential of such a service, but I am also concerned about the potential impact on elections when people attempt to use this for more nefarious purposes. We need to move political volunteerism into the future, but not at the cost of election fraud and manipulation.
]]>In the week since the passage into law of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, much has been written about and threats of violence targeting public officials. Such acts of vandalism and threats of violence are inexcusable. For the rational, there are nonviolent ways to justly express objection to the new health reform law. The irrational, however, have been the focus of recent press accounts. Unfortunately though, too many otherwise intelligent people have taken a disturbingly one-sided view to recent events.
While the left has long sought to portray critics of President Obama and the present Congress as bigots and conspiracy theorists, reporting in support of such a perspective picked up from the day of the narrow House vote for passage, and has continued unabated ever since. On March 21, three Democratic members of Congress to have been the victims of bigotry on their as they passed protesters near the Capitol. Two members claim to have been subjected to verbal attacks, and a third was allegedly spat upon. To date, no video of the incident as described by the legislators has surfaced. One cannot help but wonder if the reports of these allegations influenced any of the votes for reform cast by House Democrats. Throughout the week, there were press reports of harassing phone calls and acts of vandalism perpetrated against Democrats and their families. One Democrat, Bart Stupak, was when it appeared that his might have been a vote against reform.
Democrats were quick to use the anger narrative spun for them by allies in the press to all this week. Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who opposed the health reform bill with all other House Republicans and of his Democratic peers, criticized the politicization of these attacks by Democrats. Cantor too was the of a death threat during the past week, after adjacent to his Richmond office. In his case, however, an arrest was made. The man arrested had to the Obama campaign, and the DNC has since the arrest forwarded those donations to charity.
Fundraising was not the only stunt pulled by the Democratic Party in the wake of threats against members of Congress; the paty brass proposed cosigning a “” with the Republican National Committee to discourage hostile rhetoric at political events. Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee, now facing , refused to partake in the deal. With respect to the civility statement, the RNC was not wrong. Civility is sorely lacking in contemporary discourse, as has been noted here not infrequently in the past. When it comes to the lack of civility in the public arena, however, those in glass houses ought not to chuck stones.
Democrats readily denounce protesters who wave signs suggesting that President Obama is a socialist or a fascist, but are selective in their objection to such epiphets.
If Olbermann being himself is not convincing enough, on protest signs waved during the previous administarion ought to be demonstrative.
The example provided here is one of the more civil signs waved in opposition to President Bush during his administration.
Yet, to read the New York Times, one would think that such are the sole providence of the GOP and conservatives. A by Frank Rich in said paper openly propagated such falsehoods. Despite the fact that it was Democrats and not Republicans who were fundraising off of these instances, Rich accused the Republicans of metaphorically instigating an American Kristallnacht. Joining this chorus of ignorance was the bombastic Florida favorite of progessives, Congressman . He too that Republicans are Nazis, drawing parallels to the Reichstag fire. While it is unfortunate that neither man has a better grasp of political history in nineteen thirties Europe than Pat Buchanan, more disturbing is the rank hypocrisy of their rhetoric.
Now that the is also law, Republicans must be better about emphasizing process in protesting the actions of the other party. Process in protest matters as much as process in legislating. However, conservatives should be keenly aware that treading carefully is essential to the presentation of ideas in the great American marketplace. Indeed, the lack of civility among some is not just disruptive to people, but to causes. Republicans can and must be better than Democrats have thus far on matters of conduct if a change in direction for the country is to occur following the November elections this year.
]]>To be clear, there are positive aspects of the legislation, but they are heavily outweighed by the negative. Thus, to argue that any future repeal by Congress of this travesty should be coupled with the passage of a much more sound reform alternative. Already, some are seeking judicial recourse for the injustice that is the Obama health reform law. However, if history has been any indication, the judiciary has been unable to stop presidential excess, just ask members of the Cherokee nation, or those justices on the U.S. Supreme Court much later during the “switch in time” in 1937.
The remarks of the respective party leaders on the House floor Sunday evening provided all that is needed to know about where the two parties stand on the latest on the American individual and his essential liberty.
For Nancy Pelosi, passing this legislation is about fulfilling the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a president who gave the nation the social security obligations it cannot meet is the very same who Pelosi all-too-appropriately praises with respect to the intrusive and even more costly new health care entitlement. The Speaker turns on its head the promise of the legally irrelevant Declaration of Independence. Essentially, her understanding of history is no less warped than that of Pat Buchanan. Reasonable observers, especially those concerned about civil liberties, should be wondering why it makes sense to overhaul one sixth of the economy to insure ten percent of the American public.
John Boehner, who is never this eloquent, offers a much more measured historical analysis for this legislation. The partisan press has harped on his angry tone rather than the substance of his charges. This instance is one where the anger was justified, and should have been helpful to the cause of reason in the national political discourse. Boehner was effective here in reiterating that Republican opposition is not to reform as a concept, but rather to this particular proposal. Unfortunately, reality does not satisfy the anger narrative pushed by so many who should really know better. His point about having each member cast votes via a roll call demonstrates how cowardly the majority caucus was in passing the landmark reform bill. Ultimately, the intensity of Boehner’s remarks reflects the long legacy of contentious Congressional battles; one can no more condemn his intensity Sunday evening than one can Congressional abolitionists before the civil war for the passion of their views.
By the end of on Sunday, there were in favor of Obamacare. Among them was Bart Stupak and some of his group who still have the audacity to claim that they are pro-life. Like it or not, the language of the passed Senate bill will allow for taxpayer funding of cosmetic abortion (), and requires insurance plans to offer abortion coverage. Supposedly, Stupid Stupak after assurances from the White House of an executive order to impose abortion funding restrictions satisfactory to “pro-life” Democrats. As the White House certainly knows, however executive orders lack the force of law.
Beyond the integrity of pro-life Democrats, another significant casuality of the reform vote Sunday was the Hyde amendment. Dating from the 1980′s, and and named for a Republican former member of Congress, the Hyde amendment was a legislative provision governing the public funding of abortion. It was a reasonable compromise by both sides, allowing public subsidy in this area of policy in only the most dire of circumstances. Due to the sheer policy expanse of the new law, the longstanding, sound compromise is no more, and the abortion policy battle is once again. Hopefully, this vote will have for those of the 219 who are not retiring this year.
The for the American public of this new law are only now being tackled by the popular press. Conservatives have lately taken to heart the mantra that members of Congress read the bills on ehich they vote. These members, when they offer a response to the charge, suggests that they have staffers to review the contents of proposed legislation when they cannot. While true, the press can only serve a responsible role in society if it reports on what the members have not read, or their hard workong employees have overlooked. Potential consequences of landmark legislation ought to be a matter of easily descernable public record well before the prospect of final passage. Such would distinguish journalists from mere reporters. Of course, either should have done more to dispell the hollow notion that the failure of the legislation passed Sunday and signed into law Tuesday actually meant the end of health care reform.
Had the reform plan failed Sunday, the administration would have been forced to do what all along; focus on smaller, more broadly popular policy ideas. Unfortunately, in Washington, still matters more than principles. Some things never change.
]]>In two separate U.S. Supreme Court cases ( and ) the majority has held that the federal constitution requires a specific process for the passage of legislation; an identical text must pass in each house of Congress prior to going to the president for signature. What has been called the in press accounts, for Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would deem the Senate bill to be accepted by the House as is without a formal vote on the text of the bill itself. Democrats, in effect, are proposing to use a stunt to pass legislation while being able to claim that they did no such thing. In reality, legislators sworn to uphold the constitution will be remaking one sixth of the U.S. economy through parliamentary gimmickry. Yet, it was precisely this sort of thing that the framers of the United States Constitution opposed.
There are now, and will forever be, disputes over what precisely is allowable or not under the federal constitution. However, rational people on the left and the right generally agree that its provisions offer broad support for personal liberty. For this reason, the first and fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution are well known. The broad interpretations offered over many years of the fourteenth amendment to said constitution define rather broadly its guarantee of due process of the laws. The amendments to the U.S. Constitution, usually crafted to defend one’s rights against excesses of government power, are not the only portions of the world-renowned document safeguarding personal liberty.
Disputes over due process often arise in instances of criminal law. However, its pertinence applies to the law generally, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution had a precise reason for establishing two legislative chambers to comprise the Congress. Nearly any student of the U.S. political system knows that the two houses of Congress are apportioned differently to prevent any one state from dominating the national government. Inferring though that such is the reason why the Congress is bicameral would be inaccurate. Indeed, James Madison’s Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress wherein both chambers were elected on the basis of population. The formation of the United States Senate resulted from a compromise between that Virginia Plan and one offered by William Paterson of New Jersey which would have given each of the thirteen states equal representation regardless of population. The purpose of bicameralism on the federal level was to better secure the liberties of individuals and the states within the Union. To pass health insurance reform through the Slaughter solution, or its proper name, the “” would undermine bicameralism and fundamentally go against the best values of the U.S. political system.
One thing was actually correct in the justly maligned to the Texas school curriculum; the government of United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. While this constitutional republic functions democratically, unbridled democracy can produce the greatest of human tragedies. The pure democracy affirms the interest of the collective over that of the individual in every possible instance. A purely democratic system is one in which the leader can be voted more power without checks on his new authority.
Civil libertarians were correct to criticize the excesses of the previous administration in its efforts to combat terrorism. Yet, there has been little more than silence from them now that the party and president in power are engaged in every activity imaginable to grow the power of the state in another area of public policy. This is particularly disturbing when considering the expanse of the present measure and its of any real fiscal constraint. The use of the self-executing rule in the House and budgetary reconciliation together to pass health reform would be the largest single abuse of federal authority since FDR proposed packing the Supreme Court with sycophants in 1937 to further his partisan agenda.
Democrats, to defend their legislative shenanigans, have argued that Republicans used the times in the past. Quality, however, matters more than quantity; adjusting rates of taxation or adding a to an existing program is substantively different from overhauling the entire health insurance system. Using reconciliation, as has been proposed, for health care reform would go against the fiscal policy nature of the process. Senator for the aborted 1993 health reform plan precisely because of its substantive reach beyond short-term fiscal policy, and the constraints on debate imposed by such a process.
The Tea Party movement has been widely criticized. For the record, this author has shown concern over its excesses in the past. Speaker Pelosi in recent weeks that Democrats share some sentiments with the . Unfortunately, it seems the sentiments shared aren’t those pertaining to personal liberty, but rather those disdaining good governance and bipartisanship.
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