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Follow this category via RSSOpen Thread On SOTU
I continue discussions with folks at EphBlog and at Williams about the best way to foster political discussions among the Ephs. In that spirit, let us try an open thread about President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Got an opinion? Tell us in the comments.
Extra credit for any Eph references!
UPDATE: McDonnell reply here.
And just because Obama is done speaking does not mean that the political conversation needs to end here. What was the most surprising/enjoyable/annoying part of either speech for you?
The Prisoner in the White House
At my request, Norman Birnbaum ‘46 will be sharing some of his articles with EphBlog. Here is the first. – DK
After a year in office, the President seems—rather like most of his predecessors—a prisoner in the White House. The New York Times, not conspicuous for its irony, has just written that, other matters permitting, he hopes to do something about unemployment.
Failure to reverse it would indeed make his re-election very difficult in 2012, and is likely to result in large Republican gains in the Congressional elections of November 2010 when the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be at stake. The victory in the special election to choose a successor to the late Senator Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts (held exactly one year after the President’s assumption of office) of an unknown and not visibly gifted local politician who campaigned as exponent of the ordinary people’s virtues against the vices of the political elite, shocked the Democrats—who became aware of the danger too late to avert it. The President’s approval ratings in the public opinion polls are not worse than that of many of his predecessors at this period of the Presidency (at the end of January, half the public thought he was performing to their satisfaction) –but the contrast with the large expectations he evoked earlier, the returned confidence of the Republicans and demoralization and pronounced division amongst the Democrats, is very striking.
The relationship between domestic and foreign policy in American Presidencies follows no very standard pattern. In general, a President whose standing in domestic matters is high is freer to maneuver in foreign affairs. That is not always the case, and Lyndon Johnson, a very successful and major domestic reformer, knew that the Vietnam War was unwinnable but did not act on his insight because he feared being attacked as weak. Yet in 1964 he had won a very convincing victory against his opponent, Senator Goldwater (whom he charged with planning to do what Johnson promptly did in 1965, expand the war in Vietnam.) Nixon, per contra, entered the White House in 1969 with a reputation for unmitigated bellicosity, and proceeded to open relations with the People’s Republic of China (refused by the US, absurdly, since the Communists’ assumption of power two decades earlier), engaged in serious negotiations with the Soviet Union, and in effect abandoned our south Vietnamese client state to its fate. As the last President Bush became increasingly mired in what struck an American majority as an interminable and for many, unnecessary, war in Iraq he found that despite his re-election in 2004, he had no majority for his domestic priorities, permanent and structural rather than incidental reductions in expenditure for the American welfare state.
The Obama Presidential majority of November 2008 clearly sought a new beginning in our politics, but how many of the President’s voters shared his complex and differentiated foreign policy perspective is not at all clear. He took his election as a mandate to announce policies which would have been inconceivable under Bush and unimaginable had McCain won: reconciliation with the Islamic world, new beginning of cooperation with China and Russia, an end to hegemonic bullying in the western hemisphere, an invitation to the European Union to propose its own initiatives in world politics (of which it proved incapable), US cooperation in serious measures to control environmental destruction, a new US initiative to bring Israel and the Palestinians to a settlement, and negotiations with Iran on its nuclear project. Read more
Historical Perspective on Citizens United
Good essay from Prof. David Kaiser:
Political speech was free, or almost free, when the first amendment was passed, in two different ways: not only did the law now protect it, but the production and distribution of written materials (the only ones then available) was extremely cheap. In the early nineteenth century, yours truly might have started and turned out a weekly broadsheet almost as easily as I now turn out this blog. The point is not whether material like Hillary can be produced–of course it can, although it testifies to the decline of American political discourse in the last half century–the point is who will have the money to advertise it and broadcast it on cable television. Just as Anatole France remarked that the law impartially forbade both the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges, the law now impartially allows David Kaiser, the heads of Citibank and Goldman Sachs, and Glenn Beck to make their views available on television to audiences of millions. The problem is that only three of them will be able to do so. The reformers of the 1900-80 era did not need rocket science to figure out that increasingly expensive modern forms of communication would obviously give incredible advantages to the rich and powerful and thus had to be regulated to give ordinary citizens a chance to be heard. A 5-4 Supreme Court majority has now thrown out a century of tradition and returned us to a form of political Darwinism (see my earlier posts on social Darwinism several years ago, easily located by a search at the top of the page.)
The current crisis in American life, I have been saying here now for five years, will lead either to a kind of New Deal revival or to a return to the Gilded Age. Karl Rove understands this and cited William McKinley as his political hero. The court just brought us immensely closer to a return to McKinley’s age.
Those like me who never have and never will abandon the New Deal principles they learned in their youth inevitably mourn the likely eclipse, for the rest of our lifetimes, of those principles. But once again my training as a European historian at least enables me to say that things could be much, much worse. Although the Republicans have frequently bent the law (most notably in 2000 and again this week), they have successfully undid the work of our parents and grandparents mainly through legal means. There is no Fascist movement or dictatorship on the horizon (although one could still emerge.) It was the America of the Gilded age to which my paternal grandfather came around 1900, making my own life possible. The liberal tradition will survive, even if will only be revived years after the Boom generation has passed from the scene. (I do not exclude the possibility that my own side might still prevail even in this crisis, but it does not look at all likely.) If the Founding Fathers managed to design a system that can preserve essential liberties and survive even severe swings to the right and left, they will still deserve our thanks.
Emphasis mine. Read the whole thing here.
The central theme of the recent book Packing the Court by Prof. James MacGregor Burns is the undemocratic and unconstitutional rise of Supreme Court power. He writes (emphasis mine):
In retrospect, the court has far more often been a tool for reaction, not progress. Whether in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century or the Gilded Age at the turn of the twenty-first, the justices have most fiercely protected the rights and liberties of the minority of the powerful and the propertied. Americans cannot look to the judicial branch for leadership.
Confronted with what he calls “unelected and unaccountable politicians in robes”, Burns proposes that the only way to break judicial power is for the democratic branches of government to challenge it, either through a constitutional amendment, or a somewhat more daring strategy:
Confronted by a hostile court repeatedly striking down vital progressive legislation, a president could declare that there is no place in a modern democracy for unelected judges to veto twenty-first-century laws. The president would announce flatly that he or she would not accept the Supreme Court’s verdicts because the power of judicial emasculation of legislation was not – and never had been – in the Constitution. The president would invite the partisans of judicial supremacy to try to write that authority into the Constitution by proposing a constitutional amendment. Through their representatives in Congress and the state legislatures, the American people would be given the choice denied them in 1803: to establish in the Constitution the power of judicial supremacy, or to reject that power. Only by this route could judicial rule be legitimated, “constitutionalized.” In the meantime, until the matter was settled, the president would faithfully execute the laws the Supreme Court had unconstitutionally vetoed.
It would be a risky strategy, an open defiance of constitutional customs and the myths and mysteries that have long enshrouded the court. Traditionalists would be outraged. Professors of law would express their concern in learned treatises. Powerful interests with a stake in the status quo – business groups, conservative lawyers, and their supporters in the political class – would spearhead a campaign of opposition. There might even be demands for impeachment. In the ensuing turbulence, though, the president would have an enormous strategic advantage. He would need only to sit tight. The burden would be on his adversaries to initiate the new and momentous amendment to the Constitution and to obtain a mandate for judicial rule. For once it would be the foes of reform, not the reformers, who would have to go through the constitutional hoops of amendment, with all the traps and delays.
Above all, it would be a test of leadership, of the president’s ability to mobilize followers behind a transformational goal, as FDR had so markedly failed to do in 1937. He would present the idea for what it was – a revolutionary challenge to judicial business-as-usual, to minority rule by a handful of judges, a fight for the Constitution as the people’s charter, not a lawyer’s contract.[...]
If judicial rule was not ratified by the people in the amending process, the Supreme Court’s exclusive grip on constitutional interpretation would be broken. Shorn of its supremacy, the court would still retain crucial tasks. It would still be called upon to interpret ambiguous statutes, adjust conflicting laws, clarify jurisdictions, and police the boundaries of federal-state power – virtually all of its present responsibilities except that of declaring federal laws unconstitutional. It would simply be brought closer to the role the Framers originally envisioned for it.
Quotation above taken from the Epilogue, “Ending Judicial Supremacy”, to Prof. Burns’ book.
Burns seems to expect that a constitutional crisis of this magnitude will occur at some point in the future, perhaps in the near future. With Citizens United, the opportunity for the democratic branches of govt. to reform judicial power may have occurred before even he would have expected it. What are the chances that the Democratic leadership in Congress and the White House will challenge the court?
Feed Us Happy-Talk
I enjoyed this letter in the Transcript.
To the Editor:
A year ago, if we had read in the paper that employers were hiring again, that health care legislation was proceeding without a bump, that Afghanistan suddenly became a nice place to take your kids, we would’ve known we were being lied to. Back then, we recognized that the problems Obama inherited as president wouldn’t go away overnight.
During his campaign, Obama clearly said that an economy that took eight years to break couldn’t be fixed in a year, that Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires and would not be an easy venture for us.
Candidate Obama didn’t feed us happy-talk, which is why we elected him. He never said America could solve our health care, economic and security problems without raising the deficit. Instead, he talked of hard choices, of government taking painful and contentious first steps towards fixing problems that can’t be left for another day.
…
It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything.
Ellie Light
Williamstown
Indeed. The College Democrats ought to invite Ellie Light to give a talk on campus. I bet that it would be very interesting . . .
Coakley reflects on loss
From The Boston Globe:
(thanks to nuts for the link)
Vote
If you are a resident of Massachusetts, you should probably vote today.
Scoff at soybean subsidies, hwc? I think not …
The Eastern Bias shows up once again in these elitist pages filled with the spewlings of trust fund bunnies!
Soybean subsidies keep the Midwest economy going with food on the table for families and the world filled with plastics and culinary imitations, while EphBlog readers complain about the recent increase in the fresh tuna price at Dean and deLucca!
Question those senatorial hopefuls, hwc! And be sure to include the all-important soybean conjecture!
As fraudulent as Bush
Andrew Sullivan reads the Globe op-ed penned by Martha Coakley’s Republican opponent Scott Brown:
His Globe piece is presumably a good way to assess his platform. And it highlights all the bankruptcy of the current conservative establishment. Take a couple of issues. He starts by listing national problems:
Public debt has reached $12 trillion and counting, and Washington politicians want to borrow trillions more.
His solution?
My plan for the economy is simple: an across-the-board tax cut – in the tradition of John F. Kennedy – for families and businesses that will increase investment and lead to immediate new job growth. More tax increases will hurt our recovery. That’s why I have taken a no-new-tax pledge. My opponent will raise taxes.
Does anyone see the contradiction here? Without any tax increases, indeed with more taxcuts, the spending reductions required to reduce the debt will be fantastic: massive cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. Where does he outline these spending measures? Nowhere. Fiscally, he’s as fraudulent as Bush.
More absurdity here:
It’s time to admit that while the $787 billion stimulus had the best of intentions, it failed to create one new job.
Even if you believe that stimuli are wasteful or inefficient, I know of no sane economist who believes that $800 billion did not create one new job.
Then he’s in favor of the Massachusetts universal health insurance reform, on which Obama’s is based, but for some reason against the one for the country. Why?
But the healthcare bill under discussion in Washington is not good. It will raise taxes and increase spending. If you are a senior on Medicare, it will lead to a half trillion dollars in cuts to your care.
So Brown supports health care exchanges, a mandate, and universal care … but opposes healthcare exhcanges, a mandate and universal care. He is worried about the debt but actually opposes the proposed cuts in Medicare that can make universal insurance affordable – let alone the cuts necessary to bring us back from the fiscal abyss.
He is, in other words, a parody of the brainless bush Republican, mixed with Romney-like cynicism.
Attention Ephblog: Not all political writers hate Coakley ‘75!
In case the…biases…of certain ephblog authors weren’t clear to you already, consider the following views of Coakley:
Left wing media supports Coakley .
Or this evidence that her opponent might be a dick/IRS cheat . Apparently, the health care coverage is less important than the fact that he’s making his staffers pay their own taxes so he can avoid payroll tax.
Or there’s Vicky Kennedy’s endorsement to consider .
Or the huffington post gets mad at centrists flip flopping .
And now, back to your regularly scheduled ephblog…
Coakley ‘75 Down 4% in Senate Race
If you had told me last month that Martha Coakley ‘75 might lose her race for the Senate, I would have said you were an idiot. Perhaps I am the idiot.
Riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform, GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate all the way to the White House, a new poll shows.
Although Brown’s 4-point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley is within the Suffolk University/7News survey’s margin of error, the underdog’s position at the top of the results stunned even pollster David Paleologos.
“It’s a Brown-out,” said Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center. “It’s a massive change in the political landscape.”
Unbelievable (almost). Losing Curt Schilling probably doesn’t help, nor telling Catholics that they should not work in emergency rooms.
I want Coakley to win because she is an Eph. But I also remember Gerald Amirault. Do you? Amirault remembers Coakley.
Toss-up
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight is a remarkably good polling analyst. When he calls it a toss-up, I tend to believe him.
Here’s the Pollster.com aggregated chart:
Hate-filled opportunism
Brother Spotless is angry.
Coakley ‘75 lead down to 2
According to Rasmussen Reports.
via David Weigel, who notes:
All of that comes after Coakley, roused from what Democrats admit was a fairly lazy campaign, launched new TV ads.
The really surprising thing about this poll? While Brown has made his campaign explicitly about the chance Massachusetts voters have to block the health care bill, Rasmussen finds a solid majority of voters in support of the bill. According to the internals, 52 percent of voters back “the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats” to only 46 percent who oppose it. A plurality, 41 percent, of voters say the stimulus package has helped the economy–only 23 percent say it’s hurt. Coakley’s bumbling campaign can’t close the deal with an electorate that agrees with her on the issues.
Also, thanks to Cameron Henry ‘09 for pointing us to this article:
GOP candidate in Mass. Senate race says he raised $1.3M in 24 hours
MA-Sen: Was I Wrong?
At least two new polls are out since my last post on MA Attorney General Martha Coakley’s ‘75 race against GOP State Senator Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special for the late Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. The righty blogosphere (see local outpost RedMassGroup.com) is going nuts over this one from PPP, showing Brown with an astonishing one-point edge over Coakley. David reports that Michelle Malkin is ecstatic (which I refuse to verify for myself), and local righty blog RedMassGroup reports a Scott Brown moneybomb is in the works and the third largest paper in the commonwealth, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, has endorsed Brown.
Of course this other poll, commissioned by the Boston Globe, has Coakley ahead by around 15 points. RedMassGroup blogger Rob Eno had this to say about the Globe’s poll:
The Boston Globe/UNH poll shows Coakley up 15 points among what they call likely voters. However even their poll shows the race tied amongst motivated voters. This is a special election. Motivated voters go to the polls. Non-motivated voters do not.
But this is spin, at least to a certain extent – the poll report from the UNH survey center does show a 47-47 dead heat between Coakley and Brown amongst voters who report being "extremely interested” in the race (the word “motivated” is not used – cute spin, though!), but Coakley crushes Brown among voters reporting being “very interested.” Since “interested” =! “motivated”, who’s to say what the difference in turnout motivation will be between those who report being “very" interested and “extremely” interested?
Another fun tidbit from the poll report – Coakley seems to do best in Western Mass AND “inside 128” [non-Mass people: that means Greater Boston, essentially], with weaker support in Central Mass and the Metrowest suburbs. My admittedly limited understanding of Mass politics makes me think that’s kind of odd, since Republicans are supposed to do better the further away from the Boston area and I-495 you get… Perhaps she’s got the native-daughter factor working for her, since she’s from North Adams? Can someone with more [read: any] experience in Mass politics maybe comment on this, correct me if I’m wrong, and add some nuance either way? Also, some on-campus relevance – since Coakley’s support is that strong out in Western Mass, and she’s from Western Mass, they should have a strong turnout operation for Coakley out there. Current Ephs, get involved. It’s fun! And important. But fun!
With the crazy variation in these polling numbers, and given the fact that it’s a special election…this campaign will probably end up being a nailbiter through to election day, even if it ends up as a twenty-point blowout, because nothing is certain, and there are a lot of Democrats in Massachusetts (and everywhere, really) who are upset with the way Democrats in DC have been handling things – as evidenced by the recent resignation (and reregistration as an independent!) of the town Democratic chairwoman in Framingham, MA.
Is Martha Coakley ‘75 Really Vulnerable?
David emailed me pointing out that “the latest right-wing meme is that she’s vulnerable”, following that Rasmussen poll that has Martha Coakley ’75 leading Republican Scott Brown in the race for the late Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat. Is she that vulnerable? From the Christian Science Monitor:
A Jan. 4 Rasmussen poll of likely voters found Coakley leading her Republican challenger, state Sen. Scott Brown, by a smaller margin than expected – nine percentage points.
In the poll, 50 percent favored Coakley and 41 percent chose Senator Brown. The general election is Jan. 19.
Coakley was strongly favored coming out of the Dec. 8 primary due to the heavily Democratic nature of Massachusetts: Blue voters outnumber their red counterparts 3 to 1 in the state.
It’s funny how points is considered huge in some races and small in others. Maybe it’s a bit of a surprise in a state with a 3:1 Democratic registration advantage, but nine points is still nine points. But polls aren’t elections.
In elections with low turnout – and special elections like this one usually qualify – it’s true that such leads can evaporate when the election goes to the ballot box. We saw that on election night in my home state of New York last November, when challenger Bill Thompson made up most of a 14+ percentage point deficit (looking at the Pollster average) to nearly unseat NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (see Pollster.com’s graph here). The gap separating Thompson and Bloomberg was just 4.6% on election night.
That being said, I remember most of the crazy upsets and near-upsets from election night ‘09 favoring insurgents against incumbents – times are tough, and people, more than being angry at any particular political party (though there’s definitely some of that) are angry at the folks in charge of things. So, for example, 2009 was a very bad year to be an incumbent county executive in my neck of the woods.
This is where I tend to disagree with comments like this, from a consultant cited in the CSM article:
“He’s offered himself up as a protest candidate: ‘If you don’t like the way things are going in Washington, vote for me,’ ” says Dan Payne, a Massachusetts-based Democratic media consultant. “The winds are blowing against the Democrats right now.”
Granted, the Democratic brand has taken a big hit, but my bet is voters blame those in charge way more than newcomers – so, while incumbent Senator Chris Dodd in Connecticut bowed out rather than face a very tough reelection fight, Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is expected to hold that seat for Democrats easily.
Coakley ’75 is an attorney general running for U.S. Senate, not an incumbent senator being flogged with the Senate’s recent run of incredibly bad press. So I don’t think she’s in for the world of hurt folks in the media think Democrats will be facing. As for whether this poll indicates she’s in danger – nothing’s certain in politics, and a great field campaign combined with low turnout and a demotivated Democratic base could potentially pull an upset, sure. But I wouldn’t bet on it, and I’m sure Coakley’s campaign is working hard and taking no chances.
I hope someone on campus is organizing to get out the vote for Coakley, though! Working to get out the vote on election day is something everyone should do at least once.
“The real Mayor of Spring Street”
Project webpage is up and running. It will be interesting to see what angle the Williams students take for this research? Judging from the pictures on the webpage… I think they are getting a feel for the larger metaphor.
Update: Sign up to follow the blog for the Real Mayor here. If you have “stories or anecdotes” to tell about the gas station or Art, the researchers are looking for input.
“Leadership in the Black Community”
Five members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a prominent African-American entertainer, and two African-American alums of Williams are coming to campus in a week for an event almost exactly one year after last fall’s CBC Roundtable.
The Participants are:
- Andre Carson, the youngest Democratic member of the House and the second Muslim to serve in Congress, after Keith Ellison. He previously worked for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.
- John Conyers, the second longest serving incumbent Congressman, and is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
- Danny Davis, a member of Congress since 1996, who also has the dubious honor of being considered by Rob Blagojevich as a possible replacement for President Obama. Bernard Moore, the event’s initiator, is a Senior Policy Adviser for Congressman Davis.
- Barbara Lee, a member of Congress since 1998, is the current Chair of the CBC, and was the only Member of Congress to vote against the Authorization of Force after the September 11th attacks.
- Diane Watson, who joined Congress in 2001 after a long time in California’s State Senate and a brief Ambassadorship.
- Bill Cosby needs no introduction.
- Wole Coaxum ‘92 is a Senior Vice President at JPMorgan Chase.
- William Spriggs ‘77 is Chair of Economics at Howard University and Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Labor.
Video of last fall’s event is here.
Too close to call
From the Seattle Times:
The Seattle’s mayoral race is too close to call, with environmentalist attorney Mike McGinn leading T-Mobile executive Mallahan in the first count of ballots released by King County tonight.
With 85,000 ballots counted, McGinn is currently up by 910 votes.
As McGinn came out to talk at his party at The War Room, supporters burst into huge cheers, hugged and high-fived chanted of “We like Mike.”
If the results hold it would be an upset for McGinn, who was outspent by more than 3-to-1, opposed by the city’s biggest business and labor groups, and seemed to back down on his biggest campaign issue — opposition to the deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct — two weeks ago.
King County Elections officials predict a 56 percent turnout. In Seattle, a total of 210,000 votes are expected.
The McGinn campaign says it’s not too late to vote.
More images from the McGinn war room at the Stranger.
Democracy Blogging
- Mike McGinn ‘82, who is running for mayor of Seattle, reminds you to please mail or drop off your ballot: You can drop your ballot at any of King County Elections’ drop boxes by 8 PM on Election Day.
- Dan Blatt ‘85 analyzes the race in NY-23.
- Mass MoCA says VOTE VOTE VOTE: “Too-close-to-even-hazard-a-guess elections for mayor in North Adams, Pittsfield, Northampton and probably many other towns and cities across the country that aren’t necessarily on our radar mean that voting is probably the most important thing you can do today.”
- From Greylocknews: WilliNet to carry live commentary on N.A. mayoral election from 7 p.m. Tuesday / Twitter tag: #namayor
- From Chap Petersen ‘90, Virginia State Senator and Creigh Deeds backer: “Please everyone get out and vote. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. in their usual locations.”
- Marc Lynch published an article in The National about what happens when Islamists don’t get to be democrats.
- Derek Catsam ‘93 provides an update on elections in Tunisia and Mozambique, as well as other African political news.
- Ken Dilanian ‘91 looks at the impact of US foreign aid to promote democracy in Egypt.
- Martha Coakley ‘75 received an endorsement from the Massachusetts Gay & Lesbian Political Caucus.
- Stephen O’Grady ‘97 writes a heartfelt essay on why he’s voting No on 1 in Maine, which concludes thusly (read the whole thing):
We have, sadly, not always lived up to the promise of our forefathers. It took us 191 years to guarantee people the right to marry irrespective of the color skin they were born with. It is my sincere hope that we don’t deny committed couples the right to marry for another 191 years based on the sexual preference they were born with.
I am fortunate that the law says that I may marry the person that I love. I cannot imagine what I would do if it said otherwise. Please. If you are registered here in Maine and you believe in the rights that make this country worth dying for, vote No On 1.
O’Grady also posts this video of WWII vet and lifelong Republican Philip Spooner:
- Stephen Rose ‘58: Prepping for A Democratic Bloodbath
House scrutinizes fake lobbyist letters
Some readers may recall Morgan Goodwin ’08’s earlier protests about the naked fraud by lobbying firm Bonner and Associates. NPR had a story on the fraud today, featuring a photo of Morgan in an astroturf suit (click for larger), angry quotes from the chair of the House global warming committee, and a weaseling apology/denial of responsibility from the head of Bonner and Associates:
(h/t Andy Goldston)
Also, Stephen Colbert did a segment on this story a couple of weeks ago:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Tip/Wag – Coal Lobbyists, George Takei & Crispycones | ||||
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Today, Morgan and other activists are conducting a sit-in at the Environmental Protection Agency to protest mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Live-blog here.
Nobel reax
Dan Drezner ‘90 stops laughing long enough to write up the secret deliberations of the Nobel committee (Neil Patrick Harris was robbed!)
Derek Catsam ‘93 and Vermando ‘05 try to make a case for the prize. Chad Orzel ‘93 thinks that they’re trying to make American right-wingers’ heads explode. More discussion on WSO.
Sam Sommers ‘97 has an interesting psychological take:
Most of the pro-Obama crowd I’ve read, heard from, and talked to is surprised as well. And nervous to boot. Because even the most ardent Obama supporter has to admit that he’s still shorter on accomplishment than on promise, and they’re worried that this award will only fuel the fire of the style-over-substance critique.
If you ask me, this is the issue that should concern the Nobel Committee, given their apparent goals for today’s announcement. Because, yes, source credibility matters. But so does your audience. And when your preaching surprises and even distresses the choir, you may have a backlash problem on your hands. Not to mention the risk that all your future selections will be dismissed out of hand as well in some quarters, based on the precedent of this year’s choice.
The Case for McGinn
The Stranger publishes a very nice article, the first in a series, arguing for Mike McGinn ‘82 in the Seattle mayoral race:
On primary night, in a close race where he was considered vastly outmatched by the other candidates—the two front- runners had been running television ads for weeks, whereas McGinn hadn’t run a single one—McGinn won. Joe Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive with personal wealth and lots of wealthy contributors, came in second. Greg Nickels, the incumbent, who’d been in contests like this many times before, came in third. Which means he’s now out of the picture.
That makes the race for mayor a contest without an incumbent, a face-off between two untested men, a choice that is, either way, a gamble.
But it’s also a choice between stark stylistic differences. Mallahan’s main political accomplishment thus far has been to figure out how much it costs to buy one’s way into a Seattle mayoral race. (Over $230,000 of his own money and counting.) He wears suits, employs tested political hands, brags about having the support of the city’s “insiders.” Then there’s McGinn, who is no neophyte—he’s been a lawyer, a neighborhood activist, and president of the local Sierra Club—but has shrewdly embraced the chance to run as an outsider, as the leader of an insurgent campaign. He says “grassroots” whenever possible. He refuses to have an official spokesperson (he does the speaking or simply allows the conduct of the campaign to speak for itself). And as he bikes around town in shirt and jeans, he smiles through an only somewhat trimmed, I-don’t-give-a-fuck, logger-chic beard[...]
[McGinn] offers idea after new idea (a plan for a new light-rail line along the west side of Seattle, a plan for dealing with gang violence, a plan for fixing the crumbling South Park bridge). He has a core conviction—that digging a new tunnel through downtown Seattle is a costly mistake that doesn’t fit with the character or future of this city—and even as events seem to be making it harder and harder for him to turn his conviction into action (the city council is expected to sign an agreement later this month with the state on funding for the tunnel), his willingness to stand up and call it a mistake is energizing to a significant portion of his base.
Mallahan, by contrast, is running a cookie-cutter campaign designed not to ruffle or offend. He’s selling himself as more of the same at a time when Seattle wants change.
Hurting America
rory brings to our attention this piece by Dan Drezner ‘90 on the current state of political discourse and whether or not Jon Stewarts “hurting america” moment led to a better or worse TV punditry:
We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary of Jon Stewart’s verbal skewering of Crossfire in particular and the whole genre of left-right cable gabfests in general. Stewart said these kind of shows were “hurting America” because of their general blather and failure to ask politicians good, sharp questions.
Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire generated quite the navel-gazing among the commentariat, and played no small role in the eventual disappearance of Crossfire, The Capitol Gang, Hannity & Colmes, and shows of that ilk.
So, five years later, I have a half-assed blog question to ask — did Jon Stewart hurt America by driving these shows off the air?
If you’re expecting a lengthy defense of the Crossfire format right now, well, you’re going to be disappointed. My point rather, is to question what replaced these kinds of shows on the cable newsverse. Instead of Hannity & Colmes, you now have…. Hannity. Is this really an improvement?
Link to full article: Did Jon Stewart Hurt America?.
rory comments:
i’m always fascinated by the idea of unintended consequences/backlash. I’m not sure Jon Stewart really was as active a catalyst as drezner (and others) imply…a one-horse show was clearly the wave of the future before Stewart attacked Crossfire.
Considering how discourse in America certainly hasn’t gotten better since the election (maybe briefly during the election. maybe. And I’ll let the jury decide whether or not it’s gotten worse. that doesn’t matter to my point, I don’t think) what, if anything, can be done to improve the generally horribly disappointing lack of discussion/debate? And what can be done to make the discussion/debate that does happen significantly less embarrassing to anyone with a brain (I assume others are embarrassed by the debate that goes on in society at the moment)?
All the President’s Meddling
An op-ed in today’s NYT from Professor Susan Dunn:
It is not yet clear how extensive President Obama’s plans are for intervening in party primaries. Nor is it yet clear if his criteria for picking favorites are based on ideology, as Roosevelt’s were, or if the White House is simply focused on choosing the most popular candidates and winning a few more elections. So far, the president’s support for Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and his desire to dump Governor Paterson would seem to indicate that his approach is purely pragmatic. But in either case, by meddling in state and local politics, he risks fueling the same indignation that Roosevelt did in 1938.
(thanks to Parent ‘12 for the link)
Toby Cosgrove ‘62, head of the Cleveland Clinic, talks healthcare
From The Atlantic’s First Draft of History conference, a discussion about healthcare with Toby Cosgrove ‘62 and some guy who was Nixon’s commerce secretary:
Full article here. (hat tip to DKane)
From elsewhere on Eph Planet, Michael Miller ‘82, who writes a wonky health care policy blog, provides a detailed analysis of what bending the cost curve in health care would require.
Safire and Singapore and Williams
While marking the passing of William Safire, Prof. Sam Crane recounts a fascinating bit of Williams history. This should be enough to pique your interest:
I never met Safire face-to-face, but one late summer we found ourselves thrown together as adversaries of the Singapore government. Rest in peace.
Afghanistan/ Vietnam part 3
In the previous thread “Afghanistan/ Vietnam” Ephlbog author Ronit highlighted Political Science professor James McAllister’s sweeping comparisons of Afghanistan and Vietnam. Articles/ opinion pieces in this vain have been popping up quite often recently.
In his recent report General Stanley A. McChrystal continually calls for increased troop levels and states emphatically:
“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
“This is a struggle for the support of the Afghan people. Our willingness to operate in ways that minimize casualties or damage — even when doing so makes our task more difficult — is essential to our credibility,” McChrystal said. “I cannot overstate my commitment to the importance of this concept.”
To Which the WH responded:
White House officials say the president stands by the comments he made at the weekend when he told talk shows that he is hesitant to escalate the numbers of troops in Afghanistan but agrees that a new strategy is required to combat the Taliban and al-Qaida. “Until I’m satisfied that we’ve got the right strategy, I’m not going to be sending some young man or woman over there beyond what we already have,” Obama said on Meet the Press.
Such is politics. President Obamas lukewarm response has to give pause to those of us who believe we need to win in Afghanistan. Obama continually promised the electorate that he believed in the war, and that he would not let us falter in the conflict. General McChrystal is a very capable expert who was given the time and resources to do a full analysis of the situation on the ground, and come up with a plan to win. McChrystal continually warns throughout his report that increased numbers and a tactical shift is needed now if we are going to succeed.
What we may find is that liberal baby boomer fear of conflict and the demons of their generation push the polity to ignore the military experts and follow a course that leads to a self fulfilling prophesy. We may indeed come to a point historically where comparison of these two wars is viable. We defeat ourselves, because we cannot summon the will to win.
Coakley ‘75 doing stellar in the polls
JeffZ points to this Globe article about a Suffolk University/WHDH-TV News poll:
Fifty-three percent of people viewed Coakley favorably, compared with 16 percent for US Representative Michael Capuano, who is planning to challenge Coakley for the Democratic nomination, and 20 percent for State Senator Scott Brown, the highest-profile Republican to announce.
Coakley was also much better known than her rivals, with only 12 percent saying they didn’t know who she was, compared with 33 percent for Capuano and 39 percent for Brown, according to the Suffolk University/WHDH-TV News poll.
Stephen Pagliuca, a wealthy private equity investor and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, who is poised to announce a campaign for the Democratic nomination tomorrow at the TD Garden, had a major name recognition problem, with 72 percent of those surveyed saying they had never heard of him. Three percent of those surveyed said they viewed him favorably.
In a hypothetical race between Coakley and Brown in the January 2010 election, Coakley would trounce Brown 54 percent to 24 percent, the poll also found.
JeffZ also points out that she has already received a large number of union endorsements, suggesting that her liberal positions aren’t hurting her with the blue collar democrats in Mass. She has received endorsements recently from the Massachusetts Police Association, the New Bedford Police Union (link), Teamsters Local 25 and IBEW Local 103 (link).
UPDATE: More union endorsements and the campaign just reached 5,000 signatures on its ballot petition (they need 10,000 by October 20th to get on the ballot)
Coakley ‘75 for Senate: Updates
UPDATE (Sept. 7): Joseph Kennedy II Says He Will Not Run for Senate
There have been quite a few developments since David posted the early speculation:
- Martha Coakley made a formal statement on Thursday announcing her candidacy (link to prepared remarks, link to video, campaign website).
- During her speech, Coakley touched on her roots in Western Massachusetts. She was born in Pittsfield and raised in North Adams. She mentioned her first job, scooping ice-cream at a Williamstown Howard Johnson’s.
- Coakley gave an interview to the AP, where she discussed healthcare reform and the public option.
- In the AP interview, she said that growing up in the Vietnam era made her wary about Obama getting dragged into a protracted military engagement in Afghanistan. “I trust him for now”, she added.
- In another interview, she discussed a tragedy in her family – the suicide of her only brother, Edward Jr., a talented pianist and Eph who suffered from manic depression. #
- She made an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball, where she discussed torture prosecutions and other hot-button issues thrown at her by Chris Matthews (h/t to PTC for mentioning this):
- Coakley received obligatory snark from liberal rag Wonkette.
- Globe columnist Joan Vennechio discussed the politics of her run, her track record as Attorney General, and her support for Hillary Clinton:
Martha Coakley wants to run for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. So, she’s running for it. Unlike other would-be candidates, she isn’t waiting for another Kennedy to decide whether to try to keep it in the family…
For Coakley, it’s a smart first step. But it will take more to win, with or without a Kennedy in the race.
She has to be more than a prosecutor with a portfolio of hard-fought cases. She has to convert a fairly cautious turn as attorney general into a passionate agenda for the people.
She has to represent the politics of the future, while understanding the politics of the past. Testimony from Ted Kennedy’s grieving constituents underscores the power of personal connection. Coakley is more cerebral, and less emblematic of the clubby, back-slapping, predominantly male style of traditional Massachusetts politics.
Four Massachusetts women have served in Congress; none in the Senate. But Coakley can’t run on gender alone.
Tributes to Senator Kennedy
From Chan Lowe ‘75.
From Derek Catsam ‘93:
I grew up in New Hampshire, so Kennedy was never literally my Senator, but for all intents and purposes he was the Senator who represented me, a liberal, in a state that was during the 1980s as solidly Republican as ever there was. I was stunned when I read about his death even when it was obvious for months that this moment was coming. I had to compose myself for a second, before diving in to read and remember why Ted Kennedy was such a vital figure in American political life for four decades.
Also from Catsam:
South Africa in the 1980s might well mark the most sustained American engagement with an African issue. It is easy to forget just how regularly South Africa appeared on the nightly news (kids, ask your parents) and how many column issues the tumult occupied, especially once the Vaal Triangle uprising in the last third of 1984 set off arguably the most intense sustained period of anti-apartheid activity. And Ted Kennedy was among the voices of conscience who translated those words intom concrete action. Kennedy was not alone, nor was he even the most important driving force behind the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985. But it was one of hundreds of issues on which Kennedy took leadership in his long career. He truly was a giant in American political life.
Hamba kahle, Senator Kennedy.
From Chap Petersen ‘90:
In my parents’ lifetime, the election of John F. Kennedy as President was a seminal event — a younger generation taking control of a nation’s destiny. The life and death of Robert F. Kennedy was on the same historic arc. He had a vision for the nation that was bigger and broader than it had been.
My siblings and I came of age in a different era, perhaps more cynical. The brand name “Kennedy” did not have the same magic. Those who tried to capitalize politically on that name in the last ten years have largely failed. Political dynasties do not last forever in this country and that’s a good thing.
No matter. Ted Kennedy was able to span both eras, literally. He was there when “liberalism” was all the rage. And he was there when it was hopelessly out of fashion. Either way, he fought the good fight. He finished the race. He kept the faith.
Sam Crane posts a Mencian thought:
If you want to put my words into practice, why not return to fundamentals? When every five-acre farm has mulberry trees around the farmhouse, people wear silk at fifty. And when the proper seasons of chickens and pigs and dogs are not neglected, people eat meat at seventy. When hundred-acre farms never violate their proper seasons, even large families don’t go hungry. Pay close attention to the teaching in village schools, and extend it to the child’s family responsibilities – then, when their silver hair glistens, people won’t be out on the roads and paths hauling heavy loads. Our black-haired people free of hunger and cold, wearing silk and eating meat in old age – there has never been such times without a true emperor.
Stephen Rose ‘58 says health care reform was his great cause and that Kennedy was sounding the Obama message in the 1980s.
From Dan Blatt ‘85:
He may have been a liberal, but, as the years passed, he did not treat his political adversaries as enemies, instead he saw many as colleagues who, though coming from different political and philosophical perspectives, were fighting the same fight, seeking to achieve the same goal–the welfare and well-being of the United States of America and its people.
He was, as we all are, flawed, but, in the hour of his passing, let us remember his strengths. And they were many.
From commenter nuts:
Ephs who respect Ted Kennedy might enjoy listening to his eulogy for his brother Bobby. I have a great admiration for Ted’s compassion, his vision of public service and his ability to express himself in a powerful way.
David Kaiser writes a fascinating essay about Kennedy in historical perspective – an extract:
But the big news this week, of course, is the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, which has affected me far more than I would have thought. Of the three Kennedy brothers who at least made it to 30 he was the one I had not studied in detail, and I had never regarded him as presidential timber. His loss is however a shock because he is the only political figure of whom I had been continuously aware for more than 49 years, since I began reading about the Kennedy family in the 1960 campaign. He has been in the US Senate since I was 15, and he is a link, in many ways, to the more distant past. I shall now try to place him generationally and historically.
Two things about Teddy stand out in historical perspective: he belonged to what Strauss and Howe called an Artist or adaptive generation–those who spend their childhoods in periods of great crisis–and he was for decades a critical figure in our national legislature who never became President. The previous analogous generations in our national life were the Compromise generation, born in the last third of the eighteenth century, and the Progressive generation, born from about 1842 to 1862. It is in the Compromise generation, I think, that Kennedy’s closest analogues can be found, specifically Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Quincy Adams from his own Massachusetts.
Feel free to add your own thoughts in thread.
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