The cooling economy is sending oil prices lower, and speculators are backing out of their futures and options contracts. As a result, oil prices have declined to $85 per barrel, and they are expected to go lower. Although the long-term issues with oil supply and the increase of demand from India and China require attention, the Chicken Littles of the Environmental Movement who have predicted that "the end of oil" is nigh seem to have been wrong.
The moral of today's story is that the forces of Supply & Demand actually work. Without government intervention, the price of oil has declined. Why? Because prices outpaced demand. The buyers and speculators took note and began to sell. Insofar as oil has been very slightly responsible for the inflationary pressures in the economy, they will now back off a bit. This will have a positive effect on the rest of the economy as well. Unfortunately in our instant gratification, consumerist culture that is entirely devoid of patience, the people clamor for government action before the markets have time to adjust, and in the process they make the problems even worse.
We will learn our lesson one day...
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Losing Our Back Yard: Why the Bush Administration has Failed in Latin America
Little commentary is needed. The Marxist-Socialist threat in Latin America has returned. Hugo Chavez has capitalized on the ineptitude of this Administration's foreign policy, especially the War and the mishandling of US-Latin American relations. These sorts of moves will have tremendous ripple effects on our economy as countries become convinced of our instability. We need leadership in the White House to shore up our economic situation, not just through national policy, but through national leadership: the kind of leadership that inspires people to conserve rather than consume, to invest rather than spend, and to be responsible stewards of their monetary resources.
Read the details:
Chavez pushes for Latin American withdrawal of Dollar Reserves
Read the details:
Chavez pushes for Latin American withdrawal of Dollar Reserves
Strange Change: The Establishment Votes for Reform?
For all of you Obama fans out there, clamoring for change and completely enthralled with the charisma of Barack Obama, I entreat you to consider something. Today, Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama. See for yourself. For somebody who talks about how messed up Washington is, Obama sure has some entrenched establishment figures endorsing him (Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy for example).
It reminds me of the scene in O Brother Where Art Thou? when Governor Pappy O'Daniel is sitting in a restaurant with his son and two advisers. The dialog goes like this:
Pappy O"Daniel: "We need a shot in the arm. You hear me boys? In the god-damn arm! Election held tomorrw, that son of bitch Stokes would win it in a walk!"
Junior O'Daniel: "Well' he's the reform candidate, Daddy."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Yeah."
Junior O'Daniel: "A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Reform? Reform? I'll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' jesus on the cross. That's it! You may as well start drafting my concession speech right now."
So Obama wants reform, but he is pointing to all of the "experienced" people who support him...what exactly do you think you're going to get when he has to go pay the piper after the election? Does America really want a President who is indebted to Ted Kennedy? This should be a sign to the Democrats that Obama is the wrong person for the nomination. After all, Ted Kennedy also endorsed John Kerry in 2004.
It reminds me of the scene in O Brother Where Art Thou? when Governor Pappy O'Daniel is sitting in a restaurant with his son and two advisers. The dialog goes like this:
Pappy O"Daniel: "We need a shot in the arm. You hear me boys? In the god-damn arm! Election held tomorrw, that son of bitch Stokes would win it in a walk!"
Junior O'Daniel: "Well' he's the reform candidate, Daddy."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Yeah."
Junior O'Daniel: "A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Reform? Reform? I'll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' jesus on the cross. That's it! You may as well start drafting my concession speech right now."
So Obama wants reform, but he is pointing to all of the "experienced" people who support him...what exactly do you think you're going to get when he has to go pay the piper after the election? Does America really want a President who is indebted to Ted Kennedy? This should be a sign to the Democrats that Obama is the wrong person for the nomination. After all, Ted Kennedy also endorsed John Kerry in 2004.
SmugMug: The Best Photo Utility on the Web
I don't frequently review products, but I have started exploring a lot of the new tools available in the social computing space and I am absolutely in love with SmugMug. It is the most elegantly-designed, easy-to-use photo utility for sharing pictures on the Internet. If you are a Mac user, you are going to love "MacDaddy," which allows you to rapidly upload photos in the simplest, fewest steps method I have seen to date to get pictures from your iPhoto to the Web. They have a similar tool for Windows users.
The site, which requires a small yearly subscription, is completely ad-free.
Everybody should go try out a 14 day trial today.
SmugMug
The site, which requires a small yearly subscription, is completely ad-free.
Everybody should go try out a 14 day trial today.
SmugMug
Barack's Pie in the Sky and Romney's Delusion
The Romney Delusion
Mitt Romney praises Bush, draws inspiration from Bush Sr. and Reagan, yet in 1994 when he was running against Ted Kennedy, he said he didn't support the policies of Reagan-Bush. See for yourself:
Courting the Republican base (the 30% of people in America who are blinded enough by their partisanship to give the President a positive approval rating), Romney has said whatever he thought he needed to say to prove that he is a real conservative. He touts his business experience and his experience as governor of Massachusetts as proof that he can handle the nation's economic problems, yet he endorses the Keynsian economic policies of this Administration that have thrust us into the most substantive inflationary economy since the Carter years.
Unfortunately, Romney doesn't realize that every time he says nice things about George W. Bush the Democrats are saving those videos, and all they will have to do in the general election is re-play Romney's own words, in debates and on the stump. No commentary will even be needed. Romney may be helping solidify the nomination by praising Bush, but it will be hard to run away from those comments in a few months. He has put himself into a precarious position--one that even his pomade and sweet-talking Mormon fakeness won't be able to get him out of.
At this point, the Republicans need to just suck it up and vote for McCain. He's not the second coming of Bob Dole...he's not a lot better, but he could be a lot worse.
Pie in the Sky: Barack's Naivete
Barack Obama's vapid rhetoric never ceases to dazzle the fat-minded masses. It also never ceases to nauseate me. He may have the delivery skills of Martin Luther King, but he doesn't have the substance.
"It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future," Mr. Obama told the crowd that chanted, "Race doesn't matter."
"We are up against conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose — a higher purpose."
The trouble with Mr. Obama is that he has failed to define what that higher purpose is, or how we would get there. He has mentioned repealing the tax cuts. He has discussed massively raising social security taxes. And he has mentioned universal health care, but only in vague and undefined terms. If he is going to use such grandiose rhetoric to describe what his Presidency would be like, then he must explicate precisely how he intends to achieve that dream. Otherwise it is just more empty promises.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both ran on "changing Washington." So did Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. They were the outsiders--the Governors who knew how to run a good state and thought they could change Washington. Yet they didn't change Washington. They didn't change it in tone or policy. The American train continues towards the inevitable cliff, and it has only gained in momentum.
No one person can change Washington. In fact, the only way to change Washington is to fire Washington--and only the American people can do that. In order for things to truly change, we must reject the stalemate that has emerged as a result of the Two Party System, and we must get a new Congress. That is the only way to change Washington--retake the people's house, send the pork barrel Senators home, and start afresh. 1994 was an attempt to do just this, but what happened is that in the aftermath of Newt Gingrich's departure, the Establishment came back and Dennis Hastert was annointed Speaker. As if to hearken back to George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm, Hastert taught the pigs to sleep in human beds and to walk on two legs. And then Jack Abramoff was exposed--and Enron collapsed--and the War brought the lament of the Republican Establishment to a fever pitch and in 2006 the people said no more. So they put the Democrat Establishment back into power and they are equally (and by most measures more) unhappy with Congress now.
America doesn't need any more rhetoric--we don't need any more good speeches. What we need is good policy, and we need it fast. The cliff gets more inevitable by the day.
Mitt Romney praises Bush, draws inspiration from Bush Sr. and Reagan, yet in 1994 when he was running against Ted Kennedy, he said he didn't support the policies of Reagan-Bush. See for yourself:
Courting the Republican base (the 30% of people in America who are blinded enough by their partisanship to give the President a positive approval rating), Romney has said whatever he thought he needed to say to prove that he is a real conservative. He touts his business experience and his experience as governor of Massachusetts as proof that he can handle the nation's economic problems, yet he endorses the Keynsian economic policies of this Administration that have thrust us into the most substantive inflationary economy since the Carter years.
Unfortunately, Romney doesn't realize that every time he says nice things about George W. Bush the Democrats are saving those videos, and all they will have to do in the general election is re-play Romney's own words, in debates and on the stump. No commentary will even be needed. Romney may be helping solidify the nomination by praising Bush, but it will be hard to run away from those comments in a few months. He has put himself into a precarious position--one that even his pomade and sweet-talking Mormon fakeness won't be able to get him out of.
At this point, the Republicans need to just suck it up and vote for McCain. He's not the second coming of Bob Dole...he's not a lot better, but he could be a lot worse.
Pie in the Sky: Barack's Naivete
Barack Obama's vapid rhetoric never ceases to dazzle the fat-minded masses. It also never ceases to nauseate me. He may have the delivery skills of Martin Luther King, but he doesn't have the substance.
"It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future," Mr. Obama told the crowd that chanted, "Race doesn't matter."
"We are up against conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose — a higher purpose."
The trouble with Mr. Obama is that he has failed to define what that higher purpose is, or how we would get there. He has mentioned repealing the tax cuts. He has discussed massively raising social security taxes. And he has mentioned universal health care, but only in vague and undefined terms. If he is going to use such grandiose rhetoric to describe what his Presidency would be like, then he must explicate precisely how he intends to achieve that dream. Otherwise it is just more empty promises.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both ran on "changing Washington." So did Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. They were the outsiders--the Governors who knew how to run a good state and thought they could change Washington. Yet they didn't change Washington. They didn't change it in tone or policy. The American train continues towards the inevitable cliff, and it has only gained in momentum.
No one person can change Washington. In fact, the only way to change Washington is to fire Washington--and only the American people can do that. In order for things to truly change, we must reject the stalemate that has emerged as a result of the Two Party System, and we must get a new Congress. That is the only way to change Washington--retake the people's house, send the pork barrel Senators home, and start afresh. 1994 was an attempt to do just this, but what happened is that in the aftermath of Newt Gingrich's departure, the Establishment came back and Dennis Hastert was annointed Speaker. As if to hearken back to George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm, Hastert taught the pigs to sleep in human beds and to walk on two legs. And then Jack Abramoff was exposed--and Enron collapsed--and the War brought the lament of the Republican Establishment to a fever pitch and in 2006 the people said no more. So they put the Democrat Establishment back into power and they are equally (and by most measures more) unhappy with Congress now.
America doesn't need any more rhetoric--we don't need any more good speeches. What we need is good policy, and we need it fast. The cliff gets more inevitable by the day.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
George W. Bush, the Republican Jimmy Carter
Marx once said "History repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." As we are now reaching the twilight of the George W. Bush administration, an administration I (regrettably) supported not once, but twice, on the promise of less government, controlled spending, and lower taxes (and thrice burned--inflation has more than wiped out the tax cuts), I have come to a rather depressing conclusion: George W. Bush is the Republican Jimmy Carter.
Let's follow the historical comparison (at least as far as it can take us). Richard Nixon was a wildly popular president when he was first elected. He was elected and then re-elected in Electoral College landslides. So was Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon was a phenomenal diplomat and foreign policy President. So was Bill Clinton. Nixon's problem was his arrogance--so was Clinton's. And both Nixon and Clinton got themselves into scandals that more or less completely wounded them (and their successors) irrevocably. Both men regained popularity and likability after being out of office (though it has not taken Clinton as long as it took Nixon). Al Gore was the Democrat Gerald Ford--he stood by the scandal-ridden President and so calls for change in the name of "honest" government seemed to stick. Both men lost their attempts to win a Presidential election.
Enter Jimmy Carter. Affable Southern Governor, devout Christian, not the most charismatic or articulate speaker, and completely devoid of judgment and common sense during his presidency. He wrecked the economy with bad policy, perpetuated foreign policy disasters (especially in the Middle East), and was a laughing stock in the international community during his presidency. Nobody took him seriously. This will be the legacy of George W. Bush. Jimmy Carter's foreign policy was inept because he was too weak, George Bush's because he tried to be too strong.
(Oh...I forgot to mention...they both took a beautiful opportunity to rebuild their party after almost a decade of opposite party rule, and ruined it.)
Peggy Noonan wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party. I concur. But he did something worse--he contributed to the further destruction of America. He accomplished this killing of two birds with bad policy--on all fronts. As I reflect on his record of Keynsian economic policy, complete lack of courage or character on the nation's real fiscal crisis (the unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare), and a war policy that has befuddled strategists, tacticians, and pundits on both sides, I can only conclude that the man simply didn't have it in him to be President. He was elected twice as a lesser of two evils. These sorts of people rarely turn out to be great.
Now we face a national debt that is nearly double what it was just 8 years ago, we have a budget deficit equal to what the surplus was 8 years ago, the unfunded liability crisis has increased by almost 50%, and our educational system and national infrastructure have been all but ignored. Our foreign policy is in shambles, and our diplomatic or "soft" power is diminished to its lowest point since the Vietnam War.
George W. Bush ran as the Second Coming of Reagan, but he was not a political Christ, but rather a political Antichrist. He was not the Second Coming of Reagan, he was the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter. He betrayed the Conservative-Libertarian base that elected him, and worse, he destroyed the Republican Party's credibility on both economics and national security--just as Jimmy Carter did in the 1970s.
Fortunately for us, George W. Bush will not be on the Ballot in November. But he has left a tall order for the Republican nominee--run away from the last 8 years and try to convince America that the Republican Party is in fact not the party of George W. Bush. I do not think this is an achievable goal.
The silver lining for those who don't want a Democratic President is that the Democrats are going to nominate one of the two most unelectable (Obama for his lack of experience, Hillary *because* of her experience) candidates in modern history. John McCain *could* beat either of them, but it will be another 50-50 election--2000 all over again, with probably not one but ten Floridas.
The nation will continue to be divided, and Washington will continue to fiddle while America burns.
"This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper."
-T.S. Eliot
Let's follow the historical comparison (at least as far as it can take us). Richard Nixon was a wildly popular president when he was first elected. He was elected and then re-elected in Electoral College landslides. So was Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon was a phenomenal diplomat and foreign policy President. So was Bill Clinton. Nixon's problem was his arrogance--so was Clinton's. And both Nixon and Clinton got themselves into scandals that more or less completely wounded them (and their successors) irrevocably. Both men regained popularity and likability after being out of office (though it has not taken Clinton as long as it took Nixon). Al Gore was the Democrat Gerald Ford--he stood by the scandal-ridden President and so calls for change in the name of "honest" government seemed to stick. Both men lost their attempts to win a Presidential election.
Enter Jimmy Carter. Affable Southern Governor, devout Christian, not the most charismatic or articulate speaker, and completely devoid of judgment and common sense during his presidency. He wrecked the economy with bad policy, perpetuated foreign policy disasters (especially in the Middle East), and was a laughing stock in the international community during his presidency. Nobody took him seriously. This will be the legacy of George W. Bush. Jimmy Carter's foreign policy was inept because he was too weak, George Bush's because he tried to be too strong.
(Oh...I forgot to mention...they both took a beautiful opportunity to rebuild their party after almost a decade of opposite party rule, and ruined it.)
Peggy Noonan wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party. I concur. But he did something worse--he contributed to the further destruction of America. He accomplished this killing of two birds with bad policy--on all fronts. As I reflect on his record of Keynsian economic policy, complete lack of courage or character on the nation's real fiscal crisis (the unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare), and a war policy that has befuddled strategists, tacticians, and pundits on both sides, I can only conclude that the man simply didn't have it in him to be President. He was elected twice as a lesser of two evils. These sorts of people rarely turn out to be great.
Now we face a national debt that is nearly double what it was just 8 years ago, we have a budget deficit equal to what the surplus was 8 years ago, the unfunded liability crisis has increased by almost 50%, and our educational system and national infrastructure have been all but ignored. Our foreign policy is in shambles, and our diplomatic or "soft" power is diminished to its lowest point since the Vietnam War.
George W. Bush ran as the Second Coming of Reagan, but he was not a political Christ, but rather a political Antichrist. He was not the Second Coming of Reagan, he was the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter. He betrayed the Conservative-Libertarian base that elected him, and worse, he destroyed the Republican Party's credibility on both economics and national security--just as Jimmy Carter did in the 1970s.
Fortunately for us, George W. Bush will not be on the Ballot in November. But he has left a tall order for the Republican nominee--run away from the last 8 years and try to convince America that the Republican Party is in fact not the party of George W. Bush. I do not think this is an achievable goal.
The silver lining for those who don't want a Democratic President is that the Democrats are going to nominate one of the two most unelectable (Obama for his lack of experience, Hillary *because* of her experience) candidates in modern history. John McCain *could* beat either of them, but it will be another 50-50 election--2000 all over again, with probably not one but ten Floridas.
The nation will continue to be divided, and Washington will continue to fiddle while America burns.
"This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper."
-T.S. Eliot
Saturday, January 12, 2008
What Would Reagan Do? Or Why Rudy and Romney Don't Get Foreign Policy
If you have been paying attention to the Republican presidential primary debates, you will notice that Ronald Reagan's name has been invoked many times, almost in the manner of a deity. There is this clamor to be like Ronald Reagan in such a way as to hearken one's mind to religious comparisons--potential successors to a deceased prophet trying to out-do even the prophet himself. This of course is why all Calvinists are more rigid than Calvin himself, why all Marxists are more radical than Marx, Kantians more skeptical than Kant, and so on.
Rudy and Romney like to invoke the name of Reagan perhaps more than anybody--perhaps because they are the candidates who least resemble him, and therefore they are a bit self conscious. (I find this is also true of Christians...the ones who find it necessary to wear it on their sleeve all the time are most usually the ones who least resemble both the life and teachings of Christ himself).
For some reason there is a myth amongst Republicans that Ronald Reagan was this great war hawk. Actually, the opposite is true. Reagan believed in "peace through strength." That is, having a military large enough that it never had to be used. This is dramatic contrast with Rudy and Romney, who are saber-rattlers extraordinaire. Rudy is calling for massive increases in the size of the U.S. Military--a 50% increase in personnel, a build up to a 300-ship navy, and so on, but simultaneously calling for immediate military action against Iran. Perhaps the brilliance of Reagan's foreign policy is that he adapted Mark Twain's old adage "'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." In foreign policy terms, Reagan never really used the military, except as a threat-deterrent. "Tis better to be thought an unbeatable power than to use that power and prove otherwise." Which is precisely what has happened in Iraq.
The reason Iran is so defiant is that they know a) the U.S. doesn't have the domestic political support to justify military action against Tehran and b) Even if the U.S. did invade Iran, Iran would probably win.
I'm not sure that there is anything more uncivilized about Rudolph Giuliani than his constant call for more military and more war and the continual justification of pre-emptive strike, as if America needs to "prove something" to the world and show that we still have our "manhood." I would rather show our manhood through massive economic strength, and being the cultural and soft-power leader in the world who people follow because they love us--which is what happened in the aftermath of World War II, when we really were viewed as liberators--instead of invaders.
Reagan understood this well. The Soviet Union was a threat--but he knew better than to call for military action against the Soviet Union. The most saber-rattling Reagan ever did was jokingly test out his radio mike (unaware he was live) by saying "My fellow Americans I have just signed legislation outlawing Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
Yet it's obvious that Romney and Rudy don't get it. Reagan called for a strong national defense. Romney and Rudy's rhetoric calls for a "stronger military." Seemingly, this is a splitting hairs, but there is an obvious underlying motive that is different. Romney and Rudy contemplate a military that can invade our enemies before they invade us. Their language is reflective of this. They talk of taking the fight to radical jihadism, rather than defending America from foreign threats.
The trouble for Rudy and Romney is that even if they were advocating Reagan's actual foreign policy, it wouldn't work today. This is not 1980. We do not live in a bipolar world, where the Soviet Union and the United States are the world's two superpowers, duking it out in a cold war where merely building a larger military helped to bankrupt the enemy. It shows that, for two people who talk so much about terrorism and "radical jihadism," they don't understand much about the necessity of new strategies to deal with such threats--especially strategies that do not involve the pre-emptive invasion of sovereign countries.
The only Republican who seems to truly understand the Islamic world is (regrettably) Ron Paul. The reason they hate America is not because we love freedom. That is a weird fantasy that a lot of Republicans seem to have frequently. Rudy and Romney say these sorts of things often. No, the Islamic world really does hate us because we have military bases in their territory--we have a long history of intervention in their region, and we have made it clear, under the Bush Doctrine, that we are going to keep doing it forever. When Ron Paul says this in the Republican debates, Romney responds with flash point garbage like "Well Ron, it's apparent you've been reading Ahminejad's latest press releases," and "If they just hate us because we occupy their countries, then why did the jihadists assassinate Benazir Bhutto?"
If the only way to combat terrorism is unending imperial wars, then I'm afraid we're in for some trouble.
In connection with my post from this morning, I'd like to start synthesizing some of my points about what is at stake in this election. Depending on who the Republicans nominate, this country will face a presidential election that puts us squarely between the Scylla of worsening our fiscal crisis through socialized health care and the Charybdis of worsening our fiscal crisis through imperial overstretch abroad. These two choices, though seemingly very different given the rhetoric of each side, are actually two sides of the same coin. They both promise security--but they go about it in different ways. The Republican mindset is that security comes through the prevention of threats from abroad. The Democrat mindset is that security comesthrough the prevention of the ills that plague humanity by its very nature: disease, sickness, and hunger.
To both the Republicans and Democrats, I paraphrase Benjamin Franklin "a people who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."
Unfortunately both want to sell us out--just in different ways. When will there be somebody who wants to actually preserve America--rather than gain power by playing on people's fears?
Rudy and Romney like to invoke the name of Reagan perhaps more than anybody--perhaps because they are the candidates who least resemble him, and therefore they are a bit self conscious. (I find this is also true of Christians...the ones who find it necessary to wear it on their sleeve all the time are most usually the ones who least resemble both the life and teachings of Christ himself).
For some reason there is a myth amongst Republicans that Ronald Reagan was this great war hawk. Actually, the opposite is true. Reagan believed in "peace through strength." That is, having a military large enough that it never had to be used. This is dramatic contrast with Rudy and Romney, who are saber-rattlers extraordinaire. Rudy is calling for massive increases in the size of the U.S. Military--a 50% increase in personnel, a build up to a 300-ship navy, and so on, but simultaneously calling for immediate military action against Iran. Perhaps the brilliance of Reagan's foreign policy is that he adapted Mark Twain's old adage "'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." In foreign policy terms, Reagan never really used the military, except as a threat-deterrent. "Tis better to be thought an unbeatable power than to use that power and prove otherwise." Which is precisely what has happened in Iraq.
The reason Iran is so defiant is that they know a) the U.S. doesn't have the domestic political support to justify military action against Tehran and b) Even if the U.S. did invade Iran, Iran would probably win.
I'm not sure that there is anything more uncivilized about Rudolph Giuliani than his constant call for more military and more war and the continual justification of pre-emptive strike, as if America needs to "prove something" to the world and show that we still have our "manhood." I would rather show our manhood through massive economic strength, and being the cultural and soft-power leader in the world who people follow because they love us--which is what happened in the aftermath of World War II, when we really were viewed as liberators--instead of invaders.
Reagan understood this well. The Soviet Union was a threat--but he knew better than to call for military action against the Soviet Union. The most saber-rattling Reagan ever did was jokingly test out his radio mike (unaware he was live) by saying "My fellow Americans I have just signed legislation outlawing Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
Yet it's obvious that Romney and Rudy don't get it. Reagan called for a strong national defense. Romney and Rudy's rhetoric calls for a "stronger military." Seemingly, this is a splitting hairs, but there is an obvious underlying motive that is different. Romney and Rudy contemplate a military that can invade our enemies before they invade us. Their language is reflective of this. They talk of taking the fight to radical jihadism, rather than defending America from foreign threats.
The trouble for Rudy and Romney is that even if they were advocating Reagan's actual foreign policy, it wouldn't work today. This is not 1980. We do not live in a bipolar world, where the Soviet Union and the United States are the world's two superpowers, duking it out in a cold war where merely building a larger military helped to bankrupt the enemy. It shows that, for two people who talk so much about terrorism and "radical jihadism," they don't understand much about the necessity of new strategies to deal with such threats--especially strategies that do not involve the pre-emptive invasion of sovereign countries.
The only Republican who seems to truly understand the Islamic world is (regrettably) Ron Paul. The reason they hate America is not because we love freedom. That is a weird fantasy that a lot of Republicans seem to have frequently. Rudy and Romney say these sorts of things often. No, the Islamic world really does hate us because we have military bases in their territory--we have a long history of intervention in their region, and we have made it clear, under the Bush Doctrine, that we are going to keep doing it forever. When Ron Paul says this in the Republican debates, Romney responds with flash point garbage like "Well Ron, it's apparent you've been reading Ahminejad's latest press releases," and "If they just hate us because we occupy their countries, then why did the jihadists assassinate Benazir Bhutto?"
If the only way to combat terrorism is unending imperial wars, then I'm afraid we're in for some trouble.
In connection with my post from this morning, I'd like to start synthesizing some of my points about what is at stake in this election. Depending on who the Republicans nominate, this country will face a presidential election that puts us squarely between the Scylla of worsening our fiscal crisis through socialized health care and the Charybdis of worsening our fiscal crisis through imperial overstretch abroad. These two choices, though seemingly very different given the rhetoric of each side, are actually two sides of the same coin. They both promise security--but they go about it in different ways. The Republican mindset is that security comes through the prevention of threats from abroad. The Democrat mindset is that security comesthrough the prevention of the ills that plague humanity by its very nature: disease, sickness, and hunger.
To both the Republicans and Democrats, I paraphrase Benjamin Franklin "a people who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."
Unfortunately both want to sell us out--just in different ways. When will there be somebody who wants to actually preserve America--rather than gain power by playing on people's fears?
Then The Gods of the Market Tumbled...
For those of you who didn't see the article in the Financial Times yesterday (and, I'm sad to say, I can't provide you with a useful link because FT nukes their content after 24 hours, except for subscribers), the U.S. government is in danger of losing its Triple A credit rating for the first time since it was originally assessed on U.S. government debt in 1917. With all of the other economic statistics barreling out in the mainstream U.S. media about unemployment, the U.S.'s credit rating may not seem like an extremely important factor, yet it is perhaps the most critical indicator that the 70+ year ponzi scheme that the federal government has justified with smoke, mirrors, and most importantly an ignorant voting public, is finally showing signs of cracking.
Having a Triple A credit rating means that the U.S. can borrow money at extremely favorable interest rates, primarily because it means that the risk of non-repayment is very low. A reduction in that credit rating by the actuarial gurus would mean that those financial wizards believe that there is an increased risk that the U.S. government might default on its debt. Fortunately, the credit rating has been affirmed, for now. But that there was a question is, in an of itself, a worry.
The United States is in uncertain fiscal territories. Those who say it is on the "brink of disaster" are perhaps sensationalizing things. The likelihood of a massive meltdown is quite small. After all, the U.S. is a $15+ Trillion economy, meaning it can withstand substantial shocks and not fall into some sort of precipitous decline. However, there are real risks on the immediate horizon. The U.S. currently has a national debt that is
with an additional $75 Trillion in long-term unfunded liabilities in the Social Security and Medicare accounts. With the Baby Boomers retiring, the specter of those bills coming due should haunt actuaries and accountants not only of the people responsible for America's check book, but also America's creditors.
As proof that I'm not just making this stuff up, I highly recommend you watch David Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General (Chief Accountant) talk about the crisis the country is facing (this video is a bit old, so the numbers are lower than they are today):
America's likely comeuppance for its fiscal malfeasance will be in the form of a gradual decline. Our international creditors will start charging higher rates for borrowing money, and our annual deficit will begin an even greater uptick as we maintenance the debt. Social Security and Medicare will bleed dry the current taxpayer, and the federal government will be faced with a situation where they simply cannot raise taxes any more and simultaneously dread the political disaster of non-payment of benefits to the highly motivated voting populace that is the elderly. So they will do what every government since the beginning of man has done in such a crisis: print more money. It's much easier today than it was a hundred years ago. The computers at the Federal Reserve can effortlessly create fiat money ad infinitum.
Prices will begin to go up, and the Dollar will continue to slide. And it will keep sliding and sliding, prices will keep rising and rising, until one day the world decides to stop holding their reserves in dollars. This is already beginning. It will continue.
And then things will get really good. We will experience something not seen in our lifetimes: hyperinflation. Prices will skyrocket by the minute. Americans have forgotten how bad this can really be. Russia experienced hyperinflation after the fall of the Soviet Union, and it was said that people preferred buses to taxis because you pay at the beginning of a bus ride and at the end of a taxi ride, and by the time you got to where you were going, the prices would have doubled, so it was advantageous to pay at the beginning. Think this can't happen in America? Continue to ignore history, then.
Eventually the hyperinflation will burn itself out. People will stop spending except on basic necessities. The rest of the economy will collapse and then prices will plummet as fast as they went up--only this time, nobody will take the greenback seriously. The people will begin to resort to hard currencies as the only trustworthy method of payment. "If you can't pay me in silver or gold coins, you aren't buying anything from me" will become a commonplace phrase.
This entire cycle: hyperinflation followed by hyperdeflation is what economist Ludwig von Mises called a "Crack-Up Boom." It is a scenario that seems impossible in our world of government salvation of all of our problems--but that is the trouble. It is the government salvation of our problems that has led to our ultimate demise. As the saying goes "all is not gold that glitters."
Unfortunately, this problem exists already--even without new entitlement programs. And in a year when it seems that everybody is rushing toward "Universal Health Care" and "Universal Health Insurance," which is just code for "Taxpayer-funded health care" that its advocates ignore what an extraordinary exacerbating effect it will have on the present crisis.
I think it would be great if everybody could have health insurance--but I'm not willing to risk the existence of the republic for a few years of health coverage for all. It is simply too high a price to pay.
As people go to the polls in the primaries and in November, it is imperative not only that we pressure all of the candidates to take our fiscal crisis seriously, but also that we vote for candidates who are tough enough to withstand the mounting political pressure to fix our short-term health care problems with new entitlement programs and as a necessary adjunct to those programs, more unfunded liabilities. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. And if we continue down the present path, there won't be any cake at all.
Having a Triple A credit rating means that the U.S. can borrow money at extremely favorable interest rates, primarily because it means that the risk of non-repayment is very low. A reduction in that credit rating by the actuarial gurus would mean that those financial wizards believe that there is an increased risk that the U.S. government might default on its debt. Fortunately, the credit rating has been affirmed, for now. But that there was a question is, in an of itself, a worry.
The United States is in uncertain fiscal territories. Those who say it is on the "brink of disaster" are perhaps sensationalizing things. The likelihood of a massive meltdown is quite small. After all, the U.S. is a $15+ Trillion economy, meaning it can withstand substantial shocks and not fall into some sort of precipitous decline. However, there are real risks on the immediate horizon. The U.S. currently has a national debt that is
with an additional $75 Trillion in long-term unfunded liabilities in the Social Security and Medicare accounts. With the Baby Boomers retiring, the specter of those bills coming due should haunt actuaries and accountants not only of the people responsible for America's check book, but also America's creditors.
As proof that I'm not just making this stuff up, I highly recommend you watch David Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General (Chief Accountant) talk about the crisis the country is facing (this video is a bit old, so the numbers are lower than they are today):
America's likely comeuppance for its fiscal malfeasance will be in the form of a gradual decline. Our international creditors will start charging higher rates for borrowing money, and our annual deficit will begin an even greater uptick as we maintenance the debt. Social Security and Medicare will bleed dry the current taxpayer, and the federal government will be faced with a situation where they simply cannot raise taxes any more and simultaneously dread the political disaster of non-payment of benefits to the highly motivated voting populace that is the elderly. So they will do what every government since the beginning of man has done in such a crisis: print more money. It's much easier today than it was a hundred years ago. The computers at the Federal Reserve can effortlessly create fiat money ad infinitum.
Prices will begin to go up, and the Dollar will continue to slide. And it will keep sliding and sliding, prices will keep rising and rising, until one day the world decides to stop holding their reserves in dollars. This is already beginning. It will continue.
And then things will get really good. We will experience something not seen in our lifetimes: hyperinflation. Prices will skyrocket by the minute. Americans have forgotten how bad this can really be. Russia experienced hyperinflation after the fall of the Soviet Union, and it was said that people preferred buses to taxis because you pay at the beginning of a bus ride and at the end of a taxi ride, and by the time you got to where you were going, the prices would have doubled, so it was advantageous to pay at the beginning. Think this can't happen in America? Continue to ignore history, then.
Eventually the hyperinflation will burn itself out. People will stop spending except on basic necessities. The rest of the economy will collapse and then prices will plummet as fast as they went up--only this time, nobody will take the greenback seriously. The people will begin to resort to hard currencies as the only trustworthy method of payment. "If you can't pay me in silver or gold coins, you aren't buying anything from me" will become a commonplace phrase.
This entire cycle: hyperinflation followed by hyperdeflation is what economist Ludwig von Mises called a "Crack-Up Boom." It is a scenario that seems impossible in our world of government salvation of all of our problems--but that is the trouble. It is the government salvation of our problems that has led to our ultimate demise. As the saying goes "all is not gold that glitters."
Unfortunately, this problem exists already--even without new entitlement programs. And in a year when it seems that everybody is rushing toward "Universal Health Care" and "Universal Health Insurance," which is just code for "Taxpayer-funded health care" that its advocates ignore what an extraordinary exacerbating effect it will have on the present crisis.
I think it would be great if everybody could have health insurance--but I'm not willing to risk the existence of the republic for a few years of health coverage for all. It is simply too high a price to pay.
As people go to the polls in the primaries and in November, it is imperative not only that we pressure all of the candidates to take our fiscal crisis seriously, but also that we vote for candidates who are tough enough to withstand the mounting political pressure to fix our short-term health care problems with new entitlement programs and as a necessary adjunct to those programs, more unfunded liabilities. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. And if we continue down the present path, there won't be any cake at all.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The Pollsters Got It Wrong or How New Hampshire Proved Again They Aren't Lemmings
Adding to their already spotty record in recent memory of failed electoral predictions, pollsters were embarrassed by their "double digit" projections of an Obama victory in New Hampshire. Rasmussen was the closest of the national pollsters, and he still had Obama winning by 7--far from Senator Clinton's 2-point victory. How did they get it so wrong, and what does that say for the rest of the campaign?
First, Hillary dispatched The Former President in full force in New Hampshire, and I firmly believe that is and will continue to be the most potent weapon in her arsenal. Bill Clinton forcefully, but articulately bashed the Obama "Fairy Tale," and Democrats listened. They long for the days of a Clinton Presidency again, and for better or worse, they still trust Bill. Bill also brings to the table 8 years of experience as President and people are reminded that Hillary is "Two Presidents for the Price of One."
Second, Obama's record is slowly being brought into the fore. Hillary is no longer letting him get away with his "hope" rhetoric without reminding people that he is a political neophyte. Although Clinton herself has never held executive office of any kind, being First Lady is a substantial look into how executive power operates. She would do well to actively point out that Obama has never run anything--except perhaps the Harvard Law Review (not exactly what I call "executive experiend.")
Third, New Hampshire voters do not like being told who to vote for. They revolted against Fox News's exclusion of Ron Paul from the Republican Debates, and they rejected Romney's massive spending as an attempt to merely buy the election. They also rejected the Iowa Bounce. Uneducated Iowa farmers were simply not going to tell this New England elite what to do. So this begs the question--does the independent streak of voters continue beyond New Hampshire? If history is any guide, Obama may have gone from "also ran" to "front runner" too quickly. For Howard Dean, this happened prior to the Iowa Caucuses. For Obama, it may have happened afterward. I would contend that the same people who followed Governor Dean are the ones actively behind Obama--the radical, unpragmatic ideological Left, the anti-war youth vote, and a handful of people easily led astray by a good talker.
Fourth, the situation proves that the media are the real Lemmings, not the voters. The media as quickly jumped off the Clinton bandwagon and onto the Obama bandwagon as soon as a poll suggested they should--after all, that's what gets the good ratings. Now the media doesn't know what to do--Obama or Clinton? I'm sure they will sit in their studios picking plastic daisies apart saying "Do we live him? Do we love him not?" The mass media has been in steady decline for the better part of the last fifteen years, but 2008 may be the end of its significant influence. The rise of the Internet, blogging, YouTube, etc., have made it much easier for people to get "the whole story" rather than what fits into a 30 minute news program.
Fifth, Democrats find themselves in a quandry. I don't think they have really decided amongst themselves who the "better candidate" is to face the still unknown Republican nominee. For those who have studied game theory, we have here (for the first time in memory) a two-level game in the race for the White House. There is no incumbent or Vice President on the ticket on either side. Consequently, both races being wide open has caused confusion in picking the pragmatic candidate--which is perhaps what led to Obama's victory in Iowa. A compelling case could be constructed either way. There is no doubt that Hillary is a massive motivator of the Democratic base--though I think Obama would do the same if he were the nominee. Hillary is more likely to motivate the Republican base in response, however. At the same time, the general election voter has still not really been polled--and he is a rather different animal from his cousin the primary voter. A general election voter could very well look at Obama and say "Hmmm, not just yet--come back in 8 years" or they could look at Hillary and say "Eh...something doesn't feel right about her." Not knowing who the Republican nominee will be complicates the matter immensely. Though it is increasingly looking like Romney, Thompson, and Giuliani are soon to be has-beens. McCain and Huckabee are the Republicans' best opportunities for a win in '08, though each presents his own unique challenges for the Republicans and their Get Out The Vote efforts in November.
However, both have the ability to bring back some of the old Reagan Coalition--blue collar rust belt voters who are economically liberal but socially conservative. They are neither one warmongers like Rudy and Romney, but they are not too Dovish like Obama or Clinton. They may be "just right" for Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, and Michiganders. That begs the question then: who is the stronger Democrat to face off against McCain or Huckabee in the swing states? Do Union workers in Michigan care about race or gender more? Do retirees in Florida trust Hillary or Obama to protect their entitlements more? Which candidate can handle foreign policy better? (The clear answer to the last question is Hillary--because she has Bill)
These are questions Democrats must answer seriously--and correctly. That is, unless they want 8 more years with a Republican in the White House.
First, Hillary dispatched The Former President in full force in New Hampshire, and I firmly believe that is and will continue to be the most potent weapon in her arsenal. Bill Clinton forcefully, but articulately bashed the Obama "Fairy Tale," and Democrats listened. They long for the days of a Clinton Presidency again, and for better or worse, they still trust Bill. Bill also brings to the table 8 years of experience as President and people are reminded that Hillary is "Two Presidents for the Price of One."
Second, Obama's record is slowly being brought into the fore. Hillary is no longer letting him get away with his "hope" rhetoric without reminding people that he is a political neophyte. Although Clinton herself has never held executive office of any kind, being First Lady is a substantial look into how executive power operates. She would do well to actively point out that Obama has never run anything--except perhaps the Harvard Law Review (not exactly what I call "executive experiend.")
Third, New Hampshire voters do not like being told who to vote for. They revolted against Fox News's exclusion of Ron Paul from the Republican Debates, and they rejected Romney's massive spending as an attempt to merely buy the election. They also rejected the Iowa Bounce. Uneducated Iowa farmers were simply not going to tell this New England elite what to do. So this begs the question--does the independent streak of voters continue beyond New Hampshire? If history is any guide, Obama may have gone from "also ran" to "front runner" too quickly. For Howard Dean, this happened prior to the Iowa Caucuses. For Obama, it may have happened afterward. I would contend that the same people who followed Governor Dean are the ones actively behind Obama--the radical, unpragmatic ideological Left, the anti-war youth vote, and a handful of people easily led astray by a good talker.
Fourth, the situation proves that the media are the real Lemmings, not the voters. The media as quickly jumped off the Clinton bandwagon and onto the Obama bandwagon as soon as a poll suggested they should--after all, that's what gets the good ratings. Now the media doesn't know what to do--Obama or Clinton? I'm sure they will sit in their studios picking plastic daisies apart saying "Do we live him? Do we love him not?" The mass media has been in steady decline for the better part of the last fifteen years, but 2008 may be the end of its significant influence. The rise of the Internet, blogging, YouTube, etc., have made it much easier for people to get "the whole story" rather than what fits into a 30 minute news program.
Fifth, Democrats find themselves in a quandry. I don't think they have really decided amongst themselves who the "better candidate" is to face the still unknown Republican nominee. For those who have studied game theory, we have here (for the first time in memory) a two-level game in the race for the White House. There is no incumbent or Vice President on the ticket on either side. Consequently, both races being wide open has caused confusion in picking the pragmatic candidate--which is perhaps what led to Obama's victory in Iowa. A compelling case could be constructed either way. There is no doubt that Hillary is a massive motivator of the Democratic base--though I think Obama would do the same if he were the nominee. Hillary is more likely to motivate the Republican base in response, however. At the same time, the general election voter has still not really been polled--and he is a rather different animal from his cousin the primary voter. A general election voter could very well look at Obama and say "Hmmm, not just yet--come back in 8 years" or they could look at Hillary and say "Eh...something doesn't feel right about her." Not knowing who the Republican nominee will be complicates the matter immensely. Though it is increasingly looking like Romney, Thompson, and Giuliani are soon to be has-beens. McCain and Huckabee are the Republicans' best opportunities for a win in '08, though each presents his own unique challenges for the Republicans and their Get Out The Vote efforts in November.
However, both have the ability to bring back some of the old Reagan Coalition--blue collar rust belt voters who are economically liberal but socially conservative. They are neither one warmongers like Rudy and Romney, but they are not too Dovish like Obama or Clinton. They may be "just right" for Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, and Michiganders. That begs the question then: who is the stronger Democrat to face off against McCain or Huckabee in the swing states? Do Union workers in Michigan care about race or gender more? Do retirees in Florida trust Hillary or Obama to protect their entitlements more? Which candidate can handle foreign policy better? (The clear answer to the last question is Hillary--because she has Bill)
These are questions Democrats must answer seriously--and correctly. That is, unless they want 8 more years with a Republican in the White House.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
So we left them to teach the Gorillas...
"A leader is a dealer in hope." --Napoleon
"We were living in trees when they met us, and they showed us each in turn,
That water would certainly wet us, and fire would certainly burn,
But we found them lacking in uplift, vision and breadth of mind,
So we left them to teach the gorillas and followed the march of mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed, they never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-born, like the Gods of the Marketplace.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come,
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome..."
--Rudyard Kipling
"But they were all of them deceived." -The Lord of the Rings
For 7 years, America has yearned for a more articulate, more eloquent President. I sometimes think that people are so blinded by the superficialities of candidates that they are able to ignore their substantive shortcomings. Not that all candidates don't have shortcomings, but it seems that if the candidate is attractive and articulate that the nation is more apt to gloss over their problems on substance.
And therein lies the causes of Hillary Clinton's Iowa catastrophe. No offense to the Senator and former First Lady, but she is not particularly attractive, and though she is not inarticulate, she is frequently shrill, mean-sounding, and angry. There is no doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton is one of the most capable political maneuverers of our time, but she is not the kind of person that strikes the general populace as a likeable leader. Enter Barack Obama.
Everybody thought he was really running for 2012 or perhaps for the Vice Presidency when he got into this race. I knew better. First, the Clintons do not reward people who challenge them, and so if the Obama candidacy was to gain any traction, his chances of being #2 on a Hillary Rodham Clinton ticket would be next to nothing. And why would Obama run for President in 2008 when it would make more sense just to wait if he were really aiming for 2012? After all, given his last rock-star performance at a Democratic National Convention, he would probably be invited back. He could spend time building his grassroots, formulating an agenda and national organization, and using the Senate as his bully-pulpit to foment a 2012 or 2016 campaign--and he's plenty young for that strategy to work.
But he, and very few others, saw the great opportunity in Hillary's weaknesses--likeability. With his young personality, great oratory skills, and message of "hope," he knew that if he stayed in there long enough, he could bring down Goliath. And it appears that he has. I knew Hillary would be in trouble when billionaire David Geffen and long-time Bill Clinton financier abandoned the Clinton Coronation to take a chance on upstart Obama.
Obama's win in Iowa has now propelled him into the hearts of millions of Americans--especially young people. In one article I read this week, Obama's candidacy was compared to that of Robert F. Kennedy's campaign with respect to the intensity of support and even mania surrounding it. Obama's message of Unity and Hope might just be the ticket to the White House. I believe that people really are genuinely tired of politics as usual in Washington. People are tired of us vs. them, rich vs. poor, corporations vs. unions, republicans vs. democrats, christians vs. secularists, etc.
The last person to unite the country around a message of unity and hope was a man who said that it was "morning in America again." Ronald Reagan's vision of optimism and hope propelled him to unseat Jimmy Carter in a landslide after a hard-fought primary against a "more experienced" George H. W. Bush. He of course went on to win the largest electoral college landslide in American history in 1984.
Many people have compared Clinton to Reagan--amazing speaker, wonderful orator, uniter of his party, etc. I think that comparison is misplaced. Ronald Reagan emboldened his party--he made it to be OK to be a Republican again after the desolation the party faced in the wake of Nixon and Watergate. Reagan created a new coalition of people that lasted well beyond his tenure, and his Vice President was handily elected to the Presidency in 1988. Reagan laid the foundation for the Gingrich Revolution in 1994 when the Republicans took both houses of Congress.
In contrast, Bill Clinton never won a majority of the popular vote, and in 1992 garnered only 43%. His party, after 40 years in control of the House, was decimated in 1994 and was out of power until 2006. He compromised most of his party's principles to avoid a catastrophic loss in 1996, signing massive states rights welfare reform, supporting free trade, and finally acquiescing to the calls for a balanced budget after forcing Congress to shut down the government in the wake of his refusal to cut spending. And perhaps most of all, Clinton was utterly despised and hated by rank-and-file Republicans during his entire tenure. Reagan was more or less beloved even though the press loathed him.
Obama, I think, has the potential to become the Democrats' Reagan. I hate to say this, or admit it, because I rather loathe Obama. I think his policy proposals would be disastrous for the nation's economy, and I think he could shape up to be a rerun of Jimmy Carter on foreign policy. And that's the kicker:
Obama has not run on policy. He has run on this vague message of hope and optimism. In fact, little of this year's campaign has come down to policy on the Democrat side. Perhaps that's because all of the Democrats have roughly similar policies. So if Obama gets the nomination, and ultimately the Presidency based on non-policy, he will have to figure out exactly how it is he plans to govern. For this reason, he is a wild card--an unknown quantity. We genuinely have no idea what he will do when he is elected.
I earnestly hope America is not led astray by merely good oratory...
"Then the gods of the market tumbled and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled, and began to believe it was true,
That all is not gold that glitters, and two and two make four,
And the gods of the copybook headings limp up to explain it once more."
-Rudyard Kipling
"We were living in trees when they met us, and they showed us each in turn,
That water would certainly wet us, and fire would certainly burn,
But we found them lacking in uplift, vision and breadth of mind,
So we left them to teach the gorillas and followed the march of mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed, they never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-born, like the Gods of the Marketplace.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come,
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome..."
--Rudyard Kipling
"But they were all of them deceived." -The Lord of the Rings
For 7 years, America has yearned for a more articulate, more eloquent President. I sometimes think that people are so blinded by the superficialities of candidates that they are able to ignore their substantive shortcomings. Not that all candidates don't have shortcomings, but it seems that if the candidate is attractive and articulate that the nation is more apt to gloss over their problems on substance.
And therein lies the causes of Hillary Clinton's Iowa catastrophe. No offense to the Senator and former First Lady, but she is not particularly attractive, and though she is not inarticulate, she is frequently shrill, mean-sounding, and angry. There is no doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton is one of the most capable political maneuverers of our time, but she is not the kind of person that strikes the general populace as a likeable leader. Enter Barack Obama.
Everybody thought he was really running for 2012 or perhaps for the Vice Presidency when he got into this race. I knew better. First, the Clintons do not reward people who challenge them, and so if the Obama candidacy was to gain any traction, his chances of being #2 on a Hillary Rodham Clinton ticket would be next to nothing. And why would Obama run for President in 2008 when it would make more sense just to wait if he were really aiming for 2012? After all, given his last rock-star performance at a Democratic National Convention, he would probably be invited back. He could spend time building his grassroots, formulating an agenda and national organization, and using the Senate as his bully-pulpit to foment a 2012 or 2016 campaign--and he's plenty young for that strategy to work.
But he, and very few others, saw the great opportunity in Hillary's weaknesses--likeability. With his young personality, great oratory skills, and message of "hope," he knew that if he stayed in there long enough, he could bring down Goliath. And it appears that he has. I knew Hillary would be in trouble when billionaire David Geffen and long-time Bill Clinton financier abandoned the Clinton Coronation to take a chance on upstart Obama.
Obama's win in Iowa has now propelled him into the hearts of millions of Americans--especially young people. In one article I read this week, Obama's candidacy was compared to that of Robert F. Kennedy's campaign with respect to the intensity of support and even mania surrounding it. Obama's message of Unity and Hope might just be the ticket to the White House. I believe that people really are genuinely tired of politics as usual in Washington. People are tired of us vs. them, rich vs. poor, corporations vs. unions, republicans vs. democrats, christians vs. secularists, etc.
The last person to unite the country around a message of unity and hope was a man who said that it was "morning in America again." Ronald Reagan's vision of optimism and hope propelled him to unseat Jimmy Carter in a landslide after a hard-fought primary against a "more experienced" George H. W. Bush. He of course went on to win the largest electoral college landslide in American history in 1984.
Many people have compared Clinton to Reagan--amazing speaker, wonderful orator, uniter of his party, etc. I think that comparison is misplaced. Ronald Reagan emboldened his party--he made it to be OK to be a Republican again after the desolation the party faced in the wake of Nixon and Watergate. Reagan created a new coalition of people that lasted well beyond his tenure, and his Vice President was handily elected to the Presidency in 1988. Reagan laid the foundation for the Gingrich Revolution in 1994 when the Republicans took both houses of Congress.
In contrast, Bill Clinton never won a majority of the popular vote, and in 1992 garnered only 43%. His party, after 40 years in control of the House, was decimated in 1994 and was out of power until 2006. He compromised most of his party's principles to avoid a catastrophic loss in 1996, signing massive states rights welfare reform, supporting free trade, and finally acquiescing to the calls for a balanced budget after forcing Congress to shut down the government in the wake of his refusal to cut spending. And perhaps most of all, Clinton was utterly despised and hated by rank-and-file Republicans during his entire tenure. Reagan was more or less beloved even though the press loathed him.
Obama, I think, has the potential to become the Democrats' Reagan. I hate to say this, or admit it, because I rather loathe Obama. I think his policy proposals would be disastrous for the nation's economy, and I think he could shape up to be a rerun of Jimmy Carter on foreign policy. And that's the kicker:
Obama has not run on policy. He has run on this vague message of hope and optimism. In fact, little of this year's campaign has come down to policy on the Democrat side. Perhaps that's because all of the Democrats have roughly similar policies. So if Obama gets the nomination, and ultimately the Presidency based on non-policy, he will have to figure out exactly how it is he plans to govern. For this reason, he is a wild card--an unknown quantity. We genuinely have no idea what he will do when he is elected.
I earnestly hope America is not led astray by merely good oratory...
"Then the gods of the market tumbled and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled, and began to believe it was true,
That all is not gold that glitters, and two and two make four,
And the gods of the copybook headings limp up to explain it once more."
-Rudyard Kipling
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Lessons from Dogs
Yesterday, as I was engaging in the ever-difficult task of getting my 7 month old Catahoula Leopard Dog, Adelaide (the one on the left in the picture above), to go into her crate before leaving the house for the day, I stopped to think about her behavior in relation to the American electorate. Most of the time I have to drag Adelaide kicking and screaming into her cage so she doesn't terrorize the house in my absence. But when I'm not in the mood for that I just say "Adelaide, want a treat?" and get her excited about the treat. I go to the cabinet, get a Milk Bone treat about 2 inches long and a half inch in diameter and I dangle it over her crate. She goes right in, I close the door to the crate, and then give her the treat. For the next few hours she loses her freedom, and for the low price of a 3 oz. wafer.
Our Red Bone Coon Hound, Aries, on the other hand, prizes her freedom. Fortunately, she doesn't have to be locked in her crate because she is responsible with her freedom in our absence, but she loathes taking showers. It is the ultimate loss of freedom, it would seem, for her. No treats, toys, prizes, gimmicks, or anything will get her into the bathtub or shower. She has to be hauled in, and if there isn't a closed door, it's a two-man job. She then resents you for the rest of the day for putting her through such torture. She really loves her freedom, and it doesn't have a price.
They aren't much different than most Americans, it's sad to say. Aries is the Good Steward American--the one who works hard, saves, spends wisely, who when she messes up (like eating leftover Chinese food out of the trash can) feels guilty and owns up to her mistakes, is calm and dutiful, and never complains about her existence. She just wants to be left alone most of the time, and merely acknowledged the rest of the time.
Adelaide is like everybody else--give her an inch, she demands miles upon miles. Let her play with a t-shirt and she wants to tear up all of your socks, too. Let her play outside and she digs holes to get under the fence. Her treat isn't enough--she thinks she deserves Aries's treat too. And most egregiously she is willing to continuously, without fail, sacrifice her freedom for a lousy Milk Bone treat. (This isn't to say I don't absolutely adore Adelaide-and think she's incredibly cute, but she is frustrating sometimes...)
Is the American voter really quite ready to hand over even more of its freedom for some sub-standard, government-sponsored health care? The average American already spends 5 months in his metaphorical cage every year paying off Uncle Sam. And even so, Uncle Sam is broke--beyond broke. He can't balance his short-term check book or his long-term check book. So we continue running multi-hundred billion dollar budget deficits every year and keep ignoring the structural debt of over $75 trillion in unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare.
It would seem that the people who are buying into the Santa Claus rhetoric of the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards candidates are not only saying they are willing to go into their cage for an indefinite amount of time, but they don't even realize there isn't going to be a treat when they get there.
Even my dog isn't that stupid...
Friday, January 04, 2008
After Iowa: The Challenge for Huckabee
Today is more important than yesterday. What happened in the Iowa Caucuses will have less to do with who wins New Hampshire than how the victory is utilized by the victors moving forward. Let's look at the challenges ahead for the Huckabee campaign.
For Huckabee, Iowa accomplished a few things. First, it established him, without question, as a first tier candidate and at least for now, THE front-runner. He would have been considered it all along if he had had some money in the bank. Second, it helped fix the problem to which I just alluded: it will help him raise some much needed money to strengthen his national organization in advance of South Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. Third, it put Romney squarely on the defensive. Given Romney's propensity (thus far) for negative campaigning, I predict he will implode.
So where does Huckabee go from here? If Romney loses New Hampshire, it's game over for Mormon Mitt. Huckabee will then likely have to contend with an emboldened McCain, who will likely have been endorsed by soon-to-be-former candidate Fred Thompson. Giuliani will still be around until Florida, but if he loses there, he'll bow out too--my guess is he won't be making any endorsements. That puts Huckabee in the same position George W. Bush was in after New Hampshire 2000: a virtual head-to-head match-up against John McCain.
Like Bush, Huckabee has strong credentials with evangelical voters, and McCain is simply mistrusted both by that demographic and conservatives at-large. Unlike Bush, Huckabee already has a natural appeal to moderates and independents, who view his populism as a breath of fresh air. But that brings us to the person who may be the Achille's heel of the Republicans (even though I am largely sympathetic to his economic ideology): Ron Paul. Especially if Romney and Thompson are out, Ron Paul will likely pick up some stragglers: people who liked him already but wanted to vote for a "more electable" candidate who still shared much of their economic agenda. If Romney and Thompson are out, that agenda is no longer represented, and many Republicans may hold out as protest voters through the end of the election, thereby delaying the certainty of the Republican nominee.
If this happens, it is bad new the Republicans, because if Obama steams ahead to successive victories and cuts off the fundraising ability of Edwards and Hillary (which, though unlikely, could very well happen given the present political climate), then he will be able to get a lot of more or less undisputed air time while the Republicans are still fighting amongst themselves about who will be the nominee.
So here is what Huckabee has to do, not only to win the primary, but to do it quickly enough that he doesn't have a late-starter disadvantage against Obama heading into the general election:
Huckabee started smartly: he pitched to his super niche, white evangelicals. Most evangelical voters are not rich Republicans--they are blue collar or middle class folks with a mortgage, a car payment, two kids, the prospect of paying college bills in a couple of years, who go to Sunday School every week. There are lots of these people in the country--but not enough to win a Republican Primary, and certainly not enough to win a general election. He needs to immediately shift his focus (though not all of his attention) away from his super niche.
He has now secured his natural audience: the people who should love him and be enthusiastic for him simply for who he is. His next audience should be the pragmatists: the people who will vote for whichever Republican they perceive can win in November. This is not a difficult sell, but it will require some explanation. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson are conventional candidates. So is Hillary Clinton. They run negative ads, they play into the Conventional Wisdom, and they are focused too much on policy (bad policy, to boot). Huckabee has always played to his own strengths: personal charisma, charm, wit, abilities on the stump. He has to turn that into an asset that can be bought by the Republican primary voters.
He's folksy enough to appeal to the common guy but (much unlike the current President) he can not only string together a coherent sentence, but is among the most articulate speakers in politics today. This is a quality lacked by Obama and Hillary--there's nothing folksy about them. Their Ivy League pedigrees are looked upon with suspicion by people in The Heartland. Huckabee has to convince Republicans that this matters and that he is the pragmatic choice.
Additionally, he has to convince non-evangelical conservatives that the only way the Republicans can win is to nominate somebody who can secure the South (as a Southerner, a Christian, and former Governor he can do that) as well as win the key battleground states. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Iowa will vote a for a Republican like Huckabee--they won't vote for a guy like Romney. As Huckabee himself said on Leno the other night "people want to vote for a guy who is more like a guy they work with than the guy who laid them off." A Huckabee candidacy will radically complicate the Democrats' agenda on so-called "kitchen table issues" in the upper Midwest and Pennsylvania.
After he has secured the pragmatists, he will likely have won over enough people to have the nomination locked up--and that's where it gets tricky. Then he has to minimize the impact of the people who actively dislike him--free market libertarians and social moderates. Part of this can be remedied by choosing a Vice President who is one (or preferably both) of those things.
Or, he could take an alternative route--pick a bipartisan Democrat Vice President and completely neutralize the independent vote. Sam Nunn and Joe Lieberman come quickly to mind.
More to come soon...
For Huckabee, Iowa accomplished a few things. First, it established him, without question, as a first tier candidate and at least for now, THE front-runner. He would have been considered it all along if he had had some money in the bank. Second, it helped fix the problem to which I just alluded: it will help him raise some much needed money to strengthen his national organization in advance of South Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. Third, it put Romney squarely on the defensive. Given Romney's propensity (thus far) for negative campaigning, I predict he will implode.
So where does Huckabee go from here? If Romney loses New Hampshire, it's game over for Mormon Mitt. Huckabee will then likely have to contend with an emboldened McCain, who will likely have been endorsed by soon-to-be-former candidate Fred Thompson. Giuliani will still be around until Florida, but if he loses there, he'll bow out too--my guess is he won't be making any endorsements. That puts Huckabee in the same position George W. Bush was in after New Hampshire 2000: a virtual head-to-head match-up against John McCain.
Like Bush, Huckabee has strong credentials with evangelical voters, and McCain is simply mistrusted both by that demographic and conservatives at-large. Unlike Bush, Huckabee already has a natural appeal to moderates and independents, who view his populism as a breath of fresh air. But that brings us to the person who may be the Achille's heel of the Republicans (even though I am largely sympathetic to his economic ideology): Ron Paul. Especially if Romney and Thompson are out, Ron Paul will likely pick up some stragglers: people who liked him already but wanted to vote for a "more electable" candidate who still shared much of their economic agenda. If Romney and Thompson are out, that agenda is no longer represented, and many Republicans may hold out as protest voters through the end of the election, thereby delaying the certainty of the Republican nominee.
If this happens, it is bad new the Republicans, because if Obama steams ahead to successive victories and cuts off the fundraising ability of Edwards and Hillary (which, though unlikely, could very well happen given the present political climate), then he will be able to get a lot of more or less undisputed air time while the Republicans are still fighting amongst themselves about who will be the nominee.
So here is what Huckabee has to do, not only to win the primary, but to do it quickly enough that he doesn't have a late-starter disadvantage against Obama heading into the general election:
Huckabee started smartly: he pitched to his super niche, white evangelicals. Most evangelical voters are not rich Republicans--they are blue collar or middle class folks with a mortgage, a car payment, two kids, the prospect of paying college bills in a couple of years, who go to Sunday School every week. There are lots of these people in the country--but not enough to win a Republican Primary, and certainly not enough to win a general election. He needs to immediately shift his focus (though not all of his attention) away from his super niche.
He has now secured his natural audience: the people who should love him and be enthusiastic for him simply for who he is. His next audience should be the pragmatists: the people who will vote for whichever Republican they perceive can win in November. This is not a difficult sell, but it will require some explanation. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson are conventional candidates. So is Hillary Clinton. They run negative ads, they play into the Conventional Wisdom, and they are focused too much on policy (bad policy, to boot). Huckabee has always played to his own strengths: personal charisma, charm, wit, abilities on the stump. He has to turn that into an asset that can be bought by the Republican primary voters.
He's folksy enough to appeal to the common guy but (much unlike the current President) he can not only string together a coherent sentence, but is among the most articulate speakers in politics today. This is a quality lacked by Obama and Hillary--there's nothing folksy about them. Their Ivy League pedigrees are looked upon with suspicion by people in The Heartland. Huckabee has to convince Republicans that this matters and that he is the pragmatic choice.
Additionally, he has to convince non-evangelical conservatives that the only way the Republicans can win is to nominate somebody who can secure the South (as a Southerner, a Christian, and former Governor he can do that) as well as win the key battleground states. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Iowa will vote a for a Republican like Huckabee--they won't vote for a guy like Romney. As Huckabee himself said on Leno the other night "people want to vote for a guy who is more like a guy they work with than the guy who laid them off." A Huckabee candidacy will radically complicate the Democrats' agenda on so-called "kitchen table issues" in the upper Midwest and Pennsylvania.
After he has secured the pragmatists, he will likely have won over enough people to have the nomination locked up--and that's where it gets tricky. Then he has to minimize the impact of the people who actively dislike him--free market libertarians and social moderates. Part of this can be remedied by choosing a Vice President who is one (or preferably both) of those things.
Or, he could take an alternative route--pick a bipartisan Democrat Vice President and completely neutralize the independent vote. Sam Nunn and Joe Lieberman come quickly to mind.
More to come soon...
The Iowa Coup
Can you feel the heat? That's the flame emanating from thousands of political consultants across the country getting fired. The Conventional Wisdom is dead. Kaput. But let's not linger too much around its grave, because the death of the Conventional Wisdom is not the interesting part of the story--the interesting part of the story is what happens next.
The way campaigns operate has been relatively unchanged since 1960, when Television first entered the stage as the driving force in American politics. TV advertising, and the money required to run TV ads in major media markets became the sine qua non of campaigning. Campaign cash was more important than ever, because he who controlled the cash controlled the airwaves. That is starting to change, and political consultants and campaign managers across the country need to understand that if they do not adapt to these changes, their candidates are going to start losing to "amateurs" who are "broke."
The measure of a campaign is no more its long-venerated War Chest, but the power of the message and the strength of its grassroots efforts. Look at Iowa.
Barrack Obama (and Oprah) have raised quite a handsome War Chest, but has done so $20 at a time. He is the first candidate to have meaningfully brought young people into the campaign fundraising world, and has built a grassroots effort that beat back the Clinton juggernaut. Hillary Clinton had all but been anointed by the Press, the Conventional Wisdom, and the professional fundraisers as not only the Democratic nominee, but the inevitable Next President of the United States. Yet Iowa didn't even give her the consolation prize.
On the Republican side, nearly half of Iowa's voters selected candidates who had been given zero credibility from the Press and Pundits just 90 days ago: Mike Huckabee (who garnered 37% of the caucus voters) and Ron Paul (who garnered 10% of caucus voters). Ron Paul, an obscure libertarian Congressman from Texas, and the only Republican who voted against the Iraq War, has utilized the Internet to raise millions of dollars in the "Long Tail" (See Chris Anderson's Book, The Long Tail: How The Future of Business is Selling Less of More), with thousands of small contributors who simultaneously formed a passionate and energetic social community. Ron Paul gets Web 2.0--and the future of politics lies in many of the strategies employed by his campaign.
Mike Huckabee, the big winner in Iowa, routed Mitt Romney, who substantially underperformed in spite of millions in TV advertising, a massive staff, and a better organization than Huckabee's. Well, Romney and his team miscalculated a couple of things:
1. Thanks to the Internet, people know all the candidate's sins, pecadillos, shortcoming, gaffes, bad policies, checkered histories, etc., and as a result, they don't want another candidate (or special interest group) running ads informing them of such. "We know already, thanks."
Lesson: Negative campaigning is dead as a tactic.
2. Romney underestimated the power of free press, or as people in the business call it "earned media." Huckabee, primarily because his campaign was broke until about 45 days ago, had to earn media attention if he was to get any, and so he pulled some pretty impressive stunts. Chuck Norris was the bizarre grenade that got Huckabee the little bit of attention he needed to begin earning some press.
Lesson: Guerrilla Tacts work in politics.
3. Romney and his team underestimated the power of Huckabee's appeal to the evangelicals. Were there as many libertarians as evangelicals in Iowa, Ron Paul would have tied with Huckabee. Romney's scatter approach and "try to appeal to everybody" failed miserably.
Lesson: Always secure a super niche first. Then sell to everybody else.
4. Huckabee has more or less been devoid of catch phrases and sound bytes--the golden letters of campaigns prior to 2008. He hasn't tried to "control the message," because he knows he can't. Those days are long gone. Romney and his advisers must not have gotten the memo that people have started thinking for themselves (at least Caucus-goers in Iowa), and they won't be manipulated by "message development" anymore. Huckabee, in spite of some really really bad press (pardons, immigration, and economics--all of which were supposed to decimate him in a Republican primary) emerged victorious.
Lesson: Message manipulation and sound bytes are dead.
5. Lastly, Huckabee instinctively employed another essential element of a Web 2.0 framework in his campaign: transparency. There is no more genuine a candidate on either side of the aisle than Mike Huckabee. You can love him or hate him, but you can't accuse him of being fake. He is who he is, and he's relatively unapologetic about it. Yet he is good humored and honest, and most of the time a gentle person. Do not underestimate the power of "Realness" in this election. Mitt Romney is the polar opposite--he is fake and plastic, and most of the time appears completely disingenuous. Huckabee would annihilate Hillary and Edwards in a general election if this were the only thing that mattered--but it matters quite a lot; just ask Mitt Romney.
Lesson: To thine own self be true. People should love you (and vote for you) for who you are.
------
To the Conventional Wisdom and the Pundits--may you rest in peace.
The way campaigns operate has been relatively unchanged since 1960, when Television first entered the stage as the driving force in American politics. TV advertising, and the money required to run TV ads in major media markets became the sine qua non of campaigning. Campaign cash was more important than ever, because he who controlled the cash controlled the airwaves. That is starting to change, and political consultants and campaign managers across the country need to understand that if they do not adapt to these changes, their candidates are going to start losing to "amateurs" who are "broke."
The measure of a campaign is no more its long-venerated War Chest, but the power of the message and the strength of its grassroots efforts. Look at Iowa.
Barrack Obama (and Oprah) have raised quite a handsome War Chest, but has done so $20 at a time. He is the first candidate to have meaningfully brought young people into the campaign fundraising world, and has built a grassroots effort that beat back the Clinton juggernaut. Hillary Clinton had all but been anointed by the Press, the Conventional Wisdom, and the professional fundraisers as not only the Democratic nominee, but the inevitable Next President of the United States. Yet Iowa didn't even give her the consolation prize.
On the Republican side, nearly half of Iowa's voters selected candidates who had been given zero credibility from the Press and Pundits just 90 days ago: Mike Huckabee (who garnered 37% of the caucus voters) and Ron Paul (who garnered 10% of caucus voters). Ron Paul, an obscure libertarian Congressman from Texas, and the only Republican who voted against the Iraq War, has utilized the Internet to raise millions of dollars in the "Long Tail" (See Chris Anderson's Book, The Long Tail: How The Future of Business is Selling Less of More), with thousands of small contributors who simultaneously formed a passionate and energetic social community. Ron Paul gets Web 2.0--and the future of politics lies in many of the strategies employed by his campaign.
Mike Huckabee, the big winner in Iowa, routed Mitt Romney, who substantially underperformed in spite of millions in TV advertising, a massive staff, and a better organization than Huckabee's. Well, Romney and his team miscalculated a couple of things:
1. Thanks to the Internet, people know all the candidate's sins, pecadillos, shortcoming, gaffes, bad policies, checkered histories, etc., and as a result, they don't want another candidate (or special interest group) running ads informing them of such. "We know already, thanks."
Lesson: Negative campaigning is dead as a tactic.
2. Romney underestimated the power of free press, or as people in the business call it "earned media." Huckabee, primarily because his campaign was broke until about 45 days ago, had to earn media attention if he was to get any, and so he pulled some pretty impressive stunts. Chuck Norris was the bizarre grenade that got Huckabee the little bit of attention he needed to begin earning some press.
Lesson: Guerrilla Tacts work in politics.
3. Romney and his team underestimated the power of Huckabee's appeal to the evangelicals. Were there as many libertarians as evangelicals in Iowa, Ron Paul would have tied with Huckabee. Romney's scatter approach and "try to appeal to everybody" failed miserably.
Lesson: Always secure a super niche first. Then sell to everybody else.
4. Huckabee has more or less been devoid of catch phrases and sound bytes--the golden letters of campaigns prior to 2008. He hasn't tried to "control the message," because he knows he can't. Those days are long gone. Romney and his advisers must not have gotten the memo that people have started thinking for themselves (at least Caucus-goers in Iowa), and they won't be manipulated by "message development" anymore. Huckabee, in spite of some really really bad press (pardons, immigration, and economics--all of which were supposed to decimate him in a Republican primary) emerged victorious.
Lesson: Message manipulation and sound bytes are dead.
5. Lastly, Huckabee instinctively employed another essential element of a Web 2.0 framework in his campaign: transparency. There is no more genuine a candidate on either side of the aisle than Mike Huckabee. You can love him or hate him, but you can't accuse him of being fake. He is who he is, and he's relatively unapologetic about it. Yet he is good humored and honest, and most of the time a gentle person. Do not underestimate the power of "Realness" in this election. Mitt Romney is the polar opposite--he is fake and plastic, and most of the time appears completely disingenuous. Huckabee would annihilate Hillary and Edwards in a general election if this were the only thing that mattered--but it matters quite a lot; just ask Mitt Romney.
Lesson: To thine own self be true. People should love you (and vote for you) for who you are.
------
To the Conventional Wisdom and the Pundits--may you rest in peace.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Third World Subterfuge and the Atrocity of Al Gore
This will be a brief post, but I just want to point out the motives of the Chicken Littles of the climate change hoax. The "global carbon tax" has now emerged from the latest climate summit in Bali. <A href="http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5c3c93f-802a-23ad-4f29-fe59494b48a6&Issue_id=">Countries opposing U.S. Economic hegemony</a> are advocating policies that would cripple the U.S. Economy as a mechanism for advancing their own political goals. This debate is not about science, it's about politics, and the charlatans like Al Gore will not stop until the U.S. suffers for its "unfair" economic superiority.
Mike Huckabee and the Old CW
The unthinkable has happened: the pundits were wrong (end sarcastic tone).
The race was down to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and the only question
remaining was "Will Rudy's national strategy or Romney's early state
strategy be victorious?" Fred Thompson, who was supposed to be a saving
figure for conservatives turned out to be one of the worst campaigners in
recent memory. John McCain consistently underperformed and although Ron
Paul was raising a lot of money, there was no meaningful appreciation in his
polling numbers. The other candidates, Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mike
Huckabee were no doubt going to be consigned to history as "also rans," a
mere footnote (if they were even that lucky) in the brief page that will be
written about the 2008 election.
The race was down to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and the only question
remaining was "Will Rudy's national strategy or Romney's early state
strategy be victorious?" Fred Thompson, who was supposed to be a saving
figure for conservatives turned out to be one of the worst campaigners in
recent memory. John McCain consistently underperformed and although Ron
Paul was raising a lot of money, there was no meaningful appreciation in his
polling numbers. The other candidates, Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mike
Huckabee were no doubt going to be consigned to history as "also rans," a
mere footnote (if they were even that lucky) in the brief page that will be
written about the 2008 election.
What explains the pundits turning out so incredibly wrong? (They were also
wrong, by the way, about Hillary's coronation as the Democratic nominee, but
perhaps we shall save that story for another day.) First, they are the
pundits, and they are almost invariably wrong in their prognostications.
These spurious oracles have made a business in political prophecy that is so
vacuous and arbitrary that some people actually buy into it (for some
reason, that sort of clarity where clarity is an absurdity is alluring to
many people...look at how many people read the "Left Behind" series after
all). The entire business of political consultancy has been in pitching
false panaceas. It makes for great business--but not good campaigns.
Fortunately for Mike Huckabee, he's never been one to believe in the Old CW
(Conventional Wisdom). It was of course the CW that the country was not
interested in electing another Governor of Arkansas to the White House. It
was the Old CW that it is impossible to win the Republican nomination
without having the most money (after all, the empirical data since the
beginning of the Iowa Caucus/New Hampshire Primary first in country
tradition proves up that the winner of the Republican nomination is directly
correlative to the largest fundraiser). It was the Old CW that the country
had no interest in electing a Southern Baptist Minister to the White House.
The list goes on. Now it may be the case, at the end of the day next
November, that the country doesn't want a Southern Baptist Minister and
Arkansas Governor as President--but the Conventional Wisdom crowd has at
least been wrong that such a person doesn't have a chance.
Yet, it was also the Old Convention Wisdom in Arkansas that Republicans
simply couldn't win statewide election, that running against long-time
incumbent Senator Dale Bumpers was political suicide, and that even a
Republican who happened his way into the Governor's mansion couldn't
possibly get re-elected. But Mike Huckabee turned his massive defeat by
Dale Bumpers into a platform to run for Lieutenant Governor (a virtually
meaningless position in Arkansas that should likely be eliminated), and the
stunned the state when he performed as a brilliant and articulate statesman
in the wake of the conviction of former Governor Jim Guy Tucker in the
Whitewater investigation. Huckabee went on to become the second longest
serving governor in Arkansas's history (right after Bill Clinton), and the
only Republican ever to be twice re-elected to the office.
The Old Convention Wisdom is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you believe in
it, it will come true. Mike Huckabee has at least escaped its dominance by
simply not believing it. (By the way, so has Barack Obama.)
There have been many comparisons and contrasts in the news media in the past
few weeks. I tend to eschew most comparisons, since there are so few
comparable politicians. They are all unique. There is no more such a thing
as "Another Reagan" as there is "Another Unicorn." In the last few days, I
have seen Huckabee compared to Howard Dean (rise from obscurity to leading
in the polls only to self-destruct because he is untested and unready for
national politics), Bill Clinton (folksy but articulate underdog from Hope,
Arkansas for whom the stars are now similarly aligning), Ronald Reagan
(diamond in the rough who everybody discounts in the general election), and
George McGovern (an extremist ideologue who will be slaughtered in the
general election no matter who the other party's nominee is).
The obvious problem with all of these comparisons is that the pundits and
commentators take what is convenient for their argument and pull out the
similarities and craft a usually well-reasoned article that makes sense upon
a cursory glance. Unfortunately, these comparisons ignore the thousands of
nuances, both in the personalities of these people, but also (and perhaps
far more importantly) the nuances of the circumstances surrounding the times
and places that each of these people entered the political scene.
Mike Huckabee is not, at least in any meaningful way, like any of the people
previously described. He is a bass guitar-playing former Southern Baptist
Minister who is witty, shoots from the hip, and has a rather impressive
record as Governor of Arkansas and head of the National Governors
Association. He has many liabilities, though, that cannot be discounted.
His religious views are outside of the mainstream of the American public: he
believes in the literal inerrancy of the Bible, he does not believe in
evolution (even, it seems, theistically guided evolution). He can sometimes
be a bit too preachy about public health issues. He is known for having
thin skin with respect to the media and his critics, and he doesn't have a a
whit of foreign policy experience. But all of the candidates have either
similar or analogous liabilities.
For example, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Rudy Giuliani is thrice married,
Barack Obama is an African American with an unfortunately Muslim-sounding
name, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, and so on.
The trouble with the pundits and Conventional Wisdom crowd is they always
want to boil elections down to less than their irreducible complexities.
"The final question that will decide this race is..." There is no such
question. There are a multiplicity of issues, personalities, preferences,
and sentiments from millions of people, a half dozen candidates, and
countless commentators, pollsters, and news anchors that will ultimately
influence the outcome of this election. The charge for the Huckabee
Campaign, and for the hundreds of campaign managers across the country, will
be to ignore the pundits and their boiled-down approach and instead embrace
the admonition of Napoleon, when he said:
"The battlefield is a scene of chaos. The victory is the one who controls
that chaos, both his own, and his enemy's."
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Unprincipled Nature of American Consumerism and its Effect on Politics
My friend Andy and I have been talking a lot lately about consumerism and its pernicious place in American culture. Every trip to the West Village in Dallas makes me think of Solomon's words in the book of Ecclesiastes
But, I may have read the most disgusting reminder of American consumerism today in the online journal Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6892.html
Indeed, the need to consume, and to possess material goods is so strong that an iPod touch or some college tuition would buy a college student's vote. For a million dollars, most of them would even permanently forfeit their right to vote. Although these hypothetical scenarios are somewhat disconcerting, they are a reminder of the broader reality: that most Americans will give their votes in exchange for a portion of the government largess in the form of entitlement spending and pork. The rest of the country doesn't care, and doesn't vote.
I have a thought on this particular problem, one that came to me as I was walking to Starbucks (ironic, eh?) this morning. There is much talk about decadent nations meeting their doom. Individually, we are told in the Proverbs that "pride goeth before the fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction." I would assume the same is true of nations, but why?
Well let's go back to our example of college students exchanging their votes for an iPod Touch (which, by the way, is the most ridiculous product ever sold by Apple--why in the world would I want to buy an iPhone without the phone?). Things are pretty good in America. Left and Right seem to forget it, but the vast majority of Americans don't care about politics primarily because nothing is wrong enough (yet) to make them care. Consequently, they'd rather have an iPod Touch (even if it doesn't have phone capabilities) than a vote. Decadent societies, therefore, it would seem, decline precisely because when people have something to eat and drink, it makes it easier for them to "eat drink and be merry." Culturally, we have a nation of trust fund children, in the socio-economic and political sense. Trust fund children do not have to work, and usually turn out to be pretty miserable human beings. Our trust fund culture doesn't have to be diligent when it comes to the art of government and politics and so they aren't.
John Adams once famously said "I must study politics and war so that my children might have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." Unfortunately the generation of mathematics and philosophy students gave way to a generation of business students, who produced a generation of people who now have little incentive to do much of anything where government & civics are concerned. The few people who are interested in politics are right-wing and left-wing ideological zealots seeking to impose some form of greater order on their fellow man.
More or less, we have taken the easy road and "outsourced" our government to a handful of incompetent yokels (i.e. Congress), an Emperor without Clothes (i.e. President Bush), and a massive, inert bureaucracy that could not possibly be more disconnected from society. With the power of the Internet, and especially the re-birth of the Internet in Web 2.0, we have the unprecedented ability to impact national policy and indeed the future and fate of our country.
We will not use these tools for their highest possible calling, however, until we see a change in culture. That is going to be the toughest sell of all. We need our college students to be willing to trade in their iPods for a bit of their attention to important matters of national policy, and not just concerning the things that make the headlines, but the millions of devilish details imposed on Americans every day. I'm not saying they are all bad--I'm just saying we should think about them, and give them our assent or dissent.
In our legal system there exists the concept of a "fiduciary." A fiduciary is a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another." Every generation, in a sense, is the fiduciary for the next generation. We are all entrusted both property and power that we will one day hand over to a new generation. We have an ethical duty to preserve and improve both before our reign comes to an end. In business, the Director of a Corporation has a "fiduciary duty" to protect the interests of the Corporation, and the business laws that govern all of our states make it a crime for a Director to be negligent in his duties--"sins of omission" are punished, just as "sins of commission" are.
I hope Generation Y will wake up from its decadence and take the responsibility we have seriously. It isn't too late to do that in 2008.
All the labor of man is for his mouth,
And yet the soul is not satisfied.
For what more has the wise man than the fool?
What does the poor man have,
Who knows how to walk before the living?
Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire.
This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Whatever one is, he has been named already,
For it is known that he is man;
And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he.
Since there are many things that increase vanity,
How is man the better?
For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?
But, I may have read the most disgusting reminder of American consumerism today in the online journal Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6892.html
Indeed, the need to consume, and to possess material goods is so strong that an iPod touch or some college tuition would buy a college student's vote. For a million dollars, most of them would even permanently forfeit their right to vote. Although these hypothetical scenarios are somewhat disconcerting, they are a reminder of the broader reality: that most Americans will give their votes in exchange for a portion of the government largess in the form of entitlement spending and pork. The rest of the country doesn't care, and doesn't vote.
I have a thought on this particular problem, one that came to me as I was walking to Starbucks (ironic, eh?) this morning. There is much talk about decadent nations meeting their doom. Individually, we are told in the Proverbs that "pride goeth before the fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction." I would assume the same is true of nations, but why?
Well let's go back to our example of college students exchanging their votes for an iPod Touch (which, by the way, is the most ridiculous product ever sold by Apple--why in the world would I want to buy an iPhone without the phone?). Things are pretty good in America. Left and Right seem to forget it, but the vast majority of Americans don't care about politics primarily because nothing is wrong enough (yet) to make them care. Consequently, they'd rather have an iPod Touch (even if it doesn't have phone capabilities) than a vote. Decadent societies, therefore, it would seem, decline precisely because when people have something to eat and drink, it makes it easier for them to "eat drink and be merry." Culturally, we have a nation of trust fund children, in the socio-economic and political sense. Trust fund children do not have to work, and usually turn out to be pretty miserable human beings. Our trust fund culture doesn't have to be diligent when it comes to the art of government and politics and so they aren't.
John Adams once famously said "I must study politics and war so that my children might have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." Unfortunately the generation of mathematics and philosophy students gave way to a generation of business students, who produced a generation of people who now have little incentive to do much of anything where government & civics are concerned. The few people who are interested in politics are right-wing and left-wing ideological zealots seeking to impose some form of greater order on their fellow man.
More or less, we have taken the easy road and "outsourced" our government to a handful of incompetent yokels (i.e. Congress), an Emperor without Clothes (i.e. President Bush), and a massive, inert bureaucracy that could not possibly be more disconnected from society. With the power of the Internet, and especially the re-birth of the Internet in Web 2.0, we have the unprecedented ability to impact national policy and indeed the future and fate of our country.
We will not use these tools for their highest possible calling, however, until we see a change in culture. That is going to be the toughest sell of all. We need our college students to be willing to trade in their iPods for a bit of their attention to important matters of national policy, and not just concerning the things that make the headlines, but the millions of devilish details imposed on Americans every day. I'm not saying they are all bad--I'm just saying we should think about them, and give them our assent or dissent.
In our legal system there exists the concept of a "fiduciary." A fiduciary is a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another." Every generation, in a sense, is the fiduciary for the next generation. We are all entrusted both property and power that we will one day hand over to a new generation. We have an ethical duty to preserve and improve both before our reign comes to an end. In business, the Director of a Corporation has a "fiduciary duty" to protect the interests of the Corporation, and the business laws that govern all of our states make it a crime for a Director to be negligent in his duties--"sins of omission" are punished, just as "sins of commission" are.
I hope Generation Y will wake up from its decadence and take the responsibility we have seriously. It isn't too late to do that in 2008.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Handicapping the Presidential Race at this Point
The Early-Mover advantage may be a thing of the past. Partly because of the general political fatigue and malaise, and partly because of the lengthy election cycle (something really must be done about this...), I do not think the early front runners have an advantage in this race, regardless of what the polls show currently. In fact, it is beginning to seem that they may be at a disadvantage. Thanks to the Internet, surges from obscurity can occur without large war chests, though nobody (except Ron Paul) really gets this. The Romney and Giuliani Camps on the GOP side, and the Clinton and Obama Camps on the Democrat side need to wake and realize that "two weeks is an eternity in politics" is obsolete. It is now "two minutes is an eternity in politics," and things can change overnight. Just as military strategy has changed in the post-Cold War Era to prefer light, nimble rapid fighting forces over large massive heavy forces, so in political strategy the Internet has changed the game entirely.
Iowa is developing into an extremely fascinating scenario on the Republican Side. In the latest Zogby Poll, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee showed support amongst 15% of primary voters, second to Mitt Romney's 31%. This is a 7 point gain for Huckabee since August, and a 2 point decline for Romney. Huckabee displaced Giuliani in the #2 spot, with Giuliani's support dropping to 11%. Thompson was 4th with 10%, and John McCain came in 5th at 8%. Because of some of Huckabee's populist stances on certain economic issues and his conservative (but not extremist) views on social issues, it seems that he has the most to gain by siphoning votes away from all of the other major candidates, and especially from Giuliani and Thompson. Thompson's poor performance nationally, and especially in the key early states has not been a great surprise to most national political commentators, as he was never known as a great campaigner. Huckabee, on the other hand, is an incredible campaigner, and is not only convincing, but has the potential to be convincing that he has a chance in the general election nation-wide. This same trend could occur in South Carolina. If he can raise some much-needed cash (double what his site says he needs by the end of November) and make a few strategic changes, Huckabee will enter the top three nationally (and in the rest of the early states), displacing Thompson.
Prediction: By the end of 2007, Thompson, McCain, Tancredo, and Hunter will be out of the race. Thompson's support will likely coalesce around Huckabee in the South, and be more evenly distributed amongst the other candidates nationally. McCain's support will likely bolster Giuliani, and the Tancredo and Hunter votes will most likely go to Huckabee as well, assuming the last sentence of the last paragraph proves true.
On the Democrat side in Iowa, things are less tumultuous and unpredictable, but no less interesting. Obama has made incremental gains since August, and Hillary's losses have been within the margin of error. Edwards and Richardson's numbers have also remained relatively steady. The key on the Democrat side is that Hillary's numbers have been stable within 5 points of where they were as far back as March, proving that as the most "known quantity" in the race on either side, her support is unlikely to increase measurably. Interestingly enough, though, Obama's support has been equally as stable in the same period of time. None of the minor candidates appear to be making a Huckabee-like surge into the top tier, and that presents a problem for the Democrats. If they get tired of Hillary, Obama, and Edwards, they have nowhere to turn. Bill Richardson, although attractive on paper, is ineloquent and chubby. At the risk of being labeled a sexist, I think these two traits make it impossible for Richardson to escape the 2nd Tier, as he will never be able to break into the female voting bloc, which traditionally supports articulate, good-looking candidates.
The Democrats need an out. The problems presented by Hillary (50% of all men, and 55% of married men say they absolutely will not vote for her, for example) may be impossible to overcome in the Electoral College. A Giuliani candidacy puts her lock on New York in doubt. A Huckabee candidacy would almost assure a GOP shut out of the South (which was Al Gore and John Kerry's death knell).
Although I believe America could elect a female president, I am (sadly) less optimistic about its ability to elect a black president. Obama would lose the South against any Republican candidate, including Giuliani. It is no secret that there is substantive animosity between the African-American contingent of the Democratic Party and the other major identity groups: Unions, Hispanics, the Jewish community, and the GLBT community. In all of these cases, save the Hispanics, I believe the Democrats would rally behind whoever was nominated, though I firmly believe that all of the identity groups would be happier with a Hillary candidacy than an Obama candidacy. But, the Hispanic vote is fickle, and the Democrats do not have the lock on it that they have on the other major groups. I think it extremely possible that in the event of, say a Giuliani or Huckabee nomination (both candidates have reasonable and moderate views on immigration), Obama could face a split in the Hispanic vote, enough to turn the tables in key states like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida, all of which the Democrats need to win, and save Florida, HAVE to win, in order to take the White House back in 2008.
Given all of this, I have a couple of predictions to make about the Democratic primary:
1) With Hillary's poor debate performance, Obama and Edwards smell blood in the water and will be taking off the gloves even more, trying to bloody her up.
2) The Democratic primary will be sharply divided all the way to the end, with a possible need for a convention vote.
3) No matter what, Hillary still gets the nomination. In this rare instance, the Democrats will nominate the front-runner, and "stick to the devil they know." If it goes to a convention, Hillary has it in a walk, because hard-core Democrats and the mass of Democrat insiders will support Hillary (if for no other reason than they view it as a second coming of their Savior Bill Clinton, who "rescued" them from the legacy of Reaganism).
4) The Democrats will leave the primary broken, battered, and divided, and we will have another dead-heat, down-to-the-wire general election.
4 more years of gridlock...let's get excited!
Iowa is developing into an extremely fascinating scenario on the Republican Side. In the latest Zogby Poll, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee showed support amongst 15% of primary voters, second to Mitt Romney's 31%. This is a 7 point gain for Huckabee since August, and a 2 point decline for Romney. Huckabee displaced Giuliani in the #2 spot, with Giuliani's support dropping to 11%. Thompson was 4th with 10%, and John McCain came in 5th at 8%. Because of some of Huckabee's populist stances on certain economic issues and his conservative (but not extremist) views on social issues, it seems that he has the most to gain by siphoning votes away from all of the other major candidates, and especially from Giuliani and Thompson. Thompson's poor performance nationally, and especially in the key early states has not been a great surprise to most national political commentators, as he was never known as a great campaigner. Huckabee, on the other hand, is an incredible campaigner, and is not only convincing, but has the potential to be convincing that he has a chance in the general election nation-wide. This same trend could occur in South Carolina. If he can raise some much-needed cash (double what his site says he needs by the end of November) and make a few strategic changes, Huckabee will enter the top three nationally (and in the rest of the early states), displacing Thompson.
Prediction: By the end of 2007, Thompson, McCain, Tancredo, and Hunter will be out of the race. Thompson's support will likely coalesce around Huckabee in the South, and be more evenly distributed amongst the other candidates nationally. McCain's support will likely bolster Giuliani, and the Tancredo and Hunter votes will most likely go to Huckabee as well, assuming the last sentence of the last paragraph proves true.
On the Democrat side in Iowa, things are less tumultuous and unpredictable, but no less interesting. Obama has made incremental gains since August, and Hillary's losses have been within the margin of error. Edwards and Richardson's numbers have also remained relatively steady. The key on the Democrat side is that Hillary's numbers have been stable within 5 points of where they were as far back as March, proving that as the most "known quantity" in the race on either side, her support is unlikely to increase measurably. Interestingly enough, though, Obama's support has been equally as stable in the same period of time. None of the minor candidates appear to be making a Huckabee-like surge into the top tier, and that presents a problem for the Democrats. If they get tired of Hillary, Obama, and Edwards, they have nowhere to turn. Bill Richardson, although attractive on paper, is ineloquent and chubby. At the risk of being labeled a sexist, I think these two traits make it impossible for Richardson to escape the 2nd Tier, as he will never be able to break into the female voting bloc, which traditionally supports articulate, good-looking candidates.
The Democrats need an out. The problems presented by Hillary (50% of all men, and 55% of married men say they absolutely will not vote for her, for example) may be impossible to overcome in the Electoral College. A Giuliani candidacy puts her lock on New York in doubt. A Huckabee candidacy would almost assure a GOP shut out of the South (which was Al Gore and John Kerry's death knell).
Although I believe America could elect a female president, I am (sadly) less optimistic about its ability to elect a black president. Obama would lose the South against any Republican candidate, including Giuliani. It is no secret that there is substantive animosity between the African-American contingent of the Democratic Party and the other major identity groups: Unions, Hispanics, the Jewish community, and the GLBT community. In all of these cases, save the Hispanics, I believe the Democrats would rally behind whoever was nominated, though I firmly believe that all of the identity groups would be happier with a Hillary candidacy than an Obama candidacy. But, the Hispanic vote is fickle, and the Democrats do not have the lock on it that they have on the other major groups. I think it extremely possible that in the event of, say a Giuliani or Huckabee nomination (both candidates have reasonable and moderate views on immigration), Obama could face a split in the Hispanic vote, enough to turn the tables in key states like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida, all of which the Democrats need to win, and save Florida, HAVE to win, in order to take the White House back in 2008.
Given all of this, I have a couple of predictions to make about the Democratic primary:
1) With Hillary's poor debate performance, Obama and Edwards smell blood in the water and will be taking off the gloves even more, trying to bloody her up.
2) The Democratic primary will be sharply divided all the way to the end, with a possible need for a convention vote.
3) No matter what, Hillary still gets the nomination. In this rare instance, the Democrats will nominate the front-runner, and "stick to the devil they know." If it goes to a convention, Hillary has it in a walk, because hard-core Democrats and the mass of Democrat insiders will support Hillary (if for no other reason than they view it as a second coming of their Savior Bill Clinton, who "rescued" them from the legacy of Reaganism).
4) The Democrats will leave the primary broken, battered, and divided, and we will have another dead-heat, down-to-the-wire general election.
4 more years of gridlock...let's get excited!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Peter Pan Update: Colbert Receives More Support Amongst Young Than GOP
According to aRasmussen Poll, Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert's satirical campaign for the White House has more support among young voters than does either GOP candidate (Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani) in a hypothetical match up against Hillary Clinton.
It is a sad day when a full 13% of American likely voters would select a comedic television character over sitting and former United States Senators and the Mayor of the largest U.S. city in an election for the presidency of the United States. This, I think, is more of a reflection on the candidates, however, than it is on the American people. These poll respondents were probably just being honest with themselves. If I'm going to vote for a non-adult candidate, then I might as well support the one who is out front and honest about his non-adultness.
Is it going to take electing Stephen Colbert or Bugs Bunny to the White House before we decide it is time for some real statesmen to run for public office?
373 Days until the election. Will we have an adult candidate?
It is a sad day when a full 13% of American likely voters would select a comedic television character over sitting and former United States Senators and the Mayor of the largest U.S. city in an election for the presidency of the United States. This, I think, is more of a reflection on the candidates, however, than it is on the American people. These poll respondents were probably just being honest with themselves. If I'm going to vote for a non-adult candidate, then I might as well support the one who is out front and honest about his non-adultness.
Is it going to take electing Stephen Colbert or Bugs Bunny to the White House before we decide it is time for some real statesmen to run for public office?
373 Days until the election. Will we have an adult candidate?
Wanted: Adults
I have officially decided that my Theme Movie for the 2008 Election, and for American Culture writ large shall be, until further notice, Peter Pan. To begin our new theme, here are excerpts from "I Won't Grow Up," Peter Pan's personal theme song.
If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
I won't grow up,
I don't want to wear a tie.
And a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Never gonna be a man,
I won't!
Like to see somebody try
And make me.
Anyone who wants to try
And make me turn into a man,
Catch me if you can.
I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,
I won't grow up!
We won't grow up!
We will never grow a day
And if someone tries to make it
We will simply run away
And Never Land will always be
The home of beauty and joy
And neverty
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
----
It dawned on me this morning, halfway through my second cup of coffee, the fundamental problem characterizing most of our cultural, social, and political malaise: we are quickly running out of adults. I do not know the source of these characteristics, but here is what Wikipedia lists as "qualities that symbolize adultness in most cultures."
* Self-control - restraint, emotional control.
* Stability - stable personality, strength.
* Independence - ability to self-regulate.
* Seriousness - ability to deal with life in a serious manner.
* Responsibility - accountability, commitment and reliability.
* Method/Tact - ability to think ahead and plan for the future, patience.
* Endurance - ability and willingness to cope with difficulties that present themselves.
* Experience - breadth of mind, understanding.
* Objectivity - perspective and realism.
Come back from science fiction land for a minute now, and hang your head with me in lamentation of the fact that it is difficult to find many people who have reached the "age of majority," who display even half of these characteristics on a consistent and daily basis. If we examine the world of politics, for example, we find that our political officeholders (I would not deign to denigrate the word "leader" by using it to describe our current set of officeholders) is particularly severely lacking in Self-control, Independence, Responsibility, Method/Tact, Experience, Objectivity. And the others are just a wash, at best.
Our churches have largely become either empty or glorified social clubs. We have prostitute preachers who use their silver tongue to keep the big offering checks rolling in. We have a laity suffering from the most grotesque form of intellectual and spiritual laziness. Many denominations are fighting internal discordant battles over tangential issues.
Our schools are run by Educrats who were indoctrinated by the so-called "Schools of Education" to espouse feel-good nonsense that is handicapping our children in a global marketplace. Our students run amok because there are no adults at home, and there are fewer and fewer adults running the schools (Educrats notoriously lack the objectivity/realism quality listed above), and we are approaching an almost Lord-of-the-Flies-esque educational polity whose feeble pillars are collapsing under the weight of the fat bodied obesity of our thin-minded children.
Business, the last haven of adulthood, is suffering the consequences. The economy cannot sustain itself, in the long-run, with a nation of children. The free market itself breeds adults. Socialism and the Nanny State perpetuates childishness. It has become popular to talk about the "overcompensation" of CEOs in this country, and to talk about business as being "uncaring" and "cut-throat." Some of these things may be true in certain circumstances, but I would argue that by and large, business is just being adult. Google takes particularly good care of its employees, provides them lavish benefits, etc. But they subscribe to the philosophy, I'm sure of "To whom much is given, much is also required." Google employees work long hours, and spend the vast majority of their waking time at work. And if they didn't, they would be replaced.
Adulthood does not meant stuffiness (thank God!), but it does mean having to grow up. It doesn't mean having to wear a tie in July, but it does mean taking reality as it comes, and being a responsible agent in a world of problems. The old cliche saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," is probably true in our present circumstance. The Baby Boomers spent too long being children. They were, in fact, the first generation of The Lost Boys. They rebelled against their parents' conservatism, and replaced it with a vacuous notion of "freedom." The eschewed the rules, but the rules came back to haunt them. They worshiped youth, and now they are old. But they are not mature. As Kipling said, using the Gods of the Copybook Headings as a metaphor for wisdom and, perhaps we could even say 'adultness,'
"The Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of man.
There are only four things certain since social progress began:
That the dog returns to his vomit, and the sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire.
And as soon as this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins;
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins.
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return."
As a member of Generation Y, I know that the only person for whom I can take responsibility is myself, and vicariously, for my generation. I can point out the problems with past generations, but I cannot preach to them, and I am highly unlikely to change them. But I can take responsibility for myself, and for being a voice in the wilderness to my own people, the 20-somethings and bordering-on-30-somethings with whom I went to kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college, and with whom I am now working in my everyday life, who I meet at Starbucks or the local wine bar.
We have to be adults, even if nobody else wants to. The world needs us, and it needs us now.
If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
I won't grow up,
I don't want to wear a tie.
And a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Never gonna be a man,
I won't!
Like to see somebody try
And make me.
Anyone who wants to try
And make me turn into a man,
Catch me if you can.
I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,
I won't grow up!
We won't grow up!
We will never grow a day
And if someone tries to make it
We will simply run away
And Never Land will always be
The home of beauty and joy
And neverty
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
----
It dawned on me this morning, halfway through my second cup of coffee, the fundamental problem characterizing most of our cultural, social, and political malaise: we are quickly running out of adults. I do not know the source of these characteristics, but here is what Wikipedia lists as "qualities that symbolize adultness in most cultures."
* Self-control - restraint, emotional control.
* Stability - stable personality, strength.
* Independence - ability to self-regulate.
* Seriousness - ability to deal with life in a serious manner.
* Responsibility - accountability, commitment and reliability.
* Method/Tact - ability to think ahead and plan for the future, patience.
* Endurance - ability and willingness to cope with difficulties that present themselves.
* Experience - breadth of mind, understanding.
* Objectivity - perspective and realism.
Come back from science fiction land for a minute now, and hang your head with me in lamentation of the fact that it is difficult to find many people who have reached the "age of majority," who display even half of these characteristics on a consistent and daily basis. If we examine the world of politics, for example, we find that our political officeholders (I would not deign to denigrate the word "leader" by using it to describe our current set of officeholders) is particularly severely lacking in Self-control, Independence, Responsibility, Method/Tact, Experience, Objectivity. And the others are just a wash, at best.
Our churches have largely become either empty or glorified social clubs. We have prostitute preachers who use their silver tongue to keep the big offering checks rolling in. We have a laity suffering from the most grotesque form of intellectual and spiritual laziness. Many denominations are fighting internal discordant battles over tangential issues.
Our schools are run by Educrats who were indoctrinated by the so-called "Schools of Education" to espouse feel-good nonsense that is handicapping our children in a global marketplace. Our students run amok because there are no adults at home, and there are fewer and fewer adults running the schools (Educrats notoriously lack the objectivity/realism quality listed above), and we are approaching an almost Lord-of-the-Flies-esque educational polity whose feeble pillars are collapsing under the weight of the fat bodied obesity of our thin-minded children.
Business, the last haven of adulthood, is suffering the consequences. The economy cannot sustain itself, in the long-run, with a nation of children. The free market itself breeds adults. Socialism and the Nanny State perpetuates childishness. It has become popular to talk about the "overcompensation" of CEOs in this country, and to talk about business as being "uncaring" and "cut-throat." Some of these things may be true in certain circumstances, but I would argue that by and large, business is just being adult. Google takes particularly good care of its employees, provides them lavish benefits, etc. But they subscribe to the philosophy, I'm sure of "To whom much is given, much is also required." Google employees work long hours, and spend the vast majority of their waking time at work. And if they didn't, they would be replaced.
Adulthood does not meant stuffiness (thank God!), but it does mean having to grow up. It doesn't mean having to wear a tie in July, but it does mean taking reality as it comes, and being a responsible agent in a world of problems. The old cliche saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," is probably true in our present circumstance. The Baby Boomers spent too long being children. They were, in fact, the first generation of The Lost Boys. They rebelled against their parents' conservatism, and replaced it with a vacuous notion of "freedom." The eschewed the rules, but the rules came back to haunt them. They worshiped youth, and now they are old. But they are not mature. As Kipling said, using the Gods of the Copybook Headings as a metaphor for wisdom and, perhaps we could even say 'adultness,'
"The Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of man.
There are only four things certain since social progress began:
That the dog returns to his vomit, and the sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire.
And as soon as this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins;
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins.
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return."
As a member of Generation Y, I know that the only person for whom I can take responsibility is myself, and vicariously, for my generation. I can point out the problems with past generations, but I cannot preach to them, and I am highly unlikely to change them. But I can take responsibility for myself, and for being a voice in the wilderness to my own people, the 20-somethings and bordering-on-30-somethings with whom I went to kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college, and with whom I am now working in my everyday life, who I meet at Starbucks or the local wine bar.
We have to be adults, even if nobody else wants to. The world needs us, and it needs us now.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
What Have We Done Today?
We shall do much in the years to come,
But what have we done today?
We shall give out gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give today?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer,
But what did we speak today?
We shall be so kind in the after while,
But what have we done today?
We shall bring to each lonely life a smile,
But what have we brought today?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth,But whom have we fed today?
We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown today?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built today?
`Tis sweet in the idle dreams to bask;
But here and now, do we our task?
Yet, this is the thing our souls must ask,
What have we done today?
-Nixon Waterman
My friend Andy (AndyEllwood.com) has made a point to me on several occasions now that Generation Y doesn't actually do anything when they see injustice, they don't take action when they see a need for change, they just blog about it, or put up a YouTube video. We communicate for communication's sake, hoping that somehow our words or our YouTube clips will change the world. Kipling warned against this, saying in his poem IF "If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim." Yet this is what we do on a daily basis. We feel that because we have used the power of the pen, or at least the keyboard, we have effected some sort of change and nothing beyond the words is really necessary. This post is almost a performative contradiction, I know. It means that in order to not be a hypocrite I have to actually *do* something this week beyond merely blog.
I have heard some of my friends say that our generation needs a voice. The problem is not that we don't have voices; nay, the problem is that we have a cacophony of voices. Generation Y needs a purpose, a unified cause, not the multitude of causes celebre that seem to populate blogs and Facebook groups. The Generation Y people I know who are involved in politics are a bunch of sycophants and "yes men" who want nothing more than the taste of power. If you don't believe me, walk into any random campaign office and look for the people between the ages of 18 and 30. You'll be disgusted.
I am not writing this as if I have the solution. I really don't know what it is, but we as a generation need to be thinking about it and figuring things out. I'm not sure the country can survive many more Baby Boomer-controlled Congresses or White Houses. But it isn't just with respect to politics that I am writing this post. I think it applies to many facets of society. We need leaders to rise up from GenX&Y in business, the Church, and education as well, and we seem to be devoid of such leaders. The reason is that leadership comes at a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it. The few who are rarely do so for the right reasons, and so they don't make good leaders.
We don't have a lot of time. We need to start a dialog. Join the dialog. Comment on this blog. Write your own thoughts somewhere: your myspace blog, a facebook note. Start thinking. Start talking. And let's all start doing, so we have an affirmative answer to the question "What have we done today?"
But what have we done today?
We shall give out gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give today?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer,
But what did we speak today?
We shall be so kind in the after while,
But what have we done today?
We shall bring to each lonely life a smile,
But what have we brought today?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth,But whom have we fed today?
We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown today?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built today?
`Tis sweet in the idle dreams to bask;
But here and now, do we our task?
Yet, this is the thing our souls must ask,
What have we done today?
-Nixon Waterman
My friend Andy (AndyEllwood.com) has made a point to me on several occasions now that Generation Y doesn't actually do anything when they see injustice, they don't take action when they see a need for change, they just blog about it, or put up a YouTube video. We communicate for communication's sake, hoping that somehow our words or our YouTube clips will change the world. Kipling warned against this, saying in his poem IF "If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim." Yet this is what we do on a daily basis. We feel that because we have used the power of the pen, or at least the keyboard, we have effected some sort of change and nothing beyond the words is really necessary. This post is almost a performative contradiction, I know. It means that in order to not be a hypocrite I have to actually *do* something this week beyond merely blog.
I have heard some of my friends say that our generation needs a voice. The problem is not that we don't have voices; nay, the problem is that we have a cacophony of voices. Generation Y needs a purpose, a unified cause, not the multitude of causes celebre that seem to populate blogs and Facebook groups. The Generation Y people I know who are involved in politics are a bunch of sycophants and "yes men" who want nothing more than the taste of power. If you don't believe me, walk into any random campaign office and look for the people between the ages of 18 and 30. You'll be disgusted.
I am not writing this as if I have the solution. I really don't know what it is, but we as a generation need to be thinking about it and figuring things out. I'm not sure the country can survive many more Baby Boomer-controlled Congresses or White Houses. But it isn't just with respect to politics that I am writing this post. I think it applies to many facets of society. We need leaders to rise up from GenX&Y in business, the Church, and education as well, and we seem to be devoid of such leaders. The reason is that leadership comes at a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it. The few who are rarely do so for the right reasons, and so they don't make good leaders.
We don't have a lot of time. We need to start a dialog. Join the dialog. Comment on this blog. Write your own thoughts somewhere: your myspace blog, a facebook note. Start thinking. Start talking. And let's all start doing, so we have an affirmative answer to the question "What have we done today?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
