Atlantic Monthly Death Spiral Watch (Clive Crook Edition)
Can anybody tell me why Clive Crook would find anything written by right-wing hack Michael Barone even "somewhat" persuasive, let alone this?...
Clive Crook: The economy and the campaigns: When I read this piece of a few days ago by Michael Barone, arguing that "the old rule that economic distress moves voters toward Democrats doesn't seem to be operating," I found it somewhat persuasive. He argued that blame for the crisis cannot easily be pinned on Republicans alone, and that voters may fear that taxes will rise faster under Obama than they would under McCain (regardless of the fact that Obama is promising more tax relief for most Americans than McCain), which in turn would be more bad news for the economy...
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
And from Josh Micah Marshall:
Talking Points Memo | They've Still Got the Sludge: As every day brings new instances of McCain-Palin crowds denouncing the Democratic nominee as a "terrorist" or "traitor" and in some cases even calling for his blood, Michael Barone bemoans the "Coming Obama Thugocracy." If the American right has lost its electoral edge and standing with the public at large, it has not lost its telltale imperviousness to irony. In many ways it seems Barone is settling in to be one of the spokesman of the high-brow version of the revanchist paranoid right we're seeing on display in many of those McCain rallies.
More words of wisdom from Michael "I Am So Embarrassing They Took My Name Off the Shorenstein Center" Barone:
John McCain Had the Advantage Several Times This Election, and Fate Took It Away: [T]hree developments changed the shape of the race, to the benefit of Republicans. First, John McCain clinched the Republican nomination early.... Second, the success of the surge strategy in Iraq managed to penetrate through a media blackout to the voting public.... Third, $4-a-gallon gasoline converted voters from opposing offshore oil drilling to supporting it. McCain nimbly switched.... The credit crisis in the last two weeks of September raised an issue that has, so far at least, helped Obama.... McCain's "suspension" of his campaign and return to Washington [did not] help him. Democrats said he broke up a deal, though none had been made...
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis says that a deal was made, and that McCain blocked it.
McCain and Palin Have an Opportunity in the Frozen North: Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Washington seem to be in play now.... Net advantage to McCain: 40 electoral votes.... The obvious explanation, and not just for Alaska, is Sarah Palin. My working hypothesis is that Palin has boosted McCain in rural/small town areas of the Frozen North up toward the levels of support that George W. Bush won there.... The Frozen North, as I've defined it, is also largely coincident with Germano-Scandinavian America, the northwestern quadrant of the nation heavily settled by German and Scandinavian immigrants in the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, about which I've written before.... Before the two conventions this year, John McCain was running far behind George W. Bush's levels in the Frozen North.... Palin's rural/small town background, her hockey mom status, even her Fargo-like accent make her a figure rural/small town voters in the Frozen North can identify with. McCain's selection of her made him seem more their kind of American. The numbers seem pretty clear on this...
No comment necessary.
Obama's Acceptance Speech Hit Some High Notes, but His Themes Won't Hold Up: First, a trivial point. The temple stage set at Invesco Field was obviously a knockoff of the Pergamon Altar in the quite wonderful Pergamon Museum in Berlin, put together by Middle East history academicians (when Germany had the best of them) in the early 20th century. Did Barack Obama have time in his visit to Berlin (when he didn't have time to fly to see the wounded American soldiers in Ramstein) to visit the Pergamon Museum? Just asking.... [T]he major themes of Obama's speech... may not be sustainable. McCain = Bush: There are too many instances... to the contrary. Economic distress: But would raising taxes on high earners and raising protectionist walls alleviate it? Obama's campaign tried to insert more "granular" descriptions of what an Obama government (and Democratic Congress) would do. But are they credible? And finally, Obama's attempt to rule out of bounds any suggestions that he is not "patriotic." Why should we ignore his 20-year association with his preacher (and inspiration for the title of his 2005 book), who proclaims, "God damn America!"? Why should we ignore his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground bomber terrorist William Ayers?...
No comment necessary.
Are Democrats Destined to Lose After an Eight-Year Republican Presidency? - Michael Barone (usnews.com): The rule that a party has a hard time winning a third presidential term is one of those political science rules that seem less ironclad after close inspection. Hubert Humphrey nearly won the popular vote in 1968 despite the debacle of the Democratic Party that year (although, noting the Democrats' decline from 61 percent in 1964 to 43 percent in 1968, Humphrey's intraparty opponent Eugene McCarthy said he would take credit for the last drop of 1 percent if Humphrey and Johnson had taken credit for the other 17 percent). Gerald Ford would have been elected (without winning the popular vote) if he had gotten about 12,000 more votes in Ohio in 1976. Al Gore did win the popular vote nationally in 2000, even if you believe as I do that Florida did indeed vote for George W. Bush; 1,000 or so votes the other way there, and Gore would have been president...
Since 1945: Losers after two (or more) terms: Gore 2000, Bush 1992, Ford 1976, Humphrey 1968, Nixon 1960, Stevenson 1952. Winners after two (or more) terms: Bush 1988, Truman 1948. That's six to two. This is one of those political science rules-of-thumb that seems not less but more convincing after close inspection.
In Defense of Lobbyists - Michael Barone (usnews.com): Lobbying is as American as apple pie, going back to colonial times. The Rev. Increase Mather lobbied in London for a new charter for Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin was the colonial agent—lobbyist—for Pennsylvania and other colonies.... [W]hen Congress writes laws and the executive branch writes regulations that channel vast flows of money—and laws and regulations that have vast moral implications—citizens affected by those words are going to try to make sure they're written the way they want. They're going to hire the best people they can find to... help lawmakers understand how the words they write will affect "real Americans."... Yes, K Street is not perfect. Old, entrenched interests tend to be well represented. New and growing industries and morally motivated constituencies that are unorganized tend to be underrepresented.... Not much of this will change in a McCain or Obama administration. The campaigns are embarrassing themselves now by stigmatizing lobbyists...
I will only observe that Increase Mather and Benjamin Franklin are better characterized as ambassadors from representative bodies than as "lobbyists."
Palin Will Be Welcomed by Social and Economic Conservatives: John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. This obviously undercuts his theme of experience, just as Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden undercut, at least marginally, his theme of change. Palin is just in her second year as governor.... Foreign policy experience? Well, Alaska is the only state with a border with Russia. And it is the only state with territory, in the Aleutian Islands, occupied by the enemy in World War II. On the other hand, my recollection is that Geraldine Ferraro, who had far less experience especially in foreign policy than George H. W. Bush, held her own in the 1984 vice presidential debate...
A comment by Michael Barone:
Strickland Is Not Qualified to Be Obama’s Vice President, and He Knows It: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland... has simply not had the experience needed to be president or to be one heartbeat away from being president.
The Economy Isn’t as Bad as We Think: Things are a lot better in America than most Americans think. Or so argues Gregg Easterbrook in today's Wall Street Journal. I've written along similar lines myself. By any historic standards, the American economy is in pretty good shape and living standards are at an all-time high. So how to explain the sour mood? Over the last quarter-century, we've had low-inflation economic growth more than 90 percent of the time. That period covers the entire adult lifetime of the median-age voter. We've gotten so used to good times that we've forgotten what bad times are really like. The one thing I'd disagree with Easterbrook on is his comments, obligatory in some quarters, that the war in Iraq is going badly. He ought to take a look at Charles Krauthammer's column today. I suspect that Easterbrook, like many who have opposed the Iraq war, has simply not been taking in the good news that has been widely presented by now by mainstream media...
No printable comment possible.
Michael Barone: Now comes Belmont Club blogger Richard Fernandez with a Pajamas Media blog post suggesting, though not quite charging, that Obama's changes in position were prompted by concern for his longtime patron and friend Tony Rezko, who sought a contract to build a $150 million power plant in Iraqi Kurdistan with some help from a couple of Chicago-based Iraqi-Americans. It's a story that is, I think, worth the attention of investigative journalists...
No printable comment possible.
Michael Barone: [F]acts are undermining the Democratic narrative that has dominated our politics since about the time Hurricane Katrina rolled into the Gulf coast.... Anbar and Basra and Sadr City have been pacified, Prime Minister Maliki has led successful attempts to pacify Shiites as well as Sunnis, and the Iraqi parliament has passed almost all of the "benchmark" legislation.... I can remember how opponents of the Vietnam War simply tuned out news of American success when at Richard Nixon's orders Gen. Creighton Abrams pursued a new strategy.... [T]he rejection of the Republicans in the 2006 elections was a verdict on competence more than ideology.... But in the 19 months since November 2006, some important facts have changed...
No printable comment possible.
Housing, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and the Enduring Resilience of the U.S. Economy - Michael Barone (usnews.com): For guidance in my thinking, I have come to look to my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, whose latest long paper is titled, "For Financial Regulation, the Era of Big Government Really Is Over." Wallison notes that for all the financial roilings, the "real economy" keeps rolling along. "The picture this suggests is of a globalized economy that is far more flexible, diverse, nimble and robust than most observers would have imagined."... Wallison's third point is that "financial innovations are making private risk management more effective than government regulation." He points especially to credit default swaps that enable private parties to slough off risk onto other private parties. Trying to set up a regulatory mechanism to achieve the same goals, he argues, would be impossible and would almost certainly have unfortunate side effects.... If the smart and highly compensated people in financial institutions can't always [make good bets], despite the strongest incentives to try, why do we think that even the smartest government regulators... can do so?...
No printable comment possible.
