A Victory for Heterodoxy in Kentucky

Image courtesy of dailypaul.comRand Paul, son of Texas Congressman, Ron Paul, is the very probable winner of the Kentucky Republican Primary Senate election, and liberals should be thrilled.  Of course, the Media has latched onto this thing and milked it for all the ratings its worth.  The imposed narrative structure is that Paul has been elevated by the "Tea Partiers" (or "Tea Baggers", depending on which party the reader hacks for.), and of course Paul has run with it:

I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: we've come to take our government back.  We've come to take the government back from the special interests who think that our government is their own personal ATM..

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Grownups Appreciate Dad; Only Kids Believe in Santa

Image by Kevin DooleyVia Yglesias, a fantastic article on supply side economics by Kevin Williamson in the National Review.  His basic point: supply side economics as it is popularly understood never existed:

It is true that tax cuts can promote growth, and that the growth they promote can help generate tax revenue that offsets some of the losses from the cuts. When the Reagan tax cuts were being designed, the original supply-side crew thought that subsequent growth might offset 30 percent of the revenue losses. That’s on the high side of the current consensus, but it’s not preposterous. There is, however, a world of difference between tax cuts that only lose only 70 cents on the dollar and tax cuts that pay back 100 cents on the dollar and then some.

That a significant portion of the right believes tax cuts actually increase government revenues exemplifies magical realism in policy.  Supply-siders did not believe in "voodoo economics" and either naked opportunism or incompetence led politicians to misrepresent the possible gains from cutting taxes.  Either way, it has proven to be a boon to Republicans used to taking an unpalatable political stance on deficit reduction:

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Fantasia and the Narrative Fallacy

As a new parent, I introspect constantly about the impact various media will have on my ten-month-old daughter's neural and moral development.  I seem to find major problems with nearly everything we try watching together, whether it's a disappointment with the Euclidean oversimplifications and anthropomorphism of everything in Inai Inai Baa, or a skeptical wariness of preachy Sesame Street.  While I certainly don't think it's healthy to be obsessed with a particular, fictitious, red monster, I usually convince myself that my criticisms are slightly overbearing, and that, as important as the first year of neurodevelopment is, thirty seconds a week of three triangles and a rectangle suddenly becoming a penguin is not going to force my daughter into a compartmentalized world-view or stymie an appreciation of the profound, true complexity of the cosmos.

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Be Human: Don't Let the Politicians Win

Democrat Congressmen who voted for heath care reform have been getting death threats and the natural reaction has been to blame the heated rhetoric of the right in stoking up tea party outrage.  Let's start with the obvious: Congressmen who supported health care reform did it out of a genuine interest in bettering the country, even if you disagree with them threatening violence, or worse doing violence, is deplorable.  The debate got ugly, but all sides should immediately condemn the violence in the strongest terms possible.  That out of the way, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with The Corner.  Victor Davis Hanson:

This week’s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against health care.  I’m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class — right-wing radio talk-show hosts, Glenn Beck idiots, and crass tea-party yokels are foaming at the mouth and dangerous to progressives. In contrast, write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse.

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Conservatism Eats Itself

The point of view Texas just correctedThe Texas school board's new curriculum continues the tragic decline of modern American "conservatism" as a movement with intellectual heft and consistency of thought.  Conservatives once imagined that they stood athwart the breach that threatened to replace individualism, inherited values and freedom with the top-down collective conformity of the Soviet Union.  Now, the right indoctrinates the young before college to counter the propaganda of the liberal intelligentsia, brands anyone that opposes extra-legal torture as "soft on terror" and attempts to "bureaucracize" language by calling torture "enhanced interrogation" and capitalism "free-market enterprise."  It is a tragedy that conservatives would embrace propaganda and torture, reducing their legacy of strident opposition to Communism and its evils to froth of partisanship.  Communism was evil because of what it did, not why it did it, if we do evil then we are no better.  If only more people were temperamentally conservative - humble, careful and limited in their approach to politics- rather than ideologically conservative, which amounts to a shopping list of positions their team supports.

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Fake History in Texas

According to the New York Times, a group of ten socially conservative Texas Board of Education members have won a decisive victory for determining the content of the state's social studies and economics curricula for the next decade.  No historians or economists were consulted in making the changes, which will affect more than 6.5 million students over the next ten years

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Good Time Charlie: Dreaming of Crist

When the rumors that Charlie Crist may opt to run as an independent for the open Florida Senate seat, following the "Joe Lieberman Primary sore-loser" model, the reaction from political watchers was rapturous.  Nate Silver summed it up best: "If Crist were to win as an indie, he'd instantly become one of the most important politicians in America. But not an easy path."  I agree on both points, having a true independent from the center-right would be a refreshing change of pace in Congress, but it will be tough to pull off.  Crist is currently bleeding support against both Marco Rubio, his staunchly conservative Republican Primary opponent, and Kendrick Meeks, the likely Democratic candidate.  The man who was once the most popular governor in the country has lose his luster thanks to a concerted effort on the part of conservatives to punish him for his moderate policies and support for Obama's stimulus plan.  However, if Crist were to leave the Republican party by highlighting how his sensible progressivism was heir to the Teddy Roosevelt Republican tradition he could be a formidable foe in the general election; once a clear winner develops from either party, and in all likelihood Mr. Rubio looks like the heavy favorite, voters from the other side might flock to Crist as the lesser of two evils.  Given the state's history with disputed elections, I imagine Florida voters will be sensitive to the notion of "throwing their vote away."

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Hot Luntz

Political Consultant Frank Luntz is arguably the most influential man in the world.  His distinguished career as a director of focus groups for the Republican Party, frequent commentator on Fox News, consultant for conservative political parties in Australia and the United Kingdom, and author is tempered with the unapologetic dishonesty of his mission and that of his company, the Word Doctors.  The Word Doctors's work is, as Luntz himself describes it, "testing language and finding words that will help (our) clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate."  In other words, Luntz is an unabashed propagandist in the grand tradition of Big Brother and Napoleon the Pig.

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Book Review: Bruce Bartlett - The New American Economy

Bruce Bartlett's conservative economic bona fides are apparent in his resume: he started as a member of Ron Paul and Jack Kemp's Congressional staff, then became Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee during the Reagan administration and later served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Economic Policy at the Treasury Department under H. W. Bush.  He literally wrote the book on supply-side economics, with Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action in 1981.  With such unimpeachable conservative economic credentials, Bartlett feels free to slaughter some of the right's sacred cows in his recent book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and the New Way Forward.  He rehabilitates John Maynard Keynes as a misunderstood conservative, calls for the victory celebration and subsequent retirement of supply-side economics and defends President Obama's stimulus plan as the only thing to do.

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Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special election is such a colossal upset that it will necessarily become a symbol for Republicans to rally around.  However, the fact that his election may likely derail health care reform does not mean that it was anything like a national referendum on that process.  While Democrats will no doubt be even more timid about passing health care reform, they should be more determined than ever to do it anyway.  

Both parties have internalized the lessons of 1994, but only the Republicans have crafted anything coherent from it.  Democrats running away from health care reform should remember that it didn't save the party in 1994 and it will surely doom them now.  The problem with health care reform isn't the bill, it's the process.

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The Democratic Electoral Apocolypse

After a triumphant 2006 and 2008 the Democrats had reason to believe that 2010 would continue the trend of Democratic gains in Congress.  Specifically, the 2004 Senators elected with President Bush's victory over John Kerry would be up for reelection and should have provided ripe opportunity for further Democratic gains.  In Nate Silver's January 2008 Senate Rankings, which list the possibility of a Senate seat changing parties, 10 out of the 13 seats most likely to change parties were Republican.  In his last Senate Rankings, 8 of the top 13, including 5 out of the top 6, are now vulnerable Democratic seats.  The worm has turned.  

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Lieberman's Rock Bottom?

On Sunday night, over 500 protestors gathered in front of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's Stamford home and held a candlelight vigil to convince the Senator to rescind his promise to join the Republican filibuster of any healthcare proposals including the "public option."  Among the protestors were leaders of Stamford's Unitarian, Baptist, Muslim, and Jewish faiths, as well as the enterprising Mayor of Stamford, Dan Malloy, who recently announced he is running for Governor.

According to David Gibson at Politics Daily:

Rabbi Ron Fish of Congregation Beth El in Norwalk said he normally avoids political discussions but said Lieberman's stand against health care reform left him no choice.

"I feel passionately about the subject of health care," he explained. "I've avoided entering too closely into the conversation because I fear that when we clergy speak in political terms, we quite often do a disservice to politics and religion. But when Senator Lieberman spoke about his conscience impelling him to stop even a vote on this . . . crucial instance of hope, my conscience could not allow me to be silent."

"The moral imperative for our time is clear. Anyone whose guide in public policy is conscience, anyone who argues that faith and religious traditions should direct our actions, such a person must stand for universal health care in America," Fish said, reading from a letter signed by more than 70 other clergy. "It happens we are all also citizens of Connecticut. That fact leads us to ask you, Senator Lieberman, what is it that you stand for?"

Indeed, what does Senator Lieberman stand for?

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Rejoinders to "Conservatism's Moment"

The Empire of Japan: protecting Asia from ImperialismThere have been several suggestions for changing the contents of my article, "Conservatism's Moment", posted Monday morning.  The best of these are that (1) social conservatives feel the Republican Party has failed to effectively represent them and are primed to leave; (2) it would be better for American politics and make more sense for libertarian conservatives to form a third party; (3) social conservatives and neoconservatives also share a strong commitment to Israel; and (4) the neoconservative international agenda greatly resembles the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".  I will address these concerns briefly here. 

The first point, that social conservatives are loyal to the Republican Party only because the Democrats suddenly didn't represent them is true at a national level, however, I think the problem of potential social conservative disaffection could be solved with more federalism.  Were the Republicans to make that a core element of their party platform going forward, I think it would please socially conservative leadership.  Federalism is a fundamental tenet of libertarian conservatives.  So, an alliance with libertarians would give social conservatives the power to actualize their platforms at the state level.   

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Mid-Midterm Elections

Blowing a Kiss To HoffmanLast night there was a hodgepodge of elections.  None had national significance, but many are symbolically important.  Unfortunately in the maelstrom of hype known as 24 hour cable news, that means that everyone pretends that the Democratic losses in the governor races for Virginia and New Jersey means that Obama has problems nationally or that conservatives have been dealt a serious setback because Doug Hoffman wasn't elected to a one year stint in the House of Representatives.  The real lesson, as always, is that politics are local, whether in New Jersey where John Corzine had a reputation for mismanagement and corruption that sunk him even though 57% of voters approved of Obama or in NY-23 where Bill Owens won a seat held by Republicans since the 19th century after national conservatives, like Sarah Palin, rallied support to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman

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Steele Reserve

Chuck D, thinking what we're all thinking.

Michael Steele has a new blog on the GOP website called “What Up?” through which, I would have to assume, he is going to reach out to young and hip voters and convince them that he, like Barack Obama, is cool.  Michael Steele is not cool.  In fact, Michael Steele objectively uncool.  His attempts to act cool, and talk as though he has any idea of what matters to the people he is trying to reach, are ludicrously over-the-top and transparent.  Here is his solution to the problem of attracting young voters:

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