Month: November 2010

Bartlett argues a sole focus on unemployment in the president's first two years could have won a bigger or a second stimulus. It's a little too Captain Hindsight for my taste – and I don't think it would have made much of a difference to the results last Tuesday, whereas access to health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions will make a lot of difference to people's, you know, lives for the indefinite future. This tactical point, however, is well-taken and seems to have been internalized by the president:

The political problem is that by offering his tax credit up front, rather than negotiating with Republicans on inclusion of a tax cut in the stimulus package, he lost an opportunity to possibly buy their support. One idea Republicans were keen on, that Democrats might have supported, was a temporary cut or suspension of the payroll tax, which could have been more effective in stimulating employment than the tax credit. In the event that Republicans refused to negotiate, the money consumed by the tax cut could have been reprogrammed into more economically effective public works.

Ouch:

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average.

The core reason, as Joyner explains:

Rasmussen’s sample is biased because they’re polling on the cheap — using robocalls, which by law can’t dial cell phones, and otherwise cutting corners — rather than because of some agenda to propagandize for the GOP.   The end result, however, is the same: Polls that can’t be trusted.

Wanchai, Hong Kong, 4.25 pm

Ta-Nehisi dares to suggest that Americans are to blame for many of their own problems:

I think I'm deeply uncomfortable with any sort of populism. No matter the target–bankers or the poor–it seems to require its leaders to say, "There's nothing wrong with you America." 

In saying that I don't mean to ignore the difference in power, but to contest the notion of powerlessness as some sort of moral cleaning agent, and finally to contest the notion of powerlessness itself. There must be some way to acknowledge, all at once, the outer crookedness of deceptive lending, and then the inner crookedness of trying to get something for nothing… the notion that Americans are pure, and what's really wrong with this country, has everything to do with aliens–the media, the Muslim, the poor, the illegal, the rich, the elites–but nothing to do with the natives strikes me as comfort food.

 Comfort food, super-sized.

Larison argues that Gary Johnson doesn't have a real shot at the nomination:

…all of the reasons why I would want to support him (e.g., his views on civil liberties, foreign policy, the drug war, etc.) are the reasons why he would be persona non grata for much of the GOP.

Still, his run could do some good:

Like Ron Paul’s run in 2008, a Johnson campaign would be refreshingly oriented toward ideas and policy, and it would show many of the leading candidates to be hypocrites and frauds when it comes to protecting constitutional liberties, balancing budgets, and reducing spending. More than that, it would offer libertarians and traditional conservatives a decent alternative, and it might force some healthy and much-needed debates on the security/warfare state, foreign policy, and the drug war.

Noonan calls Palin a "nincompoop" in the Wall Street Journal in defense of Reagan:

Electable means mature, accomplished, stable—and able to persuade.

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide.All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of policical celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I'll voice their consternation to make a larger point.

Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.

The point is not "He was a great man and you are a nincompoop," though that is true. The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him.

Doesn't the guy want to keep his Fox News gig?

(Headline via McLaughin Group watcher in-joke, c. 1995.)

Another superb effort by Planet Money.