Clinton and Class

by Reihan

Does Hillary Clinton have some deep, profound bond with waitress moms and other working-class demographics? Given Clinton’s background and cultural proclivities, there is no reason this should be so. And sure enough, her advantage among these groups is eroding fast. Nick Beaudrot explains why.

It’s always like this. In Democratic primaries, the anti-establishment candidate always has a political coalition that starts from the top of the income & education ladder, then works its way down. Always. Gene McCarthy in ’68, Mo Udall and Jerry Brown in ’76, Ted Kennedy in ’80, Gary Hart in ’84, Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown in ’92, Bill Bradley in ’00, and Howard Dean in ’04, all tended to fare better among more affluent, more schooled voters than with downscale voters. The more an insurgent is able to expand his coalition to include voters in the bottom two quintiles of the income scale, the more successful he or she is. It’s the nature of the beast, for any number of reasons. Labor unions are less likely to rock the boat. Working-class voters have better things to do with their time than watch CNN or read three newspapers and a magazine every day. It seems that white voters are less likely to support the establishment, and this disparity manifests itself in the income/education distribution as well.

Right now, interestingly, we’re seeing the rumblings of a mild anti-Obama backlash among elite types (this is entirely anecdotal, by the way), but there’s probably not enough time for it to trickle into the mainstream. It’s all in the timing.

Chaos Hawks Revisited

by Reihan

Last year Kevin Drum wrote a smart post about “Chaos Hawks.” I found the post particularly interested because I suppose I’ve become a “Chaos Hawk.”

As long as the Chaos Hawks are able to panic the public into believing that withdrawal will result in a Middle East in flames and ten dollar gasoline at home, no Congress will have the backbone to defund the war and force a pullout. This means that it’s time for more sensible regional professionals to screw up their courage and tell the truth: pulling out won’t be pretty, but if it’s done prudently neither will it be Armageddon. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can leave Iraq.

Why was Drum so confident that there would be no regional conflagration?

Israel has fought war after war in the Middle East. Result: no regional conflagration. Iran and Iraq fought one of the bloodiest wars of the second half the 20th century. Result: no regional conflagration. The Soviets fought in Afghanistan and then withdrew. No regional conflagration. The U.S. fought the Gulf War and then left. No regional conflagration. Algeria fought an internal civil war for a decade. No regional conflagration.

All this seems to depend on how one defines “regional conflagration,” of course. Jordan and Pakistan and Turkey might quibble with Drum’s characterization, and of course the anti-democratic turn in Algeria may have indirectly increased the reach and lethality of Islamist terrorists. Then, of course, there is the question of scale, and prospect of regional rallying effects and proxy fighting and the fact that Iraq is one of the big swing producers of oil. This doesn’t seem like a totally trivial fact. I realize that this immediately makes American motivations suspect, but consider how our allies in the region and around the world will really react, not rhetorically react, to an American decision to “cut our losses.” Of course, we shouldn’t let allies dictate our foreign policy. John Bolton agrees with you there. But it’s worth thinking through the practical implications.

This overfamiliar debate came to mind as I read Tom Engelhardt on the surge strategy.

As a start, the surge-followed-by-pause solution the Bush administration whipped up is a highly unstable, distinctly impermanent strategy. It was never meant to do much more than give Iraq enough of the look of quiescence that the President’s war could be declared a modest “success” and passed on to the next president. It relies on a tenuous balancing of unstable, largely hostile forces in Iraq — of Sunni former insurgents and the Shiite followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, among others. It is unlikely to last even until the November presidential election.

And it’s true that this is a vexing balancing act. Juan Cole observes that new tensions are arising between Sadrists and the Badr Brigade.

But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean a new round of violence, or that both factions will be forced to look to the U.S. as a guarantor of a tenuous peace? John Robb, a staunch critic of the war, recently observed that thanks to the Anbar Awakening, there is a strange sense in which

the US is now leading both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency in Iraq.

Which suggests that though the situation is certainly not great, it is not great in a way that requires a different framework. The anti-imperialists are right: we find ourselves in the role of an imperial umpire. If you have a strong ideological objection to, say, our “our garrisoning of the southern part of the Korean peninsula for well over half a century with no end yet in sight,” as Englehardt does (and as I do, for different reasons), well, indulging your strong ideological preference will have a very high cost. As long as casualties glide downward, there is good reason to believe that the United States will be in Iraq for decades, and that key Iraqi actors and other regional and global allies and, yes, powerful domestic commercial interests (i.e., the 299 million Americans who depend on auto-mobility) will want us there.

The Collapse Of Hillary

[Patrick Appel]

Crowley on Clinton:

Now, Hillary’s last hope may be that voters in Ohio and Texas will be in a contrarian mood. Perhaps, after hearing for the next week that it is now Barack Obama who is inevitable, and Hillary who is doomed, they will feel the same sympathy that New Hampshire did, and hand the Clintons one last reprieve. For old time’s sake.

It’s a longshot, to be sure. It’s also a great irony: The woman once mocked for her inevitability may only have the specter of defeat left to save her.

America’s Greatest Political Blogger?

by Reihan

It goes without saying that I think Andrew Sullivan is America’s Greatest Political Blogger, but I consider myself his loyal sidekick and stooge, so perhaps that doesn’t count. Who would come in second? I think a strong case can be made for Daniel Larison, a polymathic paleocon young fogey with a scintillating intellect and a scabrous wit. Larison is a great enthusiast for things unmodern and antimodern, he is a Byzantinist, and he is an enthusiastic believer in the virtues of the Old Confederacy. He doesn’t just want the United States out of Iraq — he’d like to see the United States splinter into a half-dozen or more pacifist agrarian republics. How’s that for anti-war? Suffice to say, I’m pretty sure he finds most of my interests, enthusiams, and allegiances more than a little insane. On top of that, I’m pretty sure he’d want my immigrant family to hightail it back to rural South Asia, where we could live a more authentic life of spinning khadi and worshipping Khali.

All this is to say that Daniel and I don’t always see eye to eye. For example, as I blog I am wearing a mammoth stovepipe hat modeled on that worn by Abraham Lincoln. But yes, anyway, I like to think I recognize a true talent when I see it, and Daniel is it. Recently Daniel moved his blog, Eunomia, over to the website of The American Conservative. I urge you to check it out, particularly if you think his ideological commitments sound absolutely insane. Just think: this guy studies the Byzantine empire for a living and he knows politics better than just about any professional journo. Antimodernist though he may be, Daniel reminds me of the many virtues of the Internet age.

I’d also recommend, in an entirely different vein, that you read Will Wilkinson, the yin to Larison’s yang and a person I’m convinced will become one of our most important public intellectuals. This used to be a minority view, but it seems the cat is out of the bag. My sense is that these two guys can’t stand each other on a visceral level, in no small part because each sees the other as the embodiment of much that is wrong with the world. I love them both, which is a testament to my utter incoherence.

Let me also abuse my privileges here by urging Brad Plumer to blog more. I am willing to raise money for a significant bounty of some kind if that’s what it takes.

Clinton and Obama: Together Again

by Reihan

Many Democrats are worried that the ferocious primary fight between the Clinton and Obama camps will weaken the party’s chances of recapturing the White House. There is a simple solution, one that will clear the air and unite the party. Hillary Clinton must challenge Barack Obama to a duel. Andrew Jackson, in some sense the founder of the modern, populist, egalitarian Democratic Party, was a great lover of dueling, as one of our nation’s finest magazines (yes, I’m talking about Cracked) notes:

On one occasion, he challenged a man named Charles Dickinson to a duel, (the reason behind it wasn’t important, not to us and certainly not to Jackson), and Jackson was even kind enough to give Dickinson the first shot. We’re gonna go ahead and repeat that: In a duel with pistols, Jackson politely volunteers to be shot at first. Dickinson happily obliged and shot Jackson, who proceeded to shake it off like it was a bee sting. When Jackson returned the favor, Dickinson was not so lucky, and that’s why his face isn’t on the twenty. The bullet, by the by, remained in Jackson’s body for 19 years because, we assume, Jackson knew that time spent removing the bullets would just fall under the general category of “time not dueling,” Jackson’s least favorite category.

Dueling might sound senseless to you, but as Graeme argues in his review of Randall Collins’s Violence,

And, most interesting of all, he urges us to consider reviving the practice of dueling — which was, during its heyday, a way to reduce and contain violence, not a way to encourage it. One hopes to see trial runs of this practice after the next close tenure decision in Mr. Collins’s sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rather than engage in underhanded tactics and scurrilous accusations, wouldn’t it be better if the Clintons simply tried to face off against Barack Obama under the gentlemanly rules established by our forefathers?

Paging Mark Penn

by Reihan

Ben Dueholm channels Mark Penn:

To: Interested Parties
From: Mark Penn
Re: Obama’s 75% Ceiling

While we heartily congratulate Senator Obama’s campaign on their Wisconsin victory, the final results must be less than heartening to the Obama campaign.

1) Obama has a ceiling of 75% of Democratic primary support. Barack Obama has consistently won primaries and caucuses with only 75% or less of the vote. In addition to effectively disenfranchising the at least 25% of the Democratic electorate that is not voting for him, the Obama camp cannot be happy that their candidate hasn’t reached 90% of the vote in any contest since the U.S. Virgin Islands on February 9.

2) Obama fails to win key demographics. Once again, Obama has not broken into the key demographic of voters who have been on a casino junket in the last thirty days. He also failed to win voters who had never heard of him, Wiccans, members of more than one bowling league, mourning dove hunters, white voters with "strongly negative" views of African Americans, and Vatican II-rejecting Catholics. These groups will only become more significant as the primary campaign shifts to Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

It gets better. All I know is that I wouldn’t get on the bad side of a bunch of Wiccans. Last time I did that I woke up with hind legs and a beard like a billy goat.

Taxi Cab Confessions

[Peter Suderman]

After serving time in solitary, er, Northern Virginia (which, okay, is actually pretty nice) I’m finally moving into the District this weekend. Naturally, I’ve been following the cab-fare changes and the ensuing controversy (D.C. cab drivers are currently striking during business hours one day a week) with much interest.  Over at my old haunt, OpenMarket, Eli Lehrer, Michelle Minton, and John Berlau have been debating how free-market advocates ought to think about city taxi commissions. Lehrer says that "taxi cabs as we know them exist by virtue of government regulation," but at least in theory, I have to side with Minton on this one when she writes:

Taxicab companies are funded by private capital and owned and operated by private businessmen. It is their livelihood at stake if their business fails.

The common argument for commissions that set fare prices for all the cabs in a city is that you can’t really have a competitive market; someone hailing a cab on a street doesn’t have the same options and price information as someone picking between orange juice brands in the grocery store. But as Berlau points out, cab branding—such as in the case of New York’s yellow cabs—helps solve many of the problems of customer captivity.

All this is purely theoretical, of course, and the only place in the U.S. we’re likely to see cities without taxi commissions anytime soon is in fan-fic sequels to Snow Crash. From a purely pragmatic perspective, then, I have to say that I’m personally pretty thrilled with Fenty’s recent rate cuts, as I suspect that, in the areas I frequent, I’ll rarely have a terribly tough time finding a ride.

Sweet Sweet Obama Cakes

by Reihan

It’s a small world after all.

On Monday, as expectations ran high here that Mr. Obama would sweep Tuesday’s primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Obama, population 32,000, was making plans to buttress its support. Businessmen were getting ready with “I love Obama” T-shirts, a theme song called “Obama Is a Wonderful World” and sweet bean cakes with Mr. Obama’s face on them. City Hall was going to send a daruma doll with “victory” written across its chest, a traditional good-luck charm in Japanese elections.

“We formed our group on Feb. 4,” said Seiji Fujiwara, the leader of the support group and an official at the Sekumiya Hotel here, not far from Obama Park and across the street from the Obama Shoes Center, where a 50 percent sale was under way.

“He put up a good fight on Super Tuesday and then won seven consecutive contests, so I think our support did him no harm and, in fact, carried him in the right direction,” Mr. Fujiwara said.

Meanwhile, the town of Clinton, Japan is in the slough of despond. The town elders have accused Obama’s sweet bean cakes of being secretly Muslim, and of not being tough enough to take on Republican sweet bean cakes.