Or What Kind Of A Tree Would You Be?

In the second 2013 gubernatorial debate in New Jersey, Montclair (NJ) State University political scientist Brigid Harrison had an idea. She would ask Chris Christie, running for re-election, and Barbara Buono, his Democratic opponent, their preference: "Wawa or 7-11," two convenience stores prevalent in the state.  (You might remember Barbara Buono as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee ignored by President Obama, who preferred hanging out at the New Jersey shore with Chris Christie.)

John Dickerson has an idea similar to that of Brigid Harrison. Believe it or no, he would ask both Democrats and Republicans, upon their announcement for President, the following questions:

1. What’s the biggest crisis you’ve faced in your professional life and how did you handle it?
2. What's the biggest personal crisis you’ve faced and how did you handle it?
3. What’s your greatest political triumph?
4. What’s your greatest governing triumph?
5. What experience have you had that will serve you well as president?
6. What historical presidential moment tells us the most about your vision of the office?
7. Tell us a joke.

Perhaps if time permits, he would ask an eighth question- "boxers or briefs," though presumably not to Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina.  To avoid shortchanging them- and to harken back to Dan Quayle (cheap shot, below)-  Clinton and Fiorina could respond to: if you were a potato, what kind of potato would you be?










If there is even more time, another reporter could ask the Democratic candidates how high they would raise the minimum wage and the Repub candidates, whether they would leave it up to the states to determine the level (as vaunted moderate John Ellis Bush already has advocated).  She might ask each candidate whether he or she would raise the (currently $23,660 annually) income threshold to make more employees eligible for paid overtime and, if so, to what level (which the White House currently is contemplating).  Clearly, there is a wide range of inquiries which might be made about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Though probably uncomfortable for Mrs. Clinton, she and the others could be asked whether enactment of the Financial Services Modernization Act was in the best interest of the nation or contributed to the recent recession. (Of course it did but denial of reality by Republicans is frequently entertaining and usually enlightening.)  If Dickerson wanted to try to put the candidates on the spot but without asking an inane question, he would note the income distribution as it in the USA and what the average American thinks it should be (chart below from The Atlantic), followed by inquiring whether they believe Americans are misguided.

That's without even asking about Medicaid or the earned benefits of Medicare and Social Security. Or women's reproductive health. Or foreign policy. Or Congress' intent to run the U.S. Postal Service out of business. There are so many other things, though there might be no time left to hear their favorite joke.










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Of Two Johns


Sometimes a centrist writes something so remarkably naive that one is moved to ask:  was he writing while under the influence? did he write during a sort of dream sequence? did a Republican break into his home, put a gun to his head, and persuade him to write such gibberish?

And so Slate's John Dickerson has an idea how to end the budget showdown.   He writes

The House would pass a “clean” debt limit increase and clean continuing resolution to keep government funded, which is what the president wants. Then there would be a side agreement cooked up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Boehner that would include something that Republicans want. That agreement would name budget conferees to debate the big issues of spending, taxes, entitlements, and economic growth, and it would include some guarantee—probably in the form of a stick—to make sure the conferees did their work.

The pain would have to be more than just holding members’ paychecks because the stakes are higher now. Such pain mechanisms used to be considered a joke, but the no budget/no pay gimmick worked—the Senate did pass a budget after all. Sen. Rob Portman has a bill intended to end dysfunction in the budget process by steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget—a version of that scheme might be adapted to help members focus or face cuts to popular programs. Perhaps a version of that could be bolted on to this side agreement. Or, the debt limit increase could be of short duration to help focus the discussions.

You know he wrote that- I couldn't have made it up. This is worse than even setting up another supercommittee, which Dickerson acknowledges it is tantamount to. If there is agreement for a steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget, no budget would trigger no funding.  Doubtless Republicans would have a field day with that, stalling and avoiding agreement on a budget, knowing that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is slow death to programs which aid the poor, the elderly, the jobless, the middle class. Or what they call "nirvana."

Dickerson wasn't done.  He recommends a "side-agreement" to include discussion of "Medicare-means testing and changing the inflation formula for cost of living adjustments in Medicare, often referred to as chained CPI." That way, presumably, we can cut benefits across the board for the elderly (through chained CPI) while eventually turning Medicare into a welfare program by means testing. In Dickerson's dream state, Republicans surely would want to maintain a program in which the affluent pay to help out the elderly who aren't as well-off.

Obviously, making such major concessions to the GOP would validate its strong-armed tactics.  The editors of the Detroit Free Press note Republicans are

shifting their hostage-taking to the nation’s credit, saying they won’t vote to pay for what America has borrowed until they get concessions on Social Security and Medicare.

The destructive pattern is a threat to stable governance.

Actually, let’s be clear about who’s behind the blackmail here. Right now, according to many sources there are enough Republican votes to end this nonsense. But the tea party faction of the GOP has cowed its leadership. House Speaker John Boehner now says there’s no way he’ll offer or support a “clean” bill to raise the debt limit, even though he offered one last spring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Boehner also says he doesn’t have the votes to get the government back open without some changes to health reform, despite what many others seem to say.

So here we are. A week into a shutdown that is yanking billions out of the economy and threatening people’s livelihoods. A week away from the nation defaulting on its debt payments, which could trigger another economic meltdown.

In a sense, the GOP is embracing the strategy of the Confederacy: The party is willing to sink the republic to preserve its own ideology. There’s no point to government at all if it’s not going to operate. And if America doesn’t pay its bills, then it’s not an economic superpower — it’s a deadbeat. But the tea party is willing to claim victory behind either one of those outcomes.

The president isn’t negotiating, and shouldn’t.

Much has been written exploring the motives of the Repub obstructionists.  On the surface, it is about repealing the Affordable Care Act.   But House Speaker John Boehner- who holds the key to averting the crisis- seems not to be obsessed with the ACA, and almost everyone recognizes that the President is not likely to tinker with reform which has come to bear his name. But while the aim may be dismantling Obamacare, the goal may be, as the Free Press inadvertently suggested, the disembowlement of government.

There is, in fact, "no point to government at all if it's not going to operate."    While faith in government erodes with each passing day due to GOP machinations, Republicans pray the raison d'etre of the pro-government party is dealt a blow.   Support for functions of government declines (as would result with means-testing of Medicare) and social programs would be cut.  Defense programs would remain sacrosanct while a big hole is torn in the social safety net.

That may be difficult for the likes of John Dickerson to understand.  After all, he maintains that without significant concessions, "Boehner may be helpless to move his members toward a deal."   Anyone who still believes the John Boehner is "helpless" and a captive of the "Tea Party" probably believes also the Speaker's party has only the interests of the nation at heart.



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Don't Ask About That


John Dickerson of Slate notes

Mitt Romney is coy about his running mate. He’ll only speak about the topic in the broadest terms. His staff won’t talk about it at all. To be fair, they don’t know much about the subject. It’s something very personal to Romney.

I am talking about his religion.

In a speech at the Bush Presidential Library in December, 2007 to address concerns among GOP voters about his religion, presidential candidate Romney remarked

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths. 

Similarly, when asked last year by CNN's Piers Morgan about homosexuality, Romney remarked "I'm not a spokesman for my church. And one thing I'm not going to do in running for president is become a spokesman for my church or apply a religious test that is simply forbidden by the constitution, I'm not going there. If you want to learn about my church, talk to my church."

When John F. Kennedy appeared before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in October, 1960, he asserted "Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject," he would base his views solely on what he believed to be in the best interests of the nation.

Romney sees things differently.   After he delivered a commencement address in May at Liberty University, the college founded by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, the New York Times reported he "made the case that he is bound theologically and politically to the same belief and value system as Christian conservatives, though he never explicitly mentioned his Mormon faith."     As can be seen in the transcript, Romney hit all the Christian sweet spots with references to:  the "purpose driven life," popularized by right-wing minister Rick Warren; "to God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever," drawing on Hebrews 13:8; "the grace of God,"; the modern Christian figures C.S. Lewis and Chuck Colson; and "heroic souls like (John Wesley), (William) Wilberforce, (Dietrich) Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham" (what, no Presbyterians?).

While the candidate does not address his religion or even his spiritual faith when he's questioned by a member of the media, he's not above sending a dog whistle to partisans, whether at a famous evangelical educational institution or telling supporters in Ohio “As I’m sure you do, I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired. I believe the same thing about the Declaration of Independence.”  

Barack Obama never has made the extraordinary suggestion that the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are divinely inspired, which puts those two doctrines peculiar to one nation on a par with the Bible.    Yet, his faith was addressed by the Gas and Oil Party and the mainstream media in the context of his pastor, a scary figure to many Americans.

But there are additional reasons journalists should not be so intimidated as to sidestep the religious belief of a presumptive presidential nominee, particularly one who suggests to supporters that it plays a role in approach to secular matters.    As Taylor Marsh observes

It would be great if no politician had to do the faith walk, but since no atheist is allowed near a national ticket it’s pretty clear that there is a litmus test for candidates, so knowing something about what informs them matters.

Dickerson summarizes

But there’s more to Romney’s religion than the theological side. As Joanna Brooks, who writes frequently on Mormonism, argues so persuasively, “It is important for readers to know that Romney developed his leadership style in a non-democratic, patriarchal, hierarchical church culture where he rarely encountered open challenge.” Romney has been a leader in several different arenas: in government, in business, in helping organize the Olympic Games, and in his church. The campaign asks us to examine and approve of three of those four areas—and then walls off discussion of Romney’s religious leadership.

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Serious, Unserious, Or Whatever


John Dickerson isn't serious.

However, such criticism wouldn't be taken as an insult by the columnist for Slate, who on March 18 wrote

Washington is obsessed with measuring seriousness. President Obama's televised discussion of his NCAA bracket proved he isn't a serious leader. House conservatives said GOP leaders weren't serious enough about cutting the deficit. Senate Republicans leveled that charge against their Democratic counterparts.

This call for seriousness is often itself not a serious charge. What most of the criticisms actually mean is "My opponent doesn't believe something I'd like him to."

So true, so true, and in support of his thesis, Dickerson invokes unnamed campaign managers for Repub presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Haley Barbour, each of whom has told him that his/her candidate embodies the seriousness the American people are looking for.

But then Dickerson derails, speaking in far more positive terms of the man designated by the media as The Most Serious Man In Washington:

That's the test that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan uses. He worries that the focus of Tea Party activists and many House freshmen on immediate spending reductions obscures that test. "They literally think you can just balance" the budget by cutting "waste, fraud and abuse, foreign, aid and NPR," he said in an interview last week with the Associated Press. "And it doesn't work like that."

Ryan is about to take a huge gamble on seriousness.

Ryan, you see, doesn't claim seriousness; he takes a gamble on it, walking the walk rather than talking the talk.

Except he doesn't. Paul Krugman last August unmasked Ryan's fraudulent Roadmap for America's Future, finding

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.

And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Finally, let’s talk about those spending cuts. In its first decade, most of the alleged savings in the Ryan plan come from assuming zero dollar growth in domestic discretionary spending, which includes everything from energy policy to education to the court system. This would amount to a 25 percent cut once you adjust for inflation and population growth. How would such a severe cut be achieved? What specific programs would be slashed? Mr. Ryan doesn’t say.

After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.

And we already know, from experience with the Medicare Advantage program, that a voucher system would have higher, not lower, costs than our current system. The only way the Ryan plan could save money would be by making those vouchers too small to pay for adequate coverage. Wealthy older Americans would be able to supplement their vouchers, and get the care they need; everyone else would be out in the cold.

Today, Krugman writes that The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Comeback America Initiative and the Concord Coalition (leading advocates of Seriousness) last Wednesday gave to Ryan its "FI$CY" because (or perhaps) because his

contribution to reducing the deficit is that he, well, talks a lot about the need to reduce the deficit; never mind that his actual proposals are a mixture of magic asterisks and concrete actions that would actually make the deficit bigger.

Dickerson's motive, though, is not to elevate Ryan to the level of Seriousness without burdening him with the label. He contends

When a candidate has no easy way to overcome an obstacle to his campaign, he will seek to diminish it by pointing to something else. This is a time-honored technique, though its most notable recent use has been by Democratic presidential candidates in 2000 and 2004. Both Al Gore's and John Kerry's campaigns argued that Americans would overlook their shortcomings because they wanted a "serious" candidate.

Taking pot shots at Al Gore apparently has not completely ceased. It has been a popular media parlor game the past dozen years as Bob Somerby (who, helpfully, periodically returns to this subject) summarized for us on 12/3/02:

Many familiar spin-points in Campaign 2000 came straight from the RNC. The points were then bruited all over the press. This conduct is especially strange, of course, when the spin-points are totally bogus.

The fancy hotel? It came to you came straight from the RNC. To revisit the press corps’ gong-show performance, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/8/02 and 8/9/02.

Gore really brought us Willie Horton? Utterly, grindingly, howlingly false—and brought to you straight from the RNC. The point was recited all over the press. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/1/02 and 11/4/02.

First Love Story, now Love Canal? Bonus points for a Lou Dobbs moment!! Ceci Connolly seems to have cut-and-pasted this bit of spin straight from an RNC press release. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/2/02.

And how about that “farm chores” hoax? That began at the RNC, too. Gore was trashed as a liar for months—although the Washington press corps was full of reporters who knew that his statement was perfectly accurate. For some strange reason, nobody spoke. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/29/99, 6/30/99, and 8/30/99. By the way, the RNC even faxed out a doctored quote in order to sell its “farm chores” twaddle. No one in the press corps tattled. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/26/00.

Slamming the guy who presciently supported Gulf War I, opposed Gulf War II, and warned us about environmental degradation before it was fashionable, while it was fashionable, and since it has gone out of fashion, is fair game, though unjustified. It is curious, though, Dickerson follows his criticism of the prior two Democratic presidential nominees by concluding, far more generously,

This theory also requires that people see President Obama as unserious. Cool, detached, and cerebral, maybe. But one ill-timed televised discussion of his NCAA bracket isn't likely to make voters take seriously the idea that he's not, well, serious.

Barack Obama is thoughtful, cerebral, and serious. But Dickerson's defense of Obama in light of his knock on Gore (and Kerry) bears a similarity to the treatment of one of those Democrats by Chris Matthews, of whom Somerby recently noted

For two solid years, when Welch was the boss, he was savage and profoundly dishonest in his attacks against Candidate Gore.

As you may recall, Candidate Gore (“a man-like object”) didn’t “have his gender straight.” Matthews was endlessly troubled by “this protean new person, this new man-woman, whatever the hell he’s trying to become.” The most remarkable insults rained down for two years, and then well beyond. (Weeks after 9/11: “He doesn’t look like one of us,” Matthews told Don Imus. “He doesn’t seem very American, even.”)

Now Matthews is, fortuitously, himself far more generous toward a fellow who, some say, "doesn't look like one of us" and whom many Republicans believe "doesn't seem very American, even." Somerby notes "today, of course, Matthews hates all that talk about people who don’t seem very American—as he always should have."

Perhaps for John Dickerson, too, it all comes down to being, and having, "cool." Paul Ryan, in his own wonkish (albeit superficial) way, may have it, as does Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the last two Democratic presidential nominees weren't, and didn't, and for Dickerson and some of his colleagues, that has made all the difference.

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In Case You Didn't Have Enough, More Election Analysis

There is only one thing certain about analysis of election results. Most will be wrong.

This post may be no different. Still, it’s fun, and easy, to criticize a post-mortem from an accomplished journalist which provides a two-fer: two major ideas- and both wrong, if not in letter, then in spirit.

In John Dickerson’s “What a Difference a Year Makes” posted on slate.com on November 4, the author states his themes in the opening sentence of two paragraphs in the middle of the article.

While undeniably technically true that “the evening was not a referendum on Obama,” such an assertion is misleading. There will never be a “referendum on Obama” other than his election on November 4, 2008 and (barring impeachment and conviction, a decision not to run for reelection, or that which is too horrible to contemplate) his reelection bid to be held on November 6, 2008. Short of that, however, this election was at least closer to a referendum on Obama than perceived by someone who could write (was it with a straight face?) “by clear majorities, voters in New Jersey and Virginia said they weren’t basing their decisions on the president. The 60% who said so in New Jersey….”

That leaves 40%, an awfully significant slice of the electorate. Many voters doubtless believe that admitting their vote was based on an estimation of someone not on the ballot would mark themselves as unsophisticated or petty. There is a reason voters frequently boast “I don’t vote for the party; I vote for the candidate.” Though it may indicate otherwise, it appears to identify that individual as someone contemplative who decides on the basis of issues. For upwards of 40 of the electorate to concede that their vote was not based on a thoughtful consideration of issues suggests that President Obama was a major, not minor, factor.

A red flag needs to come up when anyone says “Here’s more bad news for (insert name of candidate and party) in (insert next election year). “ Dickerson does not disappoint, remarking “Here’s more bad news for Obama and Democrats in 2010.” Perhaps it would be bad news for Obama and Democrats in 2010- if (in alphabetical order) it were not for abortion, Afghanistan, crime, energy policy, gas prices, gay rights, health care, immigration, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine/Israel, the stock market. And that list omits the economy, generally something of a consideration when voters go to the polls. And, yes, the quality and likeability of the particular candidates.

Dickerson points out that despite visits to their state by the President, the party’s gubernatorial nominees in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania lost amid turnout of Democrats that “wasn’t very good." He contends “the president can explain that he has more influence over issues in the national conversation that will be part of the 2010 races- and that he wasn’t on the ballot anywhere in 2009.” He believes Tuesday’s results will make members of Congress, oradinarily “a nervous bunch…. more so.” They would be right, but not for any reason Dickerson observes: while Obama is a spectacular draw and good fundraiser, there is limited evidence that he has long coattails.

In his original (prior to the 11/4/09 update), Dickerson refers to a program which aired Monday night on HBO, in which

the images of Obama's promises of change seemed disconnected from the familiar small politics of this year's election cycle—and the big one to come next year. The change hasn't come. Perhaps the more helpful message was playing just a few channels away on PBS. On Nova, a program traced the story of the evolution of man more than 3.2 million years ago. The message: Change takes time.

But perceptions play a critical role in voting. And many voters, disinclined to give Obama and company ten months to make change, are going to be even even more incensed if change does not come in the twenty-two months from January, 2009 to November, 2008. After all, while evolution does take time, creationism, an article of faith with a healthy chunk of the electorate, takes far less.