reflectivepundit

Paying More for Gasoline to Fuel Alternative Energy Exploration

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Today, for the first time in more than three years, the price for a barrel of crude oil fell below $50 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In many regions of the country the gasoline price dropped below $2 a gallon in more than 20 states—about half of the cost some four months ago. With unemployment rising and no end of recessionary conditions in sight, many Americans breathe a bit easier when they fill up their cars. Yet, the news about falling oil and gasoline prices is more bitter than sweet because of the direct relationship between the cost of old energy sources and the development of new ones. When old energy is cheap—or let’s say relatively cheap--interest and investment in alternative sources tend to drop regardless of the long-term consequences for a nation mostly dependent on foreign oil.

President-elect Obama has promised to change America’s energy policy that up to now was most of all for the benefit of the oil industry and others in the old energy sector. Even if the future president can convince congressional majorities to sign on to his ideas and funding requests, he must also enlist the private sector and the public at large to support an all-out effort toward new energy sources and energy independence.

Government alone cannot do the job. The private sector is the engine for developing various kinds of alternative energy sources and, in the process, firms and jobs that cannot be outsourced to companies and workers abroad. Unless the price of oil and of all old energy remains at high enough levels to add profitability into the calculus of alternative energy, entrepreneurs will not get involved and car companies and other corporations will not change their ways drastically.

Hillary Clinton: Best Pick for Secretary of State

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I have no idea whether President-elect Barack Obama will offer Senator Hillary Clinton the important secretary of state position. But I am convinced that Hillary would be an excellent choice and indeed the best choice among those mentioned for the post. After Obama and Clinton met on Thursday in Chicago, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, also in the run for the job, met with Obama on Friday. Perhaps John Kerry, another candidate, will be next to travel to Chicago. I agree with Gal Collins of the New York Times that Kerry’s personality is not well suited for the diplomat-in-chief position. Richardson would be a far better choice than Kerry because of his different persona and his diplomatic background (ambassador to the United Nations and negotiator who won the release of prisoners and hostage with North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Cuba).

However, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator Clinton is best qualified to be secretary of state from day one of the new administration in terms of the depth of her foreign policy knowledge, her extensive traveling abroad, and her positive image around the globe. President Obama’s victory on November 4th has been hailed in most parts of the world. With Hillary as secretary of state at his side, Mr. Obama’s campaign promise of CHANGE would gain more credibility abroad. Just imagine what a compelling message the image of an African-American U.S. president and a female U.S. secretary of state side by side at an international gathering would send to people here and abroad!

Moreover, by selecting Hillary, the incoming president would take an important step in the direction of those supporters of Senator Clinton who did not vote for him or did so reluctantly. This one important appointment would go a long way in reuniting Hillary’s most faithful fans with the Democratic Party under Obama’s leadership.

This Saturday morning, the Washington Post reports that Clinton, Richardson, and Kerry are top contenders for the attractive position. The fact that Senator Clinton has remained silent and not said that she is not interested seems to indicate that she wants the job. If the president-elect was not sure that she was his first choice before he invited her to Chicago, he should not have arranged a meeting that, as he must have known, would be reported. If he now decides in favor of Richardson or Kerry or someone else, it means snubbing Hillary in full public view. At this point, it would not be terribly credible, if Hillary were to declare that she is not and was not interested in becoming secretary of state.

New Medium and New Push to Narrow America's Ideal vs. Reality Gap?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Throughout American history, when the inevitable gap between the declared ideals and the reality established by political institutions was deemed unacceptably wide, movements emerged that fueled creedal passions in favor of narrowing the disparity. In his book American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, Samuel Huntington identified four what he called creedal passion periods that produced movements for change--the revolutionary era in the 18th century, the Jacksonian period in the early 19th century, the progressive period in the early 20th century, and the era of civil rights/anti-Vietnam protests in the1960s and 1970s. In all periods, one of the goals was, as Huntington put it, "the opening up of the processes of decision-making to public participation." 

It is particularly striking as Huntington recognized that each of the movements of those times was associated with the emergence of a new type of media. (1)The political pamphlet of the revolutionary period was central to the movement in favor of independence and a republican form of government; (2) the penny press—newspapers cheap enough for the masses—were instrumental in expanding democratic participation--albeit in the limits of the time; (3) the mass newspapers and news magazines with the advent of investigative reporting (muckraking according to Theodore Roosevelt) in the late 19th and early 20th period drove the progressive movement in its fight against corrupt political and business institutions and for participatory democracy; (4) the three national television networks shaped America's attitudes towards the struggle for African-Americans' civil rights and the Vietnam War and protests against.

I have wondered lately whether the new medium of our time, the Internet, would give birth to or facilitate a new popular quest for narrowing the once again widened gap between the promise of America and the performance of its institutions and the leading actors therein.

Mayor Bloomberg, Term Limits, and the Power of the Electorate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Michael Bloomberg wants to serve a third term as mayor of New York City. He even convinced term limit champion Ronald Lauder that the current financial crisis calls for a one time only waver of the two-term limit for the mayor—not for city council members and other elected officials.

There is no need for term limits in democracies--not in local, state, and national jurisdictions. If citizens are fed up with elected officials, as they are now with President Bush and members of Congress, they have the power to throw the rascals out when the next election comes around. If they are satisfied, and even happy, with the performances of the men and women they elected, citizens should have the right of reelecting them as many times as they want. 

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state-imposed congressional term limits in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton as unconstitutional and thereby invalidated the restrictions imposed in 23 states. The court ruled, “In the absence of a properly passed constitutional amendment, allowing individual States to craft their own qualifications for Congress would thus erode the structure envisioned by the Framers, a structure that was designed, in the words of the Preamble to our Constitution, to form a "more perfect Union." 

However, term limits are in place for more than a dozen state legislatures, more than half of the governors, several of the country’s largest cities, and many more other local jurisdictions. 

Yes, I know that the proponents of term limits do not agree with the argument that term limits are actually undemocratic. They like to point to ancient Greece and Rome where term limits for elected officials did exist. That was at a time when the problems of city states were far less complex and numerous than for today’s local, state, and national governments. Newly elected officials learn on the job. But while newcomers in executive and legislative offices learn the ropes, the permanent bureaucracy and long-lasting lobbyists have the upper hand in pushing their own agendas. Rotation in office does not make sense because it increases the power of unelected and permanent players. 

If Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to run for a third term, he should go for it—after a referendum that repeals term limits for all elected offices in the city.

Someone Should Tell Bush What "Appeasement" Really Means

by David Epstein

The discussions so far of the outrage caused by Bush's remarks in Israel center around the President's breaking the norm of not conducting domestic politics on foreign soil. What has received less attention so far is the fact that Bush is using words that he -- and his speechwriters -- apparently doesn't know the meaning of.

Read the statement in question again:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.

We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

The senator in question is William Borah (R-ID), and if you know what you're talking about, then the word you expect to hear describing his comment is "hubris," not "appeasement." To appease someone is to concede something to them in return for the expectation of future concessions; this was Chamberlain's mistake in the Munich accords. What Borah was suggesting was -- well, it's hard to know exactly what he was thinking of, but he certainly wasn't saying that we should have bought Hitler off in return for promises of good future behavior.

So what should we make of Bush's remarks? Do they mark a shift in US policy that we will no longer have talks with bad guys since this is nothing more than appeasement? Will we break off all communications with North Korea tomorrow? Will we disavow the negotiations with Libya that recently bought us success? Of course not -- no one expects Bush to make sense any more. And it's probably better that way; we're much better off for the next eight months having the rest of the world ignore all of Bush's comments regarding US international policy.

By the way, Bush's stupidity has a ripple effect on all the right-wing drone commentators -- they don't know what they're talking about either. One of them got called out, hilariously, by Chris Matthews here.

Clinton's Argument in a Nutshell

By David Epstein

With her big victory in West Virginia, Hillary has reminded the punditocracy of her considerable strength in certain sections of the country. Yes, West Virginia is overwhelmingly white and Protestant, but more important than that, it's also one of the states that Democrats lost narrowly in the last election.

And this, in a nutshell, is the crux of Hillary's argument to the superdelegates. Take away all the race-related aspects of the situation for a moment and just concentrate on a simple truth: to win in November, Democrats will have to do well among the states in play; the swing states, that is -- those states that were the most evenly divided in the past two elections.

To determine which candidate is best equipped to win in the swing states, I took the primary results to date, dropped Michigan, and compared Hillary's percent of the vote vs. Obama this year against the percent won by Kerry in 2004. As the graph below shows, there is a clear trend: Clinton is strongest in the swing states, and Obama is strongest both in states that Democrats won handily last time, and in those states that they lost heavily last time.

Clinton is especially strong in the big swing states. Look, for instance, at the states which were within 3 percentage points of being split 50-50 in 2004. Twelve of these states have had their primaries to date, and Clinton has won 8 of these to Obama's 4, representing 114 electoral college votes to Obama's 36.

This is not to gainsay Obama's obvious strengths as a candidate, or his proven ability to get support from voters of all races. But it is the superdelegates' job to pick the candidate most likely to win in November, and in a race that's a virtual dead heat in the popular vote -- after the West Virginia results Obama leads 50.3% to 49.7% -- there's a strong swing state argument in favor of Clinton's getting the nod.

Hillary v. O'Reilly: Round 1 to Hillary

by David Epstein

Just a quick post to state the blindingly obvious: Hillary did a fantastic job in part one of her much-anticipated interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox tonight. She was alternately jovial, tough, and serious, and breezed through a number of sticky questions like the pro she is.

One particular exchange caught a lot of what she did right: the part about tax rates. This is always a tough issue for Dems, since people hate to have their taxes go up. But O'Reilly led her into the issue by mentioning that taxes were going to go up for people like him and Bill Clinton, i.e., rich folks. That immediately took a lot of the pressure off Hillary, who admitted that top rates would go up from 33% to 36% and 39% on people making over $250,000.

Then when O'Reilly tried to make one of those absurd right-wing "in the good old days" kind of points about tax rates, Hillary nailed him, pointing out the rather clear-cut fact that upper tax rates used to be much higher when O'Reilly was a kid not lower. O'Reilly had to admit that they didn't pay a lot of taxes back then, *because they were much less wealthy*. Well, duh. Sometimes I think he must wake up at night thinking, "Did I really ask that question?"

So, part 1 was a smash hit. Let's wait to see how part 2, on foreign affairs and the war, goes tomorrow night.

A New Theorem: Negative Campaigning in Primaries

by David Epstein   

I have a new theorem about negative campaigning in primaries (which is to say it is mine (Money Python reference)). Take a primary campaign in which one candidate is more extremist relative to the national distribution of voters (e.g., Obama), and the other more moderate (e.g., Clinton). Then negative attacks by the more extremist candidate are less damaging to the party in the national election than negative attacks by the moderate.

Why? Because the attacks by the extremist (taking the Obama-Clinton example) are of the form "Your positions are too far right." So Obama says that Clinton is too hawkish on the war. This is an attack that makes sense in a Democratic primary, but it's certainly not one that McCain will repeat in the general election; if anything, it helps her in November.

But Hillary attacks Obama by saying that he's too dovish, not experienced enough for the tough foreign policy challenges that he would face as president (this is the real message of the 3AM telephone call ad). This is an attack that McCain would certainly repeat and that damages Obama as a general election candidate.

I note this asymmetry not to make value judgments, but just because it's interesting and I hadn't heard it mentioned before. It does clarify a few elements of the current situation, though. To start with, it helps remind us that in a way Obama has been running a negative campaign from the very beginning, saying that Clinton was wrong on Iraq and he was right. In fact, I see his entire policy strategy as copying Clinton on every other major issue, so that these are a draw, and winning on Iraq. (There's also the old politics vs. Yes We Can dimension, but let's not go there now.) Obama hasn't received much flack for these attacks, partly because they bolster Hillary's image as a hawk, which she will certainly want to project in the national election once she's the nominee.

On the other hand, Hillary has to walk a finer line when she attacks Obama, because she's making many of the same points that any Republican opponent would. So she gets accused of disregarding the party's overall interests, sometimes fairly (she absolutely should not be saying that McCain is a better leader than Obama; that's heresy), sometimes not. But the rules are different for her, to some degree because she's Hillary and a Clinton, and to some degree because of the geometry of the situation.

Who Really Cares About Active Soldiers and Veterans?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Last night, I watched on C-SPAN a campaign stop by John McCain. At the outset, the  Senator thanked several prominent supporters for their military service. Nothing unusual.  Politicians and candidates for political offices pander to all kinds of constituencies and interests. They all do. Republicans and Democrats. President Bush is the leader of the cheer-leading crowd on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. These people do not miss any opportunity to publicly praise and thank members of the U.S.military and their families for the sacrifices they make for the good of their country. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all. Regardless of one’s position on the Iraq invasion, anti-war sentiments should never affect one’s support for the men and women who are sent to war. But trying to prove their own patriotic zeal by celebrating the patriotism of the military does not mean that these same people work hard in support of active soldiers and veterans. This became crystal clear a year ago, when the intolerable conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed Medical Center, considered the nation’s the top-military hospital, were revealed in the Washington Post. As Dana Priest and Anne Hull wrote at the time,
“[T]he outpatients in the Other Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas.
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.
Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.”

Last February, the nation was shocked by these and subsequent revelations about the conditions at Walter Reed and around the country. But since then, active soldiers and veterans have continued to receive more lip service from politicians than real attention to their problems and efforts to find solutions.

Rudy -- He Could'a Been a Contenda

by David Epstein

I was on the BBC World Service TV show last night, commenting on Rudy and the Republican primary. The show was very good, including some great comments my friend John Fortier chiming in from the DC studio. I was reasonably happy with my performance overall, but my answer to the last question was lame. When the commentator asked me whether Giuliani's speech was in fact a farewell speech, I blabbered on about how he didn't yet say he's going to get out, but probably will in a day or two, and kind of left it at that.

What I *should* have said was that Giuliani's speech was, indeed, clearly a signal that he's dropping out. There are those who have been saying that Giuliani has been acting like a character in a spy novel poisoned by Strontium 90 -- he's dead but doesn't know it yet. But in the past week he's been acting much more statesmanlike, not attacking his opponents and seemingly resigned to the inevitable. So I think he'll get out sooner rather than later, and McCain and Romney can start the "Rudy Primary," courting his endorsement.

Also, I thought the speech was rather good, hitting his main themes and sounding like someone who could'a been a real contender. It's as if, finally freed from the necessity of genuflecting to the right wing of the Republican Party, he's much lighter, much freer, giving us a glimpse of the candidate that might have been. Not my candidate, mind you, but listening to him talk you remember why there were many who thought he'd be the Republican standard bearer this time around, and a tough candidate to beat.