Why The Tax Cuts Are Essential

Paul Krugman has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today explaining why President-Elect Obama should do away with the tax cuts in his recovery plan and focus instead on more comprehensive spending programs. While Mr. Krugman’s knowledge of all things economic far outweighs my own, I feel that he overlooked a few essential reasons to keep the tax cuts. The bullet points in their favor are, not surprisingly, more political in nature than they are economic.

First, though, let’s take a look at Krugman’s argument. His main point is that the tax cuts will be ineffective. At a time when American workers have less job security, less money overall, and less access to lines of credit, the most intuitive way to spend the money from a tax rebate is simply not to. Most people will save it. This, in itself, will do little to “jump start” the economy. The $150 billion proposed for the business tax cuts and the additional $150 billion proposed for the payroll tax cuts (although Krugman concedes the latter was indeed a campaign promise), he argues, could be better utilized in a more poignant fashion. In a strictly financial sense, I agree.

However, if we broaden our perspective to include the political implications of the proposed payroll and business tax cuts, we see a drastically different picture. The image of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell smiling and openly supporting Obama’s recovery package tells the entire story. I don’t, however, wish to use facial expressions as my main body of evidence, so let’s look a little deeper.

Through 2010, there will (likely) be 41 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. While they are greatly outnumbered by Democrats, if these Republicans are unified, they present a potential filibuster threat. As we have learned through all of American politics, the quickest way to unite a party, and thus enhance the likelihood of a filibuster, is to polarize the political spectrum. When party loyalty supercedes common sense, both sides can at times transform into a single-minded conglomerate of impatience. And we simply cannot afford such a deadlock in the next two years, not when we are crossing the threshold of what many are calling a “slow-motion depression.”

The advantage to having our financial system crumble slowly is that we may watch and analyze in real time. While we did pass through a few weeks of unfettered chaos in late September and early October, we have to remember that this time around, the markets did not simply crash, the worst case scenario of the credit freeze has thus far been avoided, and there is still some liquidity to our capital. But this does not mean we are safe. It simply buys us time. In order to take advantage of this Matrix like slow down (the bullets are still headed straight for us; they’re just moving very slowly), we have to act quickly. A legislative body in a polarized political deadlock will most certainly move more slowly than we can afford.

Those of you particularly gifted in the detection of nuance have, by this point, inferred that I am calling the Congressional Republicans immature. Partly yes, but more situationally. We have all witnessed blatant and counter-productive stubbornness from both sides. At a time when Democrats hold the majority in both houses and a democratic president is about to be sworn in, the Republicans are the ones who will likely throw a temper tantrum. But in giving to the Republicans reasons to support his plan, Obama is employing a little extra maturity in order to avoid a future partisan death grip. Call it appeasement, call it a pacifier, call it politics as usual– the point is: it works.

Krugman cited an Obama team’s projections of unemployment rates over the next few years both with and without the proposed recovery/stimulus plan, as well as projections by private analysts. Both look grim. If we do nothing, the Obama team predicts an unemployment rate of up to, possibly over, 8% in the next two years, whereas the rate with the proposed plan will be held under 7%. Some of the private analysts are expecting a doomsday 11% in the absence of government intervention, which could be enough to reach the tipping point, where, as Krugman points out, the U.S. might fall into a “Japan-type deflationary trap.” He says that the government must do more in terms of spending to avert these devastating numbers. And he is right.

But at the same time, by putting $300 billion into tax cuts now, steep as it may seem, Obama has thrown the Republicans an ideological bone. He has shown that he understands conservative economic thought, and, even if said ideology is best applied in other situations, he has shown that he is willing to concede substantively in order to achieve a higher end. This gains Mr. Obama an enormous amount of political capital, which in turn could become invaluable when he must push legislation not popular among Republicans. After this point, all he’ll need to do is convince one Republican to side with him in order to defeat a filibuster. Right now, he has the lot of them convinced.

A Christmas Story: Of Shepherds and Factory Workers

Before I get to the meat of this post, there are a couple things you should know about me.

First, when I was in college, I was a (to quote a teacher of mine) Myers-Briggs junkie. The Myers-Briggs is a personality test that categorizes people into one of 16 groups. I took the test countless times, read books about it, and studied all its little nuances and quirks. The specifics of the test aren’t important here, but one of the questions on this personality test is. “Are you more convinced by a logical argument or a touching appeal?” More convinced? Certainly by a logical argument. It is impossible to argue with reason, save by some metaphysical Kantian avenues. But reason itself surely stands above emotional appeal.

This is not to say that I am unmoved by such appeals. In fact, I am probably one of the most susceptible people I know to a well-structured emotional plea. Don’t tell anyone, but I have been known to tear up during some television commercials. Of course, this is all with the understanding that, as I stated before, reason trumps feeling.

The second point with which I should contextualize this post is that, while I have a certain respect–indeed, admiration–for the principles behind organized labor, I feel that many of its contemporary manifestations have lost sight of the equilibrium it once sought, and have begun perpetuating claims of near absurdity. I am not against unions in principle, but neither do I subscribe to all that they have become. In fact, I have a great many problems with the evolution of organized labor.

I suppose this may have been somehow instilled in me by my late grandfather, whose work ethic seemed to be an asymptote to which I might strive my whole life, but never quite attain. Until he was diagnosed with cancer, he missed fewer work days over his 40 year career than I have missed over my thus far short one. His conservative views of labor throw mine into an almost liberal light. From him I implicitly learned about propriety, generosity, and the importance of hard work. He died when I was ten years old, so he was not able to nurture many of the seeds he had planted, and many of them are just now beginning to sprout.

Now that the stage is set, I may begin to pull the characters out of the wings. The first is Republic Windows and Doors, a Chicago factory. Republic Windows came into extreme financial disarray recently, and last week, closed down, leaving about 300 workers out in the cold just weeks before Christmas. This is a sad story, one which this year has plagued the nation as companies everywhere have been going under, leaving their employees to fend for themselves. The difference is that the workers of Republic Windows were entitled, upon their severance, to 60 days notice, or to 60 days pay, which they have not received.

Enter Bank of America. The lending giant canceled Republic’s credit line, due to its dismal performance outlook. It is worth noting here, if only to underscore the nationwide woe and to illustrate the scale and scope of this downturn, that Republic Windows and Doors had successfully been in business for 43 years. But this year, Republic did not succeed, and Bank of America cut its loss and denied a continued line of credit to the company.

The problem comes in the fact that Republic can no longer afford to pay its workers the 60 days severance pay to which they are contractually entitled. In an effort to discern who is responsible for this mess, we look at the problem from the point of view of the bank, who claims it is the company’s responsibility to pay the workers and to honestly communicate a realistic timetable for ending their employment, and the point of view of the company who claims that the sudden withdrawal of credit has made it impossible for them to give the money to their employees, and point the finger at Bank of America.

But in any story, I believe that we are hardwired to jump to the character to whom we may relate most. In this case, for most of us, that would be the worker. Perhaps it’s because we cling to adversity, perhaps because there is something to gain in rooting for the underdog, or perhaps even because some compassionate better angel of our nature pushes us in that direction. The third character that seems all but forgotten in this is the group of employees, many of whom had worked at Republic for decades, who have lost everything. Their livelihood has been taken from them, without the mere compensation of two months of employment.

By coincidence I was listening to Christmas carols in my car on the way to work this morning, and The First Noel started playing. I’ve heard the song countless times before, but this morning, the first lines of the song caught me in a new way. “The first Noel the angel did say/was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.” I thought of lowly shepherds, lying out in a dark field. Nearly all the flock is asleep, and the night drags on in tedium. In an instant, the sky lights up with blinding force and angels emerge from the clouds, bestowing upon the lowly shepherds, before anyone else, the light of a savior.

Take the last part as you will, metaphor, history, fable, what have you. But the image conjured strikes me with the same power, regardless of the truth behind it. For some reason, while listening to this song, my thoughts turned to the sit-in workers in Chicago at Republic Windows and Doors, the workers who have had everything taken from them, and yet see a light that you and I may not yet see. Together, they have endured a betrayal, and together they persist in fighting an injustice that, in today’s economic conditions, seems almost commonplace.

While a touching appeal can be very effective, and reason even more so, when they work in conjunction, the two possess an unstoppable synergy that neither our compassion nor our rationality may ignore. What the workers have done in uniting to demand what is theirs is to create a wave, a non-violent, righteous wave that throws back to the Great Depression era, as Nelson Lichtenstein and Christopher Phelps point out in a CNN commentary. And inasmuch, they have restored the long-dormant principles to organized labor.

Almost two decades ago, my father was laid off the week before Christmas. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. My parents didn’t tell me; I merely sensed something terribly wrong, and overheard the bad news–although indecipherable–in the adult conversations. Unbeknown to me at the time–I would not find out for many years–my grandfather, the same one who (I was convinced) was disappointed in my imperfection, visited my house upon hearing of my father’s (his son-in-law’s) unemployment. He handed my parents money, telling them not to let circumstance ruin Christmas for the kids. I was one of the kids. I’d like to think that, while I inherited quite a bit of “conservativeness” from my grandfather, I also inherited an uncommon empathy from him. The two may seem contradictory today, but I think the dichotomy is not so mysterious.

It was the interplay between these two forces, the two I saw so alive in my grandfather, that washed over me this morning during my commute to work. The firm and unbending, and the empathetically yielding; the rational, and the compassionate. Many people now are not nearly as blessed as my family was to have someone willing and able to help in times of need. And I believe that’s what makes the goings-on in Chicago now all the more potent. For many, this is a very real and tangible line that is being crossed between the abstract and weighty economic principles at work and the very real effect on their families. We’re all feeling it in one way or another. But for the workers of Republic Windows and Doors, a demand for rightful compensation is a last stand, a final attempt to hold the line between the economic downturn and their own well-being. In many ways, their voices represent so many millions more.

A touching appeal? Yes. But there is reason behind it. This is not simply a discourse on the sadness of being laid off. It is more a look from both the inside and the outside, an examination of the reasons, both rational and personal, for the sit-in staged by the workers in Chicago. Perhaps we can all see in them a band of shepherds charged with a tiresome task, who are now seeing a light yet hidden to us, and thus will not budge from clinging to their last hope. In so doing, they have sparked in us that hope we had been seeking, that in the deep cold of the winter, in the middle of economic chaos, justice may yet pervade.

Counterpoint: Day 3

Well it happened. After hearing the most awfully repeated phrase tonight, I vomited. But as I was cleaning it up, I heard some amazing things. Tonight the Democratic party found their voice, their message congealed, and rationality made a comeback.

Perhaps this is due to the verbal prowess of some of the speakers, from John Kerry to Bill Clinton. And Joe Biden made absolutely clear that he would not only stand beside Barack Obama as his vice presidential candidate, but that he would stand in front of him and plow through challengers, throwing his decades of experience and hard work behind his attacks. Even Obama himself stopped in, putting an exclamation mark on the evening.

Even more impressive was the fact that each speaker tonight, with foreign policy as the central issue, courted independents. Clinton, Kerry, and Biden each laid out a rational case against McCain’s foreign policy judgment, and showed in their best estimations why Obama would make a better commander in chief. Lo and behold, the appeal to reason worked. No more mindless screaming — well, less of it, at least. But there was meat to the arguments now.

Bill Clinton’s speech, after a several minute standing ovation, made Democrats nostalgic for the feeling of having one of their own in the White House. Not only that, but the competence that seemed to ooze from the podium helped to instill confidence in the party’s message in the wary independents.

Joe Biden did several helpful things in his speech tonight. As Paul Begala said, he was the “ham and cheese” of the Democratic party, in that he was able to bring his talking points down to the level of the average everyday American, and show that he could empathize with them. He also touted, to some pundits and analysts’ dismay, his foreign policy credentials, challenging John McCain on his record. The third thing Biden did was say the things that Obama can’t or won’t say. Biden can get his hands dirty, whereas Obama has a pristine image to maintain in the eyes of the American people. Biden showed that he was not afraid to go on the offensive.

Today, Barack Obama was officially nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate (watch the clip again carefully and you’ll see Chuck Schumer smile and wave his hand like a little kid). Tomorrow, he will give his speech before tens of thousands people. The culmination of the convention tomorrow night, however, has been hyped so much, that Obama will need the speech of his life to continue positive momentum into the final two month stretch.

A Dangerous Game… With Confetti

If I hear one more person say “We can’t afford more of the same,” I’m going to vomit. In fact, it seems that a precondition for being allowed to speak at the convention was that each speaker fit that phrase somewhere into his or her spiel. And we’ve only had two days. There are still two more.

I am reminded now why candidates fear conventions. They are that strange few-day period when everyone in your party gets to express their yahoo attitudes with whatever flamboyant hats, garments, signs, and dance moves they feel are appropriate. Usually these are the same ones that the people watching at home feel are grossly inappropriate. This, alone, can drive a wedge between the party and the people, which can be dangerous for a party self-appointed to the populist role. But in all seriousness, the Democrats aren’t going to lose votes because of the way their delegates dress or dance. The real danger lies in the temporary suspension that must occur in any centrist message in order for the convention to be a success. It’s not that the Democrats have been particularly moderate thus far in the election. But Senator Obama’s nuanced vision of America has been put on the back burner so that the Democrats can have a self-righteous get together and pat each other on the back with large foam fingers.

And so we happen upon a smidgen of discontinuity. Until Thursday night, when Obama reclaims his message and becomes (officially) the figurehead of the party, we are left with all manner of chaos. Right now we are in a bubble. Until we come out the other side, rationality will give way to party loyalty, and complex thought will cede its place to mindless screaming. This will happen with the Republicans, too. Suddenly, calm and conservative will be replaced by boisterous and gregarious, an uncomfortable transition for any Republican at home to watch. But the same problem will apply to both parties.

At a time when candidates are rushing to the center, trying to win independents, and scurrying after the voters Hillary Clinton dropped like marbles scattering across the floor somewhere left of center, the conventions are more of an archaic obligation than an exercise in reasonable persuasion. It is a time for reaffirmation in one’s political ideology. Pragmatically speaking, however, these giant bashes are entirely counterproductive. The only exception that comes to mind in recent electoral history was the Republican convention in 2004. Then the Republican strategy was to mobilize as many voters as possible, rather than to win over people who already felt iffy about some Bush Administration policies. If they were going to go Republican, then they were going to go all the way. Well, I suppose Zell Miller’s fire and brimstone condemnation of John Kerry might have helped with a few fringe independents.

But now the Republicans are trying to convince the reasonable center and attempting to distance themselves from many of the policies of the past eight years. They are going after the very same independents to which Democrats feel entitled because of some of the recent failures of government. Each party will draw a line in the sand to balance how much they are willing to concede with a number greater than 270. The problem is, the lines overlap, and so the battleground will not be the entire political spectrum; rather, it will be a small strip in the middle. This is how general elections usually work. So it is easy to see why appeasement of a party’s base and retrogression to hard left or right positions are entirely irrational from an electoral perspective.

Let’s leave the abstract for a moment and zoom back into this election cycle. The conventions this year prove problematic for both Obama and McCain in different ways.

We’ll start with Obama. His quest has been to overcome, or at least sell his candidacy as overcoming, divisive politics. Fine, but when thousands of uber-liberals are waving emphatically with face paint and glitter, booing any mention of a Republican or even the word Republican (unless said Republican is there to denounce his own party), the message of unity becomes a little distorted. Obama has no reluctance in pronouncing himself a Democrat, and it is a predicate that he embraces, but he presents himself as a candidate–nay–a person who understands the other side, who can empathize with a certain appeal of the Republican philosophy, and who can use shared core values to hone in on common ground. Unfortunately, those with all the airtime until Thursday night appear not to share this complexity. Obama will be charged with having to drag his party, kicking and screaming, to a negotiating table before he can even invite the Republicans. If he makes a great transitory speech, from little “us” to big “us,” at Invesco Field, then he may be able to pull it off, to salvage some of the cooperative spirit that was rampant before this week. But the convention has not made this task easy. To be fair, there are some speakers who have tried to hold on to Obama’s ideas on unity in his absence, like Mark Warner, who said:

I know we’re at the Democratic convention, but if an idea works, it really doesn’t matter if it has an ‘R’ or ‘D’ next to it. Because this election isn’t about liberal versus conservative. It’s not about left versus right. It’s about the future versus the past.

McCain’s problems will be two-fold. First, along the same lines, McCain has presented himself as a “maverick” who will cross party lines in the interest of common sense and a pragmatic approach to finding solutions. He, too, is fighting for as many independents as he can win over. So the strong pro-Republican rhetoric will obviously not help him, especially at a time when there is a certain stigma attached to the word “Republican.” But the added complication for Republicans will be that their convention will take place after the Democratic convention. And so, when Obama has collected his party and put them back on his platform, Republicans will still be indulging in self-aggrandizement, doing what the Democrats are doing now, and making viewers and independents just as nauseated. So if we can imagine ahead a week from now, McCain will have a scattered and silly party while the Democrats will have been recently reunified behind an electoral purpose. In simple terms, Obama will have a one week head start. And for many independent voters, the frame by frame contrast of next week may be enough to sway them toward the Democratic ticket, even if the reasoning will be concealed in the unfairness of the linear nature of time.

So now there is not much left to do except to wait and see how it all plays out. A day and a half remain before Obama almost scriptedly emerges from middle-America to save his party. Let’s see if I can make it that long without vomiting.

In Emptiness’s Wake

Last month, the world lost a wonderful advocate. Tim Russert’s death came as a deep blow to many of us. As is always the case with death, those left in its wake feel a void that, while only temporarily unbearable, pulls at our very essence. In such instances, we are left to stare down immense unfairness, and must attempt to reconcile ourselves with the eventual finality of death as contrasted to our finite time in this world. Often, we see in this only sadness. But occasionally, we can find in the depths of tragedy a passage out of the darkness, a lesson that we might not have learned otherwise. Too often we rationalize the terrible things that happen because of the wisdom they impart on us. But it is simply the natural course of things. It is a means of survival embedded in each of us when faced with such sadness to find some light in even the darkest of passages. Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to continue writing.

After moving back to Delaware from Baltimore and starting a new job, I haven’t found much time to keep up with the news and write about it. I’ve been lost in the everyday 9-5 shuffle that I once swore to defy. I was at work when my father’s text message found me. “Tim Russert died of a heart attack.” I turned to my co-worker in shock. The image burned into my mind that entire afternoon was the picture I had placed on my post when I claimed that Tim Russert had won the Ohio Democratic Presidential debate. He smiled with an “I know something you don’t know” grin, but not in a shrewd way. The undertone was not smug or selfish, rather it was more along the lines of “I know something you don’t know, but don’t worry; I’ll show you.”

I could never hope to be a Tim Russert, but his pursuit of the truth sans decor has revealed to me the ideals for which I hope to strive. One of the most powerful phrases I have ever encountered came in the form of the motto of my alma mater, Johns Hopkins: Veritas vos liberabit. The truth will set you free. It is in the pure, unadulterated truth, that we can honestly perceive and understand the world around us. The pursuit of this lofty goal can take many forms. At Hopkins, the truth was sought in an academic sense, as we analyzed and judged theories and explanations, from scientific canon to lines of political thought; no idea was sacrosanct. And so it is in finding the truth. Lies, falsities, deceptions, and perversions must first be weeded out. It is not an easy task, nor is it entirely fulfilling. Holding to the ideal of truth can often mean having to abandon previous ways of thinking, ideas that we once held as truths. But the thought of being able to shed all of our blinding preconceptions and find that which is pure, that which is right, that which is true — that is the hope to which we cling.

Yet here we are, in a world where we not only ignore the truth, but we bury it beneath layers of dirt, masking it in rhetoric and heuristics. In such a place it becomes easy to rely on the day to day continuity rather than to observe and analyze each moment in itself, each piece of time, each action, each particularity. Part A only exists to precede Part B, and Part B to follow Part A. Rarely do we look beyond simple causal connections and see each part for itself, for what it is, and what it is not. But the truth is not a shortcut. It relates to the essence of every material and immaterial thing we can perceive or imagine. It is that which is all around us, yet nearly impossible to find. We will not come across the truth by passively observing our world. We will only find it through hard work and persistence in peeling back layer by layer.

While our very nature may seek the shortcuts that deceive us, there is yet a saving attribute of humanity. It is the inability to accept the rigidness that seems to exist all around us. Laws of conservation tell us that no matter or energy may simply be created or destroyed. Nothing can be born of itself. But, as we’ve seen in The Dow Chemical Company’s commercials, when we add the human element to the equation, things look different. Elasticity is introduced. In our search for the truth, we find a fluidity that lends itself to the organic nature of our existence. Suddenly, something can exist from nothing, as, to be cliche for a moment, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So it is in the vast emptiness we encounter when facing tragedies. Maybe it is simply due to our lack of understanding, but human nature will not let us accept the existence of nothingness. And so we take it upon ourselves to fill the void as best we can, never to replace the missing piece, but instead to honor it.

It is in the wake of emptiness where true fulfillment occurs. It is in the vacuum of space and time where the fire of humanity is kept aflame by a tiny spark of stubbornness, quietly and almost laughably defying the universe, refusing to be snuffed out. The task we face as a people, as a species, as a family inhabiting a pale blue dot, is to balance that spark of defiance with the open mindedness needed to effectively pursue the truth. For what we encounter “out there” will reveal to us more about ourselves, and what we find inside is a testament to the beauty that has preceded us and cultivated us. We are the world. The hydrogen atoms bonded to the oxygen in the water in my body look the same as the hydrogen atoms in a star billions of light years from here, now dying, but whose birth, because of the immense distance between it and us, we are just witnessing. And so the truth relates to us, just as we are a testament to the truth. It is an internal, as well as an external pursuit.

That’s a lot to take in. And suddenly the task we’re charged with seems impossibly large, unable to be delegated to a day’s work, or even a lifetime. As individuals, we may never find perfection, but to realize truth as the pursuit of humanity may be as close as we come. I would argue that to fill nothing with something is the essence of humanity. We are builders. Our very existence and self-awareness shows the complexity of what Descartes called “dualism,” and we are left pondering the universe and our place within it. We are wonderers. Our long search for truth and goodness has guided so many of our actions. We are seekers. Builders, wonderers, seekers. That is what we as a human race are. So we can say that Tim Russert, in his musings, questions, observations, friendships, and work grasped the very essence of humanity. His passing has inspired others to pick up the flag that stands for all we do as a people, and continue on. That is why you are reading this. That is why I wrote it.

Under the Radar; Inside the Gaming Console

It is my intention to be as fair as possible when writing about the elections. I will try to call out anyone who appears to be immersing their constituency in the bowels of fiction instead of embracing the truth. But recently I’ve realized that most of my posts have been critical of Democrats.

I don’t mean to say that the Republican candidate has no flaws, but as he is racking up endorsements and funds, the Democratic duo are locked in a contest of exposition, each trying to out-politique the other. And so the gloves have come off on the Democratic side, while John McCain is waiting in the wings to pounce when finally either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton bows out.

This wait-and-strike policy is applicable in many different situations, but the easiest way for me to explain it is using video games as an example, specifically first person shooters. Great, you’re thinking, this eclectic fusion of video games and politics is just too nonsensical. Normally I would agree, but this is the simplest way to explain McCain’s current strategy.

Your computer-generated character is sneaking down a long, grainy corridor. You stop at a T junction at the end of the hall and peer around the left corner. Five aliens are waiting, guns drawn. Peeking around the right corner, you see five other aliens. You weigh your options. You could try to use the corner for cover and pick them off as best as you can; or you can charge, guns blazing, hoping to take down all ten extra terrestrials before they can get you. Neither option is promising. But wait, out of nowhere, the two droves of aliens begin shooting at each other, still unaware of your presence. Suddenly your choice is clear: wait until they are done fighting before you attack. At worst, you will only have five aliens to deal with, but that’s assuming one side comes out totally unscathed. More likely, you will only have to clear one or two, because even the winning side of the first fight will have sustained significant damage against an evenly matched opponent. You have now gone from having to face ten aliens to having to face two, without even firing a shot — an amazingly efficient use of your resources — and meanwhile, you have remained safe from the crossfire.

Right now, John McCain is crouching in that T junction, waiting smugly as his two opponents verbally, politically, and rhetorically destroy each other. Either Obama or Clinton will eventually win, but by that point, they will be terribly weakened, not in the sense of having lost strength per say, but in the sense that they have expended resources, and more importantly, used up their relatively untainted political clout. Whoever ends up battling McCain will have quite a bit of baggage by the relative finality of the Democratic Convention.

I use this example to highlight McCain’s strategy, as well as to explain my heavy critique of the Democrats. I have called both Clinton and Obama out on some of their empty promises simply because they are vocalizing them loudly. In every debate, rally, or primary night victory speech, we hear the same things. McCain, however, has been unusually silent. Aside from the lack of Republican debates, McCain no longer has any viable opponent by a long shot for the Republican nomination, so the victory speeches are not as energizing or exciting or, sometimes, existent. It’s not that McCain has stopped campaigning; it’s that he is doing so more carefully simply because he can afford to do so.

In addition, we have the media to partially blame for this, myself included, as I have also been writing quite a bit more about Democrats lately. And so we see an emerging vicious cycle: the more exciting a race is, the more coverage it gets, the more scrutiny it gets, the more exciting it becomes. Right now, the media and news outlets are McCain’s biggest inadvertent ally in the fight against the Democrats. They are allowing him to stay out of the crossfire and remain safely tucked away, waiting to strike when the moment is right.

Yesterday I checked, just for good measure, the CNN political ticker page. Amazingly, Obama and Clinton are each mentioned 62 times on the front ticker page. That looks like pretty balanced reporting to me, until you consider that McCain is mentioned only seven times. Seven. He is almost entirely under the radar, and enjoying every minute of it.

And so, with this intrinsic bias in mind, I want to use this post to call the senator from Arizona out on a few things that could provide the Democratic nominee with footholds up the side of Mount McCain.

One of the most obvious mistakes, and I use the term “obvious” relatively given what we’ve said so far, is that McCain has continued speaking in abstractions when laying out his potential policies. This is a criticism that I have more often levelled at Senator Obama, but to be fair, Obama’s plans (while more self-contradictory at parts and not very inclusive and assimilating of other ideas, despite the promise of uniting the county) are much more well articulated in details and specifics. And Clinton has accused Obama of offering only words and no substantive hope. No matter who the Democratic nominee is, McCain needs to beef up his policies with actual plans, or his experience and political know-how will be overrun by the details, flawed though they may be, offered by the Democratic candidate.

On international trade, the McCain campaign says that “the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.” I think almost all Republicans would agree with this. I think most Democrats would agree as well. I agree with it. Most sensible people I know would agree with it.

And that’s the problem. McCain maintains the illusion of bipartisanship by using abstract statements that are pretty much invulnerable. But they don’t provide any real solutions. If McCain could provide a specific policy to enact with China, a plan to keep jobs in America while still at the same time allowing for the adherence to the principles of free trade with countries who are economically stable enough, or even just an outline of the specific trade plans he will explore while in office, I would feel much more comfortable.

McCain’s health care plan is quite a bit more detailed, but then it would have to be, what with Obama and Clinton reciting their entire plans during each Democratic debate. However, again, there seem to be a lot of good ideas without any set means of achieving them. McCain talks about lifting the restrictions that insurance companies have imposed on who may treat patients and lifting the restrictions the government has imposed on who may insure patients. If we’re to keep health care privatized, then this sounds like a good means of opening the market while at the same time making quality health care more accessible. But how does he plan to get there? Will he, John McCain, personally take on the insurance companies and all their lobbyists? Probably not, at least not successfully.

On the environment and energy policy, McCain again makes sense, but not enough sense. We can actually use one of Hillary Clinton’s phrases (aimed at Obama with regard to health care) and apply it to McCain here. If you don’t start out with a specific plan in mind and a realistic way of getting there, then you “will be nibbled to death,” by lobbyists and partisan legislators. I feel almost conciliatory in saying it, but in this case, Clinton is absolutely correct.

But John McCain has been around Washington long enough to know the political realities of the system better even than Clinton. So why would he be so unspecific as to how he plans to achieve his goals? It is possible that this has something to do with diverting the limelight elsewhere. In order to remain under the radar, he can’t make any controversial statements. Not yet, at least. We’ll see whether McCain finally gets down to details when he joins in the political firefight.

While some of McCain’s ideas are a little vague, others just don’t make sense. His immigration policy, at least as outlined on his campaign’s website, is merely a laundry list of considerations. When I read it, I felt as if I was looking through an incomplete guide on how to formulate one’s own immigration policy. It does not give any feasible way of dealing with the current problem. It doesn’t even acknowledge that there are any illegal immigrants (let alone millions) already inside this country.

His immigration plan is 386 words long. My college entrance essays were longer than that, and I was only trying to get into a school. John McCain is trying to get into the oval office. Not only that, but the plan begins with a hook meant to draw in the reader. “Immigration is one of those challenging issues that touch on many aspects of American life.” Oh, no. One of those. Allow me to snap my fingers, tilt my head, sigh, and express my mild frustration.

McCain says, “If we have learned anything from the recent immigration debate, it is that Americans have little trust that their government will honor a pledge to do the things necessary to make the border secure.” First of all, I hope we’ve learned more than one thing from this debate. Second, if we have learned only one thing, I would hope that it would be a more substantive lesson than that. But, please, no one panic, because John McCain follows up this statement with, “As president, I will secure the border.” Oh good. I was befuddled for a moment by your vagueness, but now I see that everything will be fine.

Sarcasm aside, there isn’t even a link for education under the list of issues on the McCain website. I can tell you that his support of “No Child Left Behind” carries with it the condition of minor revisions. We can guess, probably fairly accurately, at what these revisions would be, but as someone trying to earn our trust and support in winning the presidency, wouldn’t McCain be better off just coming out and telling us?

The problem with waiting until the aliens massacre each other, which is not really accounted for in video games, is twofold. First, the remaining aliens will likely be the strongest simply because they were the ones to survive the initial battle. Second, the remaining aliens will be battle-hardened, and if they are savvy enough to find your weaknesses, then they will know exactly how to exploit them. Obama and Clinton have put behind them quite a bit of “live ammo” training and actual political combat with one another. They and their respective campaigns have developed a more intuitive political sense. Meanwhile, McCain has been at the shooting range, honing his skills. But he has never had to put up a political fight quite like his now impending challenge, and whoever the Democratic nominee is will make Mitt Romney look like easy pickings.

Now Leaving Mississippi, Last Gas Station For 8 Weeks

No matter where you live in the United States, if you are a Democrat you probably feel more important this election than you have in quite a while. Even Puerto Rico, with its 55 delegates, could be — dare I say? — vital in determining the outcome of the Democratic race.

Tonight, we will hear from Mississippi, a state that has historically been lost in the all too deterministic post-Super Tuesday shuffle. But this time, their pronouncement will carry immense weight.

Because of the delicate balance between Obama and Clinton, who both seem to be teetering on having an upper hand, Mississippi’s small voting population could tip the balance just enough to give one candidate the “momentum” heading into the long and violent stretch toward Pennsylvania on April 22.

A quick look at the current Mississippi polls, as well as the voting demographic and relevant issues, shows that Barack Obama will most likely walk away with the state with no real contention. And so, it appears that Obama will pull out the fifth switcheroo of the race thus far (the first being his upset in Iowa, the second Clinton’s reclamation of front-runner status in New Hampshire and into Super Tuesday, the third Obama’s surge and 12 straight victories, the fourth Clinton’s victory in Texas and solid lead in Ohio).

But it is worth noting, even if Obama gets a boost tonight, Pennsylvania will be a huge uphill battle for him. Clinton is standing at the top of the hill throwing rocks down on his grass roots minions who valiantly, though ineffectively, charge upward in massive numbers. We’re left wondering: even if Obama gains back a bit of momentum, how much can Mississippi actually help him? This in turn, leads to a broader question: no matter what Obama does now, is there any saving grace for him on the horizon?

It’s true, he has run an incredible campaign, and he has undermined Clinton’s air of inevitability in a way that, one year ago, no one would have been able to imagine. But by running on victories from caucuses and red states to aim himself at the larger challenges, he has shown us that, at one point, he will run out of fuel. Mississippi is, indeed, the last little bit in his tank. He will win, and the victory will help him somewhat. But Pennsylvania is solidly Clinton territory, as she retains an almost 12 point lead there.

After Pennsylvania, there will be other little bits of fuel that trickle in for Obama, like North Carolina, probably Kentucky and Montana, etc. But with the looming question of Michigan and Florida, it’s doubtful that he will mount a surge in a potential revote in either of the two states.

However, Florida and Michigan may, in fact, present him with an opportunity. If we were to count the original two contests, then Clinton would only be ahead in popular vote by 20,000, and Obama wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot. So even this obstacle might be surmountable.

Still, the point is that Obama will get no more breaks. Every delegate that he earns will have to be fought for. Clinton has dug in and recently has even resorted to tactics like spreading rumors of a Clinton/Obama ticket. That way, people could vote for Clinton and still not feel as though they were abandoning the message of hope presented by Obama. Obama has made it clear that he is “not running for vice president.” This is just an example of the obstacles now before the Obama campaign.

It looks like we’re back to the nitty-gritty, down to the wire politics again. If Obama can be within eight points of Clinton in Pennsylvania and remain unscathed until North Carolina, then he still stands a good shot. Obama is an inspirer, an orator, an energizer. But, realisitically, he has more convincing and less energizing to do if he wants to hold out that long. He has to start using his remaining fuel wisely, instead of holding the accelerator down in that exciting way he does so often.

Epimetheus and the Democratic Process

If there is one thing Howard Dean is not, it is careful. His lack of meticulousness seems to have infected the ranks of the Democratic National Committee, and the latest debacle with Florida and Michigan marks the boiling point of the hot water in which Democrats have been sitting.

As I have said for a while now, totally disenfranchising voters in Florida and Michigan was not, under any circumstances, an appropriate response to the states’ unauthorized rescheduling of their primary elections. The Republicans offered a similarly single-minded approach, by cutting the delegate count of the rogue states in half, but the difference between the two parties is this: the Republicans made sure that the issue would not come back to haunt them, while the Democrats’ epimetheal reaction will most certainly come full circle and end in utmost regret.

First, there is the issue of principle. Preventing registered voters from having any say in whom their party’s nominee will be, simply because the legislature of the state in which those voters reside broke an agreement, is comparable to sentencing an entire family to imprisonment because one parent stole bread to feed them. Who broke the agreement anyway? Certainly not the millions of Floridians and Michiganders. They simply showed up to vote when and where they were instructed. But that didn’t stop Howard Dean and his followers in the party from punishing them all.

Now the quagmire is complete, and everyone whose title is followed by a (D) will be hurt by it. Along the lines of principle, the Democrats have shown that the value they place on the democratic process is not above the value that they place on rules that will allow the party to conduct their contests in a self-beneficial way.

But since the elections have proceded and the candidates have established themselves in the national spotlight, the issue pertaining to Florida and Michigan is no longer viewed as simply a matter of principle. It is now virtually impossible to separate the three remaining options to the Democratic party from the obvious benefactors of each potential decision. And so for the party to act in one way would be seen as benefitting Clinton, while to act in another would be seen as benefitting Obama.

This is precisely why the first two options are not feasible (aside from the principle blunders), and the third one must be followed. They are as follows.

Option 1: Stick to the punishment that the Democratic party initially decided upon and grant the states no delegates at the Convention.
Pros: Enforcement of original decision will make an example of the two states who decided to go against the rules, and the Democratic party will retain its credibility.
Cons: The disenfranchisement of millions of Democratic voters will not go over well, in principle or in practice. Michigan and Florida are both swing states in the general election, and telling Democrats in those states that their votes don’t matter is bad business if the party wants to put a Democrat in the White House.
Favors: Obama

Option 2: Seat the current delegations as they stand from the original primary elections.
Pros: The voters in Florida and Michigan count for something.
Cons: The Democratic party loses credibility and the results are based on ballots that, in Michigan, did not even include Obama. “Uncommitted” votes then would be fuzzy in delegate translation, as “uncommitted” was, for our purposes, a vote against Clinton — not necessarily a vote for either Obama or Edwards, or even Kucinich or Gravel. Therefore, the Clinton delegation would be clear, but not the delegation for the other candidates.
Favors: Clinton

Option 3: Hold a revote in the two states, allow voters to choose a candidate, and appropriate the delegates accordingly.
Pros: The voters in Florida and Michigan are counted, and the contests are held in a manner that presents both candidates fairly, with both names on the ballot.
Cons: The Democratic party loses some credibility for not following through with their ridiculous punishment, but retains some for making sure the elections are done within the rules. Holding a second set of elections will also cost a very large sum of money, something on the order of $20 million per state ($4-8 million for a caucus, or up to $25 million for a full-fledged primary).
Favors: Clinton slightly, at least in contrast to the way things currently stand, but no candidate will be treated unfairly in this process.

As I said, the only viable option is the third one, which leaves two problems. The first is the partial loss of credibility of the Democratic party in abandoning their original (albeit totally irrational) course of action. The party will have to deal with this in whatever way possible as the responsibility for the lack of foresight is entirely upon them.

The second problem, however, is a bit trickier. A second round of primary elections, even caucuses, would cost an enormous amount of money. Deciding who should pay for it, when both the involved states and the party can be blamed for bringing about this problem, is not so clear cut. As a revote is emerging as the only viable possibility, the fingerpointing has escalated to determine just who should fund such a project.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican and supporter of John McCain, believes that the delegates, at least in Florida, should be seated as they are, but that if there is to be another contest, that the DNC should foot the bill. Clearly, a this would help Republicans. If the delegates are seated, then Clinton gets a boost, prolonging the battle between her and Obama. And if she wins the nomination, many Republicans feel she would be a weaker opponent to have to deal with than Obama.

If the DNC pays for a second contest, then they will be millions in the hole for backing a presidential candidate. Dean said, “We can’t afford to do that. That’s not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race.”

Another problem with a revote is that, even though it is the most fair option left, there may not be enough support within the DNC itself for this course of action, as the party members who are loyal to a particular candidate have fallen behind the plan that would favor him or her.

I don’t want to sound unfair in my critique of the DNC. It is true that the states erred and should be held to the rules to which they agreed. Dean remarked, “Everybody has to play by the rules out of respect for both campaigns and the other 48 states.” If he had stopped here and demanded that Florida and Michigan rectify the problem, then he would have had principle on his side. But as soon as the DNC silenced the voters in the two states, the principle took a neutral stance, and now can be claimed by neither side.

The only winner in all of this is John McCain. He will be the nominee of the party who can point to a simple response that neither disenfranchised voters nor left the deed unpunished. And this mere forethought on the part of Republicans will go a long way in aiding their electoral image. Protecting the Democratic process needs to be the main goal in solving this problem. Then, party considerations may follow. Unfortunately, that means that the DNC may have to bite the bullet. Whatever happens now, we can be sure that Howard Dean’s successors will never let a disaster like this happen again.

The Xerox

The Democratic debate in Cleveland had a clear winner: Tim Russert.

Other than that, it was more of the same old, with the exception of a few notable moments that showed up like dust on the photocopier bed.

Clinton said, “This is too important,” again in order to continue to talk about health care when both Tim Russert and Brian Williams wanted to move to another subject. She and Obama argued about which plan was favored by most independent experts, each claiming his or her own plan to be superior. But really, if we are to look at what independent experts say, it becomes clear that they favor neither plan, as both are remarkably similar. What’s more, neither, according to said experts, is financially realistic, and neither will cut costs nearly as much as the candidates want us to believe. Phew. That’s like a can of raid on this cockroach of a topic.

Anyway, as per my previous suggestion, Obama was finally on Clinton’s left hand side, so each could write without worrying about accidentally making a political statement.

The buzzword changed, too. It wasn’t “change,” this time, but “accurate” (or derivations thereof such as “inaccurate”). Clinton said it thrice in the beginning. Obama said it eleven times after that. It appears we’ve actually honed in on substance rather than abstractions like “hope” and “change.” You can’t be called out for your accuracy with regard to hope. Keep in mind, each time a candidate says the other’s statement is inaccurate, it’s the equivalent to calling the other candidate a liar or an uninformed buffoon.

Obama has become strikingly good at trying to interrupt Clinton, and then pretending to be interrupted himself when she keeps talking.

Tim Russert, sly devil, asked the candidates whether they would leave Iraq immediately if the Iraqi government told the United States to simply get out. Both Clinton and Obama, recognizing the sovereignty of Iraq, said that they would have to do so in such a scenario. But when asked whether the U.S. should re-enter Iraq should al Qaeda establish a stronghold there upon our exit, Clinton said, “You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals.”

Point of interest: Clinton is not yet the president. Ergo, any statement about a Hillary Clinton presidency is, by its very nature, a hypothetical. Each time Clinton spoke about something that would happen while she is president, she spoke in hypotheticals. I honestly didn’t keep count, but she probably used hypotheticals a couple hundred times during the debate.

But beyond that, when Russert said, “But this is reality,” Clinton reponded with, “No — well, it isn’t reality.” Aside from the political convenience that such a statement offers by allowing her to dodge the actual question, Clinton inadvertently disgraced the thousands of U.S. soldiers who have fought and died in Iraq. If there is no al Qaeda threat in Iraq (regardless of whether or not that threat has been perpetuated by an American presence), then what have they been dying for? Hypotheticals, according to Clinton. Here, Clinton is wrong. The threat is real, regardless of the policy we pursue to deal with it.

Surprisingly, Obama provided the right answer, although he disguised it in strings of political rhetoric. He said that he would indeed go back into Iraq should the need arise. But again, you could hardly tell what he was saying as his statement was dripping in phrases from the job description of commander in chief.

The correct answer, with no strings attached and no fluff statements to act as political buffers is as follows. “Yes, if al Qaeda strongly established themselves in Iraq after an American withdrawal, then the U.S. would have to reenter Iraq, as we have seen that it is neither in our interests nor the world’s interests to have an historically violent and irrational terrorist organization hold power in a country over an authoritatively weakened government.” Period. End of story.

Tim Russert: 1. Clinton and Obama: 0.

Clinton also has to get better at making analogies. She said that not making a health care plan manadatory for everyone would be “as though Franklin Roosevelt said let’s make Social Security voluntary.” Of course, because Social Security carries the benchmark of an effective use of spending, a system that will aid, at best, three generations of Americans before totally bankrupting the country. It’s like taking out a several billion dollar loan from your great grandchildren.

Not that Social Security wasn’t a good idea, it just didn’t work ideally — because things never work ideally. Perhaps if Social Security had had more restrictions at its inception, it wouldn’t spell financial doom for my generation. But this analogy with health care is merely indicative of Clinton’s assertions that government can fix everything at whatever cost. Ideally, yes. But as we said, things never work ideally. We don’t live in an ideal world.

Along the NAFTA lines, Clinton said that she would pull out of NAFTA if it were not restructured. Obama said he would use the threat of pulling out to get Canada and Mexico to agree to restructuring the agreement, thereby exposing his and Clinton’s cards. If Stephen Harper was watching the debate, he probably fell over laughing. Rest assured, if Obama is the nominee, McCain will call him out on showing too much of his hand, just as McCain called Obama out on his statement that he would attack an al Qaeda target in Pakistan. McCain then said, “The best idea is not to broadcast what you’re going to do, that’s naive.”

Tim Russert also cornered Clinton in her pledge to create jobs. In 2000 in Buffalo, while running for the U.S. Senate, Clinton said that there would be 200,000 new jobs in upstate New York. Russert pointed out that there had been a net loss of 30,000 jobs since then. He pointed out that Clinton later said, “I might have been a little exuberant.” He then asked Clinton, “Tonight will you say that the pledge of five million jobs might be a little exuberant?” Clinton’s response is loaded with revealing material.

Let’s start with her first point. “No, Tim, because what happened in 2000 is that I thought Al Gore was going to be president.” So we can take off of Clinton’s resume the bullet point about being exceptional at predicting the outcome of political contests. This kind of undermines her credibility when she says on the campaign trail that she will be the next President of the United States. According to her predictions, Gore was the next president eight years ago.

But what’s more is that it underscores a habit of making promises that she will not be able to keep. Clinton said that the job loss was due to having a Republican in the White House; yet she ran on her ability to create new jobs. Therefore, either she is using Bush as a scapegoat now, or she was telling New York voters in 2000 what Al Gore would be able to do for them, not what Hillary Clinton could get done. Either way, this reeks of dishonesty.

Clinton then said that, “22.7 million new jobs were created during the eight years of the Clinton administration, under my husband. We can create at least five million new jobs.” Now, in absolute terms, this is a postive, optimistic statement. However, with all the ambient grumbling about how a second Clinton administration would be a replica of the first one, I would argue that it is unwise for Hillary to show numerically, that the job creation during her presidency would be worse than her husband’s. It’s not that five million new jobs is a bad thing; it’s that she should realize how her statements will be taken. To ignore the contextual backdrop is to reveal a severe lack of understanding of the American people.

Tim Russert: 2.

With regard to foreign policy, Obama revealed a terrifying double standard of his. When Clinton quipped about Obama, “He basically threatened to bomb Pakistan,” Obama retorted, “If we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key al Qaeda officials… and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should.” So far, so good. But then he pointed to the fact that “just several days ago, in fact, this administration did exactly that and took out the third-ranking al Qaeda official.”

If Obama were using the Bush administration as a prime example of decision making and good judgment, there would be nothing wrong with this statement. However, just seconds after pointing to the actions of the Bush administration, Obama said that he has “put forward a plan that will provide a clean break against Bush and Cheney. And that is how we’re going to debate John McCain.”

Here, the logical fallacy is so dauntingly obvious that we can almost certainly conclude that McCain will eventually point out that Obama himself did, in fact, agree with much of the Bush administration’s handling of going after terrorists. The notion that somehow Clinton would be less credible in a debate with McCain over foreign policy will then vanish in a puff of logic. Should Obama be the Democratic nominee, it will happen.

Toward the end of the debate, Obama denounced Louis Farrakhan, which was not good enough for Clinton, who said that Obama should reject his endorsement. Then came a debate over the semantics of scorning anti-Semitic comments. Finally both candidates agreed that rejecting his support would be best in a sort of feel-good Democratic moment.

In this debate, Clinton let Obama get in the moving words. Going on her touching comments last time, I was almost expecting her to stand up and sing “God Bless America” for her closing statement. But she doesn’t sing. Maybe recite the pledge of allegiance. But no, the end was anti-climactic and Keith Olberman’s voice brought the professionally triumphant feel of a solid Tim Russert victory back down to the typical MSNBC level personified by the weekly cycle of Chris Matthews tearing apart, then worshiping Hillary Clinton.

Bringing Analysis Through Customs

Wow. I leave the country for a bit and everything gets turned on its head. Clinton starts winning again (or at least stops losing), Obama’s people are meeting with the Canadians, Bush endorses McCain, and the interminable Huckabee campaign finally terminates.

Well, now that I am back in the U.S., I have a lot of ground to make up in trying to analyze the shifting political dynamics. The next couple posts will try to deal with some of the events that have happened in the past couple weeks, starting with the Democratic debate in Cleveland and moving through the races last Tuesday, as well as the future direction for the three remaining candidates.

This post also marks the introduction of more micro-analysis. As the candidates start to emerge from the primary free-for-all, they, and their respective parties, will begin to rally ever more obstinately around certain issues and causes. Ideology is now fair play, and play it we shall.

So sit back and hold on, because contrary to the slow-down that appeared to have taken place on this blog, we are in fact beginning to accelerate. The issues are collecting front and center, and it is high time that they be reexamined in different light. The rhetoric will only take the candidates so far; reason and results will carry them the rest of the way.