The Lonely Centrist

Tax Hypocrites

2008-04-11T21:38:00.003-05:00

With Tax Day just around the corner, the Centerman is stirred from another long hibernation to note the hypocrisy of so many politicians who want to raise taxes.

James Thorndike of Tax Analysts has a wonderful little bit of history on the differences between Franklin D. Roosevelt's sanctimonious excoriations of others, and his own efforts to avoid taxes.

Roosevelt's returns, not made public until long after his death, reveal his private behavior quite at odds with his attacks on others. Thorndike writes:

Roosevelt reserved special scorn for the "clever little schemes" devised by tax lawyers, insisting that they posed a threat to the tax system, and even to society as a whole. "In this immediate problem the decency of American morals is involved," he declared. "The example of successful tax dodging by a minority of very rich individuals breeds efforts by other people to dodge other laws as well as tax laws."

Roosevelt's 1937 message on tax avoidance decried a variety of popular techniques, including the use of overseas and domestic personal holding companies, the creation of multiple trusts for the support of family members, and the incorporation of money-losing country estates and personal yachts.

Such bombast carried the day in 1937, when FDR pushed a tax bill through Congress that tried to eliminate some of the more glaring loopholes. Other high points in Rooseveltian tax policy -- including the Wealth Tax Act of 1935, the undistributed profits tax of 1936, and the tax bill veto of 1944 -- were also rooted in a conviction that rich Americans were gaming the tax laws.

But Roosevelt's tax returns reveal him to be something of a hypocrite. At various points, both before and after his election to the White House, he indulged in the sort of tax avoidance that he claimed to find so objectionable.

For instance, Roosevelt repeatedly urged Congress to end the tax-free treatment of interest on state and municipal bonds. The special treatment accorded to those financial instruments, he told Congress in April 1938, "has created a vast reservoir of tax-exempt securities in the hands of the very persons who equitably should not be relieved of taxes on their income." Congress should act to end the injustice, he declared.

Yet just a month before, FDR had filed a tax return indicating that he owned some $17,000 in tax-free bonds. Defenders of the president might insist that he was doing nothing wrong; after all, the tax-free status of those bonds was a deliberate and long-standing element of the tax law. But Roosevelt himself dismissed those legalistic arguments:

Methods of escape or intended escape from tax liability are many. Some are instances of avoidance which appear to have the color of legality; others are on the borderline of legality; others are plainly contrary even to the letter of the law.
All are alike in that they are definitely contrary to the spirit of the law. All are alike in that they represent a determined effort on the part of those who use them to dodge the payment of taxes which Congress based on ability to pay. All are alike in that failure to pay results in shifting the tax load to the shoulders of others less able to pay, and in mulcting the Treasury of the Government's just due.

Roosevelt's income from tax-exempt bonds was not grand; it shrinks to insignificance when compared to the exempt income reported by the nation's richest taxpayers. Still, his fondness for investing in those bonds stands in stark contrast with his public pronouncements on the subject.

But it gets better - catch this little gem of creativity:

FDR repeatedly claimed that he was exempt from the high tax rates on personal income that Congress had enacted -- and Roosevelt had approved -- in the revenue acts of 1934 and 1935.

In a series of letters to internal revenue officials, Roosevelt insisted that he could not be taxed at the heavy rates imposed on rich taxpayers during the mid-1930s. Article II, section 1 of the Constitution forbids any reduction in the president's compensation during his term in office, Roosevelt pointed out. Since the new rates enacted in 1934 and 1935 effectively reduced that compensation, they could not be applied to the president's salary.

Thorndike's post even includes a copy of a note from Roosevelt making that claim to the IRS. Now that's chutzpah: pass a tax increase, excoriate others for looking for legal ways to avoid paying it, and then claim a constitutional exemption, available only to an elite few in government (presumably federal judges would have also benefited), from the increase.

In this election cycle, two very wealthy presidential candidates - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - are telling us that we simply have to raise taxes. I don't know if they makes claims rising to the hypocrisy of FDR, but it really doesn't matter. Of course, when you are earning over a million bucks a year, it's pretty easy to pay more in taxes. When wealthy politicians say that "we" have to make sacrifices, they usually mean "you."

Editorial of the Year

2008-01-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Sure, it's a young year. But this is worth reading.

A Christian Democratic America?

2008-01-06T09:50:00.000-05:00

Henry Olsen has this very interesting column out, which discusses what a Huckabee presidency might mean for the United States and neatly defines the battle going on for the Republican Party's soul.

Thinking About Memorials

2007-11-13T08:22:00.001-05:00

I love this short article on the problem with modern war memorials - enough to stir me from my lethargy to post for the first time in two months.

Duncan Anderson shares my frustration with modern memorials:

What these modern war memorials have in common with each other is nothing: They portray nothingness. They have no people in them, never mind men carrying guns or swords, statues of Winged Victory or even doves of peace. Just death and names - grief without glory.

Ain't that the truth. The Vietnam Memorial started this trend, and while the starkness of that memorial can be moving, who is inspired by it? Now, current memorials being designed to memorialize 9/11 are following the same path. They don't educate today's viewers, let alone future generations, as to what it was all about, and why it mattered. Nothing more than, "people died here."

Good memorials should honor the deeds of those memorialized, and inspire others to do great or at least things. But today's memorials just sit there, stark and empty.

Anderson, I think, correctly gets why this has come about:

it results from a misunderstanding between the memorial-creating classes and the war-fighting classes.

Anderson sums it up well:

We all die - so to offer voids to the memory of our heroes, and to list their deaths without comment about what they did in life, is to assert meaninglessness, pointlessness. It says, "You sacrificed for others - but that's not worthy of mention, because now you're just as dead as anyone else."

A nation that can't build good memorials, memorials that say, "these fallen acheived something" of "these fallen demonstrated these qualities that make our nation great" is one that has lost its confidence. Unless reversed, these are nations on a downward spiral.

What's the Independent Voter to Do?

2007-09-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

I really should write a tome on this, but simply lack the time. Let's sum it up this way - the Bush Administration has made a hash of the war on terror, but how do you dare trust power to a party of which 35% believe the President had advance knowledge of the attacks of September 11 (and only 39% think otherwise)?

Mark Steyn, a very good writer, has some comments here.

A good day for Mitt to be quiet?

2007-09-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Michigan Governor George Romney's famous statement that he had been "brainwashed" about Vietnam. The remark caused a national furor, and effectively ended his frontrunners campaign for the presidency (a campaign which, unlike today, had barely begun in September of 1967).

It is hard today to understand the fuss, really, especially since Romney's new position was essentially right and he had that revelation far sooner than most of America's leaders. But in those days, the idea of "brainwashing" was a truly scary one to most Americans (see the original "Manchurian Candidate" if you care to know why - but do not see the atrocious, cheesy Denzel Washington remake of a few years ago.)

Anyway, might be a good day for son Mitt, the Republican frontrunner in the early primary states, to stay low key, if you're superstitious and all.

More Self Parody at the New York Times: Electoral College Reform in California

2007-08-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

Reading the editorial pages of the Onion... er, I mean New York Times,is always a hoot. Today the Daft, ... er, Gray Lady unloosed a salvo against a proposal circulating in California to allocate the state's electoral votes by congressional district, rather than winner take all. There are many good arguments against this proposal, not the least of which is the perception that one party - in the case the Republican - is trying to change the rules to affect a predictable outcome that will favor that party, as is often done with the campaign finance laws of which the Times is so enamored. On the other hand, there are also legitimate, neutral arguments for this proposal, which is used now in two small states, Nebraska and Maine. But the Times, as always, has no nuance - just a partisan screech.

The Times calls the proposal, "a sneaky initiative that, in the name of Electoral College reform, would rig elections in a way that would make it difficult for a Democrat to be elected president, no matter how the popular vote comes out. If the initiative passes, it would do serious damage to American democracy."

Damage to American democracy? The Times doesn't say how this would be, other than its apparent identification of the interests of the Democratic Party with American Democracy. (It's probably that "demos" root that causes the confusion). The Times insist that this initiative is supported by a "shadowy group," with a "misleading" identity, although - confusingly to we simple-minded readers - the Times article begins by informing us that this is a Republican initiative, launched by "a prominent Republican lawyer" (presumably the Times knows his name, but if they don't, the Sacramento Bee informs us that it is Thoms Hiltachk - maybe this is not so "shadowy" after all.) (The Republican Party - "a shadowy group." LOL) The proposal is "bad faith" and "mischief." "No principled voter" should support it. Instead, the Times suggest an alternate reform that would make it harder for Republicans to win the presidency. Go figure.

Of course, the Times didn't always feel such a plan was quite so disreputable. On October 2, 2000, the Times published an op-ed by Michael Lind, who wrote:

Fortunately, it is possible to transform our presidential elections, while keeping the Electoral College and without amending the Constitution. All we have to do is change the way that the states allocate their electoral votes.

Today all but two states -- Nebraska, which has five electoral votes, and Maine, which has four -- give all of their electoral votes to the winner of the state's popular vote. If every state were to divide its electoral votes among the candidates on the breakdown of the popular vote, presidential politics would be reinvigorated.

For example, even if a majority of Californians and New Yorkers preferred the Democratic candidate, the division of their electoral votes would give a Republican candidate an incentive to make lots of visits to these states and to listen to voters' concerns there.

On August 15, 2004, it published a letter to the editor by one Joe Cobb of Dana Point, California. If you've ever tried to get a letter into the Times, you know it ain't easy, and while they publish a few letters with an opposing point of view, you've got to be a pretty big wheel, and/or have what they think is a pretty strong arguent, to reach print. But Mr. Cobb did, arguing:

There is another possible reform, which is to follow the lead of Maine and Nebraska. Those states already allocate electoral votes on the basis of the popular vote in each Congressional district, instead of using the ''winner take all'' method. They also give two electors to the winner of the statewide popular vote.

If all states used this method, it would bring the electoral vote into much closer alignment with the popular vote. It would also preserve the benefits of the Electoral College: restricting the impact of voter fraud or irregularities to localized areas, preventing overwhelming majorities in a few states from obviating the voters' choice in less populated areas, and assuring that candidates need to campaign nationwide.

Now, in fairness to the Times, they have long opposed the California plan. But compare the careful, intelligent, measured tones of this 1992 editorial to the one quoted above. Here is what the Times wrote then - so far as we can tell, the last foray by the editorial board into this particular proposal:

Changing the way America picks its President calls for national consensus. It deserves serious thought, not just partisan, state-by-state wrestling in the heat of a campaign year. That's reason enough for a sigh of relief that Florida's flirtation with a proposal to split its electoral vote seems to have ended, at least for the moment.

Under the Constitution, each state has as many electors as it has representatives and senators; a majority of the national total is needed to win. Florida currently gives all its electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes statewide. The new plan gives candidates one vote for each Congressional district they carry; the statewide winner would get the other two.

Maine uses this system, and Nebraska will, starting this year.... Florida, the fourth-largest state, has 25 electoral votes -- and usually votes Republican for President. That's why Democrats wanted new rules and Republicans didn't.

Applied nationwide, a district-by-district system would yield electoral votes roughly proportional to the popular vote -- rather than lopsided electoral majorities as in 1988, when President Bush took 48 states but only 53.4 percent of the popular vote. In close elections, it might change the outcome.

A split-vote system would also open opportunities for third-party and independent candidates like Ross Perot. It is hard for such a candidate to wrest a whole state away from established parties.

The proposal's backers also argue that it would impel candidates to give the Florida voters more attention instead of writing off the state, as the Democrats did in 1988. But critics say the state would get less attention because the split prize would be worth less.

This year's unusual race, which includes a plausible third candidate, makes piecemeal reform even less attractive than usual. In the heat of the moment, there's no way legislators can remain focused on reform rather than partisan interests.

In fact, on the merits, I actually agree with the Times. California shouldn't switch. But the difference in tone and quality between its 1992 and 2007 editorials, thinks the old Centerman, is demonstrative of the decline of a once proud, influential editorial page into screaming paranoia.

Prime Minister Obama?

2007-08-21T10:38:00.000-05:00

Here is a worthwhile column on Barack Obama's lack of experience, highlighted by his recent uninformed comments on the "president" of Canada (hint - Canada doesn't have a President, it has a Prime Minister). I don't like picking on such minor details, and we shouldn't expect a person to speak perfectly at every moment. Yet in this case, I think there is something to consider, summed up in this quote from the article:

A reference to the "president of Canada" is more than a memory lapse. It is a mistake that reminds us that Obama has never met a Canadian prime minister --indeed, that he has barely ever dealt with U.S.-Canadian issues, notwithstanding that his state of Illinois borders on the Great Lakes and that Canada is Illinois' most important foreign trading partner.

That lacuna in Obama's resume in turn reminds us of all the other things he has never done. Barack Obama has never dealt in any official capacity with any foreign government on any issue, ever. He has never made any important statement on foreign affairs before launching his candidacy for president. He has never borne any kind of responsibility in any area of foreign or security policy. He has never run an organization larger than the office of a U.S. Senator. He has never served in the armed forces of the United States.

If elected president, Obama will arrive in office with less relevant job experience than any president since Warren G. Harding. Maybe that will not matter: Abraham Lincoln did not have much relevant experience either, and he did OK. But maybe it will matter. Nobody will know until it is too late.

This may still be too picky - most candidates have not dealt in "an official capacity" with a foreign government, and we generally don't want or expect our governors to be making major speeches on foreign affairs before deciding to run for president. But Obama's resume truly is light. It is one that shows ability, but not much in the way of serious public policy acheivements or even thought.

I've long thought it would be fun if we still made people's names into cruel jokes, like in the middle ages: Pepin the Short; Ethelred the Unready; Charles the Bald; etc. etc. In our modern society, we would have folks with names like Charles Big Ears and Jerrold the Fat (I hate to think what my name would be). Senator Obama remains the great gamble of 2008. The next Lincoln? Or Barack the Unready?

New FEC Commissioner?

2007-08-21T08:52:00.000-05:00

According to the Washington Post's Al Kamen (who tends to be right in these things), Congressional Democrats have settled on Cyndi Bauerly as the next Federal Election Commissioner, replacing Ellen Weintraub, who has been serving as "acting" Commissioner since her term expired in April of this year.

I've never heard of Cyndi Bauerly before, but it turns out she is Legislative Director to Senator Chuck Schumer, whom not long ago was hit with over $250,000 in fines and penalties by the FEC for violating campaign finance laws. Beyond that, there's not much out there on Bauerly, beyond the fact that she was active in feminist and multi-cultural issues while in law school at Indiana University (scroll down to "From the Dean"). There she was "co-chair the Teachable Moments Committee of the Commission on Multicultural Understanding," no doubt known to her friends as the "TMCCMU." According to the bio in National Journal on Congressional aides, Bauerly is a 36 year old from St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Early in her career, she
clerked for judges at a federal court in California and the
Indiana Supreme Court. Then Bauerly headed to Washington, where
she worked on appellate litigation for Jones Day and then spent
two years as Schumer's counsel on the Senate Judiciary
Committee. She helped him in his effort to force cellular
companies to make phone numbers portable, and Schumer's
legislation persuaded the industry to adopt new standard
practices. Bauerly took a yearlong hiatus to work on
intellectual-property cases for the Minneapolis law firm of
Fredrikson & Byron, and then returned to Schumer's staff in
2005.

We find nothing indicating that Bauerly has the slightest familiarity with campaign finance laws, but suspect that in fact, she probably has exactly that - the slightest familiarity with the law.
Schumer, for his part, has historically been a big backer of campaign finance regulation, including public financing, but not only has he had his own problems, as noted above, but his support is sometimes fickle, that is, determined, it appears, by partisan concerns.

Well, isn't this grand? It appears that the Democrats have decided to put knowledge of the law in the backseat, and appointed someone whom, from what little we can tell, is likely to be both pro-regulation and highly partisan. I hope I am being unfair and judging Bauerly prematurely.

Fixing the "Debates"

2007-08-10T07:34:00.000-05:00

In this column, the Chicago Sun-Times' Steve Huntley argues that presidential "debates" (really joint press conferences) have turned into "cheap theatre" that is "debasing our electoral process." He'll get no argument here. The Centerman has thought as much for a long, long time.

Huntley blames all this on the loss of a role for the League of Women Voters, but that's wrong. The League-sponsored general election debates in the late 1970s and early 1980s were not substantially different than the general election debates sponsored since then by the party-dominated Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). The format is remarkably the same, with a panel of journalists asking questions of the two major party nominees (and, if those nominees consent, a third party candidate, as in the Reagan-Anderson League-sponsored debate in 1980 and the Bush-Clinton-Perot Commission-sponsored debates in 1992). The questioning seems no better or worse. Moreover, the primary debates are not sponsored by the CPD, but by a variety of organizations, such as the Congressional Black Caucus, the Des Moines Register, the South Carolina Democratic Party, and a host of news organizations. Similarly, way back in what Huntley imagines to be the halcyon years of League sponsorship, the primary debates were not sponsored by the League, but by media and other organizations. Ronald Reagan's famous moment, when he refused to allow the moderator to cut him off, took the microphone and stated "I'm paying for this microphone," came in a debate sponsored by the Nashua Telegraph.

The problem is the format itself, which is, as noted, really that of a joint press conference. The candidates don't actually debate much. Rather, a substantial portion of the "debate" time is given over to the journalists who asks the questions, and the candidates are limited to ridiculously short answers that are an invitation to offer canned soundbites and regurgitate campaign lines, rather than engage in deeper substance. These problems are amplified in the primaries, wherein as many as nine candidates must be squeezed in to the program, with the Mike Gravels, Dennis Kuciniches, Ron Pauls, and Tom Tancredos being treated as seriously as the Rudy Giulianis, John McCains, Mitt Romneys, Hillary Clintons, and Barack Obamas.

There are several reasons for this, and unfortunately, there is not a lot to do about it. First and foremost is the candidates themselves. Candidates, not surprisingly, insist on controlling every element of the debates that they can to assure that they are not placed at a disadvantage. Thus, over the years candidates have negotiated everything from podium heights, so that Geraldine Ferraro and Michael Dukakis did not look too small, and so that Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had the same amount of torso showing, to the identities of their inquisitors and the format for asking quesitons. This is to be expected. A change will come only when candidates think it will cost them more to skip a debate than to participate in one in which they do not agree with every such element of staging and format.

Similarly, assuring maximum coverage and promotion of the debates requires media complicity in those debates. Particularly in an era of cable and satellite, when viewers have many options to debates and, in fact, broadcasters can often do better with reruns of reality TV programs than debates, there is no reason for broadcasters to cover a debate from which they are excluded. So we can expect to continue to see attention hogging hosts who, as Huntley correctly notes, have as much or more interest in provoking on-stage theatre and fireworks as substantive discourse.

Finally, campaign finance laws hinder better debates. Campaign finance laws require that candidates be treated more or less equally, or otherwise the event will be viewed as a contribution by the sponsor to the participating candidates. Under the law, a debate sponsor can set criteria for participation, but it must be even-handed. A university sponsoring a debate, for example, cannot decide to exclude Mike Gravel, who has no chance of ever being president, while including Joe Biden, a more legitimate candidate, unless in accordance with a set of pre-determined criteria that is not designed for the purpose of excluding Gravel. So it is difficult in the primary stage to really whittle the field.

Having said all this, what we pass off as debates do actually seem to inform viewers. They are, it seems, better than nothing. But we would offer two modest ideas - ideas which, for the reasons just stated, we know will not be adopted:

1. Primary debates should focus on specific topic areas. There is little point in watching former Democratic Press Secretary Chris Matthews ask all the Republicans about abortion, and then watching former Democratic Press Secretary George Stephanopolous ask all the Republican candidates about abortion, etc. The debates could be become more focused simply by agreeing to topics. One debate could be limited to Iraq and the War on Terror - abroad. One could be limited to domestic civil liberties and homeland security. One debate could be limited to tax and fiscal policy. One could be limited to social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. One could be limited to health care.

2. Rather than take questions from journalists (or internet audiences), let's have a series of resolutions framed that can actually be debated, pro and con. I do not suggest that this would be easy, but it would be possible. Resolved: The Bush tax cuts should be made permanent. How tough is that? This would be most effective in the general election, where presumably it would be easier to set up pro and con stances for the candidates. In the primaries, to frame the issues broadly: we want an exchange on tax policy, or health care policy, with each candidate given a few minutes to speak, followed by a moderated crossfire.

Well, it ain't gonna happen, so time to get back to work.

The Effects of the Loss of Civility and Rationality in Political Discourse

2007-08-07T09:45:00.000-05:00

One of the things have said here, from my first post onward, is that centrism, as conceived here, is less about lack of conviction or even moderation - whatever that means - than tone and lack of raw partisanship. In this interesting Wall Street Journal column, former Rumanian intelligence officer and naturalized U.S. citizen Ion Pacepa discusses some of the costs America, and freedom, of the bitterness and over the top rhetoric of American politics. I particularly like his reference to former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe's doormat, a small matter which always struck me as the height of juvenile behavior with no seeming regard for the dignity of his position or the importance of world affairs.

Ed Koch on the Iraqi Front in the War on Terror

2007-07-18T11:44:00.000-05:00

Ed Koch is one Democrat who takes seriously the threat of radical Islam to the United States. That makes this column all the more important.

Is Obama Puffing Up the Donor Numbers?

2007-07-17T18:07:00.000-05:00

To the Centerman, there has always been something just a little amiss about the campaign of Barack Obama. We have already found ourselves asking, to borrow a phrase from Walter Mondale, borrowed from Wendy's Hot & Juicy Hamburgers, "where's the beef?"

That question arises again in the context of a New York Times story regarding Obama's fundraising. The Obama campaign has made much of the large number of donors to Senator's campaign, as proof of his widespread popularity. But is there beef in them buns? According to the Times, this comes about because,

Mr. Obama’s campaign has also employed novel tactics — like counting sales of $5 speech tickets or $4.50 Obama key chains as individual contributions — to pump up his numbers and transform grass-roots enthusiasm into more useful forms of support. No other campaign is known to have listed paraphernalia sales as donations.

The Times does not say what excluding those "donors" would do to Obama's numbers, nor how they compare to other candidates. In one sense, it hardly matters - Obama's fundraising numbers would be impressive no matter how he got it, and having people buy campaign trinkets is, in a way, as impressive as having them directly contribute to the campaign. The excitement is real. Yet one comes away once again thinking that Obama may be just a bit slicker than most folks yet think. The Centerman would like to believe that Senator Obama is the candidate so many seem to think he is - the unifying centrist, the man of integrity, the leader of a new generation. So far, though, I am just not quite buying it.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

2007-07-13T12:41:00.000-05:00

When voters threw out the Republican congressional majorities last fall, one reason was frustration over pork barrell spending, epitomized by the practice of "earmarking."

The new Congress, we were assured, would be different.

Today, the 2008 budget for Health and Human Services rolled through the House Ways & Means Committee, Chaired by Congressman Charlie B. Rangel of New York. It includes one of the largest earmarks anywhere in the budget, $2 million for the City College of New York, to be spent specifically on... the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service.

Frankenstein's Monster Turns on Its Creator: Senator McCain is Attacked by Stupid Campaign Finance Laws

2007-07-12T08:07:00.000-05:00

Poor John McCain. Here's the latest in a difficult week for the Senator: the New York Times is reporting that he may have made illegal campaign fundraising calls from the Senate cloakroom.

As the Times reports:

About 3 p.m. Tuesday, Senator John McCain ducked off the Senate floor, entered the Republican cloakroom and took out his mobile phone. Just hours after accepting the resignation of his two top campaign aides, he was making a conference call to his top fund-raisers to urge them to keep up the fight.

The call, however, may only have exacerbated an already tough week for Mr. McCain. Senate ethics rules expressly forbid lawmakers to engage in campaign activities inside Senate facilities. If Mr. McCain solicited campaign contributions on a call from government property, that would be a violation of federal criminal law as well

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but still, we feel some sympathy for the straight talkin' Senator. How dumb is all this?

Matt David, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, ... said Mr. McCain used his campaign cellphone and did not specifically ask the fund-raisers for campaign contributions, which would have been a crime.

It gets worse:

Whether a conference call with fund-raisers could constitute a solicitation of campaign contributions and thus violate the criminal law as well as the internal Senate ethics rules can depends on the details of the call, several legal experts said.

“If it is a solicitation, it is illegal,” said Lawrence Noble, a nonpartisan expert on political law in Washington.

Marc Elias, a Democratic campaign lawyer, said, “It is going to depend on the precise words that were used on the call,” noting that courts might consider an exhortation to pump up his fund-raisers a solicitation, depending on the context. (Mr. David insisted there was no form of solicitation on the call.)

It's going to depend on the precise words of the call? Context? An exhortation? Used his campaign cell phone? Did not "specifically ask" for contributions? How is someone supposed to comply with such rules? The answer is, they're not. They are supposed to stop raising funds.

How absurd is our system. Of course, at the end of the day, I wonder if anyone believes that this makes Senator McCain more corrupt? Maybe this will wake up Senator McCain to some of the damage that he has done with his "reform" crusade - but then, his days as a serious policy maker seem to be coming to an end, so it may not matter.

Meanwhile, this story in the gossipy Politico discusses something the Centerman has blogged on long ago - the relationship of Senator McCain with the "Reform Institute." The cruelest cut: The Politico Headline calls Senator McCain an "ex-reformer."

How absurd this all is. Senator McCain is being treated unfairly, to be sure (yes, let's go to a couple of Democratic lawyers for commentary - that's fair!), but what goes around sometimes comes around. Live by "reform," die by "reform."

Crocodile Tears and Wisconsin Right to Life

2007-06-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

People have been after me: When are you going to write something on Wisconsin Right to Life? Well, I'm a busy guy, and I figure most things are already being said in terms of analyzing the decision and predicting its effects.

But I suppose the time has come to add at least a few thoughts (and I apologize in advance for few links and less context than usual - just no time today):

1. Souter's dissent is a stinker. Even many who agree with the holding to seem to think so, from what I can tell. Never known as the Court's intellectual giant, and with little to build on but the equally ad Stevens/O'Connor opinion in McConnell v. FEC, Souter's argument consists of little more than outrage and conclusory statements. Like a Fred Wertheimer press release, Souter argues through adjective, talking, for example, about "fake issue ads," and describing the plaintiff as an organization that has "chosen to serve as a funnel for hundreds of thousands of dollars from other corporations" and demeaning other groups that, "refuse to take advantage of the PAC structure but insist on acting as conduits from the campaign war chests of business corporations." (Refuse to take advantage of the PAC structure? Who knew the government could be so generous? Does this mean the state is not required to allow any speech, so you'd better take advantage of what you are given?)

He refers to "undeniable facts" that testify to the "equally undeniable value" favoring regulation. Of course, many people, including many serious academic studies, deny those facts, and to say that regulation supports an "undeniable value" - which, some 150 words later, he finally identifies as "democratic integrity" - is meaningless. For the First Amendment, and the free speech it aims to protect, is also an "undeniable value," and the fact that campaign finance regulation infringes on it is also an "undeniable fact." Except to Souter and his three colleagues. To them, the documented threats to integrity are "obvious to any voter" (except, apparently, the millions who have opposed McCain-Feingold, joined groups that litigated against it, and voted for politicians who opposed it). (slip opinion at 19-20.) At another point he tells us that "any voter who paid attention would have known that Democratic Senator Feingold supported filibusters..." (at 22. emphasis added). This shows a remarkable ignorance of studies about voter knowledge, which shows that most voters can't even name their representatives. And it also raises an interesting question - if every voter knew that, why would anyone run these ads, regardless of their purpose? Thus, Souter concludes, it is "beyond all reasonable debate" that the ads are subject to regulation. (p. 23).

This is not legal analysis. This is a scream: WE WILL NOT DEBATE. WE WILL NOT DISCUSS. WE WILL NOT ENGAGE. WE ARE INTRANSIGENT. THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBLE ANSWER!

2. Some parts of the Roberts opinion I liked:
a. His deft dissection of the fraudulent "Buying Time" studies (p. 12-13).
b. The fact that he actually quotes the First Amendment - when was that last done in a Supreme Court decision on campaign finance?
c. "We disagree with the dissent's view that corporations can still speak by changing what they say to avoid mentioning candidates. This argument is akin to telling Cohen that he cannot wear his jacket because he is free to wear one that says, 'I disagree with the draft;' or telling 44 Liquormart that it can advertise so long as it avoids mentioning prices." (slip op. at 23-24, fn. 9). He is referring here to Cohen v. California, upholding the right to wear a "F*** the Draft" jacket, and 44 Liquormart Inc. v. Rhode Island, upholding the right to advertise liquor prices.
d. Skewering the intervenors (Sen. McCain and pals) for their "heads I win, tails you lose" argument. (p. 18, noting their argument that the less an ad actually pertained to an election, the more likely it was to influence voters); and
e. "Enough is enough." (p. 25)

3. Crocodile tears about 5-4 votes. All the academics, from Erwin Chemerinksy to Cass Sunstein, are out bemoaning all the 5-4 decisions this term. "Why," they whine, "Roberts said he wanted to build consensus." Of course, building consensus takes more than one. As noted above, in this case for example, the dissent is little more than petulance and a determination that no compromise is possible. None of these folks whined when McConnell v. FEC went 5-4 in their favor, but then, Justice Stevens never said he cared about gaining consensus - which may explain why this decision was also 5-4! The definition of consensus seems to be this: when Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas sacrifice their beliefs to agree with the other four. In this case, Roberts and Alito tried to take a narrow view, much to the chagrin of Scalia. Surely Breyer or Souter or someone could have joined the Chief, and tried to write an opinion a bit more to their liking. They chose not to. If Roberts isn't even going to win votes by trying to keep his ruling narrow, he may as well go all out. In the field of campaign finance, at least, that would be a good thing.

4. Crocodile tears about the abuse of precedent. All the folks who sat idly by while the McConnell decision abused precedent are now up in arms. Souter's decision is as good a place as any to go for an example of how they are still willing to abuse precedent, e.g.: "campaign finance reform has... consistently focused on the pervasive distortion of electoral institutions by concentrated wealth..." (slip opinion at 20. Hey, Souter - read Buckley v. Valeo. Hypocrits. It's that simple.

5. Well, we have to go back to the Souter opinion for a bit. You've got to love footnote 18, in which he disses the Pew Trusts/Brennan Center's baby, the Buying Time studies. Why, according to Souter, there is "not a shred of evidence" that the Court relied on them. (slip opinon at 26, n. 18). Guess the folks and Pew and Brennan just lost their bragging rights.

Well, enough. There is much more to do.

And We Trust These People to Elect a Government

2007-06-20T10:17:00.001-05:00

The stock market is setting record highs; only twice since the 1960s has unemployment ended the year lower than May's 4.5% rate; the economy continues to grow; personal income continues to grow; inflation is tame at 2.7% over the last 12 months, but only one-third of Americans rate the economy as "good" and 70% think it getting worse, according to Gallup.

And we trust these people to elect the government. Well, I suppose that's better than the alternative. Or as the great Churchill put it, "democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time."

And these People Are the Front Runners

2007-06-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

"I am running for president because I believe if we set big goals and we work together to achieve them, we can restore the American dream today and for the next generation."... "We can give people the education and opportunities they need to fulfill their God-given potentials." ... "The foundation of a strong economy is the investments we make in each other."
- Hillary Clinton

"Folks, we're a bit down politically right now, but I think we're on the comeback trail, and it's going to start right here." ... "It's time to take stock and be honest with ourselves. We're going to have to do a lot of things better." ... "I know we're here for the same reasons: Love of our country and concern for our future."
- Fred Thompson

See this wonderful column from Anne Applebaum for more banal quotes.

The Muslims World is Just Like Us

2007-06-19T08:16:00.000-05:00

Or at least just like we would be if every time we felt vaguely insulted we launched into rampages of violence and death threats.

Be sure not to miss this quote midway through, from Ijaz-ul-Haq, the Religious Affairs Minister in Pakistan's government, talking about the appropriate reaction to the Knighthood given to Salman Rushie:

“If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified,”

He later claimed to have been misunderstood.

Or We Could Vote Candidates Off

2007-06-11T14:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a good column from the New Republic about the inanities of what are called presidential "debates."

My mild suggestion, if we have to have these things, would be to at least make each debate on a single topic, and not have questions but let the candidates talk and rebut on the topic. By now, each party could have had one on Iraq; one on Immigration; one on the Economy. A few more could cover Health care; family and values (a broad umbrella for abortion, gay marriage etc.); National Security (somewhat redundant with Iraq but merited); Political and Ethics Reform; etc.

If each candidate got 4 minutes to open and 2 minutes rebuttal, then you'd be at 60 minutes, with 15 minutes for vvery lightly moderated cross exchange, 1 minute each to sum up, and 5 minutes devoted to housekeeping (the inescapable introductions and closing) all in 90 minutes. You'd at least get a bit of exchange and some reasonable time to make a modestly coherent argument. Extend it to two hours would be better. If you want to see what a good, light moderation would look like, review the discussions that were held in the PBS Free to Choose series back in the early 1980s.

Of course, the real fun would be if we did it like American Idol or Survivor, and voted one contestant off the stage each week.

Why the Thompson Boomlet?

2007-06-11T10:47:00.000-05:00

George Will asks the question here. Frankly, I don't get it, either.

Silencing the Opposition: Return of the Fairness Doctrine?

2007-05-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

Newsweek's Howard Fineman has republished a Democratic Party press release... er, written a fine column on efforts to reinstate the so-called "fairness" doctrine. This is the rule that allows the government to intimidate and limit broadcast opinion in the name of promoting "fairness" over the "public" airwaves.

In the last campaign, there was a great deal of talk in Democratic Party circles about the dangers of "one party rule." To their credit, however, Republicans never had so much gall as to make such a blatantly partisan attack on Democratic media. But as Fineman's column makes clear, this is nothing but a partisan effort to silence opposition. That the three major networks, plus CNN and MSNBC, plus NPR, plus most daily papers lean to the left is not enough - the left must silence talk radio, and Fox News is assuredly not far behind.

Both the Kennedy and Nixon administrations used the fairness doctrine to harass political opponents. As former FCC Chairman James Quello put it, "The fairness doctrine doesn't belong in a country that's dedicated to freedom of the press and freedom of speech." This article is a few years old but in short order demonstrates the perniciousness of the doctrine. A quick excerpt:

As defined by proponents of the doctrine, "fairness" apparently means that each broadcaster must offer air time to anyone with a controversial view. Since it is impossible for every station to be monitored constantly, FCC regulators would arbitrarily determine what "fair access" is, and who is entitled to it, through selective enforcement. This, of course, puts immense power into the hands of federal regulators. ...

...[W]ith the threat of potential FCC retaliation for perceived lack of compliance, most broadcasters would be more reluctant to air their own opinions because it might require them to air alternative perspectives that their audience does not want to hear.

Exactly.

The Great Challenge of Our Time

2007-05-15T13:06:00.000-05:00

Does it seem that Americans increasingly want to turn their heads away from Islamic radicalism, the greatest threat of our times? Nearly six years after 9/11, the West still seems unsure of how to respond.

This article by Chris Hitchens is must reading. Take special note of what Hitchens reports is being taught in mainstream mosques.

Oprah, Obama and "Undue" Influence

2007-05-11T11:59:00.000-05:00

For the first time ever, Oprah Winfrey has endorsed a candidate for political office, Barack Obama. I've got no beef with Oprah or Obama, the former of whom I never watch, the latter of whom seems to be a intriguing new face on the political scene, a vessel into which many hopes and ambitions are being poured. Maybe he is the guy to shake a ridiculously prosperous America from whatever dolldrums have us in such a funk.

But Paul Sherman of the Center for Competitive Politics asks a good question: "Where are the 'reformers' to rescue us from Oprah's undue influence on the political process?"

Sherman writes:

Reformers intent on eliminating private money from politics [have] adopt[ed] an expansive definition of 'corruption.' They have defined the term downward, away from quid pro quo and towards 'influence' and 'access.' But this has painted them into a logical corner, because under this redefinition influential endorsements begin to look more and more like a source of 'corruption.' ...

[A] common reform complaint about monetary contributions was that, at the end of the day, it was the large contributor whose phone calls were being returned. Following this valuable endorsement, is there any chance that Barack Obama won't be returning Oprah's phone calls? What makes her influence more deserving of protection than, say, an unknown professional with money to spend?

This is a good question indeed. Note that if Oprah wanted to contribute $5000 to Obama, it would violate the law. But if she wants to give Obama a million dollars value in TV time and endorsements, that is perfectly legal. Is this a good idea? Says Sherman:

There may be a relatively small percentage of the population that can give $2,300 to a political candidate, but there's only one "most influential woman in the world."

Equality, reform style.

Same Ole Same Ole Obama

2007-05-10T07:59:00.000-05:00

Today Bloomberg has up a puff piece on Barack Obama's economic policy team. The article opens with this hard-hitting, objective paragraph:

Senator Barack Obama portrays himself as a new kind of leader who transcends conventional politics. Judging by the economists he has enlisted in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he may just be.

In the second paragraph, we learn that they are "up-and-coming-academics... with a fondness for backing innovative solutions to the nation's problems." Hey, my heart is already atwitter. Next, Alan Blinder is trotted out to reveal "They bring to the campaign some fresh thought on approaches that are non-status quo." We learn that they are "top-notch" and that their solutions "can help us get past ideological battles." From one of the economic advisors himself we learn that Obama, "wants to get beyond the normal debate between A and B, to try to dream up things that are different and better." Finally, a change from candidates such as John Edwards and Mitt Romney, dreaming up plans that are the same, only worse. This is a new strategy! And so on goes Bloomberg, at some length.

The Centerman wonders what story this is worth to the Obama campaign. $50,000? $75,000? $250,000? More? Lots more?

When all is said and done, the proposals don't sound all that new. Let's see... they want the federal government to pick up automakers health care and pension costs - subsidies for industry, an idea at least as old as Lee Ioccoca and the Chrysler bailout, and something every manufacturers association longs for - but to link these subsidies to more greater investment in "fuel efficient vehicles." Fuel efficient vehicles? Whoa, where did that come from? These guys are fresh!

To put it another way, Obama wants to take over the auto and health care industries in one fell swoop.

But Obama's health plans go further.

[He] has tried to go beyond the long-running debate between advocates of a government-run ``single-payer'' system and proponents of a market-driven approach based on health savings accounts for consumers.

Under a pay-for-performance system devised by [Obama advisor] Cutler, doctors would be reimbursed not for the services they provide but for the improvements they make to patients' health. Patients would be encouraged to take better care of themselves through preventive care and comparison shopping for medical cost savings.

Oh, I love that. A government run health plan in which my doctor gets paid or not by the government based on my personal health habits. Isn't the way to comparison shopping easy - expanded personal health accounts, with less reliance on government or employers to pick up the tab? I don't quite know how you get consumers to comparison shop costs when they don't pay the bill directly. But less reliance on third party payers is anathema to the Democratic Party, so Obama's folks are dreaming up gimmicks that probably can't work.

Maybe I've just grown cynical. Perhaps there really are no truly new solutions to our various problems. But man, what does a candidate have to do to get such coverage? Poor Hillary Clinton - her health plan never had it so good. Is there a fairness doctrine anyplace for Obama's rivals?

The Truth About Politicization at DOJ

2007-04-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

This post at the Volokh Conspiracy comments on the Washington Post's story re the decision of the Justice Department to remove political officials from any role in hiring for the Department's Honors Program. The Volokh Conspiracy notes that allegations about politicized hiring at the Department's Civil Rights Division may say more about the politicized nature of the career lawyers in the Division than it says about the allegedly political hiring of the Bush administration.

The Post article is almost comical in the examples it gives of allegedly biased hiring. For example:

According to a former deputy chief in the civil rights division, one honors hire was a University of Mississippi law school graduate who had been a clerk for U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. about the time the judge's nomination by President Bush to a federal appeals court provoked opposition by congressional Democrats, who contended that Pickering was hostile to civil rights.

Or this:

Another honors hire, a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law who had been president of the campus chapter of the Federalist Society, displayed a bust of President James Madison in his Justice office, according to a former honors program lawyer who was hired during the Clinton administration. A profile of Madison's face is the logo of the society, which is based on conservative precepts.

Or this:

"When I started," the former honors program lawyer said, "it was rare you met people whose civil rights credentials were that they were part of the Federalist Society, but it became a commonplace thing."

Or this:

Bill Condon, an honors hire in the civil rights division who graduated in 2004 from Regent University, a small Christian school in Virginia Beach, recounted his job interview recently in the school's alumni magazine. Condon wrote that, when an interviewer asked him which Supreme Court decision he disagreed with most, Condon cited a 2003 ruling that struck down a Texas law outlawing homosexual acts, a decision that has been a lightning rod for social conservatives.

Yes, it sounds like the Department is being overrun with people with mainstream views (they oppose the Supreme Court's decision striking down anti-sodomy laws, a decision which, for better or worse, is opposed by a very large segment, quite likely a majority, of the public)!; who were campus leaders (the President of the Federalist Society!!), who admire those who played a major role in drafting our Constitution (a bust of Madison!!!), and who clerked for federal judges (!!!!)

Fifteen months ago, in posts here, here, here, here here and here, we noted some of the signs of historic bias in the Department's Civil Rights Division. Private emails we received after that series, from those who would seem to us to be in a position to know, stressed that indeed the old process of leaving hiring to career employees was heavily biased against anyone who did not lean to the political left. All of this is unfortunate, but it also leaves us less than sanguine that the new hiring policy will depoliticize the Department.

Meanwhile, we're going to try out our new slogan:The Lonely Centrist: 15 months ahead of the Volokh Conspiracy. What do you think?

Do the signs work?

2007-04-21T15:30:00.000-05:00

The other day a friend confided that he was thinking about going into a school and shooting a bunch of students, but was deterred by the "Gun Free Zone" sign at the edge of the school grounds.

Naive E.J. Dionne

2007-04-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

Here's a naive column by E.J. Dionne.

Dionne misses the John McCain of 2000. He argues that in 2000 the McCain presidential run was, "an unruly and joyous romp." This year's campaign, "feels quite different: Carefully planned, meticulously calculated" Dionne argues that in McCain has made numerous compromises in an effort to win the Republican nomination, and of course they are compromises that Dionne does not like. Dionne says that these were bad choices, made, "on calculation." The question is, on what basis did he think Senator McCain made his choices in 2000?

John McCain is a very shrewd politician, and his 2000 campaign was shrewd and calculated. McCain did what he needed to do to separate from the pack of GOP challengers to front runner George W. Bush. He started the campaign running to the right of Bush, who was the centrist candidate. Bush was the son of a President not beloved by the GOP right, talking about a "new tone" and "compassionate conservatism" and rejecting the notion that the government should be made smaller. McCain was touting his voting records with Right to Life and the NRA. But the right was crowded territory, with Dan Quayle, Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, and others all competing for conservative support. When Liddy Dole's campaign fizzled early, and when McCain discovered how smitten the press - that is, people like Dionne - could be with his campaign finance position and his willingness to tell the press what the press wanted to hear about conservatives (whose votes McCain wasn't getting anyway), he quickly moved left. Bush, in trouble after independent voters helped McCain score big in New Hampshire and then Michigan primaries, moved right, fast. But make no mistake - John McCain's campaign was as calculated as they come, from the "Straight Talk express" to his bashing of Pat Robertson.

Perhaps Dionne should be another contender for the most naive man title.

Myopic E.J. Dionne

2007-04-13T23:43:00.000-05:00

Here's an E.J. Dionne column that is so myopic as to be almost laughable. This line in particular is a hoot:

The Fox debate saga is amusing, but it's more than that. It marks a transformation on the left side of politics, driven by the rise of Internet voices and the frustration of liberals at the success of conservatives in using a combination of talk radio, Fox on television, and the Web to propagate anti-liberal, anti-Democratic messages.

Liberals need to toughen up.

First Round Summary

2007-03-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

First Round Summary for the NCAA Tournament:

Big 6 ("BCS") conferences: 24-10
Mid Majors: 7-9
Division I-AA: 1-14

See this post for the difference between true "Mid-Majors" and "Division I-AA" teams.

Congrats to Winthrop for winning the first ever game for the Big South in 16 tries.

Democrats: Just Say No to Fox... and Colbert... and who else?

2007-03-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

Rahm Emmanuel is advising congressional Democrats not to appear on Steve Colbert's satirical "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. One can understand the desire not to appear on "Colbert" in a "gotcha" politics world, but really, do we want it known that Democrats are either afraid or too dull to appear on Colbert?

This comes on the heels of some whining by Representative Maurice Hinchey and other Democrats that Sunday talk shows are booking more conservative guests than liberal ones (they base this on a rather murky study by the liberal group Media Matters). This appears to be part of the liberal move to reimpose the so-called "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, under which presidential administrations harassed their political opponents (see page 12) and the airwaves were largely free of interesting public affairs programming.

The whole idea that we would need a "fairness doctrine" because of the "scarcity" of the airwaves, in an era of cable and satellite television and radio, is laughable. One can roust up literally dozens if not hundreds of channels featuring almost every viewpoint imaginable, and that's before we get to webcasts and the like.

Finally, Democrats recently cancelled a presidential debate because it was set to air on Fox News. Harry Reid offered up the transparently ridiculous excuse that he was upset by comments made by Fox News Chief Roger Ailes (transparently ridiculous because the allegedly offending comment was a joke about President Bush being too dumb or ill-informed to know the difference between Osama Bin Laden or Barack Obama). The real reason was a crazed reaction from the Democratic left.

This seems remarkably bone-headed. If Democrats think that Fox tilts right (it does), the answer is, "grow up." For years Republicans have done interviews and debates on CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS. The rage that the left wing feels about a the very existence of a single conservative-leaning network is difficult for rational people to grasp. It would seem to demonstrate an enormous insecurity, a deep-rooted intolerance for opposition, general paranoia, an inability to look at the world rationally, or some combination of the four. I hate to go into pop psychology, but its hard to explain in any other way. In any case, though, it really seems bone-headed because Democrats should not stop appearing on the most conservative - and importantly, most watched - cable network (especially in a debate featuring only Democrats). There is a growing, and in my view unhealthy trend, to only be willing to listen to news and opinion we think we want to hear. To have the leadership of a major party playing into that insular thinking is a mistake.

More Evidence for a Mid-Major split

2007-03-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

Following up on the posts of the last couple days, today's First round NCAA action provides further evidence of the benefits to split NCAA basketball into divisions I and I-AA.

Seven of the 15 teams from the conferences I would split off into I-AA (Southern, Ohio Valley, MEAC, SWAC, SLC, NEC, Patriot, America East, Big South, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, MAAC, MCC, Sunbelt, and Ivy) were action today, and they went 0-7, losing by an average of 20 points. All seven lost by double digits, and only Davidson, a valient 82-70 loser to Maryland, was in the game at any point in the last ten minutes.

On the other hand, the other Mid-Major conferences that I would leave in I-A (Atlantic 10, Mountain West, WAC, Horizon, MAC, West Coast, Big West, Missouri Valley, Conference USA, Colonial) went 3-5 on the day, including VCU's exciting win over Duke. The point I'm making is that it is pretty easy to draw the line separating the proposed divisions.

And this tournament would be better if we had Kansas State, Drexel, Akron, Syracuse, Florida State, West Virginia, and Bradley in the tourney than today's 7 stiffs (with due apologies to Davidson!).

More Thoughts on the NCAA Tournament and Mid-Majors

2007-03-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

In yesterday's lengthy post, I argued that the NCAA - and "true" mid-majors such as Missouri Valley, WAC and Mountain West teams, would benefit if the NCAA either split into two basketball divisions, or alternatively abolished at automatic bids (the former being the better option.) I also argued that a split into two divisions would, in the long run, help the "low majors" in conferences such as the SWAC, MEAC, and SLC. In doing this, I listed the record of these "low major" conferences in the the NCAA tournament over the past 10 years, and since the tournament went to 64 teams in 1985. Of the 15 conferences I would drop to I-AA status, none have been better than 2-10 in tournament play over the last 10 years, and five of them are 0-10. Since 1985, none is better than 3-22, except for the Sunbelt and Mid-Continent, both of which have records improved by wins in the 1980s from teams long departed for better pastures. Just for comparison, here are the records in NCAA tourney play for other mid-major conferences:

Atlantic 10:
1997-2006: 24-30
1985-2006: 59-60

Big West:
1997-2006: 3-11
1985-2006: 28-28
The Big West’s longer term record is a bit misleading, as UNLV went 21-6 in NCAA tournament play from 1985 through 1991. Another traditional conference power, New Mexico State, also left the conference a few years back. Still, the league is demonstrably better than the 15 conferences profiled in yesterday’s post.

Colonial:
1997-2006: 6-11
1985-2006: 14-24
The Colonial’s 1985-2006 record is helped along by a combined 8 wins from Richmond, now in the Atlantic 10, and David Robinson-led Navy squads in the 1980s. Still, take those two clubs out and its post-1984 record of 6-16 still easily surpasses the lesser conferences. Of course, four of those wins came last year from George Mason. But the conference is regularly competitive in tournament games. For example, North Carolina-Wilmington lost last year to George Washington in overtime; VCU lost to Wake Forest by a point in 2004; UNC Wilmington lost to eventual champ Maryland by 2 in 2003; George Mason lost to Maryland by 3 in 2001. Other than Mason’s loss to Florida in the National Semi-finals last year, the conference has not taken a double digit loss in NCAA play since 2000.

Conference USA:
1997-2006: 34-36
1985-2006: 40-40
For a decade Conference USA was just a notch behind the Big 6 “Bowl Champion Series” conferences, then the Big East stole all its best teams last year. Nevertheless, teams still in the conference have a combined 7-7 record in tournament play in the last decade, plus an additional 7-11 by teams now in Conference USA but then representing other leagues.

Horizon:
1997-2006: 8-13
1985-2006: 17-29

Mid-American (“MAC”)
1997-2006: 8-12
1985-2006: 15-27
Kent State made the Elite 8 in 2002.

Missouri Valley:
1997-2006: 13-22
1985-2006: 20-42
2007 marks the 10th consecutive season, and 13th in the last 14, that the MVC has been a multiple bid league.

Mountain West:
2000-2006: 5-16
I was surprised by how poorly the Mountain West has done in the tournament since it was formed out of the WAC in 2000. But remember, Utah made the Final Four in 1998 as a WAC member.

West Coast Conference:
1997-2006: 13-14
1985-2006: 19-30
Gonzaga’s 12-8 record in the Tournament since 1999 has fueled the WCC’s numbers since 1997, but the league has multiple bids in four of the last six years, plus a win from Santa Clara in 1996. And going further back, don’t forget Loyola Marymount’s Elite 8 appearance in 1990.

WAC
1997-2006: 23-23
1985-2006: 41-52
Except for 2003, the WAC has been a multi-bid league every year since the Tournament went to 64 teams in 1985. Since the Mountain West split off in 2000, the conference record is 9-13.

I think this data, combined with yesterday's for the 15 minor Division I conferences, shows further that you can draw a pretty clear line between the top mid-majors listed above and the bottom 15 Division I conferences. If this were done, there would have to be some criteria, as with football, for weeding schools out of Division I and into I-AA. Undoubtedly some strong teams from the I-AA conferences might try to move up – one could even envision a league forming in northeast around some of the stronger programs from the newly designated I-AA leagues, such as Holy Cross, Bucknell, Manhattan, perhaps Niagara and Vermont or something. A few schools might be pushed out of the bigger conferences into I-AA – perhaps schools such as William & Mary or Towson State from the Colonial, or Cal-Riverside from the Big West. But teams are switching conferences all the time these days.

What do you think?

It's NCAA Tourney Time!: How to Keep Mid-Majors from Getting the Shaft: Eliminating Automatic Bids for Low Mid-Majors

2007-03-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

The Centerman emerges from hibernation for the event of the year...

It’s NCAA Tournament Time, March Madness blah blah etc etc. Don’t take that the wrong way – I love March, I love college basketball, I love the tournament. But hasn’t everything been said that can be said?

Well, maybe not. At least here’s something I’m not hearing. Major college basketball needs to split into two divisions, as major college football did a generation ago. There are now 336 schools claiming to play Division I college basketball. Among many others, these include schools such as New Jersey Tech, Longwood, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and some place that goes only by the mysterious initials IUPUI.

Fans of true mid-majors such as Air Force, Drexel, Appalachian State, and Utah State, and Akron are bummed that their teams weren’t chosen, and note that this year there were only six “mid-major” at large picks, a low number in a declining trend. They blame the big conferences for trying to squeeze out the middies. Meanwhile, fans of “high-majors” such as Syracuse, West Virginia, and Kansas State are furious, and throw the blame on a handful of teams that got in – Arkansas, Xavier, and Illinois mainly. But the real reason the for both groups disappointments is that the Tournament – admittedly the most perfect sporting event in the world, is simply awarding too many automatic bids. It is time to cut Division I basketball in two.

Right now there are 31 Division I basketball conferences. Let me suggest that 15 of these conferences do not deserve that designation. These are: America East; Atlantic Sun; Big Sky; Big South; Ivy; Metro-Atlantic (MAAC); Mid-Continent (MCC); Mid-Eastern Athletic (MEAC); Northeast; Ohio Valley (OVC); Patriot; Southern; Southland; Southwestern (SWAC); and Sunbelt. I’m not saying that absolutely every team in every one of these conferences should be dropped from Division I, or that every team in the other 16 conferences necessarily deserves to stay. There may be some re-alignments necessary, as, for example, the best teams in the Patriot, Holy Cross (which also has a deep basketball tradition) and Bucknell find new homes to stay in Division I, while some clubs, such as Drake or Indiana State in the Missouri Valley, or Duquesne in the Atlantic 10, consider a drop to I-AA. But it should be done.

Let’s look at the record of these 15 conferences in NCAA tournament play. I looked at two relevant time periods: the last 10 tournaments (1997-2006); and the period since 1985, when the tournament went to 64 teams. This is, I think, the relevant history. I will note here that I do not give a team a tournament “win” for winning the “play-in” or, as the NCAA prefers, “opening round” game between the last two teams in the field.

Here’s what we find:

America East:
Record: ’97-’06 - 1-10
Record: ’85-’06 – 3-22
Last Win: Vermont, 2005 over Syracuse, 60-57
Last At-large bid: Never
2007 Entry: Albany, (13th seed)
Vermont’s 2005 win over Syracuse ended a string of 8 consecutive tournament losses for this conference. It’s worth noting that the conferences only other victories in NCAA play go to Drexel, now a member of the Colonial Conference, in 1996, and Siena, now a member of the Metro-Atlantic Conference, in 1989. Northeastern, which also left the conference years ago, won a couple tournament games in the early 1980s, before the field grew to 64 teams.

Atlantic Sun:
Record: ’97-’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85-’06 – 3-22
Last Win: Georgia St., 2001 over Wisconsin
Last At Large Bid: 1994 (Charleston)
2007 Entry: Belmont (15th seed)
All three of the Atlantic 10’s NCAA tournament wins have come from teams no longer in the conference: Georgia St in 2001; Charleston in 1994, and Arkansas-Little Rock in 1986. Except for the now departed Charleston, the conference has never received an at-large bid. Belmont is representing the league for the second consecutive season. Last year, also as a #15 seed, they lost to UCLA by 34 in the first round.

Big Sky:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-22
Last Win: Montana 2006, over Nevada
Last At-Large Bid: Never
2007 Entry: Weber State (15th seed)
The Big Sky has been around since the NCAA first began awarding at-large bids to conference teams in the early 1970s, but has never received an at-large bid. The Big Sky has some nice old history in coaches such as Dick Motta and Jud Heathcoat, and Montana did get a win last year, but the truth is, this league just in’t cutting it anymore.

Big South:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 0-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 0-15
Last Win: Never
Last At-Large Bid: Never
2007 Entry: Winthrop (11th seed)
This year’s Winthrop team may have the best chance this league has had yet to win a tournament game. Winthrop is the first Big South team to be seeded above 14th, and 8 of the 15 Big South entries have been seeded 16th. If they can’t do it, you have to ask if they ever can. The all-time average margin of defeat for a Big South team in Tournament play is 20 points, and 5 of the league’s entries have lost by 30 or more points.

Ivy:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 1-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-23
Last Win: Princeton, 1998 over UNLV.
Last At-Large Bid: Columbia, 1968
2007 Entry: Penn (14th seed)
People love to talk about how tough the Ivies are to play, but the fact is, they almost always lose. No Ivy has reached the Sweet 16 since Penn crashed the Final Four in 1979. They’ve lost 8 straight tournament games since Princeton managed a #5 seed and a first round win over UNLV in 1998. And at that the league is not as good as its tournament representatives – Penn or Princeton has represented the league every year since 1988, and every year but three since 1962. One hates to stomp on Bill Bradley and all that history, but let’s face it – this is a I-AA conference.

Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 1-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-23
Last Win: Manhattan, 2004 over Florida
Last At-Large Bid: Manhattan, 1995
2007 Entry: Niagara (16th seed/play in game)
Other than Manhattan’s first round wins in 1995 and 2004, the only team from this league to win a Tourney game was in 1990, when LaSalle, long since departed for the Atlantic 10, won a first rounder behind Lionel Simmons. I was a bit surprised, actually, by how poorly this league has done.

Mid Continent Conference:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 7-22
Last Win: Valparaiso, 1998, made Sweet 16.
Last At-Large Bid: Northern Illinois (1991)
2007 Entry: Oral Roberts (14th Seed)
The MCC’s all-time record looks much better than it is. The only team still in the conference to ever win a game is Valparaiso, which reached the Sweet 16 in 1998. Wisconsin-Green Bay and Cleveland State, both in the Horizon Conference for over a decade, won in 1994 and 1986, respectively (with Cleveland State reaching the Sweet 16), and Northern Iowa, and Missouri State, long departed for the Missouri Valley, won games in ’87 and ’90, respectively. The conference’s last five entries have lost by an average of 23.4 points.

MEAC
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 2-22
Last Win: Hampton, 2001 over Iowa St.
Last At-Large Bid: Never
2007 Entry: Florida A&M (16th seed/play in)
Since Hampton’s 2001 first round win, all five MEAC entries have lost by double digits. The league’s 2-22 record since 1985 is pretty bad, but then, before 1985 the league had never won a game.

Northeast Conference
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 0-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 0-22
Last Win: Never
Last At-Large Bid: Never
2007 Entry: Central Connecticut State (16th Seed)
This league has never won a game other than a play-in, with an all-time 0-25 record. Nineteen of 22 entries since 1985 have lost by double-digits, including two losses by more than 40 points.

Ohio Valley Conference
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 0-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-23
Last Win: Middle Tennessee State 1989, over Florida State.
Last At-Large Bid: Middle Tennessee State, 1987
2007 Entry: Eastern Kentucky (16th seed)
Another grand old conference that no longer cuts it, with 17 consecutive losses in Tournament play. The Conferences best historic program, Western Kentucky, fled long ago.

Patriot:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 2-15
Last Win: Bucknell, 2006 over Arkansas
Last At-Large Bid: Never
2007 Entry: Holy Cross (13th seed)
Bucknell has won first round games in each of the last two years, the league’s first two wins ever. Holy Cross is a tough team this year. So it’s a bit difficult to relegate this league to I-AA, but behind those two clubs there is no depth at all to this league (Lehigh, Lafayette, American, Army, Navy and Colgate).

Southern:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 2-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-22
Last Win: Chattanooga 1997, Sweet 16
Last At-Large Bid: North Carolina State, 1950
2007 Entry: Davidson (13th seed)
One of the oldest conferences in the nation, and for decades one of the best, the Southern has long been a shadow of the conference that once included every major program south of the Mason-Dixon line – as illustrated by the fact that it’s last at-large bid went to North Carolina State in 1950! The league is not even what it was when Lefty Dreisell prowled the Davidson bench in the late 1960s. The league has just 3 wins since the Tournament went to 64 teams in 1985: two of those belong to Chattanooga in 1997, and the third to East Tennessee State in 1992, but since forced out of the Conference for dropping football. The league actually had an up season this year – Davidson is a tough team, and Appalachian State, in some years, would have merited an at-large bid.

Southland Conference:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 1-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 3-22
Last Win: Northwestern State, 2006 over Iowa
Last At-Large Bid: Louisiana Lafayette 1973
2007 Entry: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (15th seed)
Last year’s tournament win for Northwestern State was the league’s first since Lousiana Tech, now a member of the WAC, reached the Sweet 16 in 1985. That also broke a string of 16 consecutive double digit losses, nine of them by more than 20 points. The league’s last at-large bid came in 1973, to a school then known as Southwestern Louisiana.

SWAC:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 0-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 1-22
Last Win: Southern, 1993 over Georgia Tech
Last At-Large Bid: Alcorn State 1980
2007 Entry: Jackson State (16th Seed)
This league’s representative has lost three of the last 5 play-in games, and hasn’t been seeded above 16th since 1999, or above 15th since Ben Jobe’s Southern team in 1993, which is also the only league entry to win a non-play in game since Alcorn State beat South Alabama in 1980.

Sunbelt:
Record: ’97 – ’06 – 0-10
Record: ’85 – ’06 – 11-31
Last Win: Western Kentucky 1995 over Michigan
Last At-Large Bid: Western Kentucky 1994
2007 Entry: North Texas (15th seed)
In the mid-1980s, this was a wonderful up and coming conference, including Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth, Western Kentucky, Alabama-Birmingham, Jacksonville, and Charlotte, and coaches such as Gene Bartow, J.D. Barnett, Clem Haskins, and Bob Wenzel. Charlotte, then known as UNC-Charlotte, reached the Final Four in 1977. From 1981 to 1989 the league went 14-18 in the Tourney, and routinely received multiple bids, including 4 bids in 1986. And then the league began to desinigrate. Of the schools mentioned above, only Western Kentucky remains in the conference. The league has lost its last 12 Tournament games, including a 26-point route of South Alabama last year. Western Kentucky needs to find its way into the Missouri Valley or perhaps Conference USA, and the rest of this league should fall to division I-AA.

That’s a record of 16-150 for these 15 conferences over the past 10 years, without a single at-large bid. In short, they are cannon fodder for the top seeds. Moreover, these 15 leagues make up all 5 #16th seeds (including the play-in), all 4 #15 seeds, and two #14 seeds in this year’s tournament. We like to think that it's fun to watch these little teams try to pull off the upset, but generally the games are just snoozers - it is the better mid-majors that pull off the upsets.

Imagine that these 15 conferences did not receive automatic bids, and we went back to a straight 64 team tournament. Who would be out this year, and who might replace them:

OUT IN
1. Florida A&M/Niagara 1. Syracuse
2. Jackson State 2. Drexel
3. Central Connecticut State 3. W. Virginia
4. Eastern Kentucky 4. Kansas State
5. Belmont 5. Appalachian State
6. North Texas 6. Air Force
7. Weber State 7. Missouri State
8. Texas A&M Corpus Cristi 8. Bradley
9. Oral Roberts 9. Michigan
10. Penn 10. Florida State
11. Albany 11. Utah State
12. Holy Cross 12. Holy Cross
13. Davidson 13. Davidson
14. Winthrop 14. Winthrop

Notice I still put in three of these teams as at-large clubs. I think if the at large bids were eliminated, the NCAA would want to give a good deal of attention to those teams that win their conferences and play well, and I would still put Holy Cross, Davidson, and Winthrop in the field, and maybe Albany. But look at those first 11 swaps: which set of teams would you rather see in the tourney? Wouldn’t Florida-Appalachian State be more interesting that Florida-Jackson State? And notice that the mid-majors do quite well, with Drexel, Air Force, Missouri State, and Bradley almost certainly making the field, and possibly Appalachian and Utah State as well.

If we truly split the NCAA into Division I and I-AA, and kept 16 auto bids in I-A, the spots held in the right hand column above by Holy Cross, Davidson, Winthrop and Appalachian would also become open, to schools such as Clemson, Oklahoma State, Hofstra, San Diego State, and Akron. Again, true mid-majors (as opposed to “low majors”) will benefit as much as anyone.

While there would be resistance to being pushed out of Division I and into I-AA, it strikes me as quite possible that the low-majors would benefit from that, too. Notice how interest in the National Invitational Tournament has been growing among hard core fans. The NIT now has a selection show of its own. Picture a 32 team I-AA tournament in place of the NIT. Wouldn’t that draw fan interest? Might that not actually be a better option for teams such as Central Connecticut State, a chance to win 2-3 or more games, rather than get blasted by a #1 and sent home on Thursday afternoon?

Just to get a sense of what it would look like, here might be the 32 teams in such a I-AA tournament, taking all the 15 above conference champs and the other top teams, just in order of this year’s RPI (obviously the Committee would not slavishly follow RPI, but I’m not up to more thorough analysis). I’ve listed them by their seeds:

1. Davidson 27-4 Holy Cross 25-8 Appalachian St. 22-7 Winthrop 24-4
2. Albany 23-9 Tx. A&M-CC 24-6 Bucknell 22-9 Vermont 25-7
3. Penn 21-8 Oral Roberts 22-10 Marist 24-8 Charleston 22-11
4. Belmont 22-9 Sam Houston 18-10 Delaware St. 20-12 E. Tenn. St. 22-9
5. Oakland 18-14 S. Alabama 18-11 E. Kentucky 19-11 Siena 20-12
6. Utah Val. St. 20-7 Niagara 22-11 N. Texas 20-10 Tenn. Tech 18-13
7. Weber St. 17-11 No. Ariz. 16-12 C. Conn. St. 22-11 Sacred Heart 18-14
8. N. Dakota St 20-8 Ark. St. 18-15 Jackson St. 20-13 Florida A&M 18-13

That would be a fun little tournament?

And it would improve the NCAA tournament, making for better first round games, giving more bids to mid-majors with a realistic chance of winning a game, and keepting the excitement of "championship week" conference tournaments.

Dealing with the important issues of the day...

The Most Naive Man in America Strikes Again

2007-03-06T09:51:00.000-05:00

The Centerman is stirred from winter hibernation by the fury of the most naive man in the world. One result of campaign finance reform is that political parties are prohibited from fully coordinating their efforts with their own candidates. So, once they hit the limits, they establish independent units within the party to carry on the campaign. The problem, of course, is that because the added party activity must be done independently of the party, and of the campaign, the candidate and party leaders cannot control the result. See here.

This has the country's most naive man blowing steam from his ears.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center adds some naive humor, suggesting that the parites should simply defund their independent units. But this misses the point. Parties have independent units because they want to win elections and support their candidates, and the law hinders them in doing so. Rather than call for parties to stop campaigning, Mr. Ryan should take the obvious step, and call for repeal of the law that limits the ability of parties to coordinate their messages with that of a candidate. After all, with parties no longer able to accept unregulated contributions, it is all regulated money, raised in small, and therefore "non-corrupting" amounts. Few would find "corruption," or even less so its "appearance," when a political party spends regulated, small contributions to coordinate activities with its own candidates.

But for the reform community represented by Messrs. Wertheimer and Ryan, this is the one sine qua non, the inconceivable - that any campaign finance regulation, no matter how harmful, can ever be repealed.

McCain-Feingold: Success or Failure?

2007-02-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

"... since McCain and his band of reformers passed the stringent new law, here's what happened: The amount of contributions an individual can give to each candidate per election has jumped from $1,000 to $2,300; all of that so-called big money in the past has grown bigger, with presidential candidates talking about raising $100 million this year alone to prepare for the 2008 primaries; and McCain and some of his fellow reformers say they doubt they'll abide by the limits in the presidential public-financing system they enacted into law.

"Such are the unintended consequences of hyperventilating reformers who promise that if we just exert the power of the state to prevent people from freely giving to whomever they wish, we can take big money out of our elections."

The whole article is here. (By the way, the photo of Don Lambro accompanying this article must have been taken around 1979!)

Touchy Touchy!

2007-01-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

From National Journal's Congress Daily:

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said today that President Bush had no intention of slighting Congress' new Democratic majority by referring to it as the "Democrat majority" in his State of the Union speech, the Associated Press reported. Bush's dropping of the "ic"' at the end of the word prompted grumbling by Democrats that he purposely got their name wrong. It is not a new charge: The late President Reagan used to refer to the "Democrat Party." and Democratic leaders have long considered it demeaning. Snow said Bush was not even aware he had done it, and certainly did not mean anything by it. The verbal slip came in the same breath as the president was congratulating Democrats for winning the House and Senate in last November's election. "This is a president who has tried to stay away from the business of doing slurs, and there was none intended," Snow said. The prepared text said "Democratic." Bush plans to speak to the House Democratic Caucus at its conference this weekend in Virginia, but on the president's schedule, that event is referred to as the "House Democrat Conference."

Let's see...:
National Journal, 1/13/07: [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid has called President Bush a "loser" and a "liar,"

Boy, if we really wanted to devote some time to this, we could have a field day, on both sides of the aisle. So, is it a good thing, a bad thing, or just a funny thing that in this day and age, Democrats should be upset about referred to as the "Democrat" party?

It's moments like this, with their goofy humor, that could rekindle my interest in politics!

Is the Lonely Centrist gone?

2007-01-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

Well, not exactly. When I started this blog 18 months ago, I was weary of extreme partisan politics and the nonsense that today passes for political debate, and thought I'd like to talk about a whole host of issues. To my surprise, I quickly discovered it wasn't just the partisanship - or perhaps better put, maybe the partisanship had killed off much of my interest in politics. Politics has always been pretty central to my life, and I've made my living there. Now I just don't care. Even my little hobby horse, campaign finance, can't hold me.

Some of it, I think, is the post-9/11 environment. I get depressed when I think about our future, and the unwillingness of such a large segment of the public to seriously deal with the long term threat that radical islamism poses to our way of life.

Ah well, maybe something will happen in the presidential race to rekindle my interest. In the interim, we'll keep this blog alive, and try to write as mood hits. Much of the stuff I've written here on election issues has gotten a lot of circulation, so I think I'm contributing something here.

- The Centerman

The Death of Campaign Finance Reform?

2007-01-29T14:44:00.000-05:00

Is the internet the death of campaign finance reform? Much has been written about blogs and so on, but with the growth of YouTube - well, read this article in the Los Angeles Times (free registration).

Money quote:

For the candidates, as well as their detractors, the chief attribute of Web video is its broad reach, accomplished at little or no expense.

"You can grab it, send it, link it, and at zero cost," said Matthew Dowd, a top strategist for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. "Two hundred thousand people could see it in 24 hours."

It seems to me that Republicans and conservatives are way behind in this game, which likely means that Republicans will continue their movement - started with the "527" controversy - from being anti-campaign finance regulation to being pro-campaign finance regulation; while Democrats move in the other direction. But frankly, I don't see how regulation can get a grip on this stuff.

Mind you, I'm not entirely thrilled - there will be a great deal of unfairness, quotes from long ago taken out of context, etc. - but as usual, the "cure" - government regulation - would be worse than the disease. I hope - and suspect - that soon enough voters will get wise to all that can be done with video. And ultimately lots of valuable info will be available to voters.

New Jersey to take 'idiots,' 'insane' out of state constitution?

2007-01-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

A snippet:

a section of the state constitution that addresses those who are eligible to vote. It states, 'No idiot or insane person shall enjoy the right of suffrage.'

Really, this is just too easy...

Will Citizen Speech be a Victim of Lobbying Reform?

2006-12-21T12:18:00.000-05:00

I got this in the email, and it seemed worth passing on:

Press Release
December 19, 2006
Free Speech Coalition, Inc., McLean, Virginia

Contact: Dick Dingman (703) 356-6912,
or Mark Fitzgibbons (703) 392-7676
Email: freespeech@mindspring.com

Pelosi Grassroots Disclosure Steamrolls Little Guys,
Does Not Streamline Laws, FSC Tells Public Citizen

McLean, VA. Free Speech Coalition, Inc. today criticized Public Citizen’s defense of proposed unprecedented disclosure of grassroots communicators under legislation expected to be introduced by Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi early in the next Congress. Public Citizen admits it is helping craft grassroots disclosure legislation for Speaker-Elect Pelosi fashioned after her 2006 legislation, H.R. 4682, which would require new quarterly disclosure to Congress of grassroots policy speech and publication.

A spokesman for Public Citizen was quoted in Human Events (“Pelosi Targets Grassroots Freedom of Speech,” http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18510) that such new quarterly disclosure
requirements would help “streamline” definitions found in Internal Revenue Service laws.

At nearly the same time that Public Citizen was defending its disclosure legislation, it had issued a press release criticizing those who sought disclosure of the identity of GayNewsWorld. That press release, (http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2340) admits to the “constitutional right to anonymous speech.” “Individuals and companies do not have a right to know the identities of their anonymous critics, and Internet service providers are not required to disclose them,” added Public Citizen’s press release about its defense of GayNewsWorld.

“The Pelosi/Public Citizen bill adds new, extensive disclosure requirements that would burden all and even silence some grassroots causes,” said lawyer and FSC member, Mark Fitzgibbons, who added, “That’s not ‘streamlining.’”

Liberals historically have defended the privacy of association and even the right to anonymous political speech. Justice John Paul Stevens, for example, wrote the majority opinion in McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995) protecting the anonymity of speakers on political issues. Fitzgibbons stated, “Public Citizen would impose burdensome quarterly disclosure requirements on small, controversial, unpopular speakers who have no Washington lobbyists and who provide no money to candidates. Their bill is not targeted at so-called “Astroturf” lobbying by corporations and trade associations, and is at odds with what Public Citizen itself admits are constitutional rights.”

FSC was the first to expose how the bill would treat small grassroots communicators more harshly than even K Street lobbyists by making grassroots communicators ineligible for exemptions available to Washington-based lobbyists. The bill would also provide loopholes for large corporations and labor unions to spend hundreds of millions of dollars communicating to shareholders, employees, officers and members. A letter and analysis from FSC to Public Citizen, now signed by 51 grassroots leaders, is available at http://freespeechcoalition.org/pdfs/ClaybrookLetterAndAnalysis.pdf.

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. 8180 Greensboro Drive, Suite 1070, McLean, Virginia, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that protects the First Amendment rights of advocacy. It was founded in 1993, and can be reached at (703) 356-6912.

Straight Talkin'

2006-12-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

A friend drew my attention to what happens if you try to reachwww.straighttalkblog. Har Har.

They're Back!

2006-12-01T07:50:00.000-05:00

The Washington insiders who gave us McCain-Feingold - now there's a success story - are back with plans to "fix" congress. A central part of the their plan: members should spend more time in Washington - where they can more readily see lobbyists, I guess - and less time in their districts. A wonderful solution only a couple of careerist Washingtonians could dream up. And they also want "a strengthened reporting and disclosure system," apparently on the grounds that Bob Ney would have reported receiving thousands of dollars in casino chips from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and Duke Cunningham wouldn't have accepted bribes, and William Jefferson wouldn't have been found with thousands in cash hidden in his office refrigerator, if only there had been more detailed "reporting." I like to envision Congressman Jefferson's disclosure form:

Gift: Refrigerator
Value: $95,000

The question average Americans might have is why nobody in Washington is ever held accountable. It's not just members of Congress, but as the careers of these two men show, it's also true - even more true, really - of the career punditry. Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein (and the same can be said of dozens of other denizens of cable TV and the DC "symposia circuit") can be wrong over and over and over again, and remain "respected," influential commentators. One might fairly argue - indeed, Norm Ornstein doesn't seem to shy about arguing, if you read his bio page linked above - that these two men are as responsible as anyone in Washington for the current panoply of ethics laws. Yet here there are, dispassionate experts, enlightening us all once again about how to "fix" a "broken branch."

Maybe that lack of accountability, not only in but out of government, rather than the number of days not spent in Washington, is the real problem.

Winning my vote

2006-11-05T19:52:00.000-05:00

Here's an email I got earlier this week:

You are no more centrist than Bush is a uniter. The economy is doing great? What? Your an economist too?
Housing bubble bursting, crooked stock market, 800 billion dollar balance of payments, 400 billion deficit every
year...year after year. We will never recover from this once it starts the death sprial you retard. The repukes
have stolen our future you moron. They keep the economy floating on debt and are afraid to raise interest
rates because that will be the final push over the proverbial waterfall for the economy. But what makes
me smile about that is thinking about assholes like you who will no longer have a job or be able
to put repuke shit on the internet TUBES pretending to be a "centrist".

And none of that makes me quite as mad as our kids getting killed due to the breathtaking stupidity of
the chimp-in-chief. But I am only just less mad at my cowardly Dems for not jumping on his chimpy
little ass and voting against going into Iraq.

What a piece of crap you are you pretentious little shit.

The writer signs off as "Major USAF (retired)." Now there's an inspiring commander. Won my vote. Can you guess for whom?

This is from the first post I ever put up on this little blog:

Is there a middle ground in politics anymore? I don't mean a place where people stake out mushy moderate opinions. Rather, I mean a place where people engage in independent thinking, treat each other with courtesy, and debate the merits, rather than engage in ad hominem criticism and speculation about the motives of the speaker. ...

It is not, as I think readers will soon find out, that my opinions lack definition. It is, I think, more a tone of debate, a tone of good faith. Can it be restored to the blogosphere. I don't know, but I figured I may as well try. So I decided to start my own little blog, the Lonely Centrist, and here it is.

I don't think my correspondent read this post before writing. What do you think?

Thank you John Kerry

2006-10-31T15:16:00.000-05:00

Phew. I've many times doubted the wisdom of voting for George Bush in 2004. Now, along comes John Kerry to confirm that I made the right decision.

Joe Klein, where have you been?

2006-10-30T08:50:00.000-05:00

Here's an idiotic column by Joel Klein. Klein's thesis - Democrats are winning this year because they are finally punching back. This is a good example of how extreme partisanship befuddles the mind. Klein apparently missed the campaign of 2000, in which the NAACP ran ads associating George Bush with dragging blacks to death behind pickup trucks; or the campaign of 2002, in which Democrats accused George Bush of putting arsenic in drinking water; or the campaign of 2004, in which Democrats accused George Bush of, well, just about everything.

Democrats over the past decade have been ruthless, mean, nasty, oppositional, crude, determined, thuggish, brutish, reckless and, if I had my thesaurus handy, much more in their attacks on Republicans. The same could be said about Republicans attacking Democrats. What always strikes me as odd is this deep-rooted belief among many Democrats that Democrats have failed to strike back, to stand up to Bush, to play tough with Republicans. I suppose it doesn't fit the typical Democrat's self-image. Republicans are also prone to think of Democrats as particularly nasty these days, but they seem much more willing to accept and take responsibility for their own hardball tactics. I think this goes to something in the conservative psyche - they kind of like the idea of being tough, they don't take it quite so seriously, and they like watching Democrats whine about how mean Republicans are - it makes them (the Republicans) feel they are winning.

The major point of all this is, if you don't like the present tone of politics, one of the first things you've got to do - Republican or Democrat - is drop the notion that somehow your side just hasn't been tough enough. I think Democrats have lost recent elections because they've got few ideas, and those they have are rejected by most people. I think Republicans will lose this election because of the invasion of Iraq and the scandals that demonstrate they've become a little too comfy with power. But it's not because Democrats were weak or nice in the past, or because they are "punching back" this year. The "they started it" blame game gets us no where.

The minor point is this: Joe Klein gets paid money for such nonsense?

Oh, those Exit Polls!

2006-10-28T20:25:00.000-05:00

Mark Blumenthal, formerly the Mystery Pollster and now, to my sadness, just a plain old Pollster, has an interesting post on exit polls. Blumenthal is a partisan Democrat who has done yeoman's work in trying to make other partisan Democrats understand that exit poll data from the 2004 election does not support the idea of some Republicans conspiracy to steal the election. In this post, the Pollster notes some data hidden in a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey that supports the notion - scoffed at by conspiracy theorists - that in fact Republicans are less likely to respond to exit pollsters than Democrats.

Definitely worth a read. Of course, the true believers will note that Fox News paid for this survey, and so they will see it as just another bit of evidence in the great cover up. Still, those of us in the reality based community - like Mr. Blumenthal and the Centerman - do what we can.

Maybe the Problem is that I'm Not Racist

2006-10-27T11:11:00.000-05:00

Or at least not as conscious of race in factor of life as the New York Times. The Times calls a recent ad by the Republican National Committee, criticizing Democratic Representative and Senatorial candidate Harold Ford, Jr., for, among other things, attending events with Playboy bunnies, a "transparently honed ... racist appeal."

You can judge for yourself here at You Tube.

I've watched this ad at least a dozen times (it's a good ad, really) and I can't find the racism. The Times claims that it is "resonating with the miscegenation taboos of Old South politics." I wonder what the editorial board of the New York Times knows about the "old South." Or the "new South." I'll bet most of them have never crossed south of the Mason-Dixon line, except to visit Washington, D.C. Having lived quite a bit in various parts of the old Confederacy, methinks the ad resonates with the sexual taboos of the New South, where cavorting with Playboy bunnies - by anyone of any race - is frowned upon by more than a few folks. And of course, that's a small part of the ad. Much of the other stuff is better. (Especially the guy chuckling about Ford getting campaign contributions from a porn producer, near the end of the ad). But maybe the problem is that I'm not as racist as (the Times thinks) the citizens of Tennessee are. Those redneck wannabe Klansmen (one senses that this is the Times image of the typical Tennessee white voter) pick up on this stuff right away. They get the message. "Harold Ford wants your women!!!!!!!!!" Because we all know Republicans only win election by appealing to racial prejudice anyway. Or so the Times thinks.

Watch the ad yourself, and see if you don't agree with me. The appeal of this ad is not in race, but in it humor, and the way in which it suggests - compellingly - that Ford holds different values than his would-be constituents. Playing the race card does the Times no credit.

It may also be worth noting that the Times editorial is incorrect, simply as a factual matter. It suggests that voters will miss the statement about who paid for the ad because they will be "transfixed by the blonde’s vixenish sign-off." But that sign-off actually comes after the spoken statement of who paid for the ad. Again, I think there may be some "projection" going on here - perhaps it's the Times editorial board that it smitten. Sometimes those city slickers ain't so worldly as they think.

And the time is wrong in a more important way. Whines the Times, "it takes the statuette for political hypocrisy as G.O.P. leaders insist they were hobbled by campaign law from cutting off what is clearly their own handiwork."

Sorry guys, but it's exactly true, and it's the result of "reforms" that the Times has favored, as Bob Bauer explains.

What the average guy is thinking...

2006-10-25T19:54:00.000-05:00

I wish I had written this. Read the post.

Bush the Divider

2006-10-23T08:12:00.000-05:00

In today's Los Angeles Times, Ron Brownstein repeats what has become something of a staple for shallow political analysis: from the get-go, George Bush based his presidency on dividing the electorate.

From the outset of his presidency, Bush has accepted division as the price of mobilization.

With a few exceptions, such as education and immigration policy, he has targeted his central initiatives — tax cuts, judicial appointments, the unilateral projection of U.S. power abroad — primarily at the priorities of conservatives while conceding little to interests outside his coalition.

In Congress and across the country, that ideologically polarizing agenda has helped Bush unify and excite Republicans. But it has come at the cost of antagonizing Democrats and straining his relations with independent voters.

It is true that the country is now sharply divided, and has been for some time. But I think Brownstein's analysis is off the mark. Let's think back a bit...

Back in 2000, Bush did not run as the conservative candidate for the GOP nomination. There, he was outflanked by Pat Buchanan, Dan Quayle, and even, early on, John McCain. This dynamic flipped when McCain discovered he could get good press from campaign finance reform and hinting that he was rethinking his longstanding opposition to abortion, and when Bush responded to McCain's early success by moving right. Even then, however, Bush's call for "compassionate conservatism" and his repudiation of the small government philosophy of the libertarian wing of the GOP left many conservatives suspicious.

The 2000 campaign was largely waged on centrist turf by two candidates who adopted basically centrist platforms. Wing nuts - Clinton haters on the GOP right, and the unreconstructed Reagan haters on the Democratic left - were in the minority. Then came the election and more importantly its aftermath, when Al Gore broke tradition by contesting the election through extended legal proceedings, absent any evidence of fraud. Gore's campaign chairman appeared on national television the morning after the election to announce, for all intents and purposes, that Gore would not accept any recount that did not proclaim Gore the winner. Republicans responded in kind and things quickly spun out of control. Even after Bush won, Gore was ungracious, saying only that Bush was "selected," not "elected" president. Leftist Democratic House members contested the electoral vote count. By inauguration day, things were pretty bitter indeed.

Republicans, it seems to me, made a pretty good effort to soothe tensions. In the evenly divided U.S. Senate, after some tough negotiating by Democratic leader Tom Daschle, Republican leader Trent Lott agreed to a power sharing arrangement, rather than insist on GOP control based on Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote. Meanwhile, over at the executive branch, the President extended the olive branch. His cabinet nominees included hardened conservatives such as John Ashcroft, but for the most part they were quite conciliatory and representative of the broad Republican coalition. Appointees such as Colin Powell, Christie Todd Whitman, Nixon/Ford retread Don Rumsfeld, Paul O'Neil, Mel Martinez, and Democrat Norman Mineta hardly represent the far right of the GOP.

Bush's first major initiative was one of the "exceptions" noted by Brownstein - the education bill, or "no child left behind," which Bush largely turned over to Senator Ted Kennedy. Bush's first set of judicial nominees, which Brownstein holds is an area where Bush has sought to favor "priorities" of conservatives, included two Democratic nominees. Bush took the unprecedented step of renominating two Clinton nominees who had not been confirmed by the Senate, Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker. Other nominees included elected women judges from major states of Ohio and Texas. Yet Senate Democrats, having taken control of the Chamber after Senator Jim Jeffords switched parties, quickly pocketed the two renominated Democrats and then began to filibuster the other nominees.

Bush largely allowed Democrats to write the federal budget, so long as he got his tax cuts approved. Another early push came for Bush's "faith based initiatives," allowing more interaction between government and private religious charities. The Democrats opposed it, even though it was a plan that addressed a historic area of Democratic concern - poverty - with more government spending and involvement. But Democrats would not swallow the allowance for more involvement by religious charities. Even on taxes, there was considerable compromise, with Bush agreeing to Democratic proposals for small, across the board rebates. Yet it is hard for me to remember any Bush policy of his first year that was not met with resistance by the Democratic congressional leadership.

Brownstein specifically mentions education and immigration as exceptions to Bush's partisanship. Those are pretty big exceptions, and as Brownstein notes, there have been others - primarily spending, another big exception.

Thus, I see events quite differently from the conventional wisdom. Far from entering office determined to promote his base and divide the country, Bush took numerous steps, both substantive and symbolic (been past the Robert F. Kennedy Depart of Justice Building lately?) to work with Democrats. He met almost constant opposition from the Democratic leadership. There was no compromise on the liberal side of aisle. So Bush went where he could - he looked right. This shift was exacerbated by the decision to invade Iraq, a disastrous choice for Bush. Here Democratic opposition was more merited, but, sadly, feckless. Rather than articulate principled opposition to the move, leading Democrats either supported it, and then whined about having been "lied to" when things went badly, or, mainly on the far left, proferred idiotic reasons for opposition: the ANSWER, "no blood for oil," doofus left.

What is ironic, as we head down the stretch of this campaign season, is that Bush ought to be able to claim a successful presidency. The economy is strong. Unemployment is at 4.6%, compared to 6.0% in 1994, when Republicans swept away Democratic congressional majorities. The stock market, buffeted by the costs of security and the uncertainties of a post-9/11 world and the goofy legislation known as "Sarbanes-Oxley," has nevertheless reached record highs in as we enter the final weeks of the campaign. There has been no follow up terrorist attack on U.S. soil. High government spending and immigration are irritants, but not affecting the immediate quality of life in any noticeable fashion. Besides, no serious observer believes that the Democrats will control spending better than the Republicans, or take a harder line on immigration (the former of which I support and the latter of which I oppose). Democrats, who have long demanded taxes to raise the price of gasoline, are now horrified at the high price of gasoline - even if it has gone back down to real price levels that Jimmy Carter and Democrats who opposed price deregulation in the late 70s and early 80s could only dream of. Only Iraq - a mistaken front in the War on Terrorism - is a real problem. Yet even casualties there, tragic as they are, are not high in any historic sense - - more often in the range of a few dozen to a hundred a month than anything resembling Vietnam or even Korea, let alone WWII casualties. Corruption in Congress is demonstrably a bipartisan affair. Perhaps the biggest long-term concern we should have - the one that really might make the strongest case for change - is the failure to block North Korea's nuclear program. But it's not clear what any administration could have done, and in case, this issue is clearly not driving the elctorate. Even North Korea's nuclear test could barely tear Americans away from the Mark Foley gay/teenage sex scandal for more than a day or two.

Divided America? You bet. Bush's fault? When was the last time you heard a Democrat say anything nice about Bush? Have you ever heard a leading Democratic political figure say anything nice about Bush or his agenda? It takes two to compromise. My point is not to play a blame game. Certainly, at many points, Bush might have done more, such as appoint a Democrat to head the Department of Homeland Security. But that's just the point. There is lots of blame to go around. Blaming the divisions solely on Bush is both a) not true and b) not helpful. The divisions will heal only when partisans on both sides agree to come together in good faith.

From the Duh File

2006-10-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

Here is an L.A. Times story that we think pretty much sums up the shallow state of campaign finance analysis. It begins with the classic "you don't say" style headline, "Big Money is drawn to issues." Because usually, you see, big money is simply drawn to hedonistic pursuits or flushed down sewers.

Some text highlights with a bit of pithy commentary mixed in:

often — not always — the politician or proposition with the most money wins.

I think the purpose of this sentence is to inform us, right in the opening paragraph, that this is going to be a stupid article.

Oil and tobacco interests are investing millions in campaigns opposing Proposition 87's proposed increase in the oil extraction tax and Proposition 86's $2.60-a-pack leap in the cigarette tax

Hey, no taxation without representation, man! I love how the shareholders and employees of these industries, not to mention their suppliers and their shareholders and employees, or family members, or towns and cities that rely on them, are supposed to just bend over and take it.

Real estate heir and movie producer Stephen L. Bing and his allies matched the oil industry nearly dollar for dollar, dropping $47 million into the Yes-on-87 campaign. ...

Hospitals and healthcare groups that stand to benefit from the revenue generated by higher cigarette taxes have collected $14 million to promote the measure.

So there's big money on both sides. Egads, it's unfair! It's undemocratic!

The real tragedy of campaign financing in the initiative process is that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to 'educate' voters, and yet most of the money is used to buy television ads that confuse, mislead or scare voters and do just about anything but inform them.

As opposed to this article, which really informs voters about the issues.

For statewide political candidates, money is following a familiar trend: Generally the candidates with the most money are the candidates who are ahead in the polls.

It would be a strange world, indeed, where less popular candidates generally raised more money, wouldn't it Indeed, if every citizen could, and was required to, give exactly one dollar to their favored candidate in each race on the first day of the campaign, and no more, the candidate raising the most money would always win. Well, that's not good if you're concerned about money dictating election results. On the other hand, we could dispense with the campaign, so the scheme offers some benefits. Of course candidates ahead in the polls tend to raise more money. A wonderful thing about our system, however, is that sometimes those behind in the polls can raise more money. Reformers constantly mistake campaigning with voting, as if dollars were stuffed into ballot boxes, and forget that the purpose of the campaign is to persuade.

A Los Angeles Times poll released Sept. 30 showed state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, leading Republican rival Claude Parrish, a Board of Equalization member, by 24 percentage points. Their money gap is similarly wide: Lockyer has raised $1.3 million this year, compared with $226,724 for Parrish.

Well, there you have it. Money bought the election. Couldn't be that Lockyer's popularity has anything to do with his raising more money, or that Lockyer popularity is due to his holding a much more high profile office, being a Democrat in a heavily blue state, etc. etc.

A departure in the trend is the insurance commissioner race. Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the Democratic candidate, has only a slight lead, pollsters say, over Republican Silicon Valley businessman Steve Poizner. The overall total Poizner has amassed for his campaign is $11 million; Bustamante has collected $1.1 million. The difference? Poizner put $8.3 million of his own money into the race.

And they say there are no competitive races anymore. Thank goodness Poizner could use money to make this race close against a candidate who began with much higher name recognition and is from the majority party.

Now This is Campaign Finance Reform

2006-10-12T12:55:00.000-05:00

The irrepressable Onion reports on campaign finance reform in the Sudan. But why no quote from the World's most naive man?

Coming Apart at the Seams

2006-10-08T21:26:00.000-05:00

I keep seeing polls in which substantial majorities of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. How can this be? It really can't be the economy, although some people undoubtedly underestimate its performance. But it is doing well. It seems to me that all perspective has been lost on a host of issues. The Patriot Act is denounced as if it were the Nuremburg laws updated. In fact, what is done under the Patriot Act seems to be nothing compared to the actions taken in most every other war in which the U.S. has been engaged, not least of which WWII. If the war in Iraq seems not to be going well, it is nonetheless true that casualties are a fraction of those in Vietnam or other wars; and there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.

Of course, I suspect that "wrong track" means many different things to different people. To some, it probably means increasing acceptance of gays in American life, and even more, gay marriage. It may mean too many abortions. It may mean a culture of celebrity and sex, or too much growth in the size of government and unconstrained federal spending, or a failure to consider serious entitlement reform. Yet the probable beneficiaries of this "wrong track" belief, if the polls are correct (and I believe they are), are liberal democrats who favor gay rights, including gay marriage, abortion rights, a vague association with Hollywood, and more federal spending. To others, of course, "wrong track" means too much religion seeping into political life; failure to adequately fund needed government programs; and government intrusions on civil liberties, and these people will, more logically, vote Democratic in November.

I don't know the answer to these questions, or who is right or wrong on such issues, although I have my opinions. But here is where I think the country is on the "wrong track." According to one poll, one-third of Americans believe that the American government was behind the September 11 attacks. In other poll, forty-two percent of Americans believe gas prics are falling because George Bush is manipulating them. Meanwhile, our political leadership is going nuts of the story of a perverted congressman and his emails to congressional pages, while, as the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger points out, the Stalinist hermit kingdom of North Korean prepares to conduct an underground nuclear test, and Europe throws in the towel on Iran's nuclear agenda, as Iran's political leader tells a mob screaming "Death to America" that nothing will stop Iran from enriching uranium. From the other side of the political spectrum, Peter Beinart of The New Republic points out that it seems to be a common belief on the farther reaches of the political left that President Bush and the Pope were engaged in a calculated conspiracy when the latter made his comments quoting Emperor Manuel II on the deficiencies of violence as a tool of religious conversion, and that this anti-Bush paranoia is preventing our nation from seriously defending freedom of speech.

These beliefs in 9/11 and gas price and papal conspiracies, and the fascination with a congressional sex scandal, are not the signs of a serious nation. If America is on the "wrong track," I think it is probably in our inability to debate issues seriously, or even to figure out which are the serious issues.

I don't know how to see this well, insanity, resolved. Perhaps a hopeful sign is to see columns such as Henninger's and Beinart's, suggesting that maybe the adults will try to regain control of the debate (although Beinart can't help himself from using the same column to excoriate Bush).

Perhaps the fall elections will pop the boil, but I am not optimistic.

Senator Feingold ACTs up

2006-10-06T08:16:00.000-05:00

According to this piece in Roll Call ($$$), Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) has been desperately trying to rent the mailing list of Americans Coming Together (ACT), the pro-Democratic "527" that was so influential (if ultimately unsuccessful) in 2004.

Although ACT rents its list out regularly, apparently it has refused to rent the list to Feingold, despite repeated requests. According to a source cited in Roll Call, ACT has turned Feingold down for the rather obvious reason that Feingold has tried repeatedly to put ACT and other "527s" out of business:

"Feingold's not a friendly person to 527s. He basically said 'Stop what you're doing, we want to shut you down,' but now it's 'You guys are incredible, I'm willing to take part of your gravy.'"

Some will call this hypocrisy on Feingold's part, but to me it smacks more of self-righteousness and arrogance. You see, Feingold only wants to use ACT's resources for good, not for evil special interests pleading. And that makes all the difference.

And Now for Something Completely Different (and Nice): A Possible Ivory sighting

2006-09-26T07:53:00.000-05:00

Back in 2005 there were reports of a confirmed sighting of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas. The greatest of American woodpeckers was long thought extinct. Now there is much doubt about that sighting. But researchers in the Florida panhandle are building a good case that the Ivory Bill still exists along the Choctawatchee River. Hope so.

Lobbyists in the Room: The McCain-Feingold-McGehee Bill

2006-09-25T05:31:00.000-05:00

The Denver Post offers this article about how the "Stand by Your Ad" provisions of McCain-Feingold - you know, the "I'm your friendly neighborhood congressman, and I approve this message" you now see tagged on to the end of all these campaign ads - may determine the outcome of a congressional race in Colorado. Not because voters care about the candidate "standing by his ad," but because the law is about to give a huge financial advantage to Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave's challenger.

But while the "Stand by you ad" stuff is interesting, what caught the Centerman's eye was this passage:

Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., said she was in the room when the statute was drafted four years ago.

Four years ago, McGehee - according to her own biography - was "Chief lobbyist" for Common Cause - indeed, "one of the top nonprofit/grassroots lobbyists in Washington." What the heck is a lobbyist doing in there drafting legislation? I thought we were supposed to be outraged at the idea of lobbyists drafting legislation. I mean outraged. In fact, "It's almost as if legislators are outsourcing one of their primary duties."!

Common Cause likes to refer to itself as the "citizens' lobby," and seems to think that makes them special. Of course, they represent about one-tenth as many citizens as the National Rifle Association. Heck, they represent a fraction of the number of citizens who hold stock in, and work for, most publicly traded corporations. In other words, they represent a fraction of the citizen's that many, if not most, other lobbyists represent.

Well, maybe McGehee was just standing around wasting time, not really contributing anything. Yeah, that's probably it. 'Cause we couldn't have lobbyists drafting legislation.

War for Oil?

2006-09-24T10:51:00.000-05:00

One-time Presidential candidate Gary Hart is huffing away that the U.S. will launch a preemptive war in Iran before the election. This seems more than a little far-fetched to me, since it is the war in Iraq that will probably prevent the GOP from steamrolling to victory in November. Hart, like many Democrats these days, seems to think that every American hates the war, but would support a new one.

Anyway, Hart says that when the President goes on national TV to justify the assault, he will not say, in Hart's words, "and besides, we need the oil."

Now, two thoughts emerge.

First, if we need oil, why would we attack Iran? The immediate consequences would be to shut off oil supplies from Iran. Even in the event of stunning success by the American military, as we have seen in Iraq, it is not so easy to keep oil supplies flowing. It seems to me that if a president wanted to exacerbate oil shortages around the globe, there would be few better strategies than attacking Iran. Conversely, if we actually wanted oil from Iran, it is easy to get - raise any and all sanctions, and send them some nuclear plant technology. We might toss our ally Israel over the side if we're really looking for oil, but that may not be necessary to get much of what we want. So Hart isn't thinking, and I suppose we can all be glad that Donna Rice, who is much prettier and living a better life now than she was then, killed his chances of becoming president.

But let me ask the unaskable question: what would be so inherently bad about a "war for oil"? Let us suppose, counterfactually, that a "war for oil" could lower the price of oil worldwide to $35/barrell for the next 20 years. What enormous good would that do for the world economy? How many people, especially in the developing world, would be lifted out of poverty? How many unemployed would become employed, in this country and elsewhere? How much of the world's natural wealth would be taken from the hands of brutal dictators, secular and religious, and transferred to the democracies? How many terrorist groups would lose a major funding source?

Throughout history, nations have often gone to war for control of natural resources. Arguably, a war for oil - sacrificing our national treasure and blood for something that would yield tremendous benefits for the world, and especially for many of the world's poorest people - would be one of the great self-sacrifices of history.

Voter ID: Basing Policy on Appearances

2006-09-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the House passed a national voter ID bill. Naturally, both sides said silly things, because it was, after all, a congressional debate. Republican Vern Ehlers said the bill making it marginally harder for a relatively small number of people to vote would increase turnout, insulting our intelligence. Democrat Steny Hoyer called it "tantamount to a poll tax," insulting our knowledge of history and the memory of real civil rights pioneers.

Bob Bauer, a Democratic lawyer always worth reading on election issues, had some harsh words for the bill. Bauer suggests that for many Republicans, voting is a "privilege," not a "right," and that this shapes their attitude toward the franchise. In doing so, he references a discussion on this list of election law observers, which you can browse.

While the idea that voting might be a "privilege" of living in our society seems abhorent to Bauer and to most of the aforementioned list discussants, I suspect it rings true to most Americans, which may be one reason why polls show overwhelming public support for yesterday's measure. As a legal matter, though, I think there is no meaningful distinction between calling something a privilege and calling it a right. In theory there is, or ought to be: a "right" is something that can only be restricted by the state for the most necessary of reasons - "compelling" reasons. A "privilege," however, can be restricted for most any reason at all, so long as the restriction is not arbitrary. But in practice, what counts as a "compelling" interest is so malleable as to mean little. A judge can pretty much find any state interest "compelling," merely by proclaiming it so.

Here, it is interesting to look at another example of government regulation of the political process: campaign finance.

I suspect that most of the Democrats and liberals who oppose a voter ID requirement (and the vote was mainly a party line vote) also favor restrictions on campaign finance, such as the McCain-Feingold bill of a few years back, which was also mainly a party line vote (though Mr. Bauer, whom I linked above, is very skeptical of that law - peruse his past posts for a bit). Those who have found McCain-Feingold limiting their speech are probably not consoled by the notion that they still have a "right" to speak, but the state interest is so "compelling" as to overcome that right. As a practical matter, may as well call political speech a "privilege." This is especially so given that the Supreme Court has adopted a nebulous "appearance of corruption" standard as a "compelling" state interest. The Court does not define the phrase. But because there are always, in any democracy, many people who think government and politicians are corrupt, there will always be an "appearance of corruption." No democracy has ever existed without the perception of corruption by a substantial percentage of the population - and this may be a good thing, as a vigilant public may help prevent actual corruption. Anyway, it has been on this flimsy rationale that the Court has upheld campaign finance and speech restrictions.

One interesting fact is that over the sweep of American history, it is voting that has been more likely to be treated as a "privilege," and campaign contributions and speech as a "right." At the time of the Constitutional Convention and state ratifications, voting was subject to a wide variety of restrictions, including often onerous property restrictions. The idea was, in part, that one had to "earn" the right to vote, and demonstrate the long term ties to the community needed to make one a wise, responsible voter. Until well into the last century, voting was highly restricted. Restrictions applied not only on race and sex, but even on those white males otherwise eligible to vote. Conversely, campaign participation and political speech were, until the last century, wholly unregulated - that is, treated as a "right." Those who now line up on the side of more campaign finance regulation and less regulation of the voting process are not lined up with the historic understandings of the Constitution, even if they have had remarkable success in the Courts over the past 40 years.

If the case that voter ID laws will actually prevent fraud is weak, the case that it will prevent the "appearance of corruption" in our elections is strong, as the polling data shows. Moreover, in a twist of poetic if inexact justice, those most opposed to voter ID laws include many of those who have claimed most loudly and irresponsibly that our recent elections have been "stolen," thereby creating the "appearance of corruption" needed to justify the Voter ID bill, whether one calls it a "right" or a "privilege."

Further, Ehlers' comments - remember, he was the GOP congressman who claimed the Voter ID bill will encourage more people to vote by increasing confidence in elections - no longer seem quite so silly when stacked up against the claims of campaign finance reform advocates, who often make the same argument - that if we restrict the participation of some, it will encourage others to particpate.

What goes around comes around, and for many supporters of campaign finance regulation who nonetheless oppose voter ID, it has just come around with some vengeance.

Congress Deserves a Raise - and So Do Its Staffers

2006-09-20T19:16:00.000-05:00

This site allows you to look up congressional staff salaries. To many Americans, these numbers will look pretty impressive - about $150K per year for a typical chief of staff, and many other salaries in the $80K to low hundreds range. But let us remember that leading law firms are starting first year lawyers at amounts in excess of $145,000. Washington is not an inexpensive place to live, and congressional staffers are in important positions and wield considerable power.

Congressmen, meanwhile, earn a bit over $165,000 per year. Again, that is a healthy salary, but not when compared to partners in large law firms, vice presidents in banking and industry, or most Washington lobbyists.

It is not healthy to have a situation in which Congressmen and their staffers are routinely among the lowest, if not the lowest, paid individuals in the room. Corruption flourishes when people with tremendous power and comparatively little money are kept constantly in close proximity to large amounts of money.

"Tainted" Cash

2006-09-19T15:13:00.000-05:00

Here's something I don't understand: the concern about "tainted campaign cash." In its latest manifestation, it is the cry that any candidate who received money from Bob Ney must return it (it is common for safe incumbents with lots of money in their campaign accounts to make contributions to other candidates in their party).

I mean, I do understand it, but purely as a political gesture - and it is so transparently stupid, why does the press take it seriously?

Take the Ney example. The overwhelming majority of Ney's campaign cash is perfectly legit, any way you cut it. And he gave some of it to other candidates, according to the law, and with no allegation or hint of impropriety. Why should those candidates return it? Should store owners return money they earned from selling goods to Mr. Ney? How do you know the money you received wasn't "tainted?" If the company you work for is suddenly found to have violated anti-trust laws, should you return your honest earned pay?

What would be the consequences of returning Ney's contributions? One would be that it would mean more money back in Ney's campaign accounts, which he can use to pay for his legal defense. How is this just? Another possibility would be to give the money to charity. But then the charity would be "tainted." Perhaps the only real solution is to take out the cash and burn it.

That should satisfy the "ethics" lobby.

Meanwhile, Back in the World of Campaign Finance Disclosure

2006-09-19T14:42:00.000-05:00

It seems like everyone is suddenly up in arms that Senators don't have to file their campaign finance reports electronically. Jeffrey Birnbaum ran this column in the Washington Post, and now it seems that every Kos, Rick, and Krempasky in the blogosphere is joining in, along with Ed, Glenn, and a host of others, left and right.

But as Matt Johnston points out, nothing stops Senators from filing electronically, now. Supposedly, electronic filing is being blocked by two Senators, Lott and McConnell. But if it really mattered, nothing stops Senators McCain, Feingold, et al. from filing electronically now - which, as the Club for Growth blog points out, points out, it appears that they do not do.

If voters really cared, don't you think at least some senators would find some advantage to filing electronically on a voluntary basis? And how much does it matter? Has it ever mattered to you, or to any voter you know, that Senators don't file electronically? I guess to me this points up how much campaign finance is a big distraction from other issues that I think most Americans would see as much more important: I mean, who really cares about this? How does this affect the republic? What would we really gain. Over here, Brad Smith calls our attention to the fact that it is not like the information is not made public - we just have to wait a bit longer. But this is the age of instant gratification. Though it's hard to think of any reasons to oppose electronic filing, this just feels to me like a tempest in a teapot.

Could this mean War?!!

2006-09-17T18:40:00.000-05:00

The Pope's comments and further explanation may lead to war, according to at least one Arab editorialist. Me wonders what this fellow thinks has been occuring the last [circle your choice: 5 20 50 1400] years.

Am I out of line, or do most Americans react as I do: where are all these outraged editorials when Muslim terrorists, in the name of Islam, kill innocents? It seems the only time the Muslims get worked up is when they feel some slight - however trivial - against Islam, or when someone suggest that Islam is not a "religion of peace." Isn't much of the point the inability of so many Muslims to, well, get a grip? To calm down? To try - to make just a little effort - to understand others? To react with some degree of proportionality?

On that last point, it's grimly humorous that, seemingly as if to prove only that the Pope did not go far enough, many advocates of the Religion of Peace responded by physically attacking Christian Churches. Included in their attacks were a Greek Orthodox and an Anglican Church. Not that it really matters, but neither church reports to the Pope.

Poll Crazy

2006-09-15T16:30:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite sites, Mystery Pollster, is now just Pollster. In this column, contributor Charles Franklin considers the recent uptick in President Bush's approval numbers. It's got a neat chart of the polls, and that's what caught my eye: Franklin tracks 336 national polls of President Bush's public approval taken since January 1, 2005,.

Think about that. That's more than a poll every other day. Is there any conceivable need for this? Does it serve a purpose? Help journalists and hence the public gain understanding? Do it do anything? It's like trying to report on a marathon by monitoring the heart rate of the contestants with each step. "It's up! It's down! It's up again!" The fact is, a huge number of these polls are taken as "make news" polls; we'll do a poll, and report on it. Reporters have forgotten what it means to "report." Where is the reporter who will go to an event and simply report on what he sees, or what the speaker says?

Conspiracy Dementia

2006-09-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

Jonah Goldberg, a very entertaining writer on the right, offers this column at Real Clear Politics.

Here is the line that stunned me:

More than a third of Americans believe the U.S. government was likely to have been involved in 9/11.

I've watched C-Span's call in shows and been amazed, and somewhat sickened, at the number of conspiracy callers who blame the U.S. I was sent (anonymously, no return address) a copy of the ridiculous conspiracy theory "documentary" "Loose Change." But I would still not have guessed that over a third of Americans believed this nonsense. Goldberg does not provide a citation for this figure.

Pat Sajak: My New Hero!

2006-09-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

Check out this piece in the conservative news weekly Human Events, by Pat Sajak. My favorite part:

“Reform” is a misleading word. It implies not just a repair but a move to an idealized perfection. Our electoral system may need some reworking, but beware of the reformers who think they can bring purity to an impure enterprise.

I've got to start watching Wheel of Fortune, I guess.

Issue Blackout Starts Today

2006-09-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

The McCain-Feingold law's prohibition on broadcast issue ads by unions and incorporated groups such as the Sierra Club or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce takes effect today. From now through election day, such organizations and groups cannot run broadcast ads that even mention a federal candidate, unless they have a PAC with enough money to do so.

So as congress considers budget bills and other legislation in the next few weeks, they can do so free from most of those pesky ads that rally citizens to call their congressmen and senators to tell them how they think their representatives should vote.

Ah well, could be worse. We could have "corruption" in government.

"I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."

- John McCain

Pollster Pleads Guilty to Fraud: Crank Up the Conspiracy Theories

2006-09-07T15:04:00.000-05:00

Tracy Costin, formerly the owner of DataUSA, Inc. (now ViewpointUSA, Inc.), a polling firm that did work for, among others, Joe Lieberman and George W. Bush, has pled guilty to making up poll data.

Pollsters live and die on credibility. Now, in an era in which election conspiracy theories run rampant on the left while polls and the "mainstream media" are largely distrusted on the right, this will give all the conspiracy theorists ammo for years to come.

Steve Irwin: RIP

2006-09-06T19:40:00.000-05:00

I'm surprised by how moved I am by the death of Steve Irwin. You just feel like the world lost one of its truly good guys.

Time to end the Iowa caucuses?

2006-09-04T03:00:00.000-05:00

The Democrats have been trying to rearrange the primary schedule to lessen the importance of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. Peter Beinart of the New Republic is critical of the new system. (Registration required).

But Beinart's criticism is a bit mixed up. He writes:

caucuses are interest-group heaven. They empower small, highly motivated, well-organized factions, and they disempower everyone else. On both sides of the aisle, candidates who challenge core party constituencies (Scoop Jackson in 1972 and 1976, Al Gore in 1988, Paul Tsongas in 1992, John McCain in 2000, Joe Lieberman in 2004) either don't compete in Iowa or get buried there

Well, which is it? Are "highly motivated, well-organized factions" in charge, or are "core party constituencies" excluded. I guess Beinart is using them differently, but usually "core constituencies" are what you think of as "well organized factions." Beinart notes that Howard Dean used to oppose the caucuses, saying

If you look at the caucuses system, they are dominated by special interests in both parties. The special interests don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people. They represent the extremes.

But this quote - from 2000, merely brings to mind Dean's 2004 campaign. What was it but a "highly motivated, well-organized faction?" And it got thumped by John Kerry, a more centrist (albeit still liberal) Democrat. And what was Richard Gephardt? As the House minority leader, an old line Democrat supported by big labor, did he represent a small "well organized faction," or a "core constituency?" Since he lost, I guess it was the latter - but if he had won, you could certainly have said it was the former, no?

Anyway, Beinart concludes that sandwiching the Nevada caucuses in between Iowa and New Hampshire makes the whole system less "democratic," but it's not really clear why, and frankly, it's not even clear why a "more democratic" system is a good idea - after all, it was back in the days before primaries that centrist Democrats such as Johnson, Kennedy and Truman won the nomination - even Stevenson and Humphrey fended off more liberal candidates to win the nomination. It's since then that the Democrats have gone with McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry.

I'm not sure there is much you can do about the nomination process right now. For reasons I don't understand, a poor performance in Iowa or New Hampshire seems to wrap it up. I do not get the herd mentality that sends the press, pundits, and apparently donors, volunteers and voters - scurrying at a couple primary results. It would be sort of like watching a basketball game, and 2 minutes in with the score 4-0, the losing coach folds up shop.

Beinart seems to think that this can be changed - he just doesn't like these changes the DNC is proposing. But how? What one state is really so representative of America? And isn't the problem less the nature of the caucuses or primaries, and who shows up - which is Beinart's position - than the fact that because we let the first two events determine everything, candidates aren't thoroughly vetted? The Democratic Party process in 2004 was typical, and it was like a stock bubble. Kerry, gotta buy Kerry. Big rush of investors, stock price runs up, and only then do we discover the company isn't so great after all; after an initial visit, customers don't return to the store, so to speak. Bubble bursts, stock price collapses, Democrats go bust, country gets four more years of Bush.

So I agree with Beinart that the new formula won't accomplish much, but I think he's got the wrong diagnosis, and certainly the wrong cure. Unfortunately, I have no miracle cure either.

Dean probably wouldn't put it that way today

Why Democrats Don't Deserve to Win in November

2006-08-26T13:35:00.000-05:00

Peter Bienart, the bright young editor of one of my favorite publications, the New Republic, explains - inadvertently - why Democrats still don't deserve to win in November: a) they have no agenda at all for governing; and b) if they did, it would be less popular than what President Bush and the Republicans are offering.

Sad, but true.

Another example of Government Waste

2006-08-25T12:44:00.000-05:00

Ryan Sager has this column on one of the more wasteful programs in government.

To me the oddest thing about having the government pay for campaigns is that there is no need for it. Typically, we have government pay for things that private citizens won't pay for, but which we as a society have deemed valuable. But the private sector will pay for political campaigns. Public financing of campaigns is a bit like having the government pay to brew beer. It's just not necessary.

Wertheimer and Potter vs. Potter and Wertheimer

2006-08-23T06:18:00.000-05:00

Does campaign finance reform clean up government in the sense that it can prevent scandals such as Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham? In this earlier post, I discovered that most reformers seem to think so - it seemed as though reform guru Fred "the Most Naive Man in America" Wertheimer and his sidekick Trevor Potter were out of touch with their colleagues in the reform community, who seemed to unanimously agree that the answer to lobbying scandals is campaign finance reform.

This matters, because reformers often - as my earlier post noted - use these scanals to argue for more reform. If that's the case, then it seems fair to criticize past reform efforts when they fail to stop corruption scandals such as Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham. But Mr. Potter and Mr. Wertheimer, in a tough column, sharply denied a connection.

So once again, I grabbed my trusty Google search engine and headed out to ask some real reformers what they thought - only this time, the reformers were Mr. Wertheimer and Mr. Potter themselves:

No

The logic behind attempting to lay the Jack Abramoff and “Duke” Cunningham scandals on BCRA’s doorstep for failing to stop corruption, completely escapes us. Bribery of public officials was illegal before the passage of BCRA, remains so today and must continue to be rooted out to protect the integrity of our government. BCRA did not affect the bribery laws, nor make them obsolete.

Fred Wertheimer (the Most Naive Man in America), President Democracy 21 and Trevor Potter, Chairman, Campaign Legal Center, August 16, 2006.

Yes

The Core issue that must be addressed in th end to deal with corruption and lobbying scandals in Washington is fundamental campaign finance reform.

Fred Wertheimer, Democracy 21 President, in Congressional Testimony, March 2006.

Yes

We have been functioning without a Sheriff of Judge for Congress... that ends up in scandals like the Abramoff affair... The Federal Election Commission, for example, which is responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws, is a failed agency... The issues involved here also raise larger questions about campaign finance practices and the need for fundamental reform.

Fred Wertheimer, Congressional Testimony on Lobbying Reform, Jan. 25, 2006

Yes

Under the Pence bill, a Washington lobbyist, such as convicted criminal Jack Abramoff, or a defense contractor, such as convicted criminal Mitchell Wade of Representative Duke Cunningham infamy, could contribute a million dollars to support the campaign of a Member from whom they were seeking favorable government treatment.

Fred Wertheimer, quoted at Common Dreams, March 21, 2006

Yes

It's openly accepted that lobbyists will help members of Congress in various ways, through campaign contributions and other financial favors, and will get appropriate help in return for their clients,

Fred Wertheimer, quoted in the Des Moines Register, January 15, 2006

Yes

The six benchmarks we are jointly proposing today are, we believe, the right blueprint for Congress to follow as members work through these issues... While we are focusing primarily on lobbying reforms today, we want to make clear that campaign contributions are at the heart of the lobbying and corruption scandals now engulfing Congress.

- "Statement of Trevor Potter on Lobbying Reform, Jan. 24, 2006," and attached list of six benchmarks.

In our last entry, we wondered if Mr. Wertheimer and Mr. Potter were at odds with the reform community. Now we wonder if maybe they are just political opportunists who will say whatever seems convenient at the moment.

Click in next week, when our roving reporter asks the question: Why do so many reporters in the mainstream press take these guys seriously?

Potter and Wertheimer vs. the Reform Community

2006-08-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

Recently, a pair of card carrying anti-campaign finance reform lawyers, Bob Bauer and Jan Baran, actually got the New York Times to run a column they wrote in which they note that campaign finance reform has failed to prevent scandals such as the activities of Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham.

This set off two of the denizens of the reform community, Fred "the Most Naive Man in America" Wertheimer and Trevor Potter. In a New York Times letter and in a lengthy column posted on their own web sites, they emphatically denied that campaign finance reform can be blamed for the failure to stop Abramoff and Cunningham. After all, they claim, they never said it would.

So I was curious: Does campaign finance reform clean up government in the sense that it can prevent scandals such as Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham?

To find out, I took a camera crew (well, actually I took a Google search engine and 10 minutes of my day) and headed out to ask some real reformers: "Are the Abramoff scandals connected to campaign finance reform?" Because it seems to me that the reformers cannot have it both ways - either they are connected, in which case campaign finance reforms of the past can be criticized for having failed to prevent them, or they are not, in which case the scandals can hardly be used to support the case for more reform.

Here's what I learned:

Yes, they are connected

The indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay; the metastasizing investigation into the web-spinning of lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and the revelation that Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham accepted over $2.4 million in bribes from a defense contractor all tended in favor of strengthening the FEC.

- James Samples, Associate General Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice

Yes, connected

Full public financing of Congressional elections is not an idea whose time has come. But the public disgust with the Abramoff scandal will make the case for some public money in elections.

Reformer Norm Ornstein

Yes, connected

Lobbyists and the wealthy special interests they represent would have very little of the kind of power deployed by fixers like Jack Abramoff if Members of Congress weren't so desperate for the one thing they provide: Big Money to finance their campaigns. If you don't change that, even the best-intentioned Members of Congress will find themselves altering their behavior to suit the needs of Big Money.

- Micah Sifry, Senior Analyst, Public Campaign

Yes, connected

Just last week, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), the infamous "representative #1" from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's January plea agreement, announced he would not run for re-election after all. Ney allegedly accepted a long list of favors from Abramoff in exchange for helping the lobbyist and his clients.

Ney was immediately declared the latest political casualty of the Abramoff scandal, joining the ranks of former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), who resigned last April and former Christian Coalition golden boy Ralph Reed, who lost his Republican primary race for the lieutenant governorship of Georgia. Other lawmakers, among others, caught in the Abramoff net include Reps. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), Richard Pombo (R-CA), John Doolittle (R-CA), and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MN). All took contributions from Abramoff or his clients and took actions in their interests.

Clean Elections represents a way out of the pay-to-play system that ensnares so many members of Congress.

Nick Nyhart, Executive Director, Public Campaign

No, not connected

The logic behind attempting to lay the Jack Abramoff and “Duke” Cunningham scandals on BCRA’s doorstep for failing to stop corruption, completely escapes us. Bribery of public officials was illegal before the passage of BCRA, remains so today and must continue to be rooted out to protect the integrity of our government. BCRA did not affect the bribery laws, nor make them obsolete.

Fred Wertheimer (the Most Naive Man in America), President Democracy 21 and Trevor Potter, Chairman, Campaign Legal Center, August 16, 2006.

Hmmm. It appears that Mr. Wertheimer and Mr. Potter are out of step with the "Reform Community."

Using Laws to Frustrate Competition

2006-08-20T13:12:00.000-05:00

Bradley Smith has this column in today's Washington Post, about the use (abuse) of election laws to limit competition. Smith's column addresses laws that prevent candidates from appearing on the ballot. Carol Platt Liebau, however, quite correctly notes that campaign finance laws are probably the most abused of election laws. For some, these laws are nothing more than cynical ploys aimed at restricting competition. Others are true believers. But what the true believers can't seem to grasp is that whatever the motivation behind their enactment, the fact is that campaign finance laws - and other elections - will in fact be used as weapons on the arsenals of political actors, and accordingly will be abused for partisan gain.

The Contempt of Lawmakers for their Constituents

2006-08-18T16:26:00.000-05:00

This is an amazing article that was just recently brought to my attention. Now, I am basically pro-immigration, nor would do I agree with the author's speculation as to lawmakers' intentions, so that's not the point. It's the contempt these lawmakers seem to have toward their own constituents. The author seems credible.

One Screwy Opinion

2006-08-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

Here is Judge Taylor's opinion in ACLU v. NSA, the case finding the Administration's program of wiretapping the phone calls to and from suspected terrorists, to be unconstitutional. It's kind of wierd. The gravamen of the plaintiffs' complaint - their alleged injury that gets them into court - is this:

Each Plaintiff has alleged... that the TSP substantially chills and impairs their constitutionally protected communications. Persons abroad who before the program spoke with them by telephone or internet will no longer do so.

She then goes on, in a lengthy opinion that I won't try to dissect for its other flaws, to issue an injunction against the program.

But think about it: the harm suffered by plaintiffs is that since this top secret program was disclosed by the New York Times in December, people won't talk to them because they are afraid that the government is listening in. Makes you wonder what they're talking about, but that's not the point. The point is, the harm to these plaintiffs is not because of the program itself, but because the people they want to talk to now know about the program and won't talk to them anymore, thanks to the leak and the Times decision to publish the information regardless of any threat to national security.

Is the judge then saying, then, that the Administration will be OK if it terminates this program, then starts it up again under another name - so long as it stays secret? It would seem so, wouldn't it? Because if it is secret, then the people - alleged terrorists - overseas will be comfortable talking again, and the plaintiffs suffer no harm, and lack standing. The alternative is that these people overseas remain suspicious and still won't talk to the plaintiffs - but if that's the case, then the court ordered injunction is no remedy at all, and the case should be dismissed for that reason.

Meanwhile, beginning in about two weeks it will be illegal for all of these plaintifs - the ACLU, Greenpeace, all the rest - except for a couple individuals, to run a broadcast ad urging members of Congress to vote for or against increased presidential powers in the war on terror, thanks to McCain-Feingold.

Has our judiciary got the Constitution screwed up or what?

Was the 2006 Election Stolen?

2006-08-17T07:41:00.000-05:00

Yes, we're still nearly 3 months away from election day 2006, but it's not too early to ask the question. Why? Because we know that, if Republicans actually gain ground in 2006, or even hold their own, we will have another round of "the election was stolen" hysteria from the left.

In today's press, as basically every day, I find the usual type of column about how unhappy the public is, and in particular how unhappy it is with Congress. Apparently, all of the polls show Republicans nose-diving this year. I can certainly believe that this will be the case. I'm an independent voter who, in recent elections, has tended to vote for Republicans. But in these pages, I have expressed dissatisfaction with the GOP, and when you see polling data over and over pointing to substantial Democratic gains, you ignore that data at your peril.

And yet, I'm not so sure that 2006 will be a big year for Democrats. Because frankly, Democrats have nothing much to offer - something else I have complained about in these pages. It is hard to take the Democrats seriously on fighting terrorism, where they have opposed profiling, opposed even the most modest surveillance measures, opposed detaining terrorists captured on the field of battle without providing them the full array of American criminal protections, opposed, it seems, every measure to improve security. It is hard to take them seriously on controlling government spending, given that, when you actually ask what they would do about spending and budget priorities, everything seems to be to spend more and tax more. On immigration, the current unrest seems to come from those who want stricter controls on immigration. I don't agree with that view, but frankly, nor do Democrats. Even more than Republicans, they want fewer restrictions on immigration. Ned Lamont, the current Democratic poster boy, still thinks national health care is the ticket - I think that that's a nuttier position than anything he's said on the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, there are other voices. Jay Cost argues, I think with some persuasiveness, that too much attention is paid to the generic ballot numbers. Cost also argues, less persuasively, in my view, that fund-raising numbers are being misread. Micahel Barone, a very serious vote counter, thinks that the primary election returns may show a lot more Republican voters than the polling data is revealing (later hedging a bit, but not too much, in this post). An astute sounding observer from across the pond makes a similar argument. Whistling in the dark by folks who simply want a GOP win? Certainly that's a strong possibility.

Yet I feel much the same way. Beyond the failures of the Democrats to articulate an opposing agenda of any resonance, I just don't feel this unrest. Most people I know seem more apathetic than anxious or angry. Being honest, the economy is in great shape, and there have been no terrorist assaults in the U.S. since 9/11. Is that enough, in the face of frustration in Iraq and high gas prices, bipartisan corruption in Congress, and no immigration policy? I don't know. But I certainly don't sense the anger. Rather, I suspect that the constant bout of news and opinion stories proclaiming how unpopular the Republicans are may be having its own effect on how people talk - folks know they're supposed to be unhappy, so that's what they tell pollsters. A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to this concept, which sociologists call, "preference falisification."

Let's suppose that the doubters are right, that 2006 is not a Republican disaster. Does anyone doubt that the looney left will refuse to accept the results? No matter how much their theories are debunked by facts? As in Mexico, it seems we have reached the point where a sizeable percentage of the public is refusing to accept any election result in which it does not win. This is not a good state of affairs.

Frankly, for me it is one more reason that, despite my dissatisfaction with the GOP, I won't be voting for many if any Democrats this fall, because I believe this nonsense - dangerous and damaging nonsense - can be traced in large part not just to the looney left, but to the failure of the mainstream Democrats to accept election results, and their willingness, every since the November of 2000, to indulge and encourage the conspiracy theorists.

The Reality Disconnect in the "Reality Based Community"

2006-08-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Many on the far left have taken to referring to themselves as "the reality-based community." But the fact is, it is the left that is increasingly disconnected from reality, at least on the war against terrorism and the threat that radical Muslims pose to the West. It is this disconnect, in my view, that keeps Republicans in power despite the very questionable decision to invade Iraq, a number of blunders in carrying out the occupation, and at home the inability to control government spending and a series of ethical scandals.

I don't feel like I have much original to add to discussing the war on terror, but the issue is so crucial, it is the issue of our time, and given the week's events I at least feel this need to relay good columns on.

Michael Barone has a good column on this cognitive dissonance that is afflicting so much of the Democratic Party. Great passage:

The mindset of the Left blogosphere is that there's no real terrorist
threat out there. We wouldn't have any serious problem if we'd just do something
different -- raise the minimum wage or reduce the number without health
insurance (the first issue Lamont mentioned on election night), withdraw from
Iraq or (as some Left bloggers suggest) sell out Israel.

Hello? Anyone home at the New York Times?

2006-08-13T16:19:00.000-05:00

Read this New York Times article about the added powers that British police have to break up terrorist plots and to put suspected terrorists under arrests or surveillance. Makes you wonder if the Times editorial guys, so apoploctic about any concrete anti-terrorism steps taken by the U.S. government, read their news pages.

And more realism on Arabs, Israel, and terror

2006-08-13T16:15:00.000-05:00

An coming of age column by a liberal Jewish writer in today's WSJ on line.

Appeasement or else!

2006-08-13T05:55:00.000-05:00

Read this column from Britain's Independent, and tell me - does this sound not so vaguely like blackmail, demanding that the British acquiese in the demands of Islamic terrorists, or else, well... we've seen the or else, haven't we?

On terror: Worth Noting

2006-08-12T08:44:00.000-05:00

This editorial gets it. Key quotes:

People ... can't possibly believe that jihadist terror is the product of 4 1/2 years of war waged by the United States in Afghanistan and then Iraq - no matter how counterproductive or stupid they consider those conflicts to have been.

Otherwise, how could they account for 9/11 itself, or for the host of attacks on U.S. facilities here and abroad stretching back two decades earlier? How would they explain Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the infidel West in the 1990s? Otherwise, how could they account for 9/11 itself, or for the host of attacks on U.S. facilities here and abroad stretching back two decades earlier? How would they explain Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the infidel West in the 1990s?
...
Those fascists do not merely desire all of the West Bank. They seek all of Israel. They do not desire accommodation with the West. They seek an end to its supremacy. And in those European countries where they exist in large numbers, their long-term goal is to transform those societies into Islamic states.

On the specifics of how the war is being fought, and what we should do to win it, this Wall Street Journal editorial merits attention. It points out that while Democrats have many valid criticisms of the military campaign in Iraq, they are basically unserious about any plan to otherwise wage war on and defeat Islamic terrorists; which the message of my post yesterday.

On Terror and Politics: I think I get it

2006-08-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

The Centerman has made no bones about his desire to have a realistic Democratic alternative to the Republican Party. Does anyone see it coming?

As I understand the New York Times and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, it is improper for the Bush administration, Republicans, or really anyone, ever to suggest that the policies favored by many Democrats would be ineffective in the war on terror, or send a wrong message to our enemies, or undermine the nation's defense effort or morale. Democrats, however, are allowed to say anything they want about Mr. Bush and supporters of the war: he "lied" to take us into war (not merely was mistaken) is merely the standard charge. He is routinely accused of breaking the law, of violating the constitution, of intentionally dividing the country for political gain, of fighting the war for the benefit of Halliburton, etc. etc. Anything can be said about the president and the war's supporters, but they are not allowed to reply.
Even if the replies are valid.

Take, for instance, E.J. Dionne's latest. Here are a few excerpts and some commentary:

[Quoting Dick Cheney]:

"The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, [from] the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al-Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

The rejection of Lieberman made Cheney wonder if "the dominant view of the Democratic Party" is "the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home."

Wow! I bet the 145,000 free citizens of Connecticut who voted for Lamont will be shocked to learn that they were really sending signals of "retreat" to "al-Qaeda types."

They may well be. Of course, Cheney didn't say that. But more to the point, what is actually inaccurate about the Vice President's statement? Al-Qaeda almost certainly is banking on breaking the will of the American people to finish the fight. And is it not fair to wonder if the dominant view of the Democratic Party is the notion that someone we can just pretend this conflict is not underway? Isn't that largely Ned Lamont's position? I mean, I've not heard of Lamont suggesting anything other than pulling our soldiers home. That may be a good idea, but what then? Lamont offers nothing, nor do other Democrats calling for a quick and total pullout, such as Senator Kerry and Rep. Murtha, or Howard Dean, let alone the snarling bloggers at Daily Kos.

More Dionne:

[RNC Chairman Ken] Mehlman ... explained Ronald Reagan's defection from the Democratic Party this way: 'He saw the beginning of the end, as a party that had vowed to fight communism became a party that set itself against those who fought communism.' Ah, yes, the party of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale was nothing but a bunch of anti-anti-communists.

Well, E.J., you tell me: It's strong rhetoric, to be sure, though probably not as strong as "Bush lied;" -- Yet it's kind of right, isn't it? By the end of the Carter era, through Mondale's 1984 campaign and the rest of the 1980s, the Democrats were largely defeatist. They opposed the operation ousting the Communist government of Grenada; they opposed U.S. support for the democratic government of El Salvador in its fight with communists; they opposed U.S. support for contra fighters and civilian democratic movements in Sandinista Nicaragua; they supported a unilateral nuclear freeze and/or disarmament; and they were relentlessly critical of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush's foreign policy right up to the moment the Berlin Wall fell. At each stage they sought to use these issues to defeat Republicans at the polls. It was this policy that pushed many of us to the politic right.

From there it was an easy leap to saying a Democratic Party -- cleverly renamed the "Defeat-ocrat Party" by the RNC chairman -- "that once stood for strength now stands for retreat and defeat." Translation: Anyone who dares question our botched approach is in favor of surrender.

Well, that's E.J.'s translation. I'll just focus on Mehlman's comment - isn't it largely correct? E.J. makes no effort to persuade us it is not. Rather, he is simply outraged that anyone should suggest it. In other words, Democrats can say anything about Bush, but anything Bush or Republicans say in reply is unfairly "politicizing the war."

Well, that's ridiculous.

Iraq has not gone well. We never much liked it here. And it is perhaps unfair to blame those who opposed the war for events that followed. But from this perch, it seems that one reason the anti-war arguments lost out in March of 2003 is that the opponents of the war on the left - i.e. within the Democratic Party (and of course many Democrats - a majority - supported the war) were so ridiculously irresponsible, silly, and driven by Bush hatred that good arguments against the war were not made. From the left we heard only silly arguments, such as "no blood for oil," (like we couldn't have just lifted the oil embargo) or Bush merely "wants revenge for his father," or even exchange rates! The average, relatively non-political centrist voter heard this nonsense, and figured there wasn't much case to be made against the war. A few conservative cranks, such as Pat Buchanan, made the argument, but buried it in conspiracy theories.

This is the cost of our lacking a responsible opposition. For over 5 years, from the day George Bush took office, the Democrats have offered little but the most extreme Bush hatred, partisanship, and obstructionism. We deserve better from an opposition party.

"Reform" of Public Funding Rears its Head - But Where is Sen. McCain?

2006-07-30T23:21:00.000-05:00

A bill has been introduced in Congress to "repair" the public funding system for presidential campaigns. The sponsors are the usual, Representatives Shays and Meehan and Senators Feingold and --- Hey, wait a minute - where is Senator McCain?

That's right, Senator McCain has not signed on to this latest bid to expand the public funding system of presidential campaigns. According the the New York Sun, it's just politics. Senator McCain probably doesn't plan to take public funds in his 2008 presidential run, figuring he can do better raising money privately. As Meredith McGeehee of the pro-public funding Campaign Finance Institute puts it, "He does not want to be caught in a position where he can be accused, rightly or wrongly, of hypocrisy." Meredith, I'm afraid that that train has already left the platform. And then some. Sorry.

Meanwhile, in the same article, John Samples of the Cato Institute opines that Senator McCain doesn't want to alientate GOP conservatives he'll need to get the nomination, and who hate public funding of campaigns as much as they hate the restrictions on advertising that were included in McCain-Feingold, the 2002 law that - tee hee - cleaned up politics.

Some criticism of the proposal can be found, here, here, here, and here.

The Insipid Press

2006-07-29T23:01:00.000-05:00

I find sometimes that I can't say enough bad things, or come up with enough bad words, to describe the American press. Trite, insipid, stupid, vacuuous, foolish, and pusilanimous, are just a few words that come to mind.

One has set me off today is Dick Polman's column. It's pretty simple, really. Polman is arguing that the President has handed the Democrats a big political issue by vetoing federal funding for stem cell research. Polman notes that this research is supported even by a majority of Republicans, not to mention Democrats and independents. All true, and it may be a gift to Democrats.

But note that not once does Polman suggest that anything motivated the White House to cast its first veto in nearly 6 years except political calculation - because of his "fealty to the religious right." Polman thinks of himself as so smart, so worldly wise and cynical, but he's an idiot. Why would Bush take such a move, which, for all the reasons Polman outlines, is horrible for the GOP's fall electoral prospects, based on political calculation? It's even bad for Bush's own poll numbers, just when they were rebounding. This is the same type of reporting we saw a year ago when the Republicans in Congress took up the Terri Schiavo case. But in fact, it is always the reporting. It seems beyond Polman's comprehension that maybe, just maybe, the President is willing to damage his own poll numbers and risk the seats of vulnerable Republicans such as Rick Santorum precisely because he actually believes in his position. And maybe, just maybe, that position actually raises serious moral concerns, as recognized by non-journalists.

In the end, Polman's column, like so much reporting nowadays, not only does nothing to help us understand the issues underlying support or opposition to federal funding of stem cell research - it doesn't even help us understand the politics, because Polman is so smugly cynical that he can't consider the most obvious explanations for what is going on. But we shouldn't be too hard on Polman - his reporting is typical, not atypical.

Recently, Karl Rove lashed out at the press for their "corrosive" influence on public dialogue, with their focus on "process and not substance." I'm not a big Rove fan, but on this one I think he hit the nail on the head.

A Melancholy Anniversary

2006-07-29T11:15:00.000-05:00

I always hated the Lady Di craze, never finding her at all worth the energy or adoration. Nonetheless, it seems fitting to note that today is the 25th anniversary of the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.

Metaphor Meltdown and Democratic Divisiveness

2006-07-28T09:19:00.000-05:00

I commented a bit substantively on the renewal of the Voting Rights Act here. (See also this post from last summer). I can't help but make a few other comments on yesterday's signing.

First were some tortured comments from Rep. David Scott (D-GA.). According to Cox News, President Bush promised to "vigorously enforce" the Act and defend it in court. Scott then commented to reporters:

George Bush laid the gauntlet down. We will hold his feet accountable
to it.

Huh? Hold his feet accountable? To the gauntlet? But Scott wasn't finished. He continued,

"We're not out of the woods... The Voting Rights Act is a liberator of
punishment."

A "liberator of punishment?" He means the voting rights act frees up states to punish people? What?

Meanwhile, Howard Dean, the disgraceful Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who has recently been seen comparing a Republican to Stalin while calling the President "divisive," chose the moment to criticize Republicans for their "assault on voting rights." Good timing, Howard. That'll bring us together.

President Bush Signs Voting Rights Act Renewal

2006-07-28T08:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday President Bush signed a 25 year renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

One of the most successful laws in history, the VRA, first enacted in 1964, specifically put an end to many of the legal tactics that southern states had used to deny black citizens the vote. Moreover, it required any further changes in voting procedures in covered states to be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice, thus heading off future, creative legal ploys by segregationist state legislatures. Its success as a matter of fact, and its additional importance as a matter of symbol, cannot be denied. The Act, originally a "temporary" measure, was reauthorized three previous times by Congress, most recently in 2002, when it was reauthorized for 25 years.

Of course, much has changed in over 40 years. I think it is doubtful that, were the VRA not renewed, we would see a serious renewal of efforts to disenfranchise blacks or other minorities. But there are others who disagree, and as a general safeguard against abuse, renewal of the Act can probably be justified in any case. On the other hand, 25 years is a long time. Key parts of the Act - including the pre-clearance provisions - only apply to particular states and portions of states (mainly in the deep south), and are based on voter registration and turnout data now nearly half a century old. Whether this "temporary" measure can truly be justified for more than 65 years from its original enactment - which is what the new reenactment does - is somewhat questionable.

More unfortunate to me is that this year's congressional debate, and the extensive period of the renewal, have cut off a badly needed debate about the VRA. The VRA does not only prohibit laws aimed at preventing minorities from voting. It has also been interpreted by the Supreme Court to mandate the creation of "majority-minority" districts, in which minority voters constitute a sufficient voting block to elect the candidate of their choice. This certainly led to the election of more black representatives in Congress and in state legislatures, but at a price. To create these districts, black voters were often "packed" into districts, and given the voting patterns of American blacks (due, in part, to 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's opposition to the VRA), that means creating districts that are very liberal, Democratic Party strongholds. Meanwhile, surrounding districts are left with few black voters, often creating very conservative, GOP strongholds. Whether this is a good dynamic - or even a good way to maximize minority political power (holding a what are still a relatively small number of seats, while having little influence over the majority of seats) is questionable.

But this debate was largely missing from renewal, in part because the public doesn't understand that the VRA has been used this way, and in part because debating the issue seems to lead to immediate racial demagoguery on both sides. Unfortunatly, by renewing the Act for such a long period, we won't have this debate soon. Rather, it is more likely to be decided in the courts. A public debate and decisions made in the electoral arena - tempered, of course, by the requirements of the Constitution enforced by the Courts - would have been a much better result.

Anonymity and Issues

2006-07-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

I liked this post from Bob Bauer, for the obvious reason that I agree totally.

Sorry Honey, I Forgot Your Anniversary

2006-07-21T04:40:00.000-05:00

A year has come and gone since this little blog got started. In fact, more than a year - we hit the one year mark on July 10. And completely forgot about it.

The Lonely Centrist hasn't quite played out as I thought. Originally, I was to have a partner, but at the last minute he pulled out, for reasons I think perfectly appropriate. The blog's focus has been more narrow than I had anticipated - we had envisioned a site for general discussion of politics and issues, but it seems I focus mainly on campaign finance and political reform issues, althought I try to raise some other topics now and again. This is because - and it seems strange to me - I find increasingly that I've lost my interest in debating policy. Perhaps the same impulse that led me to feel detached from my friends of both left and right has simply left me tired of politics.

I've also found how tough it is to keep up a good blog, especially alone. Originally, we'd hoped to add in, for example, classic movie reviews, like this one, each week-end. That's also fallen off. Too often this blog has gone dark for several days at a time.

Still, I'm not prepared to give it up. My campaign finance commentary, in particular, has drawn some attention. Winfield Myers at the Democracy Project gave me an early boost. Mike Krempasky of the popular Red State called the Lonely Centrist "the best underrated blog you've never read," which I'm pretty sure is a compliment. Matt Johnston of Going to the Matt did a nice profile/interview on me.

Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog kind of likes the blog. He seems really put out that I blog anonymously or consider myself a centrist. While admitting that I "know a great deal about election law," he seems to think my posts cannot be evaluated on their own merit. (That, of course, is one thing I dislike about campaign finance law - it takes the focus off the issues and puts it on the speaker.) Anyway, he has linked here without shame, and I appreciate it - even if anonymity prohibits me from thanking you in person, Rick.

Not everyone liked the blog. Perhaps the most controversial thing I've published is a series of posts on the politicized career staff at the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. See here and here. Some complained that I was attacking the backgrounds of Justice bureaucrats, while my own background remains unknown. But they miss the point. I don't claim any legitimacy for my views based on my background. The Department of Justice bureaucrats and their fans were making precisely that claim - that their backgrounds entitled their opinions to special respect as non-partisan, non-ideological interpretations of the law. I merely pointed out - with nothing but facts - that that was open to question.

The DOJ posts drove readership to a record level in January, but unfortunately I was unable to build on the momentum and as I rarely had time to post in February and March.

Anyway, I hope - and in the areas of Voting Rights Act Enforcement and Campaign Finance, think I have - contributed something meaningful to the debate. I appreciate those of you who come here regularly. I'll try to post more regularly, too.

Thanks.

The Most Naive Man in America

2006-07-20T21:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since we checked in with the Most Naive Man in America, Fred Wertheimer. We would never dream of mocking a person's looks (and we're smart enough not to put up a photo on this site!).But this little tidbit from Skeptic's Eye is just too darn good to pass up.

This is Fred Wertheimer. And this? You tell us.

On Campaign Finance: Does Privacy Matter?

2006-07-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

For years, even opponents of campaign finance reform have assumed that disclosure is a good thing. Thus, disclosure has become sacrosant. Justice Brandeis's old bromide - which is almost certainly incorrect, by the way, when taken literally - that, "sunlight is the best disinfectant," is repeatedly endlessly, like some medieval spell to ward off corruption.

But disclosure comes with a price, too. Even the Supreme Court has recognized this, in cases such as McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, in which an individual and her school aged children faced retaliation from the school board and teachers for opposing a school tax; and NAACP v. Alabama, in which, in the 1950s deep South, the state sought the names of donors to the NAACP.

Here, Steve Hoersting of the Center for Competitive Politics has made one of the first sensible attempts I've seen to explain when disclosure has value and when it does not; and why disclosure of "grassroots" political activity that does not involve direct contact between the spender and the officeholder ought not be subject to mandatory disclosure and, hence, possible legislative retaliation.

Reagan Revisionism

2006-07-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

Fred Barnes had this interesting column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Seems to me about right, especially concerning Reagan's partisanship, and more that of the Democrats. It does seem to me that the partisanship is more bitter now than then; more hardened, with less listening. Maybe it's part of the cost for the years of harsh partisan denunciations. Democratic activists keep thinking that the party's problem is that it is not "tough enough." That's probably the exact opposite of the truth. It's problem is that it has squandered credibility as a responsible opposition by reflexively opposing everything Bush, and through intemperate public pronouncements.

I've said it repeatedly here, we need a good Democratic opposition. We're not getting one.

Fortunately, We've got McCain-Feingold

2006-07-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

According to National Journal's Congress Daily (paid subscription required), the Republican Party is asking House members to cough up money for the fall campaigns - they hope to get members to contribute over $17 million.

Majority Leader Boehner donated $550,000 and Majority Whip Blunt contributed
$500,000 at the weekly House Republican Conference meeting. The top four elected GOP leaders are each expected to contribute $550,000 toward the effort. The
program asks members to contribute funds directly to the NRCC from their
campaign re-election accounts or leadership PACs, or in fundraising drives for
the committee. The NRCC has set a fundraising target for each member, depending
on that member's seniority, committee leadership and political vulnerability. An
NRCC spokesman said the targets range from $70,000 for GOP incumbents in
difficult races to $550,000 for elected leaders. Reps. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., John
Shimkus, R-Ill., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., and Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., will serve as
deputies to assist Cantor in collecting checks from their Republican colleagues.

In the past, the parties would just raise "soft money" for this type of thing, but then McCain-Feingold prohibited party committees from raising soft money. Now we've got members spending more time than ever raising cash. Now there's improvement.

The American Left and the Mexican Election

2006-07-11T21:57:00.000-05:00

Mexico's razor close presidential election, in which the Center-Right candidate Felipe Calderon scored a narrow victory over leftist Andres Lopez Obrador, has sparked a number of recent articles comparing it to the United States' 2000 election. These articles tell us much about a portion of the United States' political left, and it is not good.

For example, William Greider writes in the Nation that we should, "keep an open mind about whether López Obrador's charges of election fraud are substantive or, as the media suggest, farfetched." Grieder warns us not to "take at face value what you read in the leading American newspapers about Mexico's cliffhanger election outcome," which he labels as "disgusting." You know, all those right wing papers - Grieder specifically singles out the notoriously right-wing Washington Post and New York Times. And you have to wonder, what is this guy smoking.

Grieder confirms that he has been smoking something when he then claims that, "If the votes had been fairly, thoroughly recounted there in 2000, Gore would be the "next President." That's not what any of the media recounts found, but no matter - perhaps Grieder is in the "reality based community."

Although Grieder cites to no evidence of fraud, other than Obrador's own, unsubstantiated claims, he knows that Obrador is, "right to demand a full accounting of the real results." But how does Grieder know that hasn't happened? Mexico's Federal Election Tribunal, a non-partisan, widely respected body, says it has done exactly that. Teams of European observers found no problems with the elections or the tallying of ballots ("Javier Solana, the European Union's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, said the EU has every confidence in Mexico's electoral institutions. ") Yet Grieder suggests that if the results are not overturned, "the common people [will] fall short of full justice." In other words, the only results that will suffice for Greider would be ones declaring Obrador the winner.

Meanwhile, in an article in yesterday's Washington Post, Ron Klain, former general counsel to Al Gore, strikes similar themes. In fact, Klain specifically urges Obrador to take "divisive action," and to, "call his supporters to the streets." Most stunningly, Klain calls on Obrador to demand "recounts," "notwithstanding Mexican law," and to "insist that any fair count would show that he is the rightful winner," without regard to whether or not that is true.

This is stunning stuff. While I hate the modern quick step to accusing politicians of all stripes of "fascism" or comparing people to "Hitler" or "Nazis," I simply have to say that, as a simple matter of history, Klain's prescription sounds remarkly like someone advising Benito Mussolini to march on Rome. The law and the facts be damned - Obrador must be declared the winner. Any other result is ipso facto illegitimate.

Klain then goes off into a highly partisan and sometimes counterfactual description of the 2000 election controversy. But what's interesting is that he tells us that Gore resisted advice (Klain's?) to "claim victory," to call on his supporters to engage in "street protests," and to "question the legitimacy" of courts and those counting ballots when they ruled against him. (Some would say that Gore and his supporters did all that - the day after the election, his campaign manager, Bill Daily, famously declared that "if the will of the people is to prevail," Gore would have to be declared the winner - regardless of the actual Florida count, or Florida law; Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson organized street protests.) But what's remarkable is that Klain really thinks that would have worked - and is willing to pay most any price to have made it work.

It seems to me that both Grieder and Klain exhibit a deep problematic aspect that afflicts much of the American left. While purporting to be the party of the people, the left has a definite difficulty with democratic results it doesn't like. Thus it contests elections it loses as "illegitimate," and as justifying what in essence is a counter-legal assumption of power; it relies heavily on courts to implement too many of its policy preferences; and it frankly has difficulty accepting facts that indicate that the "people" have sided with the bad guys. To too many on the American left, the will of the people is not to be determined through constitutional, representational processes, but through a mystical "will of the people" that exists apart from actual election results. This is not healthy at a time when a meaningful alternative to Bush Republicanism is badly needed.

Feingold Misstates the Law, Again

2006-07-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

One of the tiring bits of debating campaign finance law is that reformers regularly - and in my opinion intentionally - misstate the law, and their opponents' arguments, to make their political points. So here we have Russ Feingold, writing to the Washington Post, to complain that George Will, in this column, "repeats the false arguments that our reforms banned speech...."

Well, read Will's column. No where does he say that. He does write that the reformers, "enact[ed] special protections against wealthy opponents, and 'blackouts' on much pre-election advertising." And that is true. "Much" is a very important modifier here. Will does not claim that reformers "banned speech," but rather that they banned "much speech." I suppose one can argue about how much constitutes "much," but there can be no argument that McCain-Feingold did, was intended to, and is generally defended by Feingold and others on the grounds that it banned some speech.

Feingold then repeats another increasingly popular canard of the reform community, that McCain-Feingold was all about having everyone "play by the same rules." Or to be precise, he argues that McCain-Feingold merely required, "groups that run ads close to an election ... to play by the same rules that candidates do." In fact, candidates are still treated differently than "groups that run ads close to an election." In fact, the latter are actually treated more favorably in some ways. If Feingold really wanted to suggest Will's column overstated the degree to which McCain-Feingold restricts political speech, why wouldn't he mention that?

The reason is because the reformers know the superficial appeal of saying, "everyone should play by the same rules." But in fact, not everyone plays by the same rules at all. As former Federal Election Commissioner Bradley A. Smith wrote in Roll Call (subscription required), the rules differ for most everyone, including, notably, the press. To take Feingold's example, why should any group that even mentions a candidate in an ad close to an election play by the same rules as candidates? Does a corporation buying an ad saying "call Senator Feingold and urge him to support the President's immigration initiative" really merit the same treatment as a corporation giving money directly to a candidate to do what he wants? Maybe, it's not entirely obvious, is it? But by invoking "same rules," (even though it is not really true) Feingold avoids having to justify why those rules should apply. Moreover, he has a selling point for his bill, even if it is based on misstating what the law actually says.

Thanks to Richard Hasen's Election Law Blog for bringing Feingold's inaccurate letter to my attention.

North Korea Test-Fires Missiles Capable of Hitting the United States - shouldn't this be getting more attention?

2006-07-06T08:33:00.000-05:00

It amazes me how taciturn we are about North Korean missile tests. Here is a relentlessly hostile, Stalinist dictatorship with nuclear weapons, led by a nut case, developing missiles capable of hitting the United States. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me it should be dominating the news.

Serious Issue, Frivolous People

2006-07-05T14:18:00.000-05:00

I think that one reason the anti-war movement has not taken hold, despite general unpopularity with the war in Iraq, is that most Americans do not see the movement as being serious. Americans are serious about terrorism, even if they oppose the war in Iraq, which polls show most do.

But check out this latest publicity stunt by leading anti-war figures. They - Cindy Sheehan, Dick Gregory (when you're down to Dick Gregory as your "celebrity" participant, you've got problems), a few folks I've never heard of - are now launching a "hunger strike." Or are they?

One participant claims, ""Now it is time to bring the pain and suffering of war home. We are putting our bodies on the line for peace." But then we read, from another hunger striker, "I don't know how long I can fast, but I am making this open-ended." Well what does that mean? Until the craving strikes for a veggie burger?

Then we've got the usual Hollywood "support," including Sean Penn, the very beautiful Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover , and the so on. What are they doing? A"rolling fast." And what is that, you ask? Well, they "pledge to refuse food for at least 24 hours, and then hand over to a comrade." Well, how awful is that? Oooh, that's putting the body on the line, eh? It seems to me it would be more of a sacrifice for people such as Sarandon and Penn, whose careers depend on their physical fitness, to pledge to stuff their faces with Big Macs for 24 hours.

This makes a mockery of people who have truly gone on hunger strikes for things they believe in. Force feedings, and people actually dying of hunger strikes, are not pretty.

Too many prominent Democrats, such as Howard Dean and Al Gore, have identified themselves with these frivolous people, so that Americans, I think, don't really, deep in their gut, trust the Democrats with the war on terror or national security. One of the few who has played this seriously is Hillary Clinton, and it looks like it may cost her a nomination that was once hers for the asking. This is a shame. We need a responsible, serious, opposition party.

Repeat After Me: Corporations Do Not Make Campaign Contributions

2006-07-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

No matter how many times you say it, the press always gets it wrong: so repeat after me:

"Corporations are prohibited by law from making campaign contributions. Corporations are prohibited by law from making campaign contributions. Corporations are ..."

What brings this constanly repeated error to mind today is the MSNBC obituary of Enron founder Ken Lay, which claims, "For many years, his corporation was the single biggest contributor to President Bush." In fact, of course, Enron's PAC - which consists of voluntary contributions made by Enron managers, shareholders, and their families, no corporate money - may have contributed up to the legal limits of $5000 per election to Bush, and Enron may have contributed to the Republican Party in the days when those contributions were legal (they are no longer legal, since 2002), but Enron never contributed to the campaign of President Bush or any other Federal campaign. Rather, people who worked for Enron made contributions to President Bush.

This matters, because it gives the wrong impression to the listening/reading public. Almost everybody works somewhere. If you gave $100 to a candidate, would you consider that a contribution by your employer? Most people would not. Doing so allows "reformers" to dramatically increase the "influence" of corporations, and misrepresent the entire system, as it makes most every contribution, by any person, into a "special interest" corporate contribution .

Speaking more frankly, it is a blatant misrepresentation, perpetuated by the reform organizations such as the Center for Responsive Politics - check out this web page (All of the corporations and unions listed are prohibited by law from contributing to candidates or national political parties since 2002, and were prohibited from contributing to candidates prior to 2002.) Doubting Thomases can see this link (check page 72 of the document, 2 U.S.C. Section 441b).

If only they knew what we think of them

2006-07-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

Apparently, our British friends don't think much of Americans. Why, they think we're a, "cruel, vulgar, arrogant society, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden, obsessed with money and led by an incompetent hypocrite."

Anybody been to Britain lately? Seems like a bit of projection to me.

Me? On this 4th of July, I think we're just great. As for the Brits, well, they need to quit watching the BBC.