Loyal opposition

I recall hearing by the British phrase "the loyal opposition." Being without a pinch of Anglophilia, I never found out what it meant, but I assumed it was a British ironic joke, like the parts of Monty Python I didn't comprehend either.

Here in the US, we don't have a "loyal opposition." We have our two-party system, in which the parties vie by any means to win elections. We have our history of election fraud, our gerrymandering of districts to help our side and stick to the other side, Nixon's dirty tricks, poll taxes, stealing debate prep books, etc. All's fair in an election except beating people up at the voting stations. So we might be nasty, but we're not violent.

The election season has somewhat looser rules. After election, it's back to civilized behavior, and maybe division of the spoils. In the past there was more bipartisanship in Washington, maybe because policy outlook was more regional than party-based. The northeastern Democrats had more in common with the northeastern Republicans than with southern Democrats.

For the past 3 years, that bipartisanship has completely broken down. Now, the party that happens to be the majority now isn't working with their compatriots who are likely to be majority sometime in the future. Instead, we have bitter combatants who haven't laid down any weapons or accepted the outcome of the last election or the election before that.

It's always been true that the last election never settled questions for good, no matter how much the last winners wished for it. But the lack of truces now makes me wonder if all major legislation is doomed for the foreseeable future. It's hard to imagine this Congress agreeing on changes to the tax code, even though everyone's tax rate is set to increase significantly at the end of 2012. Not even this impetus is enough to get these bloody-minded opponents to negotiate.


We need to go back to the days when the election-season fighting ended with the election.

By the way, once I thought about it, I realized what "loyal opposition" means. It means that the party which lost the election isn't going to make war on the winners. They will be loyal to the elected government, and not take up arms, split the country, and start a civil war. As angry as people may get in Parliament, I think they consider how great a tragedy would occur without the loyalty of the losers. We need to take a lesson.

Loyalty, my arse!

Link: My guess about the origins of our current amped-up partisanship.

Tax Advice for Obama

No, I'm not giving advice to Obama's on his personal income tax return. I'm looking ahead to the end of 2012 when the Bush tax cuts are ending. For a change, Obama can grab the initiative and propose tax reform before the cuts expire.

The legislation shouldn't come from Nancy Pelosi or the left side of the Democratic party. It should come centrists. If they aren't available in Congress, Obama's team will have to draft the tax reform.

Tax reform is necessary but dangerous. If you're honest about tax reform, and your opponent isn't, they can demagogue the issue and cost you critical votes at the next election.

What are the chances that the Republicans won't behave that way? Zero. So we are destined to see no reform proposals or just the vaguest outlines. Then, after the election, the lame ducks will be sorting out mess. They'll probably scream, moan, and grandstand their way to a one-to-two-month extension. Sigh.

Ron Paul reaches for the ceiling

What is the ceiling for support for Ron Paul? He's got a great campaign network, good fundraising, ads on TV, a strong message, name recognition, and no other candidate splitting his pool of voters. He should be running at his maximum level, at least for this campaign. These primaries are a test to see what his ceiling is and the maximum number of people who will vote for Paul's platform.

In a different post, I declared that Paul's ceiling is 15%. My prediction was too low since he's already gotten 21% in Iowa and 23% in New Hampshire. His libertarian platform may not play so well in the socially conservative south, but the rest of the country is pretty fertile ground.

Paul gave a great semi-victory speech after the New Hampshire primary. He's a good speaker in debates, interviews, and even sound bites. He doesn't suffer from many of the characterizations that plague other candidates. People don't see him as:

a Wall Street stooge, Wall Street raider, lobbyist, elitist, rich, dishonest, greedy, flip-flopper, philanderer, unethical, pompous, vindictive, opportunist, contemptible, theocratic, hypocritical, empty-suit, uptight, dumber than dirt, whiny, liar, insincere, or slick.  

His negative characteristics are usually variations on these: out-of-touch, dangerous to the GOP, crackpot.

If Paul ends up in a two-man race with Mitt Romney, we will all get to see what his ceiling is. But more important, the GOP will have a stark choice: they can embrace the candidate who actually follows their small-government ideals, or they can choose someone from Bush mold (but one who promises to do better on the finances).

With Romney polling at a national average of 34%, and Paul getting 12% to 20%, that leaves at least 46% who have to make that stark choice. Will Tea partiers, who were so outspoken on the constitution, gravitate to Paul? They should,  if smaller government is a more important message than being the top military power in the world.

I don't think the Tea partiers are that pure. They may say they love the constitution, but they want to be top dog with no apologies. Because of this, I think Paul is close to his max at 23% in New Hampshire. He'll do better in some western caucus state, but over all, his ceiling is probably 30%. That's better than 8% in 2008, and it becomes the floor for 2016*. We shall see.

* That's not really the floor for 2016. But it's a pleasant idea that 30% of the Republican party would be honest in their small-government goals.

Lucky Santorum

Do you know the joke about being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple? We need a version for Santorum.

He was the least attractive of the not-Romneys, so he was the last to receive attention and the "bump." His luck was that his bump came so late it coincided with the Iowa caucuses. He's like a person in the last car on the roller coaster. He's only up there because everyone else has already been there and dropped.

Extra: If a ferris wheel metaphor would have worked, I'd use this pic. Let's see...

Santorum wins because he happened to be in the top car with the plane hit. ... 

See, it doesn't work. But enjoy the pic anyway. It's too good not to share.

The consequences of political overreach

In an earlier post, I wrote about how political parties have become aggregates of "intense policy demanders" (an idea that isn't mine originally, but sounds like a good description of the current situation). This post is about a corollary to that thesis. The information also comes from a news outlet, this time NPR.

According to the NPR piece (worth its 11 minutes), the US is in a cycle of political overreach and backlash. This is how it works:

• The electorate becomes distinctly unhappy with the way the government is working.
• They vote one party (the one held less to blame) into power in a wave election.
• The winning party mistakes its election for a mandate. Or maybe it willfully misreads the election as a mandate.
• The newly powerful party listens to its "intense policy demanders" (we can call them screamers) and enacts or tries to enact too extreme a program.
• The electorate becomes distinctly unhappy with that party, and the cycle repeats, but with the former "in" party now out.

The problem is political overreach. The electorate wants moderate, well-functioning government without drama, but the party is pushed by (or full of) screamers. The agenda of these screamers provokes electoral repudiation.

One final point in the report. The swings in election results are speeding up. There was an electoral change favoring Republicans in 1994. The Republicans became stronger through 5 more elections until the pendulum started swinging back in 2006 towards the Democrats. In 2010, just 2 elections later, the pendulum swung again back towards the Republicans. We don't know yet whether the 2012 election will bring greater strength to the Republicans, or another shift in the pendulum.

The pendulum is changing directions so frequently because of obstruction. To remove obstruction, you need undivided government, but that also opens the door to the screamers in the party in power. Until one party or the other figures out how to restrain its screamers, we are trapped in this Catch -22. 

If one of the parties could stake out the middle ground, it could hold onto power for quite a while, unless boredom is part of the reason for the electoral turnovers (and that's a possibility).

The Fair Way to Report

The non-coverage of Ron Paul, and now the coverage of Ron Paul, give me an example of how badly the press reports on candidates. Here is my recipe for a fair, interesting, informative way to cover a candidate

• Do your homework first--know the candidate's policy positions, their strengths and weaknesses.
• Let the candidate present their positions and their strengths. Give them a fair chance to do this without interrupting with gotcha questions.
• Follow-up on the policy weaknesses and professional/leadership weaknesses. Revealing these weaknesses is an important task for the press because the candidate isn't going to do it himself, and opponents will tend to exaggerate.
  

So what was wrong with the coverage on Paul?

• First no coverage.
• Then coverage only as a no-hoper.
• Then coverage only of the newsletter scandal. 
• No reporting on his policy proposals.
  
• No critique of his policy weaknesses.

The first and the last are the biggest failures of the press. On second thought, they are all failures, and I'm not sure which is the worst, especially considering that the press could easily do a better job. If only they would divert some of their resources away from repetition, celebrity reporting, and media frenzy, they would have many more half-decent stories on this at-least-moderately-important presidential race.

 The only guaranteed airtime for Paul

I critique Paul's general policy approach here and "sound money" ideas here.

A New Year... minus the election jitters

Today feels more like Thanksgiving to me than Hangover Day. It's warm, so I took a walk with my honey in our historical downtown, and I just enjoyed the small pleasures like sunshine, well-built modest older houses, the smooth bark and twisty branches in an evergreen hedge. I thought about my kids at home (twenty-somethings) and how they are good-hearted and honest.

It's hard for me to worry too much about the fate of the US on a day like today. We aren't currently at our strongest, but we are a wealthy country with a lot of reserves. I don't believe anyone on the left or the right is trying to subvert and destroy our country. Of course we need to be vigilant, work hard, and make the best decisions we can. Maybe we also need to back down on the fear and suspicion.

I'm going to reveal something surprising--I used to be a pessimist. For many years, I was one. But then I noticed many aspects of my life turned out well, like my career, my relationship with my parents and siblings, my kids, my town. Now I'm an optimist because that's what life has taught me.

Thank you, God, life, nature, and everyone.

 A different town, but the same feeling