Defending the Establishment

When this primary season started, I was dead-set against voting for Hillary Clinton because I believed that she was corrupt.  I thought that even if she was effective, all the progress would be for naught if a scandal erupted.  It could discredit the progressive cause for at least two election cycles and possibly more.  I wasn't quite feeling the Bern, but he seemed promising.  I have now done a pretty dramatic 180 on Hillary, and I guess a less dramatic -90 on Bernie Sanders.

After looking into the past scandals involving the Clintons, I found that they were all pretty much engineered by Republicans.  Given how much Republicans hate them and how much they've been investigated, I now really doubt that the Clintons are really corrupt or that there is a scandal waiting to be exposed.

With that out of the way, I am more supportive of Hillary for president.  She is a believer and practitioner of incremental change.  Sanders is a proponent of a "political revolution."  I certainly ascribe more to her theory change, particularly for the presidency while Congress is still dominated by Republicans and the Tea Party.  I expand on this train of thought in an essay, where I use examples from my professional field of responsible investing.

Dreaming of Incremental Change




The one thing that really still bothers me about Hillary is that she is too much of an interventionist on foreign policy.  This is where I often diverge with liberals because they usually want to go in to every conflict and support every rebel and of course posture at China!  I don't really think she's a neocon, though, but rather she is in line with the foreign policy elite in the US.  She seems like the classic bleeding heart liberal, actually.  I hope that after working with Obama and Biden that her views have moderated.  With that said, maybe it's more important that the foreign policy elite's views moderate.

Frustrated with Hillary and Bernie and Progressives

Sent this to the Hillary campaign.  I'll send a similar one to Sanders as well, but it's really not his fault if Hillary can't make the case for herself and Democrats.

Why isn't the campaign steering the conversation towards how we're going to get Republicans out of office?  Hillary just keeps tacking left.   That's great and all, but we all know that the real reason behind the erosion of the social safety net in the US is because of the rise of the extreme right!  Attacking Democrats is a waste of time not to mention resources.  Please, talk about political strategy!  And about the virtues of level-headedness a la Obama.  He has been consistently promoting the message of resisting over-reactions since his campaign in '08.  Surely, this temperament has helped Hillary with some legislation or political battle as well.  If Hillary can't sell this message, we're screwed and the Koch brothers win.

Fair Complaints or Whiny Liberals?

It grates on me when liberal commentators like Frank Rich complain about how the Obama administration is not being clear enough about the game plan. On the one hand, they are valid complaints, but on the other hand, they're supposed to be the journalists, so why don't they figure out the game plan, and then tell us about it. Instead, they are just stoking people's anger so that even people who should be supportive of the president's agenda are angry at him. Then, people are demoralized and discouraged instead of pitching in to build support. Frank Rich complains that Obama isn't explaining the tax cuts well to the American people, and he gives some suggestions, which is great. However, aren't there journalists and other people who could be explaining the tax cuts to the American people? There is only one Obama, and even though I also wish the communication and political maneuvering could have been much better, there's only so much one person can get around to doing. I am pretty certain that if we had 10 or 20 Obama's, things could be better, but there is only one. I think liberal commentators and activists need to get better at actually being helpful.

Election '08

Frank Rich churns some numbers. He's an Obama fan.

This is interesting.

Yet the myth of Democratic disarray is so pervasive that when “NBC Nightly News” and The Wall Street Journal presented their new poll results last week (Obama, 47 percent; McCain, 41 percent) they ignored their own survey’s findings to stick to the clichéd script. Both news organizations (and NBC’s sibling, MSNBC) dwelled darkly on Mr. Obama’s “problems with two key groups” (as NBC put it): white men, where he is behind 20 percentage points to Mr. McCain, and white suburban women, where he is behind 6 points.

Since that poll gives Mr. Obama not just a 19-point lead among all women but also a 7-point lead among white women, a 6-point deficit in one sliver of the female pie is hardly a heart-stopper. Nor is Mr. Obama’s showing among white men shocking news. No Democratic presidential candidate, including Bill Clinton, has won a majority of that declining demographic since 1964. Mr. Kerry lost white men by 25 points, and Mr. Gore did by 24 points (even as he won the popular vote).

Democratic Incompetence

Article in the Washington Post assessing what the Democrats in Congress have been up to lately. Pelosi and Reid are too into protectionism and subsidies instead of job training.

Krugman is a Traditional Democrat

Lately Paul Krugman seems to be obsessed with criticizing Obama, and he did another hit piece today.

He is mad at Obama for saying that he agrees with Republicans that regulation does not need to be "top down command and control." Krugman says that that's not what Republicans said, and that Democrats came up with that etc. He says that what Obama said is worse than Hillary supporting the gas tax holiday because Obama is using Republican talking points.

Krugman doesn't know two shits about politics. He has the view of many traditional Democrats, which is that we have to sell the liberal view and liberal ideas in terms of being in opposition with Republicans. We have to talk about how the liberals are always right, the liberals did the most successful programs, and the liberals are morally superior. However, I think this kind of thinking blinds Democrats to their own faults. They are unable to think critically about why Republicans have been so successful in politics for the past 30 years.

While some of Krugman's specific points are correct, and of course Reagan's policies toward regulation were really bad, he's missing the big picture. The bigger picture is that Democrats do often frame regulation as being anti-business, and that American people are concerned about how regulation and programs will affect the economy. Democrats need to stop thinking about regulation as being in opposition to the big bad companies, and think of it as supporting businesses that are good for Americans.

And anyway, even though Reagan and Bush II are really bad, my policy professor says that Bush I did more for the environment than Clinton.

Furthermore, in terms of negotiations, it is a good idea to give ideological ground this way. In a sense, it is agreeing with the concerns that people have while pushing for solutions more aggressively. Yes, Democrats need to admit they are not anti-business, and they are pro smart regulation. Krugman has an outdated view of politics.

Populism Doesn't Work

Why Krugman (and Edwards) are wrong

I was making some similar arguments about why Edwards' populism won't work and would only create a backlash just as it did after FDR's second term. Even though all liberals love FDR, the fact of the matter is that part of his legacy is the rise of conservatism. Same thing with Clinton, who wasn't even that populist. Part of Clinton's legacy is Bush. The only reason why most conservatives agree that FDR was ok is because he was a war president during a popular war, and people got rich from the war. Krugman might be a good economist, but he's a horrible historian.

Someone on the Barack Obama blog commented
"All the great reformers in history, FDR here, De Gaulle in France, Adenauer in Germany, even Hu Jintao in China today are masters in finding a common ground. They all have a vision and a plan, but was set them apart is their ability to bring people from opposite or diverse backgrounds to translate this vision in to reality. FDR was known for his brain trust. De Gaulle was a conservative who had communists in his government."

There are also many many examples of backlash and the failure of populism in modern Chinese history. Yes, that's right, the Communists were populist.

$15 to see John Edwards in SF

If anyone is in the bay area, it happens tomorrow, Wednesday, at noon. Yeah, short notice. I'll be going. Get your tickets here.

And the past few days all I've been doing is catching up on democratic presidential debates/speeches/etc. So here's a few for fun (none are about actual policies).

Passionate commemoration by Barack Obama of civil rights march in Selma, Alabama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-XG_VJZDw
-note his change of voice to better match his audience

Passionate speech by John Edwards at DNC Feb '07:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBenj7AxOcE