Electoral shift more about embracing Democratic values than transcending race

Last Thursday, I wrote that Obama’s path to victory in this election—a strategy that embraced core Democratic values instead of pandering to the center-right—had left me feeling validated if not vindicated for two decades of advocating just such an approach.

Well, thanks to Stanley Greenberg, writing in today’s New York Times, you can now color me vindicated, too. Greenberg, who was Bill Clinton’s chief pollster and one of the men most responsible for reinforcing the notion of “Reagan Democrats,” has decided to finally lay that frame to rest:

I’m finished with the Reagan Democrats of Macomb County in suburban Detroit after making a career of spotlighting their middle-class anger and frustrations about race and Democratic politicians. . . .

For more than 20 years, the non-college-educated white voters in Macomb County have been considered a “national political barometer,” as Ronald Brownstein of National Journal described them during the Democratic convention in August. After Ronald Reagan won the county by a 2-to-1 margin in 1984, Mr. Brownstein noted, I conducted focus groups that “found that these working-class whites interpreted Democratic calls for economic fairness as code for transfer payments to African-Americans.” So what do we think when Barack Obama, an African-American Democrat, wins Macomb County by eight points?

I conducted a survey of 750 Macomb County residents who voted Tuesday, and their responses put their votes in context. Before the Democratic convention, barely 40 percent of Macomb County voters were “comfortable” with the idea of Mr. Obama as president, far below the number who were comfortable with a nameless Democrat. But on Election Day, nearly 60 percent said they were “comfortable” with Mr. Obama. About the same number said Mr. Obama “shares your values” and “has what it takes to be president.”

I was never comfortable with Greenberg’s attributing all of the Democrats’ problems in Macomb to what is, not to put too fine a point on it, racism. Though I don’t doubt that this segment of voters contains racists, I’ve often thought that this rationale sells these people short, and lets the Democrats off too easy. Pardon the pun, but I felt that the racism Greenberg measured in Macomb was only skin deep.

Missing from Greenberg’s old equation were Democrats able and willing to sell the Democratic brand. It was easy for white voters in Macomb to feel that the Democratic Party had turned away from them because in many ways they had. Running scared since 1972, and more so after 1980, Democrats kept quiet about or even abandoned many of the policies and programs once championed by the party—programs that directly helped working class voters like the ones Greenberg studied.

The void created by the Democrats’ ambivalence to their own legacy was exploited by the continuance of the Republican’s infamous “southern strategy,” and filled by rightwing myths like “the Cadillac-driving black welfare cheat”—myths that were allowed to metastasize into full-blown frames. By the time Greenberg brought his white suburban voters into a focus group, the Democrats were no longer the party of New Deals and Great Societies so much as they were the party of over a decade’s worth of government’s failures. That these failures—especially as they intersected lives in Macomb—owed much to the budgetary, trade, and labor policies of Republicans notwithstanding.

So, naturally, to Greenberg, what he heard in the focus groups throughout the 1980s and ‘90s expressed itself as racism (I’ve moderated enough focus groups to easily see how this “finding” could have emerged). And, naturally, as Macomb voters moved to a place of trust vis-à-vis candidate Obama, Greenberg sees this as an evolution away from that racism.

I don’t believe that adequately explains the shift any more than I believe that the election of America’s first bi-racial president means that racism is no longer an American problem. And I think I now have some statistics to back me up.

If last Tuesday was all about America getting comfortable with one candidate’s race, and little else, then Barack Obama should have outperformed other Democrats running down ticket—many of whom are still the plain old white guys that Greenberg’s groups had rejected. Fact of the matter, however, is that down-ticket Dems did better than Obama.

Paul Krugman highlights the work of Andrew Gelman, who demonstrated that congressional Democrats averaged 56% of the two-party vote, while Obama netted 53%, and where Obama influenced a 4.5% swing when compared with John Kerry in 2004, Democratic races for Congress garnered an average swing of 5.7%.

Specifically in Greenberg’s favorite locale, Macomb County, MI, Senator Carl Levin—considered by most to be a liberal Democrat—grabbed over 63% of the vote. Obama managed 53.4% in the same county. (Of course, Levin had the advantage of incumbency, but it is hard to imagine that his visibility was any higher than Obama’s during the last year.)

The point of all this is to say that if all Barack Obama had to do for these lost Democrats was go on TV a few times and prove he wasn’t some scary hybrid of racial stereotypes, it’s hard to explain the performance of other Democrats this cycle. Even more telling, if previous Democratic deficits were about racism—implied or overt—then what explains how a man of color outperformed his white predecessor in a county that is almost 93% white?

I do not think that Obama’s win in places like Macomb is simply the result of his proving that he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. Indeed, that is the added barrier that Obama had to overcome, and not some special advantage. For this demographic, or even for this psychographic, the difference in this race was not race, but reality. Voters like this group in Michigan have suffered badly under Republican rule; the change in this election is that Democratic candidates were not afraid to explain this.

Barack Obama and most of his party’s candidates did something Democrats had failed to do far too often in the last three decades: they criticized Republican ideology while embracing traditional Democratic values. Dem candidates attacked tax cuts for the rich, corporate favoritism, and the cronyism and corruption that have been the hallmarks of Republican rule. Democrats then offered an alternative that emphasized tax equity, and policies that could benefit the many like universal healthcare, energy innovation, green jobs, reinvestments in infrastructure, better-funded schools, and more college aid. In short, Democrats returned to campaigning as Democrats.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said up top, I am thrilled that Stan Greenberg has chosen to put his “Reagan Democrats” to bed. But when Greenberg goes to sing his lullaby, it would be beneficial for future Democratic candidates if he made sure he knew the right tune.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Paul Krugman, Hank Paulson, and me

Why, it seems like only yesterday (but was, in fact, Monday) that I was wondering out loud about the chances the US Treasury would exercise an option written into the final version of the bailout law to demand stock in exchange for the money funneled to the banks. This so-called “stock injection” plan sounded to me like the preferable way to spend our $700 billion (give or take), seeing as it gives the government some real equity in exchange for our real cash, it is has both longstanding (FDIC) and recent (AIG) precedent, and could provide for some of that accountability demanded by most of us on streets named other than Wall.

Well, on Wednesday, New York Times columnist/Princeton economist Paul Krugman, and, as you will read, UK PM Gordon Brown, gave my laymen’s interpretation a little street cred:

Readers ask what I think should be done about the financial crisis. The answer is, what Gordon Brown in doing in Britain: a bailout, yes, but one that gives the government an ownership stake in the bailed-out institutions. That plus a serious fiscal stimulus plan that includes emergency aid to state and local government.

The Brown plan, by the way, is 50 billion pounds; scaled by GDP, that would be the equivalent of a $500 billion plan here. The headline number would be smaller than the Paulson plan, but the probable effectiveness much, much greater. Not so incidentally, my reading of the TARP as passed is that thanks to the equity participation provisions, it could be converted into a version of the Brown plan at the Treasury secretary’s discretion; let’s hope that he does so discrete, or something like that, as soon as possible.

Which leads us to Thursday morning’s revelation.

Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

. . . .

The American recapitalization plan, officials say, has emerged as one of the most favored new options being discussed in Washington and on Wall Street. The appeal is that it would directly address the worries that banks have about lending to one another and to other customers.

This new interest in direct investment in banks comes after yet another tumultuous day in which the Federal Reserve and five other central banks marshaled their combined firepower to cut interest rates but failed to stanch the global financial panic.

Now, I don’t know if Paulson had something like this in the back of his mind all the time (it wasn’t exactly spelled out in the original “three-page plan”), or if someone like Senator Chris Dodd or Senator Chuck Schumer clued him in to what was added to his authority; I don’t know if Hank checks out Planet Money, Paul Krugman, any of a number of other fine economist bloggers, or me (OK—pretty sure he doesn’t check out me). . . or if the Secretary of the Treasury just has no other flipping idea what to do. . . but Paulson let the idea of equity for injection slip out in a press conference late Wednesday. . .

Now, I will pull back the curtain just a touch, and confess that all of the above was written about 24-hours ago—so what has happened since?

Well, the short answer is: Nothing.

OK, let me be a little less short. The Dow dropping another 678 points is not nothing—the industrials average is now off 40% from its record high exactly one year ago. The Nikkei is in full-on panic mode—it suffered its worst one-day loss in 21 years on Wednesday, and is plunging more as I write this. European markets are also opening with big, big losses. The feds guaranteed AIG another 38 billion samolians because they have almost burned through their initial $80 billion.

And John McCain has revised his merely crappy half-assed mortgage proposal (scrubbing from his website the line about buying mortgages at their current, lower values) so that it is now a completely terrible half-assed proposal. . . wait, that is pretty much nothing.

But the other things—the continued downward rush of economic indicators (including things like the LIBOR and the TED Spread—neither of which I dare try to explain because I barely understand it all myself)—those are something. . . something that makes one want to do, uh, something.

Unless you are Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson. . . because, as best I can tell, he has done (and here’s why I use this word) nothing.

What is now weeks after Hammerin’ Hank and Sideshow Bob Bernanke laid it all (supposedly) on the line and warned Congressional leaders that if they didn’t act immediately (immediately!), we would have no economy to rescue, and weeks after those Congressional leaders and Still President Bush and much of the establishment media all lit their own hair on fire to reify the bubble boys’ hysterical frame, and, now, a week after said Congress and president gave Paulson all he could have wanted, and, frankly more, what has the SecTreas done?

Weeeeeelllllllllllllllllll. . . he has appointed a (another) Goldman Sachs alum to start designing some sort of system to purchase the shitpile of bad. . . you know I was going to say “assets,” but that just doesn’t seem like the right word anymore, especially when you are not only dealing with subprime mortgages but intangible gambler’s chits like credit default swaps. Anyway, there is now a guy working on a plan—maybe some sort of reverse auction, maybe just a way to shrink wrap bricks of 10,000 $100,000 bills—that should be ready in, eh. . . four or five weeks.

As mentioned by me, and even floated by Paulson, Hank now has the authority to give banks a direct cash infusion in exchange for equity—so why is he sitting on his hands?

I have read that Paulson might have caught deflationary disease. This is the idea that things are rapidly losing value—so, why buy some chunk of equity today, when the same amount of money could get you a bigger chunk tomorrow? Sounds like a sound investment strategy, right? Well, if you were a traditional investor, maybe. . . but the federal government wasn’t empowered by the bailout bill to act as an investor—at least that’s what I thought—supposedly, this “TARP” was supposed to be thrown quickly over this drowning pool. . . . OK, enough with the metaphors—Paulson is supposed to use this money and his new authority to backstop the financial system, to loosen up credit markets, to buoy investor confidence (there is some debate about whether that third point is a good idea).

Instead, it seems like the Treasury Secretary, after yelling “Fire!” (new metaphor, sorry) in a crowded theater, is now watching everyone stampede out (trampling many on the way), and waiting until the fire gets big enough to justify his earlier histrionics.

Of course, some will argue that it was behavior very much like this that helped transform the Crash of 1929 into the Depression of 1933.

And, of course, none of this—none—does the first thing to help the here-and-now, day-to-day economic problems of working or formerly working Americans.

So, what now, mes amis? (Wow, I’m like the French John McCain!)

It seems most economists agree that Paulson needs to use his stock injection authority, and pronto. He needs to give the banks a good chunk of change with the understanding that they will, in turn, start lending again. The US government will get bank stock in exchange—but I want to make sure that we taxpayers get preferred stock, and, I’ll go further and demand voting shares. Without voting shares, it will be impossible for the government to ensure that banks act in the interests of the American people and the global economy. Everybody claims they want accountability—exchanging cash for voting shares is the way to get that accountability. (Of course, this assumes that we have a government that acts in the interests of its people—big assumption, I know.)

Then—and this is equally important—Congress needs to come back and pass some real economic stimulus. No, I am not talking about some winky tax rebate—too small and too slow. I, as mentioned before, support a FICA holiday on the first $10,400 earned by every working American (because this will start putting money in the pockets of those that need it most starting the same week that such a law was enacted), coupled with New Deal-style programs to support and educate the poor, repair our nation’s aging infrastructure, and begin planning and building the electronic infrastructure needed for this information century.

Or, at least, find a way to put real money quickly in the pockets of those hit hardest by this recession (yes, we can now use that word without qualifiers)—then come back in late January with a new Democratic president and bigger majorities in Congress, and pass a full, new New Deal, adding affordable healthcare for all, tax equity, and investment in post-hydrocarbon technologies and green jobs to the programs mentioned above.

OK, more backstage news: I wrote up to this point, and before posting, I decided to open up (electronically speaking) Friday’s New York Times, and read what Paul Krugman had to say. Well, surprise, surprise:

[K]ey policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they’ve reached a moment of truth: They’d better do something soon — in fact, they’d better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend — or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression.

. . . .

[W]hen Mr. Paulson announced his plan for a huge bailout, there was a temporary surge of optimism. But it soon became clear that the plan suffered from a fatal lack of intellectual clarity. Mr. Paulson proposed buying $700 billion worth of “troubled assets” — toxic mortgage-related securities — from banks, but he was never able to explain why this would resolve the crisis.

What he should have proposed instead, many economists agree, was direct injection of capital into financial firms: The U.S. government would provide financial institutions with the capital they need to do business, thereby halting the downward spiral, in return for partial ownership. When Congress modified the Paulson plan, it introduced provisions that made such a capital injection possible, but not mandatory. And until two days ago, Mr. Paulson remained resolutely opposed to doing the right thing.

But on Wednesday the British government, showing the kind of clear thinking that has been all too scarce on this side of the pond, announced a plan to provide banks with £50 billion in new capital. . . together with extensive guarantees for financial transactions between banks. And U.S. Treasury officials now say that they plan to do something similar, using the authority they didn’t want but Congress gave them anyway.

The question now is whether these moves are too little, too late. I don’t think so, but it will be very alarming if this weekend rolls by without a credible announcement of a new financial rescue plan, involving not just the United States but all the major players.

And Krugman finishes with this cheery bit of encouragement:

[T]he time to act is now. You may think that things can’t get any worse — but they can, and if nothing is done in the next few days, they will.

So, with that, I think I better wrap this up and post it—the economic situation is evolving rapidly, and, who knows, Hank might need some ideas!


* * *


I would be terribly remiss if I did not recommend that everyone interested in these sorts of things read this amazingly comprehensive post by Stirling Newberry. Yes, it is long, but it provides a level of insight and clarity too scarce during this time of economic turmoil. Stirling gives us a great deal of history and makes proposals far more radical than mine. I was going to quote a little, but I can’t possibly do it justice, so please click on over and give it a look.



(cross-posted on Daily Kos)

Stupid is as stupid does

Paul Krugman, writing in Friday’s New York Times, crafts a cautionary tale about the current political landscape.

[T]he debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Krugman reminds us of the lies told often enough in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the media elites that happily repeated the party line, and the repercussions and recriminations that awaited those that did not. (Krugman was no doubt being self-referential. As he told a group of us last month at Netroots Nation, New York Times management came to him as late as mid-2005 and told him to “lighten up” on his criticism of George W. Bush, arguing that “the [2004 presidential] election settled some things.”) In fact, it was not until the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina hit home in September of 2005 that we began to see the end of the “cult of personality that lionized [Bush] as a real-world Forrest Gump, a simple man who prevails through his gut instincts and moral superiority.” Well, at least in some circles. . . .

[T]he state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush’s plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

The headway Republicans are making on this issue won’t prevent Democrats from expanding their majority in Congress, but it might limit their gains — and could conceivably swing the presidential election, where the polls show a much closer race.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

So, if we are to take the numbers PK cites at face value, we have to ask “Why?” Why does the insanely stupid “drill here/drill now” have any traction? Here’s what I believe:

When you are feeling the real economic pain caused by $4 gasoline, you want to hear something—anything—about what someone—anyone—is going to do about it. As much as I know and believe in the intellectual superiority of conservation measures and a shift away from a hydrocarbon economy, those that have to choose between, say, needed prescription medicines and a full tank of gas need something more tangible and immediate. And even though a tune-up and properly inflated tires might offer some a degree of savings at the pump, it still might feel like the government that let gas get so expensive is now telling consumers, “it’s your problem.”

As I discussed earlier in the week, I don’t think that addressing the gas price problem inside the Republican-defined “more oil/less worry” frame is ever going to be a winner for Democrats. Democrats need to link expensive gasoline to Bush/Cheney Administration policies (both re: the Cheney Energy Taskforce and the instability in the Middle East caused by the administration’s needless, reckless Iraq campaign), and they also need to introduce a plan that will ease some of the economic hardship felt by working Americans. (I suggested a restructuring of FICA, with a tax holiday for the first $10,400 earned by an individual, but I am open to other ideas.)

But there is probably another reason that an idea (no, it’s not really an idea, it’s really nothing more than a chant—a war chant) as lame as “drill here/drill now” just won’t die, and that is the breath of life that many Democrats (presidential nominee Obama included) have given it with talk of “compromise.”

And therein lies my biggest takeaway from the Krugman piece—and perhaps its true target audience, as well. As the conclusion makes clear, you can’t compromise with stupid. It doesn’t work from an intellectual standpoint, because to walk in that downhill direction only diminishes the credibility of your own stance. And it doesn’t work from a political angle because the party of stupid doesn’t ever agree to shake hands and call it a win-win. They will claim Republican victory (and Democratic defeat) on offshore drilling, funnel more money to their Big Oil benefactors, and then continue to bash and blame Democrats for the high cost of fuel.

It is a lesson that Krugman has gleaned from a bumper crop of stupid Republican initiatives over the last decade (two decades? three?)—he gets it. But if you read between the lines of Friday’s column, it seems he is asking why many in the Democratic leadership still do not.


(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Clinton Ad Quotes “Top Economist”

Clinton was for economists before she was against them.

As I mentioned yesterday, in the course of pushing her gas-tax holiday, Yale and Wellesley educated anti-elitist Hillary Clinton dismissed economists’ critiques of her plan by saying, “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

Except, of course, when she does. . . .

Take, for example, this February campaign ad touting the Clinton plan for universal health care:




In case you didn’t catch that, the voiceover said:

Now she’s the only candidate for president with a plan to provide health care for every American. A top economist calls Hillary’s plan the difference between achieving universal health coverage – and falling far short.

And the graphic on screen reads:

"…the difference between achieving universal health coverage…and falling far short." –Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 2/4/08

Now, the fact of the matter is that I think that Krugman—that’s economist Paul Krugman—was right to give higher marks to the Hillary Clinton (by way of John Edwards) health care plan. The thing is, I also think that Krugman is right to pan the Hillary Clinton (by way of John McCain) gas-tax gimmick.

How can these two facts exist in the same head? Quite easily, of course. It would also be OK if I agreed with Krugman on one point, and disagreed with him on another. . . just as it would be OK for Senator Clinton to say that she was happy that Krugman liked her health plan, but disagrees with his assessment of her gas-tax holiday.

Unfortunately, that is not what she did. In an effort to score a bigger political point, candidate Clinton went for the broad brush, condemning all economists and all of their advice! It was a move perhaps as stupid as the gas-tax gimmick, itself.

And it was a moment that bodes ill for a Clinton presidency. Hillary Clinton went for the easy “fix,” she opted for political expedience rather than seize the chance to use a crisis as a teaching opportunity, as a way of moving the country toward a better, long-term solution. Worse still, when her plan is met with criticism, she stiffens, calcifies, and attacks the critic rather than the idea.

Policy based on short-term political gain, stubbornness, uninterested in new ideas, deaf to criticism, ad hominem attacks—does this sound familiar?

Of course, HRC is not GWB—but it does her, her party, and her country no good for her to act in such a Bush-like fashion.

And it does her campaign no good to be seen as so transparently ignorant of the facts, either.

Hannah McCrea (over at The Seminal) explained it all last week: the Clinton-McCain gas-tax holiday is an awful idea. Now, hundreds of those inconvenient economists have thrown their lot in with us elitist bloggers:

More than 230 economists -- Democrats, Republicans, advisers to past presidents and four Nobel laureates -- signed a letter today opposing proposals by Clinton and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain to suspend the 18-cent federal gas tax for the summer driving season.

"First, research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers," they wrote. "Second, it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation. Third, a tax holiday would provide very little relief to families feeling squeezed."

But those economists—including four Nobel laureates—are writing in May, so they don’t count. They really should have gotten out in front on this back in February. . . when it was still OK to tout expertise and experience.

John McCain, who was responsible for the latest rehabilitation of this stupid gimmick, has freely admitted that he doesn’t really know very much about economics. McCain’s response to his knowledge deficit was to read Alan Greenspan’s book. That’s not much—but at least he has one economist to lean on (however wrongheaded and elitist that economist might be).

Greenspan, however, is still an economist—he won’t do for the “people’s cherce” Hillary Clinton. So, what then?

Soon, summer will be here, and, more than likely, there will be no gas-tax rollback. The problem of higher gas prices, flat supply, and growing demand will still be with us, as will many other economic problems. When searching for solutions, with whom will Clinton cast her lot?


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Rich, and Krugman, and pie, oh my!

Over the course of the Democratic primary season, readers of the New York Times have been able to read/watch as a slow-motion, literary pie fight broke out between two of the Times’ columnists. Well, readers, my advice to you today is don’t wear your nice clothes, ‘cause someone broke out the mixed berry.

To be honest, for most of the last year, this wasn’t a pie fight in the true sense. Last February, Paul Krugman wrote a column praising John Edwards’s proposal for universal health coverage—at the time, Edwards was the only one with a detailed plan. Over the course of the summer and fall, as Barack Obama, and then Hillary Clinton, released their healthcare plans, Krugman compared them to what was already on the table. In the economist-turned-columnist, and earnest Bush critic Krugman’s eyes, Edwards had stepped up with a solid plan well ahead of the others, and it set a standard that was basically met by the Clinton camp, but was not equaled by Obama. As Krugman sees it, the Illinois Senator’s plan will leave millions uncovered, and Obama’s talk of “post-partisan” compromising might not even net a program as comprehensive as promised.

Krugman has criticized Obama’s comfort with right-wing frames for arguments about a variety of issues such as healthcare, social security, and the economy. And, Krugman has also taken the knife to Obama’s economic stimulus plan, calling it the most conservative of what was then the three main Democrats in the presidential race.

As a result, last December, the Obama campaign took a couple of stabs at attacking Krugman and his analysis. The attempts were as factually wrong as they were strategically bone-headed. It was not the campaign’s finest hour.

Meanwhile, in the Sunday paper, the Times’ one-time drama critic and now regular liberal Op-Ed columnist moved from reliable and often stirring attacks on the Bush-Cheney cabal, to acting (as one friend of mine put it) as Obama’s man-tampon.

I will admit to a fondness for that epithet, but, as they say, it’s funny because it’s true. Almost seemingly overnight, Rich became so enamored of the “politics of hope” that almost every Sunday, his column reads like a mash note.

I don’t criticize Rich for his choice in candidates, mind you, he is entitled to it, and, I will add, he is eloquent in his advocacy. But, to my eye, Rich’s Obama ardor is qualitatively different from Krugman’s Obama aversion (or even from what was previously PK’s near-endorsement of John Edwards).

Paul Krugman has spent years focusing on the “great unraveling” of America’s economic democracy, and has used his column repeatedly over the last year to draw attention to what presidential candidates might do to restore or exacerbate the problem. Krugman’s academic biases, such as they are, led him to repeatedly praise the economic proposals of John Edwards as the 2008 campaign heated up. By way of contrast, he was less impressed with some of Hillary Clinton’s ideas, and even less, still, with those of Barack Obama. The suspension of the Edwards campaign, coming on top of the Obama camp’s attacks on Krugman and, more pointedly, on health insurance mandates as a path toward universal coverage, has only served to sharpen the columnist’s arguments.

Frank Rich, by contrast, has fallen hard for Obama’s style and promise. The apparent openness, energy, and optimism of the Obama candidacy seem, to Rich, a ready antidote to years of cynical Republican poison. As an easy tangent, the Obama way contrasts quite favorably to the inside-the-Beltway “wisdom” and overly (and overtly) strategic triangulation of Hillary Clinton and her drive to (re)occupy the White House.

This is not to say that Rich is disinterested in issues. Long a critic of the Iraq war, he correctly identifies Clinton as one of those in Congress in 2002 that voted to authorize Bush’s folly. Obama, of course, though not a member of Congress at the time, was a vocal critic of the Iraqi incursion during the run-up to the war.

But Rich’s current critiques, positive or negative, such as they are, don’t often feature voting records or policy details, no matter which candidate he writes about. Rich’s Sunday columns tend to examine tactics, tone, and personality—and he is especially and increasingly disdainful of Hillary Clinton’s expression of those qualitative variables.

The contrast in the columnists’ style has grown sharper as this primary season has evolved, and, with the downgrading of the Edwards campaign, Rich and Krugman increasingly represent divergent sides in the clash of candidates, as well. For most readers, the toothsome eloquence of the two usually makes for a tasty snack, but, in the last 48 hours, the choice of pastry, and the velocity at which it is thrown, seems to have changed.

On Sunday, Frank Rich threw the first pies of the week, in his column, Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War:

However boring, this show [Senator Clinton’s Hallmark Channel Town Hall on February 4] was a dramatic encapsulation of how a once-invincible candidate ended up in a dead heat, crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities. What’s more, it offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come.

For a campaign that began with tightly monitored Web “chats” and then planted questions at its earlier town-hall meetings, a Bush-style pseudo-event like the Hallmark special is nothing new, of course. What’s remarkable is that instead of learning from these mistakes, Mrs. Clinton’s handlers keep doubling down.

Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates. As Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said, it was “the Potemkin village of victory celebrations.”

. . . .

The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. In its carefully calibrated cross section of geographically and demographically diverse cast members — young, old, one gay man, one vet, two union members — African-Americans were reduced to also-rans. One black woman, the former TV correspondent Carole Simpson, was given the servile role of the meeting’s nominal moderator, Ed McMahon to Mrs. Clinton’s top banana. Scattered black faces could be seen in the audience. But in the entire televised hour, there was not a single African-American questioner, whether to toss a softball or ask about the Clintons’ own recent misadventures in racial politics.

The Clinton camp does not leave such matters to chance. This decision was a cold, political cost-benefit calculus. In October, seven months after the two candidates’ dueling church perorations in Selma, USA Today found Hillary Clinton leading Mr. Obama among African-American Democrats by a margin of 62 percent to 34 percent. But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself).

The result? Black America has largely deserted the Clintons. In her California primary victory, Mrs. Clinton drew only 19 percent of the black vote. The campaign saw this coming and so saw no percentage in bestowing precious minutes of prime-time television on African-American queries.

And, today, with Hate Springs Eternal, Krugman tosses back:

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

My favorite pie is cherry—how about you?

Interestingly enough, both columnists seem to like “mission accomplished” flavor, though Rich and Krugman credit the other’s preferred candidate with the recipe. OK, not the recipe—that rightfully belongs to the shit-pie maker Bush—but the columnists both like the metaphor of the current president’s clownish performance on the deck of the USS Lincoln for pie-throwing purposes, and that’s probably not an accident. The content and the quality of political leadership has been so soured by Republican rule that such crust serves as the base baseline by which future leaders are to be mismeasured.

And that’s too bad.

Taking the long view, both Krugman and Rich have been appreciated critics of the Bush Presidency and its often all too willing Congressional enablers on both sides of the aisle. Krugman has been especially on target when hurling a variety of items harder and sharper than baked goods at Bush’s economic evils—and he has been a consistent critic of Iraq policy, just as he has been a steady advocate for universal healthcare. And Krugman’s solid track record as a harsh critic of Bush policy gives his appraisals of this year’s campaign an anchor I find hard to ignore. I would rather see liberal advocates push platforms than pitch pie.

But, the sad, sad truth of this week’s tart escalation is that both columnists are mostly right. The Clinton campaign has given surrogates far too much freedom to introduce race as an attack, in-and-of itself, against Barack Obama. I don’t think it is accidental; I do think it is distasteful.

The Obama team has allowed its own brand of divisiveness to gain a toehold. The aforementioned comfort with Republican attacks on Democratic policies dovetails all too easily with the ready supply of Hillary hatred that exists across many different parts of the national electorate. The “Harry and Louise” style pamphlets that the Obama campaign used against the Clinton health plan are a perfect recent example.

In addition, I think Krugman is not alone in sensing a “cult of personality” developing in segments of the Obama base. I can’t accuse the candidate of purposefully cultivating it, but I fear he is too ready to capitalize on it as a means to an end. I believe in the importance of inspirational leadership, but I care more about where it leads. I worry about Hillary Clinton’s ability to inspire all the new, young voters (and the new, not-so-young voters) that Obama has brought into the process, but I also worry that those voters will show less allegiance to the process or the progressive agenda than they do to their current standard-bearer of choice.

Additionally, I think that many, Rich included, overlook how inspirational a viable female candidate might be to some voters.

I have previously inveighed against covering the horserace in lieu of the horses. I have warned of the establishment media’s affinity for identity frames. And I have urged the candidates to stress issues and policy differences, and save their brickbats for the Bush regime and the next Republican pretender. If we are to discuss style, we should make it a discussion of the awful style of politics practiced by Republicans—dating, as Krugman illustrates, all the way back to Richard Nixon.

I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.

But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.

Frank Rich also closes with an appeal for a campaign endgame free of “race-tinged” infighting, but he never quite brings it around to a universal plea. For all the deep dish served by Rich, he doesn’t seem to yet comprehend that all of us will have to eat some crow before this over.

For me, a long-time Clinton critic with what I believe is a healthy mistrust of Obama-brand post-partisanship, I find Krugman’s plea for unification around issues more appealing than Rich’s pointed, partisan warnings about some very putrid pie. Which is both obvious and odd.

Obvious because, candidates aside, I am firm believer in hope, with a deep desire to change the way politics is practiced in post-Nixon America. I care about issues much more than I will ever care about identity. I believe in movements more than men or women, and I never expect any president to be any more than human.

However, it is odd, I feel, because the Krugman column advocates for Clinton’s platform, but seems to describe a candidate that sounds more like Obama. Rich, conversely, overwhelmingly (and sometimes overbearingly) pro-Obama, writes a column very much in the style of the old, and, as he sees it, Clintonesque politics he claims to despise.

So, who wins in this week’s tart toss? The easy answer would be “everyone,” because we all benefit from an open and productive discussion. The easier answer would be “no one,” because no matter how substantive and subtle the Democrats’ discussion might be around their big table, the establishment media will still pick up the pie.

But my final answer will be Paul Krugman because Krugman’s column reads as a response to Rich. Indeed, my guess (and I’m not alone here) is that Krugman reads Rich more than Rich reads Krugman. Krugman is dialoging with Rich, and (perhaps again bizarrely, given their preferences) is writing more about a dialogue that is beyond the Republican era politics of fear and invective.

Rich, on the other hand, relies on those very two seemingly un-Obama-like tactics to craft his pro-Obama point. That’s a shame. Not to say that all the Clinton camp’s efforts to frame Obama are clean or noble, and not to ignore the very real threat to party unity that any attempt to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations—as currently configured—will pose, but constructing an argument for Obama by reminding all of us how and why to be anti-Clinton comes off as half-baked.

And, by stoking the flames of intra-party factionalism with the fearful specter of a stolen convention half a year before we all get to Denver, Rich just serves to cook up more pie—one that, no matter who you want to win the nomination, leaves a bitter taste.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Profiles in cowardice

As I walked down Broadway in the pouring rain on Saturday, marching with somewhere between 10,000 and 45,000 others to protest the ongoing US military action in Iraq, I talked with one of my fellow peace-loving patriots about the next Bush Administration debacle. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wasn’t in my little group, but he might as well have been.

In his Monday commentary, Krugman slices and dices the current crop of fearmongers running around trying to gin up a war with Iran—especially neocon Svengali Norman Podhoretz and his favorite Trilby, Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”

Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

It is that last point, especially, that resonates re: my rain-soaked rant from the weekend. While Krugman lays out the case against the Republican’s running for president, the same evidence is as damning for the current residents of the West Wing and the OEOB (or some undisclosed bunker). Calling a country like Iran a direct threat to the existence of the United States is, as Krugman’s relatives call it, “crazy talk,” and going on like that from the bully pulpit of the presidency is, at the least, irresponsible.

But, then again, Bush and Cheney have never been big on responsibility, have they?

It is, of course, beyond irresponsible. In the terms put forward by Krugman, it is also likely cynical. Framing it, as he does, with FDR’s apt admonition that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, Krugman accuses the Republicans of fearmongering, and, by easy inference, racism.

But I’m willing to give those so funhouse-mirror-large and in charge the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say, just for the hell of it, that Bush, Cheney, Giuliani, Podhoretz, et al., are not cynical; let’s say that the fear that they broadcast is the fear that’s inside. Let’s say that all of these men are really afraid. Very, very afraid.

That the men who control, or seek to control, the full economic and military might of the United States are so desperate to risk what is left of US credibility or regional stability on a showy and likely ineffective air war against a country as small as Krugman details shows these men to be cowards—and “cowards” was the word I was using while marching on Saturday.

Sure, I also believe that these neo-conmen are cynical bastards, but I guess I can’t help but feel that given the craziness and cravenness, some of that cynicism is rooted in cowardice. For, as it has gone down, altering the course and progress of the entire country because of one day’s criminal act, as tragic and terrifying as it was, makes us as a nation appear weak. The need to unleash our expensive and mechanized dogs of war on millions of innocents, killing hundreds of thousands, in order to convince others of the superiority of our way of life, makes our ideals appear weaker. The Republicans (and a few Democrats, too) that cynically like to wrap themselves in the flag are, quite frankly, cowering behind it.

I would like to believe that America is tougher than that. I would like to believe that as a society we are stronger, and that our ideals are more attractive. I would like to believe that we can do better. And, though I don’t often think of myself as a “patriot,” that, to my mind, is patriotism.

The Republicans that offer us cynical and cowardly crazy talk are espousing something else—rather than appeal to the better angels of our nature, they exploit and expose some of our most devilish flaws.

If there were an ideology we could label “terrorist”—that is pretty much how I would describe it.


(PS Yes, I admit it, I have used this headline before.)


(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Once Weren’t Warriors

I suspect that Kelly Anne Moore and I wouldn’t see exactly eye-to-eye on every issue. . . I mean, I don’t really know, I don’t know her, but. . . Ms. Moore served as chief of the Violent Crimes and Terrorism Section in the Brooklyn US attorney’s office from 2002 to 2006, and that term of service has me wondering if she came in with Bush appointee Roslyn Mauskopf, the USA for that Brooklyn office. Mauskopf was a protégé of former New York Governor George Pataki and a favorite of former New York Senator Al D’Amato who was viewed as unqualified for her post when her nomination was put forward back in 2002. Her current case against the “JFK bomb plot” “suspects” does nothing to convince me otherwise. Mauskopf is one of those US attorneys that Paul Krugman warned us about a while back—you know, one of the ones that weren’t fired by AG AG and his band of partisan White House brothers.

But I digress. . . .

Kelly Anne Moore, who worked under Mauskopf, has penned an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times that—whatever our other differences may or may not be—basically says what I’ve been saying for what is fast approaching six years: treat suspected terrorists as criminals, and try them in US criminal court.

The United States does not need a new and untested detention system for terrorists. The existing federal system has a proven track record of dealing with complex prosecutions.

Moore has personal experience, successfully prosecuting two Yemeni’s in 2005 for funneling money to Al Qaeda and Hamas, and seeing them put away for a long, long time. She argues that this case was as complex as any of those that might arise from a criminal prosecution of those detained at Guantanamo Bay, and gives plenty of examples. Moore also gives examples of other terrorist cases that have been successfully prosecuted in US courts, such as Ramzi Yousef, organizer of the 1993 WTC bombing.

Moore’s Times piece also explains the way in which many of the purported problems with prosecution in open court need not be the insurmountable roadblocks that the Bush/Cheney Administration make them out to be. But what interested and provoked me most of all was this paragraph:

Those who commit terrorist acts should be tried as the criminals they are, instead of the “warriors” they claim to be. If the Guantánamo detainees were prosecuted in federal courts instead of being designated as “combatants,” most by now would be serving prison time as convicted terrorists, instead of being celebrated as victims or freedom fighters.

To the first sentence, I say, right on! I have been arguing for as long as I remember that you don’t make “war on terror,” you investigate and prosecute people and organizations responsible for terrorist acts. By trying alleged terrorists in open court, you not only get to show the world what a bunch of crooks and creeps the suspects are, you get to demonstrate that America is a nation of principles and laws, unafraid to confront its enemies on a level playing field.

But notice that I said “alleged terrorists.” This is where I see a little daylight between Kelly Anne Moore and myself. You see, while Moore assumes that most of the Guantanamo detainees would be convicted as terrorists, I have serious doubts.

I don’t think I am going out on a limb to say that many still imprisoned at Camp Delta (we’re still calling it that, right?) likely never did much of anything you or I would call “terrorist.” At their very worst, many were soldiers of a sort, fighting for a disorganized alliance of pro-Taliban or anti-American forces. That would make them prisoners of war, and not detainees, or even criminals.

But others in detention were likely not even that. There are plenty of stories of afghani warlords rounding up prisoners for pay. Then there are the cases of political or tribal retribution, or flat out mistaken identities. And what of those that were just kidnapped by the US or its surrogates?

Whether there is enough evidence to convict any detainees such as those is an open question—and that still ignores the elephant in the room. One of the main reasons—I am certain—that the administration now resists trying these detainees in open court is because if they did, it would become more than obvious that these people were tortured. Moore does not really acknowledge this “roadblock” to openness in her Op-Ed.

Indeed, the former prosecutor is quick to hold up the recent conviction of Jose Padilla—as have many others—as an example of how a potential terrorist was convicted in federal court. However, while Moore mentions that Padilla was denied access to legal counsel for over three years while in military detention, she fails to point out that the jury that convicted Padilla never learned that fact.

Nor was Padilla’s jury allowed to hear that he was initially picked up on completely different grounds—he was supposed to be the “dirty bomber,” after all—but when the government couldn’t come up with enough evidence on that count, they quickly built a case around completely different activities for an entirely separate charge.

Most legal experts report that it was not surprising that Jose Padilla was convicted, given what the jury was allowed to know—implying or stating outright that had these other facts been present in the courtroom, a different outcome was at least a possibility.

Moore, while rightfully taking the Bush/Cheney Administration to task for this glaring failure in its “war on terror,” still seems to assume that most of those taken prisoner by the administration are terrorists. I cannot be so certain.

Still, I am certain that in the end, Moore gets it right:

Many people around the world have come to question America’s commitment to the rule of law. There are few places in the world where that principle is more hallowed than in the United States federal courts. The best course of action now, in dealing with terrorism suspects, is to use these courts — the keystone of American jurisprudence — and show the world that America can protect itself while it respects the rule of law.

I would add to her course of action that the US should also close Guantanamo, restore Habeas rights, and recommit to handling prisoners as detailed in the Geneva Conventions, but if we were to begin with hearings in open court, for all detainees, I have some faith that rest would follow.

If Kelly Anne Moore and I can agree on that—and I suspect that we can—then she and I can join forces to fight the real enemies of freedom.