The Graber Theorem

The percentage of all ads used in any political race that are attack ads is inversely proportional to the power and national stature of the office being contested.   (i.e., the proverbial race for town dog-catcher would consist of nearly 100% attack ads.)  

Discuss.  

Some cordial dissent

To paraphrase Tina Fey, I hope to be finished writing about Sarah Palin no later than November 5th. But until then, I'll take this last opportunity to squeeze in a couple of writers questioning the popular liberal consensus about Palin's candidacy.

First, here's Richard Estes at American Leftist.

Palin is a woman of local accomplishment with no national credentials; Biden is a man of national credentials with no accomplishments. It's an old story. But there is more to it than just old fashioned sexism. Palin's social experience is too far removed from the political establishment to be acceptable. No Ivy League education, not even a respected Catholic or state school one, like Berkeley or Michigan. She didn't go to law school, as the vast majority of successful politicians have done. She certainly didn't teach constitutional law at one.

No, Palin is the worst nightmare of the political establishment: someone who was actually personally motivated to enter politics at the local level and through a combination of drive and ruthlessness, became governor of her state. Her politics are therefore heavily influenced, dangerously so from an establishment perspective, by her local, as opposed to elite, experiences. With someone like her, there is always this fear, who knows what she might do? In other words, she might not do what we say. And, even worse, she might even encourage the lower middle class to believe that they actually have power and exhort them to use it. In this respect, comparisons to the career trajectory of Ronald Reagan are apt, and she, like Reagan, will eventually find elite acceptability when it becomes obvious that she is no threat.

While I do think there's a certain amount of truth to this, I think Richard is over-estimating the extent to which Pailn is any kind of threat to established power. The very fact she was selected by the Republican Party to a non-elected position should call this into question. But let's take another look at the veep selection process. Many people, including myself, wondered why the GOP would take such a risk on an unknown politician to appease the social conservative base when Mike Huckabee, who's far more personable, talented, and has unassailable social-con credentials, was available. Huckabee is, however, many of the things Richard ascribes to Palin, as we found out during the primaries. His occasional nods to economic populism, however cursory, sent the party elites into spasms.

Here's Joe Bageant:

Sarah Palin's real coup is that she brings out the snobbery of the left in their dismissal of her as an ignorant hick typical of small town red state America. They vastly underestimate her. Just like they have underestimated George Bush for the past eight years. While they laughed, George Bush managed to get everything he wanted and assist the looting of America in his spare time. No matter that he is vastly unpopular now even among Republicans. He has fulfilled his purpose to the powerful corporations and financial institutions that animate American politics. You do not have to be smart to be president, just malleable to the greater forces at work.

I have to give Republicans credit for actually promoting someone with an almost-honest claim to representing working-class Americans. No more passing off a third-generation scion of a Connecticut political dynasty as a country-fried Texan. If Republicans felt shame, I would hope that would make them feel a little dirty inside. And they hoped the inevitable liberal response of derisive scorn would infuriate and motivate the rural conservative Christians to turn out in 2004 numbers.

It hasn't worked. In fact, many of the tried-and-true Republican distraction tactics have fallen flat in this election. Why? Because this is an economy election; more specifically, an economy election that's effecting more than the working poor. The middle class is always willing to go along with sleazy, reality-show politics when the main issues at stake are bombing brown foreigners and pretending to be a-feared of dark-skinned terrorists and gay marriage. When the dark side of the economy starts trickling up to their level, however, they'll snap to attention faster than you can say "Bear Stearns."

Finally, after expressing a dying ember of sympathy for Sarah Palin, let's stamp it out for good. The popular concession in the mainstream press that Palin is a talented politician with a national future--despite the disaster she has been in this campaign--is unnecessarily kind. Palin has shown little ability, or even intent, to appeal to anyone beyond the niche she was harvested to placate. Indeed, she's apparently trying to alienate as many non-wingnuts as possible with a steady stream of snark and sarcasm. Take away her telemprompter, and she turns from a "pitbull with lipstick" to a nervous sheepdog. If Obama looks unstoppable in 2012, she may be selected to run on the hope that she will continue to satsify the social cons while the party holds out for more favorable waters. Otherwise, there is still Bobby Jindal and, possibly, Petraeus; much more likely options for the Republican Party, provided it stays roughly in its current configuration. Which is another post..for another day.

Make 'em sweat

The Economist, the newsmagazine of record for the Anglo-American ruling class, has issued a "wholehearted" endorsement of Barack Obama for president, with the natural caveat that he not succumb to apostate tendencies.

Our main doubts about Mr. Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr. Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party's baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr. Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr. Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.

Referring to a post I made yesterday, this is why a sane, level-headed Republican Party is an absolute necessity. With the GOP marginalized and Obama in their back pocket, the Economist editors and the rest of the monied elite knows that any serious opposition to neoliberalism can be contained. Thus the unusual level of enthusiasm for Obama by a magazine which has always struggled to find an American party to consistently support (the Libertarians being inefficient for anything beyond providing the magazine's American subscriber base). There is, of course, the ever-present risk that uppity hippies will seize control of the Democratic Party, but the purchasing power of free-market democracy can probably be trusted to prevent that unwelcome development.

This is a good time to point out that one of the genuinely positive outcomes of a Democratic government would be passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which Obama has promised to sign. It may need significant majorities in both houses to pass, but it's a good first step.

America's most wanted

When Brian Moore won the Socialist Party USA's nomination for president last October, I doubt he saw himself working the national media circuit one week before the election. But, with the persistent accusations of the 's' word coming from the McCain/Palin campaign, the press seems curious to learn about about the actual socialist candidate. Moore has been interviewed by Fox News' Neil Cavuto, the New Republic, and by Stephen Colbert on last night's Colbert Report.



Well, he's no Norman Thomas. I'll be interested to see if the increased exposure helps the SPUSA increase its 2004 vote total of 10,837 (itself nearly double the party's total vote from the 2000 election.).

Chilean humour

Michele Bachelet, president of Chile, is among the Latin American leaders finding some levity in the current financial crisis.

“Why has there never been a coup in the United States?” she asked a group of investors.

“Because there is no U.S. embassy in the United States.”

That's Chavez-tastic, Madame President, well played. Gosh, the colonials are sure feeling rebellious these days.

He can't get no satisfaction

Jeff Passan fires up the Complain-o-Matic 5000 for his latest column at Yahoo! Sports. I can only assume Passan had mechanical help on this one, because no human with a functioning cerebral cortex could've written this paragraph.

It’s awful, embarrassing even, that the country became so indifferent to what once was the most popular championship series in sports. Even worse, Major League Baseball, fat and happy with its coffers growing and ticket sales booming, watched idly as the number of people viewing its championship series dwindled to a record low in Game 3

"It's so crowded, no one goes there anymore." Thanks, Yogi.

Passan does get around to a couple of worthwhile arguments in there. Baseball does need to consider the climate effects of pushing the season so late into October, either by trimming needless off days from the playoffs or starting the season earlier, trading some bad weather days in late March for a cleaner forecast at your marquee event.

But most of it is sheer dribble. Passan wants to gripe about Selig changing the rules on the fly to prevent a situation where the World Series was awarded to the Phillies even after Tampa Bay had scored to tie the game in the top of the sixth, but can't find anyone who'll say it wasn't the right move. He also drags out the annual hobbyhorse of sportsriters; World Series games start too late and the childrens can't watch them, therefore baseball will be extinct by the next generation. World Series games have started at 8:30 Eastern since at least the early '90s, and we're still here, perhaps because the East Coast isn't the only part of the country. The reality is that games are not going to start before 8 PM Eastern as long as baseball wants to remain on network television, and, if they don't, Passan and the like will complain baseball didn't make the compromises necessary to stay on free TV.

Passan then closes on his most reprehensible note, claiming the Rays don't deserve to win the Series because they have a small fan base. Passan seems amazed that a team which has never won more than 70 games has very few fans and declares this unsatisfactory, hoping, apparently, that condemning the Rays to more losing will magically increase their support . (This would be more ironic if Passan were one of those sportswriters who regularly complains about the lack of parity in baseball.) I am again amazed that this is all the logic it takes to become a national sportswriter, and wonder how on earth I haven't yet managed to ascend those heights.

"There is not a Red America or a Blue America, there is a scared shitless America"

Oliver actually makes an important point here (and if you're not listening to Oliver and Zaltzman on The Bugle podcast every week, you must go and subscribe now). Democrats may have lamented the politics of fear for the past six years, but they've never been afraid to use appeals to fear for their own ends. Corporate-centrist Dems point to the increasingly unhinged extremism of the GOP as the reason why left-of-center voters must support them at all costs. The Democrats may be weak, but etting the current Republicans back in power would present catastrophic risks.

This is why, if you want better Democrats, you'll have to get better Republicans first. The Democrats are the reactionary party in American poiltics; they'll only ever go as far left as they need to go to distinguish themselves from the GOP. So, while it may be gratifying to see moderate Republicans and paleoconservatives lining up behind Obama, we ultimately are going to need those people back in charge of their old party to drum out the wingnuts. They should be compelled to return because, as a strictly practical matter, we are still a two-party system, and the public will return to the Republican Party when they are dissastisfied with donkey rule. If the nuts are still leading the party, this won't benefit anyone.

From a progressive point of view, we need sane Republicans who, while we may have important political disagreements, won't actually endanger the future of the planet if they come to power. If the GOP becomes the party of people like Andrew Bacevich, they may even represent a persuasive alternative. Then, if the Democrats want to keep progressives under the tent, they'll have to make a real pitch on policy grounds instead of the familiar lesser-evilism of the past few elections.

Big 'Mo

I was going to remark on this post after Game 5 of the ALCS, but now may actually be a more pertinent time for it. The key weakness of a purely saberist approach to baseball is mistaking unmeasurable psychological factors for non-existent factors. Yes, it is fairly useless to listen to sportswriters maw about things like chemistry and momentum, because they're naturally going to cherry-pick whatever suits their purpose. But let's take the example of the Red Sox having "momentum" after the big comeback in Game 5. What are the Red Sox chances of winning any two isolated games in St. Petersburg? Now, how much does their "momentum" increase those chances? No one can say, of course, but just because it is still less than 100 percent doens't mean it hasn't increased at all.

I say this is more relevant now because it's apparent that the Rays haven't been the same team since The Meltdown, with only Matt Garza's Game 7 pitching performance standing out as a reminder of the team that won six of its first eight postseason games. The offense has gone bust, and the bullpen has never recovored. If not for the Phillies incredible futility with runners on base in the first three games of the World Series, they would be looking at a lopsided four-game sweep.

Oppressing the rich

Something struck me while I was watching the full conversation between Obama and "Joe the Plumber, who, despite not having the money to buy this business he claims or even being a licensed plumber, has become the official McCain campaign mascot for the last week or two.



Here's Joe, explaining his position succinctly. (via)

On Good Morning America Thursday, Mr. Wurzelbacher admitted that he does not make $250,000.

“No, not even close,” he said.

But when asked why he does not support increased taxes for the wealthy, he stood by his critique of Mr. Obama.

“Why should they be penalized for being successful?” he asked. “That's a very socialist view.”

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental, but I've always felt the reward for becoming more wealthy was...becoming more wealthy. This longstanding conservative/trickle-down saw which claims taxing the rich more heavily discourages entrepreneurship seems to imagine that people are not only obscenely selfish but also downright spiteful. How many people would give up on inventing a new widget or starting a business because, even though it would improve their lot dramatically, they would somehow still feel as though they aren't making as much as they should. Apparently everyone has a inherent calculation of the value of labor embedded into their head, and it's conveniently stuck on "Reagonomics." So Joe's just going to pass up the chance to make more money because those calculations don't work out. Okay then.

World Serious

A lot of observers have been comparing this Series to the 1991 matchup between Minnesota and Atlanta, who were both, like Tampa Bay this season, last-place teams the year before. Like the Braves of the early '90's, the Rays have erased a decade of futility with a nucleus of great young pitchers, and, like the Twins, they play in a quirky domed stadium that gives them a pointed home field advantage. If that's any indication, we should be in for a hell of a series.

For that to happen, though, the Phillies will have to rise to the occasion. The Rays are a superior team, winning 97 games in the best division in baseball, and Philadelphia must overcome the pratfall of a long layoff like the one that has felled the past two World Series losers. They'll need several things to go right to make this a long series.

• Philadelphia's starting pitching will be at a disadvantage in every game Cole Hamels doesn't start, therefore it's almost a necessity for Hamels to win both of his starts for the Phillies to have any chance in this series. This will be especially apparent on the back end of the Phillies rotation, where the ageless Jamie Moyer has been hammered in both outings so far, and what the Rays lack in a top-end ace, they make up for with terrifying depth.
• The middle three games are always crucial for the home team, but especially so for Philadelphia, which can't count on getting much out of its visit to the Trop. Additionally, the first two of those games will be started by the aforementioned soft end of the Phillies rotation. Luckily for them, thanks to MLB's ridiculous postseason schedule dragging the Series into late October, the city of Philadelphia may be uninhabitable by the time the series hits town. If Citizens Bank Park is an icy bog this weekend, the Phillies should have a significant advantage over the inexperienced team from a domed stadium.
• The Rays bullpen--which had been the team's most improved element over 2007--seemed to revert to its old form in the last three games of the ALCS. In Game 7, manager Joe Maddon went to Dan Wheeler--who had taken over as the closer when Troy Percival went down late in the season--to start the eighth inning, a spot normally reserved for Grant Balfour, who was roughed up in the Game 5 meltdown. He then turned to David Price, a projected ace with exactly 14 big-league innings under his belt, to get the final four outs. The Phillies should be decidedly more comfortable on the back end of games with Brad Lidge, perfect on the season in save chances.
• Say it with me now; it's a short series, and crazy things happen.

The Phillies do have more quality than recent National League champions, so I can see them extending this series to a second visit to Florida. However, they just can't match Tampa Bay's incredible depth, which is the best antidote against the Rays' hot hitters regressing to the mean somewhat. Double A's--gotta get that in one more time--in six.

Shuffling the deck chairs of inequality

I've been thinking a lot about this essay by Walter Benn Michaels that Richard Estes linked a couple of weeks ago (and Estes' post is worth a full look). Michaels writes:

The us [sic] today is certainly a less discriminatory society than it was before the Civil Rights movement and the rise of feminism; but it is not a more just, open and equal society. On the contrary: it is no more just, it is less open and it is much less equal.

Why? Because it is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today. It is neoliberalism, not racism or sexism (or homophobia or ageism) that creates the inequalities that matter most in American society; racism and sexism are just sorting devices. In fact, one of the great discoveries of neoliberalism is that they are not very efficient sorting devices, economically speaking. If, for example, you are looking to promote someone as Head of Sales in your company and you are choosing between a straight white male and a black lesbian, and the latter is in fact a better salesperson than the former, racism, sexism and homophobia may tell you to choose the straight white male but capitalism tells you to go with the black lesbian. Which is to say that, even though some capitalists may be racist, sexist and homophobic, capitalism itself is not

This is also why the real (albeit very partial) victories over racism and sexism represented by the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not victories over neoliberalism but victories for neoliberalism: victories for a commitment to justice that has no argument with inequality as long as its beneficiaries are as racially and sexually diverse as its victims.

I imagine this is going to drive American liberals stark raving mad if they ever get wind of it, and Michaels ought to be prepared to learn all the ways in which he hates women and minorities. Modern liberals see themselves as the only acceptable vanguard of these social struggles, even though their ancestors were mostly tagging after folks of a more radical ilk got the ball rolling. If your prescription for fighting inequality doesn't end ultimately in voting a straight-ticket Democratic ballot, there's obviously some prejudiced skeleton in your closet you must be hiding, and the liberals are going to find out what it is.

But this is a worthwhile point. Much argument goes in in identity-liberal circles over the status of "allies" who are white, straight, or male (pick any or all), among them perfidous lefties--probably spoiled WASP's, the buggers--who don't toe the liberal/Democratic line. However, as long as you're backing non-discrimination-under-neoliberalism as Michaels describes, it's a mistake to believe we have any truck with you that's more than temprorary and limited in scope.

On a similar point, If There is Hope... writes about the fate of the Liberal Party in Canada in the middle of a (great) post on last week's elections. DJN here is talking about the attempt to push a consolidated left-of-center "Anybody But Coservative" vote.

The Liberals have reversed the now famous “culture war” strategy for the American Republicans. They have maintained a progressive position on social issues – women’s rights, immigrant rights – but have been hardcore neoliberals in the process. This has, as Thomas Frank famously said of working-class Americans, led to millions of Canadians voting against their economic interests by voting Liberal. The Liberals maintain this and the ABCers fell for it once again who ignore the fact that the Liberal attacks on social spending disproportionately affects women, immigrants, the poor, etc, or that the Liberals propped up the Tories the ABCers oppose so much for nearly three years. The ABCers collapse into the worst kind of lesser-evilism, content that the Liberals don’t attack abortion rights while their cuts to social spending leave millions of women without family doctors, without the healthcare they need for themselves and children, without wage parity with men, without adequate and affordable housing, and so on. Why is this considered "a choice" when there is the NDP?

Sadly, the same kind of desperate compromise (i.e. succumbing to pasty centrism) that has watered down the American left has seeped its way into Canada as well. Of course, he could just as easily be talking about the Democrats (who are not even that socially progressive, really), but, of course, there is no alternative here, a fact the Democrats get a lot of mileage from. But more on that a bit later.

Oh, Bill Kristol, is there nothing you cannot get terribly, terribly wrong?

Jane Mayer's story on the rise of Sarah Palin in this week's New Yorker is an excellent read.  She notes that, while Palin may have been a total unknown to many political junkies, the right-wing bigwigs certainly knew who she was and had been pushing McCain to pick this real-live Freeper for months.  Chief among them was America's favorite unintentional comedian, Billy Kristol. 

The other journalists who met Palin offered similarly effusive praise: Michael Gerson called her “a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc.” The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska’s political circles. According to Simpson, Senator Stevens told her that “Kristol was really pushing Palin” in Washington before McCain picked her. Indeed, as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on “Fox News Sunday” that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?

They could put Kristol's face next to "fail" in the dictionary, but that's somehow selling him short.  

Take me to your leader

The really fun thing I learned from Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann's appearance on "Hardball" wasn't her endorsement of neo-McCarthyist show trials--that's boilerplate winger rhetoric by now--but that her opponent in the upcoming congressional election is named Elwyn Tinklenberg. I had no idea Elves were eligible for public office.  I'm not sure if we ought to support this or not.  Given the rate of re-electing incumbents, he could be in Washington for a looooong time.  

I can't watch

Jesus Hussein Christ, can't anybody put a stake in these bastards?

Honestly, if the Saawwwwwwx! win the Series again, no amount of good news from the election may be able to make up for it.

Understanding the Big Shitpile

If you're like me, and you probably aren't, you're probably still dumbfounded by all the alphabet soup financial arcana that's feeding the ongoing credit collapse. Luckily there are some beginnner's resources out there to help us out. Firstly, these two episodes of This American Life--#355 and #365--are an invaluable resource, although I may have to listen to both of them again before I can truly regale dinner parties with an explanation of credit default swap as the TAL blog advises.

...

Alternet has re-published an article by Arun Gupta from the NYC Indypendent, complete with colorful illustrations.

...

Richard D. Wolff, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, makes a pitch for a socialist alternative in the broader context of the past 40 years of American economic life.

Canadian elections

Canada held a snap general election on Tuesday, with Stephen "Bush North" Harper and his Tories hoping to grab a majority government. While the Cons did pick up seats, the economic crunch which developed after the election was called appears to have damaged their hopes of a majority.

With almost all votes in, the Conservatives were said to have won 143 seats, a big rise but still short of the 155 needed for a majority.

The opposition Liberal Party, under Stephane Dion, has won 76 seats, a loss of nearly 20 seats.

Turnout was put at 59.1% - one of the lowest figures on record.

Also benefiting from the Liberals' misfortune was the NDP, which gained eight seats for a total of 37, getting 18.2 percent of the total vote.

A nut!

In addition to the points raised here and here, another seemingly obvious objection to the rightie hysterics over ACORN turning in faulty voter registrations needs to be made, or rather, reiterated.  Even if a non-negligible number of Amanda Hugginkisses and Hugh Jasses actually turn out to vote on election day--itself a dubious assumption--that alone won't significantly delegitimize Obama's win for the simple reason that these fake registrants can't be polled and Obama holds a large and ever-expanding lead in all the indicative polls.  If this were the 2000 election, there may be a faint glimmer of concern here.  

You might think these problems could be averted with a public push to make registering easier and take it out of the hands of third-party actors.  This, however, is not the solution righties are looking for, because their problem isn't really "voter fraud," it's poor people believing they have a stake in democracy. 

That is not a small number

When the Gregorian calender was introduced in 1582, authorities had to eliminate ten days, including October 13, to properly synchronize it with the seasons. Alas, October 13 did exist in 1981, and humanity is the poorer for it.

Yes, today is my birthday, and though I've provided you with the simple math involved, I'd prefer not to think about how long I've been around.

And now, a song!

Back in the saddle!

Right-winger Patrick Ruffini sez (via)

President Barack Obama with 60 votes in the Senate means a socialist America.

Now don't get excited, my friends. I've noticed wingnuts reaching for the red-bait more frequently in recent days as the inevitability of an Obama victory starts to come down for them. Apparently the "liberal" menace isn't good enough to scare Americans anymore; these troubled times require a more reliable epithet. In with the new enemy, same as the very old. Of course, Ruffini takes this very seriously, as do many righties who see public libraries as a sign of the creeping socialist menace.

And really, he's not wrong. I'm a big-tent sort of socialist; I don't see why the term shouldn't be used more broadly to encompass the wide spectrum of left-wing politics that have been influenced by socialist ideas. Very Serious people may not agree, because they're afraid people of Ruffini's ilk have successfully convinced the public--if not themselves--that "socialism" is somehow fundamentally anti-American. Or perhaps they're merely hoping to stay on the Decent Dole.

Not to be misleading, I don't believe Obama plus a Democratic congress equals a socialist America, or even a social democratic or New Deal America. At best, it'll be Clintonite neoliberal America with modestly reformist tendencies. But if he were, I'd hope for a more robust defense from the liberals--or whatever they're calling themselves after conceding every other term to the rightists--than a muddled chorus of "of course he is no socialist! Socialists R Bad!"

We are all Rays now

My friends, if we do not hang together we will surely hang separately.