Moe Lane

In 2008, the Democratic party had one of the longest, one of the most expensive, and one of the most bitter primaries in American political history.  It was a drawn-out, unpleasant affair where Hillary Clinton, the expected front-runner, was eventually beaten – despite the fact that she won almost all of the top Democratic-leaning states, arguably won the popular vote, and nobody actually won enough pledged delegates to win outright.  Insurgent candidate Barack Obama then, of course, proceeded to win the general election handily, pretty much none the worse for wear for the grind.

Please note that I am not directly comparing any of the Republican candidates* for President to Barack Obama; such a thing would be incredibly cruel to President Obama, who has under-performed in office in precisely the way that one would expect of a liberal academic with no executive experience whatsoever and a legislative ‘record’ that consisted of faithfully voting where, when, and how he was told.  What I am doing is noting that I for one am not terrified of having a long, drawn-out, and expensive Republican primary.  Admittedly, I may end up being in the minority in this one – it wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last – and, honestly, the decision isn’t mine to make.  If the candidates don’t decide to fight it out, there’s not much I can do in response.  (more…)

…to scream “I told you so!” over and over again at this realization.

…ultimately I have to admit that my thinking has changed. I wouldn’t want President McCain in office, but having seen the damage that President Obama has done, we’d have been better off without him in office. In short, I should have voted for McCain, despite my serious reservations and dislike of the man. I was wrong.

Because screaming is not helpful.
Screaming is not helpful.
Screaming is not helpful…

Moe Lane

(H/T: Instapundit)

R.I.P, or R.I.H., depending on your point of view.

Such a quiet death rattle, all things considered:

As a practical matter, the Obama campaign and, for the present, the Democratic Party, have laid to rest all consideration of reviving the coalition nurtured and cultivated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New Deal Coalition — which included unions, city machines, blue-collar workers, farmers, blacks, people on relief, and generally non-affluent progressive intellectuals — had the advantage of economic coherence. It received support across the board from voters of all races and religions in the bottom half of the income distribution, the very coherence the current Democratic coalition lacks.

You’d expect more of a reaction from the New York Times, all things considered. After all, the New Deal coalition has not just existed and affected American politics for my entire life; it’s done that for my parents’ entire lives.  Which is not to say that it’s particularly surprising that the New Deal coalition would eventually dissolve, of course; it’s almost eighty years old, and been taking body blows for the last thirty.  Political alliances and movements come in and out of existence all of the time, and that’s just the nature of things.  There still should be less of a shrug about it all, though.

(more…)

Hot Air and Ace of Spades HQ are both contemplating the issue of Herman Cain, whether he can win, and whether he is truly likely to win.  Fortunately or unfortunately – depending on your point of view – I take a utilitarian point of view on the matter: what does the Herman Cain Iowa plan look like? Does it look like this?

Campaign organizer: We’re going to harness the power of the grassroots and take this country back by getting together and coming together with one voice in caucuses all across Iowa to win and we’ve got people calling and the enthusiasm out there that I’m seeing every day is infectious!

…or does it look like this? (more…)

If so, the luxury of taking one’s time with picking a favorite GOP candidate is about to go away:

In a bombshell this afternoon, New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner raised the strong possibility of a December first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

In a statement entitled “Why New Hampshire’s Primary Tradition is Important,” Gardner, who has full authority under state law to set the date of the presidential primary, called Dec. 13 and Dec. 6 “realistic options.”

New Hampshire is blaming Nevada, which has decided to move its GOP primary up to January 14th, largely because Nevada is tired of having Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina always be first in the primary schedule.  New Hampshire wants Nevada to push it back to January 17th, and Nevada’s saying that it won’t, and at least one candidate – who isn’t Mitt Romney* – is totally taking New Hamphire’s side, and… OK, look, it’s high school all over again, you understand?  God help me for having to describe this dispute in such terms, but it’s the best analogy that fits.

(more…)

Jonathan Chait really, really, really wants liberals to not notice that President Obama is no George W Bush.  How much does he want it?  He wants it badly enough to jettison the entire idea of the Imperial Presidency (don’t worry: Chait and the rest will start grousing about it again on, say, January 20, 2013).  Nope, it’s not Barry Obama’s fault that he couldn’t spin insanely lopsided Congressional majority straw into policy gold, because of… separation of powers:

The most common hallmark of the left’s magical thinking is a failure to recognize that Congress is a separate, coequal branch of government consisting of members whose goals may differ from the president’s. Congressional Republicans pursued a strategy of denying Obama support for any major element of his agenda, on the correct assumption that this would make it less popular and help the party win the 2010 elections. Only for roughly four months during Obama’s term did Democrats have the 60 Senate votes they needed to overcome a filibuster.

[snip]

That kind of analysis, however, just feels wrong to liberals, who remember Bush steamrolling his agenda through Congress with no such complaints about obstructionism. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald recently invoked “the panoply of domestic legislation — including Bush tax cuts, No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Part D prescription drug entitlement — that Bush pushed through Congress in his first term.”

First term.

Hee.

Let’s talk about Bush’s second term, instead. Actually, let’s talk about the second half of Bush’s second term. (more…)

…in marathon: Sarah Palin runs half-marathon incognito in Iowa. (Via Drudge)

It’s actually a very nice human interest piece, which is why it’s kind of a shame that I have to tack on a polite request that the Sarah Palin whatever-it-is stop playing will-she, won’t-she games with running for President and just declare one way or the other.  Mucking about with the regular media or pundits is fine; but this game has been steadily more annoying among New Media types for the last… two months or so, I’m guessing/estimating.  And none of this has been improved by the impenetrable media shield that Palin’s staff has over any and all interactions with their patron.  And when I say ‘impenetrable’ I’m explicitly including ‘light and oxygen’ in that metaphor.  I like Sarah Palin just fine, but if she’s actually planning to get the Republican nomination then this is no way to run a campaign. (more…)

Question (via @JonahNRO): Why Are Obama’s Re-Elect Numbers Suddenly Dropping?

Answer: Because he sucks and people are paying attention to that now.

Seriously, we over-analyze this stuff, sometimes.

I know, I know: that wasn’t the intent. The intent was to flog the concept that a debt ceiling is itself unconstitutional as per the 14th Amendment, thus obviating forever the need for Democratic politicians to stop spending money that we don’t actually have. Here’s the text from the 14th:

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

…and it’s been argued – pretty much mostly by neo-Keynesian (and former conservative) Bruce Bartlett, which is something that the HuffPo author did not mention (can’t imagine why he’d think that actual conservatives would react badly to a Bartlett scheme) – that the text means that any attempt to enforce a real cap on indebtedness is thus unconstitutional, so there, neener neener. If you’re wondering, however, how you can make it unconstitutional to enforce a cap on indebtedness while not also conceding that it’s unconstitutional to incur that debt in the first place, well, I regret to tell you this: you are immediately disqualified from writing for HuffPo. Or writing fiscal policy for the Democratic party, apparently. (more…)

Consider this map (via Politico) showing what the DSCC calls a “Limited Resource Plan” for the 2012 elections:

…which is, of course, being waved around by the DSCC for the purpose of convincing wary Democratic donors that donating money in 2012 to the group that lost seven* Senate seats and struck out on four prime pickups** in 2010 is a good idea.  This did not sit well with the Ben Nelson campaign in Nebraska, which (nervously) pointed out that taking this map seriously suggests that DOOM was coming not only to Nebraska, but Virginia and New Mexico as well.

Well, yes. (more…)

Hard to say which is the better line in this Mona Charen article about an increasingly-nervous Obama re-election team, and their planned one-note symphony:

For the record, there has never been a time in the past 50 years that the Democrats have not claimed to detect a frightening rightward tilt in the GOP — even as the party has nominated such wild-eyed radicals as George H.W. Bush, John McCain and George W. (“compassionate conservative”) Bush.

or

The economy today is in some respects worse than it was in 1980. Barring a catastrophe, little else will matter in 2012. Any credible Republican can defeat Obama — which is why Axelrod is already smearing as “extremist” a person whose name he does not know.

This should be fun.

Simple in execution, sort of…

The president has been unable to curb the nation’s nine percent unemployment rate, so he will be forced to put the best possible face on a sputtering recovery.

Democratic strategists say that means adopting an ungainly three-pronged political approach: Talking up economic gains since the darkest days of 2008 and 2009, highlighting a modest job-creation agenda blocked by Republicans and making the case that things would be far worse if the GOP were in charge.

…but completely impossible in practice, and here’s why: when the Democrats took Congress in 2007, people would get worried if you even suggested to them that the unemployment rate might hit 5.5%.  When the Democrats took over the whole government in 2009, people were grimly preparing for an extended period where the unemployment rate would not come down below 8%.  Today?  We’d sacrifice a goat to get 8%; we’d also sacrifice one to get 5.5%, but nobody would even remotely expect it to actually work.

In other words: define ‘far worse.’  Only, the Democrats have to do it with an actual straight face.

Moe Lane