4:32 PM
The filibuster is democratic!
As Josh Marshall notes, Republicans are thinking about abolishing the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, so as to give the majority party a clear and unimpeded towards enacting whatever they feel like enacting. Is this fair? Is this somehow more democratic, especially given Bush's so-called "mandate"? Let's look at a bit of the math behind this. It's true, as Timothy Noah once pointed out, that the Senate filibuster is "undemocratic" in that a minority of Senators representing only 10 percent of the population could theoretically block any and all legislation.
Now it would be troubling if only ten percent of the population was holding up Congress. But is that what the Democrats have? No—quite the opposite, in fact. If you compare seats in the Senate to the actual population of the states, and assume that each Senator represents half a state (a fair assumption), you will find that Democratic Senators actually represent 147,772,393 Americans, or 50.8 percent of the country—a narrow but still very real majority. Of course, due to the rather unrepresentative nature of the Senate, the Democrats are still left with a minority of seats. But it's hard to suggest that their use of the filibuster to block Bush's agenda is either undemocratic or unreflective of the will of the people.
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4:22 PM
Game over for "baseball ambassador"
The ranks of George W. Bush's "baseball ambassadors" will shrink by at least one. On Thursday, U.S. ambassador to Australia Tom Schieffer -- who served as president of the Texas Rangers while Bush owned the team -- announced he is stepping down from his post:
"My guess is that I'll leave pretty early in the new year. I've told the president that if he wanted me to do something else in the administration, I would be glad to think about that. But I thought it was best if somebody else served a second term down here. I've been here almost three-and-a-half years now and it's been pretty intense."
The ambassador's decision to leave was probably pushed along by his causing a minor diplomatic row. Schieffer (who’s also the brother of newsperson/presidential debate moderator Bob) managed to be, well, undiplomatic in criticizing the Australian Labor Party's campaign pledge to withdraw that nation's forces in Iraq by Christmas if elected. His comments were seen as the U.S. trying to influence the outcome of the Australian election, won by war ally John Howard.
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3:53 PM
New leadership in times of change
Senate Democrats are still recovering not just from the loss of the presidential race, but the loss of their leader, Tom Daschle. But they made some moves that appear pretty smart in the aftermath. First, they decided to promote the minority whip, Harry Reid, to the top spot. Then on Friday, word came that Dick Durbin of Illinois will ascend to Reid's former role.
For starters, the quick, faction-free decisions were a good way to unite the party at a time when Democratic pundits are endlessly rehashing “what went wrong." But more importantly, Reid and Durbin are good choices. As whip, Reid developed a reputation for keeping members on the floor, using Senate rules to maximum effect and, as a result, managing to block some Bush agenda items.
"He's unlike most leaders we have had. He is much more of a workhorse," Sen. Daniel Inouye said. "He is soft-spoken but he is tough. I would not mistake the lower decibel for softness."
Also, Reid won re-election on Tuesday, ensuring him a spot in the Senate that will outlast the Bush presidency. He drew no challengers for the top leadership role, though veteran Sen. Frank Lautenberg did question whether, after Daschle's fate, “the interests of the party served best by a leader who comes from a state that doesn't have the same urban flavor that we have in our industrial states."
That's where Durbin's helpful. He still has four years left on his term, plus the advantage of hailing from a state tracking increasingly Democratic. One of the finalists to be Al Gore's vice-presidential pick, Durbin quickly got the support needed to avoid a challenge. As Ted Kennedy put it:
"Dick Durbin is a skillful legislator and an eloquent voice in our party. He and our new leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, will make a great team to lead the Democratic effort in the Senate."
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3:27 PM
The politics of economic populism
The central argument in Thomas Frank's New York Times op-ed today is that a dose of economic populism would help the Democrats start winning elections. Thinking along those lines, Tom Tomorrow suggests in Slate that Democrats need to start using labor unions again as a base of organization.
On substantive grounds, of course, this is laudable; but is it politically sound? One of the most striking points from Gallup's latest post-election survey is that, while Bush improved only slightly on his 2000 vote share among unions, he improved a whopping 8 points among non-union households. Meanwhile, Bush lost support among rural and poorly educated voters and gained support among urban and well-educated voters. Doesn't that give credence to what Frank calls the "centrist Democratic establishment" view that the party needs to "forget about blue-collar workers and their issues and embrace the 'professional' class"? It's of course dangerous to make sweeping conclusions from one poll, but it's not clear that economic populism is the electoral winner some Democrats think it might be—at least not enough to overcome deficits on so-called "moral" and, as Paul Freedman points out, national security issues. At any rate, let the debate continue…
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2:00 PM
Gay marriage and moral obligation
Many post-election commentators are pointing to gay marriage as the proverbial straw that broke Kerry's back. Citing the 11 states that voted to ban same-sex marriage and, in some cases, civil unions, these arguments are stoking debate within the Democratic Party. Dianne Feinstein blames the conservative turnout on the sudden burst of gay marriages in her hometown of San Francisco and elsewhere:
"I believe it did energize a very conservative vote. I think it gave them a position to rally around. I'm not casting a value judgment. I'm just saying I do believe that's what happened. So I think that whole issue has been too much, too fast, too soon. And people aren't ready for it."
That argument is gaining traction in Democratic circles, with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom taking most of the heat. Openly gay Congressman Barney Frank, a supporter of gay marriage but a prominent critic of subverting the law to allow it, has publicly blamed San Francisco's "spectacle weddings" for Kerry's defeat. Sure, Newsom supported gay marriage -- in part, to inoculate him from future challenges from more progressive candidates (and it worked) -- but he firmly believes that this is a human rights issue. Salon's managing editor, Joan Walsh, has a similar take on the issue and her personal piece captures the moral imperative facing Democrats in this debate:
"Personally, I have to wonder if red state folks who voted for Bush on moral issues saw through the ruse: We're the party of civil rights for everybody except gay people? Please. One thing Bush clearly had over Kerry was the perception that, right or wrong, he stands by his values. I really do think 'character' is a huge part of the values package that allowed Bush to win."
To his credit, Kerry never played politics with the issue. In response to Bill Clinton's reported plea to neutralize the gay issue by backing the same-sex marriage bans that passed, Kerry said, simply, "I'm not going to ever do that." Despite his public opposition to gay marriage and support for civil unions, he voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, calling it "legislative gay-bashing."
What can we expect in the near future? Will Democrats rally and fight against a constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman or will the once again cave on a prickly social issue that could alienate conservative Democrats? Either way, it seems obvious that the issue is not going away and Democrats have, as Newsom says in his defense of gay marriage, "a moral obligation to act."
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9:56 AM
Sectarian violence in Iraq
In Iraq, all eyes are on the upcoming Fallujah assault, but the biggest danger in the region remains the possibility of inter-Iraqi infighting between the Shia and Sunnis, or between Arab Iraqis and the Kurds. It hasn't really erupted yet, but all signs point to an impending conflict. Spencer Ackerman rounds up evidence that Shiite leaders are pushing to marginalize the Sunnis in the forthcoming January elections—a surefire way to exacerbate the Sunni insurgency, or worse, spark a civil war. Even worse, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a major Shiite party, is trying to stifle dissent over the attack on Fallujah, including criticisms from Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawer, the nation's most prominent Sunni leader.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram reports on increasing sectarian violence in the Sunni city of Latifiyah:
For nearly a year after the United States-led invasion of Iraq, Latifiya was considered a quiet town. But it has now gained notoriety for the abduction of two French journalists, an assassination attempt on Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi and for the Shia residents who are now fleeing from the town for their lives. In early September two Shia clerics -- Sheikh Basher Al-Jazaeri of the radical Sadrist movement and Sheikh Karim Al-Bahadlei -- were killed in separate incidents.
The area is dominated by Sunni tribes including the Jenabat, Zobaa, Karagoli Al-Gareer and Dulaimi. Many of them are originally from Anbar province to the north where the resistance hotbeds of Falluja and Ramadi are located. … Only in recent months has the area become a launch-pad for radical Sunni groups.
This is hardly an isolated case -- a few days ago Reuters had a small item about a rocket attack on Shiite migrant workers in the Sunni city of Tikrit. The threat of larger violence is very real. And yet there are no indications that the possibility of civil war concerns the Bush administration in any way. Back in 2003, George Packer reported that when Iraqi exiles tried to explain the difference between Sunnis and Shiites to Bush, the president didn't quite get it: "The very notion of an Iraqi opposition appeared new to him." Does he get it now?
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4:58 PM
Reasonable Republicans for research
While Republicans across-the-board are still basking in victory’s glow, there’s still a real division between party moderates and the far right that will come into play many times in the next few years. As the Associated Press reports, the first front in this round of intraparty battles could come over stem-cell research.
On Thursday, members of the Republican Main Street Partnership -- a group of congressional moderates -- said they plan to push for increased research now that the election is behind them.
"We must continue to work to expand the current federal policy governing this research, because a piecemeal approach is not the solution," said Delaware Rep. Michael Castle. "We need to put the full weight of the National Institutes of Health -- including funding, organization, peer review and public consumption -- behind this promising research so we can fully explore the hope for the millions of Americans who are suffering."
Earlier this year, a group of 58 senators and 206 House members wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to lift restrictions on the number of stem-cell lines scientists can use for research, and John Kerry strongly advocated such research during his campaign. The deaths this year of Ronald Reagan and Christopher Reeve also saw their widows appeal for the use of embryonic stem cells to help find cures for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases.
Using more embryonic stem cells -- from fertility-clinic embryos that will be destroyed otherwise -- is the moderate approach. With his re-election bid behind him, Bush has the opportunity to do the right thing without worrying about the wrath of social conservatives.
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4:18 PM
Wedge amendments headed to court
Among the theories behind why George Bush won re-election Tuesday is the notion that conservative social issues rallied his base, and the fact is 11 states passed anti-gay-marriage measures. But the wording of these measures means those states haven’t necessarily had their last word on the issue.
As Newsweek notes, some of these newly passed amendments will likely end up in court. When Louisiana voters passed a similar measure early this year, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund proved able to get it overturned in court on the grounds the amendment attacked two separate issues -- gay marriage and civil unions -- at once. Similar challenges are now planned in some states.
In Ohio, the controversial Issue 1 passed despite the opposition of the state’s three most prominent Republicans (Gov. Bob Taft and Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine). The measure’s language was deemed broad enough to even ban employers from offering benefits to same-sex partners, which Taft argued could hurt the state’s economy. The language, as Newsweek notes, was also well to the right of the president’s position:
The one question that looms over all of these state battles: what will Bush do? Appealing to evangelicals during the campaign, the president repeatedly said he'd push for a federal constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriages. But Bush has shown no real enthusiasm for the issue. Christian leaders had to lean on him to back it, and even then he was slow to embrace it. Even some gay activists are hopeful that the amendment push will fade from sight in a second Bush term.
Ultimately, legal challenges will decide whether some of these amendments hold up. But they demonstrate how far society still has to go.
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1:46 PM
The battle for the judiciary is on
With an even larger number of Republicans in the Senate -- including fervently anti-choice evangelicals like John Thune of South Dakota and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- the battle over federal judges and (likely) Supreme Court appointments is going to get nasty. The shaping of these courts is the most important domestic storyline of Bush's second term, though the president won't necessarily get his way.
Newly reelected Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, has already discussed his opposition to Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation:
"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely. The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster ... and I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
Specter faces a tough fight; he barely survived a right-wing attempt to oust him in the Republican primary last spring. As the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Specter would have broad authority to reshape the nation's highest court, with wide latitude to schedule hearings, call for votes and make the process as easy or as hard as he wants. Senator John Cornyn sounded completely unsure of Specter's intentions, even though he serves on the committee with him, and hinted that an opposition is already forming against Specter:
"We'll have to see where he stands. I'm hoping that he will stand behind the president's nominees. I'm intending to sit down and discuss with him how things are going to work. We want to know what he's going to do and how things are going to work."
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12:28 PM
And Bush thought Democrats were pessimistic?
One of the challenges for Democrats now is keeping their party energized after a pretty crushing defeat. But a fundraising e-mail sent by Jim Bonham of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shows the difficulty in trying to put a positive face on Tuesday’s results.
Bonham tells supporters that "this election is NOT over," because of Dec. 4 runoffs for two House seats from Louisiana:
"Now that George W. Bush has been reelected, these two races are critical for us to win. We need every seat we can get in Congress to stand in the way of President Bush and his congressional allies."
Fair enough. But this analysis, while an earnest attempt to rally the troops, is about as rose-colored as Tuesday’s result can possibly be painted for Democrats:
"Republicans unleashed every weapon in their arsenal to deliver a knockout blow to Congressional Democrats. They failed! Despite President Bush carrying 28 states and winning a majority of the popular vote; despite the loss of Senate seats in the south and midwest; and despite Tom DeLay and Karl Rove RE-redistricting Texas to force many Democrats to run in newly Republican majority areas, we successfully defended Democratic Members of the House, losing only one incumbent outside of Texas."
And other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
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12:15 PM
Will the Senate be more obstructionist than ever?
In the American Prospect today, Terence Samuel suggests that the new round of Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid (D-NV) might be in an even stronger position to obstruct Bush's second term agenda:
So where does that leave Reid and his shrinking band of warriors? Do they play with the White House or off it? There are no obvious red-state targets among the 17 Democrats up for re-election in 2006; Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska are the two who come closest. So barring another round of retirements, Reid may not have anything to lose by playing Daschle ball when it comes to new cabinet confirmations, new judges, new tax cuts, and more spending for the war.
Unfortunately, Samuel underestimates just how much danger the Democrats will be in when 2006 rolls around. It's not just Conrad and Nelson, but Mark Dayton (D-MN), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Herbert Kohl (D-WI) are all vulnerable in the upcoming midterms. And Republicans will likely get behind strong candidates in West Virginia, Massachusetts, and California in the event that aging Sens. Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Dianne Feinstein all retire. Meanwhile, very few swing-state Republicans are up for re-election. It's a precarious position.
That said, it's a precarious position no matter what. If swing-state Senate Democrats tried to cooperate with Bush, they would still be facing hard-right challenges in 2006. With a 60 seat majority in their sights, Republicans are going to spend millions in 2006, and they'll attack anyone with a (D) by his or her name as an out-of-touch, obstructionist liberal, regardless of the facts. Remember, Max Cleland -- who was unseated by Bush in 2002 -- was basically a pro-Bush Democrat, having backed both tax cuts and the war in Iraq. That didn't matter then, it won't matter in 2006. So if Democrats are going to come under fire regardless, they may as well do the right thing -- unite and start blocking the GOP's agenda.
This is something that needs to be realized sooner rather than later. For the foreseeable future, the Democrats are almost always going to be in a weaker position during Senate races. There are simply far more red states than blue states. The party will have to figure out how to get around that structural hurdle without actually sacrificing their principles. Simply accommodating far right-wing positions in the hopes of mollifying the opposition is, in the long-term, a losing strategy.
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11:42 AM
Climate changes; Bush doesn't
In outlining his second-term agenda, George Bush hasn’t made any commitments to improve his atrocious environmental record. And he certainly didn’t give any indication that he’ll suddenly make good on his 2000 campaign pledge to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. But some British officials believe Bush’s victory doesn’t preclude U.S. action in a global fight against climate change.
On Wednesday, British environment secretary Margarett Beckett told a climate-change conference in Berlin that she thinks U.S. public opinion would pressure Bush to change his mind:
"When I was in the States last Easter... people were saying to me, irrespective of who won the presidency, they believed things were changing in the United States -- if you like, from the bottom up. And of course that was before, when a lot of people had written off the Kyoto Protocol altogether, believed that it would never be ratified by Russia and would never come into force."
Meanwhile, former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell sees better coordination among world leaders. While he concedes Bush is in "a state of denial" on climate change, he also argues public pressure can eventually change his view.
Unfortunately, the universal acceptance of global-warming scenarios among reputable scientists (and the damage climate change can do to the homeland’s security) has done nothing to sway the Bush administration so far. Its rejection of hard science -- and its reliance on pseduo-science from industry groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- would make any future action a massive surprise. British experts used to the proactive approach of Tony Blair might expect a more logical reaction from Bush, but they’ll likely remain very disappointed.
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10:42 AM
A Social Security fight looming? Bring it on.
President Bush has just announced that privatizing Social Security will be at the top of his second-term agenda. This, I think, is good news. Social Security will be a long and bloody battle, and the more time Bush and the Republican leadership spend trying to privatize Social Security, the less time they have to do damage elsewhere. It's also far from clear that Republicans have overwhelming popular support on this issue. Though he may mentioned it now and again, Bush didn't really campaign on Social Security, and the issue almost certainly didn't swing the election.
If anything, Democrats have the upper hand here -- back in 2002, when Bush was an even more popular president than he is now, most Republicans were too terrified to even utter the word "privatization". At the end of the day, it's very easy for Democrats to convince seniors that privatization means benefit cuts (which it might), and that's been a winning argument for a long time. Add to that the inevitable GOP infighting over just how to privatize -- fiscal conservatives like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) want to pay for the transition costs, the president thinks you don't have to -- and we'll likely see Bush spend far more political capital on this issue than he'd like.
The only problem is the media, which as Atrios points out just loves the idea of privatization. But we can help the media out: First by noting that Social Security is not in a "crisis" that can't be fixed by other means; second by pointing out that pensions invested in the stock market can not be expected to offer "magical" seven percent returns forever; third by observing the less-than-honorable stake that Wall Street financial services have in this whole debate. That's a good start.
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9:38 AM
Grown-ups need not apply
For those hoping that grown-ups might take control of the Republican party: Don't bet on it. In the Wall Street Journal today, David Wessel reports that the fiscal conservatives are unlikely to have much sway in the new Congress:
Barring a financial-market crash that panics politicians into action, the answer may turn on whether conservatives come to see deficits as a moral, rather than purely economic, issue. There simply aren't enough Republicans on Capitol Hill who buy the economic arguments about the harm deficits do.
Well, if anyone can state the moral case against deficits, and convince Republicans that their tax cuts and high spending only create a "tax shift" onto future generations, that would be great. From what Wessel says, however, neither the president nor any other key Republican understands why this might pose a moral problem.
The other problem is that deficits aren't just a moral issue for future generations. The only reason deficits aren't causing the dollar to drop and interests rates to rise right now is that foreign Asian banks are willing to keep American currency afloat (at considerable cost to themselves). But as the Economist argues, these banks "will not carry on financing this deficit forever." When that happens, the economy could easily be brought to a "juddering halt." Defaults would rise. Debt would increase. And so on.
But all of that seems lost on the GOP. So in the short term, we'll probably get a heap of cuts to discretionary spending -- things like housing vouchers and heating subsidies for low-income families -- that don't make much difference to the deficit, though they do a good deal of harm to real people. This is what will pass for "fiscal responsibility." But other than that, the GOP will keep cutting taxes while spending on things like corporate tax breaks, and this pattern will continue until the financial markets buckle and disaster strikes. I've said this before, but if I wanted to set the conditions for, oh, say a socialist revolution in the United States a few years down the line, this is exactly the course of action I would pursue.
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05:17 PM
Europe weighs in
During the U.S. election season, Tony Blair kept mum on whether he’d prefer a continued working relationship with George Bush or a fresh start with John Kerry. Once Bush won, however, the British PM quickly urged the president to get to work on rebuilding alliances in Europe:
"Europe and America must build anew our alliance. All of us in positions of leadership, not just President Bush, have a responsibility to rise to this challenge. It's urgent that we do so…"In particular, I have long argued that the need to revitalize the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today."
Blair’s sentiments were echoed by a number of world leaders on both sides of the Iraq war, who stressed the need for better cooperation between America and its allies. The BBC and CNN both compiled some other examples:
"In the name of France and for my own personal part, I would like to express my heartiest congratulations for your re-election. It is in a spirit of dialogue, esteem and mutual respect that our co-operation must continue to evolve, our common fight against terrorism and the joint actions which we are engaged in to promote liberty and democracy must continue to develop." – Jacques Chirac, French prime minister"At the beginning of your second term, the world stands before great challenges: international terrorism, the danger of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, regional crises, but also poverty, climate change and epidemics threaten our security and stability. These challenges can only be mastered together. With great expectation, I see our continued cooperation on the basis of the close friendship between Germany and the United States." – Gerard Schroeder, German prime minister
"Bush will keep up that policy that gives the United States the role of promoting freedom in the world." – Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister.
Bush already has a new problem to contend with regard to a European ally. Hungary announced plans Wednesday to pull its troops from Iraq March 31. With Poland already announcing withdrawal plans, and Australia having removed more than half its forces, Bush has some work to do in convincing allies to keep more troops on the ground with the Iraq election rapidly approaching.
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4:34 PM
America's new standing in the world
The anonymous writer of the Abu Aardvark site has some important thoughts on what Bush's re-election will mean for foreign policy, and America's standing abroad. (The writer is a professor of Middle East studies.) First and foremost the United States has just validated everything Bush has done over the past four years -- and that means everything, from the use of extraordinary rendition right down to the abuses at Abu Ghraib:
We had a chance, as a nation, to use our democracy to impose accountability on a failed president. We didn't. … Which means: no illusions. This is who we are, for better or for worse. Much of the world, and many Americans, have argued forcefully over the past few years that this administration does not reflect the real face of America. That argument becomes more difficult now. …
We now can be pretty confident that America's image abroad will not improve for the forseeable future. International relations and foreign policy specialists should now prepare for an era in which anti-Americanism and an absence of American soft power hardens into a relatively fixed character of the international system. I think that a Kerry victory would have produced an immediate and startling -- if potentially temporary -- reversal in this, as much of the world celebrated Bush's demise and gave Kerry a window of opportunity to turn things around. Not anymore. For the forseeable future, popular anti-Americanism is likely to persist.
He also suggests that relations with Europe will get better (now that European leaders realize they have no alternative), while Bush's victory will "strengthen radical arguments in the Middle East and further decimate the already thin ranks of moderates." The whole piece is worth reading here.
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2:48 PM
Was it... the economy, stupid?
CNN's exit poll data is well worth poring over, and no doubt Democrats will draw any number of conclusions from it about where to go over the next few years. Over at TAPPED, Matt Yglesias crunches the numbers and suggests that security, rather than values, was the real "swing" issue in this election. That's obviously something the Democrats are going to need to work on, but it might not be the only thing. I was surprised to see that, in the end, voters overwhelmingly did not trust Kerry to handle the economy by a 53-45 margin -- even though a clear majority of voters rated the current economy as "not good or poor." Democrats have always enjoyed a consistent lead on economic issues. How did that lead evaporate?
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12:08 PM
What lies ahead in Iraq
With a second term safely in the bag, President Bush now has a free hand in Iraq, and that's probably not a good thing. The assault on Fallujah, postponed until after the election, is set to take place, and as Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter points out today, it's anyone's guess as to how successful a full-scale attack on the city will be. It's also anyone's guess as to how bloody the battle will be – as the Los Angeles Times reported a few days back, Marines are already "pumped" and ready to take revenge for their April defeat in the city. Not a good sign. Oh, and to make matters worse, even if the assault is "successful," and the insurgents in Iraq are subdued, the real problems in the country are still ahead. From election disputes to infighting between Shia and Sunni factions to the possibility of a Kurdish secession, there's every reason to think that Iraq could still turn into an even bigger catastrophe.
That's a huge concern. Bush may believe he no longer needs to worry about what voters here in America think. If lots of Marines die in a losing battle in Fallujah, who will be held accountable? If the January elections are manipulated and the U.S. installs Allawi as the new de facto Iraqi strongman, who is going to complain? If Colin Powell resigns, as is predicted, and Bush's new foreign policy team continues to be led by Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, who will act as a brake on neoconservative policy-making?
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9:53 AM
What went wrong? (Gay-bashing edition)
As a final note, do read Andrew Sullivan this morning on how Republicans used gay-bashing to win the election. The president may say he supports civil unions, but he had no trouble using bans on civil unions to churn out voters in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and elsewhere. It was nothing less than an electoral lynching -- of a small and completely harmless minority -- that will remain for all time a black spot in American history.
Unfortunately, with Tom Coburn ("rampant lesbianism") and Jim DeMint ("Gays should not be allowed to teach in public schools") now in the Senate, it will only get worse over the next few years. In the long term, however, this will collapse, like all other forms of bigotry have. Young people are far, far more accepting of civil unions, gay marriage, and equal protection than older people are, and demographics are on the side of gay rights. So I have to share Sullivan's optimism when he says, "Do not let the Republican party rob you of your hopes. This is America. Equality will win in the end."
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9:21 AM
What went wrong? ('Blame the polls' edition)
Another thing that went wrong this election year, obviously, were the polls. I'm not talking about the screwy exit polls, which should never have been trusted. But highly-regarded pollsters of all stripes -- from John Zogby to former GOP pollster Frank Luntz -- completely miscalled this election.
This, I think, is significant, and it all has to do with the median voter theorem. The theorem says that candidates will always be able to find the "median" voter and thus win roughly fifty percent of the electorate. If you take this theory far enough, you get a permanently polarized nation, and endless close elections. (Mickey Kaus explains the theory more carefully here.) But that's not what we saw last night. Regardless of how close the election was in Ohio, Kerry got beat fairly heavily in the popular vote, by far more than Bush did in 2000.
How come? Perhaps Kerry simply couldn't find the median voter because polling is no longer reliable or accurate -- due to people using cell phones nowadays, or people not being home to answer their phones, or people using caller ID to screen pollsters. Who knows? But it's possible that Kerry's team was so off in their polling that they never even knew they were behind, and they never really knew how popular or unpopular their policies and statements were.
That's certainly not the only reason Kerry lost, but then again, it might be a big part of it. As the Washington Post reported a few weeks ago, surveys and polls may be losing their power and prestige. If that trend continues, Democrats may need to start relying less on carefully crafted, poll-tested, positions meant to appeal to exactly 50 percent of the population, and start looking more seriously at sweeping, progressive visions and the like. On that note, in Boston Review a few months back, there was a symposium on what the Democrats (and liberals in general) need to do to return to dominance in the long term. There is a lot on that whole "vision" angle, and it's well worth reading for a look at where liberals need to go next.
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8:59 AM
What went wrong?
No doubt we'll hear a lot over the next few days about what went wrong for John Kerry and the Democrats. Was Kerry too liberal? Not liberal enough? I suspect we'll never be able to answer that question decisively. So let's look at the polls. Was the problem the low turnout among young voters? Not likely -- it looks like even more young voters came out this year than in 2000, though as Josh Marshall notes, turnout was higher everywhere, so young voters couldn't swing the election. It is true, however, that Democrats didn't offer much to young voters beyond vague threats of a draft if Bush is re-elected. While a draft is now a real possibility -- especially if the Iran hawks in the second Bush administration have their way -- that's not really an election winner. So it's possible that the Democrats could have made more headway here.
What else is there? Looking at the final results, the two most striking trends were John Kerry doing slightly worse among women voters than Gore did, and the fact that there were far more self-identified Republicans than Democrats voting. Independents, meanwhile, leaned towards Kerry in a fairly big way (Gore lost independents in 2000). The shift in Party ID looks, at first glance, like the biggest factor. So either the country is becoming more conservative or the Democrats need to brush up their party image in a big way.
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5:23 PM
UN election monitors: 'We've seen better'
For what it's worth, international observers were less than thrilled with how the election went off down in Florida:
The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system.
"To be honest, monitoring elections in Serbia a few months ago was much simpler," said Konrad Olszewski, an election observer stationed in Miami by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"They have one national election law and use the paper ballots I really prefer over any other system," Olszewski said.
Statements like that might raise hackles among the "America first" crowd (Kazakhstan?), but Olszewski's got a point. Why don't we have one standard set of election laws across the country? What's the advantage of having each state have its own method of, say, counting provisional ballots? The downside, after all, is pretty considerable.
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2:26 PM
Kerry has an edge in recount funds (if it comes to that)
If the election remains undecided after tonight, and recounts are ordered or pursued in court, John Kerry holds a huge advantage over Bush, according to the campaigns' most recent financial numbers and a report by The Center for Public Integrity. Under Federal Election Commission rules, both candidates can use remaining primary election funds to conduct recount activities. Kerry's available funds amount to just under $45 million, compared to just more than $16 million left over in Bush's primary election coffers.
Those funds, combined with cash on hand each campaign reported pre-general election, left Kerry with almost a $25 million advantage ($51.6 million to $26.8 million). Bob Biersack, spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), noted that "it's possible" Kerry could use the primary money for recounts:
"There should not be any problem with them using primary funds for a recount. One of the clearly permissible uses would be a transfer to a party and the party could use that money for a recount."
In The Center for Public Integrity's report, spokesmen for both the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee declined to speculate on how they intend to use the $45 million in leftover primary funds. While Kerry has a recount funding advantage now, it may be fleeting. Last week, the FEC told the Associated Press that Bush or Kerry could raise money for recount costs through unlimited donations from individuals. Such large donations would obviously tip the balance, most likely to Bush. And unlike the general election, when individual donations cannot exceed $2000, the gray area for recount contributions is vast, offering the possibility that buying the election will go to a new high (or low) in an American election already exceeding $1 billion in overall contributions.
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2:14 PM
Better-than-expected, but not perfect...
I've been scanning Google News looking for signs of election-day problems, and so far the election seems to be going off better than expected, but it's far from perfect. The AP has a decent roundup of concerns here. The biggest fiasco right now is in New Orleans, where electronic voting machines don't appear to be working, and none of the votes have yet been counted. There are also a few smaller stories making the rounds, like this one of a Republican voter disenfranchised in Chicago, which are no less disturbing.
Meanwhile, Ed Kilgore rounds up evidence that provisional ballots could create huge headaches later on. At the moment, many voters with registration problems are simply being handed these ballots, rather than being turned away, and that practice might be creating the illusion of serenity. But as Kilgore notes, up to 5 million votes could be cast via provisional ballot, paving the way for messy recount scenarios. The problem is that provisional ballots aren't even counted unless the election's close, and as CNN reports, states have widely varying rules for how to count the ballots. The worst may be yet to come.
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12:18 PM
Just in case, House prepping for a tie
Last week, the Washington Post looked at 33 potential ways the presidential election could wind up tied at 269 in the electoral college. In the unlikely but possible case such a tie occurs, the House gets to pick the president -- and the current House leadership is reportedly preparing a rule change to deal with that scenario.
Under current rules, each states’ delegation to the House would cast a presidential vote, meaning a 26-vote majority is needed. Right now, the GOP controls 30 state delegations, but House members could vote party-line, or vote with their home district, or vote with their state. As The Hill reports Tuesday, the GOP leadership’s proposed changes would let the Republicans use their numbers advantage more effectively:
One of the adjustments would dictate what to do in the even that a state delegation was deadlocked. The Constitution does not spell out that these delegations would be removed from the tally, but that is what the GOP leadership would likely propose.There is no rule on whether states must canvass their members in private or in public, nor whether a member may request a secret ballot within the delegation. "There’s no real model to look after," said one House leadership aide, who said leaders might just "leave it up to the states" to decide how to award their vote.
"Or we could micromanage a scenario where the procedures for the delegations to decide their vote for president in the House of Representatives will be X. That procedure would be adopted for the whole House."
It’s been 178 years since the House last chose the president, when it picked John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson. The latter, who had more popular votes, immediately launched a four-year campaign harping on the "corrupt bargain" he claimed House leadership made with Adams. In the longshot event George Bush gets selected by the House this time, critics of his legitimacy to lead will no doubt have a similar reaction.
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11:56 AM
About those exit polls...
With early and unreliable exit polls slowly leaking to bloggers and other media outlets, it's worth reading up on Mark Blumenthal's run-down of why exit polls shouldn't be trusted. The proverbial grain of salt here should be massive. The exit polls tend to exclude early voters, they don't weight for actual voter turnout, and they might even be made up. So if Kerry's ahead, don't get complacent. If Bush is ahead, don't get discouraged. In fact, let me just agree, for once, with National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez when she says (or shouts): "DO NOT get depressed. DO NOT get mad. JUST GET OUT THE VOTE."
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11:17 AM
Why Iraqis don't care who wins the election
As a break from obsessing over the latest polls and predictions, I suggest reading Neil MacFarquhar's interview with a Lebanese mujahid who went to go fight Americans in Iraq. Insurgents aren't interviewed very often, and this one offers some new insights and information. For starters, he confirms that Iraqi nationalists are running the insurgency, although foreign fighters are offering useful fodder for suicide bombs and other high-profile acts of violence. More troublingly, though, he suggests that it's not too hard for foreign mujahideen to blend into the local population:
He again shaved his beard, and in the taxi on the way he threw out occasional greetings like "Sha ku ma ku?" - Iraqi slang for "What's happening?" - so no one would denounce him as a foreigner. In Falluja he was taken to another sealed house, where he spent some time with a rotating group of Arab fighters, including two experienced guerrillas who had traveled across Iran from Afghanistan and were directing some operations.
The conventional wisdom has always been that it's easy to distinguish between Jordanian or Syrian or Saudi Arabs and Iraqis. But if fighters like the one above can blend in and disappear, what's to stop the foreign jihadists from simply melting away when the U.S. starts its massive assault on Fallujah? Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni, suggested something similar today, pleading for negotiations with the insurgents in Fallujah, in lieu of a large-scale strike: "The coalition's handling of this crisis is wrong. It's like someone who shoots at his horse's head just because a fly has landed on it. The fly escapes and the horse is dead." Little wonder that, despite the cute "man on the street" stories popping up, most Iraqis don't really care who wins the election.
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10:52 AM
We want to hear from you
If you’ve had an interesting experience at the polls today and have a story to share, MotherJones.com would like to hear from you.
Please tell us about your voting, volunteering or pollwatching experience at backtalk@motherjones.com -- and we’ll include some of your stories in our Election Day online coverage.
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09:55 AM
The true absentee voters
Pundits and reporters have looked at voting habits of just about every identifiable demographic group in the coverage of this election. Thanks to the Associated Press, that includes Monday’s look at deceased voters.
With the prevalence of early and absentee voting this year, an unspecified number of citizens have been able to vote before passing into the big poling place in the sky. And because of the logistical difficulty involved in discounting those votes, the so-called "ghost votes" will likely count in any number of states:
In Florida alone, more than 1.8 million people, many of them elderly and sick retirees, have cast absentee ballots or voted early in person in the past two weeks. How many of those voters won't be alive on Election Day? Considering that an average of 455 voting-age people die in Florida every day, and that the 2000 presidential election was decided by a mere 537 votes, dead votes that slip through the cracks could become a meaningful bloc.
Traditionally, officials have had the option to discard an absentee ballot when the voter dies, by throwing out the mailed-in ballot (enforcement obviously varies). But the post-2000 early voting systems, particularly using electronic machines, don’t provide such an option. So even those counties where officials comb obituaries for deceased voters can’t do much to cancel those votes.
The deceased have notoriously voted in countless elections, and this year figures to be no exception.
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9:39 AM
Ohio rulings won't stop voters
So originally Ohio courts had ruled that the Republican Party was not allowed to send hordes of challengers to the polling places. Now the Sixth Circuit Court, by a vote of 2-1 (two Republicans, one Democrat) has overturned that ruling, opening the floodgates for challengers who could well intimidate minority voters. (The Democrats have sent election monitors, but they have claimed they will not challenge anyone.) The Supreme Court concurs with the ruling. But wait! Another federal judge ruled that the Republicans couldn't use their list of 23,000 people to challenge voters. So if they can't use the list, what basis do they have for challenging voters? Are they just going to hang around and look menacing? Maybe.
Meanwhile, Jesse Taylor provides a bit of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Ohio voters -- and Ohio minority voters in particular -- are visibly angry at the idea that state parties are sending their thugs to intimidate voters, and are determined to vote nonetheless. Good signs…
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5:04 PM
The positive case for Kerry
With the election only a day away, it's as hard as ever to predict just how those fabled undecided voters are going to help swing the election. In the New Yorker a few months back, Louis Menand suggested that many voters may use heuristics such as "likeability" and "character" to decide on their preferred candidate. As Michael Kazin recently argued, however, personal characteristics have almost no bearing on how a candidate will actually govern as president:
By conflating personality with political virtue, a nation of TV viewers is turning a bad habit into a tradition. Like shallow psychoanalysts, we imagine that every indication of stiffness and anger, every sigh and peek at a watch opens a window into a candidate’s soul. Bored by debates about issues that affect the whole world, we seek out moments of sentimental “truth” and easy amusement. To empathize, or rather to perform empathetically, is thus prized more than having a sound plan for extending health insurance or curbing the nuclear program of Kim Jong Il. The true flaw, my fellow Americans, is not in our campaigners, but in ourselves.
Unfortunately, the habit of playing up "character" seems to have gripped even the most sophisticated Kerry supporters, as evinced by Slate's recent "endorsement" of the Democrat, where contributors of all stripes suggested that they'd vote for Kerry even though they find him personally unappealing. These days it seems to be cool to dislike the guy even while backing him. As an antidote, then, might I suggest these two positive endorsements of Kerry, by the bloggers of Pandagon? Both are well worth reading.
For all the abuse heaped on Kerry of late, it would be hard to imagine another Democratic candidate who would have stood up to George Bush so well in the debates. He may be "wooden", he may be "ponderous", but Kerry has run about as solid a campaign as any. Furthermore, his policy proposals -- from health care plan to his statements on Iraq -- show him to be a candidate who can both identify the problems facing the United States, and propose smart, sensible solutions. The current president, by contrast, merely sees problems as an opportunity to do the things he has wanted to do all along -- like using a recession as an excuse to pass his tax cuts, or using 9/11 as an excuse to take out a hostile regime. If the last four years have taught us anything, it's that we need a problem-solver, not an opportunist, in office. Kerry is quite clearly the former, and that one trait is far more important than the length of his sentences or the bounce in his step.
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3:37 PM
How not to report on voter fraud
Media Matters offers sound advice to the New York Times: Before you report accusations of voter fraud, you should make sure voter fraud is actually taking place. Also, note that simply taking the word of party spokespersons is probably not the best way to determine this.
Oh, and here's another good piece of advice, from the same source: When only one party is engaged in the bulk of voter suppression efforts, it's not "objective" to suggest that both parties are somehow to blame. Election-day fraud and intimidation is much too important a story to be left to simple "he said, she said" reporting.
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3:32 PM
Badnarik still courting conservatives
While he hasn’t gotten the media attention Ralph Nader generated in 2000, Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik has kept active in the past week, and continues to explicitly target conservative voters fed up with George Bush.
On Friday, the Badnarik campaign announced a series of TV ads to run in the battleground states of Nevada, Wisconsin and New Mexico (plus Bush-leaning Arizona). The ads, themed "Send a Message," target "true conservatives" and are expressly designed to siphon support from the Republicans. As campaign manager Barbara Goushaw said in a statement:
"Millions of fiscal conservatives have been left politically homeless by the GOP, so we're rolling out the Libertarian welcome mat. If George Bush thinks these people have no place to go, he's in for a big surprise…"Our national ads took a shotgun approach in pointing out that George Bush is no conservative. Now we're taking the rifle approach, and we have this big-spending Republican in our crosshairs."
Badnarik began running ads on Fox News more than a week ago (what better way to reach conservatives?) and has ballot access in 48 states. The campaign points to a number of signs it could cost Bush support, including the endorsement of ex-GOP congressman Bob Barr, the party’s relative strength in Wisconsin (where its gubernatorial candidate topped 10 percent of the vote two years ago), and former nominee Harry Browne getting more than 2,000 votes in Nevada in 2000 (a state Al Gore won by less than 400 votes). As Larry Jacobs of the 2004 Election Project told the New York Times:
"If we have a rerun of Florida 2000 in Pennsylvania, Michael Badnarik could be the kingmaker by drawing independent and Republican votes from Bush."
That’s the Libertarians’ plan in a nutshell.
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2:32 PM
Political crank calling
Campaign phone calls are the last political line many voters hear as they head to the polls. Too bad they often distort a candidate's opinion. According to the Kerry campaign, Michigan voters have received phone calls falsely stating that Kerry would make gay marriage legal. Although both Kerry and Edwards oppose gay marriage -- in that confusing appeal to support civil unions while saying marriage should be limited to a man and a woman -- The Associated Press reports that voters are hearing this message from a female voice:
"When you vote this Tuesday remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry. We need John Kerry in order to make gay marriage legal for our city. Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle. It's time to move forward and be progressive. Without John Kerry, George Bush will stop gay marriage. That's why we need Kerry. So Tuesday, stand up for gay marriage by supporting John Kerry."
While that sounds like a great appeal to me, a majority of voters in Michigan and nationwide oppose gay marriage and Kerry steadfastly holds that position as well. The Kerry campaign, and its spokesman in Michigan, Rodell Mollineau, responded with shock and outrage:
"We're shocked and pretty much appalled that Republicans would sink to this in the last 48 hours of the campaign."
Mr. Mollineau shouldn't be so surprised. Ask Kerry's friend John McCain about what the Bush-Rove team are capable of in the close of a campaign or read Joshua Green's piece in The Atlantic Monthly on Rove's track record. The Kerry campaign better be prepared for much worse.
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1:36 PM
Bush supporters treating voters to tricks
As the election season (mercifully) enters its final hours, there are a few new developments to add to the dirty trick file.
The most dirty of these tricks comes from Michigan, where voters received calls "urging" them to vote for John Kerry by implying the senator would legalize gay marriage. As the Associated Press reports, the phone call has a young woman’s voice saying:
"When you vote this Tuesday remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry. We need John Kerry in order to make gay marriage legal for our city. Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle. It's time to move forward and be progressive. Without John Kerry, George Bush will stop gay marriage. That's why we need Kerry. So Tuesday, stand up for gay marriage by supporting John Kerry."
While Kerry has a more forward-thinking stance than Bush on equal rights, he has refused to endorse gay marriage. The calls are an obvious ploy to drive turnout among social conservatives (like the famous pro-Bush phone polls in 2000 that falsely implied John McCain had an illegitimate biracial child). A Michigan GOP official told the AP he knew nothing about the gay-marriage calls, but said he’s received word about similar tactics used against Bush. The AP describes those anti-Bush calls, but as of yet has no tape to confirm their existence.
In Wisconsin, the GOP is unfairly targeting Milwaukee voters by planning to challenge registrations at the polls Tuesday. Republican officials say registration lists there contain some questionable signatures (if anyone can find a registration list that doesn’t, that would be news), but are only targeting voters in heavily Democratic Milwaukee instead of a nonpartisan statewide effort. The GOP has asked Milwaukee officials to require ID from all voters on a list of "questionable" registrations, and will send party members to challenge voters if the city doesn’t. As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:
Critics said the late maneuver is a transparent effort to generate publicity and cast an unwarranted shadow over city voters, a majority of whom are expected to vote Democratic."People certainly can come to their own conclusions," said Martha Love, chair of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party, noting a similar review was not done for Republican areas such as Bayside. "But if it's not voter intimidation or suppression, then what's the point?"
Speaking of challenging voters, Republicans are also appealing two Ohio court rulings that poll workers, not party operatives, should determine voter eligibility. As Judge John Adams of Akron ruled in one case, partisan challengers will not be allowed at the polls (unless the appeal wins, of course):
"In light of these extraordinary circumstances, and the contentious nature of the imminent election, the court cannot and must not turn a blind eye to the substantial likelihood that significant harm will result not only to voters, but also to the voting process itself, if appointed challengers are permitted at the polls."
As in the Milwaukee case, Republicans argue they are trying to prevent voter fraud. But once again, they are trying to prevent such fraud only in areas where Democrats dominate. Clearly, ineligible voters should not vote, but these are appeals to partisanship, not fairness.
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1:14 PM
Looting in Iraq revisited
While the al Qaqaa story seems to have faded away of late, John Quiggin unearths a bit of historical trivia that may prove relevant to the whole ordeal. It seems that back in the early days of the war, British troops had actually encouraged looters and rioters in Iraq, according to the London Times:
United Nations officials have rebuked British commanders for urging local residents to loot buildings belonging to the Iraqi Army and the ruling Baath Party. The British view is that the sight of local youths dismantling the offices and barracks of a regime they used to fear shows they have confidence that Saddam Hussain’s henchmen will not be returning to these towns in southern Iraq.
One senior British officer said: “We believe this sends a powerful message that the old guard is truly finished.”
Interesting. The next question is: Did U.S. commanders give similar encouragment? Last year the BBC provided some evidence to that effect, though it's tough to say how conclusive their eyewitness reports really are. We do know that Gen. Tommy Franks ordered his troops not to use force to stop looters and rioters. We also know that the U.S. turned down pleas from the Iraqi museum to protect artifacts and other archeological treasures. But the key question is whether there was a specific policy in place to encourage or otherwise support the looting that took place after the fall of Baghdad. In light of what we've learned about al Qaqaa and other ransacked weapons sites, that would seem like something worth finding out, no?
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11:54 AM
More on Osama at the polling booth
Although voters have sensibly chosen to ignore the Osama bin Laden video in their voting considerations, conservative commentators across the web are still trying to dig down and unearth some sort of "Osama hearts Kerry" spin on the video. The latest comes from MEMRI, a "translation service" of dubious credibility, which has suggested that if you listen really carefully and get flexible with your Arabic, then you can almost hear bin Laden threatening to attack those states that vote for Bush.
Leave aside the fact that the MEMRI "translation" is a stretch and far out of the mainstream. The strangest thing in all this is that conservative bloggers have been faulting (here, here, here) the rest of the media for not putting a darker spin on the tape. Huh? Is there some theory that says that reporters should go out of their way to terrify the electorate as much as possible? Actually, there is. As a Bush campaign official recently told the New York Daily Sun, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." If there's any other good reason for trying to scare as many people as possible, I haven't heard it.
Meanwhile, back in the land of the sane and the serious, counterterrorism expert Daniel Benjamin offers some cogent thoughts on what bin Laden "wants," and whether we should care:
By putting his bloody fingerprints on the election, Bin Laden has positioned himself for some bold post-Nov. 2 propaganda. If John Kerry wins, the Saudi will surely claim credit for regime change in the United States, much as jihadists have gloated about the fall of the Spanish government after the Madrid train bombings in March. If George W. Bush is re-elected, Bin Laden will crow to the Muslim world that the electoral results confirm what he has been saying all along: The American people are determined to inflict harm on Muslims, occupy their lands, and destroy Islam. They've reaffirmed it, he will say, by re-electing the man who invaded Iraq.
The whole thing's worth reading, as a useful reminder that Osama bin Laden is still a serious force, whose interests and desires go well beyond stumping for one candidate or the other in our little election.
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11:47 AM
Prepared for the worst at the polls
Much is being written about voter suppression in swing states -- the Ohio Republicans wanting election monitors (some call them "thugs") checking voter eligibility, Diebold controlling millions of electronically cast votes without oversight, the purging of voters from rolls in state after state. What's keeping these injustices from producing massive acts of protest and civil disobedience? As Tom Hayden writes this morning on Alternet, the scope for disaster is real, and he predicts that in the coming days things could get ugly:
"On Tuesday at least, the traditions of civil disobedience and electoral politics may converge. What are Democrats going to do if long lines of voters are blocked? E-mail John Ashcroft? Are newly politicized protestors going to forget about their confrontational tactics for the day, or use them against the Republican bullies? What are trade unionists supposed to do when a Republican pushes or punches someone trying to vote? What are defenders of democracy to do when the whole world is watching Republicans approach the election like a seizure of power? What will happen when it's too late for the lawyers and the foul deed is done again?If Republicans stand in the way of democracy Tuesday like reincarnations of old George Wallace or Ross Barnett, it should be time for the movement to say once again: move on over or we'll move on over you.
I doubt that Democratic Party leaders can contain a serious voter revolt if the crimes of disenfranchisement meet or exceed the mess of Florida in 2000. Millions of new voters are registered and heading to the polls voters are already outraged. In this morning's "Boondocks," Aaron McGruder provides an amusing commentary about possible protest based on the reaction four years ago. And it's highly possible that America could receive a valuable lesson in civil disobedience before either Bush or Kerry is officially inaugurated.
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11:13 AM
Election protection from abroad
While the efforts of The Guardian to influence the U.S. election met with understandable resistance, other Europeans have taken a more effective, nonpartisan approach by serving as election monitors in battleground states tomorrow.
Fresh from overseeing the Ukranian election, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) plans to send at least 75 observers from more than 20 nations to watch polls. As one observer told the Washington Times, they will then be able to tell American voters "whether their election is free and fair."
The challenge, as the Los Angeles Times reports Monday, is making sure the observers have access. In some states, officials have been reluctant to let the Europeans perform their assignments:
Konrad Olszewski flew to Florida as part of the international team, but the elections adviser from Poland said Saturday he might not be able to get close to the ballot box.Olszewski and another foreign observer from Canada were received courteously by Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood but told that under the Florida law, poll-watchers must be registered voters in the county where they desire to observe the voting and must submit written applications in advance, said Alia Faraj, Hood's spokeswoman.
Olszewski said he went to his meeting with Hood in Tallahassee bearing documents from the U.S. State Department attesting his status, but that made no difference as far as Florida law and officials were concerned.
As long as they merely observe the enforcement of voting laws -- and there’s no indication they plan to do anything but that -- overseas observers can be a needed outside authority. With charges of voter intimidation and potential disfranchisement flying, these states should be welcoming the extra sets of eyes.
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11:01 AM
Not quite socialized medicine...
In National Review, Sally Pipes unleashes a last-minute barrage of charges against John Kerry's health care plan. Most of them are all too familiar, like this one:
Kerry has repeatedly claimed that his proposal is "not a government plan." But that's just not true. KerryCare is one of the most expensive proposals in the history of government. It would increase federal spending anywhere from $1 to $1.5 trillion dollars -- roughly the GDP of Russia -- over ten years.
The GDP of Russia? Wow, that's a lot! Except that if you actually do the math, it comes out to roughly 1 percent or less of America's GDP over that time frame. Sizeable, yes, but not backbreaking. Meanwhile, the largest part of Kerry's plan -- reinsurance for the most catastrophic illnesses and treatments -- has nothing to do with a government takeover and everything to do with strengthening the private insurance market.
Basically, Kerry's reinsurance scheme would do what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do in the housing market. In fact, if we could trust the GOP to design a "Healthy Mae" system that offered insurance for catastrophic cases and lowered premiums, that would probably work instead. But as the Medicare Bill showed, the GOP is disastrously inept at fiddling with the insurance market, and I don't imagine that many Americans would trust the private industry to create a sturdy secondary insurance market -- especially after the accounting scandals at Fannie and Freddie. So failing that, using the federal government to pool risk is the next best thing.
To be fair, Kerry's plan isn't perfect. One of its biggest flaws is the fact that hospitals and health care plans can engage in "cost shifting". For instance, they can lower the price of some goods and services in order to attract customers, while raising the prices of services that the government covers. Obviously that sort of practice would make Kerry's plan far more expensive than originally envisioned. So cost shifting is a serious concern, and that will have to be hashed out. But the idea that Kerry is trying to socialize our medicine is ludicrous. The real question is why free-market conservatives like President Bush are