Impeachment and the Republican Party

After the American Century

It is not only Donald Trump who is on trial. The Republican Party spent four years overlooking his many illegal actions and bullying tactics. They will also be tested, and unfortunately they will probably disgrace themsleves. For they surrendered to Trumpism, with only a few exceptions. They wanted power more than they wanted truth. Now the 50 Republican Senators will have to decide if they care about how they will be remembered. Historians will not be kind to those who continue to support Trump,, who say that the election was rigged, who claim Trump really won, who pretend against all common sense and a great deal of evidence that the attack on the halls of Congress had so little to do with Trump that he is not responsible for it.  

Liquidation Sale, Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City

Now I write this as someone who grew up in a Republican family, and whose father and mother were both elected as Republicans. My father was elected to the town school board and my mother was elected a Justice of the Peace. That was back in the 1960s, when many Republicans, including my parents, supported Civil Rights, full equality for women, and scientific research. My mother taught biology and my father taught engineering. They would be horrified to see what the Republican Party has become.

When Trump goes on trial, the big question is not whether or not he is guilty. He has committed so many crimes that whole books will be published analyzing them. The real question is whether the Republican Party can separate itself from his brutal tactics and his inability to tell the truth. 

Does that sound like an exaggeration? The Washington Post has made a list of the lies that Trump has told. They found that the number of  lies increased with each year.  Trump averaged six false statements a day during 2017, 16 a day in 2018, 22 a day in 2019, and 27 a day in 2020. By election day he had made about 25,000 false statements during his time in office, creating an alternative reality for this followers.

Many of these lies were exaggerations. The most common one was that the American economy was “the best in history.” By 2020 this escalated to the repeated claim that it was “the best economy in the history of the world.” The second most common lie – 262 times – was that the border wall with Mexico was being built. In fact, only a few miles of new wall had been built by May 2020. Fragments of existing barriers were rebuilt, but they were hardly impregnable. In 2020, Trump repeated 38 times that the wall was almost completed. The third most common lie was that his tax cut was the largest in American history, but economists calculated that it was the eighth largest, and not even one third as large as Ronald Reagan’s tax legislation in 1981. Trump did not explain to his crowds that the lion’s share of his tax cuts were for the wealthiest 2 percent of the population. (For more on Trump's presidency, see The United (and Divided) States,  especially the final three chapters.)

Lying became the basis of Trump's campaign and his most common form of attack on other people. Of course, the biggest lie was that he had won the election, but it had been stolen from him. It appears that after the election he was unable to separate that lie from the truth, a sad development for him, and a catastrophe for his followers and the Republican Party, which in the fall of 2020 was fast becoming more a cult than a political organization. 

When the impeachment process begins in two weeks, the central question will be whether the Republicans will continue to live a lie, or whether they can begin the harder process of acting like a political party again, a party that respects education and science, a party that argues from facts rather than invent convenient "alternative facts," a party that does not embrace extreme right-wing zealots who think it is patriotic to attack the Congress, or, in short, a party that people like my parents would recognize and want to be part of.  As for me, I gave up on the Republicans in the Richard Nixon years, though there were some honorable men and women among them. That was decades ago. It has now become a threat to democracy. May it find a way to reform itself. 

But don't hold your breath. The Trump brand is as bankrupt as his casino hotel in Atlantic City, but more than 60 million Republican voters could not see it.

Are the Republicans a Broken Party?

After the American Century                                                                                                          

In the wake of the default, consider the divisions in the Republican Party, which does not seem to understand that holding a majority in the House of Representatives entails real responsibilities. 

The Republicans of 2013 appear incoherent. The Tea Party wing is fervent, but manifestly ignorant about finance or international diplomacy. It is also deeply undemocratic, in that they do not accept the idea that in a democracy the majority rules. They may have a good idea or two, but I have not yet heard them, nor anything like a coherent economic plan or foreign policy. They know much more about what they are against than what they are for. They seem driven by emotion, with a weak knowledge of US history, especially Constitutional history. The true-believers in this wing of the party are often from south of the Mason-Dixon line, especially from rural areas and small towns. They appear to be descendants of the Dixiecrats who used to divide the Democrats over some of the same issues.

There are other Republicans who cling to the values of their party from an earlier era, and these moderates prevented the nation from defaulting on its debt. Such Republican leaders as Nixon, Rockefeller, Ford, and the elder Bush would not have contemplated shutting down the government. But the moderates of today are not strong numerically. They do not seem united or forceful as a group. They worry about getting re-elected in primary elections where the Tea Party tends to turn out the vote. These moderate Republicans are primarily found in urban areas, especially in the North and Midwest. 

Many demographic trends are against the Republicans. Compared to the Democrats, their supporters are fewer, older, and white. They attract only about 30% of the Hispanic vote and little more than 40% of the female vote. They receive only 10-15% of the Black vote, if that. To get elected, they must win decisively among white voters, who are a declining percentage of the total population.

No political analysis of the Republicans is complete without noting that they receive contributions from many in the oil business, from the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and from financiers. Republican money does not support alternative energies, consumer protection, bank regulation, pollution controls, or welfare programs. (Democrats have somewhat more support from scientists and the IT industries, and they tend to support all of the above.)

If the Republicans were to win the White House in 2016 (it seems unlikely now, but three years is a long time in politics), then their internal divisions would likely be even more manifest. With power comes the need to agree on policies and to act, something the Republican House has not been good at. On the other hand, if they lose the presidency in 2016, then internal divisions will continue to fester, driving away many voters. 

What the Republicans desperately need, as they know themselves, is someone like Ronald Reagan, who can unify the party and appeal to the broader electorate. There may be no such figure at the moment, except, perhaps, the popular retiring Mayor of New York. The Tea Party might not like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but he is a dark horse who could attract centrist voters. In 2016 he will be 74 years old, perhaps too old to run. If he does run, he will be too moderate for the Tea Party faction which has shown little pragmatism in backing primary candidates. In the absence of such a messiah, the Republicans seem doomed to internal battles and increasing incoherence.

[All of the above was written before the rise of Donald Trump as a candidate. He seemed to unify the party. but after 2021 the divisions of in thee Republican Party have reappeared.]

If corporatations are people, then hostile takeovers are corporate rape

After the American Century

The Republican syllogism

1. Corporations are people
Mitt Romney famously said that "corporations are people, my friend," a view common among businessmen and lawyers. This view is enshrined in American law, and it means that corporations can enjoy all the rights that the American Constitution grants to individuals.

2. Abortion is wrong in all its forms
Republicans also have a plank in their party platform (approved at their Convention) that opposes abortion, without noting any exceptions. This platform therefore applies to corporations.

3. Corporate abortion should therefore be outlawed.

The syllogism applied to the economy

1. Hostile takeovers are corporate rape. But if they produce offspring (profits, new companies, assets), then the rape was legitimate, as a corporation that resisted takeover would not be fertile.

2. Divisions sold off after a hostile takeover have a right to life, for they are people too.

3. A corporate takeover of Medicare or Social Security, if approved by a Republican Congress, would not be a hostile takeover or a corporate rape but a profitable arranged marriage.

4.  Government regulation of any market, like contraception, is a violation of nature. It strangles economic growth, and is therefore a form of corporate birth control and in many cases corporate abortion. Regulation leads to economic murder.

Romney Selects Robert Bork as Legal Advisor: Was Rejected as Supreme Court Nominee

After the American Century

Robert Bork

Gov. Romney has made a disturbing decision. He has appointed Robert Bork, an extremist, as his chief legal advisor, as discussed in the New York Times editorial page. A former professor at Yale, Bork was rejected as a Supreme Court nominee by a wide margin in 1987, and he has since that time moved further to the right. In recent years he converted to Catholicism and he is now married to a former nun. Bork is perhaps most (in)famously recalled by the public for the "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973. That is, he was the man who fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox who was getting too close to the truth. That Bork would carry out this order from Richard Nixon rather than resign (as his superior did) says a great deal about his character and opinions.

Romney might have chosen any number of reputable conservative thinkers who are less controversial. Making Bork the head of his "Justice Advisory Committee" suggests that Romney agrees with Bork's extreme views. It also suggests the kind of nominees he might try to send to the Supreme Court. 

What, then, does Bork stand for? A great many things, but here are a few of them:

(1) Chicago School style economics applied to the law. He famously argued that mergers and near monopolies should not be opposed by law, because they in fact benefit consumers. (I am not making this up.)

(2) He has opposed the Supreme Court's decision (in a series of cases) to acknowledge and defend a right to privacy.  (See Dronenburg v. Zech, 741 F.2d 1388, decided in 1984.) At issue in this case was a gay man's right to privacy, not at all incidentally.

(3) Despite his general advocacy of something much like strict-construction of the Constitution (adhering to the ideas of the authors of that document in the late eighteenth century), Bork supports a new amendment to the Constitution that would allow large Congressional majorities to override Supreme Court decisions.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy vehemently (and successfully) opposed Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, and his words are worth repeating here:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Bork now provides Romney with advice on justice? Presumably this is part of his outreach to the Republican Right, but it will only confirm Romney's unpopularity with women and minorities.

Election 2012: Romney's Campaign Strategy Could Determine What Kind of Running Mate He Needs

After the American Century  

The election campaign is moving into a new phase that will test Romney in ways he has not been tested until now. The questions and problems he now faces cannot be solved by spending more money or by negative campaigning. These two fundamental questions are the following.

(1) Can Romney move toward the center and still attract the more conservative Republicans? He must move toward the center to court the swing voters, most of them Independents. They decide most elections. Almost every candidate makes this move toward the center after the primaries, but it may be harder for Romney to do so, because he is constantly referred to as a flip-flopper on the issues. I have seen at least five editorial cartoons showing him speaking out of both sides of his mouth or contradicting himself. Moreover, can Romney move toward the center in a way that leaves the evangelical and right-wing voters feeling comfortable and enthusiastic? One possibility is that he will do this by making the campaign a contrast between himself and Obama. The more he emphasizes persons the less policies will matter to many of the voters. This approach has a problem, however, namely that Romney is not a terrific personality. Whether you liked or agreed with FDR or Ike or Reagan, all of them were warm, likable people. Call it charisma or what you will, they each had in their own way a strong personal presence. But Romney does not have anything like that, and to a greater degree, Obama does. He has turned out to be somewhat less inspirational in office than he was on the hustings, but he does have oratorical powers that no recent candidate can match, certainly not Gore, Bush, Kerry or that Senator from Arizona who ran last time, you know who I mean, but his name is fading away. In short, emphasizing personality might not be a winning strategy for Romney.

Romney would be better off choosing the other option, which is to emphasize policy differences and to keep personality in the background. If he can convince voters that the election is about fundamental policy differences, then the more conservative Republicans presumably will help push that bandwagon. He would need to stick to domestic issues using this approach, since Obama has continued the Bush foreign policy more than most people thought he would. The Defense Department has the same head, and the troops are still in Afghanistan. (It may be fortunate for both candidates, in fact, that the public does not care too much about foreign policy.)

(2) The answer to the first question has an effect on the second one. Will Romney choose a running mate who appeals to women and minorities more than he does? He wants a VP who brings him votes that he cannot get himself, but is he looking on the Right, in the Center, or toward women and minorities?  His ideal partner would have more of the common touch, appeal to women and minorities, and be a big lovable personality. With such a side-kick Romney can be a bit more centrist, presenting himself as the analytical businessman and champion of free and unregulated markets, smaller government, and lower taxes, while leaving alone the cultural issues like abortion, gay marriage, teaching Creationism in the schools, etc. etc. that instead the VP can talk about. His VP  might borrow Santorum's playbook but tone down the rhetoric. In short, the ideal VP should be a more intelligent Palin. (A certain Minnesota member of Congress does come to mind, but note that I did not name her in my list of four leading candidates for VP, posted here at the end of March.)

Assuming this is how Romney decides to play it, he might have a good chance to win. However, how much different is this from McCain's strategy?

See also my earlier posting on four possible VP candidates. 

Election 2012: Does Bishop Romney Have a Positive Message, or only a Negative Ad Campaign?

After the American Century

After a decisive victory in Illinois, Romney appears close to winning the Republican nomination. Notably, Gingrich's candidacy faded to fourth place, just behind Ron Paul. This leaves Santorum as his only real challenger, and Romney beat him by more than 10 percentage points. 

One can spin this somewhat differently, and point out that Romney still did not manage to get half the votes in Illinois. This means that despite outspending all of his rivals -- by a wide margin -- the Republicans as a group gave more votes to others than they did to him. There clearly remains a high level of dissatisfaction with him as a candidate.

But the mathematics of delegate counts suggests that after winning Puerto Rico and Illinois, he will be hard to stop. In terms of pledged delegates, Bishop Romney has more votes than his three rivals combined. 

(In case anyone wonders why I refer to him as Bishop, it is because Romney is a Bishop in the Mormon Church, and gives 10% of his income each year to it. This tithe, as well as his missionary work in France for the Mormon Church, shows that he is not a casual member of that church. He has also participated in posthumous baptism, a Mormon ritual  in which people who were never Mormons during their lives are "converted" post-facto. Among these are many of the founding fathers of the US and Anne Frank, who as a Jewish person was killed by the Nazis.)

The problem, increasingly for Bishop Romney will be one of turning his almost entirely negative campaign into a more positive one telling Americans how he can make the country a better place. To date, he has used all his energy to attack others, including the President. His advertising money has been overwhelmingly used to send out negative messages. By one count he has had seven negative advertisements for every positve one. It seems doubtful that this strategy alone will put him in the White House. 

So as Romney moves to later primaries, it will be interesting to see if he has anything equivalent to Ronald Reagan's famous "Morning in America" campaign. What is he for? This is also a challenge for the Republican Party as a whole, which for four years has been a negative force, constantly on the attack, but almost never offering anything new or innovative as a solution to the nation's challenges.

In short, the question now becomes whether Bishop Romney's candidacy can renew the Republican Party, or whether it will remain mired in squabbles between its various factions. Can it articulate a common vision and look forward? Can the Republicans think positively? And will Bishop Romney's religion play a role in whatever does happen?

Election 2012: Why Ohio is the Key Swing State

After the American Century

There is a certain justice to the fact that Ohio has become so important in elections, because in many ways it is a microcosm of the country. Ohio is an important agricultural state, but it also has three large cities (Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati). It has been an industrial powerhouse, but suffered a great deal from the outsourcing of factory jobs to Latin America and China. It has suffered greatly since the 2008 financial crisis, with large numbers of home foreclosures. But it has also been bouncing back economically, albeit slowly. It contains many minority groups, and a good cross section of the churches. It gets back from Washington almost precisely the same amount as it pays in federal taxes (unlike New York which gets back only 79 cents on the dollar, or Mississippi which gets back almost twice what it pays in.) Ohio can be seen as the end of the Eastern states and the beginning of the Middle West. Its southeastern region much resembles Appalachia, while its northeastern quarter seems an extension of industrial New York.  It has generally been a moderate state, politically. But while Ohio therefore is in many ways a good representative state, that is not why it has become so important in elections.

In elections, states are not created equal. The American states are unequal in population, and this means that a few of them have an enormous impact in presidential elections, because all of their electoral votes will go to one candidate or the other. Obama can expect to win the largest state, California and its 55 electoral votes, and the Republican nominee can expect to win Texas, the second largest, with 38. The Democrats generally have won the third largest, New York State (29), too. But precisely because these states are somewhat predictable, the focus is on the "swing states" that are not reliably behind one party in national elections. Most important of all are swing states with a large number of electors, notably Florida (29), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), Indiana (11), and Missouri (19). (Pennsylvania leans perhaps a bit too much to the Democrats to be a true swing state, but it is moderate.) The smaller swing states can also prove crucial, notably Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Iowa (6), and New Hampshire (4).

Note that the swing states are not randomly distributed, but are largely in a band just above the middle of the country. They are all marked in yellow on the following map, and as a group they have 96 electoral votes. A candidate needs to win 270.

The Swing States

Here is a map of what well may happen in the 2012 election. It is a prognosis based on how the states voted in 2000, 2004, and 2008, plus my sense of what is going on in the various states, hunches, you might say.  It is based on the supposition that Obama fails to win Florida, North Carolina, New

Hypothetical map of 2012 election, with the electoral vote evenly split. Ohio and Indiana are in yellow.

Mexico, or Virginia. In terms of delegates, this map shows the red states with 254 electoral votes and the blue states with 255. The two yellow states are Indiana and Ohio. Indiana tends to go Republican, but its electoral votes are not enough. If either party gets Ohio's 18 electoral votes, it moves into the White House. (In this example, you could substitute for Indiana Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire or Virginia, and the result would be the same. None of these states has Ohio's electoral clout.

This is not a far-fetched scenario. In 2000, when Gore lost to Bush in a much disputed election, here is what the map looked like:

2000 Presidential election

The final tally in that election was 271 (Bush) to 267 (Gore). If Gore had won Ohio, he wold have won the election easily, without Florida. That particular election was so close that Gore could have won by taking any additional state, but it is the swing states that matter, and Ohio was close.

How about the next election, in 2004?  Here again Ohio proved crucial to Bush's victory:

2004 Presidential Election

If Kerry had won Ohio and Indiana (or Ohio + Iowa), he would have been elected president.

No Republican has become president without winning Ohio. That is why the state is so important.

Update. After Obama led in Ohio during September, Romney won back some of its voters and he is much closer to winning the state - primarily due to his strong performance in the presidential debates. By the last week of October, it seems that Obama is likely to win Nevada and Iowa, while Romney seems likely to win Florida and North Carolina, with Virginia a toss-up.  Current polls still suggest that Obama will win, but the difference is narrow. After the second debate Obama seemed to regain momentum again, but in the meantime he lost ground in several swing states. In short, Ohio once again looks like the key battleground. The candidate who wins there will almost certainly win it all.

See also posting on Oct 11, on the four crucial swing states in the 2012 election. "Can Romney Win: Four Swing States Hold the Key"

Election 2012: Super Tuesday Probably Will Not Settle the Normination

After the American Century

Once upon a time there were real party conventions, where the nomination was not a coronation that had been scripted in detail for television. There was, for example, the magnificent competition between seven Democrats for the 1960 nomination, which was not settled on the first ballot, as usually happens today. John F. Kennedy emerged as the candidate then. Almost as exciting have been the wide open primary battles, like that in 1992, when the at first unlikely Bill Clinton emerged as the candidate.

The question to be answered tomorrow is whether we might be in for a wide open convention, or whether the nomination is more likely to be wrapped up sooner. Super Tuesday, with its many simultaneous elections, is at the least intended to narrow down the field. In short, will Gingrich or Paul decide later in the week that they should step aside? Or will all four candidates continue to battle for delegates?

Right now, Santorum and Romney are in a dead heat in the all-important Ohio Primary. Each has almost exactly one third of the votes, with the other third divided between Gingrich and Paul. Romney and Santorum are also running neck and neck in Tennessee.  Santorum is further ahead in North Carolina, but I have not seen enough polls for that state yet.

In contrast, some states are walkovers. Santorum seems certain to win by a wide margin in Oklahoma. Gingrich seems certain to win his home state of Georgia, with none of the other candidates coming within 20 points of his c. 44%.  Romney seems equally certain to run away with a victory in Massachusetts, his home state. Romney will also win Virginia in a walk because neither Gingrich nor Santorum  got on the ballot.

There are other states involved too, but the pattern seems clear. Right now it looks as though both Romney and Santorum will win some states, while Gingrich will only take Georgia. Ron Paul will not win any states at all, but he will pick up some delegates nevertheless. When the dust settles on Wednesday morning, it seems unlikely that Romney will suddenly be in a commanding position, though he will probably remain in the lead in terms of convention delegates.

If something like this is the result, then Super Tuesday will not decide anything. Romney will remain determined to grind down his opponents through superior organization and negative advertising. It has defeated all the challengers so far.  Santorum can say, "Well, of course Romney won his home state, and he won Virginia, where I was not on the ballot, but take that away and we ran about even." And Gingrich can say to himself, "Let Romney and Santorum keep hammering each other, and I will emerge as the least bloodied, most experienced candidate." And Paul? He does not seem to be in this contest to win it, but to have influence at the Convention. The less decisive Tuesday is, the better for him.

It looks like Romney will have to slug it out with Santorum for quite a while yet, and the longer it takes, the less excited the Republicans are likely to be about either of them, or about their chances in the fall. (Unless, of course, they become more civil and centrist, an unlikely development.) 

George Will, the usually level-headed and reasonable conservative columnist has already given up on the possibility of retaking the White House. He has just put out a column saying that the Republicans should focus on winning seats in Congress, instead.

Election 2012: Wealthy Republican Candidates: One Angry, One Cold

After the American Century

South Carolina is voting as I write, and all the polls suggest that Gingrich is likely to win, or to come close to winning. A sampling of polls suggests that Gingrich might win by 4%, but the margin of error and the volatility of the public makes this prediction a bit dubious. The momentum is on Gingrich's side, as he has come from a deficit of more than 10 percentage points to take the lead. Romney will not be able to capture the nomination easily. 

The coming vote in Florida will test the Republican Party further. Romney and Gingrich do not just represent different political views. There is considerable animosity between them, and it is fueled by a barrage of negative advertising, from both sides. The longer the campaign lasts, the more divided the Republicans will become, and the fault lines are not merely between Gingrich and Romney  The Ron Paul stalwarts show no sign of losing enthusiasm for their man, who keeps alive a libertarianism that can never really compromise with Romney and has contempt for Gingrich's opportunism. That leaves Santorum to gather up the votes of conservative Catholics and evangelicals. They find Gingrich immoral, and they see Romney as unacceptable, for he is a Mormon who has supported abortion in the past.

In the previous post I predicted that South Carolina would be a bloodbath of negative advertising, and so it has been. Possibly in the coming Florida primary the Republican leadership will be able to convince the candidates to tone down their rhetoric, in the interest of eventual unity in the general election. However, my guess is that the vituperation and nastiness will continue. Romney has begun to attack Gingrich for his ethics violations that cost him leadership in the House of Representatives back in the 1990s. Until now little had been said about this. And Gingrich continues to hound Romney about his off-shore wealth, his low tax rate, and his still undisclosed personal finances. John McCain was successfully attacked for having so many houses that he could not recall how many, and Romney will be in for similar problems. 

It is not a sin to be rich in the United States, but it is unwise to run for public office if the wealth is not mitigated by well-publicized philanthropy or pro bono work for good causes. The rich man who is a public benefactor, like Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates, is the cultural ideal. Angry or cold rich men who do not give something back are not popular. Men of great wealth have often created foundations to redistribute it, notably the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation.  These charitable institutions have the added advantage that the contributions to them are tax deductions. Ted Turner gave much of his personal fortune to the United Nations, and Warren Buffet has put billions of dollars into the foundation that Bill Gates created with his billions. Such acts seem rooted in a Protestant idea of stewardship.

It may be that Romney has been beneficent, but if so, the news has not reached this writer or most of the electorate. He seems to be a ruthless capitalist, a Bain Buccaneer, who recently declared that he likes to fire people. Gingrich also seems devoted to feathering his own nest, and last year at times seemed to campaign in order to promote his books more than to win. He has accepted outrageous "consultation fees" from clients, when it is obvious that in fact he was peddling his considerable political influence.

None of these men seems a worthy steward of the nation's resources, much less a repository for the public trust. Santorum is not worth commenting on, and Ron Paul is too extreme to be taken seriously. Republican voters are left with two wealthy, self-serving, nasty candidates, neither of whom are trustworthy, consistent in their views, compassionate in their nature, or visionary in their politics. When the dust finally settles and we have a Republican nominee, one can only hope that by some miracle a new face has suddenly emerged. A nation of 300,000,000 people surely ought to be able to produce at least one decent Republican candidate. In hard times, a wealthy candidate can be appealing. Think of Franklin Roosevelt. Instead, we have two insensitive rich men, one angry, one cold.

Election 2012: Republicans Want a Generic Candidateto Beat Obama

After the American Century

The Republican candidates are busy beating each other up in South Carolina. A survey of all the polls shows that not one of them currently would beat  Obama. The President beats Romney by c. 2%, Paul by c. 6.5%, Gingrich by 8.5%, Santorum by 7.3%, and Perry by more than 11%.  The insanity/stupidly quotient is the same today as it was in 2008, by which I mean that almost 40% of the eligible voters appear ready to vote for an attractive idiot. In 2008 it was Palin, today it is Perry.

Curiously, an imaginary "generic Republican" would have a chance of tying or beating Obama. This is because when you ask voters to think of a generic Republican, they conjure up in their minds a figure who magically unites the party, without specifying a program. A Mr. Generic would presumably be a well-spoken man, with a good speaking voice and a ready smile, a clone of Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Generic does not exist, however, and the reality is that the Republican Party is deeply split between Tea Party activists, evangelicals, Wall Street special interests, and Ron Paul minimalists. Not only is there no person to unite around right now, but it is hard to see how anyone could be that person. The Republicans are in an ideological crisis and lack a focused identity. 

Perhaps in theory the disparate elements could make alliances and marriages of convenience in order to cobble together a common front. But instead, the candidates are becoming more vicious in their attacks. This became serious with Romney's attack ads against Gingrich in the Iowa contest, and now has gone far beyond what we have seen in previous contests.

Studies of negative advertisements suggest that their greatest effect is not one of persuading voters to change sides, but rather to destroy the motivation to vote at all. The idea is that only the base (i.e. the more extreme elements, whether to the right or left) will turn out on election day. That is the theory, but it seems headed another direction right now. Negative advertising has usually been seen largely in the general election, not the primaries. What happens when it becomes widespread inside one party? Surely the danger is that it will de-motivate them, destroying enthusiasm for the political process itself. 

Since the Republicans are numerically the smaller party to start out with, this spectacular display of disunity weakens their chances of standing together, much less persuading the all-important Independents to come over to their side. 

President Obama can sit back, say nothing, and enjoy watching this Republican self-destruction. But he should not get too comfortable, as his own job approval rating is only 45%

Election 2012: The Divided New Hampshire Republicans

After the American Century

All the polls say that Romney will win the New Hampshire primary, and some are silly enough to deduce that this is simply because he is local. But it is not so simple. Romney has 41% in an average of the polls taken (as of yesterday, Jan. 7), which sounds pretty good. But where are the other 60% of the voters?

I know New Hampshire chiefly through my father, who was born there and grew up on a farm there. He worked his way through the University of New Hampshire. Like his father, he remained a Republican all his life, the kind of Republican who is hard to find these days, though they still can be found in The Granite State. Romney appeals to such people. They are not much like the Bible Belt Republicans. They believe in small government, self-reliance, and hard work. They are not much for welfare, though generous to what they would call the truly disadvantaged., such as the blind, or to war veterans who lost a limb. They typically come from rural areas and smaller towns, often, like my Dad, from families that have been in North America since the seventeenth century. Compared to the rest of the Republican Party, these New Hampshire Republicans value education more. They do not talk like Gov Perry but like Gov Romney. They are less emotional, more rational.Some of them will be drawn to Ron Paul (currently about 20% in the polls) and others to Gov Huntsman (currently has c. 10% in the polls).

New Hampshire's Republican Party is more complex than that, of course. The State has a much lower tax rate than next door Massachusetts, and many people choose to live just over the line. They work in Massachusetts but live in New Hampshire. These are not factory workers, but upper middle-class people who have excellent jobs, often along Interstate 495 or on the old Route 128. They represent high-tech companies, and are technically savvy people, the sort who can easily identify with the Harvard educated Mitt Romney who played a leading role at Bain Capital.  Romney is especially strong with these voters, but some of them will likely go to Gingrich as well.

We can visualize these two constituencies by looking at a map and some charts, which come from The Wall Street Journal. The farmers and small town Republicans are further to the North. The majority of the state population, however, lives in Manchester and Nashua counties, along the southern  edge of the state. As one can see below, Romney's appeal in Iowa was weaker in 2012 than in 2008 everywhere except for the wealthy "burbs" - and fortunately for him, New Hampshire has many such voters in this southern tier.

These are the two key constituencies for Romney, but they are not the whole story. There are other kinds of Republicans in New Hampshire who are more like the Southern version of the party. 23% of the voters are Evangelical Christians who are suddenly flocking to hear Rick Santorum. There is also an energetic local Tea Party, that energized the Republicans to a stunning sweep in the last legislative elections. In addition, there are many conservative Catholics who will not support Romney because they focus on abortion, gay marriage, and other such issues. The Catholics are either of more recent immigrant background or they are French Canadians, who flocked into the state from Quebec after 1850 to work in the mills. These groups overlap, of course, as either an Evangelical or a Catholic might be a Tea Party activist. The big question going into this primary is whether Santorum can galvanize this constituency, and rise well above his current c. 10% in the polls. In theory, he could easily get double that and challenge Ron Paul for second place.

New Hampshire has no really large cities, but of course there are also urban-based Republicans, typically the small businessmen and lawyers. They are worried mostly about economic issues, and they also will likely support Romney, though some will go for Gingrich.

But the New Hampshire primary also has another factor that is hard to figure. Independent voters, i.e. those who are not registered with either of the parties, can and often do vote in the primary. This means that a large number of moderates will be casting their votes in New Hampshire, and this too tends to favor Romney and work against most of his opponents, with the exception of Huntsman, who is also a moderate.  In 2008 such voters seemed to have swung to Hillary Clinton in the last two days before the primary, which many mistakenly thought Obama would win. This time around the Independents might once again change the result. But will the Independents go for Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum, or perhaps Huntsman? It is hard to tell, and thus all the more interesting to watch.

I worked in the New Hampshire primary for Senator Eugene McCarthy back in 1968. His central issue was opposition to the Vietnam War, and  he was running against Lyndon Johnson, a sitting president. McCarthy shocked the nation by winning over 42% of the vote.  Technically, he lost, but LBJ withdrew from the election not long afterwards.  By the same token, eveyone expects Romney to win big. He risks winning by too small a margin. Anything below 35% will be regarded as a poor showing.  Fortunately for him but unfortunately for the Republican Party, the opposition is divided, and none of them has even remotely the stature of Eugene McCarthy.

The Coming US Government Shutdown

After the American Century

In another triumph of ideology over practicality, the Republicans are refusing the compromise on the budget, and seem now almost certain to force the United States government into a shutdown. What does this mean, for ordinary people?

For government employees, it means a forced vacation, for which they will be paid later. They may suffer a little bit if they have little cash on hand, but long-term they will be OK, financially speaking. But they will be frustrated knowing that important services are not being provided to the public.

For it is the public that suffers most in such a situation. Anyone who planned to travel to or from the US may be affected, because the passport and visa operations come to a halt. Anyone without a valid passport will just have to stay home. Foreigners, who typically do not apply for a visa to the US until shortly before traveling there, might be able to get a visa, but do not count on it. So the travel industry will be affected.

Suppose, however, that you are a foreign traveler who does get to the US. What will a government shutdown mean? All the national parks will be closed, for one thing, so forget the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and all the others. You can still see Niagara Falls, however, as the best views are from the Canadian side. Virginia's Natural Bridge is privately owned, and therefore will be open. Quite likely all those Washington DC museums will be closed too, but you can still see dinosaurs wandering the halls of Congress, and various human oddities in federal office buildings. 

For a look at really strange evolutionary life forms, however, go by the headquarters of the Republican Party. There you may catch sight of such rarities as homo gingrichiensis, a grubby self-inflating hypocrite that almost became extinct in the 1990s, but has been reconstituted from DNA found in Georgia.

Another politically endangered species, once thought unable to survive in Washington is the candidatus mormonus. Once a polygamous rarity confined to Utah, this creature has been seen as far east as Massachusetts. Moreover, they are hard working and can be trained.

But perhaps the most interesting new life form on view at the Republican National Headquarters is a species of rodent that scientists have discovered subsists primarily on tea. These creatures are definitely worth seeing, but caution is advised as they can be extremely aggressive. Do not be deceived into assuming they are harmless by their careful grooming. A particularly venomous variety carries the Bachmann worm, which attacks the brain, and if not treated in time leads to imbecility.

Despite the possible shutdown of the US government, in short, there are still rare sights to be seen in Washington, even if the museums and parks will likely be closed.

CRACPOT: Republican Party Needs a New Name

After the American Century

It is usually best to call things by their right names. There once was a political party in the United States called the Republican Party, which proudly nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. That party would never have considered nominating a bird-brain like Sarah Palin. It was called, affectionately, The Grand Old Party. It made mistakes, of course, but it was the essentially the party of the North, of development, of education, and of fairness, notably in the politics of Teddy Roosevelt. TR was far from perfect, but he did attack corporate monopolies, he often took the side of labor, and he believed passionately in conservation.

The so-called Republican Party of today is not at all the party of Lincoln or of Teddy Roosevelt. It is an angry party, a party of negative campaigning, a party that courts religious fundamentalism, a party that nominates candidates with extremist views. I strongly doubt that Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt would have voted for their candidates in the 2010 election. They were too modern in their thinking. 

The truth is that the Republican Party has become the Christian Capitalist Conservative Party, or CCCP . However, that abbreviation refers to the Communist Party in Russia. So we cannot use it. This new party has its power base is in the old confederacy. Get out a map showing where the slaves were most numerous, and it coincides perfectly with the states that are most staunchly Republican. I am not saying they are racists or that they are Bible beating yahoos, but they are strong in the areas where such people are to be found.

Indeed, if one looks at a map of the election results for the nation as a whole, broken down by county, it is immediately obvious that the Republicans are strongest in the countryside. The Democrats win Chicago, New York City, LA, Philadelphia, and so on, but they lose all those rural counties where people confuse socialism with any form of public services. 

So let me propose a new name for the Republicans, one that expresses their true nature:

Christian Rural American Conservative Party of Tea:   

CRACPOT

The name CRACPOT is accurate and descriptive. It is much needed in order to clarify who we are dealing with.

I therefore propose that CRACPOT be used from now on.

Obama After 18 Months

After the American Century

It has only been eighteen months since George Bush left the White House, but already the American public seems to be suffering from amnesia. The American economy is not recovering quickly from its near collapse under Bush, and this weakness is nevertheless laid at Obama’s door. His popularity has fallen below 50% for some time now. The great bank bailout has been reasonably successful, with much of the money being paid back, yet many Americans talk about the bailout as though it was not a loan but a permanent part of the national debt. The re-regulation of Wall Street has gone through Congress, yet Republicans proclaim that Obama has now hobbled the capitalist horse. (For a reality check, consider the Canadian banks which did not need a bailout because they were restrained by sensible legislation.)

And then there is the endlessly repeated, and endlessly stupid, claim that the health care bill is socialistic. This would be silly if so many did not believe it. If Obama really had created a socialistic health care system then (1) he would have  given free medical care to all citizens and permanent residents, in exchange for higher taxes, (2) he would have put all doctors and nurses in public hospitals on the government payroll, and (3) prescription medicine would be free or heavily subsidized.  This is pretty much what the health care system looks like in Denmark, England, or Germany. But the Obama plan did not do any of these things. It made health care available to all, in exchange for payment to private insurers. It left hospitals under the same management as before, and so forth. The Obama plan is an improvement, but it is not much like a European plan.

My American readers might recall that they do have socialistic elements in their government, notably the fire departments which are paid for by everyone and put out all fires regardless of where they are or whose property it is. The theory seems to be that minimizing conflagrations is a good thing for the neighborhood. Free public libraries are also rather socialistic, though this did not stop that famous capitalist Andrew Carnegie from building quite a few of them. Then there are those terribly socialistic institutions, the free public schools, and so on.

Today’s column clearly has only that most general of subjects, the instability of American public opinion, which so often is based not on logic but pavlovian  responses to key words and silly phrases. The circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum  once said that no one ever went broke because he underestimated the American public. By November all too many Americans will be convinced that not Bush but Obama undermined the economy by over-spending the budget, letting the banks get out of control, and imposing a “socialistic health” care system. But it was Bush who cut taxes, especially for the wealthy and then overspent the budget by billions in the unfinanced wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was the Bush Administration that failed to keep a watchful eye on the banks and Wall Street, until the economy was near collapse before the 2008 election even took place.

In American political culture, eighteen months is a long time, and some seem to have trouble seeing cause and effect, or separating substance form allegation. It is not easy to be President in the best of times, and far harder than in the present. On the whole, Obama has done a good job. But Americans are an impatient people, and in the off year elections the party that lost the last time usually makes at least a partial comeback. We shall see. 

Republican Demonology: Return of the Paranoid Style in American Politics

After the American Century

The Republicans are a party possessed, a party that has rediscovered the paranoid style that periodically rears its illogical head in American politics. Such paranoia is not new but tends to emerge at moments of historical transition such as the 1830s/1840s, when the US confronted the sectional crisis and industrialization.

A paranoid fear of change also was a strong undercurrent in the politics of the 1920s, when millions joined the KKK, not just in the South but all sections of the US. Nor was the Klan the only expression of paranoia during those years, which also saw immigration restriction, Prohibition, and the anti-evolutionary "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee.

The paranoid style reappeared again in anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s. Sometimes labeled McCarthyism, this movement briefly was dominant in the halls of Congress. McCarthy was convinced that communists had infiltrated everywhere and were about to destroy the nation. He warned of "a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."

Today, the paranoid style is alive and well, personified in the often incoherent rhetoric of Sarah Palin and the "Tea Party" groups who are convinced that the US is about to succumb to totalitarianism (the Democrats) and/or socialism. The danger is emerging that the Republican Party as a whole may fall into the pit of paranoid delusions. This did not happen in the 1950s, in good part because President Eisenhower did not make common cause with Senator McCarthy. Ike was fundamentally a sane person and a centrist in politics.

But there are signs that the Republicans of today lack Eisenhower's sensibilities. Leaders of the Republican Party have made statements in recent days suggesting that they have achieved a hallucinatory consensus among themselves.

Consider the image used by the Repubican Natinonal Committee to raise money for the November 2010 elections. It shows Nancy Pelosi against a background of red flames with the caption "Fire Pelosi." It looks very much like they want to burn her at the stake as a witch. (This image was removed sometime after I wrote this words, to be replaced by an image of Pelosi looking rather manic with a raised fist.)  Sadly, Arthur Miller is not around to comment on the original image, but perhaps we will see a revival of his still very pertinent play about the Salem Witchcraft trials, The Crucible.

In the image Pelosi looks threatening, both arms raised, fists clenched. Republicans are encouraged to see her as a demon from hell. But it seems to me that the Republicans are projecting their own fears, that they themselves are possessed, and that they face the danger of political damnation.

It seems that the United States cannot entirely escape its origins in the seventeenth century.

Shame on the Republicans

After the American Century

President Jimmy Carter has bluntly said what many people were thinking: that Republicans, including many sitting on Capitol Hill, have been showing a great deal of disrespect for the office of the president, as well as for President Obama personally. This seems especially clear to those Americans, like myself, who live abroad in constitutional monarchies. It would be unthinkable and socially completely unacceptable for someone to scream at the Danish queen during a speech that she was lying. Anyone who did that would be universally condemned, by all parties.

When Americans chose to be a republic, after there unhappy relationship to the British kings, the founders knew that the president would have to play a double role, as chief executive and as head of state. Some presidents have done this more successfully than others, of course, and the United States was fortunate to begin with George Washington for eight years.

Preserving civility and good manners is probably not the strong point of Americans generally, but it is important to try to show respect for those with whom one disagrees, and it is vital that a party that loses an election, as the Republicans did, respect the will of the people and try to work constructively as legislators. History will not be kind to the Republicans currently in office, however. I feel fairly certain of this, being a historian. Taking the long view, they are not behaving wisely.

Instead, we see an increasing tendency to rabble rousing, false slogans, and denial. Shame on the Republicans.

Republicans Spent Much More on Iraq War Than Obama Wants for Stimulus Package

After the American Century

Those who thought I was too hard on the Republican Party yesterday might want to read Paul Krugman's column today. He also feels that their proposal to substitute tax cuts for spending is a failed Bush policy.

Elsewhere in today's New York Times there is an interesting story about the Japanese economy during the 1990s, when it went into deflation. Then the Japanese government spent a great deal of money on economic stimulus, and there is considerable debate about whether this was successful or not. But one thing is clear. Not all stimulus money is equally effective. Money spent on infrastructure gave the least bang for the yen, while money spent on education was the most beneficial. The test should be whether spending will develop new skills (education), new capacities (spreading broadband more widely), or renew the population (e.g. preventive health care). Such things make the economy more resilient. The least effective way to stimulate the economy is to build more weapons. A row of tanks worth a billion dollars for the most part just sits there, and never creates any new wealth.

However, if you a Republican, then a row of tanks represents a chance to wreck not just one economy, but two, as the economic cost of the Iraq war comes to mind. According to an article in the Washington Post last March, the total cost of that conflict will be more than $1.5 trillion, perhaps even as high as $3 trillion. Thus the Republican Party gladly spent at least twice as much on that war as the Democrats want to use to stimulate the American economy. Is there any logic to Republican thinking? The Republicans have destroyed billions in resources in the deserts of the Middle East, but they will not invest in the future of their own country. They have used billions to defend access to foreign oil, but they will not spend money on green energy which could free the US from dependence on that oil.

A paranoid on the far right might think that subversives (call them economic terrorsits) who hate the United States have infiltrated the Republican Party and twisted its thinking so it will embrace policies that are destructive to the United States. Not being anywhere near that paranoid, I can only conclude that the Republicans are illogical and that they choose badly.

The Republican Desire for Disaster

After the American Century

In the last month it has become clear: Republicans want disaster. They want the economy to get so much worse that the public will forget who got them into this economic mess. They are willing to let millions of people lose their jobs and their homes, if only it will take the heat off them and make Obama look like the culprit. How else can one explain the fact that all Republican members of the House of Representatives voted against the stimulus package, even as virtually all economists, regardless of party affiliation, agree that the stimulus package is needed immediately? How else explain that the Senate Republicans seem ready to block the stimulus bill if they can?

The Republican Party may have become irrelevant, and it may be time for Americans to ask themselves if such a party really ought to survive. The death of major political parties is a rare event in US politics, and one has to go back to pre-Civil War times to find an example, when the Whig Party foundered and died rather suddenly, because it could not deal with the sectional crisis. The Republicans emerged as their replacement, and this very year we are celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. But as noted earlier in this space, Lincoln would not recognize his party today. He had no Southern support at all, and won what are now called the blue states. Today's Republicans are not the heirs of Lincoln, and conceivably the public will realize this.

The Republicans have moved from irresponsible leadership to irresponsible opposition, and they are quickly losing any meaningful relationship to the emerging majority of the American public. They have lost more than two thirds of the support of Blacks, Hispanics, scientists, and humanists. Even those who used to support them such as doctors and even many stockbrokers are deserting the party. They need to change, or they ought to die, and do so quickly, so another party can take their place. I know, it will probably never happen. Yet at present they are a ball and chain tied to the body politic. They are a useless mass of backward thinkers, with nasty political practices, and they have strong tendencies to xenophobia and red-baiting. Their ranks are rotten with anti-evolutionary and anti-science neanderthals. Indeed, their very persistence as a party may be a kind of proof that human evolution has not taken place. More than half of them actually thought Sarah Palin was qualified. Doubtless, they will long survive because so many of them are so narrow and ill-educated that they cannot change. But can the US remain a world power chained to such a throwback party?

Bush's Email-gate

After the American Century

As President Bush prepares to leave Washington, we begin to think about his legacy. Unfortunately, full evaluation of his eight years in office may be difficult because he has not kept good records. In 2003 the White House was busy with many things, including the build-up to the Iraq War. The records from that year might be particularly interesting to historians, and they are crucial to understanding how the Bush government decided, mistakenly, that weapons of mass destruction were being hidden by Saddam Hussein. However, much of the email from that year, perhaps 225 days, may be lost. Electronic accident? or expunged?

The losses begin, conveniently enough, during the build-up to the Iraq War . The missing mail also includes records related to the CIA-leak case, in which White House personnel "outed" one of their own agents, apparently as political revenge. This led to the prosecution and conviction of "Scooter" Libby, one of Dick Cheney's closest aids.

Some email has also apparently disappeared for 2004 and 2005, perhaps as many as 5 million pages in all, according to CREW, a non-profit watchdog organization concerned with ethics in government. However, it is possible that all this material still exists in White House servers - but no one writing about this on the Internet seems to know. In fact, if all the emails are entirely lost from every server, that result almost required systematic record destruction

The Federal Records Act requires the preservation of all presidential papers, including emails. Yet it appears that George Bush and his team have been both careless in preservation and lax in recovery efforts. In contrast, the Clinton White House had an automatic archiving system that made copies of all emails. When the Bush team chose a new email system in 2002, however, they did not include automatic archiving. Instead, each email had to be manually renamed and saved. This sounds like a ludicrous, make-work program most of the time, but also it also potentially provides a chance to omit the damaging email now and again. But 225 days in one year? Perhaps 473 days in all? 5 million messages?

Such incompetence (or is it the intentional loss of damaging information?) may be hard to believe. But then these are Republicans. A Republican President, Richard Nixon, erased vital parts of the Watergate tapes. In the Irangate scandal, the Reagan White House, tried (unsuccessfully) to erase incriminating information as well. There is a pattern here, and it should more than embarrass the Republicans. There appear to be grounds for a criminal investigation, because the Bush Administration was aware of the problem already in 2002, but failed to fix it for six years. During most of the two Bush terms, many people may have been able to delete emails from their accounts or even from the servers. Historians will not be able to trust this partial record.

At the same time, Dick Cheney at times has been doing official business using a private email account. This is illegal because it skirts the legal requirements of the Federal Records Act, and makes it even easier to eliminate anything illegal, incriminating or embarrassing.

The Bush White House has systematically undermined the record keeping process. The legacy of these eight years is apparently rife with evasion and destruction of evidence. Will anyone be prosecuted?

For a chronology of this unfolding scandal and more information, go to The National Security Archive.

The Republican Economy Needs a Federal Referee

After the American Century

Some months ago I criticized the Bush Administration's decision to give money to taxpayers across the board, rather than focus it where the real need was, in the mortgage market. It was clear to me, but apparently not clear to Republicans, that home forecloseurs threatened the whole economy. In the last week this truth has been demonstrated with frightening clarity. Two of the oldest and largest and once most respected investment houses in the United States have disappeared. Lehman Brothers has gone bankrupt and Merrill Lynch has been purchased by Bank of America. Both got into trouble because the Republicans refused to regulate investment bankers, which meant that a large part of the economy escaped scrutiny from the Federal Government. This created an uneven playing field, where regular banks played by different rules than investment houses that went into banking. A great many irresponsible mortgages were approved. A housing bubble emerged and expanded - and then popped during Bush II's second term.

Bear Stearns was the first big investment bank to collapse, and the Feds brokered a deal to sell it off for a fraction of what had been its value. Quite properly, the regulators did not bail it out. But the underlying problem of unregulated investment banks making risky loans did not go away. In fact, so many people had been encouraged to buy property that they could not afford,that the Feds soon had to rescue Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, as the two giant mortgage companies were known. These had functioned without serious problems for generations before the Republican true believers in unfettered capitalism let the investment banks run wild. Like athletes on steroids, they bloated up rapidly and looked powerful, but a mere slowdown in the economy, not even a major recession, put them in trouble. The home owners who went into foreclosure ended up dragging down to ruin some of the (once) most respected banking houses in the world. The end is not yet in sight.

Last night the Federal regulators reluctantly came to the rescue of the American International Group, the largest insurance company in the US. A "loan" of$85 billion dollars. I call that welfare for the capitalists. If the Bush Administration followed the logic of deregulation, then it ought to let any such mismanaged company go into bankruptcy, as Lehman Brothers did. But no one dared. The economic truth is that the markets for insurance and investments and real estate are now tied together in so many intricate ways that a gigantic failure like that would start an avalanche that no later intervention could stop. It would be 1929 once again.

For the mismanaged Bush economy is by no means out of the mess that the Republicans have created, both as lawmakers against investment bank regulation and as the the party of Wall Street. If McCain were elected, one can expect more of the same mismanagement. He has never been a supporter of regulation, but rather when things go wrong he has intoned against "greed on Wall Street." Such moralism appeals to non-investors on small incomes, but it is hypocritical for McCain to pretend that the whole problem is due to a few greedy people. McCain and the Republicans generally, do not want to recognize the need for government. On the highway we need police to regulate traffic, so that reckless drivers do not cause major accidents. In the same way, Wall Street banks need some limits (try collateral) and safety controls (such as larger minimum cash reserves) so that foolish loans do not wreck the financial system. Instead, they are rushing in after the fact with an $85 billion bailout, guaranteed by the taxpayers.

McCain naively believes in "market discipline." That is like saying he expects football players not to be rough if there are no referees. Actually, McCain seems to believe in a system in which potential referees can accept payments from players. The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign has received large contributions from investment bankers, including more than $300,000 from individuals working for Merrill Lynch. His contributors are the very people he now condemns for being greedy capitalists.

Senator Obama, in contrast, back in March was calling for investment bank regulation. He has consistently done so. In the current economic meltdown, it is well to remember how well the economy was doing from 1992-200o, when the Democrats were in charge. More than one million new jobs were created each year during the Clinton Administration, and the budget was in surplus, with the national debt rapidly disappearing. In the Clinton economy almost everyone was better off. Obama is calling for a return to that tax system, which did ask wealthy people to pay more, but they ultimately also benefited from growth and a strong economy.

George W. Bush dismantled that system, which was working so well. Americans now have an economy where everyone is losing. Homes are losing value, stocks are falling, and jobs are disappearing. Bush will be remembered as a president who failed both domestically and in foreign affairs. McCain, who voted with Bush II 90% of the time, offers more of the same.