There’s an interesting article in Newsweek on Republicans supporting Obama. These are not people who are angry that it appears the nomination will not go to someone who is regarded as soundly conservative. They are inspired by Barack Obama.
Tag: 2008 U. S. Presidential Election
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Information, Laziness, and Voting
News stories this morning pointed out that Romney outspent Huckabee 6 to 1 in Iowa, yet in the end it wasn’t enough for a win. It’s interesting that the expectation is that spending is equal to votes. It’s unfortunate that it’s often quite true.
Voters frequently complain about the behavior of candidates–too many sound bites, too many negative ads, too much fluff, too few hard proposals. It’s good for voters to be concerned. But the bottom line is that the candidates are going to do what works, that is what gets them elected. If negative ads didn’t work, candidates wouldn’t be using them so much. Now there certainly are times when there is a backlash because of excessively negative ads, or too many of them. But to a large extent, the mud sticks.
There is also a perfectly good place for the negative in a campaign. If a candidate has lied or broken promises before, it should be known. A negative ad can point this out. But there is also a great deal of room for spin, and 30-60 second ads don’t leave much room for nuances. Take the issue of Governor Huckabee and the number of prisoners whose sentences he commuted while governor. How a governor uses the power to pardon people or commute sentences is surely a valid subject for discussion when that candidate seeks re-election or runs for another office. I see no problem with an opponent pointing out such behavior in an ad.
But then there is the issue of context. Numbers don’t always mean what they appear to mean on the surface. Were there more opportunities for pardons or commutations? What reasoning was used? Can you point to specific cases of particular bad judgment? All of those are valid questions. Unfortunately, cynical voters tend to just focus on whether the ad was negative or positive.
Since I am not a Republican (I’m registered independent), I only took a brief look at this issue, but based on that I suspect this issue would end up fairly neutral for me. In other words, I’d disagree with some of what he did, but I wouldn’t regard it as abuse. Were I a Republican voter in an upcoming primary, however, I’d be digging much deeper in order to either confirm that early impression or not. Should he be the Republican nominee, you can be sure I will know.
I am angered by vague positive ads. Everybody’s in favor of “change.” Yet I’m reminded of this scene in C. S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
“But that would be putting the clock back,” gasped the Governor. “Have you no idea of progress, of development?”
“I have seen them both in an egg,” said Caspian. We call it Going bad in Narnia. This trade must stop.”Match the “time for a change” ads with the “make our country great again” ads, which generally don’t give one any hint of just what greatness consists of and how it is that we will attain that greatness. But you play these ads enough times with patriotic music and a flag waving in the background, and people who have no idea what the candidate stands for remember his name in favorable terms. Our problem is that we are not reading, listening, and viewing critically.
The fact is, however, that we as voters really have no excuse not to get the information we need. I have been searching for information on the candidates’ positions on health care, in preparation for my next post in my series “What I want for election day . . .” Now for some candidates there is very little information there, but that in itself is significant information. The Association of Health Care Journalists reported that of the 14 candidates who were in the race when I first read the page, nine had released a health care proposal and only three had responded to a series of questions from the association. (Two candidates have dropped out of the race since I extracted that information.)
Obviously candidates have no obligation to respond to a questionnaire from any particular organization, but it does give an indication of the interest level. The site also provides one with an easy way to access information from the candidates themselves through their web sites. Now I haven’t finished my own research, and I’m not vouching for the accuracy of their list–I’m just using it for illustration.
My question is how many voters will actually read these health care proposals and ask how they would work? I congratulate candidates on putting out proposals that one can evaluate. But if the voters just respond to ads that announce things like “I’m in favor of health care for all” or “I believe we must preserve complete choice in American health care,” they won’t really know what is likely to happen should their candidate have his or her way. Not every proposal will accomplish what it claims it will.
There is simply no reason why money should be so influential. We have the means to spread information on every candidate for very little money, and if the voters took the time to seek out the information, instead of waiting for 30 second spots which by nature cannot truly inform, then the money would have much less influence.
I don’t think that candidate spending, (big money, or whatever you wish to call it), lobbyists, or the mainstream media can be blamed for a misinformed electorate. I think the only reason for the electorate as a whole to be misinformed is that not enough voters wish to be adequately and accurately informed. The information is available if you seek it out. If you’re going to vote, I can think of no adequate excuse for you to enter that voter booth uninformed.
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A Reason Not to Vote for Huckabee
Well, I wasn’t going to vote for [tag]Mike Huckabee[/tag] anyhow, and since I’m not Republican he’d have to get the Republican nomination before it would get on my horizon, but still here’s another reason:
Chuck Norris has endorsed him.
I last mentioned Chuck Norris in my post Sneaking God into Public Schools.
On the other hand, [tag]Fred Thompson[/tag] gave what I regard as a good, thoughtful response to a question about Terri Schiavo. In general, many of the things that the media is complaining about with regard to Thompson, I regard as positives. Again, not being a Republican, I don’t have a dog in that hunt, but it’s nice to hear some thoughtful, nuanced answers. The media prefers sound bites, but the voters–and thus viewers, readers, and listeners–should demand better.
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Predicting Hillary Derangement Syndrome
Jeremy Pierce is predicting that if [tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag] wins the presidency, some folks, particularly evangelical Christians, will be subject to Hillary Derangement Syndrome (HT: evangelical outpost).
His note reminded me of a political science professor from whom I took a few classes. He would regularly tell us that if we felt that our lives would be irreparably damaged should the other party win the next election, we were too invested in politics.
I think he is almost completely right. The part I wonder about in his post is this:
I don’t think we’ve ever seen a phenomenon quite like this until the current president. A lot of people who didn’t like Bill Clinton said lots of nasty things about him, especially evangelical Christians who should have obeyed the Bible a little more carefully with regard to respecting those in governmental leadership under God. But I don’t think it was anything like the kind of irrationality I’ve seen over the current president. . . .
I disagree, at least for this part of the world. I’m in the Florida Panhandle which voted quite overwhelmingly for Bush. I should note also that a significant part of the opposition to Bush seems to have been to the right rather than the left. (I exaggerate, or at least I hope I do.)
Around these parts The last 15 years have sounded about the same–just exchange people and positions. While [tag]Bill Clinton[/tag] was president he was pretty much the anti-Christ, or at least his precursor. When Bush became president, the shift to the left with much the same rhetoric hardly seemed to make any difference. I don’t think the standard has been set during this presidency. I think it was already set. Many of the same people who hated Bill Clinton that much will be well prepared should Hillary be elected.
We would perhaps do well to ponder the consequences of this type of attitude if harbored too long. On the other hand, I may just spend my time laughing at folks who get way more worked up than I do. It’s hard to tell.
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What I Want for Election Day – A Counter-Terror Strategy
It’s getting within a quarter or so of the first votes, so I thought I’d put in a few posts on what I, as a self-proclaimed moderate independent want for election day. I have to note that it doesn’t look thus far like I’m going to get it, but one can always wish, no?
The great weakness of our candidates, I believe, is that they lack any evidence of strategic thinking on dealing with terror. From one side we are hearing the “we’re in a war” beat, and we are told that we will go hunt terrorists for however long it takes and wherever they are hidden. What we are not told is how this strategy is ever to come to a close, or how the resources for such a strategy are to be provided.
On the other hand we have those who would pull out of [tag]Iraq[/tag]–an option devoutly to be desired in my view. At the same time, they haven’t laid out any long term plan that would substantially reduce or eliminate terrorism as a threat in the world. Iraq was a bad idea. Whether you are just plain anti-war, or simply prefer your wars to accomplish something, you can get on board with that. Incidentally, I would also like to see the withdrawal accompanied by an assessment of just what a foreign army can actually accomplish in Iraq, no matter how good that army is, and a measurement against that realistic standard. “Unified and democratic” isn’t likely to be on that list of potential objectives.
On the domestic front, it seems to me that we are in the business of kind of patching this or that element up haphazardly. What does a nation that is alert to [tag]terrorism[/tag], has the law enforcement and intelligence capabilities to detect such attacks, and can deal with the legal aftermath look like?
On the Republican side, it seems to me to look more and more like a terrorist state, where we just “trust” the executive branch of the government to do the right thing without any sort of accountability. More law enforcement is no good unless it is also smarter law enforcement. What will it be like to live in this country at the end of the process? I suspect that most of these candidates haven’t really thought about that. On the Democratic side, many candidates are interested in protecting our rights, but what precisely are they going to do instead?
I could suggest many things such as a large increase in the number of linguists and specialists in Middle Eastern culture in our government and intelligence agencies. Our current strategy and intelligence shows a great lack in that area. I’m not talking about a minor change–I’m talking about a massive increase. That is just one thing that I think is not being given the attention that it deserves. There are many others.
Do I personally have a strategy to propose? Not in detail, but then I’m not running for president. I can certainly tell you the key priorities of such a strategy.
- Military action limited to responses to attacks and search and destroy for specific terrorist targets. War is only a potential under the strict standards that require a short period of time and a clear improvement to result.
- Eliminate the option to prescribe a government for other countries. Let them figure it out, even if a dictatorship results. When the issue is genocide, respond with the international community, not unilaterally.
- Increase in law enforcement personnel and equipment. Much of the money being spent on Iraq would have been much better spent in this country. There are techniques and and technologies available to make travel much safer.
- Strong emphasis on intelligent intelligence.
- Education, education, education, both for personal safety and a better understanding of the world. We need a shift from a purely North-American/European emphasis in our historical and cultural education, to a greater inclusion of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American material.
- Constant accountability. Nobody should be able to spend money, or more importantly kill people without having some responsible layers of accountability. Executive privilege and “state secrets” are being way overused. Some people may think this makes them safer, but instead it makes the agencies involved lazier, and less likely to pursue the highest probability activities.
I don’t want much, do I?
I’ll continue over the next few weeks with occasional posts on what I’d like to see in presidential and congressional candidates. Right now, I expect to be wearing a figurative clothespin on my nose when I go to the polls.
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Another Conservative View on Thompson
Reformed Chicks Blabbing reports that [tag]James Dobson[/tag] won’t support [tag]Fred Thompson[/tag], with the last straw apparently being his support for a constitutional amendment on gay marriage that falls well short of conservative hopes. I now see what I missed before. Thompson supports an amendment that prevents states from being forced to recognize gay marriages from other states. Social conservatives want to ban gay marriage completely.
I would suggest that federalism is a balance, and that the “full faith and credit” clause is not something that should be done away with lightly. Since one can move freely from state to state, just what is a gay couple married in Massachusetts, for example, supposed to do if work moves them to Alabama? (I resist the suggestion that they flee the country or at least change jobs rather than make such a move!) Nonetheless I find Thompson’s approach far more rational than that of other Republicans.
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Fred Thompson, Conservatism, and Federalism
Joe Carter is losing some of his first love for [tag]Fred Thompson[/tag]. He says:
Now I’m not so certain. His views of the federal marriage amendment, the Schiavo case, and his general position on federalism are troubling. For me, conservatism trumps federalism, while the position Thompson endorses seem to reverse that order.
On the fundamental point, I agree with Carter. [tag]Federalism[/tag] is not essentially conservative or liberal. It’s simply a way that we divide power. But I must say that this tendency on the part of Thompson, of which I wasn’t aware, makes me much more likely to look at him myself. I’m afraid I don’t see why conservatives would be annoyed by his view on the [tag]federal marriage amendment[/tag] (I would oppose any federal amendment on this issue), and his view on the Schiavo case, insofar as I’ve read it, is right on.
I’m an advocate of federalism, and even believe we should roll back a significant amount of the centralization that we have done thus far, and I’m somewhere center-left on social issues and lean libertarian otherwise. I guess that makes me a poster child for the “federalism is not essentially conservative” view.
The main reason I wanted to call attention to this post, however, is because it expresses conservative goals much more clearly than many others. Some believe that one should vote for conservatives as a way to support federalism. In fact, social conservatives see their socially conservative goals as more important than the constitutional form of government and the 10th amendment in particular.
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Empathizing with Alan Greenspan
From a Newsweek interview via MSNBC:
Interviewer: Who would you like to win next year?
Greenspan: Is one of the choices leaving the office open?Yeah, me too.
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As Long as They’re Not Saying Anything
. . . why should I listen?
This story from MSNBC discusses how Fred Thompson upstaged the Republican debate. Since I’m an independent, these debates are generally of limited interest to me, though I do like to follow the candidates so as to have prior knowledge about the nominees.
What surprised me here was that anyone would think that people might be more interested in the debate than in the new announcement. For the moment, Thompson has one advantage over everyone else: He’s new. We will all wait anxiously (well, not so much me) to see if he’ll say anything substantially different. If (I suspect “when”) he doesn’t, we can go back to being bored.
As long as we put up with this sort of campaign with canned talking points that are rolled out in answer to every question we’ll just get more of it. We need some free-for-all presidential debates in which candidates can’t dodge the questions and in which they’ll be told outright that they didn’t answer a question when they don’t.
OK, enough whining I think! Back to our regular programming.
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Campaign Finance, Enforceability, and Free Speech
It has become fairly well established in current law, as I understand it, that election financing can be regulated quite substantially without violating free speech. Some of the boundary areas are not so well defined, and regulation of those who are not connected organizationally to any candidate has been held unconstitutional in at least some cases.
Recently, a liberal blogger filed a complaint against Fred Thompson for conducting activities that were inappropriate for an undeclared candidate. (HT: First Read [MSNBC].)
Now I’m not a supporter of Fred Thompson for president. I think it is vanishingly unlikely that I will vote for him. Nonetheless, I think that campaign finance reform is an area where we have taken a situation that was problematic, and made it much worse through legislation. Having politicians bought and paid for by various special interests, whether they are corporations, unions, or large special interest organizations is something that should concern us all.
That, and reducing the cost of elections, is the impetus behind campaign finance reform. We are told that if we keep individual contributions small and limit total expenditure, we will somehow make elections better. Well, it hasn’t happened. What we now have is a kind of game between the politicians to see who can get the biggest boost not allowed to his opponent from the existing laws. And those laws are not very clear, precise, or logical. What exactly is the difference between testing the waters and campaigning, anyhow? Sure the law tries to give criteria, but frankly those criteria look to me like an invitation to lengthy debate and possibly litigation, which is, in fact, what has happened in many cases.
I doubt that any amount of campaign finance reform is going to work, short of the voters deciding to hold politicians accountable for what they say and what they do. I know, I’ve said that about just about everything that we try to do about politicians. But it seems to me that there is nothing that could not be resolved through responsible voting, and at the same time there is no solution to corruption in elections if we do not have responsible voting citizens. All we have done through campaign finance reform and term limits is spread the corruption around and put different labels on it.
There are those who are saying simply that this is the law, and Fred Thompson ought to obey it. But is Fred Thompson truly testing the waters, or is he a real candidate? A great deal of the accusations against him stem from his collecting too much money–something that indicates popularity, and his position near the lead. But he has not, in fact, done all those things the other candidates have, and I don’t think we can make assumptions about the result.
Do we generally care if it’s just the law? I’m guessing that some of the folks who think that the election laws are “just the law” and we should live with them don’t take the same approach to immigration. There the laws are broken and need to be fixed, and we shouldn’t criminalize the people who are living within them. Now you may think these are unfair comparisons, but I have a specific point on which I think they are parallel. We each have some area of the law which we think is so messed up that even honest people doing their best to live lawfully find themselves entangled.
When a law results in otherwise honest people becoming lawbreakers, we should at least reexamine it to see if it’s doing what it should be doing. I think this has happened in the case of immigration. There are areas where workers are unavailable legally, and so people have gotten calloused about hiring them illegally. At a certain point enforcement, while attractive, is unlikely to be successful within a reasonable expenditure of resources. Reform of the law is necessary, and one of the aims of reform must be enforceability.
Similarly I think our election laws have gotten way off course. We are now entrusting a government that can’t be trusted to count ballots properly with monitoring finances and keeping them honest. I think that too much of the energy of a campaign now goes into satisfying legal proprieties. At the same time there are interesting loopholes. A person can spend as much of his own money as he desires, creating an opening favoring incredibly rich candidates.
Perhaps disclosure should be the law, thus allowing the voters to see where a candidate is getting his money. But without responsible voters–the ultimate enforcement in this case–that isn’t going to do much good.
I would say finally that the line between actually campaigning for office, political commentary, and political advocacy is a dangerous one. Personally, despite what the courts have ruled, I think we took a dangerous step when we first regulated speech even in elections. But when we step even further over that line, it becomes even more dangerous. Even though some of the nastiest material in an election comes from third parties, often folks we can’t be sure are unconnected to a candidate, I think that speech must be protected. Again, responsible reading and listening is the key.