Among the exchanges in the final presidential debate on Wednesday was one that illuminates a recurring asymmetry in how people align within our two-party politics. McCain challenged Obama to describe an instance where he stood up to the Democratic leadership:
MCCAIN: You have to tell me one time when you have stood up with the leaders of your party on one single major issue.
OBAMA: First of all, in terms of standing up to the leaders of my party, the first major bill that I voted on in the Senate was in support of tort reform, which wasn't very popular with trial lawyers, a major constituency in the Democratic Party...I support charter schools and pay for performance for teachers. Doesn't make me popular with the teachers union. I support clean coal technology. Doesn't make me popular with environmentalists. So I've got a history of reaching across the aisle.
The list is not short for lack of further content. Obama was not popular with civil libertarians when he voted to legalize illegal wiretapping and give immunity to the enabling phone companies. His support for faith-based initiatives does not please secularists. His promise to violate Pakistani sovereignty under certain conditions does not encourage those who oppose invasions (though few such people seem to be around anymore).
In these cases Obama is not crossing the Democratic Party leadership. He's crossing major constituencies of his party's loyal base. That's the asymmetry. Over the summer, Republican social conservatives harangued the McCain campaign for not throwing meat to the bible-thumpers. And now the civilized wing of the Republican party is pushing back against McCain's new eclecticism and Palin's airheadedness. Conservative constituencies stay loud and make demands upon their leaders. The Democratic hordes stay complacent and docile, talking every four years about how this election, this time, is too important to demand more than a lesser evil. It's truly difficult to find mainstream critiques of Obama from his left.
This pattern has stayed true for at least the last 12 years. The long-term implications are difficult to foretell, but the short-term effects will start to take the shape of a string of disappointments, starting within Obama's first 100 days.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Allure of Mystery
Obama has been consistently labeled as dangerous and unknown by the McCain campaign. They, I believe, seek to play on the Bradley effect and hope that a phrase like “thief in the night” and constant bombardment of xenophobic associations will arise subconsciously in November 4th.
This may work.
But to me, examined with full conscious intent, this only heightens my anticipation of a potential Obama presidency. You see I have recently been wary that rather than a van guard politician bringing youth and change to a nation, Obama was in fact what he so often seems: a gifted, if bland, politician recently converted to rank and file Washington politics. But the more I am told of Ayers the more I see potential in Obama. Ayers is interesting not as someone who founded the Weather Underground (of which I know exceedingly little), but rather as a leftist academic who attempts to achieve change in a huge urban education system. If Obama indeed is influenced by these views (rather than those of, say, say the republican president of Northwestern), then I think there is a great potential for significant and monumental change in this country.
And we have recently been given abundant verdict on the failure of our current, in a very large sense, direction.
This may work.
But to me, examined with full conscious intent, this only heightens my anticipation of a potential Obama presidency. You see I have recently been wary that rather than a van guard politician bringing youth and change to a nation, Obama was in fact what he so often seems: a gifted, if bland, politician recently converted to rank and file Washington politics. But the more I am told of Ayers the more I see potential in Obama. Ayers is interesting not as someone who founded the Weather Underground (of which I know exceedingly little), but rather as a leftist academic who attempts to achieve change in a huge urban education system. If Obama indeed is influenced by these views (rather than those of, say, say the republican president of Northwestern), then I think there is a great potential for significant and monumental change in this country.
And we have recently been given abundant verdict on the failure of our current, in a very large sense, direction.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Race effects
As the election approaches I'll be interested to see whether the Bradley effect, the gap between poll numbers and actual election results in races where one candidate is black, is in play. The gap has been a factor in a striking number of major races, especially through the 1980s and '90s, but has not been as clearly at work in more recent elections (though a number of those featured black Republicans, cases where many other weird effects are probably at work).
The Bradley effect is an index of the extent of subjective racism or overt prejudice, but also the degree to which prejudice is masked by political correctness--the result is race-anxious voters who don't want their anxiety to be known. If the Bradley effect is negligible this year on the way to an Obama win, it will be taken by a lot of people as one more sign that we are indeed a colorblind nation. The thing is that this elides over the objective component of racism, or "systematic" or "institutional" racism, in the admittedly tired vernacular of the left. I've written up some of my thoughts on the objective side of racism and the Obama campaign, and what I'll be particularly interested to see is how a possible Obama win will be integrated into the liberal narrative on race in America. It's a narrative that's been in flux--when Stephen Colbert chose colorblindness ('I don't see race. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police call me sir'...) as one of his tropes, he presumed a similar relationship to reality as he found with truthiness. But, especially as Obama went from a player in the primaries to the Democratic nominee, it feels like liberals really believe we're all judging each other according only to the content of our characters.
What's difficult to tell is whether the lack of a Bradley effect signifies more the eclipse of subjective racism, or the consolidated triumph of the ideology behind political correctness. If one is concerned about maintaining the appearance of a non-racist these days, it's much more important to observe PC strictures than it is to actually do or say anything that ameliorates racial inequality or anything like that. Similarly, Don Imus' nappy-headed ho comment arguably constituted, in the popular perception and as a matter of near-consensus, a greater violation of the American idea of racial harmony than did the racialized patterns of suffering left by Hurricane Katrina or the persecution of the Jena 6. In other words, in America these days racially-tinged gaffes are taken as truer indications of racism (or its absence) than any phenomena or patterns that require statistics or insight, rather than just one's ears, to notice.
One of the additional ironies of the Bradley effect is that it's measurement is made complicated by the fact that blacks are typically under-represented by traditional polling means, because of a relative deficit of stable addresses, phone lines, etc. It's almost like the continuing effects of objective racism make it harder to develop measures that might convince people that racism is behind us.
The Bradley effect is an index of the extent of subjective racism or overt prejudice, but also the degree to which prejudice is masked by political correctness--the result is race-anxious voters who don't want their anxiety to be known. If the Bradley effect is negligible this year on the way to an Obama win, it will be taken by a lot of people as one more sign that we are indeed a colorblind nation. The thing is that this elides over the objective component of racism, or "systematic" or "institutional" racism, in the admittedly tired vernacular of the left. I've written up some of my thoughts on the objective side of racism and the Obama campaign, and what I'll be particularly interested to see is how a possible Obama win will be integrated into the liberal narrative on race in America. It's a narrative that's been in flux--when Stephen Colbert chose colorblindness ('I don't see race. People tell me I'm white and I believe them, because police call me sir'...) as one of his tropes, he presumed a similar relationship to reality as he found with truthiness. But, especially as Obama went from a player in the primaries to the Democratic nominee, it feels like liberals really believe we're all judging each other according only to the content of our characters.
What's difficult to tell is whether the lack of a Bradley effect signifies more the eclipse of subjective racism, or the consolidated triumph of the ideology behind political correctness. If one is concerned about maintaining the appearance of a non-racist these days, it's much more important to observe PC strictures than it is to actually do or say anything that ameliorates racial inequality or anything like that. Similarly, Don Imus' nappy-headed ho comment arguably constituted, in the popular perception and as a matter of near-consensus, a greater violation of the American idea of racial harmony than did the racialized patterns of suffering left by Hurricane Katrina or the persecution of the Jena 6. In other words, in America these days racially-tinged gaffes are taken as truer indications of racism (or its absence) than any phenomena or patterns that require statistics or insight, rather than just one's ears, to notice.
One of the additional ironies of the Bradley effect is that it's measurement is made complicated by the fact that blacks are typically under-represented by traditional polling means, because of a relative deficit of stable addresses, phone lines, etc. It's almost like the continuing effects of objective racism make it harder to develop measures that might convince people that racism is behind us.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Top Lines of the Debate - A few are skewed ramblings!
by Nick Casady
M: Bailout - Let's call it a rescue!!!
M: Senator Obama, his cronies, his friends who gave out loans that would never be paid back.
O: Gotta Correct senator Mccain not suprisingly
M: Get rid of the Cronyism
M: What were the categories health? They are all important. Present day retireeess reach across isle russ fiengold ronald regan millions of new jobs clean coal tech, we can overcome, barak is putting 700 billion in the hands of terrorist organizations.
M: Not the overhead projector that Obama asked for
M: Nailing Jello to the wall. Lost 700,000 300,000 by small buisness. Obama will increase taxes 50%
Gold plated cadillac fantasy's i'm not looking for hair plugs
Did we hear the size of the fine (Acts like a weasel!)
We don't have time for on the job training my friend.
M: Requires a cool hand at the tiller
President Regan my hero
You know my hero is teddy roosevelt. Walk softly and carry a big stick!
I get follow ups too
O: The guy who sang bomb bomb bomb Iran
M: Bailout - Let's call it a rescue!!!
M: Senator Obama, his cronies, his friends who gave out loans that would never be paid back.
O: Gotta Correct senator Mccain not suprisingly
M: Get rid of the Cronyism
M: What were the categories health? They are all important. Present day retireeess reach across isle russ fiengold ronald regan millions of new jobs clean coal tech, we can overcome, barak is putting 700 billion in the hands of terrorist organizations.
M: Not the overhead projector that Obama asked for
M: Nailing Jello to the wall. Lost 700,000 300,000 by small buisness. Obama will increase taxes 50%
Gold plated cadillac fantasy's i'm not looking for hair plugs
Did we hear the size of the fine (Acts like a weasel!)
We don't have time for on the job training my friend.
M: Requires a cool hand at the tiller
President Regan my hero
You know my hero is teddy roosevelt. Walk softly and carry a big stick!
I get follow ups too
O: The guy who sang bomb bomb bomb Iran
The Debate.
At this point in the election I don’t feel like either candidate will make a move that significantly alters the momentum at any given time. I don’t think Obama will slip up; I don’t think McCain is willing to take the gambles necessary to get him a big win (Although all this terror bating stuff comes close).
This debate was fine on substance. I am not a fair evaluator of that part of the debate because I’m not undecided: I firmly believe that the orientation of Obama’s policies are better, and the discussion between the two candidates usually supports my opinions, in my opinion.
So, the interesting part of the debate comes from the elements of the debate that arise out side of the repetition of campaign talking points.
The way time limits came up offers an interesting insight. Obama would defy Brokow in the interest of defending his position (or being impetuous) and, on a single occasion, actually changed the format of the question. You could argue that this is childish, to me, though, he came through as adamant and assertive. Subconsciously, I think that this is important.
McCain always reacted to situations with humor. It is the quality of his humor that interests me. He comes across as between snide and self deprecating. And I’m not certain about his wandering around while Obama was speaking. I thought it was kind of pointless and distracting, but certainly his advisors told him otherwise.
I’m not certain that these issues will be brought up by the general media. And if not, that’s great, because the coverage of this event ought to be reserved for those who have not decided, those who focus only on the substance.
This debate was fine on substance. I am not a fair evaluator of that part of the debate because I’m not undecided: I firmly believe that the orientation of Obama’s policies are better, and the discussion between the two candidates usually supports my opinions, in my opinion.
So, the interesting part of the debate comes from the elements of the debate that arise out side of the repetition of campaign talking points.
The way time limits came up offers an interesting insight. Obama would defy Brokow in the interest of defending his position (or being impetuous) and, on a single occasion, actually changed the format of the question. You could argue that this is childish, to me, though, he came through as adamant and assertive. Subconsciously, I think that this is important.
McCain always reacted to situations with humor. It is the quality of his humor that interests me. He comes across as between snide and self deprecating. And I’m not certain about his wandering around while Obama was speaking. I thought it was kind of pointless and distracting, but certainly his advisors told him otherwise.
I’m not certain that these issues will be brought up by the general media. And if not, that’s great, because the coverage of this event ought to be reserved for those who have not decided, those who focus only on the substance.
Why We Lose
The unmistakable result of this “new” form of campaigning- the type that eschews substance for abuse, the one where Ayers and the Keating 5 take on more relevance than the currently plummeting DOW or crashing international markets -the unmistakable result of this is that the election will not have a winner.
As I see it there are two possibilities for this election, either Obama will win a sizable electoral college majority or McCain will sneak by in a close election. Either of these possibilities will leave a president without a clear mandate trying to bridge an insurmountable chasm between the reds and the blues.
If, for instance, Obama comes through the election with 50.5 of the popular vote and 2/3 – 1/3 split on the electoral college, he will be able to claim a clear majority and have what should amount to a mandate. Yet the current tack of the McCain/Palin campaign, while not clearly shifting the overall trend of the polls, is certainly radicalizing the GOP base, which, while shrinking, is ever significant, encompassing an easy 40% of the electorate and clear majority in at least 20 states. This base includes, to go along with many well meaning social conservatives, overt racists, unrepentant xenophobes, cloaked bigots and dormant fascists who have no problem using intimidation as a substitute for political discussion. An Obama victory would not yield a graceful stepping aside by this latter group and I can’t imagine many of these people sitting calmly along and abandoning their zealotry for cooperation.
A McCain victory, similarly, would create a huge swath of disillusioned voters, bringing the mistrust of the electorate to levels more befitting a third world dictatorship than a world democratic leader. After two elections that, to many, stunk of electioneering (between Florida in 00 and Ohio in 04), Obama losing a solid election lead in less than four weeks would never be seen as anything but the result of cynical demonization of Obama or an even worse rigging of the vote. I can’t imagine the uproar and anger a McCain victory would engender.
If you can imagine a peaceful outcome to the current political war, I would be interested in your comments. I for one, have trouble envisioning November 5th.
As I see it there are two possibilities for this election, either Obama will win a sizable electoral college majority or McCain will sneak by in a close election. Either of these possibilities will leave a president without a clear mandate trying to bridge an insurmountable chasm between the reds and the blues.
If, for instance, Obama comes through the election with 50.5 of the popular vote and 2/3 – 1/3 split on the electoral college, he will be able to claim a clear majority and have what should amount to a mandate. Yet the current tack of the McCain/Palin campaign, while not clearly shifting the overall trend of the polls, is certainly radicalizing the GOP base, which, while shrinking, is ever significant, encompassing an easy 40% of the electorate and clear majority in at least 20 states. This base includes, to go along with many well meaning social conservatives, overt racists, unrepentant xenophobes, cloaked bigots and dormant fascists who have no problem using intimidation as a substitute for political discussion. An Obama victory would not yield a graceful stepping aside by this latter group and I can’t imagine many of these people sitting calmly along and abandoning their zealotry for cooperation.
A McCain victory, similarly, would create a huge swath of disillusioned voters, bringing the mistrust of the electorate to levels more befitting a third world dictatorship than a world democratic leader. After two elections that, to many, stunk of electioneering (between Florida in 00 and Ohio in 04), Obama losing a solid election lead in less than four weeks would never be seen as anything but the result of cynical demonization of Obama or an even worse rigging of the vote. I can’t imagine the uproar and anger a McCain victory would engender.
If you can imagine a peaceful outcome to the current political war, I would be interested in your comments. I for one, have trouble envisioning November 5th.
Class and Class
By Annita Achilleos
I just read an article in which the author was wondering when did the elite became a bad thing in America. She was referring to some instances during the VP debate in which Sarah Palin talked about being in the middle-class and being an outsider and hockey moms and all those things that I’m sure you have all heard so many times. Then the author mentioned how Biden referred to Home Depot presumably in order to show that he knows and understands the middle class and that he is not something alien. On top of this I had a discussion with an Obama fan that was saying that Obama looks more like a professor and someone that the average American won’t necessarily understand. In other words he looks too serious and too knowledgeable to be voted by the American people and that he needs to loosen up. I mean…are you kidding me? I am not saying the president should be cold and distant (the American people do not need a Putin), but the president needs to have some class. It’s the president of a country for god’s sake; he represents his whole nation on a political and a cultural level. Consider all the other world leaders and compare them to the current American president. The president cannot be a joke. George Bush has damaged this country already. Someone has to make things better and a middle class hockey mom that winks during what should have been serious debate definitely cannot!
I just read an article in which the author was wondering when did the elite became a bad thing in America. She was referring to some instances during the VP debate in which Sarah Palin talked about being in the middle-class and being an outsider and hockey moms and all those things that I’m sure you have all heard so many times. Then the author mentioned how Biden referred to Home Depot presumably in order to show that he knows and understands the middle class and that he is not something alien. On top of this I had a discussion with an Obama fan that was saying that Obama looks more like a professor and someone that the average American won’t necessarily understand. In other words he looks too serious and too knowledgeable to be voted by the American people and that he needs to loosen up. I mean…are you kidding me? I am not saying the president should be cold and distant (the American people do not need a Putin), but the president needs to have some class. It’s the president of a country for god’s sake; he represents his whole nation on a political and a cultural level. Consider all the other world leaders and compare them to the current American president. The president cannot be a joke. George Bush has damaged this country already. Someone has to make things better and a middle class hockey mom that winks during what should have been serious debate definitely cannot!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Objectivity vs. Balance
An ongoing commentary of this election questions the role of the mainstream media in shaping the outcome. The McCain campaign has endlessly and brazenly accused the media of a bias towards Obama, decrying the disappearance of objectivity from political discourse.
In the McCain campaign’s estimation there is the neutral Fox and the biased everyone else.
I don’t want to interrogate the fundamental claim that any given news source is biased: I don’t have the capacity or the will to do this research. Rather, I hope to point out that being objective and balanced are not necessarily the same. For instance it is entirely objective to report Obama’s relationship with Ayers as innocuous while concluding that McCain campaign manager Davis had a monetary relationship with Fannie and Freddie. Now that one of those investigations turned out to be in favor Obama and the other largely incriminating to McCain doesn’t alter the objectivity of the two investigations.
However, the decision to publish the two reports could certainly show a imbalance in the NYtime’s agenda. This is the claim that McCain’s campaign is making while conflating the idea of objectivity and balance.
In the McCain campaign’s estimation there is the neutral Fox and the biased everyone else.
I don’t want to interrogate the fundamental claim that any given news source is biased: I don’t have the capacity or the will to do this research. Rather, I hope to point out that being objective and balanced are not necessarily the same. For instance it is entirely objective to report Obama’s relationship with Ayers as innocuous while concluding that McCain campaign manager Davis had a monetary relationship with Fannie and Freddie. Now that one of those investigations turned out to be in favor Obama and the other largely incriminating to McCain doesn’t alter the objectivity of the two investigations.
However, the decision to publish the two reports could certainly show a imbalance in the NYtime’s agenda. This is the claim that McCain’s campaign is making while conflating the idea of objectivity and balance.
Playing the Wrong Game
By Aman Gill
Biden and Palin in Thursday's VP debate agreed on exactly two things. 1. They luuuuuv Israel (The love is not equal though; Palin's is much less elitist: "We will support Israel. A two-state solution, building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish, with this peace-seeking nation, and they have a track record of being able to forge these peace agreements." Expectations exceeded.) 2. They don't like married gays. We don't often get to hear about the shared foundations upon which we are governed, so I appreciated them making it a little more clear.
I'm not supporting either presidential candidate, so I look at this race sort of in the same way I might watch a football game featuring two mediocre teams--without much vested interest, but with some interest in gamesmanship, the battle of strategies and the exploitation of matchups. And I have to say that the coaching on Team Democrat is severely deficient, even looking at it from the vantage of their own interests.
26% of Americans approve of George Bush's job performance. 35% think Sarah Palin is competent to act as president, if necessary. Coarsely, somewhere in that quarter to third of the electorate is the base of the Republican Party. Within this fraction are the 13% of voters who think Obama is a Muslim. They probably think it's awesome that the two chants at the RNC were "USA! USA! USA!" and "Drill, baby, drill!" They're charmed by Sarah Palin's folksy vapidness, just as they were (and apparently still are), by Bush's.
They will never vote for Barack Obama.
Yet the Democrats won't cast them off in the way that the Republicans have disavowed the votes of anyone who identifies as, or to the left of, a liberal. Biden didn't invoke the large majorities in his favor on Iraq, Afghanistan, climate change and Palin's readiness to assume office? Palin's total discourse on Iraq was "surge" (repeated 10 times), "victory," and don't fly the white flag of surrender. She repeated her stupid line on climate change, that there's no point in focusing on causes, just solutions. Etc. But there's no offense. It's not an issue of weakness, it's that the Democrats are afraid of the right-wing echo chamber, and don't want to alienate the people who will never support them.
There's a history to this orientation that's based in the prostration of labor and black leaders to the Democrats, offering their people as a sacrifice, every four years, to the god of lesser evil. And they of course will not imperil their posture as the responsible party of American imperialism.
But even within this framework, they are a historically terrible party. They want the Republicans' god vote, ignoring the potentially powerful appeal that secularism could have over the electoral center, especially after the Bush years. They won't trash the ridiculous argument that a victory in Iraq is at all possible in the first war that was dumb even from Washington's own perspective. Biden wouldn't attack what I thought was the most notable passage from the debate last night, where Palin embraced the Cheney corollary to the doctrine of the unitary executive--which is that the executive is unitary, above the other two branches, except for the VP, who is outside of all three. The list goes on...
Any thoughts out there about what things might look like if the Democrats gave a Rove-style "fuck you" to the right third of the country?
Biden and Palin in Thursday's VP debate agreed on exactly two things. 1. They luuuuuv Israel (The love is not equal though; Palin's is much less elitist: "We will support Israel. A two-state solution, building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish, with this peace-seeking nation, and they have a track record of being able to forge these peace agreements." Expectations exceeded.) 2. They don't like married gays. We don't often get to hear about the shared foundations upon which we are governed, so I appreciated them making it a little more clear.
I'm not supporting either presidential candidate, so I look at this race sort of in the same way I might watch a football game featuring two mediocre teams--without much vested interest, but with some interest in gamesmanship, the battle of strategies and the exploitation of matchups. And I have to say that the coaching on Team Democrat is severely deficient, even looking at it from the vantage of their own interests.
26% of Americans approve of George Bush's job performance. 35% think Sarah Palin is competent to act as president, if necessary. Coarsely, somewhere in that quarter to third of the electorate is the base of the Republican Party. Within this fraction are the 13% of voters who think Obama is a Muslim. They probably think it's awesome that the two chants at the RNC were "USA! USA! USA!" and "Drill, baby, drill!" They're charmed by Sarah Palin's folksy vapidness, just as they were (and apparently still are), by Bush's.
They will never vote for Barack Obama.
Yet the Democrats won't cast them off in the way that the Republicans have disavowed the votes of anyone who identifies as, or to the left of, a liberal. Biden didn't invoke the large majorities in his favor on Iraq, Afghanistan, climate change and Palin's readiness to assume office? Palin's total discourse on Iraq was "surge" (repeated 10 times), "victory," and don't fly the white flag of surrender. She repeated her stupid line on climate change, that there's no point in focusing on causes, just solutions. Etc. But there's no offense. It's not an issue of weakness, it's that the Democrats are afraid of the right-wing echo chamber, and don't want to alienate the people who will never support them.
There's a history to this orientation that's based in the prostration of labor and black leaders to the Democrats, offering their people as a sacrifice, every four years, to the god of lesser evil. And they of course will not imperil their posture as the responsible party of American imperialism.
But even within this framework, they are a historically terrible party. They want the Republicans' god vote, ignoring the potentially powerful appeal that secularism could have over the electoral center, especially after the Bush years. They won't trash the ridiculous argument that a victory in Iraq is at all possible in the first war that was dumb even from Washington's own perspective. Biden wouldn't attack what I thought was the most notable passage from the debate last night, where Palin embraced the Cheney corollary to the doctrine of the unitary executive--which is that the executive is unitary, above the other two branches, except for the VP, who is outside of all three. The list goes on...
Any thoughts out there about what things might look like if the Democrats gave a Rove-style "fuck you" to the right third of the country?
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