It wasn't long ago that the conventional wisdom on presidential politics had it that Democrats must follow the following rules when choosing nominees: Governor beats Senator.  Southerner beats Northerner.  Rural beats Urban.  America just elected a Democratic Northern Urban Senator.  Oh, yeah, and he's black has a foreign sounding name.  Hmmm...

This means one of three things: 1) the rules were bullshit, 2) the rules have changed, or 3) if you're going to violate the rules, make sure you add racial and ethnic handicaps to the mix.  Option 3 seems...well...silly.  I'm equally happy with either option 1 or 2, but I happen to believe it's 2.

So, to recap: we just elected a black. Democratic. Northern. Urban. Senator.  For President.  I'd say change has already begun.

Nobody has seen me weep since the days after September 11.  In a drug store across the street from Union Square in Manhattan, I had gone in to buy some toothbrushes for recovery workers at ground zero.  They were already sold out.  I began bawling right there in the aisles, and my sister was there to comfort me.

Last night, just after I switched the channel to Fox News to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude, the polls closed in California, and droopy dog Brit Hume called the election for Obama.  After a few moments of reveling, completely unexpectedly, I teared up and began to weep in front of my girlfriend, who (like pretty much everyone I know) had never seen me cry.  She asked me why.  It wasn't until this afternoon, walking my dog past the President-elect's Hyde Park home (actually, just outside the security perimiter), that I found a way to express it.  For the past eight years, I have felt like a beloved fried has been gravely ill, and yesterday's election was like finally getting an appointment to see a doctor who seems to know what he's doing.  

With all respect to Josh, this isn't true:

Not knowing any Supreme Court decision she opposes except for Roe v. Wade ain't great. Frankly, though, for the Christian right, that's really the only Supreme Court jurisprudence they want you to know.

Remember the town-hall debate in 2004, where George Bush unexpectedly answered a preferred jurisprudence question by criticizing the Dred Scott case.  At the time, it seemed passing strange for the President to give an answer that seemed like a fifth grader's social studies class presentation.  However, astute observers picked up on the dog-whistle signal Bush was sending to the religious right.  Dred Scott, it turned out, was code for Roe (something about arguing that abortion implies that the fetus is "property").  So, in fact, the wingers want us to know two court cases, but one of them is really just a stand-in for the other. 

I bring this up because I'm expecting Palin to bring up Dred Scott during tomorrow's debate.  When she does, she wants moderates to think it means she's against slavery (what a relief).  It really means she's against reproductive rights.

It seems to me that the crux of the difference between contemporary Democratic and Republican philosophies regarding regulation can be described as follows: Republicans fret over sacrifices in optimal efficiency; Democratics work to avoid catastrophe.  The reason, then, that I can defend my choice of the Democratic party (in addition to being a radical egalitarian on social issues) is that catastrophe precludes the ability to adjust to conditions without widespread human suffering.  The sacrifice of optimal efficiency, on the other hand, goes virtually unnoticed in people's daily lives, except in the imaginations of megalomaniacal mediocraties and swindlers who believe that the only barrier to thier ascendence into the ranks of heroes is some pain-in-the-ass trying to keep them from poisoning their neighbors' water and food supply.

Take a look at these data:

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=43154ee9-1bca-4042-84df-131e90cc13ad

Look in particular at the "Change Your Mind" columns.  Although McCain is up 49-45 in the overall poll (fairly small sample size of 692 LVs), Obama's up 49-48 among those voters who say they're certain about their choice.  Among those who say they might change their minds, McCain wins 55-31.  With 18% of LV respondents in this category, we can imagine an 10% (.55*.18=.099) swing in Obama's favor through a resurgent campaign and a full-bore ground game.

Of course, we could also imagine a 5-6% swing in McCain's favor, but right now I prefer to think about ways we can win.

We're all aware of the Rovian strategy of attacking his opponent's strength. Despite all of his despicable flaws, Rove is right on this one. If you break down your opponent's strengths, they have nothing with which to fight. I just listened to the podcast of today's Meet the Press, and Brokaw, as moderator, led off by quoting polling internals that showed McCain's "leadership" ratings as high and rising. Thus, perceptions of his leadership is his strength. Attack his leadership. How? I've said it before and I'll say it again. His selection of Palin over Lieberman reveals that he's not in charge of his own campaign, nor his own party. This reveals a failure in his ability or willingness to lead. Call him on it. Every day. McCain cannot lead his own campaign. McCain cannot lead his own party. He cannot lead the country. His policy affinity with Bush is his weakness. That works for us pretty much on its own. While it's necessary to highlight differences on issues, it's not the right kind of kung fu that disables the opponent's campaign. Most issue voters have likely made up their minds. The rest is about mobilization and counter-mobilization. Obama's got no problem mobilizating his own constituents. He's got to include a strategy of de-mobilizing those folks who still subscribe to the ridiculous notion that McCain is a strong leader.

http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08_WTA.cfm

Dr. Egon Spengler: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad?”
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

I laugh so that I do not cry.

If we had a functioning press, the BYO-rape-kit story would be plastered all over every tv and newspaper in the country. At the very least, it would get about a thousand times more coverage than the lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-story. For those who haven't heard the whole story:

1. Wasilla, AK, during Palin's term as mayor, had a policy whereby police would charge sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits. That's right, the police under Palin's command charged violent crime victims for gathering evidence on the their behalf. Can you imagine charging murder victims' families for taking fingerprints, running balistics, etc. That's not a police department, that's a protection racket.

2. The Alaska state legislature, specifically in order to stop Wasilla from continuing this practice, passed a law preventing police departments from charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

3. Abject horror was not the Alaska legislature's only motive in passing the law. They also wanted the state to be eligible for federal funding under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carried the condition that neither state nor municipal law enforcement charged sexual assault victims for rape kits. Wasilla police policy was a barrier to that funding.

4. The provision of the VAWA conditioning funding on this prohibition was pushed through congress by none other than...wait for it...Democractic VP candidate Joe Biden.

5. The provision was opposed by none other than...wait for it...Republican Presidential candidate John McCain.

So, we have three actors. One wrote the protection for women. One opposed the protection for women. One had to be forced by her state legislature to comply with the protection for women. Both actors on the wrong side of protecting women against sexual assault are on the Republican ticket. The actor on the right side is on the Democratic ticket.

This is a very simple part of our democratic process. Politicians, among other things, make policy. Some politicians oppose that policy. Some violate that policy. If we like the policy, we need to elect politicians that will make it happen, and defeat those politicians that oppose and/or violate it. Now, lots of policies are difficult to assess. A lot of times, we only know what we want the outcome to be, and we fight over how to achieve it. Occasionally, issues are sufficiently simple that the general public can tell both what's right and how to get there. Lifting the financial burden of collecting evidence off of back of rape victims is one of these issues.

A lot of conservatives seem to hate VAWA (big surprise). They will likely bring up two things.

1. Conservatives will say that even the ACLU opposed the Violence Against Women Act. This was true, at first. However, they have changed their mind about it, and when it came time for reauthorization in 2005, they said this:

VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women and children in their struggle to overcome abusive situations. Because VAWA remains an essential tool for combating domestic violence, it is important for Congress to continue the programs established under VAWA 1994 and build on the success of the law.

You can read their entire letter to the Senate Judiciary here.

2. Part of the 1994 bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 (U.S. v. Morrison, 5-4 decision, the usual suspects plus O'Connor and Kennedy). The struck portion had nothing to do with rape-kit costs. The majority ruled against the provision allowing federal civil suits to be brought against gender-motivated violent attackers by their victims. They kicked the civil-suit jurisdiction back to the states.

There are a lot of times where we complain about the press not doing its job well, fairly, evenhandedly, etc. Media Matters is out there every day documenting the rightward outrages of press coverage. But saying that the media should remind the public that John McCain said "lipstick on a pig" too is, frankly, not all that much better than the original story itself. Every day, every chance you journalists out there get, hammer on this question. Do Sarah Palin and John McCain get behind Joe Biden's policy of protecting women from sexual assault, or do they continue to oppose it.

If we had a functioning press, the BYO-rape-kit story would be plastered all over every tv and newspaper in the country.  At the very least, it would get about a thousand times more coverage than the lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-story.

For those who haven't heard the whole story:

1.  Wasilla, AK, during Palin's term as mayor, had a policy whereby police would charge sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits.  That's right, the police under Palin's command charged violent crime victims for gathering evidence on the their behalf.  Can you imagine charging murder victims' families for taking fingerprints, running balistics, etc.  That's not a police department, that's a protection racket. 

2.  The Alaska state legislature, specifically in order to stop Wasilla from continuing this practice, passed a law preventing police departments from charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

3.  Abject horror was not the Alaska legislature's only motive in passing the law.  They also wanted the state to be eligible for federal funding under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carried the condition that neither state nor municipal law enforcement charged sexual assault victims for rape kits.  Wasilla police policy was a barrier to that funding.

4.  The provision of the VAWA conditioning funding on this prohibition was pushed through congress by none other than...wait for it...Democractic VP candidate Joe Biden.

5.  The provision was opposed by none other than...wait for it...Republican Presidential candidate John McCain.

So, we have three actors.  One wrote the protection for women.  One opposed the protection for women.  One had to be forced by her state legislature to comply with the protection for women.  Both actors on the wrong side of protecting women against sexual assault are on the Republican ticket.  The actor on the right side is on the Democratic ticket.

This is a very simple part of our democratic process.  Politicians, among other things, make policy.  Some politicians oppose that policy.  Some violate that policy.  If we like the policy, we need to elect politicians that will make it happen, and defeat those politicians that oppose and/or violate it.  Now, lots of policies are difficult to assess.  A lot of times, we only know what we want the outcome to be, and we fight over how to achieve it.  Occasionally, issues are sufficiently simple that the general public can tell both what's right and how to get there.  Lifting the financial burden of collecting evidence off of back of rape victims is one of these issues.

A lot of conservatives seem to hate VAWA (big surprise).  They will likely bring up two things.

1.  Conservatives will say that even the ACLU opposed the Violence Against Women Act.  This was true, at first.  However, they have changed their mind about it, and when it came time for reauthorization in 2005, they said this:

VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women and children in their struggle to overcome abusive situations. Because VAWA remains an essential tool for combating domestic violence, it is important for Congress to continue the programs established under VAWA 1994 and build on the success of the law.

You can read their entire letter to the Senate Judiciary here.

2.  Part of the 1994 bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 (U.S. v. Morrison, 5-4 decision, the usual suspects plus O'Connor and Kennedy).  The struck portion had nothing to do with rape-kit costs.  The majority ruled against the provision allowing federal civil suits to be brought against gender-motivated violent attackers by their victims.  They kicked the civil-suit jurisdiction back to the states.

There are a lot of times where we complain about the press not doing its job well, fairly, evenhandedly, etc.  Media Matters is out there every day documenting the rightward outrages of press coverage.  But saying that the media should remind the public that John McCain said "lipstick on a pig" too is, frankly, not all that much better than the original story itself.  Every day, every chance you journalists out there get, hammer on this question.  Do Sarah Palin and John McCain get behind Joe Biden's policy of protecting women from sexual assault, or do they continue to oppose it.

Academic Economists like to point out that the real puzzle of political participation is not why so many people don't vote, but why so many people do.  Using a straightforward cost-benefit analysis, these scholars note that the benefit of voting cannot overcome the costs.  The benefit of voting is represented as the probability of casting the deciding vote in favor of one's preferred candidate multiplied by the value of that candidate's victory.  The cost of voting consists of taking time off work, transportation to the polls, time spent waiting in line, etc.  Those costs are typically treated fixed.  Opinions differ on where information comes into play.  Some models treat it as a fixed cost, others treat it as an influence on the certainty the voter has over her candidate preferences.  In either case, gathering information is costly, and at best reduces uncertainty about preferences, the value of which are reduced by the minuscule probability of casting the deciding vote.  In all, these economists project a negative overall utility (benefits minus costs) leading them to conclude that voting is irrational.

Sociologists and Political Scientists respond in various ways.  The most common counter-arguments take note of the fact that there are fixed benefits associated with voting: satisfying a sense of civic duty, being part of a community, etc., often characterized as "expressive" or "solidary" benefits, as opposed to the "instrumental" benefits of casting the deciding vote.

What I've come to see in the Republican issue strategy is a really quite frightening.  They hit upon a simple (but incorrect) solution that dovetails with their ideology and constituency, and flog it mercilessly despite the fact that it has no merit whatsoever.  Thus we get "drill baby drill" and "the problem with Freddie and Fannie is that they got too big for the taxpayers to continue supporting." 

This does two things in the voting model.  First, it increases the perceived amount of information (nothing in the model says the information must be correct).  This either reduces costs or increases certainty over preferences.  This in turn increases participation among those who are aligned ideologues or constituents.  Second, it increases the solidary and expressive benefits of those choosing the Republican ticket.  Satisfying the civic duty, for example, presumes that the voter is making a responsible choice.  Voters understand that vote choice should be a matter of policy preferences, not personality.  Thus, any candidate that can make the voter feel better informed can align the candidate preference part of the model with the expressive benefits component.  It increases the fixed benefit, but only if the voter chooses the ticket that provides the simple (albeit incorrect) policy proposal.  In the end, it makes increased turnout contingent upon selecting a particulary candidate.

All this is to say that any candidate who can make solutions seem simple (if not to implement, at least to understand) can do himself an enormous favor.  It's a boon to the common good and the future success of the candidate's career if those solutions turn out to be correct, but being correct doesn't help much in the election.  The goal is to make the voters feel smarter about public policy than they were the day before.  It's not just a matter of ego, or resentment, or all the other buttons that get pushed with charges of "elitism."  It taps into the urge to satisfy one's civic duty.  It's the difference between saying, "I'm going to vote for him because he understands the problem," and "I'm going to vote for him because I understand the problem, and his understanding of the problem makes sense to me."

For the life of me, I can't relate to the raw emotional response the Republican's have shown for the mantra, "Drill Baby Drill."  It's not a particular arousing policy stance (unless you consider its phallic imagery).  Despicable as it is, the urge to go to war understandable stirs up silt from some muddy corner of the id.  "Values" issues allows them to expel some latent sexual guilt while simultaneously feeling superior.  But oil exploration?  Maybe it requires staring at old films of wells spouting forth that lead straight back to the phallic business.  But that's not the contemporary image of oil wells, especially off-shore platforms.  They're bare-bones industrial fare these days, covered in dust, rust, and grease that would put to shame a fry-cook in a world without health codes. 

What I think is really happening is that their party has simply hit upon its favorite kind of winning issue: one without any merit.  It's their crack cocaine, and it just gives them a blistering buzz.

I realize that the argument I'm about to make is futile in the context of an American Presidential election.  For better or for worse, we like to think that our policies dictate outcomes around the world, regardless of more influential local factors.  Our military buildup policies ended the Cold War, not the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union's economic system.  Our support of Georgia's inclusion in NATO caused the recent conflict there, not the Georgian army's mistreatment of the South Ossetian population.  Any nation as powerful as ours may be forgiven for assuming that our actions make the world go around.  In many cases, we should be more conscious of the effects of our foreign policy throughout the world.

However, there are cases where our policies merely coincide with more significant local events, resulting in a spurious causal attribution.  In the case of the recent reduction in violence in Iraq, the widely-agreed-upon success of the Surge seems like one of these spurious conclusions.  The more likely cause of the good news in Iraq is something that relatively few people have even heard of: the Anbar Awakening. 

I'm still a little fuzzy on all the details, but here's what seems to have happened: several months before the Surge began, Coalition forces began paying off Sunni insurgent groups to stop fighting, and to participate in local pacification operations.  The Sunnis responded by creating local "Awakening Councils" (a.k.a. the Son's of Iraq).  These groups operate like high-impact neighborhood watch groups.  In short, many of the insurgents were paid to become unofficial police contingents.  And it worked to reduce violence.  Which is more likely to result in a 50-60% reduction in violence: a 10% increase in the Coalition force deployment and a tweaking of strategy, or co-opting a major component of the enemy so that we align Sunni and Shiite Iraqis against transnational terror groups? 

It would be pointless for Obama to argue that the Surge is a spurious cause.  Americans tend to know very little about what's happening on the ground in Iraq, and taking this position would draw charges of "America last" from the bombasts on the right.  Furthermore, this is not to say that the Awakening is an unmitigated success.  The past few months, the Iraqi government has been reneging on its commitments to incorporate Awakening personnel, has been targeting Awakening leaders for assassination, and has promised to put them out of business.  This is unfortunate, but inevitable.  The Sons of Iraq undermine the government's monopoly on the legitimate use of force (in other words, its sovereignty).  Having a second sovereign is unworkable in a centralized-power state, but the Sunnis themselves are the most hostile to the prospect of a divided regional governance structure (since they fear losing out on resource revenues: Anbar has no oil). 

So, not only does the Surge seem an unlikely cause of the recent improvements, but the more likely cause, the Awakening, is structurally problematic.  It seems like two things could happen: the Shiite government could be positioning themselves for a final destruction of Iraqi Sunni power, or the Sunnis will abandon the Awakening and return to civil war. 

I'm trying to work through all this, so I strongly invite comments and criticisms. 

Following McCain's selection of the least qualified VP candidate since Dan Quayle, the Republican nominee for President has shown his recklessness and tendency to act on rash impulse.  His clear first choice, through years of developing a close professional relationship based on shared principles (such as they are) was Joe Lieberman.  It's not a stretch to say that these two Senators represented the most conspicuous partnership in contemporary US politics.  Choosing anyone else was a sure sign that he does not control his own politics.  Saying that his choice demonstrates dangerous impulsiveness is a strong criticism, but it's only half a loaf.  The other half is that it demonstrates the weakness of his leadership position within his own party.

When I first came across the Babygate diary post at DKos last night, I thought there was a legit story, but that the diarist should never have posted photos of the daughter (the pregnant one, I refuse to repeat her name).  It is the nightmare of all self-image nightmares to have the entire nation analyze the roundness of a sixteen year-old girl's mid-section.  Just icky and awful, in so many ways.

Now, we have the news that she couldn't have been pregnant then, because she's pregnant now.  Which completely ends the story.  The problematic behavior indicated by the original speculation was that the family made the daughter lie to cover up the "shame" of teenage sexual activity.  It would have indicated an archaic moral mindset whereby "fallen" girls were shipped off to convents to protect the family "honor."  Now that the family has revealed publicly that this same teenager, still unmarried, is pregnant, they have shown they do not follow this outmoded code of conduct. 

The argument that this story somehow reveals important information about the judgment of the VP candidate is akin to similar arguments about John Edwards and, yes, the big dog himself, Bill Clinton.  The GOP spent years arguing that Clinton's sexual behavior as President revealed a failure of character that spoke to his fitness to assess matters of public import.  It was a back-door argument that was easily refuted by Clinton's public record of sound judgment which gave us eight years of peace and prosperity.  Arguing that Babygate reveals shortcomings in McCain's and Palin's judgment is precisely the same back-door argument.  If Palin has formed reasonable positions on matters of foreign and domestic policy, then her decisions regarding the management of her own pregnancy or those of her daughter are completely irrelevant.  Just as Clinton's sexual dalliances were irrelevant to the performance of his public duties and obligations.

As to the politics behind the argument, there's nothing to be gained in the long run by stooping to their level.  It won't quash the conservative enthusiasm for her selection.  Evangelicals love nothing more than to forgive a repentant "sinner."  It allows them to combine feelings of superiority with offerings of purported charity.  I think the furthest this point can be taken is in Jake Tapper's question, "what would the right have done if Obama had a child in similar situation?"  But there isn't much to be gained there.  And I agree with Andrew Sullivan that the quickest way for this to be resolved is by releasing the candidate's medical records (which I thought was standard operating procedure), but that doesn't change my mind about the sancity of privacy in deciding matters of child-bearing. 

We'll have ample opportunity to examine Palin's quality as a potential VP.  She's a pork-loving pretender to the role of reformer.  She's a political ally of the uber-corrupt Ted Stevens.  She's a neophyte on foreign and national affairs.  She believes in Creationism, abstinence-only sex-education (which I detest regardless of her child's experience), and that the founders were still around when "under god" was added to the pledge of allegiance in the 1950s.  Her elevation comes out of a twin desire to poach Clinton supporters and stoke the ditto-head crowd (politics, strange bed-fellows, etc).  It shouldn't be that difficult to question her judgment, and the judgment of her benefactor at the top of the ticket.  Leave the children out of it.  Period.

I've lost count of how many times McCain's selection of Sarah Palin has been described as "historic."  The Press has done it.  The McCain campaign has done it.  Even Hillary Clinton has done it.

It's as if the Republican party has its own parallel history, one that lags the rest of the country by twenty four years.