Category Archives: Political Animals

An Optimistic Take on the Election

Posted on November 3, 2010 | Comments Off on An Optimistic Take on the Election

CEI President and Founder Fred Smith and I have an article in The Daily Caller expressing cautious optimism about yesterday’s election results. Our main points:

-We are (cautiously) optimistic because voters turned out in droves to make a statement against big government, not to endorse GOP policies. But no reforms will happen unless people keep fighting for them.

-Activists have a lesson to learn from the Bush-era anti-war movement. Anti-Iraq War protestors vanished into thin air almost the moment President Obama was elected. They gave up. That’s one reason there are still 50,000 troops in Iraq and America’s presence in Afghanistan has doubled. The next few years will be the true test of the tea party movement. Will it grow complacent in victory?

-GOP politicians have a lesson to learn from their 1994 victory and subsequent fall from grace. The 1994 Republicans gave up as reformers after about six months. Voters kept them around because they did a tolerable job of checking Clintonian excesses. But six years of one-party rule under Bush were more than enough to show that Republicans were far more concerned with staying in power than with shrinking government. Federal spending roughly doubled under Bush, and that was enough to give them the boot.

It will be interesting to see what happens. The 2010 election might be nothing more than a blip on the radar. Or it could be the start of a genuine reform movement that will take on the coming entitlement crisis. We’re hoping for the latter.

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Posted in Elections, Political Animals, Publications

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Alan Grayson, We Hardly Knew Ye

Posted on November 3, 2010 | Comments Off on Alan Grayson, We Hardly Knew Ye

Most incumbents running for re-election deserve defeat. That more than 50 of them lost last night is an unabashed good. But one of those defeated incumbents, Florida Democrat Alan Grayson, I will miss.

This is not because he is a serious voice on policy; he isn’t. Rep. Grayson is a walking, talking reminder that Congress is not to be taken seriously, whatever lofty airs its members may exude. Washington could use more like him. Some of his career highlights:

-He blamed his defeat on the weather.

-Grayson characterized the GOP’s health care plan as “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”

-He used the word “Holocaust” to describe the current health care system. The Holocaust was an attempt to systematically murder all Jews.

-He referred to attendees of Glenn Beck’s political rally as “people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago.” Not as Halloween costumes, one presumes.

-He ran a political ad featuring audio of his opponent, Daniel Webster, quoting a Bible verse imploring women to submit to their husbands. The problem is that Grayson’s ad left out the part immediately after that where Webster told his audience to reject that advice, and take a more modern approach to marital relations.

-The same ad referred to Webster as “Taliban Dan.” The Taliban is a radical Muslim group that embraces sharia law, shelters terrorists, and throws acid in women’s faces for going to school.

-Grayson ran another ad calling Webster a draft-dodger. Webster received a student deferment, then was declared medically unfit to serve.

And so on. One expects politicians to be dishonest; one does not expect them to be so blatant about it as Grayson is. He was a breath of fresh air compared to the stale stuff pouring from most of his colleagues.

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Posted in Elections, Political Animals

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Why I Didn’t Vote This Year

Posted on November 2, 2010 | 2 comments

Over at The Daily Caller, I tally up the arguments for and against voting. This year, the minuses outweighed the plusses — at least for me. But different people will come to different conclusions, and that’s fine. Consider this a list of arguments to consider, and an invitation to think for yourself.

I’m rather sick of moralizing do-gooders preaching that voting is your civic duty. “If you forfeit your right to vote, you forfeit your right to complain,” they say. Hogwash. Tell that to blacks before the 15th Amendment and women before the 19th Amendment and see where that gets you.

My main points:

-The mathematics come out against voting. Average turnout in my Congressional district is about 200,000 voters. I have one vote.

-Expressive voting, however, is perfectly legitimate. People place a high value participating in democracy. They value having their say. Exercising their rights. Those are wonderful reasons in favor of taking the time to vote.

-But voting takes time. The time I spend voting is time I can’t spend on activities that have more impact, such as writing articles for publication. I do, after all, make a living expressing my opinions on policy issues.

-To vote or not is a personal decision with no right or wrong answer. Think it through. Do what’s right for you. And don’t look down on people who decide differently than you do.

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Posted in Elections, Political Animals, Publications, The Partisan Mind

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Is Obama a Keynesian?

Posted on November 2, 2010 | Comments Off on Is Obama a Keynesian?

In which most of the interviewees mistake the famous economist for a country in Africa:

Note that these are all likely voters.

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Posted in Economics, Elections, Political Animals

The Bush-Obama Continuum

Posted on November 1, 2010 | Comments Off on The Bush-Obama Continuum

Many people still need to be disabused of the notion that Bush’s policies and Obama’s policies are very different. They are actually two peas in a pod. Hopefully this short video will set some people straight.

 

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Posted in Political Animals

The Rise of Negative Campaigning?

Posted on October 29, 2010 | Comments Off on The Rise of Negative Campaigning?

A lot of people think this year’s election is historically nasty. Then again, people said much the same thing in 2008. And in 2006. And in 2004, 2002… every year, actually.

Pundit hyperbole is nothing new. Neither are attack ads. Negative campaigning is at least as old as the campaign itself. Politics is an inherently nasty business. The pursuit of public office causes people to do and say things they would never dream of if they didn’t have that signature powerlust that separates politicians from decent human beings.

This short video from Reason.tv shows some highlights from the not-so-friendly 1800 presidential race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. I think the glowing red eyes are my favorite part.

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Posted in Elections, Political Animals

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2010’s Record Election Spending Is Surprisingly Small

Posted on October 28, 2010 | Comments Off on 2010’s Record Election Spending Is Surprisingly Small

The Washington Post has a breathless write-up of this year’s midterm election spending:

In the latest sign of this year’s record-breaking election season, an independent research group estimated Wednesday that candidates, parties and outside interest groups together could spend up to $4 billion on the campaign.

$4 billion is a lot of money. The Post’s opinion staff writer thinks that’s frightening. $4 billion, of course, comes to $12.90 per person in a nation of 310 million people. So maybe not.

A bit more context: federal spending costs $11,290.32 per person. Regulation costs another $5,645.16 per person. That’s a total burden of $16,935.48 per person. American democracy is a very expensive form of government with surprisingly inexpensive elections.

Spending $12.90 to influence $3.5 trillion in spending and another $1.75 trillion in regulating seems like too little election spending, not too much. Total election spending is about the same as it was in 2000, when the federal budget was under $2 trillion.

Still, for a midterm, this year’s election spending is historically high. And a lot of people think there is too much money in politics. Fortunately, there is a surefire way for them to fix the problem: get politics out of our money.

Republicans and Democrats alike have made it clear that they have little interest in fundamental economic reform. So maybe the Post is right that they aren’t worth spending $12.90 on.

Unfortunately, as long as the Bush-Obama spending and regulating binge continues, people will be spending a lot more than $12.90 to get a piece of the action.

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Posted in Elections, Free Speech, Political Animals, Spending

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The East German Immigration Model

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Comments Off on The East German Immigration Model


A U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska thinks that the U.S. should follow East Germany’s example when it comes to immigration. GOP nominee Joe Miller told a town hall audience, “The first thing that has to be done is secure the border. . .  East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow.  Now, obviously, other things were involved.  We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border.  If East Germany could, we could.”

He’s darn right “other things were involved.” See CEI’s video on the Berlin Wall for details. What a terrible choice of example.

Miller also forgets that East Germany’s 858 miles of fence weren’t meant to keep people out. That fence was meant to keep people in. Against their will. On pain of death.

It’s almost certain that Miller doesn’t really want the full-on East German border enforcement model. It was probably just a tasteless slip of the tongue. But he clearly favors a border fence. Which, of course, he should oppose if his goal is actually to reduce illegal immigration.

Many undocumented immigrants only stay in the U.S. for a few months. Get a job, make some money, go back home and share it with family. A border fence will keep a lot of people like that out, yes. But it also keeps current undocumented immigrants in. Unwillingly, in many cases.

If Miller wins his election, there is a lot he can do to reduce illegal immigration. Building an American version of the Berlin Wall is not one of them. As Alex Nowrasteh and I wrote, “The immigration black market only exists is because the government has made the legal market as cumbersome as it can.”

Miller should make legal immigration less cumbersome. People will come to America, no matter what. That’s what happens when you have one of the freest, richest, most dynamic nations on earth. That’s a fact of life that our broken immigration system does not take into account.

Neither, apparently, does Joe Miller.

 

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Posted in Elections, Immigration, Political Animals

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Foreign Money Is Not the Problem

Posted on October 13, 2010 | Comments Off on Foreign Money Is Not the Problem

President Obama has caused a stir recently by declaring that the Chamber of Commerce, which is running ads critical of his policies, is funded with foreign money.

It’s a weak criticism. And not just because the amount of foreign money involved is trivial. Or because labor unions and other political groups across the spectrum also accept small amounts of foreign money.

President Obama seems to be saying that people are smart enough to know whether or not a candidate or a political party is bamboozling them in their campaign ads. But people suddenly lose their wits when an outside group, or – gasp! – someone from another country does the exact same thing. That kind of cognitive dissonance must be difficult to live with.

Because arguments against foreign money in politics are so weak, people who use those arguments are either ill-informed or lying.

Lying is much more likely in this case. If your own arguments are weak, a common tactic is to distract your audience and hope they don’t notice. It works more often than not. Here, President Obama is taking advantage of the fact that almost all people suffer from anti-foreign bias. Not racism. Anti-foreign bias. They’re different. And pandering to that bias can be extremely useful politically.

Why does such a cheap tactic work? It’s because anti-foreign bias is in our DNA. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in small bands. Anybody outside that band was a very real threat to steal food, clothing, or potential mates. So people learned to be wary of outsiders. It was good for one’s life expectancy.

As tribes became villages, towns, cities, and now nations, the number of people we consider insiders has grown. And we treat outsiders much better than we used to. Trade is more common than war in most places. But most people are still instinctively leery of outsiders. It is our nature.

That’s why it’s disappointing to see President Obama so cynically play that card. Clearly he and the Chamber of Commerce prefer different policies. It would be nice to see the President engage the Chamber at a higher level than the ad hominem.

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Posted in Elections, Free Speech, Political Animals

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First, Try Getting the Little Things Right

Posted on October 7, 2010 | Comments Off on First, Try Getting the Little Things Right

Conservatives and progressives believe in the power of government. Conservatives think that government can build democracies abroad and enforce morality. Progressives think government can lift people out of poverty and correct market failures.

This faith in government is simply astounding, given the evidence to the contrary. Government is charged with some big tasks. Some of them are necessary. But often, it can’t even do the little things. Have a look at these two news stories:

Stimulus Checks Sent to the Dead

Postal Union Election Delayed After Ballots Lost in the Mail

Washington has centuries of experience cutting checks and delivering the mail. You’d think they’d have it down by now; apparently not. Even so, politicians from both parties are still pushing for more, more, more. The right wants more military spending. The left wants more entitlement spending. They have all the faith in the world that their proposals will work as intended.

Sometimes, being a classical liberal feels like being the only atheist in a room full of believers.

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Posted in Political Animals