The Power and the Money

Candidate Obama was right about health care back in 2008, mostly

Obamacare is back in the news because of this insane ruling by this judge in Texas. I am not going to talk about that. What I am going to talk about, however, is the argument between Obama and Clinton over health care back in 2008. Short version: once elected, President Obama decided that Candidate Obama was wrong and health care reform needed a mandate. But he was actually right back then, as shown by the fact that Congressional repeal of the mandate has not dented the law’s success.

The long version has to do with the putative results of a 1993 health insurance reform in New York. To the right is a picture of a great place to eat in New York, but given the kind of food they serve I would recommend having health insurance should you choose to eat there often.

Back during the 2008 campaign, Senator Obama claimed that you could use private insurance to provide universal coverage without a mandate.

Senator Clinton argued the opposite. Her plan to expand health care rested on three prongs: (1) community rating, so nobody faced higher premiums due to pre-existing conditions; (2) a mandate, so that healthy people would not refuse to buy health insurance; and (3) subsidies, so that everyone could afford to comply with the mandate. She argued that New York State had tried (1) without (2) and triggered a death spiral that killed the market for individual health insurance in the state. 

The logic was as follows: community rating meant that insurers could not charge people who were more to people who were more likely to use medical care. Everyone had to be charged the same. That meant, however, that healthy people had to pay more than they had before. So some healthy people decided to drop health insurance. That left more sick people in the pool, so insurers had to raise rates. But higher rates drove even more healthy people to drop insurance. So rates rose even more, in a death spiral. 

Candidate Obama argued that this was malarkey. People wanted health insurance. People will buy it if they can afford it even without a mandate. If you make insurance cheap enough, then there will be no death spiral. 

President Obama then changed his mind based on what his advisers thought that the CBO would say about it. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it raises the question: was the CBO right? There were reasons to believe in 2009 that it was not. Back in 1999, Thomas Buchmueller and John Dinardo (both at U.C. Irvine) found that there was no evidence of a death spiral in New York.

A 2012 report called the “The Impact of Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating Reforms on State’s Individual Insurance Markets” concluded that Buchmueller and Dinardo were wrong and New York did in fact hit a death spiral ... only the report’s own figures show no such thing!! Here is the data from New York that they used to conclude that there was a death spiral:

It shows that the number of people under-65 who bought individual insurance in New York fell below the national average and stayed there. Now, they do not have pre-reform data, but the results is indicative, right? A death spiral!

Or maybe not. Unlike most New Yorkers, I have absolutely nothing against New Jersey. I like New Jersey. New Jersey is a fine place. So let’s look at the data from New Jersey:

New Jersey saw the same fall, even though it did not have a reform. And the above charts come from the report!! How the authors concluded the opposite is unclear to me.

In other words, there was no evidence that New York had experienced a death spiral back when the Democratic candidates were talking about this back in 2008, and there was no evidence that New York had experienced a death spiral when SCOTUS ruled on the mandate back in 2012. 

Now Congress has repealed the mandate and Obamacare is doing surprisingly fine. Candidate Obama was correct: make insurance affordable enough and healthy people will buy it. 

President Obama should have stuck to his guns. Would a no-mandate reform have attracted more GOP support? Sadly, I doubt it. But it is always nice to stick to your campaign promises.

Elections have consequences, but not all consequences are equal

Sometime it seems that every single election of my lifetime had been more important than the one before. But is that really true? What follows is a first take at that question: I hope it provokes a long and contentious comment thread. (Hope, as we again realized ten days ago, really does spring eternal.)

Let’s start a little before I was born.

1960:  Not important, even in retrospect. Would Nixon have backed the Cuban exiles? Would Nixon have tried a Keynesian tax cut? Would either have mattered in the long run? There may have be knock-on effects on the struggle for African-American equality, but those are contingent and impossible to predict.

1964: Yes, very important, but such a blow-out that it’s not worth commenting upon.

1968:  Massively important, both as it seemed at the time and (even more so) in retrospect. A Humphrey administration would have brought universal health care and universal day care, for two things, let alone the implications for American political culture from avoiding Watergate.

1972: See 1964.

1976:  Not important, with a caveat. Gerald Ford would not have been appreciably different from Jimmy Carter. Ford, however, would not have been eligible to run in 1980 under the terms of the 22^nd amendment. (He took office before January 1975, therefore serving “more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President.”) If a Ford term wracked with inflation and recession (which it would have been) allowed Kennedy to beat Reagan in ‘80, then the consequences of having liberal Democrats in office during the subsequent boom might have been very large. But that is speculation; at the time, the stakes were low.

1980:  Unknowable. First, it wasn’t really that close. (See 1972.) In that sense, it’s hard to care about the counterfactual. Second, the American ship-of-state remained remarkably steady under the Reagan administration, given the rhetoric. Finally, its importance hinges on way too many unknowables. (See 1976.) In other words, it probably mattered a lot in the long-run but it really is not easy to say how.

1984: See 1972.

1988:  Not important, really, unless you believe that a Dukakis administration would have ignored the invasion of Kuwait. If you believe that then it was massively important.

1992:  Hard to say. The re-election of George H.W. Bush would have slowed the radicalization of the Republican Party. But at the time, the election didn’t seem earth-shattering save for the issue of health care … and those reforms failed to materialize.

1996:  Yawn.

2000: Massively important … but only in retrospect. Sure, a Gore administration would have kept federal finances in better shape, but that isn’t important. Slightly higher marginal income taxes would have meant slightly lower growth of inequality, but not by much. A Gore-driven Medicare expansion would not have required the fixing that Dubya’s did, but Dubya’s expansion was in fact later fixed. The massive consequences from that election were not foreseeable at the time.

2004:  Not sure. A Kerry administration would have had a rough time disengaging from Iraq. It might have headed off the 2007 financial collapse, but I doubt it. It would have appointed some Supreme Court justices which might have some large consequences going ahead. And then it would have ended with the election of John McCain in 2008. There is a strong case to be made that the stakes were not as high as they seemed at the time.

2008: Too soon to tell. You can make a case that America and the world would be in better shape had John McCain won. (Although his Veep … gulp.) But that hinges on McCain passing a big stimulus, something like Dodd-Frank, a climate change bill and heading off the election of the current President-elect. He would need to hit the quadrifecta while avoiding foreign policy missteps. How likely was that? Moreover, I think the political consequences of having had an African-American president will become clearer in the future, as will Barack Obama’s particular historical role. NOTE: had the 2016 election gone the other way, then I would be more certain in stating that ’08 was an important election, if not 1968-level important.

2012: Important. Obamacare and the Clean Power Plan, for two things. Of course, neither may survive the upcoming administration. See 2008.  

2016: Oh my God. America will change dramatically, or so it seems. 

If this analysis holds water, then two things stand out. First, the only massive future-of-the-Republic election we’ve had up until 2016 happened in 1968. Second, most elections seem less important in retrospect. 

It is possible that 2016 will turn out to be a blip, a strange election prompted by a reaction to the first black president combined with noxious social declines in parts of white America. That will not, however, happen on its own. Opponents of the administration-to-be will need to work very hard and very smart.

Thoughts? Counter-arguments? I would like this to generate discussion; these conclusions are far from firm.

The left-wing success of a McCain administration?

 It is hard to see how John McCain could have won the 2008 election. Unlike 2000 or 2004, it was not a close-run event. But still, what if he had? (And with, say, Vice-president Pawlenty, not Palin.)

If the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare, then it is a no-brainer. Similarly, if you believe that President McCain would have let the auto industry go hang, then it is a no-brainer. But if the Supreme Court throws out the first and you do not believe (as I do not) that McCain would have done the second, then it is worth asking. Would a McCain administration have been better or worse?

The is one giant gain from a McCain administration: we would probably have a carbon ceiling and a carbon price. Assuming that the ACA does not survive, and that Detroit would have, what Obama administration accomplishments would have fallen by the wayside under a President McCain?

1. Passed the stimulus ... but McCain would have passed one as well. It would be more weighted towards tax cuts, but similar in size;
2. Passed Wall Street reform ... but some sort of bill was inevitable, what with a Democratic congress, and McCain was not a particular friend of Wall Street;
3. Killed Osama bin Laden ... but honestly, if the opportunity arose, a McCain administration would have handled that as well as President Obama. McCain was not George Bush;
4. Ended the war in Iraq ... thing is, I am not convinced that the Iraqis would not have kicked us out in 2011 anyway, given the political realities in Baghdad;
5. Abolished “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”;
6. Stopped torture ... oh, come on! Of course McCain would have done that;
7. Kicked the banks out of the federal student loans;
8. Boosted fuel efficiency standards ... but with a climate bill it would not matter that much. Plus, I think this is the kind of policy where the old pre-2004 McCain might have resurfaced, a safe way to be mavericky;
9. Passed mini stimuli in 2010 and 2011 ... they would have been bigger under McCain. The Democratic Party is structurally less-disciplined than the GOP, and I know that McCain’s advisors are foxhole Keynesians. Put his election at risk, and we get them;
10. Halted the construction of new coal plants ... but again, not necessary with a climate bill;
11. Signed the New START treaty.

Monetary policy would have been about the same. And both Souter and Stevens would still be on the Supreme Court. No difference there, at least as of early 2012.

So what have we got? No equal rights for gay Americans to serve their country; the vampire squid continuing to suck blood from federal student loans; and no START treaty. Plus some greater risk of a catastrophic economic mistake.

On the other side, a market for carbon! And, ironically enough, possibly more stimulus. But a market for carbon! A weak market, with big caps, and no permit auctions ... but a market.

The difference seems not huge once you take the ACA and auto bailout off the table. (I am assuming that Libya would have gone similarly and that when confronted with the military and diplomatic reality, President McCain would have stayed out of Syria.)

I must be missing something. Can somebody help me out and tell me what?

The southern problem

  Some commentators, like Bill Maher, have been worrying over the fact that the Democrats have lost the self-identified "white" vote since the 1964 election.  Barack Obama did better than most, they say, but he still didn't win it.  And that, they believe, is a problem.

Now, I don't understand why it's a problem.  But let's put that aside for a moment.  Do the Democrats have a problem with self-identified whites in presidential elections?

I punched up the exit poll data to find out.  And what did I discover?  The following:

Share of the white vote:
                                             Obama    McCain
Former confederate states:       31%       68%
Other states:                            50%       49%
2004 blue states:                      52%       47%

To be clear, these are not arithmetical averages across states.  They are the share of self-identified "white" people who stated that they voted for each of the major candidates for the synthetic jurisdictions listed on the left.

The Congressional results aren't broken down as easily, but considering as the Democrats won 56% of the Congressional vote versus 52% of the presidential one, then I suspect that their share of the "white" vote was even higher. 

Question to readers:  is it a problem that southern whites really don't like Democrats? 

This land is my land, this land is your land

 Where have I been?  Well, I've been travelling a lot lately.  An interesting combination of academic or personal and election work.  Conference in Miami?  Chance to lobby your relatives' state representative to pressure Governor Crist into extending early voting hours!  Paper presentation in Cleveland?  Chance to knock on doors.  Got to go to a family gathering in Fort Lauderdale?  Opportunity to talk to a small business organization about what a Democratic administration means for them.  

And so, I am now in North Carolina.  Today I discussed HSBC's purchase of Banistmo and the future of the Panamanian banking industry with an anonymous banking executive in Charlotte.  Tomorrow I go off the clock, and work to get Barack Obama elected the next president of the United States.  

I've seen a bit in my travels.  Watch this space.

Word up

  Two videos from the recent presidential debate.  Number one, because it moves me, and I agree with it.  My incentive to work harder will not go down (because my payments will not go up) if we prevent this from happening:

And number two, because it sends my wife into hysterics every time she sees it, and I like making her laugh:

Lincoln-Douglas redux

 

 

 

In my continuing attempt to keep all twelve of my readers (or at least 11 of them) clicking here when I don't have the time to write anything substantive (well, at least here), I figure that you would all enjoy this abridged six-minute version of the presidential debate.

Meanwhile, Jussi Jalonen tells us that Sarah Palin's interview performance would not have been considered dismal or disasterous in Finland.  That makes me feel very worried for the future of Finland, where, by definition, all of the citizenry are experts in foreign policy. 

Fourth part of the Palin interview below the fold.

Even more humorless, I am

I'm losing my sense of humor about the election.  (Yes, I know that some of my readers believe that I never had any.  They're probably correct.)  I could handle the lying, that's what Republicans do, and anyway, we've hit back.  (McCain doesn't really oppose stem cell research and McCain isn't really anti-immigrant, although he really doesn't like Social Security and won't say how much he'd like to cut it.) 

But this crap is too much.  Senator McCain lies about suspending his campaign.  Then he flies to Washington for a big meeting.  At which he takes no stance.  The congressional GOP procedes to propose a plan which makes absolutely no sense.  Viz, as far as I can understand it:

(1)  Insure all mortgages.  Charge premiums high enough to make the insurance self-financing.  Okay ... but the mortgages currently in default never paid any insurance premiums in the past.  So how are you going to pay to insure existing mortgages?  Magic?  Brazilian foreign aid?  I think Brazil might have enough foreign reserves to do that, and they owe us ... oh, wait, no, they don't owe us.

(2)  Cut taxes to get private money to recapitalize the banks.  Uh, okay ... but y'all aware that people who have underwater assets are currently subsidized by the tax code?  Cut taxes, and you cut those subsidies.  They want to cut capital gains taxes on assets that are already underwater to encourage financial institutions to sell them?  Huh? 

Besides which, why is raising expected returns from 4% to 4.6%, or 10% to 11.5%, or whatever, going to enough to persuade that tidal wave of capital to unlock itself and pour into financial institutions?  Spreads are already huge and nobody wants to lend. 
                        
(3)  Require that Fannie and Freddie no longer securitize unsound mortgages.  Wait, didn't you just call for the federal government to insure said mortgages?  Oh.

Now, normally this nonsense wouldn't mean anything.  Nancy Pelosi controls the House; with Bush in office, she wants Republicans to sign on for political cover.  Meanwhile, over in the Senate, they only need to peel off nine Republicans to pass the Dodd plan.  But now McCain is refusing to commit himself and has made positive noises about the above bit of gobbledygook, meaning that nothing will get done for forty days.  At least.  Okay ... but why all the sturm-und-drang from McCain then? 

The political logic escapes me.  The economic logic escapes me.  John McCain appears to have escaped the bounds of gravity.      

I'll get back to ya

I, I, I ... I just had to post this.  I know a lot of non-Americans come here (well, three or four) and you've got some interest in our elections.  Since the McCain campaign is now proposing that the vice-presidential debates be scrapped, I figure you might want to get a look at (perhaps) why.

Watch CBS Videos Online

I'm sure she will.  Well, whaddaya think?

Staredown

Looks like one guy will be showing up to the debate.  Probably a better strategy than calling the Palin bluff. 

“Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time.  It’s not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else.”

Obama also conveyed a bit of irritation that McCain had gone public this afternoon, soon after the two men talked about a joint statement.

“The only possible miscommunication might have been how quickly there was an announcement and somebody was on television.  My assumption was that the joint statement would go out – initially.”

McCain is still a strong candidate, even with his continuing decline into incoherence and dissimulation, which is sad to watch.  After all, I supported the man in 2000.  I wouldn't vote for that John McCain in 2008, because the world has changed and so have my opinions.  But this new guy, well, it's sad.

Or amusing, if you're Letterman.

But McCain could still win.  Please donate.  It's crunch time. 

Inconceivable!

I don't know why Senator McCain wants to postpone Friday's debate.  My guess is that he has no idea what to do about the economic crisis, having over the last few days taken pretty much every position that it is possible to take.  He needs the time to sort it out.  The fact that his duties as a confused Senator dovetail with his political needs as a confused Presidential candidate is a happy coincidence.

How should Senator Obama respond?  Well, he has to agree with his opponent about the importance of the crisis and agree to suspend the debate.  Of course, three debates are still necessary.  So the vice-presidential debate will just have to be moved up to Friday, right, Senator McCain? 

And campaigning should not be suspended, not for those who can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Soy Barack Obama, y yo apruebo este mensaje

Ross Douthat says that this ad is as bad as the McCain ads accusing Barack Obama of teaching little kids how to have sex, or the ones accusing him of supporting infanticide, or the ones that falsely state that Obama's tax plan will raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year, or the continual statements by Sarah Palin's that she rejected federal money that she actually accepted. 

I kind of like Douthat's stuff, he's a man with whom I can agree to disagree, but I'm not seeing it.  Is this ad confabulatory?  Or does it just represent the position that McCain fli ... er, adopted during his primary campaign? 

Northern exposure

Here is your daily mental health break.  For lasting effects, avoid any news involving numbers for at least a day.

A friend sent me these photos.  It's a rally in Anchorage, Alaska.  The funny thing is that the organizers of the rally intended it to be a tiny little thing on the steps of the main library.  But then right-wing radio got into the act.  Eddie Burke announced the rally, called the people who planned to attend “a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,” and read the home phone numbers of the organizers.

Result:

and

But the best is below the fold ...

Another public service message

Remember, folks, Barack Obama can't debate.  Terrible at 'em.  Barely can form a complete sentence.  Can't keep track of an argument.  Heck, can't even form consonants.  He is outmatched, and John McCain is going to massacre him.  Massacre him, I say, complete and total destruction, no contest.  No contest at all.

Be sure to warn all your friends, enemies, frenemies, friends with benefits, friends without benefits, spouses, ex-spouses, random strangers, and household pets:  Barack Obama is going to get crushed in the debates.   

Mashed like potatos.  Prepare yourself now.  And prepare others.

A public service message

Health care.  Health care.  Healthcare.  Health care healthcare health care.  Healthcare healthcare healthcarehealthcarehealthcare get you insurance healthcarehealthcare save your insurance healthcarehealthcare healthcare healthcare worried about insurance?  Health care.

Bank regulation.  Barn door, yes, on their watch, not again.

Health care.  Healthcare.  Healthcare healthcare healthcare.  Cut your taxes!  Healthcare.

Bankruptcy change, let judges cut your mortgage payments if you're in trouble.  Health care.  Did I mention health care?  And tuition.  But health care.  Stimulus package, keep state governments working!  Health care.

Healthcare healthcare healthcare.

See you tomorrow.

Carpetbagging

I'll admit it.  I give money to this guy, who's running for office in a state that I've never been to.  (I've been to Illinois, I've been to Iowa ... boyoboy have I been to Iowa ... but never north.)  I'm even attending a fundraiser he'll be throwing in Cambridge next week.

But his opponent, well, that dude has a thicker Brooklyn accent than I do, so I feel okay about it.  And as you'd expect, my guy's advertisements are, like, totally awesome.

Am I overestimating the GOP?

The GOP has been trying to keep Sarah Palin away from the press ever since her selection.  The McCain campaign went so far as to say that there will be no interviews “until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference.”

Ridiculous?  Of course.  Playing badly with the electorate?  No doubt. 

So today the campaign reverses course, and says that she will sit down with Charlie “Lots of Americans make $200,000 a year” Gibson.  The standard Democratic take on this is that the McCain campaign has been forced into realizing that they'd made a bad decision to keep her away from the press.

Possible.  Or perhaps the campaign is just yet again lowering expectations.  “If we make everyone think that we're afraid she can't handle an interview, then they'll be all wowed when she goes on and merely fails to throw up over herself!”

Then again, I might be overestimating the GOP's electoral savvy.  It's possible, I suppose.

That poor man

I really feel sorry for John McCain.  I honestly do.

That was a good speech.  No, "speech" isn't right.  That was a good talk.  Other than one (maybe more, I don't remember) strange blurt about lower taxes, and a couple of scary statements about his foreign policy views, it was patriotic, communitarian, and American. 

If John McCain had given that same speech to a group of Democrats, without the tax-cut tic and the terror-war goofiness (and, yes, the lies about Barack Obama's tax plan) they would be on their feet cheering.  Without saying "community organizer," he praised community organizers.  There were no specifics, there was nothing concrete, there was just patriotism.

And he got nothing from his crowd.  Worse yet, he'll get nothing from Democrats, because he opened by praising "the President," and he has spent the last four years running away from all of his liberal progressive positions, reinforcing his crazy conservative ones, and adopting even crazier and more conservative ones from the most selfish and unpatriotic wing of the Republican Party.  In other words, he's been weak, and he's been wrong.  And he's still weak.

He wasn't weak in a prison run by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, but he has been pathetically weak in the prison that the Republican Party of America has become.  So I still don't respect him.

(I have to add here that his foreign policy instincts are and have always been crazy.)

But I like him now, and I feel very sorry for him.  Why?  Because if he had truly put his beliefs ahead of his ambition in 2002 or 2004 and switched parties, he would be a conservative Democrat today.  As a conservative Democrat, he'd probably be a sitting Vice-President running for re-election.  And if he weren't a sitting Veep running for re-election, there's a good chance that he would be the Democratic nominee for President, with the McCain-Obama ticket cruising towards a landslide.

Instead he's prostituted himself, and given into the worst of his impulsiveness, a rare and awful combination. 

I won't vote for him, because he does not deserve my vote.  But for all ten people who read this, I would like to echo the call he made in the middle of his speech.  Become a teacher, join the armed forces, work in the federal bureaucracy, organize your community, be a good American.  Or, heck, a good Canadian. 

P.S.  I think I live in a different universe from the commentariat, because Sarah Palin's speech just seemed, well, nasty and juvenile.  And that's even before the two blatant lies, in addition to the multiple misrepresentations.  So why all the vapors, I dunno. 

I'm sure you've seen this, but ...

... it is still worth showing.

MSNBC at the Republican National Convention. Chuck Todd, Mike Murphy, and Peggy Noonan commenting. An open mike was on during the commercial break.

Mike Murphy, talking about Sarah Palin:  You know, because, I come out of the blue-swing-state-governor world. Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, and these guys, this is all like how you win a Texas race, you know, just run it up, and it's not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan: It's over.

Mike Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good.

Chuck Todd:  Don't you think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchison?

Peggy Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Chuck Todd:   She's never looked comfortable up there.

Mike Murphy: They're all bummed out.

Chuck Todd:   I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they can obtain?

Peggy Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives.

Chuck Todd:   Yeah, but what's the narrative?

Mike Murphy: I totally agree.

Peggy Noonan: Every time Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

Mike Murphy: You know what's the worst thing about it, the greatest of McCain is no cynicism, and...

Chuck Todd:   This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

I almost feel sorry for this guy.

Almost.  But not quite.  Watch a GOP apparatchik try to defend Sarah Palin's experience and readiness to be President of the United States.

Awfully mean

This is awfully mean.  But good for a chuckle.

More serious readers, especially our non-American friends who aren't bombarded with this stuff, can go here (on her substantive stances) and here (for the conservative response to her selection). 

But since I am a worrier, I'll admit that I understand Tyler Cowen's admonition that we should not misunderestimate Governor Palin's electoral appeal, because many people may have a lot of sympathy for the woman because she chose to bear a child with Down's syndrome.  What do you think?

Here's the latest ad from the Obama campaign:

American readers, please donate.  We need your help, in any amount.

Political earwig alert!

You will not be able to get this out of your head.  But it is a lot of fun.

American readers:  please click on the link to the left (or right here) and donate whatever you can.  We need donations in any amount, no matter how small.  The election is hitting its peak, and there is a lot of work to be done to get every American decent health care and clean up the wreckage of the housing bubble.  Not to mention avoid Cold War 2 or Gulf War 3 or whatever other insanity the other side might get us in to.

Thank you.  Thank you greatly. 

Small-donor democracy

Barack Obama just opted out of the public campaign-finance system.  It's clearly hypocritical.  But it's also smart politics for three reasons.

First, John McCain is just plain breaking the law.  That's a whole 'nother level of hypocrisy.

Second, the 2004 election showed that the current campaign-finance system provided no protection against swiftboating.   527 groups, named after the tax-code provision that allows them, were fully able to skirt the law by claiming that anti-Kerry adverts were actually issue advocacy.  Since Barack Obama can mobilize small donors more effectively than any 527, his campaign doesn't want to give up that advantage and make him vulnerable to a reprise of 2004.   

Finally, Mark Schmitt has pointed out that Obama's style of fundraising opens the door to what he calls "small-donor democracy," a system in which small donors have as much opportunity to express their advocacy as do the big lobbyists.  Schmitt's ideas on how to get there from here are interesting and provocative:  I recommend the article.

I also recommend that our American readers engage in small-donor democracy directly, and click the "Donate to Barack Obama" link on this blog's sidebar.  (Or right here.)  The future can be now, if you make it.

Who is Barack Obama?

I'm back!  But first, an answer to the title question.  Please, cut it, paste it, email it to all your friends. Heck, email it to all your not-friends, too.  Maybe especially your not-friends.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Hat tip:  Slate.

Interlude: You might like him, but so what?

I like John McCain.  He seems like a genuinely nice fellow.  And unlike other past decisions of mine, I will say that while I would not have supported McCain in 2000 knowing what I know now, my decision stands given what was knowable at the time.  I do in fact think that his heart is in the right place, and unlike many of my fellow American lefties, I believe that his calls for national service and national greatness are respectable.  Mass economic sacrifice for social insurance and the environment, mass government service for emergency response and the occasional crazy man's strike at Pearl Harbor, all good things.  Matt Yglesias thinks that his call for service for its own sake is crazy; I think that the country would be well-served by sticking most of our youth in uniform for a couple of years, preferably to pick up trash and receive EMS training, but possibly to serve in You Know What.

But ... even though my respected colleague Niall Ferguson has attested to the man's character, the more I find out about Senator McCain, the more I think he's simply flat-out stupid.

And so, as a public service, here is a slightly overlong video of their man's greatest hits.  Enjoy.

UPDATE:  "Stupid," I'm now convinced is far too harsh, and certainly incorrect.  My difficulty with McCain is how readily he  abandoned so many of his 2000 positions in 2004, without any new facts coming to light that might have caused such a re-evaluation.  It was pure, crass political expediency.  Now the man feels free to dissemble all the time --- about the political complexities in Iraq, the history of American diplomacy, and even Obama's factual statements.  He's also taken nonsensical positions on taxes and health care while fearmongering about Iran. 

I can only find three positive things to say.  First, his climate change plan, while a giveaway to emitting companies, is a giveaway that reduces corporate opposition and might be smart politics.  Second, he supports free trade, and while my own doubts are growing, that's still probably the best position on average.  Of course, that means diddly with a Democratic congress, which is the third positive thing:  with no coattails to speak of, Congress would constrain him from doing crazy things at home (like his tax plan) ... emphasis on at home.   

But here's an opposing view from the fellow with the office next to mine.  If you're pressed for time, skip ahead to minute 4:00.  If you want to hear, well, things that are quite hard to understand, skip to minute 23:15.  It's quite ... judge for yourself. 

Horserace blogging

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of the general election.

Like many, I have wondered, why does she do it?  Unlike many, I am loth to think ill of her.  Perhaps I am too charitable, perhaps I am too quick to forgive and forget, or perhaps I can in fact think of a good and legitimate reason for her to keep running.  Which would be, in light of Wright, that she honestly believes that the black guy Obama can't win in the fall.

Well, the state polls are now in.  Of course, it's early.  The electorate hasn't gotten much of a critical look at Mr. McCain yet, so they're mostly biased in his favor.  In addition, much depends on your theory of scandals.  If you believe that the big impact is immediate, then Obama is over the hump.  If, on the other hand, you believe that endless flogging of the Reverend Wright's intemperate comments only slowly alters perceptions, then he is not.  But those are caveats, and anyway, with the Democratic race still not over, the data we have are the data we have.

And here's what they show:

The blue states lean Democratic under both candidates.  The red states lean Republican under both candidates.  The white states are toss-ups under both candidates. 

The interesting states are the brown and purple ones.  The brown states lean to the GOP under Obama, but Hillary pulls them into the Democratic camp.  The purple ones, meanwhile lean to the GOP under Hillary (except Nevada, which is a toss-up), but lean Democratic if Obama gets the nod. 

Similarly, although the map doesn't show it, McCain's support drops precipitously in Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, and North Carolina if Obama is the candidate, although not by enough to put the Democrats ahead.   

So this is the current state of the race.  Does it match your instincts?  If not, why not?  And what are the implications for the "electability" argument?

The good old days really were better, except when they weren't ... or, something nice to say about Ronald Reagan

The paranoid style in American politics is always present, but it waxes and wanes.  We're currently in a waning period, but it certainly hasn't waned as much as it has in the past.

Here is a 1984 ad from the Reagan-Bush campaign.  It's about the Soviet threat, and aims to convince voters that the Reagan Administration has the correct approach.

To a modern viewer, this half-century old ad appears moderate, reasonable, and as intelligent as one would expect for a 30-second piece.  It bases its argument on prudence against a potential threat, and clearly states what the admakers believe an adequate insurance policy to be.  Contrast with this from the 2004 campaign:

A lie, an information-free bit of "contextual" information (six billion dollars!), an aversion, and a mention of an unspecified wolf-like program related activity that will presumably eat your children.  It's quite horrible, and it's quite horrifying that the Bush-Cheney campaign believed such ads would be effective.

How the Clinton ad stacks up, then, depends on your point of comparison.  As paranoid ads go, it's awful pandering compared to the artful 1984 ad that plays upon concrete fears with real prudence.  But compared to the 2004 slanderous cesspool of a piece, it's quite mild.  On the other hand, the Obama campaign's response manages to mock the whole paranoid trope while going to a whole new level of concrete in a 30-second spot.  Go below and see for yourself. 

Turnaround

I'm off to the Dominican Republic on Sunday.  Amma can't join me.  That makes me sad.

Mike asks what was controversial about the Clinton ad.  The satire tried to answer that question:  the ad first tries to scare you without telling you why you should be scared, and then insists that only one person can protect you without telling you how. 

It turns out that the Clinton campaign used stock footage in that ad, and the little girl whom Hillary is keeping safe in her bed is now a young adult.  She's also an Obama precinct captain.  And here she is:

Blair on the candidates ... no, not that Blair, the other one

What is the principle difference between the Democratic candidates on foreign policy?  Well, as with so many things, Eric Blair had something both non-obvious and non-trivial to say on the topic, although (also as with so many things) he had no idea of the specifics to which his words would apply:

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

Barack Obama is a patriot.  Hillary Clinton is too, but she also has a nationalist streak.  As a former American nationalist who has had the impulse beaten out of me by a relentless onslaught of … uh … facts, I find the difference significant and mildly worrisome.  Emphasis on mildly.  Mildly.  MILDLY. 

Hillary Clinton talks as though she sees the United States as a nation with a mission, endowed by the draw of history.  (Whether she really believes this is another story.)  That last clause is important, because it’s how rational Americans convince themselves that their nationalism is not nationalism:  history really did endow the United States with an oversized importance at a lot of junctures over the 20th century.  Nationalists conflate that with a special superiority. 

Patriots, on the other hand, think that we had the great bad luck to be an oversized democracy at a lot of moments when it made sense for our elected representatives to assume the burden of providing international public goods in order to further our own short-term self-interest.  Nice and all, but a giant-sized Greenland would have done about all the same good things, and maybe even less bad ones.   

Barack Obama is a patriot.  Therefore, Barack Obama is not a nationalist.  Therefore, Barack Obama is also not an internationalist.  Oh, it will be an advantage for the United States that so many of y’all outside our borders get confused at the proposition “non-nationalist ≠ internationalist,” but the truth will be that President Obama will, at the beginning and the end of the day, be looking out for Number One, meaning the U.S. of A., whose well-being he’ll define as the well-being of the constituencies that he cares the most about.  (And who are they?  See season 2 of The Wire.)  That will be a revolutionary change from the last eight years.  Just not the one many people expect.

What the above abstractions mean in practice below the fold.

Time to grow up

For those of you who don't know, here's the infamous 3am advertisement run by the Hillary campaign in Ohio.

Please scroll down to the previous post and ignore this one

Please use your effort on the previous post.  This one is merely to show that I am a fair man.  The Obama campaign is, in fact, quite capable of astounding lapses in taste, even if they don't occur quite as often as in the other major Democratic campaign.

Below the fold, however, is something genuinely funny, and actually germane to the below post that I'd like you all to scroll down to and make me feel better about.

A serious moment, please, on an unexpected issue

I have said, here and elsewhere, that Hillary Clinton would make a fine president.  The policy distance between Obama and her are small, and while I tend to prefer Obama's political and foreign policy priors, I do not have a problem with hers.  Nor, until recently, have I had a problem with her campaign.  That, I must say, has earned me some jeremiahs from other Obama supporters, including Amma. 

I still think that Hillary Clinton would make a fine president.  But her campaign is beginning to disturb me.  It's no one thing, more of an accumulation of small cuts.

To those of you who don't know who he is (our foreign readers, I presume) Keith Olbermann hosts a nightly news broadcast that normally puts a slightly funny spin on the news.  During the Bush Administration, however, he took to occasionally supplementing his broadcasts with full ten-minute speeches on one issue or another, from an openly Democratic point of view.  I always enjoyed them.  He has, I think, captured what is going wrong in this campaign, and what is leaving an increasingly sour taste in my mouth.

Clinton's path to the nomination, as we have discussed on this blog, now involves pandering to the worst instincts of Rust Belt white ethnics.  It also involves specious attacks on competence, and stupid claims of experience.  It is increasingly making me angry.  It is also increasingly counterproductive.  Will the superdelegates support a candidate whose drive to victory involved rending the party's coalition over purely symbolic issues?  Can they? 

Not sure what this means

On the one hand, this video is a wonderful sign of how 21st-century America really has managed to create something uniquely American out of widely disparate cultural traditions.

On the other hand, it kinda sucks.  I'm trying to find something deeper to say about it that won't come back to haunt me, and I just can't.    So I'm hoping that all of you will do so in the comments.

Not-your-normal-HDTD-post annoyed-horserace-analysis-related-program-activities

I am annoyed at Bill Clinton.  Why am I annoyed at Bill Clinton?  I am annoyed at Bill Clinton because the campaign of which he is a part just tried to force Barack Obama to state that he would not accept the vice-presidency.  By having her number-one surrogate propose a Clinton-Obama ticket at this point in the campaign, Hillary wanted to regain the cloak of inevitability after her wins in Ohio and Texas.  That, of course, banked on Barack Obama placing his ambition above his patriotism, because Obama knows quite well that the Clinton campaign has boxed itself into the corner of needing him as her veep in order to win in November, should it somehow pull out the nomination. 

I find that annoying.  Not evil, not dirty politics, just annoying.  And a bit weird. 

Anyway, click the below for our man's response:

He's quite good, isn't he?  Thoughts?

Holy $#!%!

It just sunk in that the Democrats just won a special election.

In Illinois.  In Aurora, Illinois.  You know, where Wayne's World was set.  And Denny Hastert's old district.  Denny Hastert!  You know, the guy who used to have Nancy Pelosi's job.  This is cracking the safest of safe seats, my friends. 

If I weren't still in the office finishing things that need to be done an hour ago, I'd crack open a bottle of champagne. 

¡Viva Obama!

I could have used the same title as the last post for this one. 

Anyway, I do worry about the same issue.  I also wonder about this whole "plagiarism" thing.  Is it getting traction, or dying the heat-death that it deserves?  Same for the new McCain non-scandal:  the "scandal" is ridiculous.  The only good that could possibly come of it is if the press starts holding McCain to the same standards that it holds everyone else.  But I'm not here to talk about any of that.  I am here to talk about foreign policy, but not yet.

No, rather, I am here to lament the fact that Matthew Yglesias doesn't read this blog.  (We's done got the reggaetón first, and we gots yer video here.)  I read his, though, and there I found this:

No demographic left behind, indeed.  I think that's a good thing, by the way.

No demographic left behind

My god, they're even reaching out to the Cheetos-eating basement dwellers.

(Hm. The YouTube still image makes it look NSFW. It's not, but under the cut it goes.)

¡Venceremos!

This is mainly an excuse to test out some new image-processing software.

You know what I'm waiting for? One of the GOP anti-immigration people to say, "You can all go home now. Except for the hot ones." I wonder why not.

In related news, John McCain has announced his new campaign theme, "I May Not Get There With You".

(I was going to write a brief scene involving McCain trying to find music which might appeal to the youth vote, settling on Metallica after hearing "One" and bawling his eyes out. But it just wasn't gelling. I do want to keep this line, though: "Play it, or so help me God I'll send you back to the Young Republicans hogtied with a box of poppers.")

Oh ... my ... God ...

The election is continuing.  I don't know who will win.  I do want to repeat that I think that Hillary Clinton would make a fine president.  I have some doubts, of course, which I promise to post about after today's primary. 

But this, this is just awful.  Don't click the link.  Go down to the Obama reggaetón, click that link.  I'm warning you again.  Don't click the link.

How cow.  Dave M.B. just found a video that is, in fact, considerably worse than the one above.  Again, please don't click the link:

Is Obama like Dubya? Uh ... could you repeat the question?

Could Obama's charisma be a bad thing?  One commentator wrote, in reference to Obama's popularity, “Dubya was definitely a pig in a poke when presented to GOP primary voters in 1999, to a great deal of regret all around. I honestly don't see this as a completely different set of circumstances.”

He's not alone.  John Dickerson wrote in Slate:   “More generally, shouldn't Democrats who have complained that George Bush was elected on the strength of a popularity contest be nervous that this blossoming Obamadulation is getting out of hand?”

So, is Obama like Dubya?  Answer outsourced to D at Lawyers, Guns, and Money:

Um... Hold that thought while I retrieve a cool, refreshing drink from the linen closet.

Okay then. I have a limited amount of time before I go blind and slip into a coma, so I'll make this brief. Could Dickerson possibly be speaking of George “Where Wings Take Dream” Bush?

Last I recall, his — ahem — “election”  to office in 2000 was a “popularity contest” in the following senses:

• He received 50.5 million out of 104 million votes cast. That is to say, he lost the “popularity contest” outright. (Three million of those votes, of course, went to Ralph Nader.)
• F**k off, Ralph Nader.
• Bush was, on the other hand, quite popular with the Dowdified corporate press corps who behaved egregiously thoguhout the campaign, blathering endlessly about his “folksy demeanor” while overlooking the fact that when he spoke about actual policy matters, his breath reeked of model airplane glue. Meantime, Gore was portrayed a desperate, arrogant wonk who — though not yet fat — was clearly unworthy of the office he sought.
• Bush was also hip in the eyes of the rent-a-mob who disrupted the “undervote” recount in Dade County and helped their preferred candidate win a state whose “popularity contest” he had, in all likelihood, actually lost.
• And finally, he was popular with five Supreme Court justices who offered the final stroke of legitimacy to the pretense that Bush was indeed “the people's choice.”

Beyond those niggling details, it's totally plausible that Dickerson might confuse Obama '08 with Bush '00. The resemblance is just uncanny.

Freakonomics on Obama

Normally I try to be witty in these plugs, but this time I'm going to skip it.  I am simply going to say that anyone who wants to know about Barack Obama's intellect and philosophy can simply pick up his second book, The Audacity of Hope.  It is very well-written, and rather substantive.

Steven Levitt, the economist behind Freakonomics, liked it quite a lot.  If you say that you have interest in the candidate, then it behooves you to read it. 

¿Cómo se dice? ¿Cómo se llama?

Will Baird wants to know about Obama's “Latino problem.”  The short answer is that he doesn't have one.  His majority in Virginia only demonstrates what we already knew, after he got 41 percent of the Latino vote in Arizona and a majority in Connecticut. 

Of course, the race is far from over.  Hillary is ahead in Ohio (by quite a lot, actually) and Texas is up for grabs.  After all, as I shout from the rooftops to any Anglo who will listen, there isn't any reason to believe that Mexican-Americans in Texas will vote like Mexican-Americans in Arizona, let alone Puerto Ricans in Connecticut. 

That said, here's a good sign.  Music doesn't get much more all-American than this:

McCainiacs

How Others See Us:  "Obama wins Grammy and whitest US state," Times of India.  The Grammy does not, I should point out, refer to the "Yes We Can" video.

Of course, one great video begats another.  Go click the link.  Then watch the following.

Which brings me to an admission and an admonition.  The admission is that back in 2000 my journal tells me that I was a McCainiac.  I even gave my first ever recorded campaign contribution to the guy, a full $500.  What seems to have excited me was that he was against reducing federal taxes even one penny until the national debt was paid off, and in an election where nobody was talking about health care (Gore hadn't yet proposed to add a pharmaceutical benefit to Medicare) and war seemed far away, that seemed like the big issue.  Pay down that debt, baby!  Andrew Jackson's one good idea.  Plus, he didn't seem to, like, hate the environment. 

That McCain, well, I wouldn't vote for him now.  Times change, other issues take on salience.  But the new McCain?  Even less. 

The admonition is that anybody who is trying to decide between John McCain and whichever of the Democrats gets the nomination is simply not paying attention.  That is a decision that makes no sense.  One guy has pledged to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, keep us in Iraq for a century, confront Iran, and keep our insane health care system.  The others will do none of the above.  If McCain's platform seems reasonable, even desirable, then there is no way in hell that you should be even thinking of voting for the Democrat.  And vice versa. 

Will, I promise to get around to the Latino question that you posed, but c'mon man.  His choice of veep could sway you?

Obamarama!

I hate being short.

Anyway, it was a good long weekend.  (Campaign-related program activities and the programming of work-related ones, or something like that, plus the Superbowl.  Today is my first time back in the office since Friday.)  Since it looks like this thing is going to go all the way to the convention, I've decided that it can't hurt to put up a few posts about the candidates, the platforms, the issues, and all that other boring stuff.

So let's start with the economic issues.  What separates the Democratic candidates?  Well, not a whole lot.  They both back health care reform, progressive tax hikes, a carbon cap-and-trade system, and appointing public officials who, well, know what they're doing.  (There is a corollary to that, which I'll discuss in my next post.)

But there are differences.  I put 'em in three categories:  strategy, philosophy, and understanding.  A not-terriby-short and not-particularly-incisive discussion below the fold.

Obamamania ... you ask why, I respond

Internet quizzes are usually pretty stupid things.  When Dan Drezner recommended a 36-question issues survey to see where you fit on the political landscape, it was a foregone conclusion that I would click the link in a moment of procrastination, but my expectations were low.  To my surprise, the questions were smart and as unbiased as they could possibly be.  Better still, the site provided a wealth of sources about how they determined the various candidates' positions.  I was quite impressed.

Of course, since it was an internet survey, it didn't take a lot to impress me.  But there are far worse surveys out there, based on nothing resembling data.  I recommend that those of you who have used such surveys in any sort of serious way check your results against the one prepared by professional political scientists.

So where did I come out?

Now that result surprised even me, considering that no small amount of my support for Obama derives from considerations of character. 

Unlike other surveys (like the one above), this one allows you to check exactly where you stand against the candidates, issue by issue.  Details below the fold.

Obamamania!

Dave MB asks about the feel in New Hampshire. This weekend I didn’t canvass. Instead, I was at a rally and fundraiser for Obama in Boston. 

Fundraising is much less fun than canvassing. Have you ever asked anyone for money? It’s not pleasant.

It is, however, sadly necessary. The thing is, it becomes easier when you can offer people the chance to be in the same room with the candidate and hear his stump speech live in return for their cash. 

I thought that was silly until I was in a room with the candidate and heard the stump speech live. It makes a difference. It’s not like watching the same thing on television at all.   

Which is why, I suppose, I felt the need to take a picture, even though there are thousands of better ones out there on the net. Proving that I was there, I guess, even though the only thing I did to be there was get some people to write checks to somebody else. 

Nine eleven, nine eleven, nineleven, nineleveninenelenevufenene

This deserves as wide dissemination as possible, and so, as a public service, I bring you the following political message:

Enjoy!

Democracy in America

This weekend I spent my afternoon canvassing for Barack Obama in the housing projects of New Hampshire.  I do that a lot of weekends, these days.

Yes, New Hampshire has projects.  While New Hampshire has a high median income, $57,352 in 2004 — £31,438 at 2004 exchange rates, compared with £24,302 for the rest of the U.S. of A. and £21,700 for England and Wales — the state still has lots of ordinary people. 

Now, we don’t knock on every door.  We’ve got a list of registered voters, and we only go to Democratic households.  The standard spiel is, “Hi there, we’re with Barack Obama, have you decided on a candidate yet?”  Beat … beat … then, regardless of the answers, “Well, what issues are most important to you?”  Followed by then the sales pitch.  Which can last for half-an-hour, if you hit if off with the person at the door. 

In New Hampshire, the pitch includes telling people when and where they can personally meet the candidate.  Now, I’m the first person to say that the American political system is entirely broken.  Congressional districts have metastasized into gerrymandered monstrosities of 700,000 people.  The Senate is a travesty by definition, and I wonder about my countrymen’s lack of outrage about its existence.  And we won’t mention the Electoral College — why should the switch of a few thousand votes in Ohio been enough to save the American people from the results of their own temporary insanity in 2004? 

But for all its faults, having the primary season kick off in places like New Hampshire is, quite simply, a Very Good Thing.  It brings a moment of sanity to a media-drenched political machine badly cobbled together to select a chief executive for a continental nation of 300 million people.  And I love it.

All the individuals discussed below are real people, although they also happen to be archetypes.  They’re just the most archetypical of the actual individuals encountered during our door-knocking. 

There was Parole Guy, in a private house across the street from the projects, with the tattoos running up his right arm, the odd scar around his left nostril, and the anklet.  Parole Guy was a Richardson man, his mind was made up, and hey, his girlfriend and kid were hollering in the next room. 

Then there was Crazy Old Man, who lived in a house at the end of a cul-de-sac — no, the connotation of “cul-de-sac” is all wrong, he lived on a dead end — with peeling paint, a yard full of car parts, and an old station wagon that desperately needed said parts.  Crazy Old Man nodded when he heard that we were from the Obama campaign, and then said, “Well, you know, boys, I have a beef with Obama.  He says he’s an American, but he swore in on a Koran!” 

Ah ... okay.  I chose to assume (probably correctly) that this fellow had merely confused Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) with Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota).  I also chose not to examine why exactly this gentleman thought that there was a contradiction between being an American and being a Muslim.  (Ellison, I’d like to add, swore in on an English translation of the Koran previously owned by Thomas Jefferson.)

You also had What-Me-Vote Lady, a young and childless woman who lived in the corner unit of a clump of four newish attached townhomes.  She was young, and rather annoyed about the war (she had a brother in the National Guard), the economy (she was okay, but she was worried about all the subprime defaults), social security (her parents depended on it, and she didn’t want it to be “privatized”), and health insurance (what health insurance?) ... but why should she vote, when neither her individual vote nor the collective will of the people of New Hampshire will be decisive?

And never count out the Bring Back Bill voters.  Until a month ago, it was rare to meet a voter who had decided on a candidate, with the exception of Bill Richardson.  (There’s something about Bill, it seems.)  Today, the level of Richardsonianism stands ... but the lawn-signs read Hillary.  (When they don’t read Romney or Huckabee, who seem to be leading the lawn-sign race on the dark side.)  When asked, one very nice old Eastern European lady, had to be around 80, said, “Well, I can’t vote for her husband,” but Bring-Back-Bill often seems to be the subtext. 

“She’s got foreign policy experience — look at how Bill Clinton handled things.” 

“She can take on the GOP sleaze machine — look how Bill Clinton did it, even with his shameful behavior.” 

“She’ll be fiscally responsible — look at Bill’s record.”

It’s hard for those of us who aren’t big Hillary fans, and I am not a Hillary fan for reasons I’d be happy to get into in comments.  Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t beat all the GOP candidates cold — after all, Democratic candidates aren’t required to spout lies and denigrate the Bill of Rights in order to get the nomination.  But I have some worries about her and what her presidency might bring, and I have some convictions that other candidates would bring great advantages to the United States and her people than she cannot.  Which doesn’t seem to be stopping her support from growing.

Marine Mother was a surprise — “My son was always crazy.  He should have joined the Army, like I did.  Better still, the Chair Force.”  She was wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt.  I liked her. 

She had Republican neighbors — yes!  In a housing project! — a nice elderly white couple who came home while we were talking.  After a brief discussion of parking spaces — it was clear that they were friendly — Marine Mom couldn’t resist needling them.  “Hey!  They’re from the Obama campaign!  They’ve got some interesting things to say!  C’mon!” 

Marine Mom also pre-emptively (and unnecessarily, I might add) headed us off at the pass by saying, “I’m not going to vote for anyone just because they’re black or a woman.”  I laughed and agreed.  “By that logic,” I said, not entirely accurately, because I’m, like, not of Italian descent, “I’d have to vote for Rudy, and ’s not gonna happen.”

So was Young Mother of Big Family.  (“Big” means “two or more kids” in this context.)  “Hey!  Shut up!”  It is refreshing to see modern Americans raising their children in a healthy way, and those of you who know me will know that this statement is not ironic.   

You meet a lot of YMBFs.  They’re all different — one mentioned how she didn’t talk to her brother any more, because of politics, and it serves the bastard right that he’s lost his health insurance.  (We asked her to start talking to him again.)  Another YMBF was worried about student loans and health insurance.  Her cute little girl was covered by a non-SCHIP New Hampshire program; but too many mothers had children who were just taking their chances. 

Her next door neighbor had a big Yankees chain on and a straight-outta-East Harlem accent.  We had to end our conversation when he asked for her help with some sort of home-maintenance thing that I really feel like I should be able to remember.  I was surprised.  First, it was a project.  They rent.  From the government.  (Yes, even I have stupid conservative instincts buried deep inside.)  Second, New Hampshire is a state where you see more Red Sox flags than American banners, and it’s not like there’s any sort of Old Glory shortage around here.  What was he doing with a Yankees pendant and the kind of accent that only occurs on people born and raised between the Oranges and New Haven?

I have been equally surprised, in fact, to learn that a New York accent makes New Hampshirites more comfortable than if you speak perfect Television.  I have no explanation, not so deep in Red Sox Nation.   

One of the Young Mothers turned out to be Asian-American.  Her age was listed as 28.  So I, of course, asked her if her mother was home when she opened the door.  Thankfully, that is, in fact, a complement. 

(Coincidentally, the same thing had just happened to me in reverse.  We’d had a long conversation with another YMBF about the differences between the Perkins and Stafford loan programs.  I mentioned how great it feels to finally pay your loans off, which led her to ask my age.  I’m old enough to feel very happy at the surprise on her face when I revealed it.)

Finally, there’s Blue Collar Guy.  Blue Collar Guy is friendly, usually 50-something, and undecided but partial to Bill Richardson.  Blue Collar Guy will stand outside his house (a house belonging to a Blue Collar Guy is pictured below), and say, “Sure, yeah, they all want to stop the war.  And they all want to stop aliens from getting into the country.  And they all want to stop the insurance companies, and high oil prices, and Barry Bonds.  But that’s because that’s what we want to hear.” 

He wants proof that your Democratic candidate (a) has guts; and (b) understands that rich people aren’t “middle class.”  (Marine Mom is looking for the same thing, I should add.) 

Two Obama anecdotes come in very handy here.  They have the advantage of being true, and encapsulating a lot of what I like about the guy.  First, the time he told a bunch of union muckety-mucks in Michigan that higher CAFE standards were coming under an Obama administration. 

Second, his response to Hillary Clinton when she told him that she was against removing the $97,000 per year cap on FICA taxes.

Clinton:  “I do not want to fix the problems of Social Security on the backs of middle-class families and seniors.  If you lift the cap completely, that is a $1 trillion tax increase. I don't think we need to do that.”

Obama:  “I will be very brief on this because, Hillary, I have heard you say this is a trillion-dollar tax increase on the middle class by adjusting the cap. Understand that only 6 percent of Americans make more than $97,000 a year. So 6 percent is not the middle class.  It is the upper class.”

Is the number correct?  As of the third quarter of 2007, the Current Population Survey indicated that only 10 percent of American wage and salary workers over age-25 earned more than $87,048 per year.  The Obama campaign calculated the six percent figure by taking the CPS data — available at the 10th, 25th, median, and 75th percentiles — and fitting it to a Gompertz distribution, from which they extrapolated the sixth percentile.   

Then there are the random conversations with guys stooping, people washing their cars (well, not yesterday, it was too cold), parents playing with their kids. 

It’s a good experience.  I can’t recommend it more strongly, and that goes especially for you high-earning types, no matter your cynicism level.  You know who you are.  Trust me.  The education is worth the opportunity cost.   

And, like jury duty or joining the National Guard, it makes you a good American.