Faith Forum

Some comments on the recent Faith Forum 'debate' at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.

I love the forum. This is a great opportunity to learn how the candidates think, and to hear unrehearsed answers without the distraction of partisan attacks and punch lines. I hope this becomes a tradition. Thank goodness one of these evangelicals has finally realized you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

McCain has much better domestic policies, and Obama has much stronger foreign policies. I know this is the opposite of what the ignorant masses think. I'm glad I don't have to answer to public opinion polls like these guys.

McCain sees every foreign policy issue through the prism of the military. It is a little scary when military thoughts crept in to his answers to non-military questions. His approach to evil in the world is single minded: "you have to defeat it". As president, I wonder how he would handle the half dozen or so evil regimes that exist. Would he attempt to defeat all of them at once, or one at a time? I am a firm believer in taking what people say at face value, and I have no doubt that he would get us into more than one new war if elected. We can pray it is not against Russia or China. Iran would be disastrous enough as it is. Watching him talk about war, do you get the impression of a man whose fondest wish is to recreate the glory of WWII?

Another thing that is scary is his opinion on the supreme court. He opposes the four liberal justices, who have maintained our personal liberties. I can assure you that replacing just one of them with another right winger will have a noticeable negative effect in your life.

Curmudgeon

McCain's depiction of Obama as a celebrity appeals to the curmudgeon in us. It resonates in a couple of ways.

1. People resent celebrities for achieving fame and fortune without hard work.
2. People are tired of hearing about the next new thing, which is really nothing special.

Unfortunately for Obama, number 1 is hard to fight, but he did it well against Hillary, who is a much better campaigner than McCain. And it is usually a small factor in presidential elections. Claims of 'not ready to lead' don't stand up for anyone who is objective and listens to what Obama is saying.

Number 2 should be easier. You just have to explain what the new thing is about, until it seems less risky. Very few voters want another Republican disaster, so the bar for this is not too high. Obama should address this issue head on, as is his style. He should talk about how change can be scary, but the risks can be managed. This has the additional advantage that his opponent becomes the candidate of the status quo (as if he is not that already).

If the Republicans want to subtly 'define' Obama as a 'celeb', then Obama should 'define' what their argument is by answering charge 2 instead of charge 1.

Public Election Financing

As expected, Obama has declined to have the taxpayers foot the bill for his campaign. This decision has drawn an amazing amount of criticism. Hoping to understand the outrage, I have read a number of articles, but the only argument I could find was something like "changing your mind is a bad thing". Have these authors never changed their minds?

Public financing is a good idea for reducing the influence of special interests in government. Politicians get and keep their employment by winning elections. Winning elections requires money. Raising millions generally requires donations from special interest groups. As a result, politicians primarily serve special interests. Public financing tries to put a stop to this by giving the money to the candidate so that he does not have to serve special interests to pay for his campaign. Good idea in theory, but it doesn't work so well in practice. Organizations which are supposedly independent of the politicain's campaign can spend any amount they want. So the candidate is still beholden to the special interests who finance those organizations.

At the time Obama said he would use public financing, the only two choices were those above. The public financing option, with it's spending limitations, was the more principled position. But there has been a dramatic change in the electoral landscape. Obama has shown (and surprised himself) that millions of individuals making small contributions can finance a campaign themselves. This is a third way (individuals). This is a revolutionary change in ethical politics, and a dire threat to lobbying organizations whose business model relies on politicians dependence on thier money.

So here's a simple (and fairly imperfect) analogy. The weather forecasts rain on July 4, so the town picnic is planned as an indoor affair. On the day of the picnic the skies are clear. The Mayor announces the good news that there will be fireworks after all. And all the newspapers criticize him. "He said there would be no fireworks, and he lied. What happened to his promise to be a different kind of politician...".

The Wrong Speech

Obama's race speech was brilliant. Unfortunately it was the wrong speech.

Many things were explained by it, but the gist that I got out of it was: the history of race in this country explains the source of the hateful remarks of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Various sound bites were distilled and reported in the media, none of which are likely to influence casual voters.

The problem is, the pastors remarks were not racist, they were anti-American. An anti-war candidate's biggest weakness is the impression of a lack of patriotism. The picture of Obama smiling with pastor Wright puts him smack in the middle of the 'blame america first' crowd. This is political suicide. Look what it did to Ward Churchill, who described WTC victims as 'little Eichmanns'. Surely it is academically worthwhile to try to understand the motives of the enemy. Yet he lost his tenure at a liberal university, even though that is impossible for controversial speech.

Americans don't want to know that an anti-American tirade is an understandable consequence of historical injustice, they want to know deep in their gut that the candidate disagrees with it. The speech Obama should have given would have said: "America is blamed by many people for all sorts of things. Here's why they are wrong."

An Open Letter to Geraldine Ferraro

Dear Geraldine,

A political orator of Obama's caliber comes along once in a generation. When they are white males, they usually become president. Even Obama's political enemies admire his skills in this area. Yet you do not believe he could have even contended for the democratic nomination if he were white.

When you resigned from Clinton's campaign, we could have given you the benefit of the doubt. You're not a latent racist, you just honestly don't see the skills that we do - the genius that more than adequately explains his popularity. But now you have described his race speech as "brilliant" (which it was), and yet somehow still feel his support is race based.

If this is not convincing, consider this: every successful african american since the civil rights era has been accused of exploiting affirmative action to get where they did, without exception and regardless of their skills. It was only a matter of time before someone made that accusation about Obama. That someone was you.

I feel sorry that you were referenced negatively in a speech that may well be taught in future history classes, but you have noone to blame but yourself.

Hillary the Tactician

Has anyone else noticed the dramatic shift in press coverage of Hillary and Obama? By some counts Hillary gained 3 delegates on March 4, barely denting Obama's lead of nearly 100 delegates. Yet the press practically threw a ticker tape parade for her Hillaresurgence. There was virtually no fallout when in a fit of paranoia, Clinton likened Obama's intention to increase his emphasis on their differences to Ken Starr. Meanwhile, the press has been skewering Obama left and right.

This is of course a direct result of Hillary's complaints about the media treating her unfairly, as evidenced by the now infamous SNL skit, and the media's neurotic self conscious nature. Realizing this was happening, the Clinton campaign took advantage and threw everything but the kitchen sink at Obama in the runup to the March 4 primaries.

If nothing else, the Clintons are tactically brilliant. Welling up before the New Hampshire primary and Super Tuesday are two more examples. (Once could have been considered a fortunate coincidence)

The problem with tactical leaders is they garner intense opposition. Karl Rove comes to mind. Bill Clinton too is not remembered for his ideas, but for his political skills. How many of you remember what the Clinton Doctrine says? The Republican revolution of 1994 was largely a reaction to his tactical victories.

Contrast this with Reagan. Not tactically brilliant, but he is remembered for his ideas of small government and defeating communism by outspending it.

(For the record, the Clinton Doctrine was about military intervention against genocide)

Talking to Enemies

GW Bush, McCain, and Hillary all agree that we should not talk to hostile leaders without preconditions. Obama disagrees. He is right and they are wrong.

This can best be seen by turning the issue around. Consider the case of Suu Kyi, an opposition leader in Burma/Myanmar. The burmese government (a repressive dictatorship) refused to meet with her about the recent unrest unless preconditions were met, such as "she renounce widespread calls for international sanctions against the military regime".
Here is a news item.

Surely renouncing sanctions should be a result of negotiation, not a precondition. Otherwise what motive does the junta have for giving any concessions at all?

Predictably GW Bush insisted (correctly) that the meeting should take place without preconditions.

Such hypocracy arises when one takes the attitude that our people are good and the other side are evil people who need to be controlled. I will not argue that those who are hostile to us are not evil, but asking them to implicitly accept that categorization for all to see by submitting to preconditions is not going to work, for obvious reasons.

Here's another analogy: in a hostage situation, imagine the police refuse to answer the phone when the hostage takers call, claiming that 'taking hostages was wrong and so they should release the hostages first, before we talk'.

Clinton's Race Card

Why do the South Carolina primaries bring out the worst in some people?

Obama has admirably avoided discussing race in his campaign. I suppose it is just self interest. If he is labeled as 'the black candidate', he cannot possibly win.

For that very reason, the Clintons would like nothing better than to interject race into the campaign. But they have to be pretty subtle. And so they have. Speaking at Benedict College, a historically black college in South Carolina, Hillary praised African American Congressman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., for his political achievements: "He didn't get there you know by leapfrogging - he got there by lots of hard work day in and day out". The term 'leapfrogging' is intended to provoke jealousy of someone who gets ahead without waiting their turn.

This is not the first time they have insinuated this. The 'fairy tale' comment is relevant here. I don't see how people could interpret it as a racial slur, and I also don't believe Bill's claim that it only referred to Obama's inconsistent opposition to the war (which isn't true anyway). Rather it indicates to me that Bill has been obsessing over Obama's 'out of nowhere' rise to political success. Apparently Obama just doesn't know his place.

Superdelegates

From Wikipedia: Superdelegates are delegates to a presidential nominating convention in the United States who are not bound by the decisions of party primaries or caucuses. Superdelegates are elected officeholders and party officials.

In other words in a close contest, after the party rank and file have voted in the primaries, the party establishment gets to decide who really gets nominated. Thus the image of the smoke filled back room. Presumably the superdelegates demand political favors from the winning candidate.

Normally this would not be all that bad, but there is a potential issue this time. One of the Democratic candidates has much better connections with the Washington establishment, and the other is an African American. If Obama gets a majority of the popular delegates, and a back room deal is made to nominate Hillary, it will be very hard to avoid the notion of a racially motivated conspiracy. I don't know how strong the backlash would be, but I would bet many of those superdelegates would lose enough support that they would be vulnerable in their next election. It would certainly be very damaging to the Democratic party.

Between now and the convention, look for both sides to claim to be ahead in the delegate count. Obama will not count the superdelegates. The Clintons will count the ones who have specified a preference. But take it with a grain of salt. A preference is not a commitment.

Unpresidential Candidates.

I've been itching to write about the presidential race for a while, but I didn't have enough to say about any one candidate. So I'll put it all in one post. Each group is in alphabetical order.

Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani - This guy is a Republican? And since when can someone competent get elected?
John McCain - He learned his lesson in 2000: suck up to the right to get the nomination. That was proof that intra-party politics is still done in back rooms. One problem, the right is in a coma this time. So all he did was destroy his base of independents.
Ron Paul - Gets ALL the attention on the internet (among republicans), and still polls lower than Attila the Hun. I suspect that polling results are also decided in back rooms. Or less than 5% of voters use the internet.
Mitt Romney - 4 more years of stupid.
Fred Thompson - 4 more years of stupid.

Democrats:
Joe Biden - Started his campaign with a racist gaffe. If Obama is the first clean black candidate, which one was dirty? I've got news for you, the brown color is melanin, not dirt.
Hillary Clinton - Why do so many men have such a violent reaction to her? For the very same reason women in management are called ball busting bit**es. The women these men grew up with were submissive. A woman with a dominant personality emasculates them, and reminds them of other women who emasculated them. She will go all the way largely because she has mastered the most important skill for a president: teflon skin.
John Edwards - Typical old fashioned democrat. Panders to anyone with a hand out. Claims to have made a career of fighting insurance companies. So why does he want to force 40 million people to become customers of the insurance companies?
Barack Obama - The guy with the vision. Gets ALL the attention on the internet (among democrats). Proves that being right does not win debates. Hillary, if you do not choose him for your running mate, a lot of voters will be VERY angry with you.