Once upon a time, the death of a Supreme Court justice wouldn’t have brought America to the edge of constitutional crisis. But that was a different country, with a very different Republican Party. In today’s America, with today’s G.O.P., the passing of Antonin Scalia has opened the doors to chaos...
In his opening paragraph, in around 50 words, Krugman manages to blame the GOP for "chaos", a "constitutional crisis", and losing America. All because the GOP controlled Senate may delay confirming a Supreme Court appointment for 9 or 10 months. Even by the standard of Krugman's usual vitriolic, polarizing, partisan hyperbole, that is an impressive pile of horseshit.
Of course this is nothing new for regular Krugman watchers. Who can forget his 2010 classic meltdown on the eve of the Republican takeover of majority control in the House of Representatives:
It happened again on Wednesday. A High Frequency Trading (HFT) proprietary algorithm crafted by highly compensated brains-on-sticks and nurtured in the bowels of an investment bank escaped into the wild. From its carefully co-located massively parallel high speed trading computer it emerged to wreak havoc on the financial markets. In this case, it was a happy ending. The algo turned on its master and sucked the very life blood out of the firm that deployed it.
The incident is yet another lights-flashing, klaxon-blaring warning signal that competing HFT algorithms operating with the speed, size and complexity that are commonplace today cannot be adequately regulated, tested, or managed. Their interactions with each other cannot even be understood or predicted.
Wednesday 8-1-12: The Knight Capital Algo Clusterfrack
The Facebook IPO priced at $38 per and the offering was increased 25% by over 100 million shares. At this price Facebook will be the largest tech IPO in history and second largest IPO of all time behind VISA. Depending on how the offering trades, it may finish the day as the largest offering of all time. At the IPO price Facebook as a company will be valued more than tech giants Cisco, Amazon, and more than all except 20 other companies listed on the S&P.
There is no shortage of advice on how to assess the value of Facebook's stock. You can easily find analysis outlining the bull case, the bear case, and everythingin between. The financial news networks have turned all their programing over to 7x24 Facebook coverage. Many spent $5.00 to download an anonymous author's analysis in e-book form - The Pitch. This blog will not try to assess the merits of the company value versus the IPO value versus the value of as it trades in a speculative frenzy. However, we will suggest that the best book for analyzing the Facebook offering is available for a free download for your Kindle, or on the web.
David Frum is unhappy about Ron Paul and his supporters. This is not new, but on the plus side, it gives me an opportunity to recycle a favorite graphic I first used in November 2007. I suspect I'll have the opportunity to use it again between now and the Republican convention.
Ron Paul holds a very special place in the psyche of David Frum. Frum fancies himself on the vanguard of a modern intellectual conservatism. But when Ron Paul is the topic, he is reduced to incoherent, bile filled rants in both his writing and televised appearances.
As a direct consequence of our new public financing rules for the mayoral race in San Francisco, we now have a cavalry charge of 16 candidates running for mayor. C.W. Nevius explains:
"It would be safe to say that many San Franciscans don't understand public financing...
Raise $25,000 and you get $50,000. Scare up $100,000 and you get a 4 to 1 match for $400,000. No wonder there are 16 candidates for mayor. It's political happy hour... this is a poor use of public funds. This is the first mayoral race with public financing and voters are learning that it allows candidates to get easy money and, in some cases, to waste it.
The weird catch-22 of San Francisco's system is that once the money is spent, a candidate can't drop out of the race unless he or she pays it back. The problem is that a 2007 change in the law made it possible to start pulling in the money nine months before the election. By the time August rolls around, candidates may be hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole and can't afford to quit."
So we have candidates who are only in the race because we the citizens of SF are paying them to run for mayor with our money. And the peculiarities of our public finance rules mandate they stay in the race in order to continue to suckle at The City's bountiful teat. But this is all fine because - you know - we in SF have a lot of extra money lying around to finance any candidate who wants to run for mayor. Why would we not want to spend $9 million of our tax dollars for the privilege of sorting through sixteen mayoral candidates? I sure can't think of anything better to do with that money.
As Ron Popeil might say - "But that's not all!" At no extra charge we will now throw all sixteen candidates into the mix-master of our first ranked voting / instant runoff election for mayor. On November 8th, all San Francisco voters will cast three votes for mayor in rank order of preference. "Rank" being the operative word in that sentence. Rich Deleon ruminates about the election and The City's progressive future in Sunday's SF Chronicle Insight:
The Dividist has not yet weighed in about the surreal stupidity of the TSA "Don't touch my junk" controversy. This just seemed like the right example to make a point. Ms. Banovac has apparently adopted this as her standard airport security attire, in order to avoid being subjected to the pat downs, which she found offensive.
The fact that she appeared as Tammy Brewer in a 1997 Playboy pictorial on "Dental Girls" had absolutely nothing to do with the Dividist choosing this particular example of TSA security theater of the absurd to highlight here.
That said, the Dividist believes this form of protest to be much more effective than say - holding up the line and inconveniencing other passengers by organizing a mass opt-out protest. I salute Ms. Banovac's patriotism and innovative approach to the problem.
This prescient New Yorker cartoon may have been intended to be humorous, but OTOH - if we all adopt the Banovac solution, we won't need the TSA. Just sayin...
No sooner had I completed my heroic defense of divided government against a last ditch counter-offensive from partisan Democratic bloggers, when Paul Krugman launched a sneak attack from the far left flank. It was a classic Krugman tactic - an awe inspiring, world class hysterical hissy fit from the lofty platform afforded him by the New York Times:
"Barring a huge upset, Republicans will take control of at least one house of Congress next week. How worried should we be by that prospect?.. This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness... The economy, weighed down by the debt that households ran up during the Bush-era bubble, is in dire straits; deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger. And it’s not at all clear that the Fed has the tools to head off this danger. Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap... So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid."
Whoa. Somebody get that man a Prozac. A Dividist's work is never done. After reading this, I started gathering resources to rebut, but found the article so incoherent and self-contradictory that I was struggling where to start. Fortunately The Economist made this job a whole lot easier.
'Mr Krugman's attempt to raise the stakes fails utterly. He spends most of his column-inches noodling about the ways in which our imminent divided government will not resemble the one that reigned in the fondly-remembered Clintonian golden age. In his last paragraphs, Mr Krugman finally arrives at the only really pertinent question: How would the Democrats' holding their House majority save us from the terrible fate he now foresees? Here's what he says:
"Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap.
But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts."
Mr Krugman implies that if Democrats continue to control the House, we'll get the expensive "active policies" that will save us and avoid the expensive tax cuts that will prolong our woes. Of course, Democrats control the House now. This has not spared us Mr Krugman's vein-popping fits over the current Democratic government's disinclination to enact a second budget-busting stimulus.'
And that was not all... The money quote:
"It's a little sad, isn't it, when even our most eminent public intellectuals waste so much of their time, and ours, on baseless partisan freakouts?"
I think that pretty much sums it up. Except for what Nike Gardiner at the Telegraph had to say.
"Not only is Krugman’s article one of the most ridiculous pieces of scare-mongering in the history of modern American journalism, but it is the pathetic whimper of a decaying liberal Ancien Regime that is spectacularly crumbling. It also illustrates just how out of touch liberal elites are with public opinion, as well as economic reality. The tired old blame Bush line no longer works, and as a recent poll showed, the former president’s popularity is rising again."
So what does it say when Krugman is sounding doomsday reports that the GOP winning Congress on Tuesday condemn America “to years of political chaos and economic weakness?” Let’s ask Krugman himself, circa 2000. In his essay “How to Be a Hack,” he sagely warned that it’s “still a good idea to tune out supposed experts whose minds are made up in advance.” I hope I’m not jumping the gun myself when I say that for once, Krugman’s advice sounds spot-on.
"Hey, wait, I thought it was Democrats who liked to say Republicans are trying to scare us. Now, it's just Republicans are scary, and we hope you believe that they're scary to everyone, and not just to Democrats."
"But far be it from me or anyone else to suggest that Krugman’s off his rocker when he says a Republican House of Representatives portends disaster. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim and Krugman’s gotta make terrible predictions. As we speak, he’s probably stroking his Nobel Prize and staring wistfully out the window — the leaves are pretty on Princeton’s campus this time of year — and contemplating the Xanadu we could have had if only we’d coughed up another trillion in stimulus. Let him indulge his fantasies. It’s better that way."
To be fair, the comments quoted in response to Krugman's column are all from right-of-center columnists and bloggers. OTOH, Google could not find anyone of note from the left trumpeting or even defending Krugman's column. Methinks even his liberal brethren are embarrassed about this particular screed.
"If Obama names Warren, the momentum in the campaign would shift powerfully and immediately, with a rejuvenated Democratic base excited and fighting trim, ready to roll, ready to fight, ready to erupt with support that the selection of Warren would inspire."
...and I say to myself -"That's 10."
Since Obama was elected, I noticed a propensity for Democrats to enthusiastically embrace broad sweeping generalizations that strike me as - well - delusional. These episodes are characterized by an extended period of self-congratulatory, mutually-admiring, media/blog linkfests that bloom like a 1,000 flowers across the intertube gardens. Eventually the meme withers on the vine and is recognized to be - well - delusional, at which point it is never mentioned again. Except by Republican blogs who point and laugh.
So, I started accumulating a list. Adding Budowski's latest, I now have 10, and it is time to go to press. This list is by no means exhaustive. Please nominate any additional delusions I may have missed in the comments. If there is enough interest, I'll post a poll to rank them.
TOP TEN DEMOCRATIC PARTY DELUSIONS SINCE OBAMA WAS ELECTED
President Obama picking a fight with John Boehner is a big win for Democrats because - you know- everyone would rather have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
President Obama was in Milwaukee on Labor Day and kicked off the fall political season by introducing his fire-breathing stem-winder stump speech for the fall campaign. As happens occasionally when a politician gets on a roll in front of a friendly crowd, the President took a short detour off message. Here he channels Jimi Hendrix to take a shot at his critics, saying "They talk about me like a dog."
As soon as he said it I thought - He's going to regret that.
While that sound bite got most of the media attention, the real meat on the bone of that speech was President Obama's announcement of a new $50B+ infrastructure spendingstimulus development program. Some highlights:
"....as part of the largest new investment in America's infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System... jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools, repairing our faulty levees and dams, connecting nearly every American to broadband, and upgrading the buses and trains that commuters take every day... we will be investing $28 billion in our highways, money that every one of our 50 states can start using immediately to put people back to work.. the jobs that we're creating are good jobs that pay more than average; jobs grinding asphalt and paving roads, filling potholes, making street signs, repairing stop lights, replacing guard rails..." "We also have to build a new foundation for our future growth. Today, our aging system of highways and byways, air routes and rail lines is hindering that growth. Our highways are clogged with traffic, costing us $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel... we're talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America... I'm announcing my administration's efforts to transform travel in America with an historic investment in high-speed rail... The Department of Transportation expects to begin awarding funds to ready projects before the end of this summer, well ahead of schedule." - President Barack Obama - March 3, 2009 and April 16, 2009.
Wait! My mistake. Those excerpts were from a couple of speeches the President made announcing the benefits of the $787 billion$862 billion somewhere north of $1 trillion (fully loaded) stimulus legislation passed in February 2009. Apparently that bill was about $50 billion dollars short. Easy mistake. It was a big bill, nobody really read it. It would be easy to forget an additional $50 billion dollars or so. Could happen to anyone. Fortunately the administration is correcting that oversight now. For some insight into what this extra $50 billion dollars of not-a-stimulus infrastructure spending will get us now - excerpts from the the Milwaukee Labor Day speech:
"I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads and rails and runways for the long term. I want America to have the best infrastructure in the world. We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We can have it again. We are going to make it happen. Over the next six years, over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads -– that’s enough to circle the world six times. That’s a lot of road. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways –- enough to stretch coast to coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways. And we’re going to advance a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers...We’re going to continue our strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion and travel times and reduces harmful emissions... this will not only create jobs immediately, it’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul." - President Barack Obama - September 6, 2010
I'm not the only one who had a deja vu experience watching his performance:
No, President Obama is not a dog. He is a one trick pony unicorn. For this administration there is exactly one answer to every problem. Spend more. Raise taxes to pay for new spending. Spend more. Borrow more to pay for new spending. Spend more. Every problem is a nail, spending is the hammer that the administration wields as every solution. So what if ARRA (the biggest spending program in US history until HCR a year later) did not stimulate the economy as expected? No problem - get a bigger hammer, because obviously, even more spending is the right answer this time.
Look, the problem with the President's newer bigger spending hammer, is not that he is spending on infrastructure per se. As I said at the time of the original porkulus, if you are going to do a stimulus program, funding needed infrastructure is the right way to do it:
"It is incumbent on our Federal government to help cushion the blow for those Americans devastated by this economic contraction. That includes unemployment extensions such as are in the stimulus bill. If there are infrastructure projects that we know we really need, like upgrading the electric transmission backbone, and repairing dangerous bridges, there is certainly a case to be made to do the projects now and cushion the recession impact. Fine. I’m on board. The operative word being “need”. But to spend a trillion dollars, just for the sake of spending a trillion dollars,just because some economists and politicians have an unproven dogmatic ideological belief in Keynesian theory, or - more likely - using unproven Keynesian theory as an excuse to load up a porker the likes of which we have never seen before - strikes me as batshit insane."
As Rachel Maddow points out, many Republicans complained that the 2009 ARRA porkulus legislation did not contain enough infrastructure spending. She is correct that the Republicans are playing politics now, just like the President and Democrats are playing politics now by pushing new programs before the election. Everyone understands that two months before the election, this is par for the course. But I have a solution that will get bi-partisan support if the administration is sincere about this program.
Since (as clearly indicated by the President on Monday) the monstrous ARRA stimulus legislation did not have the right mix of infrastructure spending (if it did - why would we need a new program less than two years later?) - then the solution is not to spend new money, but instead to fix the stimulus. If the Democrats believe they did the right thing ramming the ARRA stimulus package through - let it play out. But if it was wrong and we need this infrastructure, then reallocate the remaining unspent $200+ billion in the stimulus package to pay for the needed infrastructure. That is an approach that might elicit bipartisan cooperation - even during the election season. But the exact wrong answer for the the administration and the country, is to pile on new spending.
The administration is reported to be in a panic about the recent polls on the mid-term election. Given that focus, given the politcal acumen of Rahm and Axelrod, it is astonishing that they are so tone deaf to the message being delivered by the electorate. Let me help:
Graphic ripped from Won Park, with apologies to Norman Rockwell, served up by DWSUWF
Welcome to the 34th edition of the Carnival of Divided Government- The Quattour et Trîcênsimus - Special "Thanks to Obama, Geithner, and Bernanke Our Dollar is a Turkey" Edition.
Time to be Thankful Even as the Administration, the Fed and our Congress destroys the value of our currency and by extension, our standard of living.
DWSUWF has much to be thankful for. I am thankful for CNBC, which is the only network where you can get beyond the sound bites, the mindless partisan sniping, and actually learn what is going on with our government policies and the consequences for the economy, jobs, the dollar, our standard of living and the future of our country. Case in point - this week on CNBC we learned about the consequences of devaluing our currency by printing money to service insane debt created by wild spending...
[apologies for the formatting - I don't know why CNBC video "embeds" add all this blank space, and I can't figure out how to fix it]
... after all, since we are coordinating with central banks the world over, and since every other country of significance is also stimulating their economy devaluing their currency, we are safe in the smug assumption that there is nowhere else to go but the dollar. Our leadership arrogantly assume the dollar can continue to rest on its reputation as the reserve currency of last resort, as we continue to print more and more and more. Two problems with this plan - 1) No one has yet figured out how to print gold, copper, steel, or oil - 2) Everybody else in the world is not stupid.
So China is hoarding commodities, and India, Russia and othercountries are buying gold specifically to hedge against the dollar. It would seem we are migrating toward a global gold standard whether we in the US want to participate or not. In the meantime the US continues to play Russian roulette with our currency and standard of living.
Let us again turn to Peter Schiff, who was right in 2006, was right in 2008, and who now tells us what to expect in 2010 and beyond. Three for three??
Frightening. But any investor would be foolish not to listen to what he has to say.
I am also really, really thankful that Scared Monkey posted this clip from SNL, which is quite possibly the single best bit that SNL has ever done:
Just get it over with!
My side hurts from laughing.
I am thankful that one year from now, we will be reviewing the results of the 2010 midterm elections and what they portend for the 2012 presidential campaign. As some may recall, only one year ago, Barack Obama ushered in the new permanent realignment of the American political landscape. With that election we learned that the United States was actually a center-left country. We learned that the Republican Party if not already dead was doomed to succumb to the inevitable demographic shifts in the populace and that ideas like fiscal restraint are so last century and irrelevant. Having learned all of this from the 2008 election we can only assume that the recent 2009 GOP gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia are attributable to the last spasms of a dying GOP corpse. And in that context I am thankful to Professor Jacobson's penetrating analysis of the 2009 race:
"Republican Bob McDonnell has been projected the winner of the Virginia Governor's race. Proving that even a small, unpopular, fringe party which does not appeal to moderates or independents, can win over a large, popular, mainstream party. The secret? More votes."
Finally, I am thankful that as we turn our eyes to the 2010 midterms, the prospect for and value of divided government is once again getting its due from the political chattering class. Which, thankfully, finally brings us back to the Carnival.
As explained in earlier editions, we have adopted Latin ordinal numeration to impart a patina of gravitas reflecting the historical importance of the series. In this theCarnival of Divided Government quottor et trîcênsimus (XXXIV), as in all of the CODGOV series, we select volunteers and draftees from the blogosphere and main stream media writing on the single topic of government divided between the major parties (leaving it to the reader to sort out volunteers from draftees). Consistent with this topic, the primary criteria for acceptance in the carnival is to explicitly use the words and/or concept of "divided government" in submitted posts. A criteria that, to our endless befuddlement, is ignored by many of the bloggers submitting posts, which sadly results in DWSUWF reluctantly ignoring their fine submissions.
"The Framers tried to craft a constitution that gave politicians proper incentives to check each other. “Ambition [would] counteract ambition,” as James Madison saw it, with congressmen keeping presidents honest and vice-versa.
Things haven’t worked out as planned. Too often, party loyalty trumps constitutional fidelity, as evidenced by former House speaker Denny Hastert’s self-image as a “lieutenant” of George Bush rather than a guardian of congressional prerogatives.
But when different parties hold the legislature and the executive, the Madisonian system works better. Divided government leads to many more congressional investigations into presidential misconduct, and, as two University of Chicago scholars demonstrated recently, “the White House’s propensity to exercise military force steadily declines as members of the opposition party pick up seats in Congress.” When politicians wax sentimental about “the wisdom of the American people,” it’s usually a good idea to hold on to your wallet. If we’re so smart, who’s to blame for the clowns we elect?
But when it comes to separating the purse and the sword, we may be brighter than expected. A good chunk of us deliberately split our tickets. In 2004, two political scientists crunched the numbers, estimating that more than 20 percent of American voters were “cognitive Madisonians.” In plain English, these voters consciously tried to “divide power and balance policy.”
Hear. Hear. While DWSUWF agrees with the sentiment, we don't believe that there are 20% of us who make this decision consciously. If there were, we would not now be under full sail with One Party Rule navigating the ship of state onto the rocks of financial ruin. But if we few, the Dividists, who do vote consciously for a separation of power between the parties keep beating the Dividist drum, we may yet get there.
Here's my original 2008 election post-mortem — "How McCain Lost Me". Excerpt, beginning with a quote of something I'd written just before the election:
"Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them. "
...Yes, yes, I know. The "clarification" is killing us, and once we're dead, there's no coming back. And Obama isn't standing up to the Democratic Congress, unless he's doing it in some really subtle way that one day I'll appreciate.
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. She knows that divided government works to restrain the growth of spending. She know that Single Party Rule leads to abuse of power and reckless spending. Yet she still voted for Single Party Rule and continues to rationalize her decision. No matter how many times I read her rationalization, I still can't figure out why. Somebody help me. Does she make any sense at all in this post?
John Batchelor looks ahead to next year's midterms in "Scripts for 2010":
"The Republicans enjoyed Executive and Legislative majority rule rarely in the 20th century, and the results were deeply foreboding or dire, such as the 1907 Panic, or the 1929 crash, or the Iraq war. The Democrats enjoyed the same with sluggish to damning results, such as the First War, the Great Depression after the bank failures of 1933; the Second War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. Divided government has long been the best scenario to confront the surprises of foreign policy and domestic lunacy. It reminds of the Churchill remark about democracy, the best of a bad museums of governance. Is there a good prospect for divided government for the 112th Congress in a year's time. Negative. Long shot."
Agreed. The GOP simply dug themselves too deep a hole to get out in one election, but they'll certainly make up ground in 2010. If they can pick up two or three seats in the Senate, their structural advantage in 2012 gives them a great shot to retake the Senate and restore divided government 2012, even if Obama is re-elected. Barring a "Mark Foley" or "Dan Rostenkowski" type scandal with a similar level of corruption from Democrats exposed immediately before the election, the GOP will pick up seats, but will remain a minority in both houses in 2010. It is just too hard to unseat incumbents.
"I say viva la oposición because (1) a divided government is a friend of Liberty, and (2) it's arrogant to think, as the party in power always does, that the opposition is opposed because they're stupid or hate America or don't care, rather than actually having different opinions."
Stunning how that 48% that did not vote for Obama in 2008 refuses to just go along with the sweeping mandate of the 52% landslide majority that did.
Speaking of elections , DaveG at Race 4 2012 considers the meaning of the 2009 special election results and assesses the mood of the country as we look forward to the the next two election cycles. The mood he finds? - decidedly "Anti-Establishment":
"Tonight was a victory for many things. It was a victory for the Republican Party, a sorely needed win by a party that was left for dead just one year ago in the wake of a supposed national Democratic realignment. It was a victory for those who believe in divided government, who recognize the extremism and corruption inherent in one-party rule... But first and foremost, tonight was a victory for the anti-establishmentarian sentitment that is currently permeating the American political psyche — a sentiment which was present in full force just one year ago and that was misinterpreted then, and probably will be misinterpreted now, as an ideological mandate instead of what it really is: discontent with the decimation of the American Dream and a belief that the elites and the political establishment, regardless of party, have the blood of the Republic on their hands."
"FLG completely agrees with the first clause because he believes Americans have a preference for divided government. He also agrees with the second clause, but not for all the reasons Blow cites. Blow's conclusion is that the Democrats haven't enacted enough of their agenda and they are beset by obstacles that make them unpopular. FLG says the agenda is unpopular and the obstacles are in their way largely because of that unpopularity."
Not to mention just plain bad legislation and heart-stopping spending.
"Rasmussen also discovered that, perhaps as an indication of how badly things are going now, voters favor “divided” government. Only 30 percent think it’s good when one party controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency. 45 percent have come to believe that divided government is the answer, something I’ve long believed in. Dynamic tension prevents the mischief of big government spending and control of our lives."
Positive news, particularly about the divided government attitudes. Whether that translates into votes remains to be seen. The generic ballot is a notoriously poor indicator of House of Representative election results. People don't vote for or against generic candidates, but they do vote for incumbents 97% of the time. Perhaps focusing on dividing the government is the way to overcome incumbent inertia.
Hal at Right Thinking from the Left Coast has been a consistent divided government advocate as long or longer than DWSUWF and like DWSUWF holds that view regardless of whether it is Dems or Reps with Single Party Rule. We also find ourselves sympathetic to Hal's Heidi Klum hope in "A clean sweep in the land of lovers":
"I would not be surprised at all if Obama goes the Clinton route—remaining somewhat popular, winning re-election, but being utter death to Congressional and Gubernatorial Democratic candidates. I love divided government. I could live with Obama as President and a Republican Congress. But then again, I could also live with getting daily neckrubs from Heidi Klum. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen."
True. But it gives us hope. At least for the divided government thing. Hope for those Heidi Klum neck rubs? - not so much.
"Add to all of this the natural tendencies toward divided government, and the natural political cycles that general punish the party of the newly elected President in the next off-year election and Demcrats should get the message: Pass a good health care bill. The best one you can think of. It may be your last chance for generation. If you do a good job, you will minimize the drop off on our side in terms of turnout, and may actually convince indepedent voters to stay the course. Anything else may be a disaster. "
I've got news for Craig. Democrats will lose even more power if this disaster of a trillion dollar incomprehensible health care abomination passes without any political cover from Republicans.
"This man is tough. There can be no doubt about that. He commands respect. So what do you say Republicans, are you going to end this divided government, shut your pie holes and “get a mop?”
First, we do not have a divided government. The definition of divided government is when one party does not hold the executive branch and majorities in both legislative branches. So here is your daily truth - The Democrats hold the White House. The Democrats have an 80+ vote majority in the House of Representatives. The Democrats have a 60-40 filibuster proof plurality in the Senate. That is the definition of One Party Rule.
Mathematically the Republicans can obstruct nothing this President does or wants. Only Democrats in Congress can obstruct this President. The worst (or best) thing you can say about the Republicans is that they are choosing not to help President Obama overcome Democratic obstruction. The Republicans are under no obligation to provide the Democrats political cover as they pass extraordinarily bad legislation and bankrupt the country. Hope this lesson helps you add a little more truth in your daily blogging dose. You are welcome.
"Up until a couple of years ago, I was a big fan of divided government, that is, one political party in the White House and the other party in charge of Capitol Hill. But then something happened-- I caught a strange virus. I started to believe that having only one party in power might prove to be very productive for our government and, therefore, by extension the American people. So, we had six years of Republican rule in both the legislative branch and the executive branch of government. Now we currently have the Democrats in charge. In watching both parties going wild with total power in their hands, I write this post to publicly repent of my wayward ways. I have returned to the true faith of believing once again in divided government and the holy process known as gridlock."
You are forgiven my son. We welcome you back to the Dividist flock with open arms. For penance, say three "Hail Madisons" and reread Federalist #51.
"As conservative as Reagan was, he governed from the center because he had to work with a Democratic Congress. Similarly, within days of that "liberating" night in 1994, President Clinton met with political strategist Dick Morris. The two started to map out his policy of "triangulation," in which Clinton would be the apex of the triangle, working between and above the two parties. It turned out that Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans played more of a role in ensuring Clinton's re-election than any of the Democrats on Capitol Hill did.
Gingrich has been watching what Pelosi's been doing, and he gave some advice to the current president last week. "Obama faces a choice," he wrote. "He can attempt to run a left-wing government against the American people. Or he can govern from the center with a large majority of Americans supporting him. He can have either his left angry or the American people angry." Gingrich knows that divided government would bring Obama to the center, just as it did Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
Democratic control of the House, Senate, and White House hasn't been a boon to Obama. It has been a bust. His best chance for re-election in 2012 is a massive GOP takeover of the House and Senate next year. Everybody wins."
I love waxing nostalgic about divided government under Bill Clinton - Ah, the good ol' days.
Miscellany
Traditionally, we conclude this Carnival by including one "off-topic" submission, as a grudging acknowledgment and proxy for the many off-topic submissions received. Off-topic in this context meaning - no mentions of "divided government" or gridlock.
"This point is quintessentially non-partisan. The passage of ambiguous legislation leading to policy decided not by elected representatives but by bureaucrats, or left to judges, would seem to define the last 60 years no matter which party dominated politics."
And with that we conclude this edition.
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for all of the submissions (on-topic or not).
Since this carnival is focused on the topic of Divided Government, and seeing how voters spectacularly rejected the idea in the 2008 election with no real prospect of restoring divided government before 2012, this carnival has been on a reduced publication schedule. Look for DWSUWF to pick up the pace in the new year, with the next edition of The Carnival of Divided Government quinque et trîcênsimus (XXXV)- Special Two Day Hangover Edition on or about 01-02-2010. Submit your blog article atcarnival of divided government using our carnival submission form.
Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.
NOTICE: In the past, this blog has taken the time to post Technorati tags at the end of every post. We used Technorati because it provided a great service - It allowed me to easily find blogs that link to me, and to notify blogs that we have linked to them. The new Technorati no longer performs this function. At least not for this blog. I have no idea what the new Technorati is supposed to do, but it does nothing for DWSUWF. I hope to find another service that picks up what Technorati left behind. So we'll drop our Technorati sidebar widget, and leave them with this last tag: New Technorati Sucks
