The right on Crist

It looks like Obama is not the only one catching flak from both sides. Ambinder reposts Townhall about this Sun Sentinel story on Gov. Crist:

One hundred plane trips and nary a single disclosure as to what they're all about? I realize you don't have to, Charlie, but c'mon -- let us know about the special interests, or don't take the trips. I know you can do it. You're so cool.

The last line sounds a bit bitter to me. Could it be that there is weak support out side of Florida for a Crist Senate run?

Florida snark

Flapolitics reviews the deteriorating budget situation in the state

and finds a silver lining:

The saving grace in all this of course, is that Floridians aren't saddled with that "insidious" intangibles tax on wealthy investors, that raised hundreds of millions in tax dollars.

Oooh, burn.

Quiet campaign

I know I've been on an AIG kick for a while, sorry about that. Unfortunately, there's more.

Probably the most infuriating thing about the explanations of AIGs corner of this mess was the idea that....well, I'll let George Will state it himself (at the :50 second mark):


"The point of the bailout, I understand, was to keep AIG in business".

That's false. It is false in a conniving way. I think George Will knows that the vast majority of the money is going to the counter-parties that AIG insured. I also think he knows that this is a subtle point that will be lost on most people. He knows that conflating that fact with this "bonus" news makes the Democrats look bad, regardless of the possibility of a global economic collapse if the Democrats didn't support the CDS payments.

As Ezra notes, "we really didn't bail out AIG: We bailed out the Credit Default Swap market and used AIG as our point of entry". Felix Salmon carefully walks us through the rationale for the use of AIG as this "point of entry". And we shouldn't kid ourselves, it isn't as the the whole AIG intervention is clean and transparent, either (the orignal deal was brokered by the former CEO of the largest recipient of AIG/taxpayer cash). My point here, though, is beware of the right's quiet smear campaign to associate Democrats with AIG largesse.

The future direction of conservativsm

I've said it before, it makes sense to listen to the political discussion about what conservatives think the direction of their party should go. In that light, here is David Frum laying out a four-point approach:


David Frum, by the way, wrote an article for Newsweek ("Why Rush is Wrong") questioning Limbaugh's approach after CPAC that lead to an interesting debate in our own neck of the woods.

Lauderdale tea party

Get out your calendars, Naked Politics is reporting
that there will be another Lauderdale Tea Party on Saturday (1:00 pm). I have a few questions about this, though...

1. Do participants have to dress up like Native Americans this time?
2. Is tea ecologically-friendly, or is the turbidity just a side benefit?
3. The original tea party was intended as a blow against protectionism. Is this party an indication that the attendees are against agricultural subsidies?

So many questions...

Bennett for the win

I was hoping not to bring up Limbaugh anymore, but this cartoon by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press changed my mind.

Civil War

Rick posted a YT clip of Newt Gingrich pushing back on Limbaugh's recent "I want him to fail" statement. Rick then asks

1. Will this end with another apology?
2. How will the audience that Rush speaks to respond to Newt?

In some ways, these two are the same questions. What I mean is that the power that Rush has comes exclusively from his having an audience. The only reason anyone ever apologizes to Rush is because they don't want to offend that audience. This is the audience that Pitts describes as "culturally intolerant, intellectually incoherent, perpetually outraged and willfully ignorant cohort". I don't agree that that is a correct characterization, but that is a matter for another post. My point here is that there won't be an apology because Gingrich is speaking to a different audience altogether.

Understand that Rush repudiated Gingrich's policy-based at the CPAC event.

We know that Gingrich has a clearly delineated policy...well, they are bullet points more than "policies" (and the points are primarily tax cuts). But who reads this kind of thing? I'll tell you who. Republicans who don't see themselves as "the sort" to listen to Limbaugh.

Now, I don't think that this "Republican Civil War" is coordinated. It does seem interesting, though, that for every appeal to the "ignorant" base there is an equal and opposite response to another part of the Republican base (Be it David Frum, David Brooks, or Newt Gingrich) that bristles at being lumped in with those they feel are beneath them.

The thoughtful right

Here is Ross Douthat on the current, endless Limbaugh-palooza going on in the media:

To a non-ideological voter who's uninterested in policy and forms his perceptions of liberalism and conservatism largely through symbolism and sound bites, a conflict between Obama on the one hand and Limbaugh on the other will almost inevitably redound to liberalism's benefit.

Why does a right-winger think that liberals benefit from Rush? Reihan Salam, Douthat's colleague, writes, "any successful political movement is built of both true believers and evangelizers". Here, the true believers are dyed-in-the-wool partisans. Evangelists, on the other hand, seek to convert new followers. Rush's rise in salience essentially means that the work of the right's evangelists is stymied.

Consistent Analyses

Below is a chart of the DJIA from Google in which I have added three circled areas (numbered 1, 2, and 3) representing three major drops on the market.

The actual dates and percentages changed would be the following:

1. 8/24 - 9/14/01: 20.9% drop
2. 5/17 - 10/04/02: 27.3% drop
3. 9/19 - 11/21/08: 29.4% drop

Can anyone tell me if there are any Republican talking points about the stock market being an indicator of presidential success during those times?

The consequences of faithlessness

Let's say that I am a person who does not believe in the power of religion to change a person's life. Let me also say that, due to some odd twists of fate, I am placed in a powerful position in an evnagelical church. This position would require me to go out and recruit new churchmembers.

In such a situation, it would be fair to predict that I would not do as good a job as someone believed things I did not. My point is faithlessness alone can subvert a mission. Along those lines, if you don't believe in the power of government to solve problems, you may not make a whole-hearted effort to secure the resources by which your government can solve problems (regardless of popularity).

CPAC Keynote: The Aftermath

Mustang Bobby writes:

Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post thinks the liberals are "agitated" at Rush Limbaugh. Wrong. Most of us find it supremely amusing to see all the "leaders" of the Republican party -- those tough guys who so easily threw around all the macho they could during the Bush years, the "bring 'em on" butchy-boys who strutted around with their codpieces positively glowing as they called the Democrats and liberals wimps and "French" -- suddenly cowering and trembling with fear if they
dare whisper a word of dissent against a loudmouth braggart who dresses like he just got off work at the Bada-Bing.

I, for one, am not agitated nor amused. As far as I am concerned there are very real contributions that opposition parties provide. It is important to have the voices of as many as is possible be heard. In this country, the vehicles for those voices (in the political context) are the two parties. With Limbaugh, however, we are not hearing an informed opposition. Instead, he provides non-substantive rhetoric.

I am disappointed by Limbaugh. Whether or not I disagree with him, it is clear that he is misusing his place for reasons that seem to have more to do with his own ego than anything else.

Why Rush works

The CPAC soaked up a lot of media time over the past week and CSPAN dedicated Sunday to seemingly endless rebroadcasts of Rush Limbaugh's keynote speech. It would be a lie to tell you that I wasn't hypnotized by this performance. In thinking about the speech, I wanted to get at the appeal. There isn't anything new here, but I'd like to hear anyone's take on this.

Rush is focused. Rush seemed to be speaking extemporaneously, but he did look down now and then. My sense is that he had some topics he wanted to make sure to hit (i.e. Joe Biden). These topics were never too long, though. In other words, there were numerous entry-points in which a person who was watching at home could, within a few minutes, catch Rush resetting on a new topcic.

He returns to key points. In Rush's conceptualization, "the government" represents an obstacle to freedom. "The media" is hostile toward conservative viewpoints. The left is "derranged". Obama's policies have been tried in the past and "failed every time".

He sets his sights low. In the sections that I saw (Because while admittedly mesmerized, I still found it difficult to watch for extended periods of time), Rush never delved deep into numbers. No charts, no figures, nothing. Now this is understandable in light of the event, but I'd guess that this is the case for his radio show also. Again, one could suggest that radio isn't amenable to data-heavy discourse. This is fine...and convenient.

I am sure that there are more characteristics that can be teased out, but the above are enough to lay a case that is not very creative, but, I believe, correct. Rush, essentially, is a sports commentator. He pulls from that discipline the bombast and certainty and demonization of the other "team".

It is, therefore, consistent that Rush would say something like, "One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas. " A sports commentator isn't going to appreciate the contributions of statistical analysis to their sport as much as a general manager would because for the commentator, the existence data and anlysis lower the value that the commentator offers. Why would Rush stet his sights higher if it would mean a nuanced, more difficult to understand policy reality that would require work in learning and describing to his audience? Furthermore, why would Rush change the format of his sports call-in show since it is a success?

As far as I am concerned, Rush works because it is easy to participate in, easy to understand, and easy to parrot...much like a quarterback controversy or a problem with the pitching staff.

The future of the American Right

I can clearly remember my emotions after the 2004 election. I remember the near endless articles, columns, and posts about what went wrong. Looking back, it seems like the writing mixed mourning and placelessness. And despite that, two years later the Democrats succeeded in a mid-term Congressional victory.

Today, it seems as though the right is doing the soul-searching. I think that it is important for those of us on the left to listen to what is being said and reserve judgement. And they are saying important things, things that recognize the reality that many Americans face:

As we all know, income stagnation is something that most conservatives and Republicans have spent years pretending was not happening, because it did not fit in with the assumption that working- and middle-class Americans were thriving as part of the “greatest story never told.” It is the failure to acknowledge and address all of these things along with the preference for using symbolic gimmickry that begin to account for the lamentable states of conservatism and the GOP. There is also the war, but movement and party have become so invested in it that I have my doubts whether they can ever recognize its role in discrediting both with the public.

Along those same lines, Ross Douthat notes that, "The Right has a messaging problem, yes - but it also has a message problem." Which all seems to boil down to a call for policy that is more robust than the discredited supply-side approaches that have been the modern Right's cornerstone.