The Cloward-Pivens of the right

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Susanamantha” quotes a libertarian friend of hers who refuses to vote for Romney this year and will be voting for Gary Johnson:

Not a single Republican IN MY LIFETIME has reduced the national debt; in fact, excepting Ford, they have all significantly increased it. There have been NO attempts to curb the growth of medicare/medicaid, or defense, for that matter; three things cannot keep growing disproportionately to GDP. If we’re going to crash and burn, I’d rather it be now, than in 30 years when my kids or grandkids have to deal with a much worse burden.

I hope Romney wins, I really do; but he is not the best candidate for the job, in my opinion. I’m not wasting my vote for Gary Johnson, I’m voting for who I think best reflects my values, and how I think government should be run (and he as demonstrably proven that he can do that in NM).

Democrats are getting more big government, not smaller, so it’s not like it will be any less high stakes next time around, and voting for a Republican who is slightly less big government is no longer an option, in my opinion.

The fact that his vote might end up causing Romney to lose and Obama to win is irrelevant to this man. He and others of his ilk, who might be addressed by Bill Whittle’s video but who close themselves to its message and who look instead to the imminent arrival of an economic apocalypse, have more in common with the far left than they think they do. They are the Cloward-Pivenistas of the right. They believe that, if things get bad enough, the system will break down and enough people will see the light and then the true conservative dawn will break.

Cloward and Piven thought the breakdown would lead people towards the leftist light. People like Susanamantha’s friend think it will be the light on the right. But the idea is similar: endure (or even cause) pain now for future gain.

Of course, it all depends on being able to count on future events and people’s reactions. But that’s a messy, risky, and downright dangerous business.

Both sides are idealists, Don Quixotes if you will (although perhaps that’s being unfair to the Don) against the rest of us plodding Sancho Panzas. It’s an old story, isn’t it? A perfectionistic idealism is where the Don Quixotes on the right meet those on the left, in a dangerous no man’s land. The ones on the right could well end up encouraging the triumph of what they most hate.

[ADDENDUM: Randy Barnett has something to say to his fellow libertarians.]

California and its electoral votes

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day I came across some statistics that reminded me that electoral-vote-heavy California, one of the most reliably Democrat states these days in presidential elections, didn’t used to swing that way.

The change came rather recently. Take a look: from 1972 to 1988, solid Republican. From 1992 on, solid Democrat.

It matters a lot. California now has 55 electoral votes, the equivalent of the sum total of the states of Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alaska combined. And California’s electoral votes are now a given for Democrats.

Other electorally hefty states such as New York (29) and Texas (38) sort of cancel each other out, and biggish Florida (29) is a toss-up. But California the jumungous stands alone, and is responsible for the fact that a Republican candidate often has an arduous uphill battle to offset it.

I wonder whether, as California goes down the tubes, enough of its residents will wise up (or leave the state and reduce its electoral share) to make a difference. And I wonder how long that might take to happen, and what the state of this country will be by then.

Crowd size: does it matter?

The New Neo Posted on by

You’ve probably noticed lots of photos of the huge crowds Romney has been drawing lately.

And perhaps you’ve read some of the articles I’ve read, pro and con on the subject of whether crowd size at rallies matters. They tend to point out that a lot of losing candidates (for example, John Kerry) have drawn huge crowds, especially towards the final days of their campaigns.

Of course, Kerry almost won, so I guess you’d expect him to have attracted large crowds. It’s not as though 2004 was a blowout election.

This article points out that in 1972 and 1988—elections in which the losers lost big—McGovern and Dukakis drew large and enthusiastic crowds.

But what I’m trying to find out—and what so far has been hard to discover—is where these huge crowds were showing up. For example, in that article I just linked to, the Humphrey and Dukakis rallies mentioned took place in New York City. Also mentioned are large rallies for Dukakis in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.

These are liberal Democratic strongholds, and I believe that was true back then as well. So large crowds there for liberal Democratic nominees would hardly be surprising, even if the candidate went on to lose big-time, like McGovern and Dukakis (McGovern carried only the state of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, but if memory serves me I recall that he also won New York City).

My sense of it is that in general crowd size can indicate enthusiasm, but it really doesn’t tell you much about who will win, especially in a close race. But this time around both candidates are spending nearly all their time during these waning weeks of the campaign in battleground states. One would expect a big Romney crowd in Utah or Kansas, or a big Obama crowd in Madison or Berkeley, but what’s going on in possible swing states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Ohio and Colorado? Seems to me that Romney is drawing the bigger crowds there, but that might be because more people feel they know Obama and are curious about Romney.

Whatever the reason, I’ll take it. Large crowds can’t be a bad sign. But I don’t put a whole lot of stock in it.

I don’t put a whole lot of stock in anything this election year. It’s been clear for quite some time that most Democrats will vote for Obama, most Republicans for Romney, and Independents will go somewhat for Romney. But no one knows how many of each group will come out to vote, and that’s what the results will depend on.

My liberal friends and acquaintances and relatives are an admittedly tiny sample, even though most of my friends/acquaintances/relatives are liberal. I have not spoken to all of them about this election, but I can tell you about the ones I have talked to. Although they are not quite as starry-eyed about Obama as they were in 2008, their enthusiasm and determination to vote for him remain undiminished. In fact, my impression is that their drive to do so may even be greater than before, because I sense a protective and defensive quality in them now, a perception that Obama has been under siege and is vulnerable.

They have also most definitely bought into every talking point the Obama campaign has given out about Romney, and they demonize him. One or two even cited Romney’s Mormonism against him, although they themselves are not religious and Obama’s affiliation with Reverend Wright has never been a problem for them.

So if these people are any indication, there is still enthusiasm for Obama—if not for Obama as Lightbringer, then for Obama as good guy liberal vs. evil Republican capitalist woman-hater. That’s the power of propaganda, folks.

As I said, it’s a small sample. Perhaps it means nothing. But it perturbs me. I hate to be such a worrywart, but that’s what I’ve been observing lately, and it’s one of the reasons I’ll be shaking come Tuesday night.

A video to send to conversatives and libertarians who might be contemplating voting third-party or not at all

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re not as numerous or vocal as during the Republican primaries, but there are still quite a few conservatives or libertarians or somewhat-conservatives who, although they’re not keen on Obama, are reluctant to vote for Romney. Their reasons can range from thinking he’s not conservative enough to vague unease about his stiffness or some other gut feeling that gives them pause.

Bill Whittle has something important to say to them, and he says it in one fairly compact and easily-watched video. Send a link to any of your friends and/or relatives who might fall into one of the above categories:

Just copy and paste this link: http://youtu.be/wPjBXufufUU

You can also send a link to this post of mine to any and all of your friends and relatives who might have other friends and relatives who fall into the “conservative-but-not-voting-for-Romney” category. This needs to blanket the country prior to Tuesday.

Remember, it’s all about turnout now. Romney has done his best. Now you do yours.

[ADDENDUM: And that can include volunteering at your local Romney office, or online at mittromney.com.]

Looking backward at the Obama campaign: August 22, 2012

The New Neo Posted on by

This is absolutely fascinating (hat tip: Steven Hayward at Powerline). The date of the article is August 22, 2012, and we get a glimpse into the mastermind of the Obama campaign, David Axelrod [emphasis mine]:

“The summer is when candidates and races get defined. That’s why we made a strategic decision that it was better to muscle up in the summer…

Many in Obama’s inner circle also believe that Obama is the more likable, Reagan-like figure who can remake his party and the nation’s policies. They see Romney as far more like Carter, who never wore well with his party, was prone to awkwardness, and won the nomination by default. They also doubt any comparison to the economic doldrums of then and now and any possibility of a late-breaking shift of Democratic and undecided voters to Romney (as happened with Reagan).

“They have this fantasy that the debates will come and the dam will break like it did in 1980,” Axelrod said. “I think they are delusional.”

There’s no question that such a shift occurred. The only question is whether it will have been enough to elect Romney, or whether Obama will hold on. But the “delusional” one appears to have been Axelrod, when he discounted even the possibility of such a change in voter attitude.

There’s much, much more. For example:

“It’s like that line from that Richard Pryor movie,” Axelrod says. “ ”˜Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes? People trust their lying eyes. They’re not going to believe the [Romney] ads. They know who [Obama] is. You try to runs ads suggesting that he’s corrupt; they know he’s not corrupt. You try to run ads saying he doesn’t care about the state of the economy; it didn’t move anything. You can’t tell people what they’re not willing to believe and expect it to work. You’re not going to tell them what their lying eyes tell them.”

Projection, anyone?

Well worth reading the whole thing.

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not counting any chickens in this election. My stomach has been mildly queasy for days, and I will be shaking with nerves on election night, so nervous I might have trouble turning on my TV. I say that not to emphasize my own cowardice, but to underline how incredibly important I feel this election is, and how close it seems to be.

Obama’s self-evaluation

The New Neo Posted on by

In light of Benghazi, let’s take a trip back in time—here’s candidate Barack Obama, in April of 2008, describing the challenges ahead:

Nobody is entirely prepared for being Commander-in-Chief. The question is when the 3 AM phone call comes do you have somebody who has the judgment, the temperament to ask the right questions, to weigh the costs and benefits of military action, who insists on good intelligence, who is not going to be swayed by the short-term politics. By most criteria, I’ve passed those tests…

Ironic, isn’t it?

Ann Althouse…

The New Neo Posted on by

…comes out for Romney.

Unsurprising; she’s been very hard on Obama for most of his administration. But since Althouse can be quite quirky, you never can be sure what she’s going to do.

You might ask: who cares? Well, for one thing, Althouse lives in Wisconsin, a swing state. For another, although she is her own very unique self, she also probably represents a political trajectory shared by others who voted for Obama in 2008 and are not doing so in 2012. If so, that’s a good thing—I’d like to see a lot more changers, all around the country but especially in swing states.

It’s also of great interest (to me, anyway) what turned the tide (or, as she writes, closed the door) for Althouse against Obama in a definitive way in 2012: Benghazi.

As a blogger, Althouse follows that sort of thing much more closely than most people. I think, though, that Benghazi is finally beginning to percolate into the non-blogosphere consciousness. I don’t know; I’ve not done a survey—but the fact that some of the mainstream news outlets are now offering tentative forays into Benghazi coverup coverage territory is an indication that they don’t want to be excoriated for their failure when the facts finally are forced out by Republicans, bloggers on the right, and lonely Fox News. The MSM is trying to carefully calibrate its information flow on Benghazi, though, dribbling out just enough pre-election coverage in an attempt to immunize itself against charges of collusion with Obama but not enough to harm him unduly.

So they think, anyway. Have you spoken to any low information voters to see what they know about Benghazi at this point? I’m curious.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s a WaPo piece that attempts to answer the question of how many 2008 Obama voters have changed their minds in 2012. The answer? Thirteen per cent. If I’m doing the math right, wouldn’t that mean a victory for Romney?]

Sandy aftermath

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama had a nice lovefest with Christie, but now it’s hard to turn on the news without seeing continuing scenes of devastation in New York and New Jersey, Obama country. It underscores the very considerable difference between reality and photo-ops. It also reminds people—if they’re thinking it through—that disasters happen, and the resultant destruction is not so easy to fix even with the best of will.

George Bush was excoriated for Katrina because he was—well, George Bush. Obama has been praised re Sandy because he is—well, Barack Obama. ‘Twas ever thus. But neither can wave a magic wand and make the ravages of nature on modern life all better.

People who lost relatives, homes, possessions, and power (in descending order of importance) need a lot of help. But most of the assistance will come from relief agencies, local responders, and the good citizens around them.

[ADDENDUM: Ace has more.]

Wordsmiths for Obama: redux

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: Some of the comments on today’s earlier post about Noonan, Obama, and narcissism made me remember the following piece. I wrote it back in June of 2008 to explain the phenomenon of why so many wordsmiths were so taken with Obama, and how it is that being a good writer is hardly the same as being a good thinker—or a good policy-maker, for that matter, although some writers seem to think that because they’re so good with words they would be awfully good at setting policy, too. The post still seems to be making some very relevant points, so I thought I’d republish it.

And for the sake of argument let’s assume that Obama wrote his own books without ghostwriters, because the point is that most people thnk he did, and that affects them.]

In trying to understand what about Obama appeals so powerfully to his supporters, I’ve decided that some—perhaps even much—of it is style.

He gives a good speech. He has a deep voice. He’s tall. He’s slender. He knows what a dap is. And he can turn a literary phrase.

The latter is the reason some literary folk like him, anyway, by their own report—that’s according to at least two examples of the genre, fiction writer Michael Chabon, and Sam Anderson, who appears to be a book reviewer at New York Magazine, and is the author of the article from which the following excerpts are taken:

Michael Chabon, arguably America’s best line-by-line literary stylist, says he became a proselytizing Obama supporter after reading a particularly impressive turn of phrase in the senator’s second book—a conversion experience that seems, on first glance, inexcusably silly, but on fifth glance might be slightly profound.

No, even on fifth glance, it’s not even slightly profound. It’s profoundly slight.

How much can you tell about a candidate’s fitness to lead a country based on a single clause?

Nothing.

The substance/style debate has been around for centuries””and, like all the other venerable binaries, is probably best considered as a symbiosis. Too often, style is dismissed as merely a sauce on the nutritious bread of substance, when in fact it’s inevitably a form of substance itself. This goes double for the presidency, where brilliant policy requires brilliant public discourse.

Policy can certainly be assisted in being sold to the public by brilliant public discourse, and that can be important—witness the failure of George Bush to do so. The masters were Lincoln and Winston Churchill, and to a lesser degree FDR and Reagan, and Tony Blair in our time. But if the substance isn’t there, the style not only does not substitute for it, but can be dangerously misleading because it can seductively mask the lack of substance with its captivating siren song.

If you can think your way through a sentence, through the algorithms involved in condensing information verbally and pitching it to an audience, through the complexities of animating historical details into narrative, then you can think your way through a policy paper, or a diplomatic discussion, or a 3 A.M. phone call.

Isn’t it pretty to think so? Wordsmiths fancy they could govern quite well, if only they cared to. Neither the skills nor the knowledge base of oration or of writing—especially fiction, although it’s also true of writing in general—are readily transferable to forming and implementing policy, although they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Did Anderson ever watch a tape of Truman giving a speech? He makes McCain look like Churchill. Truman was not good at oration—but he is now thought of as having been a good president although his popularity, like Bush’s, was very low when he left office. Perhaps the latter fact is an indication that good speechmaking is helpful for selling one’s policies and bad speechmaking handicaps a president who is involved in a complex and difficult war, such as the Korean or the Iraq wars.

Style tells us, in a second, what substance couldn’t tell us in a year.

It tells us a lot, indeed—but only about style. It tells us nothing about substance.

Hillary Clinton—not especially known for her oratorical skills—had a much better way of putting it. You might even call her words eloquent—because they happen to have both style and substance:

You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.