China's global reach

China, obviously, will be our strongest long-term competitor in the world, both economically and militarily. But the form that competition will take isn't always clear.

A lot of alarmists like to point to China's growing military muscle. They're modernizing their army and air force, expanding their navy and improving their missile technology.

But while the numbers can be impressive, most people overestimate China's military strength because they underestimate the effects of technology and the more prosaic arts of transport and logistics, both of which fall under the heading of "force projection."

Let's look at technology. China's air force, for example, contains about 2,000 fighters, bombers and attack planes, and is being modernized. But as you may notice from the link, that's largely because obsolete planes are being dropped from the inventory, not because large numbers of advanced planes are being added. And the technology of those "advanced" planes still trails ours by a generation or more. The backbone of its fighter fleet, for instance, remains the MiG-21, a design that is more than 50 years old.

Similarly, the Chinese navy is trying to build the first Chinese aircraft carrier. Sounds impressive until you realize it's based on the never-finished hull of an old Soviet carrier, the 67,500-ton Varyag. Meanwhile, we've got 12 carrier battle groups, built around 100,000-ton Nimitz-class and CVN-21 ships. That doesn't even count the various minicarriers we've got, like our amphibious assault ships.

And while the Chinese Army musters an impressive 2 million or so, it's mostly infantry, without decent transportation options. And their heavy units are armed with largely obsolete tanks and artillery.

Where does force projection come in? Well, in order to fight a war in the Middle East, for example, a military needs to be able to get the troops there and then supply them with food, ammunition and equipment. That takes a staggering number of ships, airplanes and trucks, not to mention the warships, fighter planes and security troops needed to protect the supply routes.

It's such a staggering job that there is currently only one country with the ability to fight a war anywhere in the world: the United States. China may be growing powerful, but they simply are unable to invade, say, Canada. And they will remain unable to project serious force for a long, long time.

So militarily, China poses only a regional threat. Fight in the Mideast? We win. Fight in countries neighboring China? More of an even match, with quality and long supply lines squaring off against quantity and short supply lines. Invade China? We lose. The initial fighting aside, there's simply no plausible way to occupy and pacify 1.3 billion people.

But if China isn't a serious military threat, it still poses an interesting economic and diplomatic challenge.

There is no way that China can provide a U.S.-style standard of living to all of its people. 300 million Americans consume a quarter of global GDP doing so; lifting 1.3 billion Chinese to that level would take more than the global economy currently provides.

But the Chinese leadership is sitting on a powder keg of divisions: ethnic, regional, rich/poor, rural/urban, coastal/interior. China may look solid, but it's really more of an unstable empire than a unified nation.

That empire is held together with a promise: As long as nobody challenges the ascendancy of the Communist Party, they will provide improved standards of living. The populace has essentially agreed to trade political freedom for economic freedom.

But if the Party cannot keep holding up its end of the bargain -- and it can't, as I explained above -- that agreement will come into question.

So even though it's impossible to keep raising living standards, the Party will try for as long as possible. And that will take resources -- a staggering amount of it.

We've already seen some of the effect of this policy: bottomless Chinese demand has driven up prices for a range of commodities, from oil to steel to shipping. We can expect that to continue into the future, raising the prospect of regional conflicts over scarce resources.

Beyond that, though, Chinese diplomacy is shaping up as a tool China uses to secure the resources it needs to fuel its growth. And that is posing challenges to our interests that go beyond economics.

For instance, China appears to be well on its way to supplanting the West as the biggest aid provider to Africa. How is it doing it? By being cheerfully amoral about how and with who it does business. The West tends to tie aid to structural reform, like transparency, rule of law, elimination of corruption. There are many cogent criticisms of this approach -- not least that it sometimes hurts more than it helps, at least in the short term -- but at least it is attempting to reform broken systems.

China, by contrast, simply doesn't care. They've signed aid and construction agreements with a range of corrupt African governments, pouring billions into the continent, all for two things: business for Chinese companies, and building relationships with countries that have resources China will need in the future.

So China is rebalancing the world. Countries rich in natural resources suddenly find themselves with more negotiating power, as they can play China and the West off against each other while enjoying high prices for their exports thanks to the increased demand.

It can be viewed as a positive thing to see power shift from the developed countries to the Third World. But it can also be viewed less benignly, as power shifting from generally transparent and democratic economies to generally corrupt ones, overseen by tyrants, with very few of the benefits trickling down to the general populace.

That's how the world operated for much of human history, of course. But whatever damage China's rise may do to our own interests, the greatest loss may be the bungled opportunity to reshape the world in a way that increases justice and human happiness.

It may be inevitable. That "opportunity" might have been ephemeral, judged against the long march of history. But as the world plunges back into a modern version of the Great Game -- where the United States and China, along with Europe and possibly India, vie for economic and military supremacy around the globe -- it pays to reflect on how we need to adjust our goals and tactics. Not simply to survive and remain relevant, but also to see if we can achieve some part of that vision even as we compete, bare-knuckled, with a country that doesn't seem to share it.

Africa, China, politics, midtopia

Romney moves right

Mitt Romney has stirred some bipartisan excitement when considering 2008 presidential candidates. He's smart and interesting; he was a successful Republican governor of a heavily Democratic state (Massachusetts), showing he can get things done when bipartisanship is called for; and he took a solid stab at reforming his state's health-care system.

He's a Mormon, too, which is neither here nor there, but it would make him our first Mormon president.

However, the man who ran for governor as a moderate in 2002 has decided that he wants to stake out the right wing of the Republican primary race.

n an interview with The Examiner, Romney described himself as more conservative than Republican rivals McCain, R-Ariz., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on a variety of issues. “We’re in a different place on immigration; we’re in a different place on campaign reform; we’re in a different place on same–sex marriage; we’re in a different place on the president’s policy on interrogation of detainees,” Romney said.

“I’m a conservative Republican, there’s no question about that,” he said. “I’m at a different place than the other two.”

Now, it's not too hard to be a Republican and be to the right of McCain and Giuliani. And placating the GOP's conservative base is often seen as a necessary part of winning the nomination.

And he's a bit hard to pigeonhole. I like some of his policies: Besides his health-care proposal he came up with some excellent education initiatives, spent a lot of time and energy on environmental issues (though he opposed the Cape Cod wind farm and favors drilling in ANWR) and has been maverick enough to support such things as affordable housing, the minimum wage and an assault-weapon ban.

But the picture that's emerging is not a candidate I could vote for.

He balanced his budget the same way Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty did -- on the backs of local governments -- which simply made the overall tax system more regressive.

And he's a fairly conventional social conservative: hardline pro-life (he supported the South Dakota bill that would have banned all abortions, with no exceptions for the rape, incest or the health of the mother). He opposes the "morning after" pill because, even though it's just high-dose contraceptives, it could conceivably prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. He opposes stem-cell research that uses cloning as a lab technique.

He wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, and has already asked the Massachusetts state legislature to do the same thing to the state Constitution.

Beyond the merits (or lack thereof) of such positions, it signals a willingness to use the same old wedge issues as part of his run -- something I (and, I hope, most voters) are heartily sick of.

Bleh. I have little use for McCain, so that leaves Giuliani as the only current Republican candidate that could earn my vote. I'm still willing to give Chuck Hagel a listen, but in many ways he's even more conservative than Romney. He'd have to paint a pretty compelling picture to make me overlook that.

Update: Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi weighs in, with more details of the contradictions between Romney then and Romney now.

Hagel, Romney, politics, midtopia

The weirdos in charge

Over at CBS, Dick Meyers has an interesting -- and revealing -- essay on how the media does and does not cover politicians -- in this case, the Republicans that took over the House in 1994 and ran it for the next 12 years.

This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize.

Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do....

The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.

Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.

Having these guys in charge of a radical conservative agenda was like, well, putting Mark Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. Indeed, Foley was elected in the Class of '94 and is not an inappropriate symbol of their regime.

He goes on, recounting Gingrich's piousness even as he cheated on and divorced two wives, the spectacle of Dan Burton and Robert Livingston and Henry Hyde and the rest.

What you take away from this piece probably depends on what you bring to it. On the one hand his description of the House GOP leadership is spot on, as far as it goes, as is his noting that the media undercovered the contradictions and personal pecaddillos of a group that was, after all, running on a moral slate.

But you could also point to this as evidence of liberal media bias ("See? He harbored secret dislike for Republicans!") or conservative media bias ("See? They covered for the GOP for years!"). Or perhaps simple incompetence, because providing the public with unvarnished images of their leaders is one of the roles of the media, and Meyer is admitting to a manifest failure.

That's not entirely fair, of course: in a world where journalists are supposed to be objective, it can be difficult to sort out what personal observations are legitimate news and which are not, and most reporters will err on the side of caution. But that can breed a general timidity that serves nobody well. And few people are well-equipped to deal with the spin and criticism and outright threats (to access, to livelihood, to reputation) that come with covering politics. If you know your every decision will be criticized by someone, it's easy to start second-guessing yourself all the way to self-censorship in the name of politesse.

Still, that's a known risk, and while I don't wish to minimize the size of the problem, it's really no excuse. Develop ways to navigate those shoals or get out of the business. Or become a columnist, where there's less need to separate one's reporting from one's personal beliefs.

Most importantly, though, Meyer (and other reporters) need to learn from their mistakes and don't make them again. Man up, take a deep breath, and call it as you see it. Because integrity is ultimately a reporter's only asset, and the only thing they'll look back on with pride in later life. Don't sell it out because you don't want partisans to say bad things about you.

Dick Meyer, journalism, politics, midtopia

Anyone want Syrian help?

It comes down to who you believe, and what you think their motives are.

Syria yesterday offered to help stem the violence in Iraq, a move that Iran supported by inviting Syrian and Iraqi leaders to a conference in Tehran.
Good news, right? Well, it depends on how you view those two countries.

There's no doubt that Syria and Iran could be influential in quelling the violence in Iraq, since they both have bases of support in the country and their borders contain the infiltration routes that insurgents use for supplies and recruits.

It also seems logical that both have an interest in stabilizing the situation before the violence spills over their borders.

But the United States has accused both Syria and Iran of helping to stir up the violence in the first place, and both are major supporters of Hezbollah, which besides vowing the destruction of Israel has proven to be a major destabilizing force in Lebanon.

In addition, we have WMD-related concerns with both countries -- and you can be certain that Syria and Iran will seek slack on those matters in return for cooperation.

And while both countries may be interested in a stable Iraq, they're not particularly keen on a powerful or democratic Iraq, either of which could end up working against their long-term interests.

So when weighing their offer, a lot of variables get factored in: How sincere are they? Should they be rewarded for stirring up trouble in the first place? How much slack are we willing to give them on WMDs and Hezbollah? What final result are they really working for? How badly do we need their help? How do we judge whether they're fulfilling their end of the bargain?

However it turns out, we should certainly be talking to them. Anything that might reduce outside support for the violence should be pursued. But this is just another example of the complexity of diplomacy in the Middle East, where everyone shares a link or an interest with everyone else, even mortal enemies, and sifting out the reality from the blandishments can be maddeningly difficult.

And perhaps it will serve as one more reminder of the deadly naivete with which the war in Iraq was planned and pursued, where "they'll welcome us with flowers" constituted almost the entirety of postwar planning, revealing a shocking ignorance of the many forces at work in the region.

While I disagreed with the premise for Iraq, I don't have a fundamental problem with the idea of taking down really bad rulers simply because they are really bad. But next time -- if there is a next time -- I hope that at least we go in with our eyes open. If so, then maybe learning that lesson is one silver lining of the Iraq debacle.

Syria, Iran, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Iraq roundup

What is to be done about Iraq?

Democrats want a timetable for withdrawal, which critics say is tantamount to surrender and will lead to a full-scale civil war.

The latter point is probably true. But the alternatives aren't particularly persuasive.

Part of the problem is the administration, which still refuses to concede anything to reality.

Dick Cheney: "We'll win this war by staying on the offensive — carrying the fight to the enemy, going after them one by one if necessary, going after those who could equip them with even more dangerous technologies."

President Bush: "We'll succeed unless we quit."

Such sentiments prompted this response from former Republican leader John Kasich: "They were totally obstinate in the end. To keep going around and saying that everything’s great and how it’s all going well in Iraq was ridiculous. There’s such a thing as being firm, and then there’s such a thing as ignoring reality.”

And other influential war supporters are speaking up, too, saying the war has become a disaster.

Kenneth Adelman: "This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful."

Richard Perle: "If I had known that the US was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I'd say, 'Let's not do it.' It was a foolish thing to do."

Then the godfather of realpolitik himself spoke up.

Henry Kissinger: "If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."

Such talk prompted a rebuttal, from Lindsey Graham: "We do not have security in Iraq. The only way you'll ever get a political solution to the differences that exist among the Iraqi people is to control the violence."

Well no kidding. I've been saying the same thing since this blog started. Where has Graham been for the last couple of years?

But note how his response does not even try to defend the administration's handling of the war -- an increasingly common occurence. Everyone seems to recognize the administration's ineptness -- except the administration. Given the ongoing happy talk from Bush and Cheney, it raises one big question: Whatever strategy we eventually settle on, is victory possible as long as this administration is in charge of running it?

What does the military think? Notwithstanding last week's Senate hearings, where the top general in Iraq argued against a withdrawal, the Pentagon sees three stark options, dubbed "Go big, go long or go home."

"Go big" would send hundreds of thousands more U.S. and Iraqi troops into the fray. But it's pretty much a nonstarter, because there simply aren't enough soldiers to do that.

"Go home" was also rejected, with the Pentagon predicting it would push Iraq into a full-blown civil war.

That leaves "Go long", a hybrid approach that would cut U.S. troop levels while expanding their training and advisory role.

"Go long" doesn't strike me as a solution as much as a disguised withdrawal. The eventual goal is to cut U.S. troop levels to 60,000 from the current 140,000. I just can't see how 60,000 troops will obtain better results than 140,000. An immediate withdrawal may lead to spiraling violence, but "go long" just seems like a way to draw out the pain, not a serious attempt to win.

That's why my argument has always been to either get serious ("Go big") or go home. If "go big" is impossible, that doesn't leave too many options. But nobody is eager to sound the retreat.

So what can we do?

The problem is fundamental: corruption in the central Iraqi goverment and infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by sectarian groups. I wrote about problems with the Iraqi army a while back; here's a parallel story on the Iraqi police.

The Iraqi policemen begged the Americans not to make them go out. They peeled off their clothes to reveal shrapnel scars from past attacks. They tugged the armored plates from their Kevlar vests and told the Americans they were faulty. They said they had no fuel for their vehicles. They disappeared on indefinite errands elsewhere in the compound. They said they would not patrol if it meant passing a trash pile, a common hiding place for bombs.

The Iraqis eventually gave up and climbed into two S.U.V.’s with shattered windshields and missing side windows, and the joint patrol moved out. One Iraqi officer draped his Kevlar vest from the window of his car door for lateral protection. During a lunch break, the officers tried to sneak away in their cars.

This is not an example of Iraqi cowardice; it's a rational response to being sent out into a war zone in unarmored vehicles and light kevlar vests, backed by a corrupt and inadequate support network that is unable to pay, equip and supply the field units.

What it does show is just how far the police are from being an effective counterinsurgency force. And since they make up a large portion of Iraqi security forces (perhaps 140,000 police compared to 130,000 Iraqi troops), it's easy to see just how far we are from having the hundreds of thousands of well-trained, well-equipped Iraqis needed to secure the country.

And the biggest obstacle to creating those Iraqi soldiers is not the number of U.S. trainers, although that's a factor. It's the Iraqi government. Until the government demonstrates an ability to keep its house in order, victory is impossible.

If "go home" is unpopular, "go long" isn't a winning strategy and "go big" is impossible, we're left with one alternative: a timetable for the Iraqi government to shape up. The only real question is how much time and wiggle room we give them.

Pull out immediately? No. Pull out unless the Iraqi government can show it can field an effective nonsectarian security force? Yes. And require that proof sooner rather than later.

Kissinger, Cheney, Bush, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

New look

I've finally taken the time to tweak the overall look of the site, for the first time since launching back in February. Nothing huge: just took off the background screen and replaced the title bar with something a little more professional looking.

Let me know what you think -- especially if something (like the title bar!!) doesn't load correctly in your browser.

politics, midtopia

Where are the moderate Muslims?

Here.

In Indonesia, gangs of Islamic radicals on "anti-vice" patrols (to bust up bars and movie theaters), are increasingly running into groups of cops, or pissed off citizens, who chase off the radicals (or arrest them.)....

In Bosnia, an Arab religious leader, a follower of the very conservative Wahhabi sect, accused a popular local religious leader of being a communist (that is, a Moslem leader that was less than truly Islamic during the decades of communist rule). This caused a major uproar, and the radical cleric felt compelled to make a public apology.

And here.

"The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, recently issued a decree to its supporters: Kill at least one American in the next two weeks 'using a sniper rifle, explosive or whatever the battle may require.'

"Well, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, I am an American too. Count me as the one of those you have asked your supporters to kill.

"I am not alone, there are thousands of Muslims with me in Las Vegas, and many more millions in America, who are proud Americans and who are ready to face your challenge. You hide in your caves and behind the faces of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. You don't show your faces and you have no guts to face Muslims. You thrive on the misery of thousands of Muslim youth and children who are victims of despotism, poverty and ignorance.

"During the past two decades, you have brought nothing but shame and disaster to your religion and your world. .

And here, too.

Even the Saudi government is getting into the act, though their complicity in spreading radical Wahhabism sort of undermines their credibility.

If someone says they haven't heard Muslims speak out against these acts committed in their names, it's because they haven't been listening.

terrorism, Islam, politics, midtopia

Contra-contraception

So you're President Bush. You've just been shellacked by the voters, and there's a chorus of calls for compromise and bipartisanship. So what do you do?

Besides his previously reported efforts to get controversial nominations and bills through the lame-duck Congress, how about continuing the culture war -- this time by putting an opponent of contraception in charge of the federal program charged with providing affordable contraceptives to the poor.

Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.

Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons."

On its website, A Woman's Concern says "commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness."

Sure sounds like the people who should be put in charge of distributing them.

The position does not require confirmation, and is subordinate to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. But Leavitt himself has not been notably friendly to contraception, famously delaying a decision on the Plan B "emergency" birth-control pill for a year, in violation of his agency's own rules and with total disregard for the recommendations of his advisory panels.

I yearn for a future where the people put in charge of programs actually support the goals of those programs, where science is judged on its merits rather than its political implications, where policy is driven more by evidence than ideology, where serving the nation is more important than servicing a tiny partisan constituency.

Two more years.

Keroack, contraception, Leavitt, politics, midtopia

GOP chooses more of the same

As predicted by Robert Novak earlier this week, House Republicans chose John Boehner as their minority leader and re-elected Roy Blunt as whip, returning the same leadership that led them into this year's disastrous elections.

In doing so they follow the lead of Senate Republicans, who did the same thing on Tuesday.

The Republicans seem awfully complacent for a party that just lost Congress.

Blunt, Boehner, politics, midtopia

Another Minnesota first

Something you wouldn't (really, couldn't) have seen 40 years ago.

The Minneapolis Aquatennial Queen of the Lakes is trading her tiara for a kevlar helmet and the sands of Iraq.

Jessica Gaulke, chosen in July as Queen of the Lakes for a year, is giving up her title because her National Guard unit has been activated for duty in Iraq. Gaulke, 22, a sociology student at Augsburg College who visited Japan as part of her Aquatennial ambassador duties, will be going to the Mideast as a diesel generator mechanic.

As far as anyone knows, it's the first time an Aquatennial queen has been in the military, much less called to active duty during her reign.

Good for her. And us. Not because we're in Iraq, but because of what it says about the military, increasing opportunities for women and changing societal attitudes toward them.

Gaulke, Minnesota, Aquatennial, politics, midtopia

Constitutions are for Communists

In the spirit of "patriots" who want to criminalize flag-burning (thus missing the whole point of what the flag represents), I give you the small town of Pahrump, Nev.

The elected town board in the remote Mojave Desert community voted 3-2 on Tuesday to enact an ordinance making it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag by itself.

Flying another country's flag, whether it is a British Union Jack or the flag of Mexico, is punishable by a $50 fine and 30 hours' community service, unless it is flown below an American flag.

Let me tell you, all the folks up here in Minnesota that fly Swedish and Norwegian flags are going to be a tad upset.

The flag measure wasn't the only piece of silly legislation to pass. Pahrump also made English the city's official language, and outlawed town benefits to illegal immigrants -- which cuts such immigrants off from.... nothing.

"We don't have any" benefits, town manager David Richards says. "If we ever have any, they'll be denied to illegal immigrants."

So what sparked this muscular show of contempt for constitutional rights?

The ordinance's sponsor, Michael Miraglia, a retired Illinois state worker, said the flag restriction was a reaction to nationwide demonstrations in May against a crackdown on illegal immigration. He said he didn't like seeing protesters waving Mexican flags and demanding immigrants not go to work that day.

"In Pahrump, we had Mexican restaurants closed that day," he complained. "Only one restaurant stayed open."

I see his point. Perhaps the board's next move should be to establish city-mandated hours of operation for all Mexican restaurants, to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.

free speech, Pahrump, First Amendment, politics, midtopia

Hoyer beats out Murtha

Dealing a blow to Pelosi and the netroots, but showing the Democrats as a group have some common sense.

The vote wasn't even close: 149-86.

Snarky aside: What does that say about Murtha's nose-counting ability (a key job of the whip)? Seeing as how he said yesterday that he had the votes to win (besides saying that the furor over ethics was "total crap"). So maybe Hoyer won simply because of his superior math skills.

The netroots aren't batting so well in this election, with the repudiation of Ned Lamont and now Murtha. Although it's not clear to me why Murtha was ever a darling of theirs in the first place. Sure, he's antiwar. But on many other issues he's rather conservative. And on the key issue -- corruption -- his record is just too tarnished.

Sure, so is nearly every senior member of Congress. And maybe a guy like Murtha is the best one to clean up the place, like Nixon going to China, because he knows how to game the system (and thus how to fix it), and it would demonstrate that things really are changing.

But all in all, the Democrats voted for sanity today, as well as retaining a moderate voice in their senior leadership. The personal animus between Polosi and Hoyer could lead to trouble, but they've worked around it for years now and probably will be able to continue doing so. The lopsided vote total also strengthens Hoyer's (and thus moderates') hand; Pelosi would be foolish to seek an unnecessary confrontation with the man who is emerging as the voice of the new moderate majority in the Democratic caucus.

Common sense has (for the most part) prevailed for more than a week now. That's got to be some kind of record as far as Congress goes. Let's hope it lasts.

Hoyer, Murtha, Pelosi, politics, midtopia

Back to Iran

All the election excitement has taken some of the spotlight off of Iran in recent weeks. But things are heating up over there. A recap:

Both Iran and Syria have said they're willing to enter into talks with the United States over Iraq, though their sincerity is open to question.

Democrats support direct talks with the two. But the administration's response was curt: Talk is cheap. It insists Syria must first stop harboring militant Palestinians and meddling in Iraq and Lebanon, while Iran must freeze its nuclear activities.

Speaking of which, UN inspectors found traces of plutonium and enriched uranium in an Iranian waste facility, yet more evidence of Iranian ambitions in that area.

So where does it all leave us? The preconditions on Syria are a bit silly, seeing as how achieving those actions would be the whole point of talks. Just talk already. If they go nowhere, we're no worse off than we were before. Removing Syrian support for Hezbollah would be worth the sort of concessions they're likely to demand, notably security guarantees, warmer diplomatic ties and the launch of a peace process with Israel that could lead to the return of captured Syrian territory.

An excellent article on the subject is in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, though you need a subscription to read the whole thing.

Iran's a bit of a different case, because they've stalled long enough over demands they either abandon their nuclear program or make it far less proliferation-friendly. A harder line, with screws applied, is appropriate there. But a lot depends on how badly we want Iranian help in Iraq. Iran wields its regional influence as a bargaining chip, and if we bleed enough in Iraq, it may be a chip we need to buy.

Our best bet there is to maintain a hard line on the nuclear issue: Iran must not get the impression they can wear us down on that, or stall for an appreciable length of time. Meanwhile, dangle a few carrots -- not just direct tit-for-tat arrangements in return for nuclear pliancy, but signaling our willingness to deal favorably on a range of issues if Iran abandons its nuclear ambitions and helps out in Iraq.

What sort of issues? Improved diplomatic and political ties, technological exchanges, an affirmation of Iran's role in the region, economic agreements -- the list of possible inducements is a long one.

By combining an unwavering opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran with a reasonable deadline for compliance, we ensure the nuclear question will be resolved, one way or the other, before Iran gets the bomb. By offering fair and generous carrots as well as the unsmiling stick, we give Iran all sorts of positive inducements to cooperate. The key is to make continuing to pursue a bomb an unattractive option, while providing them a face-saving way to abandon that pursuit.

Iraq, nuclear, Syria, Iran, politics, midtopia

Carville goes for Dean's throat

Rhetorically, anyway.

Carville ... said Democrats could have picked up as many as 50 House seats, instead of the nearly 30 they have so far.

The reason they didn’t, he said, is the Democratic National Committee did not spend some $6 million it could have put into so-called “third tier” House races against vulnerable Republicans....

Asked by a reporter whether Dean should be dumped, Carville replied, “In a word, do I think? Yes.”...

He added, “I would describe his leadership as Rumsfeldian in its competence.”

I refer you to my earlier post on the subject, which is that Carville frankly needs to get some perspective. Dean argued all along that it was foolish to compromise the party's 2008 chances in order to pick up a few extra seats in 2006. And he's right. The money he might have spent in this election cycle he is now free to put toward building out the party's infrastructure for 2008. That will do more to solidify the Democratic majority than would picking up a few extra seats while riding a tide of anti-incumbency.

Carville keeps trying to float this argument, and he keeps getting smacked down. Maybe someone should ask him politely to shut up.

Oh, wait. They are. Meanwhile, in the blogosphere, the request is not phrased quite so daintily.

Howard Dean, Carville, politics, midtopia

Senate Republicans opt for more of the same

Yesterday the Senate Democrats made some odd leadership choices. Today it's the Senate Republicans' turn. They elected Mitch McConnell as their leader, and brought back Trent Lott to be his deputy.

McConnell was the deputy to retiring GOP Senate leader Bill Frist. So the Republicans essentially decided to retain their existing leadership -- the same leadership that cost them their majority status.

Further, McConnell is one of the most earmark-happy members of Congress, providing millions (and in some cases, billions) of dollars worth of federal help to specific projects.

In this he doesn't differ much from Harry Reid or John Murtha, two Democrats who know their way around the earmark process. But just as the ascension of those two don't exactly build confidence in Democratic committment to reform, McConnell's rise suggests Republicans don't really take it seriously, either.

As with Reid and Murtha, though, let's suspend judgement for now. The past is past; what's important is what steps they take now to curb the abuses that swept the GOP out and the Democrats in.

Lott, meanwhile, brings his own baggage. He was forced to give up the post of majority leader in 2002 after he inexplicably praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential run.

You can argue that Lott has paid his penance, and that he's too skilled of a backroom politician to sit in the cheap seats forever. But his reappearance certainly won't do much to help the GOP's relationship with black voters, already turned off by dirty campaigns in Tennessee and Maryland and the ongoing failure of Republican legislators to address relevant issues. For example, the NAACP gave 98 percent of Republicans an "F" in their most recent scorecard.

I'm not arguing the merit of the NAACP's policy positions. But I think it does demonstrate that Republicans are a long way from winning over black voters, and rehabilitating Lott -- who, besides praising Thurmond, got a 5% grade from the NAACP -- doesn't help matters.

Tomorrow, we find out who will lead the House Democrats. On Friday, it's House Republicans.

Update: Once again, conservatives are not happy. Michelle Malkin has a more thorough roundup of conservative opinion. My favorite comes from the Free Republic: "We suck."

racism, Lott, McConnell, corruption, politics, midtopia

Health care tsunami

Amazing what a Democratic sweep of Congress will do. Suddenly, everyone is talking about health care.

On Monday, the insurance industry outlined a plan to provide insurance coverage to the 47 million uninsured Americans. They propose using tax credits and government programs to buy the insurance, at an estimated cost of $300 billion over 10 years.

And yesterday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- facing a Democrat-controlled state legislature -- said he wants to extend health insurance to all children, a startling about-face for a man who threw people off of MinnesotaCare in his first term as he struggled to close the state's budget deficit without raising taxes.

Call me cynical, but do you suppose either of those two things would have occurred had the Republicans kept control?

No matter. Pawlenty's willingness to reconsider long-held positions is one reason I said it wouldn't be a disaster if he were re-elected. And with businesses, the insurance industry and prominent Republicans all suddenly producing plans to improve health coverage, it's going to be very hard for opponents to claim a solution -- however partial -- is impossible or socialist or the like.

There are a lot of questions to be answered, notably cost controls and the increasing shifting of costs from employer to employee. But that's what debate is for. The discussion looks to be healthy, and likely to lead to something productive. Finally.

Score one for divided government.

Pawlenty, health care, politics, midtopia

As seen by the FAA

I don't normally post simple eye candy, but this is way cool. And it's not just eye candy.

Have a look.

FAA, cool, politics, midtopia

Democrats and corruption

The Democrats made some leadership choices today, and it sends a few confusing messages about their committment to fighting corruption.

I'm actually less worried about the House, where Nancy Pelosi has been criticized for publicly favoring John Murtha over her current deputy, Steny Hoyer.

The criticism is twofold: that Pelosi is waging an unnecessary battle that she can only lose -- either dividing her caucus or suffering an intramural defeat -- and that Murtha has long been linked to questionable ethical moves, ranging from enthusiastic use of earmarks to the Abscam bribery scandal a quarter century ago.

But frankly, Pelosi and Murtha's leadership will be judged on their deeds, not their past. The political wisdom of picking an early and public fight aside, Pelosi backing Murtha doesn't signal anything about her anti-corruption drive.

Over in the Senate, though, the Democrats have made another odd choice. The main Senate leadership team is unsurprising -- Harry Reid will be majority leader, with Dick Durbin as his assistant. But they also named Terrance Gainer as sergeant at arms for the Senate.

Why is that odd? Because Gainer resigned as chief of the Capitol Police in April after hiring his son-in-law as a police officer in violation of nepotism laws. What's even weirder was that it was repeated confrontations with congressional Democrats that eventually led to revelations of the hiring and thus his ouster.

I suppose one can view this as a form of reaching across the aisle, or simply take the view that the nepotism case really wasn't that big a deal. But it's still sends a mixed message on the corruption front.

The true test of Democrats' devotion to clean government still lies in what Congress does about lobbyists, earmarks and openness. But these moves don't exactly fill me with hope.

corruption, Murtha, Pelosi, Senate, Reid, Gainer, politics, midtopia

Maryland dirty tricks, continued

In an update to the Maryland item in my pre-election dirty tricks post, the deception goes further than originally thought.

The glossy fliers bore photos of black Democratic leaders on the front. Under the headline “Democratic Sample Ballot” were boxes checked in red for Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who were not identified as Republicans. Their names were followed by a long list of local Democratic candidates.

I understand playing hardball. I even understand -- though despise -- attack ads that stretch the truth or sling mud to make their point.

But outright lying to voters in an attempt to trick them into voting for you? And on behalf of a black Senatorial candidate no less? Give me a break.

I've lost a lot of respect for Michael Steele. As for Ehrlich -- whose campaign appears to be the driving force behind these tricks -- he deserves more. Like a lawsuit and serious fines, for instance. This stuff is beyond the pale.

Maryland, Ehrlich, Steele, politics, midtopia

GOP adrift?

Taken in conjunction with the post just below this one on Mel Martinez, it's starting to seem like Republicans aren't sure what to do.

The depleted House Republican caucus, a minority in the next Congress, convenes in the Capitol at 8 a.m. Friday on the brink of committing an act of supreme irrationality. The House members blame their leadership for their tasting the bitter dregs of defeat. Yet the consensus so far is that, in secret ballot, they will reelect some or all of those leaders.

In private conversation, Republican members of Congress blame Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt in no small part for their midterm election debacle. Yet either Boehner, Blunt or both are expected to be returned to their leadership posts Friday.

You know it's especially bad when conservatives start accusing each other of drinking Kool-Aid:

That reluctance is typified by Rep. Eric Cantor, a 43-year-old third-term congressman from Richmond who has been his party's chief deputy whip for four years since being appointed by Blunt after only two years in the House. His voting record is solidly conservative, and he belongs to the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC). At the same time, Cantor is well regarded in all sectors of the party, and members see him as the principled kind of rising politician that Republicans desperately need.

But Cantor is not seizing this post-election moment to seek an elected leadership position. On the contrary, he has been supporting Blunt for reelection as whip out of loyalty to his mentor and patron. Bright and able though he is, Cantor has drunk the Kool-Aid in viewing the Republican Party as a private club where personal loyalties must transcend all else.

What's going on? Are Republicans simply out of ideas? Or do they reject the notion that the election changed anything?

Weird.

politics, midtopia

Martinez to take over RNC

Not Michael Steele, as previously rumored. But Florida Sen. Mel Martinez.

This seems like an odd pick. Martinez will remain in the Senate, limiting how active he can be with the RNC. And he's not exactly someone who captures the imagination and energizes the party. In fact, he barely squeaked into office on Bush's coattails in 2004, and is better known for public gaffes than for sound policy.

Conservative bloggers are a bit less than overjoyed, and I can hardly blame them. The GOP is hamstringing its national operation in the runup to 2008 -- and for what? To reach out to Hispanic voters? To reward a Bush loyalist?

Is there some way this actually makes sense?

politics, midtopia

It's the media's fault!

Some conservatives are sinking back into the dark pits of paranoid fantasy.

Make no mistake. Along with the multitude of Republican gaffes, and the hard work of the Democrats, there can be no doubt that the left-of-center mainstream media helped to manufacture this election victory for the Democratic Party. For parts of the last two years, many in the media have worked in concert with the Democratic spin doctors to indoctrinate the American voter into believing this election had to be a referendum on President Bush and the "failed" war in Iraq.

Horrified by Mr. Bush's re-election in 2004, as well as the historic Republican gains in the House and the Senate that year, some liberals in the media were determined to do everything in their power to ensure that there was no GOP celebration in 2006, even if that meant confirming to the world that they proudly abandon professionalism and ethics in the name of partisanship and ideology.

To make the election of 2006 a referendum on Mr. Bush and "his" war, the media knew full well they had to present that conflict in the worst possible light for as long as possible on their nightly newscasts, cable programs and front pages. Then, after force-feeding the American people a steady diet of this carnage for weeks at a time, the same media outlets would then "poll" the voters to get their impressions of Iraq and Mr. Bush.

This trope is getting old.

Is the bias of Western journalists the reason Iraqi men are tattooing their names on their bodies so that loved ones can identify them when they die?

Is the bias of Western journalists the reason that 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country and another 1.6 million are internal refugees -- more than 12 percent of the entire Iraqi population?

Is the bias of Western journalists the reason sectarian violence is killing dozens and sometimes hundreds of Iraqis a day?

Is the bias of Western journalists the reason more of them have died in the three years of fighting in Iraq than died in the entire 20 years of the Vietnam war?

I could go on. The situation in Iraq is bad enough that the media didn't have to lie about it, even if they were inclined to.

politics, midtopia

What sort of army are we standing up?

It's stuff like this that makes me question whether Iraq is "winnable" in any sense we'd recognize.

Brig. Gen. Shakir Hulail Hussein al-Kaabi was chosen this summer by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to lead the Iraqi Army’s Fifth Division in Diyala Province. Within weeks, General Shakir went to Colonel Jones with a roster of people he wanted to arrest.

On the list were the names of nearly every Sunni Arab sheik and political leader whom American officers had identified as crucial allies in their quest to persuade Sunnis to embrace the political process and turn against the powerful Sunni insurgent groups here.

“Where’s the evidence?” Colonel Jones demanded of General Shakir. “Where’s the proof? What makes us suspect these guys? None of that stuff exists.”

To that, Colonel Jones recalled, the Iraqi commander replied simply, “I got this from Baghdad.”

The incident was one of many that alarmed Colonel Jones, who just completed a yearlong tour as commander of American forces in Diyala. In the end, he said, he concluded that the Iraqi general’s real ambition was to destroy the Sunni political movement here — possibly on orders from Baghdad.

The article goes on to detail how the Iraqi military is increasingly being wielded as a weapon by Shiites against Sunnis -- and that the orders seem to come from Iraq's central government, thus making it part of the problem rather than a bulwark against sectarian anarchy.

Proponents of "staying until we win" in Iraq need to detail exactly what "winning" entails -- and how it will be achieved in the face of such realities.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Democratic plans

Thus far the Democrats are being very careful with their newfound majority, avoiding extreme partisan talk or scary agendas and focusing on a few laudable goals.

Among them:

Clean up government. There's always a disconnect between action and rhetoric on this issue, but Nancy Pelosi has vowed to run the cleanest Congress in history, and she already has one of the means to do it: The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which she tried and failed to get through the GOP congress. It prohibits congressmembers from accepting most gifts from lobbyists, including travel on corporate jets, meals, tickets and entertainment. And it would create an independent office to catalog lobbyist contacts. That's a big start. But the elephant in the room is earmarks. Normally I'd apologize to Republicans for the elephant metaphor, but the fact is that earmarks have exploded under Republican rule, in part because Republicans made a concerted effort to ensure that lobbyists paid through the nose for such favors. If Pelosi can't or won't rein those in, corruption will continue apace -- and will lose its Republican tinge.

Fiscal responsibility. Some people find it weird or false to hear Democrats talk about this, but the last six years of Republican rule should have shredded any belief voters had that Republicans were capable of fiscal discipline. Even if you think Democrats will raise your taxes, tax-and-spend is more defensible, both ethically and economically, than borrow-and-spend. The centerpiece of this effort is PayGo, which means reinstituting Clinton-era rules that required any new spending or tax cuts to be offset by spending cuts or tax hikes. It's a common-sense rule that prevents Congress from adding to the deficit and encourages them to start reducing it.

What's odd is how senior Republicans like John Boehner (likely to be the new minority leader in the House) oppose it. Their logic: it encourages tax hikes, because it's easier to raise taxes than cut spending. Only in partisanland would the argument "don't impose fiscal discipline because I can't keep myself from raising taxes" be taken seriously.

In the end, though, the argument should be less about economics and more about ethics. It is unethical to force our kids and grandkids to pay for programs we're spending on ourselves. Borrowing money to win World War II is one thing; borrowing money so that we can have lots of government services and low taxes is simply reprehensible.

They'll also preserve the estate tax, which I fully support. If you're going to restructure a tax, it should be the Alternative Minimum Tax. It makes no sense to give multibillionaires a huge tax break while the AMT expands to ensnare more and more middle-class taxpayers.

Oversight. This is where the new Congress can really shine if it can avoid a few tantalizing pitfalls. Congress needs to reassert its oversight role, and there is every indication that it will do so. For starters, Democrats say they will revoke the last-minute provision that stripped funding from the Iraq auditor's office. Such moves are laudable. The risk, however, is that Democrats will gleefully launch dozens if not hundreds of investigations into administration activities, using them to harass Bush rather than focus U.S. policy. A number of investigations are called for, including the long-delayed report on U.S. use of intelligence in the runup to Iraq, examinations of the incompetent occupation planning and probes of some of Bush's more controversial initiatives, like warrantless eavesdropping. But endless fishing expeditions are not what Democrats were elected to pursue.

After that the Dems have a few populist measures planned: raising the minimum wage, reforming the Medicare Part D debacle, stuff like that.

All in all, a good, substantive agenda that seems destined to enjoy a lot of popular support. I'm sure the more partisan issues will crop up down the line. But this is a very promising start.

politics, midtopia

Lame ducks all around

The lame-duck Congress has convened for the post-election session, where it will try to get some business done before the Democrats take over the new Congress in January. But the more interesting action turns on who will lead both parties in the new Congress.

The lame-duck President, meanwhile, has sent that Congress a wish list that would seem to contradict his calls for bipartisan consensus, inasmuch as they represent an effort to force through controversial measures before the Democrats take over.

The president's top priorities are a measure to legalize his once-secret warrantless eavesdropping program, the extension of his tax cuts and Senate confirmation of John Bolton to be United Nations ambassador and, the least controversial item, Senate backing of Robert Gates to succeed embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

His chances of success are slim to none, unless outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist changes some ground rules to allow simple majority votes in situations that currently require more than that. Even that would be chancy, and it would probably be foolish for Republicans to try it in the face of voter anger. Whether you think Democrats earned a mandate or not on Nov. 7, trying to push something through now because you don't think it would pass in the newly elected Congress would go very badly for the GOP if they have misread the public mood.

But it's rather telling that Bush says one thing when he's vulnerable, and another when he holds the power. One would have thought that Bush would have refrained from the attempt simply to avoid poisoning relations with the Congress he'll have to deal with for the last two years of his term. Apparently not.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. As outgoing GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee recounts, the last time the electorate was closely divided, the Bush administration didn't exactly reach across the divide.

Back in December 2000, after one of the closest elections in our nation’s history, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney was the guest at a weekly lunch meeting of a small group of centrist Republicans. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and I were honored to have the opportunity to visit with him on the eve of a session of Congress in which, because of Republican defeats, the Senate would be evenly divided at 50-50.

As we sat in Senator Specter’s cozy hideaway office and discussed the coming session, I was startled to hear the vice president dismiss suggestions of compromise and instead emphasize an aggressively partisan agenda that included significant tax cuts, the abandonment of international agreements and a muscular, unilateral foreign policy.

I was incredulous. Instead of a new atmosphere of cooperation and civility which, after all, had been the promise of the Bush-Cheney campaign, we seemed ready to return to the poisonous partisanship that marked the Republican-Congress — Clinton White House years.

Of course, bipartisanship is a two-way street, and it remains to be seen how Democrats will handle their end of the bargain. For now, they're saying all the right things. And other prominent Democrats, like Leon Panetta, are going beyond pleasantries.

The legislative work can begin on areas where there is likely consensus: immigration reform, lobbying and ethics reform, and education with the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.

If that works, Congress and the administration can move on to negotiate tougher issues like establishing long-term budget discipline, expanding energy alternatives, fixing the prescription drug benefit and increasing the minimum wage.

And, finally, on the war in Iraq, despite the bitter differences, both the Democrats and the president face the same brutal reality. We need a new strategy to stabilize Iraq so that our troops can begin to come home without leaving a disaster behind. The president took an important step by replacing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates. The Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, of which I am a member, will soon make its recommendations, which we hope will provide the beginning of a unified strategy.

Panetta makes an important argument: that the Baker Report will be a starting point, not an ending point. And it remains to be seen whether Bush can participate constructively in the winding down of his Iraq adventure, and whether Democrats can rein in their more leftist members to arrive at a resolution that addresses U.S. national interests. That means getting out of Iraq sooner rather than later so we can refocus attention on actual terrorists -- but not so fast that we jeopardize our interests, or fail to fulfill our ethical obligation to the Iraqi people.

The fate of both parties in 2008 rest on how they rise to this challenge.

politics, midtopia

Meanwhile, over at the RNC....

Republicans are asking defeated Maryland senatorial candidate Michael Steele to replace outgoing RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman.

He'd be a good choice: a popular, smart moderate from a blue state who, by virtue of his skin color, would lend built-in credibility to Republican efforts to continue Mehlman's strategy of reaching out to blacks. And it would give him a high-profile role in the party, exactly what I said was needed a few days ago.

Apparently Karl Rove would prefer he accept an Cabinet post instead. So Steele lands on his feet no matter what. And good for him.

RNC, Mehlman, Steele, politics, midtopia

Howard Dean: Fool or genius?

It depends who you ask.

Some disgruntled Democrats want to replace him with Harold Ford, arguing that Dean did poorly at fundraising, and that his "50 state" strategy cost them several additional seats.

Elsewhere, though, he's being hailed as a genius. Not only did the Democrats not need his help to win, but his efforts to build a truly national grassroots operation paid dividends in several close races, as well as forcing Republicans to defend seats they might not have otherwise.

Me, I think the detractors need to get some perspective. The lackadaisical fundraising is a legitimate gripe. But Dean is right that the party needs to rebuild nationally, and not simply write off large swathes of the country as GOP strongholds. And in hindsight he was right to remain focused on that, instead of throwing all his resources into a mid-term election push that turned out not to need his help.

Dean now has a running start and two years to build a fully functional network for the 2008 presidential elections, with the fundraising and policy help of a Democratic Congress. That's a huge thing. Dean was right; now Democrats would be smart to leave the man alone to do his job.

DNC, Howard Dean, politics, midtopia

Gerrymandering killed the GOP

Because they overreached, diluting their strength in key districts in an attempt to maximize the number of GOP-leaning districts.

In Florida, meanwhile, state lawmakers had shifted some Republican voters from the secure district of former Rep. Mark Foley in an attempt to shore up the re-election chances of Rep. Clay Shaw without risking the Foley seat. Instead, Democrats took both. In Texas, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's decision to transfer thousands of stalwart Republican voters from his district in 2004 to boost a neighboring seat heightened the burden on the write-in candidate trying to hold Mr. DeLay's seat. She lost it.

"The trade-off in redistricting is between safety and maximizing the numbers," says Alan I. Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "You can't do both,"

The article discusses how union strategists and MoveOn realized what the GOP did not, and began targeting districts that had been weakened by the gerrymandering. On Election Day, Democrats took many of them.

I despise gerrymandering, of course, so this story serves as both poetic justice and a warning. If Democrats control the state legislatures in 2010, they'll be tempted to gerrymander to their own benefit. While I hope that objective boundary-drawing criteria are in place by then, I also hope that Democrats learn from the GOP's mistakes and are wary about pushing their advantage to the limit. Not only is democracy hurt by such shenanigans -- they could end up shooting themselves in the foot.

gerrymandering, politics, midtopia

Party switchers?

There's a lot of talk about whether Joe Lieberman or Bernie Sanders will switch from independent to one of the other parties. Sanders could turn Democrat; Lieberman could go either way, though he has repeatedly said he'll caucus with the Democrats.

But what about moderate Republicans?

After the 1994 takeover by Republicans, two Senate Democrats jumped ship: Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby. So there's a precedent for it.

And Lincoln Chafee is openly talking about it. He's irrelevant until he gets elected again, but some of his comments are illuminating.

When asked whether he felt that his loss may have helped the country by switching control of power in Congress, he replied: "To be honest, yes."

"The people have spoken all across America. They want the Democrats and Republicans to work together," Chafee added. "I think the president now is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that's going to be good for America."

A lifelong Republican who succeeded his father, the late John Chafee, in the U.S. Senate, Chafee said he waged a lonely campaign to try to bring the party to the middle. He described attending weekly Thursday lunches with fellow Republican senators and standing up to argue his point of view, often alone.

"There were times walking into my caucus room where it wasn't fun," he said.

Chafee said he stuck with the party in large part because it allowed him to bring federal dollars home to Rhode Island.

So: Any bets on who among the Republicans might switch?

My money is on the two Maine senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Both moderates, both from heavily Democratic states.

Any other contenders?

politics, midtopia

Blue sky thoughts

It's late, so I may not be thinking too clearly, but I've been kicking around a couple of admittedly radical ideas over the last few weeks, and this seems like a good time to throw them out there and see what people think.

They're half-formed, at best. So be gentle.

Minimum wage: Most discussions of minimum wage divide over the economic effects (more money to the poor vs. fewer jobs) or portray it as a social justice issue. But what about the minimum wage's effect on illegal immigration? Wouldn't raising the minimum wage help in that regard?

This idea is based on the assumption that while a lot of employers might be willing to overlook spotty documentation, far fewer are willing to actually violate wage laws. So if they have to pay more, the incentive to hire illegals go down -- since lower wages is one of the primary incentives for doing so.

Given a choice between paying illegal aliens $7 an hour and paying Americans $7 an hour, most employers will choose the latter.

This wouldn't affect employers who are already breaking wage laws by paying illegal immigrants under the table, but it might have an effect on employers who knowingly hire aliens with forged documentation.

Campaign contributions: What if you allowed donations, but they had to be anonymous? Say, earmarked for particular candidates but sent to a central clearinghouse that made monthly or quarterly payments to candidates?

That way politicians wouldn't know who was donating to them, or how much. Sure, contributors could say "I gave this much", but there'd be no way to prove it because the clearinghouse would send an aggregate check, not break it down by donation.

On the downside, the rest of us wouldn't know who was contributing, like we do now, and the Center for Responsive Politics would go out of business. But if nobody knows, I'm fine with that. And it might reduce the overall amount of such donations, thus reducing the influence of money on elections and policy.

Fire away!

campaign finance, minimum wage, immigration, politics, midtopia

150,000 Iraqi dead?

That's what Iraq's health minister says. It's three times most other estimates, but about a quarter of the Lancet estimate that was in the news last month.

The 150,000 figure is something of a back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave his new estimate of 150,000 to reporters during a visit to Vienna, Austria. He later told The Associated Press that he based the figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals — though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

If that figure is close to accurate -- and frankly, it seems reasonable -- then it proves one tragic fact: our meddling in Iraq is killing people at a faster rate than Saddam was.

This is doubly sad, because the only unequivocally good thing to come out of our invasion is that Saddam will soon be dancing at the end of a rope. And now it appears that our intervention is doing more harm to Iraq than he did. Iraqis may one day wax nostalgic about the relatively peaceful days under Saddam. Wouldn't it be ironic if we ended up polishing Saddam's hagiography.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

The casualties mount

With George Allen and Conrad Burns conceding defeat, the Democrats now control both houses of Congress.

The repercussions of their victory are still being felt. Besides Donald Rumsfeld resigning, Ken Mehlman is quitting as head of the Republican National Committee and it looks like John Bolton will fail to get confirmed as UN Ambassador.

Taking the Senate completely changes the balance of power. Controlling the House would have been big in its own right, allowing Democrats to advance their own proposals and quash Republican efforts. Owning the Senate magnifies that power, of course, allowing them to actually pass legislation and send it to the president's desk. But the real biggie is a power unique to the Senate: confirmation of presidential appointees. With Democrats taking the Senate, Bolton was finished. And now the Dems will be able to put pressure on Bush's judicial nominees for the final two years of his term.

What will it mean? That depends on how Bush, Republicans and Democrats proceed. In a world of rational actors they would horse-trade, swapping confirmation of Bush judges for passage of Dem legislation, while Bush wields a veto threat to mold that legislation as well as win passage of bills sought by the Republican minority.

In a world of egos, stubbornness, partisanship and payback, the Dems will marginalize the GOP the way the GOP marginalized Dems, the GOP minority will pull out all the obstructionist stops they used to decry and Bush and the Democrats will take turns quashing each others' initiatives.

The problem here is trust. Bush has a history of talking a good game about "uniting" and "reaching out", but his definition of that has generally been "let's talk nice while doing things my way." His effort to get Bolton confirmed before the Dems take over in January doesn't bode well in that regard. Both parties have a history of obstructing as the minority and of keeping the other party down as a majority. The Republican legislative "majority of the majority" rule -- only bills supported by a majority of Republicans would be sent to the floor for a vote -- was a particularly obnoxious version of the latter, essentially allowing a fourth of Congress to control the legislative agenda.

The Democrats, for their part, must be sorely tempted to launch dozens of investigations, reject all Bush nominees, gut every Republican legislative achievement and otherwise seek revenge.

I suspect it is only a matter of time before Congress and the White House are yelling at each other rather than speaking, and I cynically await the first Republican filibuster and the first expression of Democratic outrage at such obstructionist tactics.

But for now, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. In the "control both houses" link above, Democratic leaders appear to be sober and realistic about the situation.

"Our joy today will vanish if we can't produce for the American people," said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee....

In reaching out to Republicans, though, Democrats pointedly noted that Republicans had not shown them the same consideration.

"They've set a bad example in not working with us," Reid said. "We're not following that example."

These are good rhetorical starts. And they've got two months to work out some deals before the new session begins. An early test for Bush will be the judicial nominees he chooses to send over; will he send moderates, or will he continue to nominate hard-line conservatives? An early test for Democrats will be the rules and legislative priorities they establish. Will they include Republicans, or marginalize them?

Time will tell.

politics, midtopia

Roll call

Just noting some races that were in the news for various reasons:

Democrats took every scandal seat: those once held by Tom DeLay, Mark Foley and Bob Ney. They'll probably have to work hard to keep those seats, but for now they've got them.

GOP Rep. Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, he of the "I didn't strangle my mistress" defense, lost. So did GOP Rep. Curt Weldon, who was the subject of a corruption probe. Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) lost after reports that he roughed up his wife in 2005.

Partisan secretaries of state fared poorly, too. Katherine Harris got obliterated in her quest for a Senate seat in Florida, and Ken Blackwell never came close to getting the keys to the Ohio governor's mansion.

On the other side, both Dennis Hastert and Tom Reynolds survived their links to the Foley affair.

Update: Hastert may have kept his seat, but he won't try to keep his leadership post.

politics, midtopia

Rumsfeld steps down?

Just heard a report that Rumsfeld will be stepping down; Bush to speak later today.

More as it develops.

Update: Bush has confirmed it in a White House press conference. He has named ex-CIA chief Robert Gates as his new nominee, continuing his practice of hiring former Reagan and Bush the Elder hands. But Gates is a member of James Baker's Iraq Study Group, so that's a good sign.

The timing on this is a little strange, because Bush and the GOP would have been better off politically to announce this before the election. And just a week ago, Bush said he wanted Rumsfeld to stay until the end of his presidency.

Bush was asked about that at the press conference, and basically said "I lied to you a week ago because I wasn't ready to announce it."


Rumsfeld, politics, midtopia

Time for IRV

So Democrats take the Minnesota House and sweep all statewide offices.... except for governor. Why?

Because a strong independent candidate siphoned off DFL-leaning voters, costing Mike Hatch a victory.

Good.

I was actually hoping for Hatch to win in a squeaker, because having a DFL governor would have made things easier. But maybe his loss will drive the point home more strongly.

And that point is that the DFL-controlled legislature needs to have instant-runoff voting in place by the 2008 elections.

Why? Well, first off, it's simply the right thing to do. It lets people vote for the candidate they really like without having to worry that doing so will cause their least-favorite candidate to get elected.

But that hasn't persuaded either major party in the past. Fine principles usually come in second to practical politics.

So now's the time to make the case on political grounds.

In Minnesota, serious independent candidates tend to dilute DFL voting strength more than Republican voting strength. That simple fact is proved by the last two elections, in which both Tim Penny and Peter Hutchinson weakened the DFL candidate enough for Pawlenty to win both times with a plurality rather than a majority.

Had IRV been in place, Pawlenty would have lost both times. Simple as that. Had IRV been in place this year, Hatch would have won.

I plan to write the DFL leadership, as well as my own representatives, and make that case. As long as legislative leaders resist IRV, they will continue to see their gubernatorial candidates lose. I will appeal to them to adopt IRV both because it is the right thing to do, and because it provides a tactical advantage to Democrats.

If enough people do that, in 2008 we could have election results that truly reflect the will of the people.

Write your state representative today.

instant-runoff voting, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

In Minnesota, a nearly clean sweep

A pretty good night at Midtopia's campaign headquarters. All of my choices (see sidebar) won except for the governor's race, where Hutchinson split the ticket and let Pawlenty squeak through to re-election.

Tim Walz beating Gil Gutknecht was an intriguing surprise. I didn't mind Gutknecht so much, other than his longstanding support for Bush's Iraq policy. Count him a victim of the national mood.

And the 6th District is sending a nutjob to Congress. That's their right, and it's not like Wetterling was the strongest candidate in the world. But one usually hopes that sanity prevails over looniness. Oh, well; it's only for two years. Maybe Mark Kennedy will reclaim his seat in 2008, or Elwyn Tinklenberg will finally get his chance. Heck, maybe Bachmann will prove to be a reasonable Rep.... sure, and maybe pigs will fly out of my nose.

My overall approach worked, though. Pawlenty keeps his office, but every other statewide office went Democrat, and the Dems took control of the state House while holding on to the state Senate. So Pawlenty will have to do a lot of dealing if he wants to get anything done.

Congratulations to Klobuchar, Ramstad, Bonoff and Benson.

Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Dems fulfill predictions

An amazing night. I was up until about midnight watching the results, but didn't have the time for liveblogging.

First, give credit to the pundits: the general consensus of predictions (including my own) were right on. The Democrats picked up 28 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate (Pennsylvania, Missouri, Rhode Island, Ohio), with 2 Senate seats (Virginia and Montana) hanging in the balance. We may yet see a Democratic majority there.

The Dems also picked up 6 governorships, and now control a majority of those, as well as making serious gains at the statehouse level.

Some random thoughts:

Party makeup: On the one hand, I'm disappointed that the Democratic gains took an especially heavy toll on moderate Republicans. That's to be expected, since swing districts are pretty much by definition going to favor moderates in both parties. Santorum was a good scalp, and several Bush lapdogs went down. But Chafee, Steele and the like are the kind of people I'd like to see remain relevant in Republican circles.

Still, consider the long-term trends. In order to win, Democrats veered toward the center, electing conservative and moderate candidates in several key races. And the darling of the Netroots, Ned Lamont, got stuffed by the far more conservative Joe Lieberman. Nancy Pelosi may be liberal, but she will have to lead a caucus that will be decidedly more centrist than the one it replaces.

And as the Democrats grow more moderate, moderate elected Republicans are growing scarce. That will give conservatives and the religious right even more of a hold on the GOP. Unless they find a way to counter that, Republicans may find themselves ideologically purer but increasingly out of power.

Abortion and stem cells: The South Dakota abortion ban was shot down, showing that draconian restrictions on abortion still lack popular support in most of the country. California rejected a waiting period and parental notification for minors. The Missouri stem cell amendment looks like it will barely pass, which would seem to throw doubt on the theory that the amendment helped McCaskill. Arguably it helped Talent, as pro-life forces turned out to defeat the amendment.

Gay marriage: Arizona shot down a bill that would have outlawed civil unions as well as gay marriage. Five states passed bans on both. Two states outlawed gay marriage but not civil unions, though one of those states -- Colorado -- rejected a separate bill that would have legalized civil unions.

Taxes: South Dakota rejected a proposal to limit property tax increases, a Midwest version of California's Proposition 13 -- which has played havoc with that state's finances. South Carolina approved one. Three states rejected a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which would have put strict limits on tax increases. No broad restrictions on taxation power passed.

Eminent domain: Restriction on use of this power, a reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling in the New London case, passed in 9 states, while being rejected in two.

Minimum wage: Proposals to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation passed in all six states where it was on the ballot.

Other initiatives: Voters in South Dakota soundly rejected proposals to strip judges of legal immunity on their rulings. Arizona approved making English the state's official language.

The picture that emerges is one of a centrist electorate that opposes gay marriage (and appears willing to ban civil unions if the two issues are chained together), but generally supports legal abortion and opposes handcuffing government's ability to raise revenue. Voters also support the social safety net, as reflected in the minimum wage proposals. The one place they want to rein in government power is eminent domain.

The administration: Bush, Rove and Ken Mehlman were required to be cheerleaders leading up to this election, but it's worth pointing out just how wrong they were about how things would turn out. Bush stumping in conservative areas and defending his decisions in Iraq probably hurt more than they helped. It may have helped fire up Bush's base, but that base is at 34 percent and falling, and meanwhile coverage of his speeches helped remind people not only of their opposition to the war, but Bush's refusal to concede mistakes or deal with the reality on the ground.

The big question now is how Bush will deal with a Democratic Congress -- and how that Congress will deal with him. Expect a smattering of investigations, as well as bills restricting the President's ability to authorize torture and eavesdropping. But also expect Bush to use his veto pen more. It comes down to whether Bush can get past his innate stubborness and actually compromise, and whether Democrats can get past thoughts of revenge and actually govern. The next few months should be telling, as they'll set the tone for the next two years.

Independents: We've now got two in the Senate: Lieberman and Bernie Sanders. Both have said they'll caucus with the Democrats, but it will be interesting to see what price they demand -- especially if control of the Senate hinges on their decision. Lieberman will probably get the committee assignments he would have gotten had he run and won as a Democrat; but Sanders will have some interesting negotiations. And the GOP may try to bribe Lieberman if the stakes are high enough. Lieberman has said he won't switch caucuses, but we'll see.

Fraud: While there were hiccups, the voting overall appeared to go smoothly. In part that's because most of the margins were beyond dispute. But I haven't seen any credible claims of widespread fraud -- and to their credit, Republicans don't seem to be raising that particular chant.

Turnout: Turnout seemed to be pretty high across the country, with some areas experiencing percentages normally reserved for presidential elections. This is excellent for all sorts of reasons, but the main one is that it dilutes the influence of money, partisanship and the parties' get-out-the-vote operations. That turnout may end up explaining why the GOP's acknowledged advantage in such operations failed to move the needle yesterday -- enough people were mad enough and motivated enough that it simply swamped such partisan efforts.

Money: A lot of money went into this election. According to Opensecrets.org, Congressional candidates raised a total of more than $1.2 billion and spent about $1 billion of that. A lot more money went into state-level races.

But all that money appeared to have a limited effect this year. In Michigan, the GOP candidate for governor spent $35 million of his own money -- and lost. In Rhode Island, the GOP candidate for Senate spent $7 million out of his own pocket -- and lost. In Congressional races, Republicans outspent Democrats by $27 million -- and lost.

The moral: Money helps. But in a race where the issues are stark and well-known, its influence is limited.

Attack ads: I'm not about to suggest this is a trend, but another thing I noticed about this election is the relative ineffectiveness of the usual negative polemics. Republicans trotted out their usual screeds about "liberal" and "tax and spend" and "negotiates with terrorists", but this time around those ads just seemed shrill and weak, not devastating. The optimist in me would like to think that this year was a wake-up call for voters, who have started to see such tactics for what they are -- long on innuendo, short on substance and accuracy, and doing more damage to the speaker than the target.

That's it for now. More later as I get time.

politics, midtopia

Election Day misbehavior

A certain amount of this happens in every campaign. This post will be updated through the day to list this election cycle's shenanigans. I've already commented on the irregularities in Virginia. So without further ado:

In New Jersey: Vandals chained shut the doors of Republican Senate candidate Tom Kean's campaign headquarters, and broke keys off in the locks.

In Colorado Springs: The headquarters of Democratic House candidate Jay Fawcett was sprayed with chemicals that smell like skunk, making it difficult for workers to do their jobs.

In Kentucky: A poll worker was arrested after choking a voter and throwing him out of the polling place. The two had argued over a judicial election.

In Ohio: Someone broke into a polling station in Columbus overnight, causing it to open late. In southeast Ohio, callers have been falsely telling voters that their precinct had changed. There have also been problems and confusion around the new voter ID requirement.

All in all though, things seem to be going smoothly. Voting is a massive process, involving tens of thousands of precincts and millions of voters. While I'll probably have an impressive list in this post by the end of the evening, nothing so far indicates a major problem.

politics, midtopia

Go vote!

Last post of the night, and I won't be back before the polls open. I may try to do some liveblogging on the election, either here or at Donklephant. But I'm playing single dad for a couple of days, so it depends on the time available and the quality of my Internet connection.

But whatever you do, go vote! Stop on your way to work, or school, or the store. Bring the kids along. That's what I'm going to be doing: after putting my oldest daughter on the school bus, the younger one and I are going to exercise our greatest democratic right before I drop her off at preschool and head to work.

Do what you have to do, but vote. Because it matters. It's not just about who wins; margin counts, too. And the higher the turnout, the more the power of the party bases are diluted, and the more candidates have to consider being responsive to all voters, not just their most loyal or well-heeled ones.

Go. Vote. Bring a friend along and make her vote, too. Organize a lunchtime voting expedition at work. Stop at the polls on the way home from work. Make our government hear your voice.

Go. Vote.

politics, midtopia