Mr. Ahlf's disgust with President Bush and the Republican party generally, expressed below, made me think about the recent midterm election and what message, if any, it contained. In particular, to what extent was it an expression of the unpopularity of Mr. Bush per se?

The notable feature of American politics over the six-year period of one-party rule was the cozy bargain between the executive and legislative branches which existed in fact, though it may never have been formally negotiated. Mr. Bush was notoriously complaisant in accepting congressional budgets and earmarks, including an astounding decision to veto nothing for six years. In short, Mr. Bush let the Republican-controlled congress do as it pleased.

In return, the congress was essentially mute on foreign affairs -- individual Democratic members were willing to give hostile speeches to any willing audience, but the congress as an official body remained passive. The three terms of congress were notable for their lack of initiative; the explosion of earmarked pork was just the most visible symptom of a congress with no issues larger than their individual districts to focus on. (Foreign policy remained a political issue as parties sought electoral support, but never a legislative issue.)

This bargain -- and its implicit subversion of the purpose of separation of powers -- was fortunately repudiated in 2006.

Ok, for those who are on the Dem side (or those straddling the fence), here's your chance.

I'm done with Bush.

What is Bush's record as it stands today?

#1 - in the 2000 elections, he promised to add 3,000 border patrol agents. He never did so. The later goal was increased to a new 6,000, the gap of which was supposed to be filled with National Guard troops while the training happened. This has not happened either.

#2 - Under his watch, the federal prosecutors have established a de facto lower limit on drug smuggling cases of 500 pounds of Marijuana. Anything less, they are simply "not interested."

#3 - Under his watch, Johnny Sutton's office in Texas has been ignoring cases of real drug smuggling, allowing "stash houses" to exist for over a year and a half even after multiple raids. At the same time, they have been ruthlessly persecuting the Border Patrol, going after agents using bogus trumped-up charges, lies, and deception. Friends of the Border Patrol have a lot on this; Sutton's office has also been caught lying to Congressmen about various cases. The phrase "prosecutorial misconduct" describes this office in much the same way "a tall building" describes the Sears Tower, but Bush's administration doesn't care, it seems.

#4 - It is apparently the policy of this administration that when armed commandoes violate the border of the US, National Guard troops are supposed to retreat before them.

#5 - The Katrina debacle still goes on. I do not blame Bush for what went on in the first few days, up to about a month or two. That was the fault of Louisiana's corrupt system, the fact that money that was supposed to go to Levee maintenance got funneled away into the corrupt hands of "committees", and Louisiana's general disarray. However, it's now far longer. Stuff like this is inexcusable, and even as the crime problem in New Orleans is returning to pre-Katrina levels, the crime NO exported to other areas in the evacuation is making problems there as well.

#6 - The lower class in America is being assaulted; wage deflation/suppression due to "under the table" workers and corporate avarice are at an all time high.

#7 - As RAW mentions below, the middle class is also under attack from all sides: corporations are slashing healthcare, raiding pensions, and making work lives worse every day. Wages are being depressed there too as workers try to compete with "outsourcing" to nations where workers' rights laws and environmental laws mean precisely Jack.

#8 - While I agreed with invading Afghanistan and Iraq, I'm now convinced Bush knows so little about the region, and so little about how to manage a proper war, that he's a bumbling moron. He's screwed up Afghanistan by letting the pressure off too early, when he turned around to go into Iraq. He's screwed up Iraq by having no idea of what was around the area, or the underlying pressures (such as the tribalist Sunni/Shia/Kurd internecine warfare that was bound to happen and the Iranian goal of taking the area over) that were going to create chaos after Saddam was removed.

#9 - Worst of all, he's done absolutely nothing good for the economy. In the first few years, there was a crash happening. It actually started under Clinton's watch, so I don't consider Bush responsible for starting it. I do, however, consider him responsible for about the year 2002 onward. What has happened in this time? The housing market is in the process of tanking. Even as wage depression hits the middle and lower classes, the price of goods and gas at the pump are working their way quickly upwards. Gas is almost $3/gallon again. This is the President who stood by his Saudi friends in the early days of his Presidency, and they made an announcement that oil over $30/barrel wasn't good for the Saudis, or America, or the world. At over $70/barrel now, the Saudis are laughing, and Bush has done absolutely nothing to work on getting the prices down.

There you have it. I'm done with Bush. Completely.

So here's the challenge to Democrats, or Democrat-boosters, reading out there: show me a REAL candidate. Show me someone I can trust to do the right thing at least 70% of the time. Show me someone who means what they say and seems to have at least a modicum of common sense.

Do that, and I'll vote Democrat in 2008.

Ross Douthat has some solid thoughts on what it means to be in and out of power:

I think there's some truth to the underlying idea, which is that paleoconservatism tends to display the weaknesses you would expect from an intellectual movement that hasn't held power, in any meaningful way, in God knows how long - specifically, a tendency to advance ideas without any regard whatsoever to their practicality, to condemn others for making compromises without pausing the consider the constraints and difficulties involved, and to obsess endlessly over battles that were lost a long time ago. Obviously, movements that are in power tend to succumb to precisely the opposite temptations, accepting an endless series of moral compromises as "the price of power" or "just the way things are," which is why a little Old Right purism can feel like a breath of fresh air in the era of Jack Abramoff and company.

This may even be more true of libertarians. I think that one of the biggest problems with conservatives is that it's so difficult for them to govern on the abstract positions that get them elected. People have a much bigger stomach for "limited government" during an election than they do when they're about to see a social program cut. Those areas where they can get the public on board, a simpler tax code, say, the vested interests in opposition are too great to overcome and the issue so complex that the public loses interests. Liberals sort of have the opposite problem, wherein it's difficult to campaign on bigger government in the abstract but a large number of the places that they'd spend money do have not-inconsiderable support. Of course they'd been potbanging on the deficit as the party out of power usually does and even if they get the presidency in 2008 it won't be easy to deliver in conjunction with their other promises.

So voters are left with a degree of dissonance between what the guy they're going to vote for is campaigning on and what they will be able to do (and what they will spend political capital on) when they get into office. Most specifically in the area of conservatives and smaller government, it's reached the point beyond which cognitive dissonance can bridge the gap. It polls well and there is a deep philosophical rationale for lesser government, but we're way beyond the point where we can consider it plausible.

The question is whether or not Republicans can jettison that idea in favor of market-driven governance. The ownership society is still preferable to me over the Democratic alternative and I would actually feel better about knowing what might happen if "my guy" gets elected. On the other hand a conversation with some conservatives that are committed to smaller government (at least economically) over all else leads me to believe that for every voter like me that they feel more comfortable, they might lose voters like him.

Right now one of my primary discomforts with Fred Thompson is that he's still singing the praises of smaller government. While I'm generally behind that idea, it doesn't tell me very much about what kind of government he will throw his weight behind once he gets into office and the ideal of lesser government evaporates. Whatever his faults have been in 2000 Bush at least managed to answer that question and for the most part has actually tried to implement those ideas (faith-based initiative, privatizing social security, market-based expansion like Medicare Plan D). At least with Mitt Romney and his ill-fated universal coverage plan in California I have an idea of how he would go about government expansion. But a lot of the candidates are hiding behind the idea that we will just make government smaller.

The biggest issue for me is health care. I'm not looking for someone that is against government meddling in it even if the government should meddle in it. People are so dissatisfied with the system something is going to happen with it over the next ten years. Some sort of at least semi-comprehensive reform will take place. I am worried about how exactly the Democrats will go about it if they're given the opportunity. So I'm looking for a Republican that will initiate enough reform to take the issue off the table. I have my own ideas as to which proposals would be preferable over others, but it's hard to gauge where the candidates stand in a primary where the voters and activists that matter the most don't want to hear that they will do anything. Once the general election rolls around the Republican nominee will likely come up with something, but I'd like to know what they will come up with before I vote in the primary.

One of the odd truisms of Presidential campaigns is that you can win if the press is neutral, but if the press are for or against you, your fate becomes a lot more certain.

By that, Hillary Clinton may have things rougher than her supporters think: CNN's currently running a rather negative video on here, titled "Clinton's 'planned, impromptu' war vote answer." They spend a lot of time attacking her for not being willing to say that voting to approve the Iraq war was a "mistake."

The question is, whether this is just a temporary thing, or whether it's going to be a theme throughout the campaign from now on.

Mickey Kaus at Slate magazine has an interesting take on the most recent gay-marriage flap in New Jersey, which they appropriately title "Dems Dodge Big Gay Bullet."

Now, for the purposes of this post, I'm setting all the morality-politics stuff aside. Don't want to discuss whether gay marriage is wrong, homosexuality, yadda yadda.

What I do find remarkable is that once again, the courts seem to be setting up a worst-case scenario that plays to certain very conservative bases very well. And Kaus notices this as well. His main take seems to be that since the court gave the state legislature 180 days to enact either gay marriage or civil unions (their choice):

"In other words, had the New Jersey Court gone all the way and required gay marriage, the next two weeks might have been filled with stories of happy gay couples from across the nation buying plane tickets to Atlantic City for their expected weddings. Only a Liberal Media Conspiracy of unprecedented self-repressive power could have kept the hype from driving cultural conservatives to the polls."

The kicker for this? Unlike Massachusetts (the previous "only state" for gay marriage) and the two states who enacted Civil Unions (Vermont, Connecticut), New Jersey lacks a previous-residency clause preventing people from zipping into the state, getting married, and zipping out. That makes New Jersey "open season" when and if their version passes and becomes law.

Kaus also points out how absurd Andrew Sullivan's take is when Sullivan claims the New Jersey Supremes were "not being activist":

a) The creation of a new protected class is pretty close to the paradigm of judicial activism; b) The final step taken by the New Jersey court may have seemed the "only logical option" only because of all the earlier activist steps the N.J. courts had taken to help bring the law to the point of giving some-but-not-full marriage rights to gays; c) As Amy Sullivan might argue, the breathtaking speed with which this sort of radical cultural change has gone from being unmentioned to being a litmus test for all rational people is one of the things that worries ordinary voters and turns them into cultural conservatives even though, were activists like Sullivan a little less self-righteous and condescending ("no logical option") these voters might be persuaded to try worthy experiments like gay unions and gay marriage.

So, the stage is set. Unfortunately for the Dems, I don't think Kaus is right, and I don't think the Dems can claim to have "dodged a bullet" here. Why?

First of all, while there is no massive movement of gays traveling to NJ to get married this moment, I'm sure that this news doesn't play well for Democrats in less-liberal states.

Second of all, while this may not have immediate effect in this election, what it effectively does is put gay marriage back into play across the nation for 2007 and 2008. How so?

- In Massachusetts, this might provoke another push for re-amending their constitution.
- In Vermont and Connecticut? Likely nothing (these two states have Civil Unions already, and I'm sure their legislature will just pass a "New Jersey Marriage = Our Civil Union" recognition clause to clarify).
- In New Jersey, the fight will be dirty, and loud, and quite possibly the legislature will be deadlocked. It's hard to predict. But you can rest assured that by 2008, New Jersey will have a constitutional amendment before its population.

Across the rest of the nation?
- 20 states currently have constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage. In these states, unless a federal challenge (based on the full faith and credit clause) is filed with language indicating that the US Supreme Court is asked to invalidate such clauses even in state constitutions, the status quo is upheld. However, these states will be the easiest to rile up and fundraise from to fight the battle in other states.

- Another 8 states are currently debating such amendments. Expect fighting to get fiercer as the proponents of the argument are buttressed by the fact that now not just one, but two, state Supreme Courts have done this, and the argument "we need an amendment because a law will just be overturned" gets stronger.

- 40 states in total (including the 20 with constitutional amendments and 7 of the 8 mentioned earlier, Wisconsin being the lone exception) already have "Defense of Marriage" laws, which take advantage of the Federal law (which takes advantage of the clause in the Full Faith & Credit clause indicating that Congress defines the manner in which Full Faith & Credit may be given to offer states the option to not recognize same-sex marriages from other states), but without a constitutional amendment, the NJ decision again makes that a battleground. Several of these states, last time, passed the laws and voted down amendments because, as argument went, the law was sufficient. The more Supreme Courts use constitutional claims to overturn laws, however, the more pre-emptive amendments will pass.

Ultimately, too, while the New Jersey decision put off the big "gay couples are flying to NJ in record numbers to get hitched" news story, what it left in its place is something that ought to be scary for Democrats:

- Somewhere before 180 days, word that the New Jersey legislature is starting work on the legislation will make news.
- Somewhere before 180 days, the governor's signage (or lack thereof) of the bill will make news.
- If the bill somehow doesn't pass, expect that to make news. If so, expect the court's decision to make news too.
- 180 days from now, one way or another, expect that dratted news story to pop up.
- And expect lots of coverage of this come election time.

Ultimately, I think this hurts Democrats. It might not hurt them right this instance (which, I'm sure, has something to do with Kaus's sigh of relief since the decision passed right before an election that Democrats are desperately counting on) but what does it do in the long run?

(A) it gives activists from the other side a hot-button to push for funding. Expect lots of money to flow into those coffers. The money from Massachusetts had been trickling down as more and more states became content in their anti-gay-marriage amendments and laws, but now, those aren't a safe bet.

(b) it makes sure that this is a hot issue in 2008, when the House is up for grabs, and when the Presidency is once again on the line. And let's face it, the Democrats don't need to be facing the same issue that some have argued made the difference for George Bush driving highly conservative voters to the polls yet again.

Back in 2000, RAW and I took a course in political science together. It was something of an odd course; one offered at UH only once every four years, focusing on an event that not-so-coincidentally only happens every four years. The name of the course was American Presidential Elections.

Of course, that was the year 2000, and so everyone had to write their final essays for the course not knowing who had won the election.

One of the more interesting items that came up in the course, however, was the phenomenon of the "October Surprise." Basically, it's a tactic of mudslinging campaigning; you hold on to some bit of juicy dirt on your opponent as long as possible before releasing it into the wild, hoping that you can use it to hurt your opponent without their having time to come up with a decent response.

So far, I count at least three "October Surprises" this election cycle, on the national scale.

First up: The leak of a "classified" document - the "National Intelligence Estimate" - on the status of the war in Iraq. Interestingly enough, when information "leaks" like this hurt Democrats, they want an inquisition, and when they help? Oh, what "brave souls" are doing the leaking. The same I'm sure is the case for Republicans, or any other political entity, but it's always funny to behold; the people who were screaming about getting someone for "leaking classified information" one day are lauding the leak of classified information the next.

Second up: The unveiling of the "Mark Foley Scandal."

Now, the Foley scandal has all sorts of juicy tidbits. Part of the problem is that Foley was an "in the closet" gay Republican, and as such pretty much immune to any repercussions as long as it was the Republicans who'd have to do the ousting; after all, there's nothing that the supposed "party of diversity", the Democrats, would like than to go on the talk shows and hammer the Republicans for firing a gay man for being gay.

The second problem? Every page involved in the "scandal" was either an adult, or so close to being 18 that it's hard to draw the line. The third problem? This isn't happening in a vacuum. The discussions in all of the IM logs that I've seen appear to be mutual, which means he's - gasp - a gay man doing naughty things with another gay man. If he weren't also a Republican, I have no trust that the Democrats would have been doing anything other than their best to bury this and protect Mark Foley.

The last problem? Yeah, the timing. This could have been brought up months ago, but the release was timed to coincide with the election too well. As Elim Garak stated on DS9: "I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences."

This is one of those coincidences that can't be trusted.

The latest "October Surprise" is a release by the British magazine "The Lancet" of highly inflated casualty counts in Iraq.

The problem with this? Not only is their study methodology discredited, they tried the same stunt in 2004, releasing a study with highly inflated counts just in time to try to influence the 2004 US presidential election.

And un-shockingly, the major newsmedia, in quoting the Lancet's report, are failing to report on this.

Coming back from the other side, we have Harry Reid in trouble for some illicit land dealings that look quite suspicious. Again, the timing of the release is also suspicious, and could easily be Republican "October Surprise" that they've been holding on to as well.

Which leads only to the question - what will next week's "October Surprise" be?

David Hill's makes a good point:

So why do “perverted” politicians keep on running when their lies are almost always eventually exposed? Do they enjoy living on the edge until their outing? Many obviously think that what they do after hours is their own private business. Well, here is some news. It’s not private business, especially if you are running with the imprimatur of the Republican nomination. And if you are living a lie, you are killing your party. Look at what’s happened in Florida. Republicans are forced to throw hapless Joe Negron into the fray as a last minute replacement for Foley. With only a month left, what’s the poor guy to do?

As mentioned, I don't believe that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert ought to be tossed from leadership. The original emails were considerably tamer than what has come out since. Foley could plausibly claim that he didn't mean to be too forward and lied and claimed that there wasn't much else out there that would hurt him. Hastert understandably wanted to believe Foley and there were things seemingly of more immediate importance. In retrospect it wasn't the right call to make, and maybe it should have been apparent at the time, but hindsight is 20/20.

The biggest failure here is a lack of information. Had Hastert known what has since been revealed, obviously he would have done more. The problem, which the Hill column deals with, is that candidates and officeholders are seemingly expected to police themselves. That's the problem.

The solution, it seems to me, is that each party ought to have a group of investigators whose only job it is to follow up on these things. That way, when the suspicions were aired, they would have had a place to go and be investigated without an official complaint being lodged. From what I understand at least some candidates have people investigating the employer to find out what can be found out, but it would be much better if done on the party level. Senator Smith may be willing to take a risk that someone won't be discovered when he runs for president, but that doesn't mean that the party should be willing to take that risk, too.

I haven't finished reading Stephen Rose's "The Trouble With Class Interest Populism" yet, though on the first couple pages he takes on Thomas Frank, who wrote the widely regarded What's The Matter With Kansas.

I've heard liberals ponder before why it is that many of the nation's poorest states vote Republican when it is (in their view) so obviously against their self-interest. They reason that on pocket-book issues they should vote Republican. Rose addresses that point, but I think even if one were to concede that the Democrats are better for Idaho or West Virginia or Dakota on ecomonic matters, I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with voting for or against parties on that basis.

If economic issues are to be the dominating factor, why don't Democrats just give up on social issues altogether? Give up the battles on abortion, guns, and so on and they could win over the midwest. If the debate is -- or should be -- centered around economic issues, this would be a tremendous victory. Except that it wouldn't because a number of liberals would either stay home or support a third party.

But they know as well as we do that social issues matter. It's the dominant factor in political alignment.

Should it be?

Liberals, would you give up abortion, tolerance of homosexuality, and strict separation of church and state in exchange for more aggressive welfare programs of your choosing?

Conservatives, would you give up abortion, TV smut, and guns for lower taxes and government?

I'm more an economic conservative than a social one, but even I have difficulty swallowing that one.

An interesting item over at CNN today, examining how President Bush's poll numbers presumably fall.

They also link the document, which is itself a very interesting read.

Of course, the CNN spin - and the spin the questions aim for - is that the public are disgusted with Bush, and therefore more likely to vote Democrat in the midterm elections.

However, I don't think that's the whole picture. Bush is a polarizing figure, even more so than Clinton was. For the vast majority of time as President (except for the time just after 9/11 pretty much), his ratings haven't been amazingly high, because no matter what he did, hard-core Democrats would oppose him.

So, how does he get that low? There are two possibilities. One, he can lose moderates. Two, he can lose conservatives. I put forth the option that it's the latter; due to (A) economic problems (outsourcing and his buddy-buddiness with Hu/what/where from China), (B) the immigration debate, and (C) various other minor quibbles, Bush is losing the Republican Party's base.

Does he have Moderates? Well, he's probably losing them too. But in order to drop over 20 points from your election number, you've got to be losing your base. He won with over 50% of the vote in 2004, and he's now down to a 32% approval rating, 60% disapprove, 8% undecided.

At the same time, the national dialogue hasn't much changed. And I've yet to see a good Democrat candidate coming forth to oppose whoever his successor might be (heck, I haven't really seen the Republicans putting forth a possible successor). Which means that when the 2006 elections run, it "might" be a referendum on Bush, or it might be local issues. And when 2008 comes, well, it's anyone's ballgame.

"I am hesitant to say so, but I've known it to be a fact that people who tend to expect the most from politics often have the least from family. This is a common sense observation and it informs some of the Conservative criticism of the Welfare State. We should not, I reiterate for the boringeth time, depend upon politics or the government to give us personal gratification or bolster our self-esteem. We seem to have lost, in reaching out with identity politics, a grasp of the essence of citizenship which primarily involves sacrifice for the common good. Instead we have invoked a sort of Hobbesean deal from those who have for the benefits of the have-nots. That's fundamentally a decent idea, but not when the have-nots are getting a state-sponsored identity out of the deal. That kind of care and feeding requires family. Family is what's going to save you from the slings and arrows.

"So going back just a few months to the most recent and glaring example, our friend of great distinction Kanye West banged the needy drum once more with his observation that 'President Bush doesn't care about black people'. Is politics supposed to care? Politics is supposed to be a negotiated settlement, but there is not an active negotiation for black politics of West's sort going on. That's why it's episodic. When Jesse Jackson shows up to say the same thing at every photo op, this is a symptom of the kind of demand created for the politics of caring. But the basic contradiction is that politics is not an avenue for showing love. I think a bit too much of that thing which is popular black politics is looking for love in all the wrong places."-Michael Bowen