Category Archives: Politics: US

Bush Bypasses Senate On Judge. A sign that things will get worse, and worse, as the junta pulls out every stop to consolidate its power.

Jack Balkin weighs in. And even a Volokh conspirator isn't proud of this one.

Lynn Nofziger, blogger, opines that George Bush's electorally timed guest worker plan will backfire politically.

Yes, Nofziger is nuts. But he's canny. And he knows the Republican base from the inside, because he's one of them.

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Back in the last campaign, Ralph Nader called me up one day and asked me to represent him in a trademark case. He was being sued — frivolously — by MasterCard for his parody of their “priceless” commercial. I sent him to a big law firm that had the resources to handle a case of that scope on an emergency basis (I sure don't); but while he was on the phone, I suggested that his candidacy was doing Bush a favor.

Nader disagreed — 'I'll hammer Bush so bad it will help the Democrats' was the gist of his reply.

I disagreed politely.

Now Ralph Nader says he wants to run again as a third party Presidential candidate. The Independent: Nader Says a Run Would Benefit Democrats:

Mr. Nader would run this year as an independent. (The Green Party will not pick its nominee until June, too late, he says, to mount an effective campaign.) And here is how he says his running could work to the Democrats' advantage:

By hammering away at populist themes like a higher minimum wage, union rights and occupational health regulations, all of which he says have been neglected, he would force the leading Democratic contenders to move left. That, he says, would expand the party's base, drawing out more liberal voters, some angry enough at him about 2000 that they would vote for the Democratic nominee instead, and many who would vote Democratic in close House and Senate races.

One common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The time for polite disagreement is now long past.

The Dean campaign now faces its moment of truth as to whether to continue on the path that it began, or shift into a traditional campaign. Oddly the tax issue seems to be the possible Rubicon. Here's a four-point plan to regain the initiative on the issue.

Note: what follows is a purely tactical analysis. I make no claim in what follows as to the substantive validity of the tax policies discussed.

Almost every 'insurgent' political campaign that has hit it big in the past 50 years has gotten cold feet and gotten so cautious and mainstream that it alienated part of its base without getting much traction with swing voters. This certainly happened to the John Anderson campaign and the McCain campaign. It famously didn't happen to Goldwater or McGovern, which is why it keeps happening since then.

Personally, I think that while shifts to the center are ok, obvious pandering ones are not. Thus, any move has to be stage managed very carefully, or it ends up costing you more than you get.

The justly praised New Yorker profile of Dr. Dean suggested that Joe Trippi at least understands (understood?) this:

Last summer, Joe Trippi told U.S. News & World Report that he had given Dean a curious piece of advice: “I tell him the only way he can win is to believe in his heart he cannot win. We’ve got to act like we have nothing to lose.” That, as they say, was then. When I asked Dean, in mid-October, whether he still subscribed to the Trippi wisdom, he replied, “In part. I think the problem with the Democratic Party in general is that they’ve been so afraid to lose they’re willing to say whatever it takes it to win. And once you’re willing to say whatever it takes to win, you lose—because the American people are much smarter than folks in Washington think they are. Do I still believe it? I think you have to be ready to move forward and not just try to hold on to what you’ve got. I truly believe that if you’re not moving forward you’re moving backwards in life. There’s no such thing as neutral.”

But compare that line to the distilled conventional wisdom chatter in today's The Note [unstable link!]:

The Boston Globe's Glen Johnson and Michael Kranish elucidate the apparently evolving nature of Dean's thoughts on tax cuts. LINK

“Rival campaigns seized on the statements by Dean and his aides as evidence that he is 'flip-flopping' on his tax plans. They also said it is inconsistent with his relentless criticism of them for wanting to retain the middle-class elements of the Bush administration tax cuts. But Dean aides defended the evolving policy.”

“The governor has always said that he is going to offer a tax plan that is fair and simple for working families. He's never ruled out a middle-class tax cut. The plan is not complete yet,' Dean campaign spokesman Douglass Thornell said as Dean and his entourage flew back to Vermont from Iowa.”

Los Angeles Times' Matea Gold reports that the potential shift (or alleged shift) comes “as he has fielded criticism from some of his rivals for wanting to roll back the entire $1.7-trillion Bush tax cut package, a move opponents say would burden working people.” LINK

In a story about Dems and tax cuts, The New York Times ' Robin Toner Notes Dean's “sudden scrambling” on the issue. LINK

That doesn't sound so good.

So, here's my four-point plan as to what to do and how to spin it.

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