September 2003

Dude, That’s Your Base

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

Saint Louis has been blessed with a visit from Al Sharpton who has taken the side of supporters of a boycott against the Saint Louis Public Schools. He came into town last night for a church rally and joined a group of protesters carrying a child in coffin on a route to City Hall this morning. That’s gonna cost someone a whole lot of therapy.

The boycott was unsuccessful with about 4.5% more students attending the first day of school this year over last. While not as strong of a day as school management had hoped for, it is improvement. It’s important to note that nearly 10% of students are in transitional housing or homeless in the SLPS and beyond that, nearly many schools have 25% mobility rates during the year, so moving around during the summer is a challenge to many families.

The boycott supporters include local radio show host and obnoxious twit, Lizz Brown. She attempted a stand down campaign in 2002 against Jean Carnahan to no noticeable affect in the ward vote totals. She is generally disliked by most black political leaders with the exception of a couple Northside alderman.

But the important news for Al is that he is lashing out at his base. He attacked St. Louis’ black leadership that generally opposed the boycott by calling them rented negros and Uncle Tom’s. While such language might buy him a few votes amongst the nihilist faction of St. Louis Black Politics, he isn’t going to win a majority of the black vote who he is calling, well, rented negros.

Taking on your base ala Sister Souljah is a useful technique. Pissing on your base’s leg is generally just unproductive.

What’s Al’s strategy then? Get on Tv?

Abortion Polls

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

Polling is poorly understood by most and, believe it or not, it is best understood in horse races. It is worst understood when discussing public policy because all too often the issues are skewed by poorly formed questions and especially in abortion, those polls ask questions that try to draw conclusions about political questions from questions that elicit moral responses.

It shouldn’t be surprising that people differentiate between what should be good public policy and what is moral behavior. While people often hold inconsistent or even silly beliefs, when you probe people can differentiate between the two spheres. The problem is most polls are limited by money and thus, limited in what they can probe. Even beyond that, depending on what comes to mind to an individual will influence their response to a specific question.

Eric Zorn takes Dennis Byrne to task over misusing public opinion polls on abortion.

Yes, but they also show that most people–consistently about 60 percent — feel the abortion decision should be between the woman and her doctor, and that the percentage of people who feel that abortion should legal under any circumstances is always higher than the percentage of people who feel it should always be illegal.

Many people who are for abortion rights are uncomfortable with abortions. That isn’t inconsistent, it is a recognition of living in a complicated world. For a group that wants limited government, conservatives often miss that people place higher barriers to government intervention in their personal lives than in other areas.

49-7

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

The Numerical Equivalent of Dick Jauron praying for a quality postseason from the Sox and the team that won’t be named for fear of jinx.

5 sacks? I didn’t see the game, but for crying out loud, what the %$#%, is Neil Armstrong coaching again?

You’ll be playing in a toilet bowl, you aren’t supposed to flushed down the toilet.

Novak Confused that Lugar isn’t a Hack

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While I’m sure if I go back and refight the 1980s Dick Lugar and I would have many disagreements over Latin American policy, but today, I view him as a very reasonable voice on foreign affairs. Not surprisingly, the administration is scared of him and his sober assessments of the situation in Iraq.

Novak sounds the alarm that Lugar is off the reservation and suggests that something dark is happening. Actually nothing dark is happening, Lugar is just serious and thinks the President should level with the public and put together a serious plan. Lugar has had to shame the President to do the right thing on Russian non-proliferation and now he has to do it again. And he’ll probably do it on Afghanistan. Will the administration listen? Probably not. That’s too bad, Lugar would be Secretary of State in a sane Republican world. Of course, there is a sane SoS now and it doesn’t matter.

Chick is BACK

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

Via Scoobie

A new tract has been posted

It’s a doozy. As Scoobie says, the Chickster really puts the fun in fundamentalism in this one.

Rauschenberger’s Not Normal

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And that is probably a good thing. He wants a series of debates against Barack Obama.

Rauschenberger is a smart guy and that would be a good debate. For a variety of reasons, it probably doesn’t help Obama and so it won’t happen. Instead we’ll probably see a bunch of priviliged nitwits debate Rauschenberger in a very tight format that sheds no light on just how vacuous most of the Republican candidates are.

An interesting end note to the article is Rauschenberger’s comments on trade,

As a U.S. senator, Rauschenberger would lobby the White House for fairer trade. The quid pro quo for free trade is that everybody does better when lanes are open, he says, but we are now confronted by ”central governments like China, where they control currency valuation.” That is not a free market system, he says. ”It’s costing good Illinois jobs, and we’ve had too much of it.”

Its also good for consumers, but what the hell. China will open its markets when it has to and the way to do that is be open as possible to them.

Steve Chapman’s Continuing Crusade for Sanity

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Strangely enough, doing very little to combat forest fires is probably the best way to avoid more fires. Cheaper too. Go figure.

Why do we make such efforts to prevent something that has been part of the life cycle of forests for eons? Because today, there are rising numbers of homes and people in the path of these fires. But trying to save those houses by drowning wildfires is like trying to prevent shipwrecks by outlawing storms. Just as boats can be designed to withstand violent turbulence, dwellings can be made to survive even huge infernos.

Why Dean is so Appealing

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

Lieberman can keep making whiny comments about a Dean Depression all he wants, but Dean can win. And hence, Lieberman needs to shut up because he is going to endorse the party’s candidate or become very, very unpopular with his core supporters. It’s fine to criticize other’s positions, but a sound bite like that could come back in a general election. Given George Bush seems to be about as protectionist as Gephardt, this one is probably a freebie, but it isn’t acceptable.

People don’t care if you have a long thought out position or if you contradict yourself from time to time. They care that they can understand you and for that to happen you have to boil everythign down to simple, understandable positions.

In 15 minutes, he attempted to make up for 15 months of misleading the American people and 15 weeks of mismanaging the reconstruction," he said.

Before people start blasting away in comments, I think Dean should be clearer on trade. One of the many reasons I won’t vote for Gephardt is his tendency towards protectionism. However, Dean isn’t saying much different from Clinton on the issue and frankly, I’ll take Clinton’s trade policy over Reagan or either Bush.

In other news, half of the pain caucus is leaning towards endorsing Lieberman. Bob Kerrey wants someone who is going to tell a safe Democratic audience that they are wrong. That’s nice and certainly Clinton pulled that in 1992. But when did he do it? When independent voters were listening, not during the primary.

Kerrey is a favorite of mine and I voted for him in the 1992 primary–he was out by the time Illinois voted, but I had sent in an absentee ballot. But he is a horrible campaigner and this is why. And it is why Lieberman doesn’t get it. You have to excite the base and the way to do that is to speak to their issues. Once you have done that you can have your Sister Souljah moments. But the base has to trust you first.

Via Atrios again

Save the Ass.

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

It’s a little hard to care about Gray Davis when he pulls a stunt like bashing Schwarznegger for his accent. He’s a jackass and ultimately that is why he is being recalled. He may pull it out, or more likely Bustamante will win the recall, but the ultimate problem in California is that Gray Davis long ago sold his soul to the devil. Making compromises to win elections is one thing, selling the state out to contributors and then indiscriminately bashing anyone is just nihilism.

Would I vote for recall? Probably not. Save the ass for stable democracy.

Via Atrios

Lotta Credit Where it Isn’t Due

ArchPundit September 8, 2003 No Comments

Tim Lambert cites Tom Spencer’s argument that the damage done by Lott is a lot of laws passed allowing Concealed Carry are due to academic fraud by Lott.

This is liberal gobbleygook and as a good liberal I feel it is necessary to point it out. Do you think the NRA would not have pushed as hard without John Lott’s claims? Do you think anyone actually cared about his work? They may have cited it, but does anyone think it mattered?

Concealed Carry legislation is a fight between two interests that use any tool available to achieve their goals. Lott was a tool—well is a tool, but that is another story. His work doesn’t matter much in the debate over concealed carry. People don’t decide issues based on an academic study, they do it over what they perceive their interests to be.

That doesn’t let Lott off the hook, it just gives him the credit he is due–not much. The NRA deserves the credit for being a politically sophisticated organization that delivers lots of single-issue voters to politicians.

Academics like to claim credit for moving the debate, but mostly, academics provide some window dressing on hot button issues for those with interests to exploit. Less sexy policy areas are often affected by policy entrepeneurs, but guns or welfare studies are mostly tools for politicians to exploit .

UP DATE: Tom points out that isn’t what he was saying. My bad.