Andrei Cherney for US Congressional District 9

Introduction

Let me start by saying that I cannot relate to those who vote early by mail.  I'm fine with getting a mail-in ballot, looking at it, doing your homework, then on election day turning it in.  I can't relate to people who feel the need to mail in their ballot early. Ok, maybe if the election is easy and there is a clear difference between the candidates. For example, if the ballot had Paul Penzone running against Joe Arpaio and nobody else? I would fill in that ballot and drop it in the mail months early.

But voting is hard and serious business.  Wait until the last possible minute, read as much as you have time to read, discuss, ponder, change your mind, then when you are finally forced to make a decision,  vote.  Make it count.

Even at this late hour, the Saturday night before the primary election on Tuesday, I'm only leaning toward Andrei Cherney.  I reserve the right to change my mind.   What follows are the reasons I'm inclined to vote for Andrei Cherney if I was forced to vote today.

First of all, all three candidates are incredibly solid.   I've watched now three debates involving the candidates.  To tell you the truth, ideologically, all three are pretty similar, so ferreting out the differences is pretty challenging. 

Kyrsten Sinema

Kyrsten graduated from BYU at 18.  She later received a Masters degree in social work and a law degree, both from ASU. In other words, she is incredibly smart and ambitious.

Based on whatever I can get access to from the internet, her main contributions in the state legislature came in the form of opposition to other bills.  She was a leader in opposition to two bills to ban gay marriage in Arizona, the first failed, the second passed.  And, she was a leader in opposing Russell Pearce in strident anti-immigration bills.  She has sponsored many bills, but very few ever came to a vote. Cherney has given her some heat here, but I given the strong legislative majority the Republican party has enjoyed here, I cut her some slack.

She has gotten a lot of press for her immigration stances, from the NY Times:

In the Arizona Legislature, an elective body of astounding dimness, one of the few bright lights was Kyrsten Sinema, who as a state senator gave a blistering critique of S.B. 1070, the state’s radical, Arpaio-inspired immigration law. (She sponsored several bills to rein in the abuses of Sheriff Arpaio and his ally Mr. Thomas, the county attorney, though her colleagues didn’t go along.) Ms. Sinema, who is a lawyer and on the faculty of the Arizona State University School of Social Work, debated the law for hours with its sponsor, Russell Pearce, ruthlessly exposing its many legal flaws. The law was later eviscerated by the United States Supreme Court, too. Arizona voters eventually recalled Mr. Pearce. Today, Ms. Sinema is running for Congress.

Here is an impressive display as she eviserates the SB1070 law that made Arizona so, well, infamous.  I really wish I had access to this during the heat of the debate.

David Schapira

David Schapira is running for Congress making two fundamental points:   1) That he is the only one of the three candidates with thorough, authentic ties to this community and 2) That he is the only candidate that will make education a priority at the national level.

This really is at the heart of who he is.  He was born in this district and has basically lived here all of his life.  His degree is in political science at George Washington University, but on his return, he has flung himself into politics, volunteering locally while teaching high school at his alma mater.  As soon as he was old enough, he ran for state house and won.  He seems to be most impressive when he's running.  He's everywhere, he has a massive staff of volunteers and deep local connections. He's picked up key endorsements from Tempe, most notably Harry Mitchell and The Arizona Republic.

He also has strong experience on the education issue, working as a teacher for a short time, but serving on education committees in the legislature and serving on the Tempe High School school board.

I've watched three debates now and of the three, he is the most articulate and charismatic. All three are really good, I say Schapira shines in his ability to express himself with energy and charisma.

Beyond all of this, though, I find him the least accomplished of the three.  Accomplished sure, but what specifically has he done?  His internet presence is shallow.  I don't see any significant legislative accomplishments on his resume.  He talks a lot about how he wants to improve education, but I have never heard him share specifics.  I do have an e-mail out to a volunteer on his staff asking for more information, I'll update this blog when I hear back.

I started this campaign leaning Schapira based purely on superficial reasons - he's been my representative for years now, almost my entire time living in Tempe.  But to be honest, I only really hear from him when he's running for office.  Granted, I've had a hard time keeping track of our state legislature other than when something controversial crops up.  But based on the amount of internet research I've been able to muster, he's impressive, but falls short of the other two.

Andrei Cherney 

I think all three candidates have impressive backgrounds, but Andrei's is particularly unique, from wikipedia:

Cherny was born in Los Angeles, California on August 4, 1975. His parents were Czechoslovakian immigrants that spoke little English. His parents struggled to provide for him and his brother and sometimes received assistance. Cherny utilized Pell Grants and worked three jobs to get through college^[3].

Cherny graduated with honors from Harvard College. As writer for The Harvard Crimson, he wrote political pieces highlighting Clinton's reelection campaign^[4]. The White House communications director noticed his column and circulated it until it finally reached President Clinton's desk. President Clinton used several of Cherny's lines in his 1997 inaugural address and hired the twenty-two-year-old Cherny ten days later^[5]. He later received his Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall).

Those two paragraphs are pretty unbelievable.  He worked three jobs to get through college at... Harvard and later Berkely School of Law.  At age 22, he became the youngest presidential speech writer in US history.  At age 25, he wrote The Next Deal: The Future Of Public Life In The Information Age.   Eight years later, he published, The Candy Bombers.

Here is a short essay that echoes his thoughts on his first book, a book I anxiously want to now read.

The New Covenant addresses provided a break with a liberalism that had become out of date and out of touch. Contemporary Democrats bear both the benefit and the burden of the twenty years that has since passed. Today, in large part because of the eight years of the Clinton presidency, there are fewer litmus tests for politicians; there is less ground that is off limits for discussion. By speaking forcefully and unapologetically about issues such as crime at a time that the discussion was seen by many as a code word for racism, Clinton made it possible for Barack Obama to run for the White House and barely mention the issue. The reform agenda advocated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan might well have led to a civil war among Democrats had Clinton not laid the groundwork for such a debate.

Here's an an interesting interview with him here.  And here's a discussion between him and David Frum.

Since then, he has run unsuccessfully for State Treasurer but has led the Democratic party in the state, getting Democratic mayors in Phoenix and Tucson and helping to recall Russell Pearce.

His main weakness is that he has never really been successful running a campaign.  Running twice, losing both.  Of the three, he has a tendency to go negative and tends to make unfair or irrelevant attacks on his opponents.  Much of what I've heard from him say seems boilerplate to me.  Perhaps he is more insightful in his writing than on the campaign.

Summary

I think in this race, you have to look at the position they are running for.  I think Schapira has the best chance of winning in a general election.  He portrays a pretty moderate and pragmatic message, but he tends to stay shallow.  This does work well in a campaign since most people are looking for personality over substance. Once elected, I'm worried not much will get done.

Sinema has a more impressive record of getting things done.  She's done the hard work of getting elected.  And she's been substantive once getting there, making a name for herself locally and nationally.  Her weakness is that she has had a history of taken pretty extreme positions, which may hurt her in the general election: opposing the Afghanistan invasion most notably when there was almost unanimous support for the invasion.  She has moderated since then, but I'm not sure whether independents will cut her some slack on this.

Cherney has not really won an election, but he has deep and significant experience in Washington DC. He is a deep thinker and has worked out issues relevant at the national level.  I think this puts him ahead of both Sinema and Schapira.

This is a fantastic race.  I think we have three good choices.  At this moment, my support is with Andrei Cherney.

Canvassing for the Democrats While Trying to Maintain Objectivity

Going into some extended time off from work last April I was interested in possibly spending some of that time contributing to local politics in some way.   I'm always a little scared to do this because I really want to stay objective.  I want good policy, good laws, good people.  The party is secondary.  In fact even though I am currently a registered Democrat, I really understand what drives the conservative movement - its suspicion of top-down, big government solutions to problems, and its preference to allow local institutions and individuals to find their own solutions.  I get the importance of family values and respect for the individual and the effectiveness of free markets.  I'm a Democrat because despite these sympathies, I think we are facing problems today that are simply too big to leave government out of it, and I think the Republican party has veered too far to the right, but I certainly understand and share many of their core values.

Joining a specific political party, I worry that that I may end up just voting for clothes.  That's no way to hold our government accountable.  I wanted to be a much smarter voter.  Rather than just vote for party, I want to really push my elected officials to defend their positions and their record.  But yet, I still wanted to get involved.

So, talking to some volunteers at the Mark Mitchell campaign, I was convinced to devote considerable time to that campaign.  Here's why.  What campaigning and canvassing is typically about is to increase voter turnout among those already registered to vote in your party.  Increased voter participation is a good thing and I wanted to be a part of informing voters of important local elections.  So, that's basically what I'm doing.  I want to let people know that we have important mayor races, city council races, state legislative races going on right now.  What they do affect our lives.

This is why, I reserve the right to go out there and knock on doors letting people know what Mark Mitchell stands for and why someone should vote for him, while at the same time reserving my right to vote against him if I decide.   In this case, I didn't end up doing that, and I understand there is a significant risk in doing what I'm trying to do.  I'm not putting myself on a level and objective playing field.  It's just hard to vote against your team once you've chosen  to belong to one.

Of course, I'll only take this so far.  I'll refuse to canvass for someone I really don't like.  But this year, at least in my voting districts and regions, the Democratic candidates look to be pretty strong.  They are worth my time and energy.  Yet, my vote is far from being decided on most of these races (my vote for Maricopa country sheriff has long ago been decided).

To that end, I purposely wait until election day to vote.  I want as much information as possible and I want as much time to gather that information as possible.  As a blogger, I'll try to pass on what I learn to you as best as I can as an objective observer.  My hope is that in most races, both candidates are qualified and smart and good.  I'll try to point this out as much as I am able.

My goal for 2012 is to really get to know these candidates running in these local elections.  We'll get more information than we can hope to absorb about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  Four years ago, I spent a lot of energy on this blog on the Obama/McCain race.  This time I'm going local.  Instead, I'll focus my energy on Juan Mendez, Ed Ablser, and Andrew Sherwood and all of the rest.

It should be a lot of fun, can't wait.

Last Minute Notes on the Mayor Race

Open Mic Notes

Monti for Mayor:

• Swimming Pool in Tempe Town Lake
• Volunteer Corp
• Incentives for city employees who save money
• Ban on texting while driving
• Work with ASU and business community to bring in jobs.
• Technologies to encourage green energy - like the electric car charging stations at Monti's.

Kolby Granville for Tempe City Council:

Tells an anecdote of spending the afternoon with a lady in her nineties who he met while canvassing all afternoon.  This lady really just needed a listening ear.

There's a lot of policy papers on his website:

• Pages on graffiti
• Pages on the street car
• etc.

 No special interest money.   He gets money from people he knows - a lot of $25 donations.  These people want Kolby to be himself.  He has attended every city council meeting for ten straight years.   He's listened and spoken in these meetings about:

• Cutting libraries
• Closing pools

"Democracy is advanced leadership."

Dick Foreman for Tempe City Council

He will support our decision with great decision no matter what.

Served on bond committees, school boards.  He's the candidate that spent his time with our children.  He won't error on education.  He's a business person.  He will support investment.  He will question waste and surplus where it cannot be afforded.  City council can support jobs in Tempe.  When we restrict small business from growing, how they banner, how they can set signs out.  This cost us jobs.  This also costs us investment in our town.

He's the candidate that support investment in Tempe - ASU corridor around Rio Salado.  These are great assets in Tempe.  We need to embrace these things.

His campaign has been boring but positive. 

He has not been paid for his time on the Tempe Prep Academy, etc.

Mark Mitchell for Mayor

Serving in the city of Tempe has meant the world to him.  He's facing the most vile political attacks he's ever seen.  Sick to think about or disgust.  He has done nothing wrong not now or when he was a child.  This is politics at its worse.  He's disgusted to have to deny something so awful that's never happened.  These are all lies.

A race for mayor on the issues not on personal attacks.  These issues are too important to be ignored.
Fiscally solid with minimal impact on city services.  Thriving downtown, family friendly neighborhoods.  Good companies. 

Still a lot of work to be done.  We need to continue to invest in our neighborhoods, infrastructure.  And continue to be fiscally responsible.  Low cost, high acheiving city.  This is not a time for political games.  This is not a time to destroy lives.  Create jobs, improve neighborhoods.

Elections are held to give us each a voice to choose what comes next.

My Thoughts:

First of all, wow!  Kolby Granville was downright inspiring.  I admit Dick Foreman has more experience and time with the city, but Granville showed more passion and energy.   Mark Mitchell spent the first part of his discussion refuting some accusation that he commited a sex crime when he was 14.  He's right, it is a vile accusation and interestingly timed.  I can only take Mark at his word that he's done no wrong.  I doubt anything will come of it, from the Republic:

To date, no complaint has been filed, and experts said the prospects for a conviction may be remote given the purported victim's murky account, the lack of other evidence and myriad legal issues.

Mitchell is right, though.  Monti has run a pretty nasty and mean campaign.  There's not a significant difference between them on specific issues, but I think Mitchell wins based on his experience and detailed knowledge of city issues and the relationships he's been able to build within the valley of the sun.

Anyway, I'm convinced.  My vote will be with Mitchell and Granville tomorrow.

Tinderbox: How the West Fueled the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It

One of my favorite places to be are in those areas that are not easily aligned along any ideology. I love the complexities, the exception areas. I enjoy being just a little different.  I think, actually this is where the truth typically lies.  Ideology actually can make you stupid.  In that link, they suggest to deduct 10 IQ points anytime you try to simplify an issue into a simple story.  This is why when I listened to the interview with Craig Timberg about a book he co-wrote with Daniel Halperin about the AIDS epidemic and about how the ideological response from both parties proved ineffective when applied in Africa.  The result was millions of dollars utterly wasted in Africa while countless numbers continued to be infected and die from the virus.  I, of course, was interested, and recently, I finished the book.

This book is an extremely interesting and ambitious book, taking the reader through the history of AIDS beginning at the turn of the twentieth century until today. The AIDS virus has been around for a long time but buried in the depths of African jungles, passed among monkeys.  During the early twentieth century when Africa was experiencing rapid colonization, however, western countries invaded Africa for the purposes of exploiting it for its natural resources, particularly ivory and rubber.  These countries forced many more people into these jungles, building transportation networks from the African jungles into metropolitan cities nearby.  This link from the jungles eventually extended throughout the globe.  All it took was for the virus to jump from primate to human and to establish a deep sexual network along the transportation network to get the virus access to the broader globe.

The AIDS virus moved from monkey to man probably when someone was butchering monkeys for food. A single cut could allow the virus access into humans.   Colonization destroyed African familes and ruined cultural norms established for centuries as African men were exported to distance factories for cheap labor.  Prostitution and multiple sexual partners bloomed providing a tinderbox for the AIDS virus to explode globally.

The modern debate about how to combat AIDS in Africa also show just how clueless American policies can be when applied to cultures we know nothing about. Throughout the Bush administration, who admirably, in the name of compassionate conservatism, devoted millions of dollars toward the African AIDS problem ended up being misapplied. Both sides were wrong. The conservatives wanted to emphasize abstinence programs. The liberals wanted condoms. Neither approach realistically worked.

The Uganda leader, Museveni, said about condom use:

In countries like ours, where a mother often has to walk twenty miles to get an aspirin for her sick child or five miles to get any water at all, the practical questions of getting a constant supply of condoms or using them properly may never be resolved.

From  Halperin, Daniel; Timberg, Craig (2012-03-01). Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It (Kindle Locations 1927-1929). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

 Or as someone in South Africa said about condom use:

“Ah, Craig,” he replied in a sheepish, smoke-cured voice. Then he began to tell me the truth about condoms. Some people used them some of the time. Some people never used them. Almost nobody used them all of the time.

Halperin, Daniel; Timberg, Craig (2012-03-01). Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It (Kindle Locations 3462-3464). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

The problem with abstinence programs is similar.  You can't spend 50 years destroying a culture and all of it's family safeguards and internally established taboos then expect large percentage of people to just turn to a Western imposed morality.

The solution to the AIDS epidemic were pretty simple actually and were two fold.  Communities where a large percentage of the African men were circumcised had much lower rates of AIDS infections.  The foreskin provides a natural and easy way to pass the virus during heterosexual sex.  Second, leaders within the African community - religious, cultural, and political- had to be actively engaged in changing the internal cultural around sexual behavior.  If the number of sexual partners can be reduced, the sexual networks shrink and the virus has less opportunity to spread.

To Halperin, it seemed that the best hope for preventing HIV could be found in places such as this, on the front lines of the epidemic, where values were defined and often powerfully expressed. He thought, as he often had before, that initiative coming from those most directly affected, working in their own communities, could be the most potent force to finally overcome AIDS.

Halperin, Daniel; Timberg, Craig (2012-03-01). Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It (Kindle Locations 4692-4695). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

The main lesson from the book is to be careful about idealogical rigidity, these tend to be wrong and at times devastatingly so.  We need to be careful and willing to reassess our biases and to accept the truth even if it lies outside the boundaries of our own political party or ideology.

Koby Granville for Tempe City Council

No final decision made here yet, but Koby Granville found my blog.  Check him out in the comments section.  This led me to re-look at his white papers posted on his website, and prompted a pretty detailed e-mail with some questions.  I definitely expected a reply but I did not expect to get a response as quickly as I did.  I appreciated the time e took to read my e-mail and give a really quick, thoughtful response.

I have not read all of his white papers, but I intend to.  His first talks about the reason why feels the need to get his thoughts down in this way.

As a 20 year resident of Tempe, and a person who has generally followed Tempe elections, I have always been amazed at the amount of information NOT provided by the candidates.

I say no to truncated politics. I believe the people of Tempe want to really learn about policy issues for each candidate. I believe the people of Tempe will understand that, although they may not agree with all of my opinions, I am actually willing to give you my opinion. Beware the candidate who only agrees with you, it means they are telling you what you want to hear.

 So, he made some attempts to get down to details in a series of white papers.  I read his position on taxes first and he makes what should be an obvious point here, but in today's world where we believe we can both cut taxes and raise revenues, this point must be made:

Taxes should support the services the majority of the residents believe add sufficient value for the required cost. When residents want additional services and believe the value of the new service warrants the new cost, taxes should be raised to cover that cost. If the residents want to tax themselves for increased police, increased public transportation, increased library hours, or for that matter increased anything, and they must be willing to pay the price for the service. That said, if the people are willing to pay the tax, they should be allowed to raise the taxes to cover the cost.

He also takes about how city government funds these services - through a combination of sales tax and bonds paid down through property tax.  In my email I asked him to get specific with the general direction he wanted Tempe to take and offered my general suggestions.  My thoughts:

First, I love Tempe and I think the city is doing a lot of things well:

We obviously need to at least maintain the infrastructure and services already in place - our parks, our schools, our other services.   So, we have a baseline of revenue that's required to maintain the status quo.  I'm pretty happy with the status quo and would be disappointed if anything was rolled back.

 But we can get better:

I do believe though we can be more visionary than this.  I obviously would love to see a better downtown.  I would like to do something about the blighted strip malls that have popped up around us.  I want better schools.  I would love to see a greater injection of the arts here.  And more interconnectedness and cooperation with our cities.  And I'm willing to pay more in taxes to support this broad vision.

Our funding mechanism, though is flawed:

The problem, though, is that sales tax is regressive and is highly volatile based on status of the economy.  Property taxes have obviously been volatile as our home values have increased rapidly and have dropped just as rapidly.  Another problem is at the same time we need government services (during downturns) our revenues drop.

He agreed with my general vision and then provided these thoughts on how to deal with tax revenue volatility:

 The real issue is this, when the city gets more money (for example) from rising home prices and the ability to bond, how do you keep it from resisting the temptation to simply spend the money that comes in the door?  Then, when the market falls, you are stuck where we are now, having to cut services.  So, the real answer is, to solve this problem, you need to solve the human issue of government spending whatever money it has in its pocket.  Clearly, you can't rely on the people to have this foresight, you have to create a structure that requires it.

So, you need to set up a structure that prevents a city from spending into new found money during rising times.  The easiest way to do it, but nobody would be willing to discuss it, is viewing the budget as a lagging average revenue stream over a 5 year period.  So, for example, if the revenue were $5 (year 1), $7 (year 2), $7 (year $3), $8 (year #4) and $10 (year #5), that the city average those years to determine the budget for year #6 ($7.40), even though the actual revenue for year #6 might be $10.  The difference then goes into a rainy day fund.  So, the city isn't tempted to spend into the temporary revenue, because their is a structure in place the prevents it from happening.  The other thing to do is to cost items based on the lifecycle cost rather than the purchase cost.  So, if you want to build a park, you don't simply look at the cost of building it, but the cost of building it and maintaining it over a 50 year period.  That raises the price of the park, and better reflects the true cost.  The city has actually started to do this of late, but it required the downturn to learn this lesson.

You might also review my paper on property tax rates, it outlines why I think what the city is doing now as it relates to property tax rates is the entirely right choice.

I'm obviously not an expert on this, but this seems like a reasonable answer to this problem.  The last recession was obviously devastating and any amount of reasonable rainy day fun is likely to get more than obliterated by such which is why it's on the federal government (which in times of deep recession has access to cheap credit when no one else does) has the obligation to try to fill in the gaps.
But the more local government can do to budget thoughtfully and prepare for times of distress the better.

One final thought, we as a voting public need to be smart about issues such as these.  I was pleasantly surprised that I could ask detailed questions and get a long thoughtful rapid response.  I hope to do this more in the future.

Well, I don't know, but some people think so, but only with a mighty struggle.

The problem, here, can go both ways. You have mainstream, traditional Mormon's who have conflated Mormon theology with the conservative wing (is there any other wing these days?) of the Republican party. When conservative views get sprinkled into church talks over the pulpit or gets used in Sunday lessons, this can make those with different political views uncomfortable. Because Mormon's tend to be almost uniformly conservative, this kind of thing can happen with some regularity. But obviously, it can go the other way. I tend to live in a more liberal than average part of the US and sometimes we get someone saying something more squishibly liberal over the pulpit.

Much of this is unavoidable. We are all human beings and it's hard to draw a hard line between our religious, political and all of our other points of view. These thoughts will blend together and sometimes inappropriate things will be said. Part of being a member of the Mormon church is recognizing this. We have no professional clergy - we are the clergy, and we need to be hyper-willing to look past other people's mistakes and flaws.

But the church is not a political party and religious faith and political beliefs are not the same thing. They both are important. We are members of our community and duty bound to make a contribution, to be informed when we vote, and to help solve the problems we face. We are also spiritual beings who are striving to be guided through a very difficult and uncertain world in hope of a better one. In Ether 12:4 it says:


"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."


This is the purpose of faith and religion. Look at the words used: "believeth, hope, faith". These words, in part, point toward something more emotional then mental, a connection to something big, too big to express succinctly, we just don't have the vocabulary to describe our faith. The closest we can get is through abstractions using poetry or music to brush up at it.

But politics and science and economics are all different. We are put on this earth to develop ourselves and to grow. Part of our growing is to try to make sense of the world around us, to solve the problems we face, and to do the best to get a long with others. Engaging in our communities, working within our governmental institutions, voting are all essential parts of this. Of course, we don't develop our political views in a vacuum. Our religion and our politics intersect and contradict all of the time.

But I believe one essential part about being a human being is to be able to deal with these contradictions and ambiguities. One essential tool to do so is to realize how limited we as human beings are in both the physical and spiritual worlds. We know nothing which is why we live by faith. We are striving to know more which is why we have an intellect. Both our important and inform one another.

In The Social Animal David Brooks says:


"Wisdom doesn't consist of knowing specific facts or possessing knowledge of a field. It consists of knowing how to treat knowledge: being confident but not too confident; adventurous but grounded. It is a willingness to confront counterevidence and to have a feel for the vast spaces beyond what's known."


And the vast spaces beyond what's known is unbelievably vast. But to do anything in this world, we have to proceed with "confidence but not too much confidence". It's a balancing act every single day of our lives.

Listening to the poscasts on Mormon Stories or Mormon Matters, you get the point of view of liberals struggling being Mormon.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Clustering

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit London and Paris. I was in London for just about a week for a business trip, so I extended the trip for a day to take in Paris. I'll try to blog about my day in Paris at some point. But, luckily for me, being a lone in Paris, I had as my only companion, my iPod, with the Kindle App loaded on it. I was able to take in a bit of reading while waiting in line for various tourist attractions. The book I was reading? The Black Swam, a book basically about risk. The fact is that we're living in a heavily black swan world, but we live like we don't. The notion of the black swan implies this belief that just because we haven't lived through an event, the event is highly unlikely. But these big events (say the massive earthquake in Japan), are much, more common and much more likely than we think.

He covers a lot of ground in the book, and while on my trip, I was able to finish it. I can imagine a whole series of blog posts on the the book itself, we'll see how many I get to do.

One of the themes of the book is to really point out how many blind spots we, human beings, have without realizing it. The author really wants us to get how flawed we are and how much we should be suspicious of our human failings. One example of this flaw, is our desire to cluster.

"If you want to see what I mean by arbitrariness of categories, check the situation of polarized politics. The next time a Martian visits earth, try to explain to him why those favor allowing the elimination of a fetus in the mother's womb also oppose capital punishment. Or try to explain to him why those who accept abortion are supposed to be favorable to high taxation but against a strong military. Why do those who prefer sexual freedom need to be against individual economic liberty?"

"The best way to prove the arbitrary character of these categories, and the contagion effect they produce, is to remember how frequently these clusters reverse in history. Today's alliance between Christian fundamentalists and the Israeli lobby would certainly seem puzzling to a nineteenth-century intellectual - Christians used to be anti-Semites and Moslems were the protectors of the Jews, whom they preferred to Christians. Libertarians used to be left-wing. What is interesting to me as a probabilist is that some random event makes one group that initially supports another issue ally itself with another group that supports another issue, thus causing the two items to fuse and unify... until the surprise of the separation."

Here's the problem with this clustering and categorizing:

"Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity. It is a manifestation of the Black Swan generator. Any reduction in the world around us can have explosive consequences since it rules out some sources of uncertainty; it drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world. For instance, you may think that radical Islam (and its values) are your allies against the threat of Communism, and so you may help them develop, until they send two planes into downtown Manhattan."

The principal remedy in the book is to have the guts and the humility to admit our lack of certainty and knowledge on the issues.

Individual issues, like abortion or the death penalty, are complicated. To decide to map, seemingly disconnected points of views from a whole swath of issues into a single political party, seems absurd on its face. I get why we do it, to make our political system easier to comprehend, to reduce the true complexity of the world. But know this, we take serious risks when we do so. The world is much more complicated, much harder to understand, and impossible to define or reduce so cleanly.

The best answer to most political questions, is probably "I don't know", or "I'm not sure". Either that, or just inject a lot of "probably's" or "maybe's", or "in my uncertain opinion" into your conversations. The problem, of course, is that kind of language will most certainly not get you elected or listened to. It takes guts to face and admit uncertainty. But those who do, are the ones worth listening to.

And its why I feel that both parties are usually correct on most issues, correct but enormously flawed and limited in their point of view. Believe in your political party like it was your religion at your own risk.

On the Political Commentating after Gifford's Assassination Attempt

First of all, these murders are obviously horrifying and disturbing on so many levels. Our Democracy depends on a respect for the election process and if someone fears for their life if they choose to vote on a controversial issue, this is a major, major problem. We want our elected legislatures to vote for bills with their conscious. If they vote against the will of the majority in their represented district, they will suffer consequences in the next election cycle. Obviously, the worst that should happen is that they lose their jobs not their lives.

What's more is that Giffords was out there engaging with her constituency when an attack on her life was made - this kind of violence will only further insulate our politicians from the people they represent. It is sad.

I'm not sure how many people really paid attention, but Harry Mitchell received death threats after he voted for the Health care bill and stopped having town halls because of it.

The Judge John Roll who was one of the victims who lost their life on Saturday had previously received death threats after ruling in favor of illegal immigrants who has sued a rancher.

And, of course Gabrielle Giffords herself had also received threats of violence for her votes on health care.

All of this is so sad and so disturbing and of course not entirely unique, read this brief history of American assassinations (and attempts) and the motives behind them.

But what can we learn from this? I really hope and pray that the extremes of our politics are marginalized from this. That the more moderate and civil among us come out of this ahead. I would love to see AM talk radio lose a lot of support, and the likes of Glenn Beck and Mark Levin lose sponsors, viewers and listeners.

I don't blame any of these people in any way, but the kind of hatred on the air-waves is certainly not helpful.

Here's Andrew Sullivan:


"But the level of animus toward the new president and anyone supporting him reached preposterous proportions at the beginning of this presidency; the gracelessness from the Congressional leadership on down, from 'You lie!' to 'death panels' and 'palling around with terrorists' ... this is a real problem in a country with its fair share of disturbed individuals and much more than its fair share of guns.

The Palin forces, who have fomented this dynamic more viciously and recklessly than any other group, are reacting today with incandescent rage that they could even be mentioned in the same breath as this act of political terrorism. That's called denial. When you put a politician in literal cross-hairs, when you call her a target, when you celebrate how many targets you have hit, when you go on national television and shoot guns, when you use the language of "lock and load" to describe disagreements over healthcare provision ... you are part of the problem."


Finally, here's a conservative response comparing this mass murder to the one in Fort Hood.

I do think we have to be careful with our finger pointing, but certainly a move toward civility and compassion and a world where Americans are Americans who can disagree but at the end of the day still be friends is something I want to support.

Does Sarah Palin's rhetoric encourage that? I say it does not and I hope she and her kind (of any political stripe) lose a lot of political influence as a result.

If You're Going to Vote Republican, You Better Act Like A Democrat

I just wanted to follow up on my last post, by inverting the phrasing a bit to show this this can go both ways. Since I vote Democratic, this post is directed toward those of you who vote another way. Because if you really want to cut government services to the poor and cut taxes for the rich, then you better help out the poor because the government sure isn't going to do it.

Ideally, the well off would find ways to associate with those who lack means. Sell your house buried within the confines of a well-off gated community and purchase something in a more integrated community. Sell your mansion and buy something more modest. Stop using your wealth to separate yourselves from other, but instead use it as a resource to uplift and build your community.

One tenant of the conservative movement as I understand it is that those who make the money are more inclined to use it in more useful ways then the government. Maybe so, but then prove it. Invest in the community, find ways to make sure education and health care access is ubiquitously available.

If we had the rich voluntarily pursuing greater equality in society, than government would have much less to do.

Vote Democratic, but act Like a Republican

I don't mean much by this title, so let's get this straight first. There are plenty of fine liberals and conservatives. I'm just having a little fun. I am actually playing off the phrase, "pray like everything depends on the Lord, then act like everything depends on you". I had a discussion the other day with a friend about the Obama health care bill - its an issue I care deeply about and I've followed fairly closely, so I have pretty strong opinions on it. But then he found out we were planning on home birthing our fourth baby (due in January).

He also knew that I have come down recently in favor of properly funding public schools even though we home school.

This was incongruous to him, and he wanted to use it as a reason to stop the debate on these points a lone. You see to him, I was voting Democratic but I was behaving like a Republican. I wanted big government (his words) but I was rejecting government in every meaningful way in my own life. I want government, but for others not for myself. In his words, he lost interest in this whole debate because he could no longer take my arguments seriously.

Of course, I see things a bit differently. I want just enough government, but I also want to do everything in my power to succeed. Even if we weren't home schooling, I would hope that my wife and I would be engaged as much as we possibly were able in our children's schooling. I would hope that our kid's teachers would welcome our involvement and our advocacy on their behalf. I would try to find teachers that would allow for that.

Same thing for health care, actually. Do I just want to turn my health over to some nameless doctor at some massive hospital institution? In my experience that's exactly what they want you to do. But in each of our births, we took control - self diagnosing my wife's choestasis in her first pregnancy convincing them to do the necessary blood work to prove she had it, which ultimately led to an early induction and possibly saved our oldest daughter's life?

I have discussed the economy on this blog and how I've wanted our government to handle the mess we're in, but our economy continues to be stuck in the mud (they just don't listen to me darn it).

But unemployment can be an opportunity or it can be devastating. When a person loses their job, its definitely devastating, but it might be the impetus one needs to launch into a new career, take a risk and start a business, retool one's network, get training they've been putting off. In fact, if every single person who lost their job, got out there and not only worked their tail off to find another, they continued to work whether it be pro bono, they continued to learn, they continued to serve, our recessions wouldn't be nearly so recessionary.

It's why I love Seth Godin's blog so much. Especially when he says stuff like this:


"We are surprised when someone self-directed arrives on the scene. Someone who figures out a way to work from home and then turns that into a two-year journey, laptop in hand, as they explore the world while doing their job. We are shocked that someone uses evenings and weekends to get a second education or start a useful new side business. And we're envious when we encounter someone who has managed to bootstrap themselves into happiness, as if that's rare or even uncalled for."


Or when we make excuses saying we can't really afford graduate school then I come across cheap and in many ways more appealing alternatives to graduate school.

So, I'm trying to stay focused on two tracks in my life. I want to do my part to encourage and promote good legislation because in many ways I know how much I depend on good governance. But I also want to work like mad in my career, in my church, and in my family to help myself and others support and sustain my government, my country, my community.

In the end, our country needs each one of us pulling the most out of ourselves to succeed.

A Republican Conservative is at heart a "supply sider". We need to make sure we produce as much supply as we possibly can, each one of us. So, that our lives and the lives of others around us are enriched.

What Could Have Obama Done Differently?

To be honest, I've been pretty supportive of Obama's first two years. On almost every issue, I've seen the merits of what he's done, and although I've almost always wished he would have done more, I've understood why in the political environment he was in, he didn't.

Admittedly having 60 seats in the Senate (well for like six months he had 60 seats, he didn't get to 60 until July 7, 2009 when Al Franken finally won his disputed Minnesota seat, and then he lost it again when Scott Brown won the Massachusetts seat on January 9th, 2010) and a Democratic controlled Congress gave him a pretty cushy political environment. Except that a substantial number of Democratic Senators and Representatives represented conservative states and districts and would only support moderate bills. Also, the Republican party decided pretty early on that it was in their best political interest to oppose Obama on everything, and not only oppose, but make him seem like the most liberal, socialist, anti-American person that ever lived.

The Republican party is the master of sound bites and they have a pretty effective media machine between AM talk radio and FOX news that can reiterate those sound bites virtually on command. Those soundbites are riveting and convincing - freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, so even in the minority they have a powerful voice and significant influence.

Obama did have the power to accomplish a lot, but there were real limitations to how big that "a lot" could realistically become.

Looking back on what he did accomplish, he was successful, but could he have done better? I don't think he could have passed more legislation through. He basically used every last bit of political firepower he had to do what he did. Passing immigration reform or an energy bill or something else wasn't happening. Getting a more expansive health reform bill wasn't happening, he was lucky to get what he got, and even still he was did it with the skin of his teeth.

But maybe his priorities weren't right. Maybe he should have went after a different combination of achievements that would have left our country in a better place two years later.

Enter this rather blistering analysis by the economist Brad DeLong.

DeLong is focused in this article on the state of our economy and here he agonizes over the senseless and avoidable almost 10% unemployment that we seem to be stuck in for almost two years now (and counting).

Most people don't realize how irrational this recession was to begin with:

"For one thing, the initial financial shock that set the downturn in motion was remarkably small. We got irrationally exuberant about the demand for housing and the trajectory of housing prices. We built five million houses extra - largely in the swamps of Florida and in the desert between Los Angeles and Albuquerque - that simply should not have been built. Their cost of construction was to a first approximation covered entirely by mortgage debt. And on average one of those five million houses the purchaser took out $100,000 in mortgage debt that simply will never be repaid: the buyer cannot afford it and the house is not worth it. That means that, as of the end of 2007, there were $500 billion of financial losses to be allocated: somebody's bonds and derivatives were going to pay off $500 billion less than people thought."

In one paragraph, DeLong makes a pretty convincing estimate of the real world value loss incurred by the housing bubble - $500 billion. That's a real, tangible financial loss that had to be absorbed by the world economy in some way. And that sounds like a big number, but...

"Now in a global economy with $80 trillion worth of financial wealth, a $500 billion loss due to irrational exuberance and malinvestment should not be a problem. Double it or quadruple it and it still should not be a problem. We have modern, sophisticated, highly liquid financial markets. We have originate-and-distribute-securitization to slice, dice, and spread risk broadly across the whole globe so that nobody bears any significant part of and so is ruined by any idiosyncratic risk like mortgage defaults..."

The real problem was not the housing bubble, the problem was the way our financial institutions behaved during the housing bubble, using it as a foundation to make profits on even greater leverage:

"Regulatory forebearance allowed investment banks to ramp up their leverage to unheard-of-levels--30 to 1?--on the grounds that the financiers' had their fortunes at risk and knew their business."...

"So when the $500 billion loss hit, it hit the capital of highly-leveraged financial institutions and transformed all the liabilities of America's banks from safe, secure, and liquid high-quality assets to unsafe, insecure, and illiquid low-quality assets."

"Thus an enormous worldwide flight to quality. A $500 billion fundamental loss triggers a $20 trillion decline in global financial asset values with a financial accelerator of 40 as everybody tried to dump their risky and build up the safe assets in their portfolios. And, as John Stuart Mill knew back in 1829, whenever you have a large excess demand in finance it will be mirrored by a large deficiency in demand for currently-produced goods and services and labor".

In real-world terms, people running scared turned something reasonably small into something really, really big. The reason, of course, is that people took massive bets trying to turn their housing profits into something much bigger. And our financial institutions just were not equipped to deal with it.

DeLong spends some time talking about what Paulson and Bush, regulators and financiers could have done to prevent the recession from ever occurring. If financiers would have managed the burst properly, they could have spread out the risk and contained the damage. They did not - I'm not sure why, and DeLong does not spend much time explaining.

Housing finance (Fannie and Freddie) could have been nationalized much earlier and then the government through Fannie and Freddie could have bought up bad mortgages and contained the mess before massive unemployment hit. This would have also contained the cost of the mess. As its gone longer and deeper, people lose their jobs, they also lost the ability to pay for homes they normally would have wanted to stay in. Keeping people working would have softened the blow and contained the cost.

They could have nationalized as many banks as necessary much earlier, which would have kept banking, borrowing, lending and investing moving, while preventing any major financial runs or panics (which did occur after Lehman collapsed).

DeLong points plenty of fingers at Obama. Obama did do a lot of what Delong suggests, but in each and every case, it was never big or forceful enough to make enough of a difference. The stimulus needed to be much bigger. The Fed basically stopped doing much after the initial disaster was averted (other than keeping interest rates to basically zero). They could have advertised defined inflation and price targets and aggressively pursued them. Many more targeted bank nationalizations could have been performed.

In all of these suggestions, you find that the principle outlined in "Bagehot's Rule":

"All seven of these tools are applications of Walter Bagehot's rule: the principal that the way to deal with a panic in which nobody is sure if contracts will be honored is for the government to make sure that contracts are honored by lending freely to anybody who asks. (But, Bagehot wrote, the lending should be 'at a penalty rate' -- financiers should never profit from the fact of government assistance to stem the panic. That is the second part of Bagehot's rule)."

But why was Obama so timid?

Basically to sum up both Bush's and Obama's response to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression: They did just enough to avoid a Depression, but not nearly enough to either prevent the severe recession nor spur a vigorous recovery.

What Obama did do was he pivoted. He spent a lot of time, energy and political capital getting health care reform passed. Additionally, he spent the next year getting a significant financial reform bill passed. Health care in particular consumed his time and attention and left him little room to deal with the economy in any significant way.

Now, I support Obama's health care plan. It was no where near adequate. I'm doubtful it does enough to control cost - my primary concern, and more work is required.

But where does that leave us now. We have an economy with 10% unemployment. In 2014 (when Obamacare will finally be working in full), we'll have a health care system in place that should provide a better framework especially in a climate of high unemployment - its not so nearly dependent on employment provided health care.

But we are at serious risk of being stuck in a situation where high unemployment becomes the norm, and the next two years, we have a political climate that will probably make things worse. Cutting government spending does not make up for this massive demand shock (we have plenty of supply), and therefore if we do too much to try to balance our budget, we risk a double dip recession.

Furthermore, the massive losses in tax revenue due to this recession puts a huge strain on our ability to pay for our health care costs (which generally continue no matter how the economy behaves - sick people still need care). This reality gives more ammunition to those who would kill or severely roll back what Obama accomplished with his health care bill.

After reading through DeLong's critique and for these reasons I've outlined, I'm inclined to agree, maybe Obama should have done things differently.

Maybe he should have spent his entire first two years on nothing but foreign policy and the economy. He could have spent every last ounce of his political capital on getting the unemployment rate down. He could have put more pressure early on to get even the Republicans in Congress on board. He could have made recess appointments to get the Federal Reserve fully staffed - bypassing Senate confirmation procedures. Then with a fully staffed Fed, they could have been empowered (and pressured) to pull more levers to boost demand much more aggressively. He could pushed to nationalize more banks and then use that leverage to to institute stronger financial regulations to prevent future crisis of this magnitude.

Perhaps Greece and Ireland and Europe as a whole would have been in better shape.

All of this would have had real political cost. He would have been described as a dictator and a socialist at every turn. But unemployment would have been much lower. Republicans would still have won seats in Congress but not nearly as many.

More importantly, many more people right now would be working. I know personally qualified people who are unemployed right now and in very real ways are suffering.

I think Obama saw a unique opportunity to get health reform passed and he took it, but he sacrificed the economy in the process. Had he focused on the economy and sacrificed health care, would that have been a better calculation? Probably. But then health care reform would have been a goal for his second term - and far from a certainty.

Time will tell if this trade-off was worthwhile.

Vision

The libertarian leaning local columnist Robert Robb had some nice things to say about Terry Goddard.


"Goddard began the diffusion of political power that characterizes Phoenix and the state today. He actually had more lasting influence on Arizona's political future than those most often cited as the dominant figures of that period: Bruce Babbitt, Burton Barr and Alfredo Gutierrez.

If Goddard had played it safe as mayor, he undoubtedly would have been elected governor in 1990.

Goddard, however, forcefully advocated for a series of failed tax-increase proposals: to build a downtown baseball stadium, to transform and restore the Salt River throughout the county, and to establish a county-wide transit system.

In much of this, he was just premature. A downtown baseball stadium was eventually built. A county-wide transit tax was approved. Piecemeal improvements of the Salt River are occurring. In the case of the transit system and Salt River improvements, what Goddard advocated in the 1980s was actually much better than what county residents ultimately got."


I think this is why I am a Democrat right now. I love Tempe Town Lake, I live only a few miles south of it. My daughter's youth choir sang the National Anthem at a Diamond Backs game recently. I took the light rail downtown to see her and the game. I forgot how much I love baseball and I had a blast at the game, despite the cheesy over the top amusement park-like baseball stadium. I also loved riding the light rail and I wish I could take it more often, but I love that it exists.

Baseball stadiums, light rail, highways, Tempe Town Lake, parks - none of these exist without some amount of public government support. But the Republican party presumably would prefer to cut all of this and more. It's the utter-cheapness of today's Republican party that drives me away from it. Its a political party that has started to think small.

I grew up in Yuma, a city that historically has close to the highest unemployment rate in the nation. And my dad was perpetually unemployed or vastly underemployed. We literally scraped by. I cannot tell you the number of times they would say the words: "We can't afford it." And it was always true - they couldn't afford much of what I wanted (even my modest wants were usually unfulfilled.

But looking back, my dad often suffered from a lack of vision. You don't say we can't afford it, you find a way to afford it and then you afford it. I'm speaking of the more worthwhile wants I had growing up - like piano lessons, say. And I can think of times when my dad was able to step it up and afford stuff - most notably when it came time for me to serve a two year church mission. He took on a second job for those two years to pay for that mission, and for that I'm very grateful. So, he had it within him, but too often he used poverty as an excuse (this is my interpretation - there were probably issues going on I didn't fully understand).

I get that we don't want unnecessary debt or burdensome taxes, but that just means to me that you find a way to raise revenue broadly so it has minimal impact, say by cutting loopholes, broadening the tax base instead of simply raising the rates.

This hit home for me one more time today. My oldest daughter was involved in a Suzuki "book promotion" concert today. All of these kids involved in Suzuki violin or cello gathered for a concert at a church in South Tempe. They played in order from the beginner to advanced. The most advanced student played last. She must have been 12 or 13 and she played a solo, the only solo of the day, and her piece was beautiful and inspiring.

To play the violin well (or at all), you need to practice for years, be willing to spend good money on lessons and instruments and music. Be willing to spend the time day after day. And then after many, many years you may be good enough to actually perform something that people will show up to listen to, and not just because they're being supportive because they know they will be inspired, maybe. But you still do it anyway because you're thinking big. You want to create something beautiful - and the cost of doing so is basically beside the point, because beauty really has no price tag.

The Republican party has within itself the ability to think big by the way. I think I understand their ideology pretty well - I lived it pretty passionately for a good 10-20 years.

Republicans believe in the free market but so do the Democrats. Nobody is arguing in any of our political debates that we should nationalize the internet or Apple.

Where the battle lines are drawn are in those areas where the free market is not actively participatory - preserving the environment (some companies do want to preserve the environment, but usually only if and when it benefits them, or its a secondary concern subservient to profits), universal access to education and health care, roads, police, our military.

Republicans want strong and active government in police and in the military but they want to minimize its footprint in other areas. Democrats don't. That's really the extent of the difference between the two parties.

But Republicans are not cruel, most want good schools for everyone, most would be in favor of a diabetic getting access to insulin regardless of ability to pay. They just don't want the government to do it. They rightly believe that government tends to be motivated by more political than altruistic concerns, and in the politician's machinations, winning the next election takes precedent over anything else.

But what are their alternatives - churches and charitable organizations. And I think I understand why - I can see on paper (not sure if the data bears this out) that when a person volunteers time and money to a specific organization they're gong to want to be more diligent in vetting that organization and all of this comes from a place of passion and for a higher purpose. I give a lot of money to my church - I do it because of my faith, but I also have a lot of confidence those funds will be used wisely. This is why I favor eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, but I make an exception for charitable giving. The problem with taxes are they are not voluntary. They are collected by force, so other than through elections, politicians don't have the same accountability that charities do.

But I want to see this explained much, much better and with more vigor by Republicans. If Republicans truly believed that charitable institutions could fill in the gaps for health care, education, libraries, care for the elderly, I would love to see them embrace this fully and explain to me how. And I want to see it employed in practice.

Remove the tax subsidies employers get for providing employee health insurance, which will effectively kill employer provided health insurance. Then show me how through a combination of free market health insurance and charity, I can always get insulin to my daughter. I'm not being cynical here, I want this position defended much more forcefully by the Republicans.

Stop thinking small. In my view, we have more wealth on this good earth than we realize. We can harness our global natural resources, get more out of more people. We can live more abundant lives than we currently are.

Its time our politics reflect that - from both parties.

Why I'm contemplating a Democratic Party Line Vote

Just to set this up by stating the obvious :-), all but one of the elections on the ballot are state elections (or below). The one exception is the seat for US Congress. State issues parallel national ones in many ways, but also there are some important differences between the two. Unless you're Sarah Palin, foreign policy views are pretty much irrelevant (ok, for Arizona, border issues with Mexico matters - but certainly not the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq).

This website gives a break down on how Arizona spends its money - largely on education and health care (as opposed to the federal government which breaks down mostly among defense, health care and social security).

So, education and healthcare are two of the big issues state politicians must tackle.

But consider Arizona is one of the lowest states in the country on per pupil education spending and that Arizona ranks 41st in the country in overall tax state and local tax burden felt by an individual.

Over the last decade or so Arizona politics has mirrored federal. We have relied on accounting gimmicks and an unsustainable housing bubble to fuel a growth in spending demands even as we cut state and local taxes. Anecdotally, we have a race to the bottom political mentality. One example is seen whenever a big business wants to move into the valley and each city offers sweetheart tax loopholes in an effort to get the business within their city limits.

The housing boom is over and will probably not return. Arizona can still be a growth state but we need to transform our politics to something sustainable. Furthermore, education is our future, we can't endure much more in the way of cuts if we really want Arizona to remain an attractive destination for families with kids. Additionally, if we ever want to to to create a Silicon Valley clone, or something like it, we need to improve our universities.

This all takes money (I'm all for education reform but until someone can show me how great schools can be created with no resources you can't tell we don't need money), so tax hikes have got to be a part of the equation in the balanced budget debates.

But the Republican party has demogogued themselves out of tax hikes largely. They talk about how we must learn to live in a more resource constrained environment.

Jane Brewer did get a 1% sales tax proposition on the ballot which passed overwhelmingly, but if it wasn't for 1070B, she probably would have lost in the primaries at least partially because of that tax increase. So, there are definitely reasonable, smart leaders in the Republican party, but they exist in a pretty toxic political environment right now.

More examples: I probably would vote for Ken Bennett for Secretary of State (he seems like a talented, pragmatic and experienced person) if these were different times. Tom Horne probably would make a good Attorney General. Jan Brewer (assuming she's healthy) has been a decent governor (at least in the second half of her term - she had a rough/slow start). I'm torn between Duce and Cherney for treasurer.

But, ideologically, the Republican party has been stifled by an ideology dominated by tax cutting dogma that usually makes no sense (I'm not against low taxes - but what are going to live without and is it worth it).

They want to turn every issue into a debate between the markets and socialism (including schools). The results have been and will continue to be a race to the bottom for most except the truly well off who will always get access to what they desire. There is a reason why we have a growing income gap in this country.

I definitely don't want socialism. I just want greater access to schools and health care for more people. Keep most everything else private. But education is our future. We need to invest in it.

So, yes, despite some of the tough choices, I'm probably going to go Democratic in this election. The stakes are too high and right now, I don't trust the Republicans.

What This Election Means Part II

This is just a quick addendum to my last post because as always Andrew Sullivan says it better than me.

In this post he quotes Yuval Levin from the Weekly Standard:


"Democrats, as the president’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel explained in 2008, have sought to use the ongoing economic crisis to achieve all kinds of unrelated goals: health care policy they have craved for decades, environmental policy that has little to do with the economy, more protections for unions, a greater role for government in the financial and automotive sectors, and on and on."


So, in my last post I focused on 9/11 and the bank bailouts in reaction to the greatest collapse of our economic system in modern times.

But really, the attacks on Barack Obama have been so over-the-top. I understand people may have principled reasons to be opposed to the health care bill or his energy bill or the specific ways Obama tried to deal with the economic meltdown.

But you really need to put it into perspective:

Health Care

"The health-care plan to provide access to insurance for the tens of millions was a clear part of Obama's election campaign. It eschewed the left's dream - single-payer - and eliminated a public option. It was supported by the drug and insurance companies. It needs constant monitoring and improvement if it is to control costs, but it has set up a market in insurance that could be a model for future conservative innovation. It strongly resembles Mitt Romney's legacy in Massachusetts. None of this was snuck through in the stimulus package described by Rahm Emanuel's infamous aside. It was the result of almost two years of painful attempts at some kind of bipartisan agreement. It reduces the deficit over the long run if the CBO is to be believed - unlike the unpaid for, budget-busting Medicare D that Bush and Cheney foisted on the next generation."


In fact, this bill could have been labelled a Republican bill for many reasons and as I truly believe (I don't think I blogged about how but I've had many facebook debates where I've laid it out - I'll post it later), there are plenty of opportunities to move our health care in much more free market direction than even in our current system.

Environmental Policy

Yuval then writes the befuddling phrase: "environmental policy that has little to do with the economy." In fact, as we know, no gains have been made in curtailing climate change, unless you include some of the green energy components in the stimulus package, and Obama's biggest gesture was to endorse off-shore oil-drilling, to make his environmental policy close to identical to John McCain's. Climate change legislation - cap-and-trade - didn't occur, but even there, that strategy is designed to minimize disruption to markets and came from the right, not the left in the 1980s and 1990s. Again, Yuval makes it seem as if this comes from nowhere, as if the evidence that America is being trounced by China in this vital new industry and if the climate isn't clearly veering toward unpredictable crises were phantasms of the mind."


Unions????

Then: protection for unions. Again, there is no card-check legislation. It was not a priority. It was not snuck into the stimulus package.


This is just another example where people on the right are just making stuff up.

Greater Role in the Financial Sector

Lastly "a greater role for government in the financial and automotive sectors." What you will notice is that there is no reference in any of this to the appalling economic circumstances Obama inherited which determined both policies. It's like describing FDR's policies as if the Great Depression never happened. What a leap toward Kenyan anti-colonialism that was. Indeed, in the Weekly Standard's headline "madness". Levin, of course, makes no reference to the deregulated chaos that precipitated the financial meltdown that created the worst recession since the Second World War ( or are Richard Posner and Alan Greenspan Kenyan anti-colonialists now as well?). And what Obama has done to rein in some of the abuses is relatively modest, wrought by such radicals as Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, to the consternation and contempt of the left.



And Automotive Sectors

As for the auto companies, the emergency aid given has been a gleaming success with Detroit managing to turn things around far more quickly than most imagined. Ditto the banks, where the government may actually be making money off its bailout soon, just as GM is eager to sell off its government-owned stock to the private sector.


Conclusion

All this Yuval knows. He is not a Beck or Palin with no grip on reality at all. And yet this is what the intellectual right at its best is now dedicated to: pure propaganda on the crudest old right-left axis, arguing that a recession caused in part by a Republican administration's neglect and in part by failed Republican policies can be rectified merely by Republican rule.

Again, I thought it would get worse before it got better on the right. But that we have propagandistic, intellectually dishonest dreck like this coming from their brightest stars - and that large swathes of the American public seem to be buying it - brings one close to despair.


I mean Barack Obama has taken heat on the left for being just another Bush. The fact is that Obama has tried to be as respectful to the markets as he possibly can while dealing with real problems that need to be solved.

You can respectfully disagree with the core of Obama's policies, I'm fine with that. Especially, if you bring to the table alternative ideas and show specifically how they will deal with our world.

(You can't say we need to get more competition into our health care unless you're willing to eliminate employer subsidized health care and then show me how someone with a disability or chronic illness has any hopes of getting the health care they need).

But to label him a socialist or to reduce the debate to "pure propaganda on the crudest old right-left axis" is simply just frustrating.

And the fact that Republicans are campaigning for election on this kind of stuff at every level of government is mind-boggling to me. Can someone please explain it to me?

What This Election Means

I've been thinking about this election a lot lately (obviously). This is a given for a political junkie such as I :-), but its amazing the kind of nation we've become politically speaking. Its especially unnerving what has become of the Republican party and the general political consensus.

Today, in the Washington Post, there are two articles that really sum up two of the most monumental events, both occurring in the last decade, both that continue to shape the political forces in America today particularly so in the Republican party.

Here Robert Samuelson (who actually does not vote by the way and is not affiliated with either party because he believes that voting interferes with his impartiality as a journalist) wonders what would have happened if we would have saved Lehman Brothers.

In the article he lists the events that happened immediately after and because Lehman was allowed to fail:


"-- Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went from 7 percent in August to nearly 10 percent by October.

-- Stocks tanked. After its historical high of more than 14,000 in October 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average was still trading around 11,400 before the bankruptcy. By October, it was about 8,400; by March 2009, 6,600.

-- Consumer spending and business investment (on machinery, computers, buildings) -- together about four-fifths of the economy -- declined sharply. Already-depressed vehicle sales fell a third from August to February.

-- Employment collapsed. Five million payroll jobs disappeared in the eight months following Lehman's collapse. The unemployment rate went from 6.2 percent in September to 9.5 percent in June 2009.

Lehman's failure had dire consequences because it suggested that government had lost control. No one knew which financial institutions would be protected and which wouldn't; AIG soon received a massive loan. Uncertainty rose; panic followed."


All of this happened during the Bush administration and much of what Obama has done in response to this crisis is more of a continuation than a departure. But people are getting punished politically for their votes on TARP and on the stimulus.

Robbert Robb suggests that the way for Schweikert to beat Mitchell (which so happens to be my congressional district) is to emphasize his votes on this issue in particular:

"However, at this point in our country's history, we just cannot afford a congressman who occasionally votes no on small things, such as mostly meaningless budget resolutions. Instead, we need a congressman who will vote no consistently on big things, such as a $700 billion bank bailout, an $800 billion stimulus spending spree, and a trillion dollar health care plan"

I know Robb is speaking strategy here, but its depressing nonetheless. I grant you, the last two items listed are more controversial, but I know of no serious economist (and I read and follow many) who will defend the case that the bank bailouts were a bad idea. So, in essence the way to beat Mitchell is to ride the wave of unjustified populist anger.

Which is why Samuelson's article is so important. Not only was TARP absolutely necessary, we could have rendered it moot if we would have stepped in earlier and more aggressively. And greater intervention early on would have been much less costly then the situation we currently face (considering the massive amounts of GDP we are missing out on because of our unemployment rates).

I didn't mean to spend so much time on this point because I do have another. It is 9/12, marking the day after the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Fareed Zakaria talks about our successes attributed to Bush's first responses to the attacks that have basically marginalized and weakened the terrorist threats in Afghanistan. The world is in a much better place, but we are left with something else:


"So the legitimate question now is: Have we gone too far? Is the vast expansion in governmental powers and bureaucracies -- layered on top of the already enormous military-industrial complex of the Cold War -- warranted? Does an organization that has as few as 400 members and waning global appeal require the permanent institutional response we have created?

I've been asking these questions for a few years now and described our 'massive overreaction' in a 2008 Newsweek essay but with little effect. During the Bush years, there was a reluctance on the left to acknowledge that the administration could have done anything worthwhile to counter terrorism. The far greater problem is on the right, where it has become an article of faith that we are gravely threatened by vast swarms of Islamic terrorists, many within the country.

This campaign to spread a sense of imminent danger has fueled a climate of fear and anger. It has created suspicions about U.S. Muslims -- who are more assimilated than in any other country in the world. Ironically, this is precisely the intent of terrorism. Bin Laden knew he could never weaken America directly, even if he blew up a dozen buildings or ships. But he could provoke an overreaction by which America weakened itself."


And to me, this is what the Republican party, at least rhetorically, has been reduced to. Look at the issues their candidates bring up over and over again: HB1070, the mosque at ground zero, and anger over the bank bailouts and "out of control government spending".

Liberty and Tyranny

There's been a lot of fear and loathing from the tea party crowd about the growing Obama-lead tyrannical government whose sole objective is to rob our freedoms based on sinister, power-hungry motivations. The problem is these elements of the Republican party refuse to believe that the world has changed from Reagan's 1980's. They don't realize that largely George Orwell's 1984 was wrong - there is no big brother. In fact the opposite has been true, technology and globalization has actually reduced the power of government and other large institutions.

Our biggest threats to our freedom is not too much governmental power. Our biggest threat is that our government is on the verge of losing its grip. Some of its most egregious forms of overreach consistently include futile attempts to reclaim control over areas where it really has none. Whether it be North Korea's attempt to stay afloat as its people starve or Iran's crackdown after an obvious fraudulent election. Or our own attempt to "control" our border in the face of an increasing violent civil war in Mexico.

I hope its obvious that sources of tyranny does not only come from above. There are plenty examples of bondage coming at us from below - tyranny can be a grass roots phenomenon.

Obvious examples of this is the food industry, marketing addictive food loaded with high sugar, fat and salt. Video games or facebook (yes, I'm guilty) can take over our lives. And the illicit but still legal (albeit regulated) pornography, gambling, tobacco or alcohol industries cab be addictive and destructive. Not mention the massive drug cartel industries and all of the havoc it is causing. A million little ways to bind us down to bad habits restricting our liberty. Addiction is a brilliant marketing strategy. These industries are really difficult to regulate or control because the products are so appealing to so many people and this demand brings plenty of supply with very high profits.

Well, what about China, an emerging economic force still clinging to communism. But our biggest security threats are not coming from China - a country that has shifted toward a more open, free market political and economic environment. Instead our threats come from terrorists living in caves, in pathetically poor countries with weak (or nonexistent) governments plotting very low tech attacks against the US behemoth. Or shadowy drug cartels in Mexico and Latin America whose profits from the drugs are marked in the billions and who continue to persist despite escalations from both the Mexican and the US government.

Being a Mormon, I find the Book of Mormon's warnings are particularly relevant in this climate. The Book of Mormon details the downfall of two civilizations not through some cold war style big government controlling its people, but by the weakening of government over time because of the wickedness of its people collectively. The most serious dangers were criminal ones - secrete mafia societies - Gadiantons, etc. who prospered and gained power compromising the strength of the government ruling those societies. What destroyed those civilizations wasn't oppressive government from above. It was chaos and civil war. People lost their trust in one another. Industry collapsed and their governments did too.

In my view, there are real dangers on both sides of the extremes. Government that is too strong allocates its resources too inefficiently. It can divert resources to the politically connected, people lose incentives to work or to get educated. Society suffers. Government that is too weak is also dangerous. It fails to provide basic infrastructure - transportation, schools, health care, emergency utilities and security. These basic institutions fail to provide a climate of security that an economy vitally needs to grow. Individuals and communities lose their ability to trust in complete strangers and begin to divide up into tribes of trust.

Let me repeat that last point because it means something to me - people lose their ability to trust in complete strangers. I work at PayPal owned by eBay whose business model completely rests on the idea that complete strangers are trustworthy. Of course eBay builds into its model some enhancers to that trust - but its core business ethic from the beginning is that "People are basically good". But I think without a strong and effective government, I'm not so sure eBay is possible. Or PayPal.

And more prescient to me individually, access to good education and health care is vital for personal and collective liberty. The more education a person has, the more freedom they acquire. Government cannot force a person to educate themselves, but they can build up a community where more people are more likely to do just that. Access to health care is also vitally important to liberty. Having a daughter with diabetes brings this home to me. She can live a completely normal (although more inconvenient) life because of advances in medicine - and the fact that insulin is partially subsidized to make it affordable. That's freedom.

The ability to trust in institutions for clean water, food and clean air is vital for personal and collective liberty.

We can get hung up with questions on whether government is in the best position to provide everything that enhances liberty and regulate those areas that don't. But at the very least, I want politicians who understand this concept. That tyranny is not just a problem of too much government, its a problem with too little. I want politicians who understand that government's primary role is to ensure and enhance individual liberty and that sins of omission destroy liberty every bit s much as sins of commision.

Its easy to take the extreme view that government should be as small as possible. Cut taxes and spending and enhance freedom. This is wrong and simplistic.

Getting government right is hard. There are no easy solutions. We need a well informed electorate who are willing to discuss the big ideas. We need politicians who are truly accountable. We should be quick to distrust dogma or pure ideology.

I want politicians who take the long view.