Elizabeth Warren and The Non-Existent Social Contract

There's a video that has been doing the rounds recently to much adulation from my statist friends. It is of Elizabeth Warren, a would-be Senator campaigning for that bloated old fool Ted Kennedy's seat, talking about "the underlying social contract". Take a look, and then we'll start to dissect what Warren has to say:



I'm not particularly interested in her analysis of the economic woes of the US - yes, Bush Junior was a profligate wastrel when he was in power, but his replacement has done little to reduce the size of the deficit facing the US. In fact, he's made things worse. Rather, I want to look at this sort of underlying social contract argument that Warren uses.

First things first, on an initial listen/read, it is actually quite persuasive. On a surface level, she appears to be talking some sense. Yes, we are fundamentally and crucially individuals. But I know my life would be unpleasant and really rather short were I not part of a community. I'm not fantastically wealthy, and I never will be, but I do know the fact that I can live in relative comfort is not solely down to my own abilities. I need the interactions with others and the infrastructure of wider society in order to be able to attain and maintain my lifestyle. The super-rich are no different. But this acknowledgement of the essential inter-connectivity of modern life does not do the heavy lifting that Warren seems to think it does within her argument. Because it is all largely smoke and mirrors; drill down, and you start to see a lot of holes. So let's drill down.

Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

Perhaps nobody did get rich on their own. But a lot of rich people have done so because of talents and skills that, while not unique, are very much the exception rather than the rule. There are three main ways in which people get rich: having a great, marketable idea; being willing to take risks; and/or being willing to work really hard. Yes, they need other people, but it is also something within them that allows them to differentiate themselves from other people and create something that makes them very wealthy. As such, their relationship with those who assisted them in making them very wealthy is symbiotic. This is a crucial point: no-one got rich on their own, but equally no-one got rich purely because of the benefits of the wider society around them.

It is telling that Warren never actually demonstrates that we're not dealing with class warfare here. Sure, she goes on to argue for a social contract, but since she does not convincingly demonstrate the existence of that social contract, her case that it isn't class warfare is not even implicitly made.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for;

And, of course, the factory-owner himself almost certainly paid for, and owing to the fact that they earn more money, probably paid more for than the average worker in the US and maybe even a greater percentage of his/her income.

Furthermore, there is something a little naive (at best) in this idea that goods get out to market through a publicly funded infrastructure. This may well be true, but what choice does the entrepreneur have? They are expected, under threat of imprisonment, to pay tax to the state, which then goes out and builds roads etc. Now, it could well be that an entrepreneur may want to fund his/her own infrastructure, private to his business, that could work more efficiently for him/her. But they have no choice but to hand over the funds that could be used for such a project to the government. Thus, they have no choice but to use the publicly funded infrastructure. As such, Warren's argument becomes essentially circular - you give money to the state, therefore you can only afford to use the public infrastructure, therefore you should pay for that infrastructure. And that argument is predicated on the far too seldom challenged notion that there should be no opt-outs from the tax system for those who do not wish to avail themselves of certain public services. Even if our entrepreneur could still afford to fund his/her own transport network, they would still expected to pay for the public one. Their hand is almost forced; they may as well use the publicly funded roads as otherwise they're going to end up paying twice for the roads they use.

you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate;

A spurious assertion that assumes our rich person doesn't hire privately educated people and that public education is of a high enough standard to truly benefit our entrepreneur friend. And, once again, our entrepreneur is also paying for that system to educate his/her workforce through taxation.

you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Hmmm. Because, since the advent of publicly funded police and fire services, there has never been a burglary or a building burning to the ground, right? Of course not; that's yet more nonsense. But Warren here seems to be falling into the naive trap of thinking that if the state funds and runs something, it is going to make us safe. That is, of course, nonsense on stilts. As factories investing in security guards and fire prevention systems shows. And, again, that entrepreneur ends up paying twice - once for a public system that is often bloated, inefficient and unable to do what it is supposed to be doing. The second time for a private back-up system designed to compensate for the inefficiencies of the public system they are forced to contribute to.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

I love the "God bless". Wonderfully patronising. Wouldn't worry too much about approaching those wealthy, big-money donors any more, Elizabeth. On the flipside, hate the phrase "pay forward". Just doesn't work at all..

But at the heart of all this is a sweeping, intellectual and ideological power grab. Warren is arguing that there is a social contract that underpins all we do, and that we need to adhere to it because we are part of society. But she is trying to do something even more bold - she is trying to claim that not only is there an underlying social contract, but she is the one who understands it. Therefore, we all need to fall in line with her statist policies about the redistribution of wealth through tax. So we've gone from an apparently innocuous argument about fairness in society to a much broader, and more dangerous, argument that is predicated on the idea that Elizabeth Warren has found the real truth about our society.

The big problem is that social contracts - underlying or otherwise - actually don't exist in any practical way. They are theoretical constructs of political philosophers designed to either offer an alternative to the status quo or to explain the transition from some sort of state of nature to the status quo. They are illustrations rather than actually part of the reality of modern politics. Therefore, to claim one exists and should actually be the guide for how much the state intervenes financially in the lives of its citizens is problematic to say the least. In part because we never signed up to any such social contract. Nor did our parents, or their parents, and so on. In fact, the person who signs us up - whether we like it or not - is someone like Warren. And she decides how we should interact with each other within society through nothing other than her own spurious and contestable argument and her own arrogance.

Which is the big problem I have with Warren, or at least the way in which she depicts herself in this video. Once you get beyond the folksy presentation of the case for redistributive taxation to the actual meat of what she is saying, you get a level of arrogance that I find very troubling. She's found the underlying contract. She knows best; about what is good for society, her supporters and for you. It is only a small step from finding that social contract to what Rousseau termed being forced to be free. On the basis of a contract you never signed up to because it has just been created as a rhetorical device for a campaigning politician, the state can demand more from you. And I know I can't be alone in finding that deeply concerning.

Defending Sarah Palin

I'm guessing that if I looked out the window I'd see pigs looping the loop in the air, because I'm about to do something that I never thought I'd do and makes me faintly nauseous. I'm going to defend the crass Sarah Palin.

Defend her in a limited way, of course. Defend her against the recent allegations that are perhaps best summed up in this paragraph:

As for these disclosures, McGinniss claims that Palin snorted cocaine off an overturned 55-gallon drum during a snowmobile excursion, slept with college (and later NBA) basketball star Glenn Rice when she was an unmarried 23-year-old sports reporter (McGinniss talked to Rice for the book and he confirmed the relationship) and had an affair with Brad Hanson, Todd Palin's business partner, apparently as payback for her husband's infidelities. (Both Palin and Hanson, he notes, have denied the affair.)

Now I have no problems with these sort of allegations. The fact that Palin has snorted coke and slept around a bit is her own business, frankly. I don't even care if she has been having affairs behind her husband's back - that is between him and her. None of these reflects on her ability to be president. What does - and the reason why I think she is horrifically unqualified for high office - is her almost all-encompassing ignorance combined with the fact that she perfectly represents the empty and dangerous politics of style rather than substance. The problem is what she does in public, not what she has done in private. The problem, to put it in a much more profane way, is not who she has apparently been fucking, but the fact that she is a fucking idiot.

So there it is - a defence of Palin from someone who cannot stand her. But it is utterly depressing that what will probably finish the Palin show once and for all is not the fact that she has time and time again paraded her stupidity in public, but the utter irrelevancies of what she may have done in her private life.

Idiot of the Day

The fact that he is called Weiner makes this story just perfect.

The US Mid-term Elections in Perspective

How different it must all have looked to Obama two years ago. Then, he had just been elected by a legion of adoring followers. He had won the most convincing victory for a Democratic presidential candidate in a generation. And his followers seemed to think he was poised to be one of the greatest presidents of all time.

Now, he's just another president - kicked senseless by an electorate angry over the economy and his apparent failure to make "change" and "hope" actually mean something. He had a lot of political capital when he was elected, but large swathes of that were spunked away over health-care reform. He's battered, he's on the ropes but - and this is the crucial bit - there is no reason to think that's he given up or is defeated.

So, despite all the right-wing crowing on both sides of the Atlantic about "one-term Barry", I think it is far too early to write off Obama. And I still believe that in another two years time, Obama will be celebrating a comfortable win at the 2012 Presidential election. There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, the mood of the electorate at mid-term elections tends to be very different to how they vote at Presidential elections. It is one thing to vote for a Tea-Partier in a Senate or House election, another to do the same for a presidential candidate. On both sides of the Atlantic, voters like using these sort of elections to fire a warning shot across the bows of their leaders. That is no guarantee that they are willing to actually dump them at the next election. Blair took kickings at local and by-elections; the British people still managed to elect that egregious idiot a number of times.

Secondly, this was not (quite) the comprehensive drubbing of the Democrats many were expecting. They lost control of the House, but not the Senate. Harry Reid kept his seat. The likes of Christine O'Donnell were (mercifully) rejected by the voters. The Democrats are battered, and bruised but not down and out. Furthermore, the heady rhetoric of many Republican candidates about "taking America back" means they will have to do a great deal to meet their campaign promises - and if they don't, they can expect the same sort of kicking next time out that Obama has received for not living up to the empty campaign slogan of "change".

Furthermore, there is tension within the Republican party between the mainstream and the Tea Party. And there is a real danger for that party that, come the Presidential primary season, a long drawn out battle will be fought between a mainstream Republican candidate and a Tea-Party member. If this happens (particularly if, as seems very likely, Obama will be renominated without a fight) then the spectacle of the Republican party in the run up to November 2012 will be bitter infighting. It's one of the key rules of modern politics - divided parties seldom win. As things stand, the Republican party lacks a clear message and a clear strategy. It consists of a party with two separate, and not necessarily compatible, wings eyeing each other up warily. And it is going to take a lot of compromise to get that party to unite behind one individual presidential candidate - and there is no guarantee that this candidate will be credible.

Finally, Obama has one massive advantage - incumbency. For the next two years, he could effectively campaign for re-election from the White House, showing that he is presidential, a real leader and with every pronouncement he makes heading to the top of the news bulletins. Contrast with the Republicans, who don't have a figurehead and aren't likely to have one for a good eighteen months. Obama has two years in which to get that formidable publicity machine that got him elected in the first place going again. As long as he understands that the voters aren't happy, he can do something to change that in his favour.

So I think Obama will re-election, and history has shown time and time again that presidents who suffer mid-term setbacks can go on to win again, sometimes by landslides. Of course, nothing is set in stone, and the Republicans may yet turn this muted victory into the start of a real campaign to take back the White House. But the Republicans aren't as strong or as united as they might appear to be, and Republican triumphalism over this election win is likely to be as damaging to their cause as apparent Democrat complacency was after Obama's win in 2008.

Quote of the Day

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

Barry Goldwater

The Limited Impact of Sarah Palin

The Observer asks a pertinent question about Sarah Palin:

But can she ever win the White House, or will she destroy the American right?

The answer is, of course, no to both. Palin can't win the White House. She simply isn't a credible candidate. She managed to do massive damage to the McCain campaign, has several skeletons half in her closet and half draped across every media outlet in the USA and - perhaps most crucially - she resigned as Governor of Alaska for no good reason. You can imagine what every opponent she ever comes across in the race to be Republican nominee and then President will ask: "so, former Governor Palin, if elected President, what guarantees do the American people have that you will actually serve out your full term as President? Because, y'know..." It is the sort of thing that hobbles any campaign. When you then add in the fact that the candidate would be the moronic, winking Sarah Palin then you have a campaign that is destined to sink without trace. To the very bottom of the Mariana Trench.

But Palin also won't be able to sink the American Right with any presidential bid. Hell, she probably can't destroy the Christian Coalition in the US. The American Right is so much more than one over-hyped and hyperactive former governor. In fact, I'd imagine many members of the American Right have very little time for Palin, and would love to see her fail in a Presidential bid and be forced from her embarrassingly high-profile on the US political stage.

Even if Palin does win the Republican nomination in 2012, her defeat the the General Election will not destroy the Republican party. It has put up dud candidates before - Bob Dole and Barry Goldwater spring to mind. And the Republican party also spent nearly 20 years out of the White House during the Roosevelt/Truman administrations that straddled the Second World War. Hell, the Republican party even managed to survive having the only President to resign in disgrace as a member. In the resolutely two party system of the US that has existed for centuries, it is going to take far more than Sarah Palin to destroy the Republican. Just as the utterly useless Iain Duncan Smith failed to bury the Tories in this country.

Sarah Palin is just one politician. Yes, she is a politician in over her head and hyped well beyond her talents. However, she remains just one politician. The party she is member of, and the American Right as a whole, is more than just Sarah Palin. They existed before she burst onto the national stage at the behest of John McCain, and they will exist after she had gone from that national stage. The choice facing the Republicans in the run-up to 2012 is whether they want to squander that election with Palin as their candidate, or whether they want to find a credible candidate who actually has a chance of beating Obama instead.

Huckabee, DuMond and Clemmons

Far be it for me to take considerable relish in the misfortunes of another Christian fundamentalist candidate in the USA, but it appears that Mike Huckabee is having some problems based on some decisions he made back when he was governor of Arkansas. Namely the decision to give clemency to a violent criminal. Who went on, it appears, to murder four police officers:

A man with an extensive criminal past -- whose 95-year prison sentence was commuted in Arkansas nearly a decade ago by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee-- was being sought Sunday as a "person of interest" in a deadly ambush on four police officers who were gunned down inside a coffee shop.

And, rather like this alleged cop killer, Huckabee has previous:

Huckabee did not pardon Dumond. But he did everything he could, including telling parole board members who owed their jobs to Huck in a secret meeting to parole him. He advocated Dumond's cause publicly, wrote a letter expressing his wish for Dumond's freedom and spurned Dumond's rape victim until a public outcry forced him to meet her and let the parole board do his dirty work for him.

And who is Dumond? Well, he was Wayne DuMond - a man convicted of statutory rape who was paroled after aggressive lobbying from Huckabee. DuMond went on to rape and kill one Carol Sue Shields. And he was also suspected in the murder of one Sara Andrasek. It appears as if Huckabee's decisions when it came to prisoner rehabilitation have cost six people their lives. Such a revelation is hardly going to play that well with the fire and brimstone brigade who are Huckabee's support base.

Of course, justice is administered by humans, and as a result is far from perfect. And if you believe that criminals can be rehabilitated then you have accept that at some point they will be released back into the community. And at that point, some will take the second chance they have been offered, whilst others will abuse that chance and steal, hurt, rape and kill. You can question Huckabee's judgement for sure, but the reality is that this sort of thing could have happened to any governor in the US - and pretty much any politician who influences or makes decisions about who stays in prison and who does not. So I almost feel a little sorry for Huckabee.

Except he is part of the party who sank Michael Dukakis's 1988 bid for the Presidency by relentlessly highlighting a similar circumstance, where a prisoner on a Dukakis created prisoner furlough programme committed several heinous crimes. The Republicans had no issue with relentlessly using Horton to bash Dukakis, so there is no reason for Huckabee to expect anyone else both within the Republican party and across American politics not to exactly the same to him. Is it fair? Possibly not. However, it is reality.

Whether it should or not, I think this will sink Huckabee's ambitions to be President. And since he is a grinning fundamentalist idiot who shouldn't be allowed to visit the White House, let alone reside there, this can only be a good thing.

Speaking Ill of the Dead: Teddy Kennedy

Ted Kennedy, the last of the that fabled trio of brothers who once looked set to dominate US politics, has died. The fact that Teddy Kennedy managed to outlive his brothers is perhaps yet another example of the ongoing tragedy of the Kennedy clan. Because, at the risk of speaking ill of the dead, he was the least effective and least able of those brothers.

If you support social democracy and what the US incorrectly dubs as liberalism, then I suppose you can point towards some sort of a legacy from Ted Kennedy. Yet anyone who was in the Senate for as long as Kennedy should be able to point towards a substantial legislative legacy. And besides, it may be carping a bit but it is instructive to think just how he was able to run for the Senate and stay there for so long. Daddy's wealth and the high profile of his brothers meant that this Kennedy had a head start that few others could ever dream of. For all those talking about how Teddy Kennedy represents the Liberal dream in the US, think again. Those who came from nowhere to achieve great things are truly indicative of the American dream. It is Harry Truman, LBJ and Barack Obama who truly show what ability in the USA can do. All Teddy Kennedy showed is what you can do if you have a boat load of cash and a respected name behind you. And that is sit in the Senate for decades, representing a very liberal state.

Of course, no obituary of Teddy Kennedy would be complete without a reference to Chappaquiddick, which surely remains one of the worst political scandals of all time. Nixon helped to cover up a burglary, Clinton smoked a dubious cigar; Teddy Kennedy killed someone. Yeah, read that again. Teddy Kennedy left someone to die. If you want a good description of the full horror of what he did, read this extract from a Guardian article that tries (and fails) to show how Kennedy overcame the stigma of his killing:

Kennedy chose to flee the scene , leaving the young woman to die an agonising death not of drowning but of suffocation over a period of hours. Incredibly, it was 10 hours before Kennedy reported the accident, by which time he'd consulted a family lawyer. The senator's explanation for this unconscionable, despicable, unmanly and inexplicable behaviour was never convincing: he claimed that he'd struck his head and was "confused" and "exhausted" from diving and trying to rescue the young woman and had gone home to bed.

So... Teddy leaves a party with a woman who wasn't his wife, crashes his car into water with her inside, and then leaves that woman to slowly die. This probably cost him the chance of winning the presidency. Can you imagine what it would have cost someone who wasn't part of the Kennedy family? For this sort of thing, the average person in the street would be looking at a lengthy prison stretch. Kennedy got two month's probation. Why? Because of his family name. And because of his family connections. Daddy's wealth and the good name of his brothers saved him from having to take the full punishment for his utterly reprehensible crime. I know I won't be alone in asking why so many people are mourning Ted Kennedy - reasonably competent legislator and killer.

The true success of the Kennedy clan - and where they have proved to be most effective - is in creating an aura, a mystic, a cult around themselves that just does not match up to reality. Nonetheless, people had faith in JFK. And then in RFK. Because of what those two were perceived to stand for. And when both of those figures went to their early graves, the only person left to carry on the dream was Teddy. He didn't earn that position, and the only reason why he became such an icon to so many people is because of his surname. So it goes. Inheriting titles, wealth and power is a part of human society, and always will be. Yet I can't help but think that, outside of his circle of family and friends, most people are mourning the death of the Kennedy name, rather than the death of this particular Kennedy.

TV Debates... Yes, Please

The televised debates in the US Presidential elections are great. Seriously. At their best, they give you some classic TV. Like Gerald Ford in 1976 claiming that Eastern Europe wasn't under Soviet Domination. Or Ronald Reagan neatly turning age into an advantage in his debate with Walter Mondale in '84. And how about that classic - Nixon sweating like a paedophile in a playground moment back in 1960? Even Vice-Presidential debates throw up some classics - like Sarah Palin winking like a used car salesman in 2008, or Lloyd Bentsen pointing out to Dan Quayle that he really wasn't like JFK back in 1988. Magic stuff, for a political geek like me. 

And now there is a flurry of excitement around the idea of a debate between Cameron and Brown. It won't happen, because basically Brown isn't that dumb. Whilst Iain Dale sounds a note of caution, I think Cameron would whup Brown's sorry, fat arse. This isn't the Cameron of 2005, when he lost a debate to David Davis; this is a Cameron used to debating in PMQ's, and used to selling the Conservative brand. He can debate, he is energetic and he is open to the idea that he might have to persuade others to win them over to his viewpoint. Compare him with Brown - a man pathologically unable to answer a question. A man who believes he is right, and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong and a little bit evil. Cameron would destroy Brown, and we'd see Brown glowering in impotent rage during any televised debate. It would be the final nail in Labour's coffin at the next General Election. That's why Cameron would want to debate, and why Brown is trying to bury it deeper than a barrel of nuclear waste. 

Now, I'm for the idea of a debate between party leaders at the next General Election. But not just at the next election, but at every General Election. I'd like to see the parties give control for the debates over to an independent committee - one that can organise debates between the party leaders at each election and make sure they are fair. And that they actually happen. 

Because that's the problem. The Tories are now happy to have a debate, because they are pretty sure their fella will win. But rewind to 1997. There was no way in Hades that the Tories would have signed up to a debate, because their boy would have been bitch-slapped pretty well by Tony Blair. Now the tables have turned... just as surely as they will in the future. In ten years, in fifteen years... it will be the Tories running from a debate with the party of opposition. 

Debates are great. Partly because they favour one party over the other, and partly because they are a test of the party leaders' ability to communicate their messages. Let's have them in this country, but let's do it in such a way that those party leaders can't hide from them when they are simply too scared to take part...

Obama: 100 Days

So, Barack Obama has been in power for 100 days, and a Republican Senator has given him the extra special gift of a defection. I find it mildly amusing that the press has suddenly picked up on the first 100 days of the Obama presidency again - most of their coverage petered out at around Day 36, when the media realised that Obama wasn't really going to do anything other than be a President - and that role isn't actually that newsworthy on a day to day basis.

They'll be some celebration and some commiseration about Obama's achievement today - if you can call being in power for 100 days an actual achievement. After all, all he has had to do is not die or be impeached. Which most US Presidents, but not all, have been able to manage.

Whether you think Obama has been a success of not is really down to your political views - he's certainly done a great deal, but sadly spent a lot of money and grasped a lot of power for the state in the process. No-one should be surprised, though, at his actions in his first 100 days. He's been a Democrat; not exactly a revelation given the party he's a member of and leads.

But it is this defection - which puts Obama very close to having a filibuster proof majority - should be the big story now the first hundred days are at an end. And it is the motivations of Senator Specter that fascinates me. He's moved to Democrats because the Republicans have moved so far to the right. And with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin acting as the de facto leaders of the Republicans, his claim can't really be disputed. And the Republicans are beginning to resemble the Conservatives in 1997 - lurching to the right because the party doesn't know where to go but instead is listening to the loudest voices.

The problem is that whilst a small minority love Limbaugh and Palin and their rabid ilk, it does not provide a coherent platform for realistic opposition within US Politics. Obama and co can laugh off the Republicans as fundamentalists, reactionaries and far right. They can dismiss their case without breaking into a sweat. Which further negates and already crippled opposition in the US.

The Republicans need to take the media manufactured landmark of Obama's first 100 days to take stock and find a platform that will appeal to the people. That is the first step to them becoming an effective opposition again. It may not win them control of Congress in two years or the White House back in four years, but at least they will have a coherent argument to oppose Obama. It is a first step in their recovery. However, this lurch to the right moves them further away from a coherent platform and being a credible opposition.

And they need to be a credible opposition more than ever now. Because, as the example of Britain in 1997 shows, a photogenic, popular young leader with absolute control of the legislature and no credible opposition can wreak havoc in that country. Unless the Republicans remember how to be in opposition, the same could happen in the US.

Secretary of State Clinton

Barack Obama is going through the (no doubt immensely tedious) job of recruiting for his White House team. Amongst the ranks of Democratic party members plucked from relative obscurity to re-enact The West Wing from next January, one name stands out. Oh yes. Hillary Clinton may well end up US Secretary of State.

Not entirely sure why Hillary has been selected. Yes, she has travelled the world - but largely as First Lady. Her hands on, frontline political experience has been as a Senator, and whilst you can argue that New York is a melting pot, it is a big leap to suggest that her experience as a Senator allows her to become Secretary of State at probably the most crucial time since the Vietnam War.

In fact, you could almost claim that Hillary has got her role simply to unite the Democrats. But does Obama really need to unite the Democrats? I'd argue they are more united than they have been for decades, and Obama himself has won the first majority in the popular vote for the Democrats since 1976. Yes, Hillary Clinton remains a rival, and yes, I understand the logic of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. But seriously, Clinton won't be a threat to Obama for a while.

But if Obama really does need to rebuild bridges in the Democrats then why not choose someone with more direct foreign policy experience? Someone who has traversed the globe as a front line, international statesman? Someone who could also help to unite the Democrats?

Why not make Bill Clinton the Secretary of State?

John McCain: Why He Failed

Amidst all the jubilation of the Democrats and, in particular, the Obama campaign, spare a thought for an old man. An old man on his last hurrah who has had his hopes dashed. An old man who has given a great deal for his country, yet was beaten in the final analysis by a much younger and less experienced man. Although a younger guy with better hair. Yes, spare a thought for John McCain. Regardless of whether he thought he could sneak a victory in at the last minute or not, the past 24 hours have been shitty for Senator McCain. And the disappointment won’t be going away any time soon.

Make no mistake about it, this was the last chance saloon for McCain. Pretty much all the other candidates in this election could have another go for the Presidents – Clinton, Palin (*shivers*), Huckabee (*retches*), Romney, Biden (possibly), maybe even Edwards (if people can get over his inability to keep his pants zipped up outside of his marriage) – these people could all have another shot at the Presidency. Had Obama lost, he certainly could have done (and, I reckon, would have done). But for McCain, the game is up. He’s 72 now; the next time the Presidential Election circus comes to town, he’ll be 76. He’s not running again. His White House dream died at 4am this morning.

But I’m not going to spend too much time wailing on behalf of John McCain. His real time – the moment when he should have won the nomination and then the presidency – was eight years ago, but he lost it to Bush. This time he looked more than ever like a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he really didn’t help himself, and his defeat has as much to do with his own actions as with the man he was up against.

There are some things that McCain just could not help. He is in the same party as a deeply unpopular, and also hated, President. That party has also developed political schizophrenia, torn between fiscal conservatives and rabid, Christian fundamentalist loonies. And McCain worked hard to distance himself from his President and from his party. But ultimately he is Republican, and this year was perhaps the worst year to run as Republican since 1976.

Events also seemed to conspire against Senator McCain, and it never helps when the economy tanks and you are representing the incumbent party. Yet here, there is more McCain could have done. Yes, events are unpredictable, but politicians have complete control over how they respond to them. And as the US economy slipped into a critical state, McCain’s choice of at first denying there was a problem, then noticing the issue before suspending his campaign to look presidential looks in the cold light of day like a not just a strategic blunder, but actually a campaign calamity.

He also dropped the ball by going very negative on Obama at a late stage in the campaign. Whilst he stopped short of doing the cut throat character assassination himself, all the talk of Obama being a pal of terrorists, and the rumours about Obama not being Christian or being a Muslim were not just untrue, but also showed the level of debate that McCain was aiming at. Yeah, Obama’s lofty sentiments about change were (and are) completely intangible, but at least they sounded positive. To attack an opponent during depressing economic times adds to the sum total of misery within a country, which is never going to go down to well.

But for me, the real blunder was the choice of Vice-President. At first, Governor Palin really seemed to help the McCain campaign. However, in the final analysis the only real ways in which she gathered praise was by being female, and being able to read from an autocue at a national convention. As soon as the razor thin Palin façade was scratched, it became clear that America was being asked to put an out and out, fundamentalist winker a heart beat away from the Presidency. After eight years of having a out and out, fundamentalist wanker as President. And given his health problems and age, McCain’s choice of vice-presidential candidate took on an even more urgent and important tone.

And it wasn’t just the person who was the issue with McCain’s choice of Vice-President. After all, Biden is a twice failed Presidential candidate and Kinnock plagiarist. He also has a tendency to have what you might call foot-in-mouth disease. But Biden was a dull choice, uninspired, but safe. Palin was a gamble – a massive, scary gamble. And McCain has made it clear for everyone – when you gamble, things can go wrong as well as right. Ultimately, though, he should have known just how much of a risk Palin was. He should have done the leg work, he should have met with her more than twice, he should have her had her properly vetted. And had he done all that, he might have seen that Palin would end up as a millstone round his neck rather than the life jacket he so desperately needed.

McCain comes across as someone who has fought his whole life. The sad truth for him is that he lost his final battle. And when you look at it, the failure was down to him as much as it was down to anyone else.

Obama's Victory

Well, he won.

There’s lots to write about today, and there will be websites and column inches filled with hyperbole and a combination of both wonderful analysis and mindless rhetoric. This blog will be no exception. And expect to see the word “history” banded around a lot this morning. After all, things become even more important if you stick the tag “historical” on them. But fuck me, Obama’s victory probably warrants that tag like few other events do.

Before I go into the business of autopsying the McCain campaign and looking into my crystal ball to see what Obama’s presidency may be like, let’s just stop for a moment, and look at what Obama has actually achieved. Regardless of whether you think that Obama is a combination of Jesus Christ, John F Kennedy and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one great package, or whether you think that Obama is an evil lefty ally of evil terrorists everywhere, you have to concede that he has achieved a great deal. A year ago, he was a candidate on the periphery of the Democratic primary season. 4 years ago, he was elected as the junior Senator for Illinois. 8 years ago, no-one had heard of him. Now, he is President-elect of the United States.

And in his brief time in American politics, he has managed not just to climb to the top of the tree, he has also managed to build up a formidable election machine. An election machine that manage to slowly wear down the might of the Clintons, and destroy the widely held assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. And he also managed to comprehensively beat the Republican election machine that has seen off, in the past eight years, a Vice-President and a highly experienced and (in some circles) respected Senator. This time last year, the Obama candidacy looked like he was placing a marker down for future Presidential elections. Now, he is president-elect. It is pretty good going, all told.

Also, Obama has managed to do all this without really committing to anything other than supporting change.

But not is not the time for casual snipes about Obama – they’ll be enough time for that over the next four to eight years. And whilst I am far from sold on Obama, I don’t think I will be alone in admiring what the man has achieved. Circumstances and the actions of his opponents played their part in his victory, but a lot of the credit has to lie with Obama.

Put simply, the boy done good.

John Edwards and Privacy

Another day, another scandal descending on a politician – this time in the US. Via Guido, I see that John Edwards, (twice) failed candidate for the Democrat nomination for President and failed candidate for the Vice-Presidency, has admitted to having an affair. The world should emit a deep sigh of ennui at the revelation that a politician can’t keep his winky in his trousers.

As far as I am concerned, who really cares? This is a private matter for Edwards and his family. He had an affair, he hurt his wife, he hurt his kids. He should be allowed to deal with it in his own way outside of the glaring limelight of the media glare. This, fundamentally, is a private matter.

That said, I do think there was something very naïve in Edwards believing he could run for President without this affair coming out. Seriously, in this day and age the media will find out. And by thrusting himself into the (inter)national spotlight he will have had everyone digging into his past, desperate for any potentially salacious story. How he thought this wouldn’t come out is utterly, utterly beyond me. It has all the hallmarks of a great story – photogenic candidate for President, having an affair. A potential love child in the background. How could this not become a major news story?

It is a bit like Mark Oaten running for the Lib Dem leadership a few years ago. It could not fail to be the sort of news story that the News of the Screws loves, and their readership devours. Yes, you could argue that Oaten, Edwards etc have a right to privacy – and I would be inclined to agree with you. And I think one of the reasons that many capable people do not run for government is that they do not want to put themselves or their loved ones through the harsh, searching eyes of the media. However, that media glare is there. So whilst I feel for Oaten, for Edwards, for all the others, I also wonder just how the hell they thought they would be able to get away with running for high office with such media friendly skeletons lurking in their closets.

Election 2008: Well, the book should be interesting.

Another day, another crucial step in the battle for the US Presidency. Now I've got a real, almost anal, interest in US Politics (a brief look at my bookshelf shows this beyond reasonable doubt) but I'm struggling with this Presidential election - and we are still in the primary season.

Sure, stuff is happening, and each new primary looks to be more decisive than the last. The problem is that stuff is happening really, really slowly. And that decisive blow is not being unleashed by either the Democrat or Republican candidates. This does not feel like a race for the White House. It feels more like an arduous route march to the White House, with regular breaks for the candidates to talk shite and snipe at each other. As one of my colleagues remarked today - history is being made over in the US. But it would be great if they could hurry the fuck up.

I understand the ins and outs of the US election process - I respect why it is so elongated, even if I don't think it is a good system. But this election seems to be just too long. Go Obama! Go McCain! Go Clinton! Go Paul! Hell, even Go Huckabee! Fuck, I'm tempted to support anyone who can deliver a knockout punch in their respective primaries and start the proper General Election campaign. Just to move things forward. People who complain about length of the 6 week general election campaigns in this country should be forced to watch every single contest in the US Presidential Election cycle until their brains leak from their ears, mushed to a fine pate by rampaging boredom.

The hacks over in the US must be feeling a far worse sense of fatigue. Can you imagine being on Hillary Clinton's plane right now? Barely aware of what state you are on, what you are meant to be doing here, and why this woman keeps on shrieking nonsense at you? Or on Obama's plane, suffocating in the air of paranoid smugness that oozes from every pore Obama has? How about on McCain's plane, where you must be practically brain dead from all the stories about heroism and earnest, centrist decision making? Or - hell upon hell - on Huckabee's plane, where the candidate is probably flying so high towards the heavens in the vain hope that he can fellate God? And knowing that if you object, he's a-gonna burn you. Regardless of the impact in the integrity of the aircraft. Whatever plane you were on, you must be feeling utterly battered and weary.

In fact, most journalists will probably be sticking to the campaign in the hope that they can write a book about it when it is all over. The problem is that the end - in distant November - is not so much out of sight, but rather invisible. An efficient journalist - or at least one concerned for their own mental health - would be better placed to go into hibernation for the next few months, resurfacing just before America actually votes. You could catch up with everything (basically candidates bitching at each other) via news archives and various video diaries, before sitting up for the whole of election night, starting your book in the morning.

See, this Presidential Election campaign will make a great book. Hell, with everything condensed into a two hour run time, it has the potential to be an awesome film. But both the book and the film will work because they can excise some much of the inconclusive pissing around we are currently witnessing. The 2008 campaign in a two hour film - fast moving and breezy. In reality the 2008 campaign has been played out since 2004 - and is jaw-droppingly tedious.

Mr E reckons he will be staying in all night to watch the results come in. I say good luck to him. I'll be off to bed at around 10:30pm. I'll catch up with the results on my radio, in the shower in the morning, when I can get all the details in a two minute bulletin.

Nader for President! (Not Really)

Ralph Nader is running for President again. If you can call winning a few nods from seriously disaffected lefties in the US "running for President." I mean, let’s face it, Nader has exactly the same chance of becoming President as me – the square root of fuck all.

No doubt there will be considerable bleating from Democrats in the US that Nader is a spoiler – someone who is going to take votes from the Democrats and help to create another four years of Republican rule in the White House. And Nader probably will take some votes from the Democrats on the left this time out. He arguably did cost Al Gore the White House in 2000. But is that his fault?

Is it shite. The 2000 Presidential election should never have been close enough for the few votes that Nader generates to have any impact on the overall result. Gore – an articulate, experienced Vice-President should have kicked the bony, idiotic, fundamentalist arse of George W right across the US. Especially when stories about drink driving came out. Likewise, in 2004, Kerry should have smashed the living crap out of an unpopular President fighting an unpopular war. It was not Nader who cost the Democrats victory in both ’00 and ’04. It was the stunning incompetence of the Democratic candidates.

The same applies to this contest. After 8 years of Bush misrule, the Democrats should cruise to victory. As Nader himself notes (as quoted in the Telegraph):

Making his announcement on NBC's Meet the Press, he said if the Democrats could not win this year by a "landslide", despite his involvement, then "they should just close down".

Quite.

Of course, that does rather beg the question of why Nader is running for the presidency. But honestly, who will notice another wanker in this campaign chock full of wankers?

Oh, the irony!

President George W Bush has called for free elections and for human rights in Zimbabwe.

I'm laughing so hard my sides hurt. After all, he would know what can go wrong with elections and how human rights might be abused.

President Bush - What Went Wrong?

On Sunday, it will be one year to the day until George W Bush steps down as US President. But truth be known, he may as well do it now, because he won’t be able to achieve anything radical in his final year. His brand is damaged beyond repair abroad, and he is neutered at home – he has become the very definition of a lame-duck president.

His critics will be very satisfied that his tenure as President will be ending on a whimper. And given the numerous blunders of the Bush Presidency, I can’t help but think it is deserved. When the history books are written, Bush Junior will languish with the other failed Presidents. His historical peers will be James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, and Ulysses S. Grant. 2001-2009 will be seen as a bleak time for the US presidency.

But it didn’t have to be that way. For a long time, Bush was a popular President (at least in the US). He won re-election in 2004 – and this time the result was beyond dispute. He could have been a successful and popular President. After all, Reagan was dismissed as a lightweight prior to being in office, and had peaks and troughs in the polls whilst resident in the White House. Yet now he is venerated as one of the greatest Presidents since FDR. The same could have been true of Dubya.

So what happened? Or, more pertinently, what went wrong?

Yep, the Iraq War hasn’t gone to plan – although given the US lacked an exit strategy that is hardly surprising. But the Iraq War – and the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan – had the approval of the US public at the start. And Bush Jnr won in 2004 against the backdrop of the War. It may be an ongoing headache for the Bush administration, but Iraq was not the knockout blow.

Likewise, the 2006 elections didn’t go Bush’s way. It was, at least partly, a referendum on how the president was doing. But it was also a reaction to the way congressional Republican were behaving – particularly after the Mark Foley scandal. Yes, those elections damaged Bush, but he (and the Republicans) were already tainted before a ballot was cast.

So what was it? What made Bush a lame duck?

Bush set himself up as a capable decision-maker – as a level headed, bold leader in a crisis. Yes, he might not be able to understand the finer points of macro-economic theory (or, indeed, be able to string a sentence together), but when the shit hit the fan, he could be relied on. Bush lived off his reputation after 9/11 – of standing at Ground Zero, with the bullhorn, giving America pride again.

With the benefit of hindsight, he was always setting himself up for a fall. And that fall came – not with another terror attack, but when the levees broke and when New Orleans flooded.

The Bush administration showed total incompetence in the face of what was both an avoidable and manageable disaster. Bush procrastinated whilst New Orleans drowned. Hurricane Katrina showed that it wasn’t just the terrorists that the US had to worry about – nature could be just as harsh. But when the latter struck, Bush was shown up. He wasn’t in control. The carefully constructed façade was washed away.

And those affected most by the disaster made it even worse for the President. Here, poor black people were dying. When it came to an attack on the financial districts of New York, Bush came running, bringing with his the awesome might of the US military. When New Orleans came calling, Bush seemed to look the other way. For what it is worth, I don’t think that Bush was racist in his response to Katrina. But from that point on, the unpleasant undertones of racism were next to impossible to overcome.

The deterioration on Bush’s standing can be traced back to Katrina. For the first time, people really started to question him. If Bush wasn’t capable of dealing with a natural disaster, was he really capable of dealing with the war in Iraq? Suddenly the news from Iraq was given a negative spin. As the economy started to hit the skids, and as the Republicans began to sink into scandal in Congress, it became inevitable that Bush’s influence would take a sound kicking in 2006. By the time he offered up Rumsfeld as a sacrifice, it was too late. His reputation was in tatters, and people were already looking to who would replace him.

Harold Macmillan was once asked what was most likely to blow a government off course – his alleged reply (“events, dear boy, events”) lives on in history. And the words stick when we consider the failed presidency of George W. Bush – he dropped the ball when it came to Katrina, and the cost was massive. It sent him down the path of becoming a lame duck president, and it will leave him with a terrible legacy for the history books.

Iowa 2008: A Scary Result

Democracy in action over in the US, as a small number of voters from a tiny state decide who they would like to fight an election (a lot) later in the year. And they came up with Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama.

That's the Mike Huckabee who could best be defined as a Christian fundamentalist. Actually, scratch that, the Christian fundamentalist fuckwit who once took a phone call from God at a political fundraiser (h/t Mr E). But such gimmickry extends far beyond tedious fundraisers. when asked about science and creationism Huckabee replied:

"Science changes with every generation and with new discoveries, and God doesn't. So I'll stick with God if the two are in conflict."

Another gem:

"At one appearance, Huckabee — who's been known to make fart jokes in front of the state legislature — said he would oppose gay marriage "until Moses comes down with two stone tablets from Brokeback Mountain saying he's changed the rules.""

Or how about:

"And he recently scored a rare offend trifecta, simultaneously pissing off immigrants, Jews and the pro-choice crowd when he ludicrously claimed that a "holocaust" of abortions had ­artificially created a demand for Mexican labor."

Yeah, Huckabee may be charming but he is a religious nut and general ignoramus. As a potential leader of the US, he's fucking scary. He strikes me as the Christian equivalent of Ahmadinejad: whilst being inexplicably popular in their home countries, they actually have the beliefs and scientific knowledge of a religious bigot from the Middle Ages.

But Huckabee has achieved one thing: he has made Obama - a man who would consider invading Pakistan, for fuck's sake - look like the credible, sane option in a general election between the two.

Of course, this is the first caucus of a loooonnnngg primary season and an even longer presidential election campaign. Things could change. And whilst I don't get a vote in the US elections (for the obvious reason that I am not a US citizen) I can't help but hope that those who do vote get a better choice than between a man who makes George W. look like a moderate and a man who would put troops into Pakistan.

Bush. Clinton. Bush. Clinton?

Headline in The Times:

Fear of a dynasty denies Hillary Clinton votes.

Good, as far as I am concerned.

Now I’m not going to get bogged down in a debate about Clinton’s relative merits – or lack thereof – as a Presidential Candidate. But fuck me, it is a bit worrying if the best the US can come up with, since 1988, is people from the same two fricking families, isn’t it? Population – over 300 million. Number of families the president is drawn from – 2. Hardly reinforces your belief in US democracy, does it?

One quote is particularly striking:

"Peggy Noonan, former speech-writer to President Ronald Reagan, noted in The Wall Street Journal last week that Obama was beginning to win support from Republicans and independents who "see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness"… She added: "I say sickness because on some level I think it is driven by a delusion: ‘We will be safe with these ruling families whom we know so well’. But we won’t. They have no special magic. Dynasticism brings with it a sense of deterioration. It is dispiriting.""

Of course, Noonan will have an agenda that is worth acknowledging – as a Republican, another Clinton in the White House is not good news for her. But her points still stands. The thought of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton (and with Jeb waiting in the wings in four to eight years time) is not edifying.

I’m unsure of who the best candidate would be – whilst Obama has a certain (albeit deeply vacuous) charm I rather think Giuliani will be the more capable administrator. But it would be depressing if the very best the US can offer is more of the same two families who have dominated US politics since the 1980’s.

I once read about an old saying that went around the USA when JFK was President (and Bobby was eyeing up the White House for when his big bruv stepped down) that went something like this:

"We’ll have JFK until 1968, then RFK in 1968 and 1972. We’ll then have Teddy Kennedy in 1976 and 1980. When he steps down, well, then it will be 1984."

I can’t quite see the US disappearing into Orwell’s dystopia just yet – the growth of these dynasties reminds me more of the stagnation of the Roman Empire, or the shameless nepotism associated with the Borgias. Either way, neither option is an outstanding example for the world’s supposed leader in democracy.