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Terrible, Terrible…


Not just another day trapped inside by the so far disappointing Hurricane Sandy (while I understand it’s pretty freakishly bad – or soon will be – in the place where Chris Christie uses tax dollars to pay an intern to videotape him screaming at kindergarten teachers, formerly known was New Jersey; but here in Washington, DC… well, in Florida, we’d still be on beach drinking). Though that is not what I’m talking about.

Some ridiculous front group, probably set up by the NRSC to pass through money for IEs on behalf of George Allen, are running this attack ad on Tim Kaine. And it’s terrible. I’m not being self-righteous here. I’m not commenting on the misleading nature of the ads. Meh. That’s business. And ’cause, oh no, another Republican group is lying. Somebody call H.L. Mencken and pretend like this is even news anymore.

No. The ad itself is just… awful. Embarrassing. If you’re going to be spending six figures in the pricey, pricey DC media market, then spend it on something that doesn’t suck. It’s a 1998 vision of what ‘high tech’ looks like. Frankly, it looks like some kid just got the latest version of Windows Moviemaker or some other program and is just having a blast with it. The result is an ad that is visually cluttered and irritating and doesn’t have a clean line or visual in the whole damn thirty seconds.

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Worldly Philosophers


Worldly Philosophers is a famed attempt to make economics sexy. Mainly by skipping out of the math (which is cool by me; Warrant: The Current Debate had way too much math for my liking).

Author Robert L. Heilbroner, despite being an avowed socialist (or was for most of his career), wrote this passage, which absolutely infuriated me:

[Sir William Petty] was observing a fact that can still be remarked among the unindustrialized peoples of the world: a raw working force, unused to wagework, uncomfortable in factory life, unschooled to the idea of an ever-rising standard of living, will not work harder if wages rise; it will simply take more time off. The idea of gain, the idea that each working person not only may, but should, strive to better his or her material lot, is an idea that was quite foreign…”

Firstly, that whole passage reeks of colonial-minded paternalism.

And also, how is it that greater leisure time is not also part of an “ever-rising standard of living?”

It has been noted that those envy-inspiring images of Austrians conversing over coffee in the caffe’s of Vienna or of the French enjoying long lunches and leisurely glasses of wine are not a result of uniquely gallic or tuetonic culture. Or at least not how we usually think of it.

It’s about time. It’s about a culture that does not believe a people should have to work 60+ hours a week to support themselves and their families. Germans and even the Japanese, despite myths to the contrary, work fewer hours than Americans. When you have an extra three hundred and sixty hours a year (as the average German worker does), you can spend more time with family and enjoy leisurely activities.

I want to thank Heilbroner for introducing me to Thorstein Veblen (even his name is awesome! and descriptions of him washing his dishes with a garden hose aimed at the sink and showing up at his justifiably estranged wife’s door with a pair of socks are hilarious in a sad way), but I’m still fuming about that remark (which actually occurs very early in the book – before he even gets to Adam Smith).

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Weekend Reading – The Stoics


Why Stoicism?

Build a better time machine.

A’m fair sconfished wi hayreen; gie’s fur brakwast lashins o am and heggs.

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Eugene Genovese Died. Really? Why Did No One Tell Me?


I don’t think I’d seen this before, but apparently, Eugene Genovese died late last month.

That’s a real bummer. He was a Marxist and sometimes leftist (don’t make the mistake of thinking Marxist thought is necessarily leftist) historian of the American South and of slavery in the American South. Even when he became, in some ways, more conservative (he became quite infatuated with the Southern Agrarians), he never stopped seeing the influence of class structures on society.

Anyway… Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. I had to read it in college. It’s awesome. You should read it, too.

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A Reminder Of Sorts


Last night was a wake up call, of sorts.

Not a loud one, though.

Obama is still ahead in every key measure, still have the advantage in all the must-win states, still has the better (and smarter and faster) campaign.

But just a reminder that it is still close. That it could all go the other way. That a 66.7% chance of winning (just tossing that out as a likely sounding number – last time I checked, Nate Silver was saying something like 80%) is not 100% or even 95%. If Obama were to lose, it would be a surprise, but historians wouldn’t go back and say, ‘no one could have predicted that.’

So, a reminder of sorts. Fat ladies and singing and all that.

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Eric Hobsbawn Has Died


Eric Hobsbawn was both Britain’s most celebrated historian in the second half of the twentieth century and a lifelong Marxian. Like it or not, the man was a giant in his field and respect for his body of work transcended ideology.

 

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2016 Kicks Off


Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is headlining a dinner for the Iowa state GOP and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is doing the same in New Hampshire. Two more prominent Republicans working under the assumption that Mitt Romney will be going back to Bain Capital rather than to the White House.

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Cokie, I’m Afraid I Have To Disagree With You


I was tuned into NPR (WAMU) on the commute this morning, listening to Cokie Roberts talk about what may or may not happen during the lame duck session.

Part of her point was that not just the results of the election, but the narrative, will have a great effect on how the lame duck session (which will be one of the most critical in recent memory) will play out.

If, she argued, Romney loses but the narrative is that Romney just ran a poor campaign and that he was just a fatally flawed candidate and if other things happen (GOP’ers hold the House and take the Senate, for example), nothing will change and the Republicans in Congress will simply continue to obstruct and be of as little use as they possibly can (and they can be of remarkably little use, as we have seen).

However, she continued, if that doesn’t happen, then the Republicans will have to reevaluate their positions and may work more closely with the President to actually accomplish something verging on the proactive in the lame duck.

Cokie, I must respectfully disagree.

The Republicans will continue to do what they’ve been doing (which is basically to sabotage the country and our economy). The only way it will play out differently is if Obama loses, in which case, they will only pass things that will expire a week after Romney is sworn in so that their new Gordon Gekko can start signing extreme right wing legislation with a clean slate, as it were.

And let’s not pretend that the narrative has not been preset. The GOP establishment is already setting the narrative to do just what Roberts described as being something that might happen. There’s no question about it – if Romney loses, the narrative is already in place to make sure that the results are defined as not being a repudiation of real Republican principles (which Romney will be defined as somehow not espousing), but rather as a failure to either hold or articulate those principles, i.e., that those principles would naturally have won out if Romney had really been a believer or if he hadn’t been so bad about explaining them.

Yes, if Romney loses, the narrative that he was a flawed candidate who, mainly because of the flaws, ran a flawed campaign, will actually be more or less true.

But what that will miss is that Romney’s flaws have so far led him into the trap of having to run a campaign of two visions.

The whole point was the Romney wanted to run as a bland, safe, generic ‘not that guy’ against Obama. He did not want to have to articulate anything. It is because this race is being framed as a choice between Democratic and Republican principles that Romney is losing; because this race has become a real choice between that ‘real’ Republican vision and the one being promulgated by President Obama.

 

P.S. – This post is dedicated to my Aunt Anna, who kindly asked me to write a little less about poetry and a little more about politics. I hope she enjoyed this post and the post immediately preceding it.

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When Do They Give Up On Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy The Fourth?


Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy The Fourth, otherwise known as Connie Mack, otherwise known as a remarkably hapless candidate for US Senate.

Really, that man should have stayed in the House.

So the polls all show him trailing, his fundraising is lacking, and Obama looks like a narrow favorite to win Florida at the presidential level. This, friends, is a recipe for outside spending to dry up.

Outside groups might easily spend another $10-15 million trying to take down the broadly (though not deeply) liked Bill Nelson, but it’s more likely that number will be much, much less. Still a lot in comparison to my own, meagre bank account. But in this situation, little more than a sop to Mack’s supporters, so no one will say too loudly the hated words, that ‘they’ have given up on Mack.

Nelson was always going to run 5-8 points ahead of the president and Mack needs Romney to win an absolutely resounding victory in the Sunshine State and if you still think that’s going happen, then please contact me about some spectacular investments in mortgage-back securities available from a Pasco County condo developer.