PoliGazette

The California governor and Senate races

2010-03-20T18:32:04Z

As the California gubernatorial race shapes up, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown are now reported in polls as being in a dead heat, with Whitman at a slight advantage. The Field poll shows Whitman up 46 percent to 43 percent in a hypothetical matchup, which is within the margin of error.

I wanted to point out first, how bias can creep in reporting, in real ways, and not in the hundreds of ways people will claim there to be bias when there isn’t. The following is the first paragraph from an AP article on the topic:

“SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new poll finds former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, a billionaire Republican, is now in a dead heat with presumed Democratic nominee Jerry Brown in the race for California governor.”

Start off by asking this: if a Republican reporter had written this article, would he have described Meg Whitman as a ‘billionaire Republican’ — especially when her career had just been mentioned in the prior clause in the sentence? It’s a way to pigeonhole her, as well as a way to pigeonhole Republicans in general, with the suggestion that there’s a whole class of people that can be summed up with the description of being ‘billionaire Republicans’. Would Warren Buffet, if he were to run, ever be described as a ‘billionaire Democrat’, and would he be referred to as a ‘billionaire’ rather than as a ‘businessman’ or ‘industrialist’? Republicans aren’t the only target of that sort of framing. When Perot was running, for instance, every article on him would describe him as ‘Texas billionaire Ross Perot’, even though he was familiar enough to everybody that people knew he was a billionaire, while few people really understood what his career had been. Pigeonholing is a very common indicator of bias that’s unconscious on the part of the writer.

The San Francisco Chronicle has published a good breakdown of a recent conference Whitman held with press reporters. I have to say, I’m very happy with this race, because I like both candidates. Whitman, as a Republican, isn’t a bitter partisan, and is coming forward in the campaign with a strong issues-oriented platform. And, as a liberal, Jerry Brown has avoided the mistakes of a lot of other liberals, showing a lot of common sense. A major theme of his over the years has been the budget deficit, which shows his good priorities, and as mayor in Oakland, he took a no-nonsense approach in dealing with the city’s problems.

The second major race in California will shape up as between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina for Boxer’s seat in the Senate, and that I think is sort of the opposite situation — both candidates are bad. One of Fiorina’s main charges against Boxer is that she’s a liberal partisan. That may be right — Boxer may be partisan — but Fiorina has attacked her opponents by demonizing them and has done very little to address criticisms aimed at her. First she ran an ad likening her Republican primary opponent to what’s being called a ‘demon sheep’, and now she’s run an ad picturing Boxer as huge living blimp that’s terrorizing the state. Fiorina comes off as very hypocritical.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For those who don’t know a lot about California politics, the impression is usually that, with two very liberal Senators, a liberal legislature, and the Presidential vote turning out for Democratic candidates, that California is a very liberal state. But the tight races that are shaping up shouldn’t be seen as a sign of something unusual or as a rejection of the Democratic Party by the public. California, for the last few decades, could easily be described as a ‘Democrat, leaning-Republican’ state. Translate that to mean, that given the chance, with the right Republican candidate, Californians will vote for the Republican. Remember that California in the last few decades has had a healthy amount of Republican governors—Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger. Californian voters also showed a strong turnout for Ross Perot in 1992, exhibiting their centrist leanings. The state also has affirmed ballot propositions against gay marriage and illegal immigration. The right Republican, to Californians, is someone who’s moderate, not a partisan, and platform-oriented. If that’s not the Republican candidate in the race, and the race is between two partisans, California voters will likely go for the Democrat. The state legislature is largely Democratic, because seats are elected on party-line votes — people don’t know who their representatives are.

The gubernatorial race, with no incumbent, is open this year to either party. And, a lot of Independents, and even some Democrats, dislike Boxer and are unhappy with her, which is the main force shaping the Senate race. All Fiorina has to do is get them off the fence in so far as supporting a Republican candidate goes. That’s why her ad, though negative, isn’t preaching-to-the-choir. It’s an attempt to clearly define what Boxer has been and hasn’t been for the state, and convince them to get off that fence. So far, the Boxer campaign has put out a weak response, firing back at Fiorina’s criticism with criticism of their own. It comes off as defensive. The right way to go about this would be to point out the hypocrisy in Fiorina’s attacks and focus on trying to show her as more partisan than Boxer. Not only will Californians prefer the partisan Democrat, but they’ll more likely go with the evil they know versus the evil they don’t know, and stick with the incumbent. But, if Boxer’s campaign continues to put out weak responses, these types of ads will be effective. That, in the end, could lead to Republicans winning both races.

Actor Jon Voight Calls on Americans To Join Him Saturday to Stop ObamaCare

2010-03-19T17:02:23Z

Writing for Big Government, actor Jon Voight calls on Americans to come to Washington D.C. Saturday to gather at upper Senate Park, across from the Capitol on Saturday, at 12 o’clock noon.

“We must come,” the father of actress Angelina Jolie writes, “by the thousands.”

Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.

Join me and Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington DC at 12 noon EST so we can give all the Democrats who know what the end result will be the courage to say: “No, do not pass this destructive bill.”

I’ll see you there.

As far as I’m concerned, Voight is a modern day hero. It’s not easy for a conservative in Hollywood to speak out. We all have heard the stories of conservative directors, producers and actors who were shunned by their colleagues after speaking out against liberal policies in favor of conservative ones. Many of them had great trouble being hired.

Voight doesn’t care about all that, however. He’s a true, freedom loving patriot and he will not be silenced.

If you’ve got time, please join Jon in Washington, D.C.

Gallup: Obama’s Approval Rating Lowest Yet

2010-03-18T19:43:15Z

Gallup reports that President Obama’s approval rating has hit its lowest point yet. Where only 46% of voters approve of Obama’s job performance thus far, 48% disapprove.

‘Obama’s approval rating has hovered around 50% since November, but in the last two days has declined to the point that slightly more Americans now disapprove than approve of his performance in office,’ Gallup explains.

It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that support for Obama has hit rock bottom, because he and Nancy Pelosi are determined to shove ObamaCare through Americans’ throats.

Americans let Democrats know they had no interest in their health care reforms, but the latter don’t care. After all, they know what’s good for the American people, even when they don’t know it themselves.

Obama undoubtedly believes that, if just continues traveling down the path he has followed for the last year, his poll numbers will, eventually, improve. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s mistaken. If he does not change his ways immediately, Republicans will win the elections later this year.

This Gallup poll confirms what I’ve been saying for quite some months now: Democrats are playing with fire. It won’t be long before many of them, including Obama, will be without a job.

A Memorial to the Victims of Communism

2010-03-18T11:37:50Z

Today, FrontPage Magazine published a must read article written by Barbara Kay.

The subject of the piece is FPM’s managing editor Jamie Glazov’s father, Yuri. Yuri Glazov was an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime. After signing the infamous “letter of the twelve,” the regime had enough and declared war on him. They trumped up some drugs related charges and prepared to send him to the Gulag.

Realizing his life was on the line, he told his family to pack their bags. They fled to Canada. Here, Yuri continued to and expose and fight communism and its many evils.

Living in the West and working for one of Canada’s major universities, Yuri quickly discovered that most Westerners had no idea what was happening. He dedicated his life to changing that.

Without him, most of his fellow academics (most of whom were leftists, of course), would have continued doing what they had been doing for decades: wipe the crimes committed by the Soviets under the rug. If it were not for the Yuri Glazovs of this world, there would not have been Westerners today with knowledge and understanding of the truly evil nature of communism.

Having said that, there’s still much work to do in this regard. Kay notes that:

Prospects for educating Canadians about the human toll exacted by communism through their stories will brighten when a long-sought Ottawa Memorial to the Victims of Totalitarian Communism is completed, a project singled out for endorsement in the recent Throne Speech.

This memorial is needed because Westerners need to understand just how dangerous communism is. We all know that Nazism was evil, but most of us have no idea that communismisn’t much, if any, better.

In related news, the Yuri Glazov Memorial Award is in danger of being shut down. This award is meant to reward those who fight for freedom (and democracy). It goes without saying that we should do everything in our power to make sure that this will not happen. If you can, please donate.

President Obama Thanks Me For Fighting ObamaCare

2010-03-17T21:22:17Z

How nice, I just received a thank you note from President Obama:

Michael –

I wanted to take a moment to thank you directly for the outstanding work you’ve been doing for health reform.

Why thank you sir. God knows I’m doing everything I can to prevent the United States from following in Europe’s (destructive socialized medicine) footsteps. Glad you’ve noticed my hard work in that regard. Appreciate it.

I can tell you that your voice is heard in Washington every day.

Wow, that’s quite a relieve! I feared you and your friends were too arrogant to notice the righteous anger from tens of millions of Americans and the criticism from ObamaCare critics. Glad to hear I was wrong on that one!

I see how your efforts are moving us toward victory.

No problem at all, Mr. President! It’s my pleasure, it really is. I’m doing what I believe to be the right thing.

Oh, wait. What’s that about “victory”? What “victory”? By victory you mean defeating the health care plan now on the table, right? I mean, why else would you email me?

The politicians in Washington need courage to face down the powerful interests who have held back progress for far too long. And all of us who share this cause need courage to speak up with persistence and clarity in these final days.

I’ve always found that courage comes from remembering that we fight for something and someone beyond ourselves. It comes from our faith. And it comes from our commitment to those we love.

Darn it. It’s yet another mass email you’ve sent out to your (quite extensive, it has to be said) email lists. Too bad. You had me thinking for a moment there that you’ve actually learned to listen to your critics. Ah well, that’s life I guess.

On The Israel Crisis

2010-03-17T21:11:13Z

This crisis between Israel and the United States is worrying me tremendously. Of course I knew that Obama was no friend of Israel, when he was running for president, but I always hoped that, if he’d win, he’d be controlled somewhat by his pro-Israel friends and allies. Like Hillary Clinton, for instance.

From the looks of it, however, these officials don’t seem to be able to influence Obama in any way whatsoever. It’s becoming a serious problem by now.

Writing And What Not

2010-03-17T21:04:11Z

Regular readers of PoliGazette have undoubtedly noticed that I’m not writing for it regularly anymore. To those who wonder why the heck not: well, some time ago, I officially became a pro-blogger. I make a living from writing about politics. Outlets that pay me (well), are obviously more important to me right now than outlets that don’t. And no, PoliGazette is not exactly making me rich. In fact, it’s costing me money. For now, that is.

So that’s why I’m spending most of my energy on other blogs. I do a lot of work especially for NewsReal Blog and Dutch blog De Dagelijkse Standaard; blogs that I’m extremely proud to be part of because I share their goals and values. I”m trying to help make these two websites big. Both have, I can say with some confidence, benefited greatly from my knowledge and understanding of the blogosphere and, of course, my writing skills, along with my intuitive understanding of what news is big and what isn’t.

Having said that, I plan to spend more time on PoliGazette from now onwards. I”ll write a post at least once a day. These posts can be serious, long analysis, but they can also be shorter, off-the-cuff post. Whatever pops up in my mind, I’ll write about. It may be politics, but it may also be about the latest book I’m reading, or this awesome (or horrible!) movie I just watched.

For most of my posts about politics, I suggest you add NRB (which has deservedly become one of the best and biggest conservative blogs out there in recent months) and, if you know Dutch, DDS to your favorites. This is where I use most of my creativity and both blogs are doing the (international) conservative movement a tremendous service. Regular readers of PoliGazette will, I am sure, love ‘em.

In the meantime, we’re also working on a new project. More about that at a later stage.

Healthcare Bill Battle Lines are Close to Drawn

2010-03-17T06:16:37Z

Apparently I’ve been very far out of the loop, even though I’ve been keeping abreast of the news. Only a couple weeks ago, the idea of passing a healthcare bill in the House of Representatives was laughable. Now, Dems seem to have the votes. Tentatively, anyway. Any discussion of “deem and pass” may go out the window if this is true.

Allahpundit seems resigned to defeat. He blogs for a living, so if he’s worried, I’d take that very seriously.

Of course, Democrats have an easier time getting the bill passed, seeing as they have a supermajority in the House. Still, it’s going to be a party line vote, simply because so many Democrats are joining the Republicans. That means they have to look elsewhere for the yays.

Enter Dennis Kucinich, who will apparently announce tomorrow that he’s voting yes, even though the bill isn’t liberal enough for him. I guess I could see him being swayed by talk of a reconciliation bill, but I have my doubts about that. I could be very wrong, but if it was this difficult to get the Senate bill passed, the reconciliation bill’s chances seem remote, despite whatever Pelosi and co. say. Instead, Obama may have convinced him to wait it out, to take the incremental change route.

Now, I know that people will be tempted to consider that Obama offered him a Baucus-style backroom deal. Problem with that is if it’s true, then the bill must be worked out in conference and voted on again. I doubt the Dems want this battle to carry on for several more months. They’d like to get the bill passed and then work on the reconciliation fixes. Why create more headaches if you don’t need to?

Some people seem to think that Kucinich could be the cover other Dems need to vote yes on the bill. I’m also skeptical on this, because short of a backroom deal or a very good argument on why to vote with the Dems, all the players who were already “decided” are unlikely to change position at this point. Maybe a couple more Reps. will follow along, but I doubt many will.

So, with Kucinich on board, the Dems have a slightly more comfortable padding between passage and failure when the vote comes this week. Now it will be up to the undecideds, and I think we’re going to have to wait until voting day to see what most of them decide to do.

Essay on the “Twilight of the Elites” is all style, no substance

2010-03-14T06:44:42Z

At Time.com, Christopher Hayes suggests that blame for America’s recent economic decline should be principally directed at “the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order.” According to Hayes, the elites who are “supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly” have become increasingly corrupt and incompetent. Hayes makes a strong case, or at least Gallop does, that public trust in these elites continues to wane:

For more than 35 years, Gallup has polled Americans about levels of trust in their institutions — Congress, banks, Big Business, public schools, etc. In 2008 nearly every single institution was at an all-time low. Banks were trusted by just 32% of the populace, down from more than 50% in 2004. Newspapers were down to 24%, from slightly below 40% at the start of the decade. And Congress was the least trusted institution of all, with only 12% of Americans expressing confidence in it.

Unfortunately, the second half of the essay goes downhill, as Hayes tries to prove that two of the primary causes of these institutional failures are concentration of power and the erosion of transparency and accountability.

His main example of why erosion of transparency and accountability are now lowering public trust in elites – the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church - actually works against his argument. The Catholic Church has been secretive and hierarchical for going on 10+ centuries now. If anything, the Catholic Church of the 1970s – when Gallop started tracking public confidence in elite institutions – was more secretive and hierarchical than today’s version. Also, in previous eras, the former victims of childhood abuse were more reticent to share their experiences, in part because they encountered stronger social pressures from family and church members to keep quiet. Of course, the rising levels of transparency and accountability within religious institutions/communities have been a good thing, but they don’t do much for Hayes’ argument.

In his next example, Hayes’ pivots to go after another favorite target of the left: CEO pay. For the sake of argument, I’m willing to concede that rising CEO pay levels might contribute to ”concentration of power.” However, in making this shift, Hayes conveniently drops the part about transparency and accountability, I suspect because he knows that the general public has access to more information about CEO salaries and other internal corporate business matters than they did 35 years ago.

Hayes then loses track of his argument altogether, to go after yet another favorite target of the left:

Take the problem of climate change. It’s beyond our ability to recognize the imperceptible upward creep of global temperatures, so we must rely on the authority of those who are doing the highly complicated measuring. But at a moment when we desperately need élites and experts to use their social capital to warn the populace of the dangers of catastrophic climate change, skepticism is rising. A comprehensive Pew poll released in October found that only 57% of respondents think there’s evidence of warming (down from 71% last year), and just 36% think it’s because of human activity (down from 47%). This is the danger of living in a society in which the landscape of authority has been leveled: it’s not there when you actually need it.

In other words, rather than carefully build a coherent and complete argument, Hayes tosses out two weak examples, and then immediately rushes the stage, grabs a microphone, and begins preaching his faith. I would argue that one cause of public distrust in elite institutions is the inability of many elites to understand their own limitations. As the Washington editor of The Nation, Hayes is a bit of a media grandee, himself. An excellent writer, he is able to partly disguise the logical weaknesses of his essay with smooth, rhythmic prose. After watching him make such a flimsy effort at proving his own points, though, I wonder if he just tosses out the same groupthink explanations for every political question he considers. And, if so, what does that say about our elite institutions?

New McCain Bill: American Citizens May Be Held Without Charge During Hostilities

2010-03-10T07:15:22Z

So, I thought for sure that this had to be misinterpretation by liberals at best, or a downright lie at worst. They lied about the removal of the writ of habeus corpus for detainees, after all, claiming that it applied to all Americans. So, before even reading the bill, I knew that the reports of McCain writing a bill that would call for the indefinite detention of American citizens who are labeled unlawful enemy combatants were incorrect. It was just the liberals hyperventilating yet again. Right?

Well, now I’m not sure. While it still may be nothing to blink at in the end, I find one provision in this bill – to paraphrase Chief Justice John Roberts – very troubling.

The passage in question from the bill (emph. mine):

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Uhh, a quick reading of the fifth and sixth amendments shows that the provision about holding Americans (civilians, anyway) in this manner is clearly unconstitutional. I had a difficult time at first understanding why McCain would even write this. The man may not be a young and charming constitutional law professor, but I would guess he knows the document well enough. He knows this bill doesn’t have a chance of passing, at least not with the indefinite detention provision as written. So I wondered, “why even waste time writing that part?”

Then I remembered that McCain is being challenged by former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth. A Republican, Hayworth has used his campaign website to take McCain to task over his terrorism cred:

But John McCain wants Guantanamo Bay shut down and terrorists moved to the U.S. for trial. J.D. Hayworth supports the mission at Guantanamo Bay and thinks it would be both a mistake and an abomination to award enemy combatants and other terrorists the rights enjoyed by American citizens.

John McCain also wants to tie the hands of our military interrogators by banning enhanced interrogation techniques. J.D. Hayworth recognizes the importance of giving our professionals the tools they need to get the job done. At least four major 9-11 style terror attacks were prevented thanks to information gathered using these techniques, and countless lives were saved.

McCain does indeed support the closure of Guantanamo and is against waterboaring. So this is probably not so much a bill that McCain expects to see passed, but more of a “look at me, I’m strong on terrorism” bill. Yet, I’m not sure that McCain needs to pander to the uber-hawks. McCain has generally shown his support for anti-terrorism measures and missions. The ones that are not completely insane, anyway, like waterboarding. I also think that McCain has the intelligence to know that the “not-in-my-backyard” whining by his colleagues toward bringing terrorists to a prison on the mainland is mostly a non-issue.

McCain has spent his career being the America first guy, and most voters recognize that. Certainly Arizona voters, do, or else he would have had more serious challengers over the years. So why is McCain panicking now?

Well, it doesn’t help that there is a strong and vocal “keep them in Gitmo and use whatever measures are necessary to extract information” crowd out there. Also, Hayworth will have plenty of material to use from 2008. You know, the election where Barack Obama was more hawkish than McCain about combating terrorism in the Pakistan tribal region. Let me repeat myself. The Democrat was more hawkish than the Republican on a foreign policy issue. Hayworth will only need to display a few clips from the debates showing McCain getting flustered about upsetting Pakistan if he wants to rally the uber-hawks at McCain’s cost.

So, while I think that McCain’s record speaks for itself most of the time, I can see why he would fear losing some voters, given some of his votes and statements in recent years. That said, I think a provision that would allow the government to hold American citizens until “the end of hostilities” (whenever that is in a war planned around a concept) goes too far. I think a “true conservative” like J.D. Hayworth would agree, given that he will most likely have the support of the Constitution citing tea party crowd. Unfortunately for McCain, this is just something else that Hayworth will now be able to hold over his head.

Quite apart from it being an election year, I am saddened to see that the Senator would go this far to try and pander to the conservative base, most of whom I would guess (and hope) would themselves have a problem with the provision. Since I’ve followed politics, I’ve liked John McCain more than many other politicians. I may disagree with him on some issues, but ultimately I’ve thought of him as a man of principle. As is highlighted by his opponent, he has been against torture being applied to detainees, even when it hasn’t been popular. He has remained committed to seeing Gitmo closed, and that certainly isn’t popular. Heck, even liberals will give him support at times. Finally, he’s likable, which isn’t something a lot of politicians can say these days.

Amongst the Republican candidates, he was my top choice for the nomination, and I would have been happy to see him as President. But I may have to review my support of him if he would write a provision like Sec. 5, whether or not it’s an attempt to pander to his party’s base. A politician who actually respects the constitution would not even think about it.

Senator McCain, an explanation, if you would.