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Election Time Archive

Tuesday

4

November 2014

0

COMMENTS

Don’t Abolish Midterms Just Yet

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Election Time, Waste & Government Reform

A New York Times op-ed by a Duke professor and a student argues that midterm elections are passé. A cynic might conclude something about the timing of this realization – that it coincides with an election in which the party favored by academia (and the New York Times) is likely to receive an electoral shellacking. But the argument is worth taking at face value, so let’s consider it on the merits.

Schanzer and Sullivan say that midterms once made sense, but that times have changed. For one, they argue that the need for close electoral accountability has diminished thanks to modern technology:

Twitter, ubiquitous video cameras, 24-hour cable news and a host of other technologies provide a level of hyper-accountability the framers could not possibly have imagined. In the modern age, we do not need an election every two years to communicate voters’ desires to their elected officials.

Perhaps. Communicating with elected officials is certainly easier than ever before, as is taking the pulse of the electorate, but does greater access to public desires translate into legislative results? I find that politicians are most concerned about public views come election time. Longer terms for House members would thus reduce incentives for representatives to adhere to public desires.

Reading between the lines, one gets the impression that’s precisely what the authors want. They worry over the fact that “Americans’ confidence in the ability of their government to address pressing concerns is at a record low,” and grumble that the “main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has been to weaken the president.” Indeed, it appears to be any obstacle to an imperial presidency that most motivates the authors.

“The realities of the modern election cycle,” they complain, “are that we spend almost two years selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less than two years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples that same president’s ability to advance that agenda.”

In other words, this appears to boil down to the standard statist complaint over “gridlock.” Though they also throw in some identity politics for good measure:

Another quirk is that, during midterm elections, the electorate has been whiter, wealthier, older and more educated than during presidential elections. Biennial elections require our representatives to take this into account, appealing to one set of voters for two years, then a very different electorate two years later.

Again, a cynic might note that the kind of voters the authors would prefer politicians stop appealing to tend to favor an ideology and party that academia (and the media) loathes. But not to worry, they have a solution:

There’s an obvious, simple fix, though. The government should, through a constitutional amendment, extend the term of House members to four years and adjust the term of senators to either four or eight years, so that all elected federal officials would be chosen during presidential election years. Doing so would relieve some (though, of course, not all) of the systemic gridlock afflicting the federal government and provide members of Congress with the ability to focus more time and energy on governance instead of electioneering.

For many, anything that limits the energy politicians spend on governance – that is, the time spent imposing their whims on the rest of us – is likely to be a good thing. Gridlock, in other words, is a feature rather than a bug.

Political tools tend to be blunt instruments, and attempts to solve societal problems through the political process are often hamfisted and counterproductive. Certainly some problems need political solutions, but there is good reason for the process to be arduous and time consuming. The impulse of individual politicians in the face of any problem is to preen and overreact in order to demonstrate that they are “doing something.” It is up to institutions, then, to slow things down and force deliberation into the process. If midterm elections contribute to that process, then they are a net positive.

Monday

19

March 2012

0

COMMENTS

McCain’s Campaign Finance Ignorance

Written by , Posted in Election Time, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

John McCain was on Meet the Press Sunday and used the opportunity to bash the Citizens United decision that struck down his anti-free speech “campaign finance reform” legislation. He claimed that this election is unusually negative – a similar claim that was made in 2008 and which I suspect he will make in ever single election until such time as he succeed in limited free speech – and blamed that observation on Super PACs and the Supreme Court for “unloosening” all money.

In so doing, he has confirmed that he is completely ignorant about the issue which he has made his most important, and in particular what the Supreme Court ruled. According to analysis from the Sunlight Foundation, the Super PACs which McCain blames for the perceived level of negativity have received 70% of their contribution from individuals, not the corporations and unions which were the subject of the Citizens United decision. In other words, John McCain doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Related Update: Reason offers Five Ways Citizens United Is Making Politics Better, including “competitive campaigns, funnier ads and greater freedom of speech.”

Friday

5

November 2010

0

COMMENTS

Thursday

4

November 2010

0

COMMENTS

When Success Is Failure

Written by , Posted in Election Time

Liberal Joe Klein thinks Democrats lost because they ran away from their successes:

[T]he Democratic performance this year was one of the more mystifying, and craven, in memory. Usually, a political party loses when it has failed to do its job. These Democrats lost because they succeeded in doing what they’ve been promising for decades. They enacted their fantasies, starting with health care reform, and then ran away from their successes. Why on earth would a political party enact major pieces of legislation and then refuse to take credit for them?

That’s quite easy to answer, Joe. Democrats refused to take credit because no one wanted their legislation in the first place.  It was, as you admit, their fantasy – not the public’s.  Passing bills just for the sake of doing something may be a “success” in the eyes of Joe Klein, but the public was never sold on the Obama/Pelosi agenda.  Democrats knew this, which is why they attempted to run away from those very “success.” But with “success” like that, who needs failures?

Friday

8

October 2010

0

COMMENTS

Friday

24

September 2010

0

COMMENTS

Completely Out Of Touch

Written by , Posted in Election Time, Taxes

Two recent stories indicate just how clueless and inept is the Democratic Party.  First, we see that Democrats are punting on the issue of taxes:

Senate Democrats huddled behind closed doors for one hour on Thursday trying to figure out what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts. With no consensus emerging, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., decided to postpone a vote until after the election.<

Why are Democrats refusing to address the pending tax hikes which will cripple the economy? Because they know there is majority support in their House caucus, and growing support in the Senate, for extension of all of the tax cuts. The American people want it, too. But this arrogant Democratic majority refuses to let such a vote take place.  They’d rather play class-warfare politics and prevent the tax cuts that would have the biggest economic impact from taking place than do what is best for everyone – across the board protection from rate hikes, including on crucial capital gains, dividends and death taxes.

The second story has to do with the Democratic response to the recently released GOP Pledge to America. Would they respond with a similar clear(-ish) enunciation of their positions, many asked? No. They say they’ll just run on their record.  Seriously.

If I didn’t know better I’d suspect they’re throwing the election.

Saturday

15

May 2010

0

COMMENTS

Elites Hate When The People Speak

Written by , Posted in Election Time

Much of the animosity we’ve witnessed directed at the Tea Party over the last year has come from political and cultural elites who find regular people disturbing, if not downright disgusting.  The peasants, according to elites, are prone to temper tantrums and just don’t get how things work in the sophisticated political world. That same attitude was on display this last weekend following the primary defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett.

On last Sunday’s Meet the Press, David Brooks described Bennett’s defeat as a “damn outrage.”  Liberal E.J. Dionne went a step further and called it “a nonviolent coup” because the Utah voters dared “deny the sitting Republican senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot.”   Why, it’s almost like these voters think they’re allowed to choose their own representatives or something!

Brooks insists that Bennett is a “good senator” just “trying to get things done.” Unfortunately, what he was trying to get done was not what his electorate wanted him to get done.  While he was busy supporting TARP and advocating an individual mandate for health care, the people of Utah wanted spending restraint and less intrusive government.  On the most important votes regarding these issues, Bennett was too often on the wrong side for their taste.

It’s no damn outrage that voters would send a senator packing after serving three terms when he promised to serve only two. It’s no damn outrage that a Washington insider be sent on his way following the mess Washington has created.  The real damn outrage is the disdain with which elitists like David Brooks treat voters who don’t share their sophisticated policy preferences.

Cross-posted at Big Government and RightWingNews.

Wednesday

12

May 2010

0

COMMENTS

Enough With The Mindless Attacks

Written by , Posted in Election Time

I’m not usually one to complain about partisanship because I believe that ideological competition serves a valuable purpose.  But there comes a point when attacking every little minuscule thing the other side does just becomes stupid.  Case in point, the Republicans have picked Tampa as the location of their 2012 convention and Democrats immediately responded with an “attack” on the choice.

Democrats are preparing efforts to hammer the GOP over its reported selection of Tampa as the location of its 2012 convention, pointing to benefits the city and the state of Florida reaped from stimulus and healthcare reform legislation.

Democrats seized on an expected decision this afternoon by members of a Republican National Committee (RNC) steering committee that will recommend Tampa as the site of their nominating convention.

Give me a break.

Monday

25

January 2010

0

COMMENTS

Wednesday

23

September 2009

0

COMMENTS

NPR’s Crocodile Tears

Written by , Posted in Election Time, Liberty & Limited Government, Media Bias

An NPR piece spotlights Rep. Inglis, a South Carolina Republican facing primary competition after being targeted as a RINO.  I don’t know much about Inglis, so I’m not going to get into the merits of whether or not he is a RINO.  But I do want to point out the utter shallowness and one-sided nature of NPR’s analysis.

The article repeatedly points out the risks of targeting moderate GOPers.  If the RINOs are ousted, the party will be too small to compete, they claim.  There is a basis for this concern, as obviously there must be a balancing act between enforcement of principles and inclusion.  But they present a false choice when they make it seem as if Republicans can either have a smaller, more principled party or a larger one which includes a few squishy moderates.   There are in fact other possibilities.  Disillusioned conservatives that stayed home the last few elections could be persuaded to return if the party more consistently represents its stated principles.  Likewise, if they continue to stray too far from them, even more might abandon the GOP.

What they completely ignore while fretting about the costs of ousting a few RINOs is that the party has already shrunk, and it did it by being too much like the Democrats.  Republicans didn’t lose the House, the Senate and the White House by purging the party of moderates, they lost it by being moderate – i.e. by proposing big government solutions to things like education and prescription drugs, and just generally spending like there was no tomorrow.

But the public is fed up, and there is a strong anti-incumbent, anti-government movement brewing.  If the Republicans are able to capture this movement, a feat that is not at all certain, it is likely to work to their benefit.  But in order to do so, it will necessarily mean replacing some old Washington incumbents with new, more principled blood.