Live Coverage of the Election

Over at Tapped. Also, between Third Way's buffet and our pizza order, I'm way too full. My job is dangerous.

Irrational Voters And The Pundits Who Don't Love Them

Bryan Caplan's essay exploding the "myth" of the rational voter points out a series of facts I agree with and comes to a series of conclusions I'm skeptical of. Obviously I, like most coastal-bred elitists, don't think voters make terribly good decisions. But I also don't think economic actors are particularly rational. Bryan does. And that's where we part: I look at the savings rate, the economic decisions of those with the most acute financial vulnerability, the findings of behavioral economics, and conclude that folks aren't particularly rational, and a bit of asymmetric paternalism goes a long way.

As for his proposals to insulate fiscal policymakers from public opprobrium, creating a sort of economic Supreme Court, that appears an obvious non-starter. Setting aside questions of controversial economic policy (economist actually disagree on a lot of things), it's obviously unfeasible. At some point, appointments will have to be made, and as we've seen in the Supreme Court, the resentment built up during in the interregnum hyperpoliticizes the process during the few moments of electoral input.

Rather than trying to ineffectually chalk out corners where democracy can't go, if you feel voters are working off incomplete or distorted information, it would seem the place to concentrate is on improving or enlarging their knowledge base, not ignoring their preferences. Elites, after all, already ignore their preferences, and rarely lose a fight to popular opinion. But if the disconnect concerns you, there are surely ways to better educate, or at least persuade, the populace. Bringing the contempt of technocrats and their desire to de-democratize into sharper focus will only further estrange them from the public, possibly with disastrous results.

And one last thing. Bryan singles out religion as a place "where irrationality seems especially pronounced." This gets said occasionally, and it's poppycock. It might be factually wrong to believe in God, but it's certainly not irrational (using rational here in the economic sense, as an action that maximizes your utility). Studies universally find that religious belief and participation offer positive returns for individual health, happiness, finances, personal satisfaction, etc. Obviously, the causality is unclear, and probably has a lot to do with social involvement and capital, but since few have suggested more direct routes to network building, becoming religious and taking advantage of belief's institutions and side benefits is perfectly, totally rational. Indeed, not doing so is the stranger course of action.

Trenchant Commentary From Fred Barnes

Steve Benen catches Fred Barnes lamenting the massive political opportunity the GOP abdicated by abandoning Social Security privatization and tax reform. What's remarkable about Barnes' argument here is that it's entirely political: If the GOP had continued to push on these policies, they'd be poised for victory.

You really can't underestimate the degree to which that seems true to Fred Barnes. He wanders around a world of political elites -- from both parties -- where such things as a mortgage tax deduction and personal accounts are considered sensible, bipartisan compromises. Same on trade policy, on immigration reform, and all the rest. Argue over the policy merits as you will, but there's an elite consensus on an array of issues that tricks members into vastly overestimating the popularity of various proposals. It's like the apocryphal Pauline Kael comment that she didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon; Barnes doesn't know anyone who opposes entitlement reform.

This is the fallacy underlying all the dreamy imaginings of a third party ticket. Unity 08 and its various brethren are beloved by media elites for pointing out what the media elites believe to be true: No candidates are grabbing for the popular center. The entitlement reformers aren't socially liberal, the social liberals are insufficiently economically conservative. That this center has no serious constituency doesn't bother anyone because they don't notice. Statisticians call this a "first-order availability bias" -- when your actual environment is filled with a certain sort of thing, you'll extrapolate that outwards as a reasonably accurate illustration of the wider world. Barnes' world is full of folks who adore entitlement reform and think a flat tax is a fine and sensible idea. The wider world is not full of such folks.

I am pleased, however, to see the primary political reporter at one of the most influential conservative magazines so fully buying into this sort of error. If only more GOPers would take Barnes advice, the world would be a better place. Or at least a more Democratic one.

Voter Suppression In Action

Here's how they're doing it. This is a genuine, recorded call from this morning:

I'm Voting Jimmy Jones

The best campaign ad this cycle:

Generic Ballots Through The Ages

Thanks Hotline:

A trip through The Hotline archives for the weekend before the '94 election shows the generic ballot as follows:

ABC: --- 47-46 in favor of the Dems (a 6-point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
Gallup: --- 51-44 for the GOP (a 4 point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
NBC: --- 46-35 for the GOP (a 2 point swing in the two weeks toward the Dems)
Times Mirror: --- 48-43 for the GOP (a 7 point swing in the last month toward the Dems)

Also, today's Fox and CNN polls show double digits leads for the Dems, so it looks like the Pew, WaPo, and Gallup polls picked up some weekend distortion. Or not. Generic ballots, as you can see above, are notoriously inaccurate and unpredictable. Their most important function is to create a sense of momentum that the media can report on. In this election particularly, preferences will interact with gerrymandering, GOTV operations, money, ads, voter suppression, robocalling, weather, child care, and all the other sundry elements of a national vote that don't show so easily in the polls. So don't get complacent. Hell, stay scared. And go over to DoMoreThanVote.org to help out.

Model Politics In Action

In the previous post I lamented the free trade movement's nifty trick of arguing theory rather than policy:

They've transformed debates over specific legislation (NAFTA, CAFTA) into debates over abstract theory. So the economists line up against protectionism, the pundits explain the pitfalls of restricting trade, and nobody actually reads or analyzes the likely outcomes of the particular trade changes proposed by the bill. It's a neat way to pass legislation, but not quite optimal. Congress passes bills, not models.

Brink Lindsey brought this to mind in his quite smart, but slightly off-point, reply to my recent writings on the inequitable distribution of growth. Rather than argue over how the pie is being distributed, or how incomes can be boosted, or what our society will look like if wage stagnation sustains itself, he wants to argue over whether there's "something wrong with labor markets." In other words, am I on the right side of the economic consensus on labor markets, or the wrong one? But that's the wrong question: Just because the labor market is working right doesn't mean it's working well.

As Lindsey would tell you, there's plenty wrong with labor markets. The minimum wage, for one. Government regulation, for another. Unions also. And frankly, he's right: labor markets work a lot better when they're unfettered by goo-goo interventions. But such smoothly-functioning markets aren't good for our economy or our society. Vastly inequitable distribution isn't good for our economy or our society. And yes, something is rather awry in the labor markets when the top one percent is so rapidly and vastly outpacing the top 10 percent. Can someone explain to me what the market is seeing in that slice of the income distribution that so sets them apart from the minor Master of the Universe right below them? And why that judgment is desirable or beneficial or efficient?

This focus on discrete bits of economic theory can work out very poorly in the end. Back during the NAFTA fight, Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey Garten predicted 6%-12% growth for Mexico during the next decade. His estimates, while a smidge optimistic, were basically in line with the economic consensus because they were basically in line with the economic models. So what happened? The real growth number was 3.6 percent, about half Garten's low end prediction. Wages went up 15 percent, and accelerating inequality assures that median wages went up by far less than that. In other words, the model's prediction failed (which is different, to be clear, than saying that NAFTA was "bad"). Mexico's trade policy may be better, but their society hasn't much improved. And that, in the end, should be the metric. It's one I'd like to hear Lindsey say a bit more about.

The Pareto Fallacy

For no reason I can really understand, various technocrats on both ends of the aisles have convinced themselves that the relative rarity of their political preferences in the electorate is attributable to a simple lack of technical expertise among voters. Matt attributes this to what I'll call the Pareto-fallacy (named for the concept of Pareto optimality): The idea that because a certain policy could enhance widespread well-being through progressive and equitable distribution of its benefits, it will. Too often, it won't. We've a world of rational, self-interested actors where certain individuals and groups have far more power than others and that has the distributionary outcomes you'd expect. That we can construct models where power is flattened and Pareto works isn't particularly important.

This has been a nifty trick of the free trade movement: They've transformed debates over specific legislation (NAFTA, CAFTA) into debates over abstract theory. So the economists line up against protectionism, the pundits explain the pitfalls of restricting trade, and nobody actually reads or analyzes the likely outcomes of the particular trade changes proposed by the bill. It's a neat way to pass legislation, but not quite optimal. Congress passes bills, not models.

I've been thinking about this stuff over the weekend thanks to Greg Mankiw's republishing of a suppressed Fortune column he wrote explaining why it's rational for many Americans not to vote. "Sometimes," he writes, "the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home...If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision."

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This makes a superficial sort of sense if you assume a commonality of interests between educated and uneducated, poor and rich, black and white, etc. And, to some degree, there certainly is such a commonality. But not on everything. If you receive expansive health care benefits with very little cost-sharing from your employer, for instance, your immediate interests are different from an low-wage, uninsured worker. A system that advantages them will require greater buy-in from you. If you're the owner of a profitable retail outlet with very low labor costs, you don't want a sharp raise in the minimum wage. If you're the low labor cost in question, you do.

In both these cases, the better-off, more educated end is, statistically, better informed and likelier to vote. Their interests, however, do not directly coincide with many of those who aren't voting. Obviously, many of us vote against our economic interests (in both directions) and evaluate on metrics distinct from our direct self-interest. But it's not rational for the country's non-voters to expect that our engagement in the political process will bring about a better outcome for them.

Crossposted, in true Pareto efficiency fashion, at Tapped.

All done!

The Thinkery

One of this blog's finest voices, Stephen, has started his own blog, focusing on matters of religion, politics, and philosophy. I'm a bit loathe to link because I so enjoy his contributions here, but if you love something, you have to set it free, right?

The Voter Strikes Back

Last night, I fired up ye olde MoveOn.org, connected my bluetooth, and did some phone banking right from the comfort of my friend's living room.  The MoveOn architecture, which furnishes a constant stream of new numbers and loads up a dynamic script able to record and respond to all eventualities (answering machine, hang-up, etc), is really quite amazing.  If you're looking for a way to get involved but don't want to stray from the couch, here's your chance.

But what you gain through avoiding locomotion, you lose in self-esteem.  There's little more depressing than phone banking, which consists of nothing save you bothering people who don't want to be bothered, and are all to happy to tell you so.  My friendliest conversation -- by far -- was with a Republican woman I neither convinced nor got threatened by.  Out of 60 calls, I reached 10 humans (though left a lot of messages).  Of those 10 humans, I think four would tell me who they were voting for.  A fair swath of the rest told me, semi-politely, to fuck off.  Indeed, the annoyance is such that you wonder if you're not turning potential voters off -- which is precisely what the GOP is banking on with their abhorrent robocall suppression scheme.  These guys don't deserve a democracy.

But, the pollsters, data divers, and all the rest assure us this helps, so it gets done.  By the end of a few hours though, you feel abused.  I've never been that unlikable in my life.  I'm already pretty polite, but I hereby pledge to be kinder to telemarketers.  Unlike them, however, I was using my cell phone, as are most of the MoveOn corps.  And so my number must have been showing up on caller IDs.  Because some Virginian or another recorded it and spent the rest of the night calling me back at ten or fifteen minute intervals.  When I'd answer, he'd mumble at me, stay silent, or otherwise have some fun.  And it was, in fact, pretty funny.

Well-played, sir, well-played.  Now go vote for Jim Webb on Tuesday.

Can the Dirt Make the National Radar?

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

via Mark A.R. Kleiman and TPM, the art of fraud has now reached official campaign operations within the Republican. Let's get this down to one two sentences to fit on The Today Show:

Republicans are harrassing voters while pretending to be Democrats. More proof that they have no idea how to run the country and are desparately trying to hold onto power.

Period. Full stop. There's no "Oh, it's the NRCC, not the campaign". No "The candidate has called the NRCC to stop". No nothing. Those distinctions don't matter at this point. Everyone's making lots of calls, but only one party is actively trying to defraud voters.

This is the sort of thing that needs exposure, now. If you can tape calls, do so, and send it to the Metro desk of your local newspaper. The punchline is the line above; Republicans are harrassing voters while pretending to be Democrats. The sooner the better; because it really needs to get on local news on either Monday night or Tuesday morning.

You Want To Be Part Of This

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

Since Wednesday, I've been here in Ohio's Second District, helping Victoria Wulsin in her race against Jean Schmidt.  The latest polling shows us leading 48-45 after Schmidt made what's probably the dumbest premeditated error I've ever heard of a Congressional candidate making -- supporting the construction of a nuclear waste dump in her own district.  We are optimistic:

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I've spent most of my last few days helping organize canvassers -- preparing the materials for them to hand out and working on maps of the areas where they'll knock on doors.  I'm staying in the home of Tony Vila, a member of the fundraising team that outraised Jean Schmidt in the last two filing periods.  The enormously tall dude is Dave Porter, who wrote this funny press release spinning the Cincinnati Enquirer's halfhearted Schmidt endorsement before the endorsement even showed up on anybody's doorstep.  (Response this rapid was brought to you by the magic of RSS.)  Dave's current job is coordinating volunteers, which he does with Iraq War veteran Tom Cassidy (second from top), who often gives moving speeches introducing Victoria to crowds.  Photo credits go to Deputy Campaign Manager Lisa Sherman, on loan to us from Emily's List, who has done all sorts of things, large and small, to create the cameraderie depicted above.

If you'd like to end up in a much larger group hug than this Tuesday night, please do what Nicholas was encouraging you to do in his previous post.  In particular, call whatever Democratic campaign you can help and tell them that you can help them get out the vote on Election Day.  Even if you only have a couple hours you can spare, they can probably make good use of you.  Early morning volunteers are especially prized!  We have people going out at 4:30 AM to put Post-It notes on our supporters' doors reminding them to vote.  So don't let the fact that you've got to work during normal business hours stop you.  Waking up a couple hours early one day is a small price to pay for the immense effectiveness that you will have in giving the Democrats control of the House and bring down hell on the Bush Administration.  And if you happen to be near Ohio's Second District, please please click this link to volunteer for Victoria, come out, and help us.  I will dance with joy when I see you.  You'll also score an invitation to what will be one of the best Election Night victory parties in the country.

All done!

It's Everybody's Fault But Mine

(Posted by John.)

I don't suppose there's anything I can add in particular to the glorious sight of neoconservatives like Richard Perle, Ken Adelman, and David Frum saying that Bush is stupid and Rumsfeld is incompetent.  At first I was consumed by rage at these cowards who refuse to acknowledge any consequence to anything, ever.  And the rage is still there, no doubt.

But when I saw Perle's comment that he only told the truth because he believed it wouldn't be published until after the election, I had to laugh.  I mean, there's cowardice, and then there's cowardice about your own cowardice.  Meta-cowardice, if you will.

There's one thing we must object to though, all of us:  The neoconservatives have no right - none whatsoever - to claim Rumsfeld was incompetent.

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Richard Perle, for one, is quoted as saying:

"Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

I believe Perle on this 100%, if only because I don't believe Richard Perle is capable of planning a glass of ice water if you spot him the ice.  However, the idea that neoconservatives had no input is ridiculous on its face, unless Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz are no longer neocons.  Neoconservative ideas - particularly the fetishization of "transformation" and the Revolution in Military Affairs - were deeply intertwined with the execution of the war plan.  Any of the recent histories of the Iraq War show how Rumsfeld was obsessed with minimizing the amount of troops and equipment that made it to Iraq.

Now, "transformation" and the RMA may be good ideas - that's a whole other issue - but the fact is the neoconservatives adopted those ideas for extremely specific reasons.  For men like Perle, Ledeen, and the others, the RMA was a means to a particular end, one they weren't shy about advocating:  America's wars needed to be smaller, faster, and lighter so that America could fight more wars.  America's role, as seen by the neocons, was to fight evil regimes wherever they are, as quickly as possible, and America needed a military that could do that.

Rumsfeld, for his part, took that to heart - Iraq needed to be won with an economy of force so that America could move on to Syria, Iran, North Korea, or whoever.  In that he was following the neoconservative playbook to the letter, and men like those interviewed by Vanity Fair have no standing to say he was incompetent.  Those of us who were actually, you know, correct about this war being a disaster get to do that.

All done!

Pardon me?

(Posted by John.)

GREELEY, Colo., Nov. 4 -- During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the war was all about oil. "Nonsense," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared. "This is not about that," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil -- President Bush....

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"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," he said at a rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.).  "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision."

And America, faced with the horrifying prospect of $7 gasoline, would promptly abandon Israel to be destroyed by the Islamofascists?

I didn't think so.  This is what I've never understood about folks screaming about how those dirty Muslims were gonna jack up the price of oil - so what?  I mean obviously there's an economic cost to be paid here, and a severe one, but America didn't stop supporting Israel during the 1970s or 1980s, though it did occasionally pursue a more even-handed policy - witness Bush the Elder's efforts.

Is Bush saying here that America's support for Israel - or Saudi Arabia, or Qatar for that matter - is contingent on stable oil prices?  Is he saying that this hypothetical strategy could actually work?  The historical evidence is pretty contrary - America didn't abandon the Saudis after 1973, after all.  If that's not what Bush is saying, why bring it up at all?  The far more realistic scenario, it should be said, is the one we actually live with every day - regimes like Saudi Arabia and Iran getting rich from high oil prices and giving terrorists a cut.

To put it more generically, what security and defense policies is America pursuing today that America would not pursue if gasoline were $10/gallon?  Frankly, I think that list is pretty small.  Israel would still be an ally, the Saudis would probably be even more valuable, not less, and America's interests in smaller producers around the world would be even more pronounced.  But if Bush is going to raise this issue, I think he owes it to America's allies to spell out what the limits of America's friendship are.

As a sidenote, it's worth wondering, for a moment, who Bush thinks is going to take control in Iraq when the US leaves. Islamic extremists?  Likely, yes. Will they be worse than, say, the Iranian or Saudi Islamic extremists who currently control a large chunk of the world's oil?  Even if they were worse, could they do much more damage than Saudi- and Iranian-financed terrorism already has?  Remember, that list includes 9/11.

All done!

Haggard Confesses to Lifelong “Sexual Problem”

Shakes here...

C&L has a video snippet of Haggard’s letter to his church being read, in which he confesses to the little lifelong “sexual problem” most of us refer to as “being gay.” Most of us doesn’t include Pastor Ted, though, who still resides in his twisted world of fantastic delusion, where homosexuality is just a fancy name for a sexual temptation that can be overcome with enough prayer and diligence.

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According to a spokesman for the church that has now canned his ass, Pastor Ted continues to deny “engaging in homosexual acts or being gay,” admitting only having received a massage from a gay man, which was cited as the grounds for his removal. And in true self-loathing closet case fashion, he used his admission of being “a deceiver and a liar” as an opportunity to further malign the LGBT community, by treating homosexuality as the epitome of depravity:

"The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it all my adult life," he said.

Oh, go fuck yourself, you sanctimonious shit. There’s nothing “repulsive” or “dark” about being gay. What’s repulsive is your chronic compulsion to slander gays, and I believe you’ll find the world a lot less dark if you just step out of that closet in which you’ve been hiding.

Haggard is, to be sure, a pitiable creature, another victim of the so-called morality that casts same-sex attraction as a conquerable bit of devilry, like the offer of a rich dessert during a post-holiday diet. Oh, I really shouldn’t…well, maybe just one bite… Wholly disregarded are all the parts of the human experience that flow from attraction—love, family, fulfillment. Requiring people to hide and deny one of the most fundamental aspects of their natures necessarily causes them to seek out a sad approximation, and they take down with them second-choice spouses, children, and the friends and family who inevitably become entwined in their lifelong lie until it unravels. There’s nothing moral about that.

But given the chance to extricate himself from this large and spectacular life of deceit, Haggard balked. He chose not to explain himself for what he is, a gay man cosseted in expectations of self-delusion, but instead to further condemn the people who are brave enough not to cower behind a curtain of deception—the out LGBT community who live lives that are “repulsive and dark.” Even as his treachery and hypocrisy are nakedly exposed, he cannot tell the truth, even to himself. Still he speaks of temptation, and seeks redemption not from those he has endeavored to destroy as part of his self-denial, but from those who only love him cloaked in that lie, who destroyed him.

There is, perhaps, no greater evidence that homosexuality is not a choice, not an inducement to sin against a singular goodness, than people like Haggard—people who have every reason not to be gay, who have every alleged tool at their disposal to counter the “wicked urge,” and fail nonetheless. It is in people like Haggard that we see the truth behind the assertions that gay marriage will undermine the family, that gays recruit, that unchecked homosexuality will be ruinous for society—because Haggard’s family might not have existed were gay marriage legal, because Haggard felt as though he were being tugged astray by every out gay man he saw, because the existence of homosexuality, as just another shade on the spectrum of human experience, was ruinous for him.

Haggard believes even now he is fighting a demon, something outside of himself that, given enough willpower, enough moral rectitude, enough prayer, he can vanquish. He cannot bring himself to admit, and to tell the millions who share his view and watch with horror his fall from grace, that he is wrong, that they’re all wrong, that he’s fighting himself.

All done!

Saddam Sentenced to Swing

Shakes here...

In a verdict that I imagine surprises approximately no one, Saddam Hussein has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and has been sentenced to death.

An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, convicting the former dictator and six subordinates for one nearly quarter-century-old case of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter.

…"Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Saddam cried out after the verdict, before bailiffs took his arms and walked the once all-powerful leader from the courtroom. There was a hint of a smile on Saddam's face.

That is all.

Unsettling

From Hotline:

Pew is out with their final pre-election poll and just like the ABC/Wash. Post poll, Pew shows Republicans with momentum. In the generic ballot, Dems lead by just 4 points. More importantly, the GOP has made significant cuts into the Dems once gigantic lead among indies. Also of note, from the release:

Also from Hotline:

"There also are some indications that Sen. John Kerry’s “botched joke” about the war Iraq may have had a modest impact on the race. Fully 84% of voters say they have heard a lot or a little about Kerry’s remarks – with 60% saying they have heard a lot. By comparison, just 26% say they have heard a lot about President Bush’s statement that he will keep Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of Defense until he leaves office in 2009."

Damn liberal media.

The Fallacy of Trust

I don't know what prescriptive power there is in it, but Ross Douthat's observation on the initial credibility of the Bush administration is, I think, a too often neglected insight on how America stumbled into Iraq:

If you had asked me, circa 1999, to pick out a group of senior GOPers who I would have wanted at the table in a national-security crisis - well, I'm not sure I could have done better than Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, with (in theory, though of course it didn't turn out that way) Brent Scowcroft whispering in Condi's ear, and George H.W. whispering in his son's. This is how the Bush Administration was sold to people, on foreign affairs at least, and I remember watching television after 9/11 and being so relieved to have Powell around, and Cheney, and Rummy, instead of, say, Anthony Lake or Madeleine Albright.

They were the "Vulcans," after all: Serious, steady, competent hands who, by sheer dint of experience and assumed seriousness, entirely eradicated concerns over a political neophyte's foreign policy acumen. Here's Charlie Rose interviewing Margaret Carlson:

ROSE: Where were you on the war?

CARLSON: I was, give diplomacy a chance. [Brightening] I was with Colin Powell the whole way along! Whatever Colin Powell—

ROSE: Oh, so whatever Colin— You know. OK.

CARLSON: Yeah. Whatever Colin does, I’ll go with.

And as Yglesias occasionally points out, Tony Blair richly deserves a spot in the lineup too. This is a disillusionment Vietnam also triggered, but it's worth remembering that these guys -- save for Bush -- were not, in the initial analysis, recognized as a pantheon of fools and buffoons. It was war that exposed them as such, just as it did to McNamara and all the rest in Vietnam.

There's nothing wrong with using the positions of trusted figures in order to figure out your own leanings. A lot of policy research comes out in a given day and plenty of complicated conversations have already occurred -- it's impossible to navigate through it all without trusting the analyses of certain sources. But wars are a different matter. History shows they cannot be greenlighted on the assumption that fine leadership will elevate an unlikely undertaking. The leadership will fail, and so will the venture.

Wealth Explosions

Here's one for the Big Government files: Under Clinton, cross-county markers of inequality saw inequality increases driven by tech booms in discrete portions of the economy. Under Bush, the tech effect has largely vanished, only to be replaced by defense contracts, which have vastly enriched various counties in the greater DC area. So we've seen the redistributionist effect that liberals are always promising national investment strategies (say, the Apollo Project) will bring, but it's all been to make missiles, and all gone, quietly and unaccountably, to areas that may or may not have needed it. Someone give me a good reason we shouldn't be doing the same, save in a more transparent and targeted manner, for renewable energy. Someone promise me the right won't complain about such schemes -- as they haven't about the under-the-radar wealth transfer to arms producers -- when we try.

Markets In Everything*

According to The Hotline, the GOP had to increase its election day pay from $75 to $100 in parts of New England due to a lack of willing volunteers.

*Apologies to Tyler Cowen.

Predictions Open Thread

It's that time -- How do you see things shaking out?

I'm going with a 23 seat pick-up in the House, five seats in the Senate (RI, OH, PA, MT, VA), but a four seat total gain as we lose Maryland. Eight or nine governorships. What say you?

Update: Beyond the numbers, my gut feeling is a weird one: I can't imagine we won't win and can't believe we won't lose. I came of political age in the Bush era, after all.

Do More Than Vote

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

We're starting to reach the endgame of the election. Almost all the final ads have been cut and are on the air, all the mail has been sent, and all that's left now is a series of GOTV canvasses and phone calls. Voters are starting to get tired; absentee voters are getting their second and third calls, nagging them to send in their ballot, and frustration is starting to mount. Republicans are outspending Democrats on calls by a large margin, because the calls don't do much. The hope is to frustrate Dem-leaning independents to the point where they protest by simply not voting.

At this point, campaigns' biggest need is probably poll watchers. It's hard to find people who can help out on election day. If you can take even half the day off, try to find a campaign near you, give them a call, and ask where you can be a poll watcher. A staggering percentage of the country lives within an hour's drive of a competitive race, so there aren't many excuses.

"Visit My Blog Thread!"

This must be the saddest website of any Democrat running this cycle. Erik Fleming is challenging Trent Lott in Mississippi and, for some reason, he appears to have hired Borat as his web developer. I think my favorite part exhorts the reader to visit "my blog thread on Mississippi politics." At first I thought that was just a mistranslation but, in fact, it's some weird mutant mixture of a blog and a message board thread.

Don't Blame Us!

Shakes here...

Oh, this is just priceless. The architects of the Iraq War are throwing Bush to the wolves to save their own tattered reputations, claiming the problem wasn’t their idea, but Bush’s total and complete lack of the merest appearance of competency—which, apparently, they never noticed. Sing it, neocons!

Richard Perle: “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No’…”

Delphic, huh? Well, that’s the best euphemism for “vaguely cognizant of obvious facts” I’ve heard yet!

David Frum: “[I]t now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because ‘the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them.’ This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on ‘failure at the center’—starting with President Bush.”

Bitch, that’s cold. After G-Dub turned your “axis of evil” speech into the Shit Heard Round the World, all you’ve got to give back is shade?! Dayum! 

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Kenneth Adelman: “I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”

Ouch!

Michael Ledeen: “Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes.”

I don’t even know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.

Frank Gaffney: “[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity.”

Snap!

Michael Rubin: “Where I most blame George Bush is that through his rhetoric people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves.”

Is he talking about the Iraq War, or Mark Foley?

Eliot Cohen: “I do think it's going to end up encouraging various strands of Islamism, both Shia and Sunni, and probably will bring de-stabilization of some regimes of a more traditional kind, which already have their problems.… The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it.”

Fo shizzle.

Mind you, these were the same diseased todgers predicting that we’d be greeted as liberators and the reconstruction would pay for itself, and accusing anyone who said before the war that Bush was an incompetent doofus who would make a hash job of this adventure, of being traitorous, unpatriotic imbeciles who didn’t know what we were talking about. So, you know, I really appreciate what they've got to say now.

All done!

Incompetence Dodgers Convention

This Vanity Fair piece on the neoconservatives' attempts to distance themselves from the Iraq War will be the talk of the blogosphere for a bit, so you may as well go read it. As it turns out, the neocons got nothing wrong and made no mistakes, save to trust George W. Bush. Bizarrely, this only became clear three or so years after the invasion, but it's good to know their names are finally cleared and I can once again trust Richard Perle.