David for Delegate

You'll see a little less of David on Ripple of Hope over the coming weeks and months, because he's going to be embroiled in a Democratic primary campaign for the VA 45th. I'm cutting and pasting below an announcement email we sent to friends and family yesterday (edited a bit to keep some strategy closer to the vest). The campaign website should be up and running by the end of the weekend. We're running an honest-to-goodness grassroots campaign over here - if you like what you've seen of him and agree that his is an important voice to send to Richmond, we need you! Send an email to davidfordelegate@mac.com and we'll talk about how you can help.

Dear Friends and Family,

I apologize for the mass mailing, and I've scheduled time to call just as many of you as I can, but things are moving very quickly and I wanted to get in touch as soon as possible.

Our state delegate, Marian Van Landingham, unexpectedly will not be running for reelection this year for health reasons. She's an amazing woman who has been a terrific representative for the VA 45th for 22 years. We will miss her leadership.

I've decided to run for the seat. My life in public service began when I was 17 years old and swore my first oath upon joining the Air Force. Since hanging up my uniform, I've looked forward to continuing to serve, fighting for social justice, equal rights, and a brighter future for our community and our country. Our nation was founded with a powerful vision of freedom and equality that was a world apart from the reality of America at the time. I believe that each generation has moved us a little closer to the nation we were founded to be. With your support, together we can continue pushing America forward in the direction of its ideals. I'm sad to come to this opportunity in this particular way, but I'm excited to throw my hat in the ring.

I live in a very politically active, heavily Democratic district, which means the field will be very crowded and the race will be won or lost in the Primary on June 14th. To distinguish myself quickly I need to raise a ton of money and a ton of volunteer commitments in a hurry. It's always hard to ask, but I'm going to have to get used to it: Can I count on your support? Checks can be made out to Friends of David Englin, and mailed to 1505 Wayne Street, Alexandria VA, 22301. Please let us know if we can count you in our volunteer ranks, as well.

I look forward to the next few months of campaigning! Shayna and Caleb are geared up to help, and I can't tell you how much it's meant to me as I've considered this move that I have a group of friends and family I know I can count on.

I hope to speak to each of you individually over the next few days and weeks. Please feel free to call if you've got questions or words of wisdom!

All the best,

David

Tsunami

I'm at a loss of words with regards to the massive devastation wreaked on South Asia. In the pages of the Washington Post over the past few days there have been dozens of accounts of personal loss beyond anything I can comprehend, and images of people suffering that I can't get out of my head. I tried this afternoon to get my head around it by thinking of those tragedies that have somehow touched me personally. The most catastrophic I could think of were the attacks on September 11th. David was in the Pentagon that day, and I remember vividly the hours I spent on the floor of our apartment, trying to keep it together in front of our son while I waited to hear that he was okay. As dramatic as that day was, we lost a tiny fraction of the number of souls taken in the Tsunami, and the vast majority of us lost essentially nothing - myself, thankfully, included. I tried to magnify that horrible day by the orders of magnitude of horror visited upon the people of South Asia, and really just couldn't grasp it.

Our friends at Oxblog have a big list of organizations helping out. Take a look, and give as generously as you can.

[For those of you waiting for it - I did get your emails - I'm waiting to post on the paltry $35m commitment by the Bushies to see if that really is the final number. I just can't imagine that's really it.]

Back to reporters and source confidentiality

I absolutely refuse to let this issue die. It's hugely, hugely important to a free and functioning democracy. Check out Chris Dodd's piece in today's Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30337-2004Dec27.html

When someone like Dodd starts to speak up, it makes me a little more hopeful that federal legislation might come along to give us a better guarantee regarding the protection of sources.

I don't know if this is a bi-partisan, non-partisan or completely partisan issue. My hope, of course, is that it is non-partisan. Sure feels like it should be a no-brainer to me. I'm a little worried, though, since it was the Valerie Plame leak perpetrated by the Bush Administration that seriously launched this whole thing, and because this Administration, although certainly not necessarily the Republican Party as a whole, that seems to favor such extreme secrecy. If Republicans in Congress don't see this as important or necessary, the damage will be done before we have a Congress that will take action on it. I hope and pray that isn't the case.

And More Republican Moral Bankruptcy: "Because I Said So" Doesn't Count as an Argument

I'm a regular reader and sometime correspondent with the writer of Soxblog (he's even got a link from Ripple of Hope, despite being a raving conservative), so it pains me to lump him in my trifecta of posts about values, and the GOP's lack of them. But he's put himself there squarely in a duo of posts on the left's response to the Mosul attacks.

In the first he takes Kos (of Daily Kos fame) to task for his postings on the subject, claiming that Kos' bile directed at Bush indicates a "moral blindness" with respect to the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks in the first place. In a follow-up post he cites the vast amount of (assumedly morally upstanding) support he's received via email, and calls out the six messages he got in disagreement. I'm one of the six, and this is what I wrote him:

Re: your post on Kos: While I don't ever agree with the tone on Kos, and think the knee-jerk anti-Bushism (to the exclusion of any real analysis) is counterproductive, your post on his take on the Mosul attack was equally unhelpful. If I see a car careening around the corner and I shove you into the road in front of it, I'm as responsible for your injuries as the driver of the car - even if said driver intended to hit you all along. The list of reasons is long that I see Bush, et. al., as having shoved our men and women in uniform in front of careening cars - Mosul just the latest of of those cars. . . . It's a line of thinking that doesn't lessen the intensity of my feelings about our enemies one whit. It also deepens the intensity of my feelings about how the men in charge have mismanaged the situation. It's not zero-sum - I can hate our enemies even as as I hate the way our President (and all of his men) has needlessly put me, my family, and my many friends in uniform at even greater risk.

Here's Soxblog's retort:

But I also received six letters taking me to task for the post. Interestingly, all six letter writers employed the exact same logic and all used a similar analogy to express this logic. To them, President Bush caused the problems in Iraq and the terrorists are unwitting or at least non-deliberate actors in the drama President Bush set into motion . . . In a delicious irony, all six letter writers unwittingly proved my post's point. My point was that where the murderous terrorists (or “insurgents”) are concerned, many folks are simply unable to grasp the profound evil that we’re dealing with here. By comparing the terrorists to insects, zoo beasts, an inanimate object and a drunk, they neatly displayed exactly the kind of moral blindness I was writing about. By failing to grapple with the evil INTENT that is at the heart of the Jihadi endeavor they have made themselves look foolish, and that's a charitable description.

I've struggled this afternoon to put my finger on exactly why this response made me question my earlier conviction about Soxblog's intellect - and moral rectitude. I just realized what it is: he makes no argument. He just states that if you don't explicitly blame the terrorists in a given observation on the topic, and you assign blame to the Bush administration, then you de facto just don't get what we're dealing with. Period. Because he said so. Either he doesn't make an argument because he doesn't recognize that he needs one, or he doesn't make an argument because he recognizes that any possible arguments are fatuous. I'll help him out, just in case it's the former.

The bad guys are bad. Really really bad. They do things that make them lower than low, and they pose a legitimate and real threat to the safety of the USA. (We may not agree about whether it's the only threat, or even the only one that matters.) They bear responsibility for their actions and our efforts to bring them to justice and prevent their further success must be serious and immediate. Some (which could mean a minority or a majority - a determination which should be based on analysis) of those efforts will no doubt be military. That's the background. We all agree. There is no disagreement there. We're on the same page.

Where we're not on the same page: no matter whether 2% or 100% of our strategy to deal with the threat posed by the bad guys is military, the Commander in Chief is responsible for making sure that when we decide to put our men and women in uniform in harm's way, it's only when necessary, and only fully prepared to confront the dangers we expect them to face. Bush failed in that responsibility, making it easier for the terrorists to successfully act on their intent to kill and maim our uniformed servicemembers. Therefore he is ALSO responsible for the casualties. Not SOLELY - see the preceding paragraph for the basics under which WE'RE ALL operating - but most assuredly to blame. As I said in my original message, it's not zero sum - there's infinite amount of blame to go around.

Now, Soxblog, if you've got an actual argument to make about why the guy who put those killed and maimed servicemembers in harm's way without adequate preparation or provisions is in no way responsible, then have at it. If you then have a follow up argument regarding why assigning that blame to Bush somehow reduces the amount of responsibility that can be assigned to the killers themselves...again, have at it. Finally, if you have some kind of argument regarding how the severity of the evil evinced by our enemies is related to the limits of Bush's incompetence (you seem to assume, without actually saying so, that because our enemies are evil, questioning Bush's competence is evidence of a lack of understanding of our enemies - a position that makes no intuitive sense), then please, by all means, make it. Know in advance, though, that just stating a string of non-sequitors and calling me names does not actually constitute an argument. It just makes you look, well, foolish. And more than a little morally bankrupt.

More Republican Values

Ah, values. Evidently my flu-induced haze awakened a new sense of outrage at the complete subversion of the idea of "values" - and the notion that Republicans have laudable ones. Running scared from same-sex marriage, and committing yourself to making sure every fetus conceived is carried to term, do not a moral party make.

Lest there be any doubt that the GOP is in fact as corrupt as it seems, and has been since those heady days of the 1994 "Republican Revolution", the building story of the wink and nudge acceptance of the wholesale screwing of Indian tribes by Republican Revolution Crusader Jack Abramoff should serve as a telling reminder.

Shame on them, and shame on us for not being on the ball enough to turn them out. Say it with me: we are the party of values. Say it loud, say it proud, and campaign on it, dammit.

Maybe I'm Missing Something...

I've been laid up with the flu for a few days (laid up as in asleep for about 48 hours), and for the few days before that I was more or less chained to my desk, so I'm catching up late to the blog-o-sphere's fixation on this poll and the imminent demise of Christmas. To address them in turn:

There isn't a whole lot of mystery to me about why the support for the Iraq War (going there in the first place, versus finishing the job now that we're there) has dropped precipitously since the election. For the months leading up to the election, coverage of the war was limited more or less to its political ramifications. What would Bush say and do about it? What would Kerry say about it today? Tomorrow? With the exception of the Alqaaqaa flap, specific coverage of how the war in Iraq was going, exactly, and the mighty cost of Bush's bungling of it, was diffuse. By and large, we got to see Bush's macho patriotic certainty - in what, it wasn't entirely clear, but it was certain that he was certain - and Kerry's flailing. Strong beats weak every time, regardless of which side is right - we went with Bush and his gung-ho version of the war.

Now the election's over, and Bush is still bully on the war, but the news is no longer about how he and his erstwhile opponent feels about it, but how it's actually going. We're hearing more about the massive casualties - in lives and grievous wounds - and it's a little harder to be gung-ho with him. I'm a believer in Occam's Razor; I must be missing the need for complicated answers (like the usually astute Josh Marshall's explanation of voter anomie, more or less).

On the imminent threat to Christmas, I'd just offer this: I wonder if any of those worried about its demise in America bothered to walk outside today. I wonder if maybe they tried to go shopping. Or the to doctor. Or accomplish anything at any state or federal entity. There is one national religious holiday, and it is Christmas. You may disapprove of the way America chooses to celebrate it (whether your criticisms come from the left - too much commercialism! - or the right - not enough public Jesus!), but America celebrates Christmas, and is in no danger of changing that anytime soon. Again, maybe I'm missing something.

No Inaugural Parties? Bull Moose Has It Right

The inestimable Bull Moose has it exactly right in this post in favor of cancelling the inaugural festivities in deference to the fact that we're a nation at war.

Regardless of who won, when our men and women in uniform are threatened by suicide bombers abroad and inadequate care for their injuries stateside it's no time for $40 million in official parties.

Again, the questions of the day are about values, right? What values do millions of dollars in parties during wartime belie?

The True Values of The Day

The RIPPLE OF HOPE love affair with E.J. Dionne is no secret to regular readers. He's so right on with this Christmas Eve column that I hope you'll forgive me for sharing it in its entirety:

The True Values of The Day
by E. J. Dionne Jr.
The Washington Post, Friday, December 24, 2004; Page A17

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God -- for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God. -- the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador

This is supposed to be the year when moral values dominated politics. On the eve of Christmas, let's talk about values.

In any given city this Christmas, homeless people will not be looking forward to opening presents. They will be lucky to have a place to go at all. They will, by Archbishop Romero's radical and demanding definition, be the true participants in Christmas. But it's unlikely that the rest of us will think much about them. Isn't that a question of values?

Unemployed parents who love their children as much as the rest of us love ours won't have the same chance to show them materially the love they feel in their hearts. God willing, their kids will understand. But some kids, watching other kids in the television ads, might wonder: Why can those parents give their kids all that stuff that my parents can't give me? Isn't that a question of values?

In the fall, I got the chance to moderate a post-election panel at Fordham University's Center on Religion and Culture in New York. Former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska noted that on Jan. 1, the quotas protecting what's left of the U.S. textile and apparel industry will end. "Over a 12-month period," he said, "three or four million jobs that are currently paying $8 to $10 an hour are going bye-bye unless those jobs are protected.

"Now, I hazard to guess that most of those individuals will move into the ranks of poverty," Kerrey went on. "They'll move to minimum-wage jobs, which is 20 or 30 percent under poverty today. . . . If it's a young woman who gets pregnant and says, 'I don't have health insurance anymore. I can't -- it's expensive to raise a baby right today' -- that they're more likely to choose an abortion even if Bush appoints anti-Roe v. Wade justices that overturn it, because they're going to make what I consider to be a tragic choice out of economic necessity."

Whatever you think of abortion or, for that matter, free trade, who can argue with Kerrey's central assertion: that the abortion rate is more likely to go up when economic opportunities for the poor are curtailed? (As Mark W. Roche of Notre Dame noted in the New York Times this fall, the abortion rate dropped by 11 percent during the prosperous years of the Clinton presidency.) Shouldn't all who care about abortion be passionately committed to changing the economic circumstances in which women make their choices? Isn't that a question of values?

In many parts of our country, parents who lack health insurance are wondering if they will be around for their children next Christmas. A mother has a lump on her breast and worries about the cost of having it checked out. A father has chronic chest pains but decides that seeing a cardiologist would be too expensive. They ought to get help. Isn't that a question of values?

In Iraq, young men and women serving their country complain of equipment shortages and wonder why their leaders didn't send enough troops in the first place. Could it be that acknowledging the true cost of the Iraqi invasion at the outset might have endangered all those tax cuts -- and might have reduced support for the war? Isn't that a question of values?

Archbishop Romero was murdered on March 24, 1980, because he chose to stand with El Salvador's poor against a repressive regime. "Brothers, you came from our own people," Romero told soldiers in El Salvador's army. "You are killing your own brothers. . . . In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: Stop the repression."

How many among the cardinals and bishops and pastors and preachers and televangelists who now enjoy favor in high places would have the courage to do what Archbishop Romero did? In fairness, how many of the rest of us would? Isn't that a question of values?

A child was born in a manger because there was no room for his family anywhere else. Wasn't that a question of values?

Here's wishing all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas.

Rumsfeld violated me

I second Tiziana's comments reacting to new revelations about the treatment of detainees in U.S. military custody. When I was a Public Affairs Officer at the Pentagon, we were assured that, despite their classification as "detainees" and "enemy combatants" and not "prisoners of war," Guantanimo Bay detainees were being treated as good as or better than the standards afforded prisoners of war by the Geneva Convention. We parroted talking points about humane treatment, culturally sensitive meals, etc., not because we were trying to deceive anybody, but because we believed them to be true. After all, we're supposed to be the good guys, right? Now it turns out that Rumsfeld, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, and others were making liars out of good, honest military professionals. I feel violated, not only because my Public Affairs colleagues and I apparently were used and lied to, but also because the conduct itself, perpetrated by military men and women no different from me, goes against everything I was taught by the military about how American military professionals are required to behave.

State Side

State Side

The New Republic has an intresting take on Chief Justice Rehnquist's recent fight against Thyroid cancer. The article contends liberals may actually need Rehnquist's federalist approach:

Indeed, two cases--one before the Supreme Court now, and one which may be soon--show why Rehnquist's conception of states' rights looks better and better to many liberals. On November 29, the Court heard arguments in Raich v. Ashcroft, a case concerning California's medical marijuana statute. The federal government, claiming broad power to fight the drug war, objects to marijuana legalization. California, claiming states' rights, is politely asking the feds to butt out. In an unusual twist, the case has put pot smokers in bed with federalists.

A similar situation could arise next year if the Supreme Court agrees to hear Oregon v. Ashcroft, a case that tests Oregon's assisted suicide law. The dynamics are the same as in the marijuana case: The Justice Department wants to strike down the state law, which allows Oregon doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medicine to terminally ill patients; Oregon wants the federal government to leave the state alone. Oregon won the first two rounds, in lower courts, but Ashcroft has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

Two federalism cases, two blue-state causes--suddenly, federalism is looking to many liberals like a worthwhile idea. What a shame William Rehnquist probably won't be around to help out.

Unfortunately, the article also makes it clear, Rehnquist's federalist approach is no longer in fad among judges and potential replacements. Nor is it in fad among others on the Supreme Court. Scalia clings to originalism and Thomas to textualism while the liberal judges say give it all to the Federal government.

I have long thought federalism isn't as scary as many liberals make it out to be. It is a sound jurisprudential theory. Maybe The New Republic is right, that Rehnquist might be a valuable voice for certain cases involving liberal/progressive issues. However, ever since Rehnquist turned his back on his own guiding principles in Bush v. Gore, I have viewed the Chief more as a partisan hack than thoughtful justice. Given his recent bending of federalist principles, there is no guarantee he would become a factor for good. In fact, he is prone to carry out significant evil because his quest to roll back the New Deal is not yet complete.

War Crimes (washingtonpost.com)

War Crimes (washingtonpost.com)

Wow. I don't even know where to start on this subject. This editorial in today's Washington Post is a must-read detailing of the current proof that abuse of prisoners has been systemmatic and authorized. There are all kinds of things about which we can get outraged in the world, and each person has to choose his/her own way. It seems to me, though, that, as citizens, being outraged and demanding accountability on this one is mandatory. Nothing speaks more clearly to our communal position on fundamental human dignity and regard than how we react to abuses like these.

I've been stunned and dismayed for a while now that Donald Rumsfeld has remained in his position. While it's not entirely clear the role he has in this situation, any decent leader--Bush and Rumsfeld included--should recognize a fundamental moral obligation for Rumsfeld to resign even if he is and should be considered completely innocent of involvement in or responsibility for this disgrace (which the evidence makes doubtful). The obligation comes from a duty to protest, a duty to mark something as so unacceptable that one can no longer even afford or accept an association with it, and a sense that responsibility must ultimately stop with the leader, whether or not, in actuality, it does.

This is basic stuff. We have to get this right. We have to demand accountability. And we have to receive it.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: When the Right Is Right

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: When the Right Is Right

Check out this piece by Nicholas Kristoff. I do not have a position on Sam Brownback because I just don't know that much about him. I think, however, that Kristoff makes some terrific points about how humanitarian causes can be a common ground between traditional Democrats and members of the religious right. Further, I think engaging wholeheartedly in this set of issues--in addition to being the right thing to do--is part of how Democrats will be able to begin articulating the inherent morality of the social justice position.

Peace on Earth?

As usual, E.J. says it best: Peace on Earth? (washingtonpost.com)

More on the "supressed majority"

Tom was right. Responding to Charles Krauthammer, he predicted Friday that we were "about to hear quite bit" of "the language of 'suppressed majority.'" Monday the Washington Post had this report about Evangelical Christian groups challenging decisions by public school officials, courts, and local governments regarding religious displays and expression during Christmas.

From reports like this one and from activity in the conservative blogosphere, there's a growing sense among Christian conservatives that the law and culture are aligning against them to suppress their right to religious expression. I'm somewhat loathe to give credence to this misplaced perception, but I think it behooves us to try to understand why the perception exists. Here are some thoughts and observations:

This year, at the Alexandria, Va., public school our son attends, his kindergarten class spent the week of Hanukah doing Hanukah-themed math and reading worksheets, and they've been using Christmas and Kwanzaa-themed worksheets the last couple of weeks. While Christmas trees and Santa have featured prominently in the art projects and decorations in the school's halls, official communications from the school have all used "Happy Holidays." About a quarter of the school's annual Winter Holiday Concert program were Hanukah songs, and the Christmas songs were of the "Jingle Bells" variety.

As the holiday season approached, our son's teacher, knowing that we're Jewish, engaged us about the planned curriculum and asked for our input. The school clearly makes an effort to ensure everyone is included and nobody feels put upon or disrespected, which alone makes a huge difference to us. However, I can understand why a religious Christian might still be dissatisfied. If it's okay for kindergartners to do math worksheets with menorahs on them, which are religious symbols, then why not also use worksheets with nativity scenes? If it's okay to sing about the miracle of the lamp in the school concert, then why not the miracle of Christ's birth?

As I wrote before, I believe the answer hinges on the fact that the religious aspects of Hanukah aren't offensive to Christians, where the religious aspects of Christmas specifically reject Judaism, and government-supported expression targeted at children must not appear to reject one faith over another. But I can appreciate how this might appear to some Christian conservatives.

Some situations feeding the misplaced "suppressed majority" perception are less subtle. The Post reports that a school district barred a Christian boy from giving classmates candy canes with religious tracts attached. This to me seems excessive and a clear violation of the boy's right to free expression. As long as he's not being disruptive or somehow intimidating other students, he ought to have as much right to give his classmates religious candy canes as my son has to brag about Hanukah lasting eight days, or as an atheist student has to argue against the existence of God. School-sponsored religious expression would be out of bounds, but this candy cane example is clearly private expression.

In this case, overzealous school officials went too far and stepped on this Christian child's right to religious expression. Conservative Christians were right to challenge the candy cane decision, and a court overruled the school's order. Does that mean there's pervasive, widespread hostility toward Christians in America's public schools? Not quite. While the right-wing echo chamber is busy transforming a few cases that have been rightfully challenged into an anti-Christian movement, religious minorities deal with similar and worse as a matter of course.

Last year, the D.C. public school our son then attended made no mention of Hanukah and hung a Merry Christmas banner in the main hall. Shayna and I pointed out to the principal that our son and several other children don't celebrate Christmas and asked if we could give the school a Happy Hanukah sign to hang next to the Christmas sign. The principal told us that they're "not allowed to hang anything religious" and therefore couldn't display a Hanukah sign.

In 2000, Mississippi school officials made a Jewish student remove his Star of David necklace because they considered it a gang symbol, and the all-Christian school board actually quizzed the boy's parents on their Jewishness when they challenged the ruling.

These examples aren't proof of pervasive, widespread hostility toward Jews. They just show that the majority is sometimes ignorant and clueless about the minority.

A Little More to the Left

A Little More to the Left

In roughly two months the DNC will be under the leadership of a new chairman. Maybe it will be President wannabe Howard Dean, but if Craig Aaron's instincts are correct, its more likely the next chairman will be someone who thinks the way out of the woods is to move a little closer to right and a little further from the left. Instead of coming up with a sustainable solution to Democratic woes, the party will once again try to reposition itself for the next election cycle:

If previous setbacks are any guide, the same consultants and pollsters who lost the election will again win the battle to interpret its results. Almost inevitably, they will conclude that the party needs to shift further to the right, ignoring the base (who else are they going to vote for?) and cozying up to the stockbrokers or gun owners or home-schoolers (or better yet—all three!) with new proposals for “budget reform” and hints of “flexibility” on abortion rights.

Aaron's assessment of the conservative movement is right on and he is right liberals and the progressive movement would do themselves well to begin thinking in terms of long-term goals aimed at winning the ideological war between the left and the right as opposed to short-term cycle to cycle objectives. As Aaron points out, conservatives have effectively and methodically stollen the tactics of the left and used them to build a sustainable conservative movement. He suggests liberals and progressives need to become movement focused.

While I agree whole heartedly with some Aaron's remedies for fixing the Democratic Party, I disagree with his interpretation that the way to right the policy course is to enthusiastically and blindly embrace familiar liberal solutions to the challenges facing the country:

Instead of middling centrism, the Democrats need bold ideas to counteract the right’s lies, especially the “cultural populism” they rely on to mask a massive upward redistribution of wealth. These ideas aren’t necessarily new ones: embracing economic populism, fighting inequality, challenging corporate corruption, providing universal healthcare, protecting the environment, rejecting imperialism.

I believe Democrats will become successful when we recognize the core principles the party is based, embrace these principles, and come up with legislative solutions that conform to these principles. Success shouldn't be based on whether our proposals are left, centrist, or right. They shouldn't hinge on whether they are populist enough. Policy success should be determined by how will the party's principles are implemented and how well we fix America's problems. When we lose an election our impulse shouldn't be "we need to become more moderate" (ie moving to meet the right) nor should it be "we need to move to the left." Democrats should develop bold solutions that change the policy paradigm. Democrats should develop solutions that solve problems and conform to the core principles of Democratic party.

Social Security reform is being billed as the first major domestic policy fight of 2005. Republicans and President Bush have offered a plan to partially privatize America's first safety net. Republicans and Democrats both recognize Social Security will be facing a financing crisis when the baby boomers retire. Yet, Democrats haven't (as of yet) come up with an alternative Social Security reform. Policymakers and the public are left with two choices 1) a Republican plan which is new, and may or may not work (all social programs and legislation are gambles at first) or 2) Social Security as it is.

Because of their lack of ideas, their fear of being labeled a liberal, Democratic party has become the "conservative" party, the party of the status quo. By comparison, the Republican party has offered solutions conforming to their basic world view and principles. Ronald Dworkin argues all law is derived from basic, core principles. The law judges and legislators make conforms to these principles. Likewise, I believe party politics is about principle and not policy. Policy is a means to enacting the principle end. Republicans have figured this out but when will Democrats.

Social Security Piratization

Richard Cohen making sense today on the Republican plan to begin phasing out Social Security through privatization:

Frankly, I am agnostic about private savings accounts. My own has worked pretty well, but that's not because I consciously made wise investments. It is rather because I was damned lucky, having foolishly invested disproportionately in my own company, which -- by holding down my own salary, among other things -- has become beloved by Wall Street. As for most Americans, the data suggest that they do not manage their own funds in a professional manner. When it comes to 401(k) plans, which have been around for more than 25 years, some companies now limit investment options because their employees have been so dumb about making investments. That's understandable. After all, most of us are far too busy making a living and living a life (raising kids, walking the dog, playing computer solitaire) to figure out what a derivative is.

The trouble with Bush's Social Security plan is that it is almost entirely driven by ideology. For instance, one obvious way to pump some cash into the Social Security trust fund is to raise taxes -- not on you and me, mate, but on the rich. But as with income taxes, the rich shall not be touched in this administration and so common sense is off the table.

Similarly, to ensure that Americans approaching retirement will get the benefits they were expecting and at the same time divert money into personal retirement accounts, about $2 trillion will be borrowed. For some reason, this additional debt will not become a burden to any one of us nor, for the same mysterious reason, will it affect interest rates or be noticed by the very people who have been driving down the value of the dollar. This is as certain as finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

RIPPLE OF HOPE slows down for the holidays

With Hanukah behind us and Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day rapidly approaching, many of our contributors will be spending the next couple of weeks traveling, visiting family and friends, and enjoying a well-deserved break. Contributors who have the time and inclination will continue to post, but activity on RIPPLE OF HOPE will slow down for the next two weeks. We wish you a happy and peaceful holiday season, and we look forward to picking things up in full force when the world returns to work on Jan. 3.

The Pew Charitable Trusts: Informing the Public: Public opinion and polls

I have no desire to discount the concern often discussed right now about where conversations about morality and values are going, and how liberals and Democrats can and should participate in (or even own) those conversations. I do think that Pew's reiteration of the myth of the deciding conservative Christian vote is worth noting, however. Check out this link.

The Pew Charitable Trusts: Informing the Public: Public opinion and polls

A history of tolerance

by David L. Englin
The Denver Post, Dec. 19, 2004

As a Jewish graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, I was upset to learn recently that some Christian cadets have called their Jewish classmates "Christ killers" and that the new commandant has encouraged Christian cadets to proselytize to their non-Christian classmates.

Academy graduates from the 1960s prepared me to expect some abuse for being a Jew. But when I reported to "Beast" - basic cadet training - as a 17-year-old fresh out of high school, I found an institution that could teach the rest of America a thing or two about religious tolerance.

Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr., AFA superintendent, told the academy's Board of Visitors recently that an August survey showed many non-Christian cadets feel they are "having Christianity shoved down their throats." According to academy officials, cadets have reported 55 incidents of religious bias since 2000.

The academy graduates who mentored me during high school told me to expect upperclassmen in my face with any number of anti-Jewish expletives as part of hardening me for war. These Vietnam combat veterans had graduated during the academy's early years, before anyone distinguished between training and hazing. Undeterred, I wanted to test my mettle and earn my Air Force commission the hard way.

By the time I arrived, the military apparently had evolved. Despite the hard-core training environment, religious attacks were strictly out of bounds. I counted among my squadron mates Christians of every stripe, a Buddhist, and even an atheist devotee of Ayn Rand who displayed a tinseled "Capitalist Tree" topped with a dollar sign.

We practiced the kind of tolerance that comes from really getting to know and respect people with different beliefs. From allowing Jews to skip training for Shabbat or the High Holy Days, to setting aside a special dining room during Passover, the academy and my fellow cadets did their level best to respect my faith.

The academy wasn't perfect. Cadets who went to the chapel during Beast were "God flight" and cadets who instead returned to their rooms for down time were "heathen flight." But that was more about twisted cadet senses of humor than genuine bias. One year, classmates erected a Christmas tree in our squadron common area without asking if that might bother me. It did, we talked about it, and we all understood one another better for the experience. As an upperclassman, I looked out for Jewish underclassmen, but there were few problems beyond occasional misunderstandings resolved among peers.

After graduation, the wider Air Force was just as accepting. One commander - an evangelical fundamentalist Christian from Arkansas - went out of his way to make sure I could observe Shabbat and Hanukkah.

One year, a Southern Baptist chaplain arranged Hanukkah services. Another time, a Methodist chaplain let me use her official pickup truck to get to the nearest city with a synagogue - Venice, Italy.

Now, many cadets complain about religious bias against non-Christians, and Jewish cadets report the use of anti-Semitic epithets by fellow cadets.

In response, academy superintendent Rosa has ordered all cadets to go through a religious tolerance program before they leave in a couple of weeks for winter break. That's a good sign, although the very person accused of trying to promote Christianity - the commandant of cadets - also is the general responsible for implementing Rosa's directives.

Some will dismiss all of this as political correctness gone awry. But it was George Washington himself who wrote to American Jews of a government "which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." It's an American value as old as our nation, and this Jewish airman prays that our military leaders will jealously guard the progress that I experienced firsthand.

Double Dipping?

Kudos the writer of this letter to the editor in today's Washington Post:

"I was puzzled at the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks [Style, Dec. 15]. It is, after all, the nation's highest civilian award, and almost everything Gen. Franks has done in life was as a military officer. So far as I know, he has only two major accomplishments as a civilian: promoting his autobiography and endorsing President Bush for reelection. As the 'autobiography' was actually written by someone else, was the Medal of Freedom for endorsing Mr. Bush?"

Most of the commentary about Bush awarding the medals to Tenet, Franks, and Bremer has questioned whether their particular accomplishments merit the awards. However, in Franks' case, he may not even have been eligible for consideration for the award, since all of the accomplishments cited by Bush were when Franks was in uniform. According to MedalofFreedom.com:

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, recognizes exceptional meritorious service. The medal was established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize notable service in the war. In 1963, President Kennedy reintroduced it as an honor for distinguished civilian service in peacetime.

When he retired from the Army in 2003, Franks was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the military's third highest award, and the highest award not involving specific acts of heroism, presumably for the very same accomplishments Bush cited. Kind of gives a new meaning to the term "double dipping."

George Washington's Chrismukkah Miracle

Like Tom, I believe strongly in the separation of church and state, especially in any context that pits the state institutions designed to indoctrinate our children, such as public schools, against my own right as a parent to indoctrinate my son. That said, Krauthammer is correct that too many American Jews have bequeathed "a fragile religious identity to their children," and America's Reform and Conservative Jewish movements deserve credit for the growing revival in Jewish education designed to correct this. Perhaps like Krauthammer, I feel little sympathy for Jewish parents who barely make the effort to teach Judaism to their children and then complain when they grow up, move to California and become Buddhists (or invent holidays like Chrismukkah.) But there are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Humanist, atheist, and other parents who are working hard to pass on their beliefs, values, and traditions to their children who deserve not to be forced to compete with the combined resources of the state. That's precisely why Tom is so correct about the difference between malls and public schools.

However, I've struggled over the years with how I feel about state-sponsored Christmas celebrations well outside the context of indoctrinating children. Unlike a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, for example, state-sponsored Christmas or Hanukah celebrations are temporary and relatively brief, and not permanent government assertions of religiosity. Assuming we agree that menorahs and Christmas trees both are religious symbols (we don't, but I'll get to that), in the interest of nondiscrimination, we either ban state displays of both or allow state displays of both. While there would probably be no ill effect to banning both, the effect of allowing both is a temporary state-sponsored acknowledgment of religious plurality, which is a net positive in a society that values the diversity of its citizens.

Krauthammer cites one of my favorite historical sources, George Washington's letter to the Jews of Newport, R.I., 1790 (which I also cite in an op-ed scheduled to be published Sunday.) If you've never read it, you should. We will only ever achieve Washington's vision of a "Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance," by honestly and respectfully engaging each other about our religious differences.

In that spirit, the particular manner of the state-sponsored display makes a difference because of the ways Christians and Jews see certain symbols differently. As Tom notes, most Jews see Christmas trees and Santa Clauses as symbols of a Christian holiday. But many Christians see them as secular symbols with little Christian meaning and look to nativity scenes as religious representations of the holiday. Krauthammer's incoherent mall manager notwithstanding, I think you'd be hard pressed to find even the most secular Jew who doesn't acknowledge that the eight-branched Hanukah menorah signifies the miracle of the Temple oil burning for eight days. But while both nativity scenes and menorahs represent religious miracles, where nativity scenes depict a central existential event in Christianity, menorahs represent a relatively minor miracle that didn't even find its way into the Jewish Bible. Moreover, as beautiful as nativity scenes are for Christians, accepting their meaning requires Jews to reject their faith, where nothing about Hanukah requires Christians to reject anything (although I suppose it might rankle Greek pagans a bit.) Therefore, while state-sponsored Christmas trees and menorahs probably strike the right balance in terms of religious plurality, my feeling is that state-sponsored nativity scenes tilt too far toward a state-sponsored challenge to my Jewishness.

As an aside, Krauthammer is right that American culture has inflated the importance of Hanukah. But practices in every religion have been influenced by their broader cultural contexts. Do you really think there were baubled fir trees growing in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago? More to the point, American Jews themselves have turned Hanukah into the major Jewish gift-giving holiday (traditionally it was Purim) to compete with Christmas for the affections of Jewish children. That seems very much in the spirit of the Maccabean defense of Judaism against Hellenist culture, which is what gave rise to Hanukah as a holiday.

Required Reading for Dems

If you're not reading Jon Chait's regular pieces in the Los Angeles Times, you really should. In this installment (LAT, reg. req'd), he skewers Martin Feldstein. Feldstein predicted an economic apocalypse would result from Clinton's 1993 tax plan (wrong) and that we would attain fiscal nirvana because of the Bush tax cuts (actually, no).

Just Leave Christmas Alone

Charles Krauthammer seems to be very confused about Christmas, and about Hanukah for that matter.

One the one hand, he urges that "the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers" stop trying to strip Christmas of Christian content, by pretending that it is merely a secular or commercial holiday. On the other hand, he asserts that those who are "steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public." Which is it: Are we "pettifoggers" trying to make Christmas non-Christian, or are we trying to stop the majority government from tacitly endorsing Christianity by celebrating a Christian holiday?

On the one hand, he says that a mall manager is wrong to claim that Hanukah is a celebration of a military victory, insisting that it celebrates a religious miracle. On the other hand, he opines that "American culture has gone out of its way to inflate the importance of Hanukah, easily the least important of Judaism's seven holidays, into a giant event replete with cards, presents and public commemorations as a creative way to give Jews their Christmas equivalent." Which is it: Is Hanukah an important religious celebration of a miracle, or is it a minor military festival that's been put on religious steroids to compete with Christian Christmas?

On the one hand, Krauthammer tries to draw out a double-standard, writing that "Broward and Fashion malls in South Florida put up a Hanukah menorah but no nativity scene." On the other hand, he fails to mention whether the malls have other symbols of Christmas, such as Christmas trees and Santa Clauses. (Surely they do.) Again, which is it: Is Christmas a Christian holiday, or are Santa Claus and Christmas trees just commercial logos?

We non-Christians (a group that includes both Krauthammer and myself) are not at all trying to "de-Christianize" Christmas. You don't hear from many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. who think that Christmas is a secular holiday. I am keenly aware of the religious basis of Christmas. It is precisely for that reason that I am concerned about certain sorts of government sanctioning of Christmas, namely in schools and courthouses. I have no qualms whatsoever about public displays of religion, and I enjoy the celebrations of my friends and family members of multiple faiths. Christmas is more than in the air, it is all around me and pervades our culture. It is, as Krauthammer notes, a national holiday;whereas we have no national holidays that celebrate holy days of any religion other than Christianity. But there is a difference between malls, parks and squares, and public schools and courthouses. I am not urging, or even asking, that the "overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public." But I am demanding that they not force their religion on children in schools.

By ignoring the differences between malls and schools, Krauthammer's column only fuels the right-wing conspiracy theory that liberals want to encroach upon religious freedom, when nothing could be further from the truth. Worse, he is inching toward their rhetoric of "suppressed majority." I don't care whether the religious right swung this past election, but you better believe they are flexing their muscles now. Where you hear the language of "suppressed majority"--which, I predict, we are about to hear quite a bit--then you know to look around and see whose rights are being trampled. By buying into this line of thinking, Krauthammer's attempt at holiday goodwill turns into a dangerous dropping of the protection of liberties.

Happy holidays. To all.

Of punch-out dolls and Christmas wonder

My mother sent my daugher an unusual Advent calendar this year. Instead of the usual 24 windows revealing various Dickensian scenes, it's a cardboard stable with 24 little punch-out paper dolls that gradually build a nativity scene. Each day, we punch out and add a Wise Man, or a cow, or a shepherd to the scene. And each day, we use the occasion to talk a bit more about the story of the Baby Jesus.

My daughter is nearly three, so this is the first year she can really begin to understand the rather complicated story of Christmas. While it's been a pleasure to teach it to her in this way, the real pleasure and surprise has been the childish wonder she has given back to me in return.
To understand what I'm talking about, you have to visualize how one of these daily storytelling sessions actually occurs. December 10th's character was a rooster. It was breakfast time, and with Banana Bread flavored oatmeal still smeared all over her chin, she asked if we could "do number 10." I pulled out the card of dolls, and as we carefuly punched out the rooster, I attempted to explain the importance of said rooster in the Nativity.

This was joy numer one.

It turns out, one can actually come up with quite a few significant Christian rooster explanations. It represents Christ's humble beginnings. It shows the infant's dependence on charity, just as a rooster depends on the farmer for its support. It helps you visualize the animal warmth that surrounded Jesus in his early hours. It helps you remember what it must have smelled, sounded and felt like to Mary to deliver her baby in a barn. It's a token of the incredible diversity of life God put on earth. It ultimately forces you to accept that the Christmas story is about a new kind of king and a new kind of kingdom.

All of this from a rooster (or the cow on day 8, or the chicken on day 11....)

Joy number two came from the way my daughter heard the story. Go back and read the paragraph of explanations again, mentally interrupting each sentence with a tiny, curly-headed, "Roosters say Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!!" And after each sentence, imagine having to answer, "Why?" in a devolution of explanations that goes at least three iterations deep.

The silliness and gutteral enthusiasm of the rooster sounds, combined with the urgent questioning of why, why, why the Christmas story? why my Catholic belief in this messiah and his meaning? why this desire to pass that belief on to my child, even at such a young age? returned me to my own enthusiasm. It forced me to step back from the complications of life, and education, fear and doubt, to embrace the wonder of the story, and the simple but beautiful meaning of a boy savior born in a barn with a rooster to help keep him warm.

Who would have thought a punch-out card could help you regain your innocence?

Oh. I forgot. He's got capital.

When Trent Lott says that the Republican Secretary of Defense should resign, and I agree with him, well, maybe it's time for us all to take a couple of weeks in the Bahamas to get our heads together.

Consider the alternative to American litigiousness

American litigiousness is on my mind today: In his excellent roundup and commentary on the recount in Washington State, Zach notes that, "As perverse as it is, litigating an election is rather American." President Bush has decided that Americans are too litigious, and he plans to make preventing "lawsuit abuse" a top priority. (What about insurance premium abuse, Mr. President?)

Zach's argument against litigating close elections is right on the mark. But it occurs to me that another ongoing Florida-like election debacle reveals the underlying wisdom of a system that still allows for the option of litigation. Ukraine's ongoing presidential election has included a close result, accusations of fraud and disenfranchisement, and intervention by the Ukrainian Supreme Court. It has also included the attempted assassination by dioxin poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, most likely by the corrupt alliance of totalitarian officials and business oligarchs who oppose his pro-democracy, pro-West, anti-corruption vision for Ukraine. The picture of the formerly dashing Yushchenko, pocked and ruddied by an opposing force's violent attempt to keep him from power, litigating the results of a corrupt election is a metaphor for the crossroads at which Ukraine finds itself, between a Hobbesian past and a future governed by legitimate institutions and the rule of law. In peaceful, stable, just societies, litigation allows for conflict without violence. So the next time you hear somebody lament American litigious, consider the alternative.

The kids we send to war

When I deployed to Operation Joint Forge / Joint Guardian in 2001, soldiers from various Army Airborne units would bunk in spare rooms in the Aviano AB contigency dorm enroute to the Middle East. We'd see them on the flightline getting geared up, and they'd look as professional and disciplined as you'd expect. But I was always struck by how young they seemed when they were off duty back in the dorm, watching movies, playing video games, chatting online, talking about girls, like care free high school students playing soldier. This article about troops in Iraq gives a sense of what I mean. Here's an excerpt"

Like the teenagers and college students across America who sit on couches late on weekend nights and into the next morning, these soldiers spend their free hours on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital killing one another in Xbox and PlayStation2 games such as Halo and Mortal Kombat. Between guard duty and patrols and shifts at the dining facility, they gather to crash fast cars, play volleyball with buxom women and mimic warfare.

(Also take a look at this interesting, tangentially-related commentary on high school students and video games.)

Gregoire v. Rossi: giving democracy a bloody nose

By now, nearly the entire country is aware of the election debacle occurring in Washington. Florida 2004: the Pacific Northwest. So far, the elements are in place for a great electoral story: 1) charismatic Republican, 2) boring Democrat, 3) multiple recounts, 4) a small margin of victory, 5) discovered ballots, and 6) lawyers who love litigating elections. Even though my impulse is to turn off NPR, avoid the local news, and avert my eyes to the latest Times and PI headlines, I can't help but think how Democrat Chris Gregoire's predicament, and the mentality of the WA state party resembles recent Democratic presidential candidates and the national Democratic Party.

Right now, Republican Dino Rossi leads Chris Gregoire by roughly 100 votes. After the votes were first canvassed he lead by 261 votes, to only see his lead dwindle to 42 votes after a machine recount. A couple weeks ago the WA Democratic Party was raising money for a partial hand recount of Democratic leaning counties. Gregoire said she didn't want a recount unless the entire state was recounted. After some last ditch fundraising, the Democrats raised enough money to have a state wide recount. All was going well until King County discovered 573 mistakenly rejected ballots. While great news for Gregoire, it should not be presumed she will win. As the counties have turned in their results, Rossi has consistently been expanding his lead. Just this evening, King County has decided to push ahead and count these new ballots. Republicans, are threatening a lawsuit if this new ballots tip the election in Gregoire's favor. Arguably, the GOP would use Tuesday's WA Supreme Court decision as authority for why the ballots shouldn't be counted. Tuesday, the WA Supreme Court said spoiled and provisional ballots that were rightly rejected should not be counted. In the opinion, the court avoided the question of King County's newly discovered 573 ballots.

Like Florida, Washington gives every civics teacher in America a nice teaching moment for the old adage "every vote counts." But, it is also a demonstration of a newly forming adage "litigate until you win." If the ballot box turns against you, take the result to court. Gore did it, Gregoire is doing it, and before them, Karl Rove did it. In Alabama, Rove engineered victory for a Supreme Court Justice through an aggressive litigation strategy. This new trend toward litigating elections is disturbing. It is suspended disbelief at its best. Through litigation, candidates can avoid grieving their election day loss by filing a lawsuit. Litigation can cast a close election into the gray haze of illegitimacy, soiling the incoming elected official, and giving the loser solace by letting them argue their candidate actually won.

As perverse as it is, litigating an election is rather American. Our founders created the system which allowed the emergence of two parties, elections decided by an electoral college, the division of powers, checks and balances, Marbury v. Madison, Federal questions, and an increasingly irrelevant electorate. Who needs voters when you have judges?

But any candidate attracted to the luster of public office and the noble calling of public service ought to consider the cumulative effect litigating an election has on the democratic process. Should campaigns always gird for an inevitable legal fight? Should campaigns reactively file lawsuits if the election day result isn't what was desired? No. What Gregoire, Bush, Gore, and Rove before them all have done is weaken America's system. The electoral college taught us it's not the popular vote that matters, and litigated elections have taught us it's not the electoral college or the popular vote that matters but the subjective, legal interpretation of judges appointed for life. Litigation takes the electoral decision making out of the hands of the republic and puts it in the hands of aged and allegedly learned judges. Elections should never be decided on the basis of a well argued and well worded petition.

Unless there are unequivocal, unassailable, and egregious voting irregularities, systematic deprivation of the franchise, or missing ballots, no election should be litigated. Even though 573 ballots have been discovered that could very well tip the balance in Gregoire's favor, she should have conceded after the canvas and at the latest after the machine recount. Before the discovery of the King County ballots a few days ago Rossi was in the lead and had been after two counts (the canvas and the recount). The objective counting of the ballots had Gregoire losing. Rossi's stooges didn't hide ballots, tamper with voting numbers or do anything nefarious. No one reported butterfly ballots or disenfranchisement. No one was diving hanging chads. Nope. Election officials were reporting scantron results.

Yet with as close as the election is, the only way to know who truly won the election is to have another election. As things stand right now, either Rossi or Gregoire could win and maybe did win. Recounting the ballots until you get the result you want is no way to objectively determine who won the election. Suing, because you don't like which ballots were counted isn't aimed at getting an objective election result. If a voter can't fill in a little bubble then I don't want a volunteer trying to figure out who the voter meant to vote for.

More troubling is Gregoire was considered unbeatable. This was her race to lose. She lead in the polls, won in a contentious Democratic Primary, and was seen as a female version of Governor Gary Locke. Rossi is a right winger from a solid blue state. King, Pierce, Snohommish, and Thurston Counties are reliably Democratic and home to most of the state's population. This was Gregoire's race to lose -- and she did.

Gregoire lost because her campaign was terrible and she was a terrible candidate. She was boring, took no chances, and offered sleep inducing policies. Her campaign was tepid. She won King County with roughly 60% of the vote even though I suspect King would have a party registration of 70% Democrats. She lost Pierce (Tacoma) and Snohommish County too. While her primary opponent was talking about a progressive income tax, Gregoire was blabbering about health care, education, and good jobs (and that was as specific as she got). Gregoire's campaign was focused on the populace Western chunk of the state. She abandoned counties, marking them as unwinnable. Unchallenged, Rossi ran the table in places like Spokane and at the same time campaigned hard in Gregoire strong holds. Rossi came off as both secular and sectarian. Gregoire, seemed like a cold European atheist Prime Minister. Gregoire's campaign matched Kerry's failed campaign in almost every way. Kerry focused narrowly on a few states, defending turf he should win easily while Bush took the fight to him. In place of inspiring people he offered mechanical policy generalities.

So what's the lesson of the 2004 race for Governor? Well there are a few. First, stop litigating. Even if you win you will look like a loser and have no credibility. Second, respect the system by having faith in the system. Only recount and litigate when it is absolutely necessary. Third, if you lose the count, lose gracefully. Fourth, run better campaigns and run better candidates. In a Democratic state like Washington and just like in America at large, Democrats don't lose unless they are uninspiring and run crappy campaigns. Hell, Deborah Senn the Democrat AG candidate was chewed up because she couldn't counter scandals she faced as Insurance Commissioner and couldn't beat back advertising by the Chamber of Commerce. Fifth,whatever happens in the next couple of weeks democracy and politics will be worse off.

Cohen on Democrats and Abortion

In Richard Cohen's apologetic column on the Democrat's uncompromising pro-choice policy, he admits to having become enlightened about abortion rights over the past few decades. In contrast:

"[T]he Democratic Party still marches... as if nothing has changed in almost 40 years. Abortion remains a core party principle -- up there with civil rights and, more recently, gay rights. Gay rights is one thing. It is nothing more than an extension of the party's traditional -- and politically costly -- embrace of civil rights. But abortion is a different matter entirely. It is no longer what it was -- simply about women's rights and sexual freedom. It is, as its opponents say, about life -- arguably about the taking of it."

Perhaps abortion rights are sometimes seen as a sign of sexual freedom--or as a sign of promiscuity, some folks might say. But that was not the legal basis of the right. For advocates it was always about women's rights, and for opponents it was always about the taking of life. So what, exactly, does Cohen think has changed?

"An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that," he writes. But what, exactly, is more complicated? Exercising all sorts of rights -- not least of which, we all know, the right to vote -- is often pragmatically complicated. But the right itself is not a matter of, as Cohen suggests, "it depends."

Cohen is, in fact, not sure that the right to choose (which he calls a "slogan") is a right at all. That is fine. What worries me, however, is his reasoning: Attitudes have changed (he concludes), contraceptives are widely available (he supposes), we are more informed about the messiness of some procedures (he is, anyhow.) The anti-choice media machine has worked its magic on Cohen.

The trouble -- with Cohen's logic and with the anti-choice rhetoric -- is that all these concerns are utterly irrelevant if the question is one of basic rights. The notion of a basic right is one specifically detached from majority rule. It is the idea of a right that we (the people, through our government) are not justified in blocking or taking away even if we all want to.

Now I have my own opinion about the question of choice. But my real target here, as usual, is not the conclusion but the faulty reasoning that leads to it. There may be a good argument against a right to choose, and if so we will have to think about it. But a distaste for abortion and the political costs of defending choice are not such reasons. Free speech is often unpopular and unpleasant. Freedom of and from religion is also increasing unpopular in the current "zeitgeist."

It is often legally and morally murky whether some activity (political funding, say) counts as an exercise of a right (to free speech, say). But the existence of the right itself does not "depend" on the conditions. And the diagnosis of the case does not depend on popular opinion or congressional majority -- hence it is decided by courts rather than by legislation. (For this reason the courts have frowned on attempts to legislate a question of justice by declaring that abortions are never medically acceptable.) Rights are not negotiable, even when it is politically expedient. Rights require our uncompromising respect and vigilance, even -- or especially -- when we ourselves find the defended activity unpopular or unpleasant

This is the trouble with the "times and attitudes have changed" line suggested by Cohen. Perhaps, if we knew that times and attitudes always make progress toward enlightment, we could think that they are bellwethers of justice. But, in fact, we know that is not the case. And if it is women's rights today, then it will be gay rights soon, and your rights next. This is not the time for backpedaling. Perhaps, as Cohen and Howard Dean suggest, we should welcome anti-choice voters into the Democratic party. If so, they must come because they agree with us on other matters and with the understanding that we will unflinchingly defend the basic rights of every American.

I've been a bit unfair to Cohen. Probably what he believes is that what he once saw as an uncompeting right (a woman's right to choose) he now sees as being in conflict with something else (some kind of right to be born.) This is awfully French existentialist for most anti-choicers, but so be it. I myself doubt that there is any such basic right. But if there is, Cohen is mounting the wrong argument. If there is such a right, it is not because many people think so or because abortion is unpleasant to think about.

"The Pentagon's New Map"

This piece on Thomas P.M. Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map" is worth a look. Here's an excerpt:

Barnett's central thesis is that today's world is divided into two categories: the "Functioning Core" of nations connected to the global economy and prospering as never before, and the "Non-Integrating Gap" of nations disconnected from the matrix of wealth and progress and therefore spinning toward chaos. Most of America's military interventions in recent years have been in the Gap, notes Barnett, but we have failed to understand that we face a common enemy there.

The enemy "is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (the Middle East), but a condition -- disconnectedness," writes Barnett. "If disconnectedness is the real enemy, then the combatants we target in this war are those who promote it, enforce it and terrorize those who seek to overcome it by reaching out to the larger world."

Barnett's thinking is becoming increasingly popular inside the military, and it's poised to influence the strategic thinking of American national security and foreign policy experts. Perhaps somewhere in Barnett is the future of a robust progressive national security policy? Pick up a copy of the book here: "The Pentagon's New Map"

Asked and Answered, E.J.

In today's column, The Democrats' Rove Envy (washingtonpost.com) E.J. Dionne asks:

Thus, even before Democrats get to the question of ideology, they will have to decide what their party needs most. Is the new party chairman's primary job to be public spokesman? Or is it to move the Democrats up the organizational and technological curve, to rebuild atrophied party structures, to keep asking: What Would Karl Do?

Asked and answered, my man. Asked and answered. Here's hoping somebody heard it...

Richard Cohen, meet Harry Reid

How can Richard Cohen credibly argue that the Democratic Party "is downright inhospitable to abortion opponents" when the Sentate Minority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, is an anti-choice Democrat?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There's a lot to consider in this George Will column from Sunday, which plays off of the same Peter Beinart article Tiziana recommended. I'm kicking around a larger post reacting to Will, Beinart, and Kuttner, but for now I wanted to note this element of Will's piece:

Kuttner could not resist a spasm of moral vanity. He had to disparage "middle America," which means most of America, as so bigoted it denies the humanity of gays. If liberals like Kuttner keep thinking like that -- they have been doing it for so long they cannot easily stop -- in December 2008 they will be analyzing their eighth loss in 11 elections at the hands of voters weary of liberal disdain.

How many times have you been won over by somebody disparaging you and disrespecting you? Probably not many. I had an interesting conversation a couple of weeks ago with a senior press staffer on Virginia Governor Mark Warner's (D) winning campaign who believes that internalizing this point has been key to Warner's success.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Judges as Plumbers

Way to go William Safire! This is an elegantly written piece on the persecution of journalists who will not reveal sources. I have feared for a while that we are failing to understand the magnitude of this change, and that the media isn't fighting for itself enough by reporting this situation more. With an administration both as secretive and as unwilling to pursue accountability as this one, the last thing we need is to chill any ability for the public to obtain information via a free press. In my mind, this is a very, very big deal.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Judges as Plumbers

Say it ain't so, Joe!

As it becomes clear that there was more than a nanny problem behind Bernard Kerik's withdrawal, some lawmakers are floating Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) name to run the Department of Homeland Security. Since the Department of Homeland Security was Lieberman's idea in the first place and he has been a key player in all of the related legislative battles, he's probably as qualified as anyone for the position. This would be a brilliant political move on Bush's part, giving him both a concrete example of bipartisanship and an easy way to disarm Democratic criticism of his administration's management of the war of terrorism. I suspect that Lieberman would be tempted to take the offer, if it's made, but, short of changing teams, it would end his career in elected politics.

New Mexico: First in the Nation Presidential Primary?

Garance Franke-Ruta has an excellent post on Tapped about good alternatives to Iowa for the first-in-the-nation primary (okay, okay- caucuses), and reasons to make the change.

I'll leave it to our intrepid Iowans to defend their home state's monopoly on that status...Traci? Zach?

Civil Rights Lightning

This excellent column today by Michael Kinsley makes the case that "American society hasn't used up its capacity to recognize that it harbors an injustice and it remains supple enough to change as a result. In fact, the process is speeding up." While we lament the recent setbacks in terms of gay marriage, Kinsley notes how far the American people have come in a relatively short time:

Gay civil union, itself a radical concept from the perspective of just a few years ago, has widespread support outside of liberal circles. The notion that gay relationships should enjoy at least some of the benefits of marriage (hospital visitation rights being the unanswerable example) is probably a majority view. And even the most homophobic religious-right demagogue feels obliged to spout -- and may well actually believe -- bromides about God's love of gay people.

Today's near-universal and minimally respectable attitude -- the rock-bottom, non-negotiable price of admission to polite society and the political debate -- is an acceptance of gay people and of open, unapologetic homosexuality as part of American life that would have shocked, if not offended, great liberals of a few decades ago such as Hubert Humphrey.

This development is not just amazing, it is inspiring . . . . It took African American civil rights a century and feminism a half-century to travel the distance gay rights have moved in a decade and a half.

Even in the military, which officially discriminates against gays and lesbians, recent polling by the National Annenberg Election Survey shows that 50 percent of junior enlisted service members say that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly, up from just 16 percent in 1992.

Tell It, Howard

Argue with me about Dean's candicacies - for President and DNC chair - all you want, but the man's got it right on so many things. From this morning's Meet the Press interview:

". . . we ran the best grassroots campaign that I've seen in my lifetime.  They ran a better one.  Why?  Because we sent 14,000 people into Ohio from elsewhere.  They had 14,000 from Ohio talking to their neighbors and that's how you win in rural states and in rural America.  If we don't do those things, we aren't going to win.  We have to learn to do those things."

Amen, Howard. Maybe he was reading Ripple of Hope (here and here)?

And later:

We can change our vocabulary, but I don't think we ought to change our principles.  The way I think about this is--and it gets into the gay marriage stuff, too.  We're not the party of gay marriage.  We're the party of equal rights for all Americans.  You know, I signed the first civil unions bill in America, and four years later the most conservative president the United States has seen in my lifetime is now embracing what I signed.  We've come a long way.  We're not the party of abortion.  We're the party of allowing people to make up their own minds about medical treatment.  It's just a different way of phrasing it.  We have to start framing these issues, not letting them frame the issues.

I have long believed that we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats.  The Democrats that have stuck with us, who are pro-life, through their long period of conviction, are people who are the kind of pro-life people that we ought to have deep respect for.  Not only are they pro-life, which, I think, is a moral judgment--I happen to be strongly pro-choice, as a physician--but they are pro-life more moral reasons.  They also, if they're in the Democratic Party, are real pro-life.  That is, they're pro-life not just for unborn children. They're pro-life for investing in children's programs.  They're pro-life for helping small children and young families.  They're pro-life in making sure adequate medical care happens to children.  That's what you so often lack on the Republican side.  They beat the drums about being pro-life but they forget about life after birth.  And so I do embrace pro-life Democrats.  I think we want them in our party.

Had he only added that our current Majority Leader is an anti-choice* Democrat, it would have been absolutely perfect. Again, amen, Howard.

*On the framing point: I refuse to use the terminology of the right-wing. I believe that women should be able to make choices about their health care, anti-choice individuals don't. It's about choice, not life. I'm as "pro-life" as the next person, thank you very much.

Power and Corruption in Republican Washington

Five people, from across the political spectrum, have sent me this article from The Weekly Standard. It's a conservative take on the scandal, brewing since this summer, around Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon's bilking of six Indian tribes for their personal gain, and the gain of their right wing "Republican Revolution" friends - a very simplified explanation of the complex malfeasance of these two giants of the Repubican backroom. I had tremendous difficulty picking just one or two paragraphs to quote here. Read it, and do so soon.

After pasting and deleting pretty much every paragraph in the story, I'll just leave the last ones:

In an interview about Abramoff for National Public Radio a couple months ago, his old friend Norquist said, "To this day I can't find anything he did or he's accused of doing that's illegal, immoral, or fattening." A few days later I came across another quote from Norquist, from a profile of Abramoff in the National Journal in 1995, soon after Abramoff had announced he would become a lobbyist, back when the Revolution was still young.

"What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs," Norquist said. "Then this becomes a different town."

It was a bold statement, typical for the time, but even then it raised a question we now know the answer to: Would the Republicans change Washington, or would it be the other way around?

An even better question: were the Republicans ever actually the party of "reform," or did they merely learn how to deploy the language of reform in order to win? Given the pedigree and networks of these two leaders of the Republican Revolution, I'd argue that that question has been answered at this point, too.

A tragic picture of impotence

This report from Emily Wax presents a vivid picture of the tragically impotent African Union intervention in Darfur.

"The camel riders appeared to be Arab Janjaweed militiamen, a group accused of causing havoc across the African tribal lands of Darfur. The riders displayed no guns, but some had knives tied to their wrists and whips dangling from their saddles.

One African Union officer asked if the riders were police, and they said yes. The officer explained that the riders should be wearing uniforms, but they said it was too hot to put on heavy clothing. The patrol members remained suspicious, but they had no powers to arrest or search the men. All they could do was take notes and send the men on their way.

As the camel convoy departed, several of the riders turned and waved, distinct smirks on their faces."

Kerik's nanny problem: True or False?

I guess it's possible that Bernard Kerik really is withdrawing as Bush's Homeland Security nominee because he failed to pay taxes for a nanny who may have been an illegal immigrant. But considering reports in recent days about about Kerik's thuggish enforcement of Saudi religious laws 20 years ago, his apparent misuse of New York homicide detectives to shakedown several innocent people because a friend of his misplaced some items and reported them stolen, and an array of questions about his more recent activities in Iraq, I can't help wonder if this isn't just a manufactured, palatable way for the Bush administration to move him aside.

This from Kerik's statement:

"[I] uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny. . . It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made."

Tax payments and related filings had not been made by whom, Mr. Kerik? Either he's trying to dodge responsibility for an actual mistake, or he's trying to make a fictitious reason for withdrawing as easy on himself as possible.

On civil liberties

I wrote this piece back in May and floated it to a couple of publications. No one picked it up, and I kind of forgot about it. Civil liberties and free speech are back on my mind lately, especially given the reporters facing jail time for refusing to reveal sources. So, I figured what the heck? Here it is, with no revisions since May.

*****

My friends have been calling me “the crazy lady,” lately. Apparently, I’ve gone a little Cassandra about losing our freedoms. You see, I’m worried that the clamp-down on civil liberties is going to stretch our democracy just far enough that it won’t snap back all the way. We’re becoming a little more totalitarian than I’d like.

It’s usually right about the time the word “totalitarian” comes out of my mouth that my friends say, “See, now, if I didn’t know you, I’d think you sounded a little crazy.” Maybe. But sometimes crazy is just seeing patterns other people haven’t noticed yet.

For me, it started with “free-speech zones”—areas at political events that mark where people are and, more importantly, aren’t allowed to protest. The un-allowed area increasingly tends to be anywhere within earshot of the thing you’re protesting. In fact, the Secret Service was sued last fall when it became clear that, for security reasons, anti-President protestors were placed much further away than pro-President folks.

Let’s start with the obvious—first, that the whole country is supposed to be designated as legal for protest; and, second, that the bad guys are smart enough to hoist happy signs if it will get them closer to the target. Even ignoring these issues, the implications give me pause.
What happens to the First Amendment when designating “free-speech zones” becomes the standard for all political events, as is the case for the Democratic National Convention right here in Boston? And once 50 yards is the accepted distance for people who disagree with us, why not 100, or 200, or 3 miles?

Now, maybe free-speech zones alone aren’t so totalitarian. Maybe I’m still crazy. But that example isn’t alone. There are a bunch of other policies hanging out in the same designated zone.

Right now, the President is detaining US citizens indefinitely, without charge, without access to counsel, and with no guarantee of a speedy trial. The USA Patriot Act grants roving wire taps and access to private medical records, and forces public libraries and book stores to provide lists of what targeted people read. Until recently, the US Attorney General’s office was trying to get access to the medical records of women who had certain kinds of abortions.
Iraqi citizens can’t find family members in US custody. Here at home, public interest groups can’t find out how many people have been detained in the War on Terror. No one knows for sure who they are, how many there are, where they all are, or when they might come out. It’s like that line from The Manhattan Project. We’re locking people in rooms, and throwing away the room.

I am uncomfortable ranting, and I hate sounding like a fringe dweller. But this is a pretty potent combination. And while it’s all temporary now, it doesn’t have to be.

What if the Attorney General eventually gets peoples’ private medical records? What if the President gets what he wants, and the whole Patriot Act becomes permanent? What if the Supreme Court upholds denying citizens the Bill of Rights in the name of fighting terror? You could try to speak out then, but you might need a car, and a passport, to get to your designated free speech zone.

And, then, what if terrorists strike us again and we decide we still haven’t rolled back our rights far enough to be safe?

Disturbing, isn’t it? But don’t worry. I’m just a crazy lady. Soon, somewhere, there could be a nice room waiting for me.

Inadequate Democratic foreign policy establishment?

Tiziana actually recommended this article yesterday, and I think this point from it is especially interesting:

The result is a technocratic Democratic foreign policy establishment, isolated from its own party, and a liberal grass roots that views the war on terrorism in largely negative terms, reserving its positive energies for domestic issues such as health care and abortion rights.

Many of us have noted the need for Democrats to develop a compelling reform agenda and a coherent foreign policy, and I think this gets to that point.

Red-zone blues? North, Americans!

Red-zone blues? North, Americans!

I only blog this for my friend Shayna Englin. Maybe a seminar is coming to a conference room near you.....

Director's Control Is a Concern

More and more news articles are raising questions about the efficacy of the structural changes in the new intelligence bill....

My understanding is that the widespread use of SS numbers as IDs is, in fact, a violation of the law. But perhaps that is wrong. (And colleges designating the same number as a "student ID" number is a lame work-around. But each student, individually, can request that a different number be used.)

Of course passports are national IDs, as well. But citizens are not required to have passports.

In the small print and "well understood" aren't the same thing

This was Rumsfeld's response to a soldier's question about "stop loss," which allows the military to force soldiers to stay in the service beyond their voluntary periods of enlistment: "The stop-loss has been used by the military for years and years and years. . . . It's all well understood when someone volunteers to join the service."

Just because stop-loss is in the small print, to suggest that it's "well understood" is a sham. When I joined the Air Force at 17 years old, I thought I knew very well what my commitment would be. Like other service academy candidates, I researched just about every aspect of the institution I hoped to join. I agreed to a minimum of six years on active duty following four years at the Air Force Academy. That's how my Academy classmates understood our commitment, and that's how our superiors explained our commitment. No mention of "stop loss," no mention of required enrollment in the Individual Ready Reserve for those who separate from the service before the eight year point, etc. I'm not for a moment suggesting that those details weren't written in some document somewhere that we all signed at some point. But it's disingenuous for Rumsfeld and others to argue that those aspects our our commitment were "all well understood when someone volunteers to join the service."

Hopefully all this publicity is educating prospective service members about the potential range of their commitment, and hopefully it's a wake-up call to the military that it needs to do a better job of making sure these policies are, in fact, well understood when someone volunteers.

Action Ticker fixed

The Action Ticker is back up. RSS-to-JavaScript had accidentally left their server in "debug" mode after some maintanence.

Support for Tom on intelligence bill

This article outlines the expanded police powers contained in the intelligence reform bill, supporting Tom's concerns about the effect of the bill on civil liberties. I disagree with Tom about the value of the structural changes to our national intelligence apparatus (I think there's a strong case to be made that this new structure might have prevented 9/11), but I share his concerns about the civil liberties effects of several aspects of the bill.

One point Tom mentioned in the "comments" exchange on his original post that I think deserves further discussion is the notion of national ID card. ("...standardizing driver's licenses comes one step closer to creating a national ID card...") While there's a strong civil liberties case against a national ID card, haven't our social security numbers already become a de-facto form of national identification?

Action Ticker temporarily disabled

Some users started getting a strange javascript alert late yesterday that interfered with their ability to view the site. It was apparently related to the Action Ticker, so I have temporarily disabled that feature pending feedback from the folks at RSS-to-JavaScript, whose site drives the ticker.

On soldiers busting the chops of senior leaders

I'm afraid I have to disagree with Zach's assessment that "the soldiers, President Bush so cravenly hides behind, are turning against their Commander In Chief." Of course, I agree that Bush cravenly hides behind our soldiers, sailors, Airmen, and Marines. But I don't see much evidence that those men and women are turning against him. The latest National Anneberg Election Surveys of the troops have 63 percent approving of the way Bush is handling Iraq and 68 percent approving of his performance as president. While it appears that Kerry did better than past Democrats among military voters, they and their families still overwhelmingly supported Bush.

The media coverage of Spec. Thomas Wilson's question to Rumsfeld at yesterday's town-hall meeting with soldiers in Kuwait has been somewhat amusing. Given that opponents of the Bush administration have been arguing for months that our troops were sent to war without the proper personal and vehicle armor, it's certainly newsworthy when soldiers publicly confirm those charges to Rumsfeld's face. (Where were you six weeks ago, Wilson?!) But many in the media are reporting it as if they're surprised that a soldier would challenge Rumsfeld with such a question, as if either (1) Wilson is a uniquely courageous whistler-blower; (2) things have gotten so bad that the troops feel compelled to speak out; or (3) things have gotten so bad that the troops are turning on their chain of command. Over the years I've been to more commanders calls and town-hall meetings than I can count, hosted by commanding generals, service secretaries, undersecretaries, and at least two different secretaries of Defense, and this kind of blunt questioning is pretty standard. For all of their professional discipline, American military men and women aren't shy about taking their commanders to task when given the opportunity. I've seen commanders put on the spot about pay, housing, training, uniforms, equipment, weight standards, PT standards, stop loss, deployment schedules, pretty much you name it. Depending on the issue and the commanders, responses range anywhere from "shut up and color" to "I'm sorry and we'll fix it." It's news because it confirms a key criticism of Bush's management of the war. But an American soldier respectfully busting the chops of senior leaders when given free reign to do so isn't that unusual, and it certainly doesn't suggest that the soldiers are turning against Bush.

This episode highlights two problems Democrats need to overcome: First, there is a similar disconnect between Democrats and rural, churched voters as there is between Democrats and military men and women and their families. (e.g.: I had an email exchange recently with a writer for a venerable liberal journal, who called military sources "right-wing.") Second, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, military people still believe that Republicans serve them better, and Democrats need to figure out how to neutralize and overcome that ingrained perception.

And another thing...

I'm amazed (not really, but I'd like to be) at the lack of commentary on Dennis Hastert's comment last week about how he'd like to pass bills in the House. Made within the context of the Homeland Security Bill, Hastert essentially said he'd rather pass a bill with 51 votes than 70+ votes, because it signals that it is a more conservative bill.

Now, I understand the obligation to represent your constitutency. But I also understand the obligation to run the House of Representatives as a governing body for the entire country. Is there no sense of duty that broad consensus is actually better for the country as a whole than taking advantage of your numbers to pursue narrower policies that represent fewer Americans? I know this may be standard operating procedure, and that it may, in fact, have begun back when Democrats dominated Congress. Regardless, we shouldn't stop having a problem with it.

Discontent

The news has been peppered with stories of soldiers or former soldiers discontent with the status of the Iraq occupation. From asylum seekers to soldiers bluntly questioning the architect of the Iraq occupation, Secretary Rumsfeld, soldiers are openly resisting the Iraq occupation. What does it say about the occupation in Iraq when the soldiers, President Bush so cravenly hides behind, are turning against their Commander In Chief?

U.S. Army Deserter Seeks Canadian Asylum

Rumsfeld Query No Shock to Soldier's Wife

Can the Democrats Fight? (washingtonpost.com)

I don't have time to write the "envelope" around this that I'd like. Suffice it to say, for now, that this is a must-read out of this morning's Washington Post. I have mixed feelings about it, but it definitely starts a conversation that must be had.

Can the Democrats Fight? (washingtonpost.com)

NASA Urged to Scrap Hubble Robot Rescue

NASA is laying the groundwork to ignore the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences and abandon the Hubble Space telescope. This is simply scandalous. The Hubble is one of the most valuable and productive scientific tools ever, and with minor repairs it has many more useful years—and certainly enough to survive until its replacement is ready.

At least Hubble has a few champions, like Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski: "NASA has the experience, the technology and now it has the money. It's time to fix Hubble—Congress and the American people expect nothing less." (Go Senator Barb! And the crabcake recipe is good, too!)

Fixing the Hubble is worthwhile in its own right. But it is also important that we stand up to the Bush administration's persistent neglect, if not outright disdain, for science and knowledge.

So write your senators now. Tell them that unless they need all the shuttles to send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to blow up a giant meteor, they should send one to fix the Hubble.

Bracing for the next battle

The New York Times confirms it: the next monumental political battle will begin as soon as one of the current justices on the US Supreme Court retires or dies (as may be the case with the Chief):

Justice Rehnquist has not announced plans to retire, but advocacy groups on both sides are already raising money and plotting strategy either to support or to oppose whoever is nominated to be his replacement. The result is an awkward wait for a conflict that both sides expect will be as bitter and divisive as the presidential election itself...

It has been 10 years since the last Supreme Court vacancy - not since 1823 has the court gone so long without a new member - so advocates have spent years preparing for this moment. Yet some say a Rehnquist retirement, in which a conservative chief justice will probably be replaced with another conservative, will be little more than a dress rehearsal for an even bigger battle that will unfold when one of the court's swing voters, perhaps Justice Sandra Day O'Connor or Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, or one of its liberal members like John Paul Stevens, leaves.

Personally, the retirement of an O'Connor, Kennedy, or Stevens would not only serve as the foundation for a larger political fight, it also would have an enormous impact on the Court itself and the future shape of jurisprudence. I am one of the few people that believes that who is on the Supreme Court is the most important issue.

Long protected from politics and ideology, the Supreme Court inserted itself into the political process in 2000 by handing the election to George W. Bush. As a political and judicial body, the laws they interpret and sometimes make from the bench are hard to undo. Courts and especially the US Supreme Court respects precedent and its jurisprudential weight (even if cases are decided wrong). As a result, it can sometimes take decades to undue a bad ruling. Justices who want to see Roe overturned have had a hard time finding the "right" case vehicle. Just because Roe has been protected up to this point, its unclear whether this will always be the case. Of course, let's not forget all of the other areas the Supreme Court routinely weighs in on: criminal procedure, civil rights, environmental law and protection, consumer rights (did you know the Court ruled a few days ago it was basically inappropriate to seek damages from automobile predatory lenders?), employment, election, and corporate law. There is no subject matter off limits for the Court as long as the basic jurisdictional requirements are met.

Second, the members of the court are appointed for life. Ideally, a lifetime appointment is supposed to encourage judicial independence, and it has worked in the case of Justice Souter. But, it can also protect a bad justice by guaranteeing he/she has a job.

Nevertheless, Senator Schumer sets up the basic dynamics of any Supreme Court nomination fight:

"If a candidate is a mainstream candidate, even with conservative leanings, it will be hard," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who serves on the judiciary panel. "But if the candidate is a hard right-wing candidate, it will not be that hard. The more the hard right rattles its sabers, the more resolved our caucus is not to cave."

Homeland Security for the Holidays

Just in time for the holidays, Congress is set to deliver the third big post-9/11 gift: First, we got the Patriot Act; then, a Department of Homeland Security; now, so-called intelligence reform. Whether this will politicize the intelligence procress more than it already is, or merely violate more of our civil liberties, is not yet clear. I'm sure it will need fixing before too long, in any case. (Perhaps we will be allowed to return it without a receipt until January 15?)

Although the Republicans provided a little seasonal drama at the end, the passage of this legislation was really assured when Democrats swallowed whole the 9/11 Commission recommendations without comment or reflection, in a desperate attempt not to be seen as soft on Iraq, er, terror during the campaign season. (And that worked so well....) So this is just what we ordered.

I, for one, don't feel one bit safer by this latest hollow show of concern for our national security or (vaguely) my personal security. Frankly, I was somewhat happier about the extra ten minutes I might get from duct tape and plastic sheeting. The myth of security is the central political dogma since 9/11; but this myth is at least as dangerous as the lack of security, and perhaps moreso. Instead of actually dealing with the difficult (for the government) and expensive (ultimately for the consumer, but more directly for big companies) task of protecting the massive amounts of cargo that enter our country each day unseen by most of us, we get the superficial but visible show of force at the airport where we all get to disrobe and remove our computers and video cameras (but not other just as "dangerous" electronics) from our bags. If this doesn't violate our civil liberties in itself, it at least invites further violations. (Which invitations are regularly accepted.) The security results are really quite negligible compared to the cost in dollars and time. And the security measures are easily defeated by government auditors and teenagers, nevermind determined terrorists. All I get is the extra pleasure undressing in public and the opportunity to show my fellow passengers that I have a better laptop than they do.

Real security is difficult and expensive to obtain, and in the long run nobody is protected by so-called "security" that violates the rights of citizens--or of detainees, for that matter. I can't tell you how to get it, but I can tell you that it doesn't require removing your shoes.

Have a wondeful and safe holiday season, but don't forget to take off your belt!

Declining dollars in Bedford Falls

There have been a lot of stories lately about the declining value of the dollar, so many of you may already be aware of the impending problem. If you haven't yet caught on to this brewing storm, you can check out this great summary from The Economist.

In particular, I was captured by this particular paragraph from the article:

The dollar's loss of reserve-currency status would lead America's creditors to start cashing those checks -- and what an awful lot of checks there are to cash. As that process gathered pace, the dollar could tumble further and further. American bond yields (long-term interest rates) would soar, quite likely causing a deep recession.

As I read this, an image came to mind: angry foreign heads of state, surrounding George Bush and moving in menacingly, shaking their bank books. Bush, trying to manage the crowd, says desperately, "But Tony, I can't give you your money. You're money's not here. It's in Jacques' house, up the street, and Vicente's, and Paul's. Now, how much do you really need to get by? Come on, now, Tony." The foreign leaders, trusting George's honesty and wisdom, agree to band together for the sake of the greater good.

Except George Bush is no Jimmy Stewart and, unfortunately for those of us residing in Bedford Falls, the crowd is pretty unlikely to walk out with fifty cents and the warm feeling of community cohesion. Dick Cheney says deficits don't matter; maybe that's because he figures he'll be long gone when the run on the bank occurs.

Tell It, E.J.

Get Along? Get Real. (washingtonpost.com)

At the heart of Getalongism is the view that Democrats should not dare do what the Republicans did. Could it be that Getalongism is an ideology designed primarily to maintain the Republicans as our nation's permanent governing majority?

At the risk of making this an all-E.J. Dionne, all-the-time blog, I've got to send up an, "amen" to today's column.

I've argued before that Democrats have got to grow about ten layers of skin and internalize that politics is not a game played with gentlemen's rules. It's not about rational debate of ideas. It's not even about debate (rational or otherwise) about policies. It's about making the other guy look as unqualified, as spineless, and - most important - as untrustworthy as possible. This last election was ostensibly about Iraq and the War on Terror, but that debate happened in terms of character, not policies or plans. Bush, et al, convinced Americans that Kerry is a mealy mouthed, principle-free careerist (full disclosure: I agree with them on that first part part) who can't be trusted with our safety. Kerry fought back by arguing that...what? That Bush wasn't appropriately perpetrating the war in Iraq. Well, duh. Think about which is the better, more compelling, counterpunch. "Of course I'm committed to winning the war on terror!" or "My opponent can't make up his mind about whether we should even be fighting this war, I don't expect him to understand the complexities of how we're fighting it. He's playing politics with the valor of our men and women in uniform."

The same principle is true for governance. There may have been a day when the Senate, for example, operated according to a set of tacitly agreed upon rules whereby ugly political battles would be left at the door in order to allow consensus building between the minority and majority parties. That day is long gone. The rules of governing are as cutthroat as the rules of politics these days, and the Republicans know full well that the path to victory is paved by marrying the two. E.J. reminds us:

Republicans now pushing Getalongism on the Democrats had no objection when their own party pursued a scorched-earth strategy against the Clinton administration. Remember Bill Clinton's 1993 economic plan that put the United States on the path to budget surpluses? It passed without a single Republican vote. Republicans predicted doom for the economy. In 1994 Republicans went after Democrats who had voted for Clinton's tax increases. They took back the House of Representatives and the Senate, and paid no price when their predictions of catastrophe proved dead wrong.

. . .The same logic applies to other issues, including battles over the judiciary. Republicans did all they could to obstruct Clinton's judicial appointments. Their punishment? More vacancies to fill with right-wingers when Bush became president. Some punishment.

Tell it, E.J. Think again about the messaging of the next two elections, and how we'll make coherent, effective counterpunches if we as a party compromise our principles in order to play nice with the Republicans on the very same issues we're going to (justifiably!) hammer them on. The Republicans have understood for a long while that it's impossible to do that well; it's about time we learned from them.

I am a Democrat because I strongly believe that Democratic victories lead to a more just world. Winning or losing isn't just a matter of pride, or the game, or anything else so shallow. When we lost a month-and-a-half ago the we took a giant step away from the ideal just world. (I'll write another post sometime soon expounding on my basis for that assertion.) When the Democrats in Congress are complicit with passing the Republicans' right-wing agenda they not only shove us further away from our - the nation's - ideals, but they give Republicans credibility and political fuel to remain in power to...say it with me...move us yet further away from our ideals, from all that is best about our great country.

I'm not happy that our politics has become devoid of substance. But it has. I'm similarly unhappy that our polarized politics has affected our halls of governance. But again, deluding myself that it's not so isn't going to change anything. We must play on the field as it exists if we ever hope to win there.

Thanks to E.J. Dionne for telling it as it is.

Bill Clinton: Stop "bellyaching and whining" and address energy dependence and global warming

From this morning's Washington Post, this ought to be another issue we push aggressively as part of a Democratic "Contract with America":

"Speaking at a day-long symposium he sponsored at New York University, [former President Bill Clinton] said he was distressed that the energy issue's link with both national security and environmental degradation received 'almost no serious discussion' among the candidates or the media in the just-ended presidential campaign, even though this 'may have a bigger impact on America and the world than virtually all the things that were debated.'"

Clinton certainly isn't the first to highlight the issue, but the man knows how to win elections, so it's worth noting his comments on the politics:

"Clinton said the argument that global warming does not exist is now so discredited that it is no longer acceptable 'in polite society' to make that case, but that it is still 'okay if you don't do anything about it.'

"Politicians, Clinton suggested, may be slow to recognize that constituencies are building for innovative proposals that will promote conservation and cleaner technologies such as solar power. 'I think this is becoming a bipartisan issue in America,' he said."

A chance to be strong and right

As I noted earlier, the Healthy Families Act would cover a number of real-life situations that the Family and Medical Leave Act doesn't already cover, such as staying home with a child who has pinkeye -- something I've personally experienced. (Schools are deathly afraid of kids with pinkeye.) In case you're still skeptical, here is the Department of Labor's official Family and Medical Leave Act definition of "serious health condition." It's actually worse than I originally thought, since it specifies a definition of "spouse" that clearly excludes gay partners in many states. Worse still, I have it on good authority that the Department of Labor is likely to narrow this definition even further in the next few years.
 
Somebody suggested to me today that we ought to focus on strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act, since the Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to pass the Healthy Families Act. I don't have a problem with strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act (although if Republicans consider the above definition of "serious illness" to be too permissive, I'm not sure how likely that would be either.) But why exactly should we not beat Republicans over the heads with the Healthy Families Act simply because it's not likely to pass? In politics, strong and wrong beats weak and right, which is why we keep losing. This gives us a chance to be strong and right. Even if it doesn't pass, it puts Republicans in the position of being anti-"Healthy Families" and Democrats in the position of standing up for "Healthy Families" on principle. That doesn't mean we don't also seek common ground toward passable incremental improvements in the mean time, but how else are we going to start winning again if we don't marry a relevant reform agenda with the spine to back it up?

BTW, here's the official, non-bootleg version of the booklet by 9to5, National Association of Working Women.

Doesn't the Family and Medical Leave Act already do that?

I got the following email from a reader questioning my post and message about the Healthy Families Act:

[The Family and Medical Leave Act] provides for 12 weeks of unpaid leave during a 12 month period for:

*for the birth and care of the newborn child of the employee;
*for placement with the employee of a son or daughter for adoption or foster care;
*to care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition; or
*to take medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.

How would an employee be fired for being sick or caring for a sick child?

I agree that for a low-income parent to take unpaid leave to care for a sick child, it would certainly create an undue financial hardship, but under FMLA, their job would/should remain there.

As to sick leave, as a part-time or full-time employee, I've never had it. I've always been in situations where I had a common pool of "paid time off" and you could use it however you pleased. . . . I'm pretty sure that most white-collar employers would compensate for the. . . paid sick leave by reducing the paid vacation days--thus you'd have a whole bunch of pissed off white-collar employees.

These are reasonable points, and here's the response from somebody who is involved with this legislation:

FMLA covers serious illnesses ("serious health condition").  Workers cannot use FMLA to care for a child with the flu or pink eye, to take a frail, elderly parent to a doctor's appointment, or even for one's own stomach virus.  The Healthy Families Act would allow workers to take a day for those types of purposes, while FMLA would not.  In addition, FMLA covers businesses with 50 or more employees.  The Healthy Families Act covers businesses with 15 or more.
 
A common pool of paid time off would be an acceptable way to address the requirements of the Healthy Families Act as long as employees are eligible for at least 7 days of paid time off for the purposes under the bill.  The bill specifies that employers should not reduce current leave policies to comply with the bill, but can use existing structures as long as the minimum requirement is met.

Support Ted Kennedy's Healthy Families Act

Today, 9to5, National Association of Working Women will release a booklet describing some of the things that could happen to you if you're not lucky enough to have a job that includes sick leave. I obtained a bootleg copy of the booklet from an inside source, and it's certainly worth a look. Most people believe that American workers have the right to paid sick days. But almost half of full-time private-sector workers have none, and the same is true for 3/4 of all low-wage workers and 5/6 of all part-time workers. Many of those unlucky people can be fired summarily for taking time off to care for a sick child or to go to the doctor.

I wrote on Wednesday that Democrats need an agenda on parenting. Senator Ted Kennedy's Healthy Families Act is precisely the kind of thing I had in mind. It would guarantee workers seven days of paid sick leave each year to care for their own illnesses and those of their family members. The National Partnership for Women & Families (the same group that helped pass the Family Medical Leave Act) is collecting signatures on a petition in support of Kennedy's bill. They plan to release the petition when Kennedy re-introduces the bill in January. I hope you'll take a moment now to sign the petition and share it with your friends.

Rosenthal: Not So Much

As David noted, Steve Rosenthal spent a couple dozen paragraphs defending his organization's efforts in Ohio in the Washington Post his morning.

His conclusion that Bush's message resonated better than Kerry's, er, lack of message, is painfully, obviously valid. His piling on to the oft reported conclusion that the early-trumpeted influence of the so-called "values" voters was a dramatic overstatement is a welcome addition to the wealth of smart people making that case. However, his attempt to debunk the "myth" of the stellar GOP mobilization in Ohio is incredibly weak. (Just as Rosenthal appropriately acknowledged his stake in making the case that Kerry didn't lose on the ground, I've got to acknowledge my stake in proving him wrong - my silence here would earn me ribbing for at least the next election cycle, given my many posts, here and elsewhere, like this one.)

First, Rosenthal says that the Republican effort couldn't have been all that because

Turnout in Democratic-leaning counties in Ohio was up 8.7 percent while turnout in Republican-leaning counties was up slightly less, at 6.3 percent. John Kerry bested Bush in Cuyahoga County (home of Cleveland) by 218,000 votes -- an increase of 42,497 over Gore's 2000 effort. In Stark County (Canton) -- a bellwether lost by Gore -- Kerry won by 4,354.

What he conveniently leaves out is that while the increase in turnout numbers in Democratic versus Republican strongholds wasn't too bad for Democrats, the Republicans did a much better job of turning out their voters in those areas. In 78 of 88 Ohio counties, the percentage of Bush voters was higher this year than in 2000. So, even in most of the counties Bush lost he picked up a greater percentage of the vote than he did last time. Add that up across 78 counties, and it's easy to see how even dramatic victories in Ohio's six big-city counties weren't enough for a Kerry win, even with more voting there.

Just looking at the voter turnout numbers, Rosenthal glosses over the fact that while the average increases in Democratic- versus Repulican-leaning counties wasn't too far off, in many of the individual counties that "lean" most heavily Republican turnout was in fact through the roof. In Delaware County, for example, where Bush won with 66% of the vote, turnout was up by 43%. Forty-three percent. Turnout in Cuyahoga County (Kerry's with 67%) was up by 13.5%.

Next, Rosenthal claims that this:

Among Ohio's rural and exurban voters, Bush beat Kerry by just five points among newly registered voters and by a mere two points among infrequent voters (those who did not vote in 2000).

somehow debunks the idea that newly registered voters in the suburbs and exurbs carried the day. Maybe Mr. Rosenthal forgot to notice that Ohio was lost by about 2.5%. It seems to me that the 2-5 point margin for Bush among new and infrequent voters is not insignificant, given the margin. Setting aside the numbers for a moment, let's stand back and note that, by however small a margin, Bush won the new voters in surburban, exurban, and rural OH. Wasn't this supposed to be the election where disaffection with the clearly incompetent President would turn out droves of people coming out of the woodwork just to vote against him? Hmmmm....let's return to our discussion of how we can be a credible alternative, shall we?

Finally, Rosenthal takes on the "myth" that Republicans ran a superior, volunteer-driven mobilization effort.

When we asked new voters in rural and exurban areas who contacted them during this campaign, we learned that they were just as likely to hear from the Kerry campaign and its allies as from the Bush side. (In contrast, regular voters reported more contact from the GOP.)

(. . .) Much has been made of the Republican effort to turn out voters through personal contact. Yet our poll shows that voters in these Republican counties were just as likely to be visited by a Kerry supporter at their homes as by a Bush supporter. Fewer than 2 percent were visited by a Bush supporter whom they knew personally.

The fact that new voters heard from Kerry and Bush people with equal frequency certainly bolsters Rosenthal's claim (preceded and no doubt echoed by every Democrat who's written anything on the election) that Bush won them over because he had a strong message. The second part of that paragraph is telling, though: reliable voters heard from Bush more often, and lo' and behold, they voted for him more reliably. That's evidence in favor of the GOP's approach to field in Ohio, not that they were somehow less impressive than it seems.

I can't imagine Mr. Rosenthal is being willfully deceptive in trumpeting his finding that just 2% of voters in Republican counties had been "visited by a Bush supporter whom they knew personally," as evidence of the GOP plan's failure, but he is absolutely dodging the key point. The argument has never been that voters must be contacted by people they know personally, but that local volunteers are better than imported campaign workers (volunteer or otherwise). It's fair to surmise that either they didn't bother asking that question, or ACT found (predictably) that OH voters had in fact been contacted more frequently by Bush supporters from their neighborhood than by Kerry supporters from their neighborhood. Anyone who's made voter ID and persuasion calls can attest (I know I can, and David will back me up on this), whether you know your neighbors or not, it's extremely effective to start a conversation with, "I live around the corner from you." Research shows that it's far more effective than, "I came to Ohio from Connecticut because I think you should vote for Kerry," or some equivalent. It's the basis of the 72 Hour Plan, and the "Virtual Precinct Captain" tools and other tactics that made up the extremely effective GOP ground game in Ohio and nationwide.

Steve Rosenthal and ACT did tremendous work and certainly built a foundation for voter mobilization efforts in elections to come. It was a commendable effort. But it failed in Ohio (and elsewhere). A crappy candidate with no message helped pave the path to failure, but it was a failure. He - and we - can defend what ACT, et al, did and try to diminish what the GOP did on the ground to beat us, or we can learn from it and fight back not just harder, but better, in 2006 and beyond. Rosenthal's defense doesn't inspire my optimism that we'll pursue the latter course.

Debunking conventional wisdom about GOP's election-day success

There were two interesting articles in the Washington Post today debunking conventional wisdom about the GOP's election-day success. In "Anatomy of a Myth," CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer shows how the punditocracy's superficial analysis and herd mentality have created the vaunted, yet mythological, "morality voters" whom Democrats must either fear or embrace, depending on whom you ask:

Nonetheless, analysts have been surfing on tidal-wave conclusions. It has become a breast-beating crisis for Democrats that the values voters who were 22 percent of the electorate went for the Republican by a crushing margin, 80 percent to 18 percent. By that logic, it must follow that it's a crisis for Republicans that the 20 percent who care most about the economy and jobs went 80-18 for the Democrat.

Or perhaps it's a crisis for the Republicans that the 45 percent slice of the electorate that describes itself as moderate went for Kerry 54-45? Or that first-time voters went 53-46 for Kerry? So many crises, so few facts to support them.

Meyer does a nice job acknowledging the efforts of others to debunk this new political myth, but note, "Despite the best efforts of myth-busters, the moral values doctrine has morphed from a simple poll finding to a grand explanatory theory to gospel truth. This contaminated strain of punditry needs to be eradicated before it spreads further."

In "Okay, We Lost Ohio. The Question Is, Why?," American Coming Together's Steve Rosenthal analyzes new data on Ohio and makes a strong case that Bush's victory there had less to do with Republican mobilization efforts and more to do with message. Read the article for his detailed comparison of the results of Democratic and Republican mobilization efforts. (Which implies, perhaps a bit self-servingly, that the field operations conducted by Rosenthal's ACT and other Democratic 527s were just as effective as the GOP's 72-hour Plan.) He concludes the following:

The Bush campaign was able to persuade some voters who supported Gore in 2000 to turn to Bush in 2004 on the issues of terrorism, strength and leadership. Bush bested Kerry among those who voted in 2000 by five percentage points -- Bush bested Gore in 2000 by three points.

The other major factor was our side's failure to win the economic debate. Despite an economy that was not delivering for many working people in Ohio, the exit poll results show that voters in Ohio did not see Kerry providing a clear alternative. Just 45 percent expressed confidence that Kerry could handle the economy, compared with Bush's 49 percent.

The GOP put on a strong mobilization effort, but that's not what tipped the Ohio election. They did not turn Gore voters into Bush voters by offering a ride to the polls. Instead, it was skillful exploitation of public concern over terrorism by the Bush team -- coupled with Democrats' inability to draw clear, powerful contrasts on the economy and health care -- that pushed Bush over the finish line.

Mistakes

One of the persistent themes of the campaign was that George W. Bush was unable to learn from, or even to admit, his mistakes. And now this. Letting Secretary Rumsfeld keep his job is more than willfully blind. It's more than stubborn. It's an intentional affront: he might as well have called a joint session of Congress and given the American people the finger.

Democrats should focus on raising minimum wage and leveling economic disparities

It seems the The Nation is on to something. Peter Dreier and Kelly Candaele report on and argue for making increasing the minimum wage an integral part of a Democratic economic message. The authors gently suggest if Kerry had embraced raising the minimum wage he would have blunted Republican GOTV efforts in states where initiatives to increase the minimum wage passed but Kerry lost (ex. Florida and Nevada).

But, although Democrats and their allies mobilized an unprecedented get-out-the-vote operation, they were outsmarted and out-hustled by Republicans. Kettenring believes that Kerry might have taken more votes away from Bush in Florida if he had embraced the minimum-wage campaign, as many labor and progressive activists urged him to do. But he inexplicably ignored the issue. It is imperative that Democrats and progressives start a nationwide debate that frames economic justice as a moral issue. Not only would this be the right thing to do. It would seem to be a winning electoral issue.

Not only could the minimum wage issue have helped Kerry, some even believe the aggressive organizing by unions and other progressive organizations to pass the minimum wage increase in Nevada helped elect three additional Democrats to the Nevada State Assembly. As Democrats are searching for new ways to communicate a positive, progressive agenda, the authors believe increasing the minimum wage should be at the center of any economic message.

Democrats and progressives are once again going through a wrenching self-evaluation about why they lost the White House again and how they can build a majority coalition to win it back. The minimum-wage victories in Florida and Nevada are a political neon sign blinking brightly. In January, when Bush is sworn in for a second term, the array of people and groups who worked to elect John Kerry (unions, environmentalists, community-organizing networks, civil rights groups, disaffected millionaires and religious organizations) should announce a nationwide moral crusade to raise the national minimum wage to the official poverty level--$9.50 an hour--which translates to $19,000 a year.

In my estimation, Democrats should focus on raising the minimum wage but they should also focus on really leveling economic disparities. Democrats should push for price caps on college tuition and change the Federal student loan program to a Federal student grant program. Families are being priced out of providing a college education for their graduating sons and daughters, while having a college education has become essential to getting a good paying job. At the same time, Sallie Mae/Citibank is making billions off the new professional underclass through interest payments which skirt the line of usury. While we are at it, let's mandate 10-20 paid vacation days a year for America's workers. American workers are the most efficient in the world, yet our economy is growing/has grown at rates relative to other industrialized nations with more liberal mandated vacation policies. And of course let's not forget about health care. Democrats are the party of the New Deal, the War on Poverty, and the Great Society. These were ambitious, pro-lower, middle, and working class visions that produced the most important reforms in the last century. We need to be economic reformers again.

Blasting out of the Box

So if I’m gonna be a contributor to this thing, I better contribute. I’m going to say some provocative things that aren’t entirely original, but that I think we need to come to terms with if the Democratic party is going to stay relevant in the years to come:

1) Howard Dean should not be head of the DNC. The catnip for Republicans is too good, and he’ll be too much of a lightning rod, keeping their base stirred up, but…

2) His commitment to build the party from the ground up is crucial. I saw him twice in the same night this week, and he is committed to getting School Board members and County Commissioners elected, who will then scale the ranks. Just like the GOP did, starting in the 80s – worked pretty well, wouldn’t you say? I hope he continues to use Democracy for America as a tool for local change.

3) Hillary can run, but I hope she doesn’t stay in too long. Fine – run, define the debate, fire up your supporters … and then throw that clout behind someone electable. The Republican base is already fired up enough – don’t drive up GOP turnout 10% by staying in too long.

4) Don’t let the base run the party. The natural inclination in times like this is for the committed base to say “I told you so” and pull the party their direction. One could argue that this has worked for the Republicans, except it isn’t true. Bush (almost) won in 2000 by portraying himself as a compassionate conservative – remember, we were upset that he was stealing our playbook! He may not have governed that way, but that’s what sold him. Things are different now after 9/11, so we can’t yet read too much into this one election. Bush won this election because people were freaked out by terrorism (yes, he scared them into it, but still), and Kerry didn’t make clear what he would do about it. Plain and simple. This is still fundamentally a centrist country, whether we like it or not.

5) We can’t be afraid of values. There has been much Democratic teeth gnashing over the fact that people didn’t vote their economic self interest and that the GOP has effectively stolen the values debate. But that’s because we ask people to think too much. People don’t vote for Presidents based on their heads; they vote based on their hopes, their fears, their dreams – what they want to see reflected about themselves in their national leaders. We need to show people that health care, choice, fair wages, or any of the other things that people trust Democrats more on are ABOUT family, community, opportunity, and a more just nation. Bill Clinton married these things brilliantly (we can discuss how much he helped the party in the process elsewhere). But we can’t be afraid of these issues, or feel like we’re “pandering to the right” if we talk that way. We need to believe it and talk about it. (notice that it’s not about religion, and it doesn’t have to be)

Anyway, like I said in the beginning, I don’t pretend this is very original. But I do think that we need to stop being afraid to look in the mirror and reflect honestly on what we see. We have to marry pragmatism with our core beliefs, without shortchanging either one. And we need to articulate a core set of both political and substantive values that reflect the concerns, challenges, fears, and hopes of average Americans (wherever they are). We’re all waiting for someone to do that. Why not us? And why not now?

Bill Clinton: Not My Friend

If you're a subscriber to the Atlantic Monthly, don't miss this piece on Bill Clinton's political and policy legacy.

Jack Beatty makes the spot-on argument that Bill Clinton's legacy is one of very modest lasting policy change - embodied most notably in the Family Medical Leave Act and welfare reform - and catastrophic political damage to the Democratic Party. Bill Clinton governed to the lasting benefit of Bill Clinton, and none other.

Welfare reform, one of two his signature policy legacies, not only sold out legal immigrants and explicitly abandoned the right of the indigent to help from their government (read the law), but split the party - and even his own administration, losing several great public servants who left in protest - in service primarily to his own re-election efforts.

As Jack Beatty puts it:

Welfare reform has yielded some positive results since its enactment in 1996, though most of the jobs filled by welfare recipients pay low wages, offer few benefits, and are likely to disappear in economic downturns, and the effects on children who had to bring themselves up in the absence of their working mothers has yet to be measured. But it misrepresents the historical context for Clinton, as he did in his speech, to bask in the humanitarian glow of a policy choice motivated more by his reelection campaign against Bob Dole than by his compassion for single mothers caught up in welfare dependency. With welfare reform, Clinton did not "put people first," as he claimed Thursday; he put Bill Clinton first.

Moreover (again quoting Mr. Beatty),

In Little Rock, Clinton said he "kept score," and that ordinary Americans were better off when he left than when he entered office. But not for long. Since they don't have "health care that's always there" (because he failed to lead), nothing Clinton did for them can compensate for what the Republican Congress will not do for them. For the twelve years of Reagan-Bush, the minimum wage was not raised; and the GOP Congress did not raise it during Bush's first term, and won't in his second. The working poor lost when the GOP won. The working poor—ordinary Americans who can't afford to take the unpaid family leave that Clinton claims as one of his signature achievements.

Whoops….there goes some serious shine off the lasting benefit of his only other major policy achievement.

I understand that the benefits of Clinton’s two policy legacies are arguable – in fact, I’ve argued with many of you who think they’re much more grand and sterling than I do. I always love to hear arguments about other policy stuff he did that wasn’t overturned before the end of 2000 – those arguments are typically very, very short. But what’s inarguable is where he left the party.

To start with the most obvious: I firmly believe that Clinton’s philandering is and was an issue of concern primarily to Mrs. Clinton, and perhaps Clinton’s many dalliances. As a wife, spousal fidelity is vitally important to me, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a reflection of how well a person can govern the nation. I agree in substance with the ubiquitous battle cry of MoveOn, et. al.: when Clinton lied, no one died. If I’ve got to choose what my President’s going to lie about, I’d prefer it be about his sex life than the physical security of the country.

But in his failure to keep it zipped in the Oval Office, and his subsequent willingness to lie about it (not to mention sacrifice his staff’s credibility to the lie), he armed the “values” zealots with invaluable ammunition and opportunities to practice to mastery the tactic of character assassination.

In a not unrelated failure, and I recognize this will be more controversial, Clinton led us away from being a party of principles to being one firmly of politics. If you’re not convinced that this is true, read through Newsweek’s account of his suggestions to Kerry visa vis coming out in favor of the gay marriage amendments in swing states for a refresher. To give credit where it’s due, Clinton was absolutely solid on choice, and if it weren’t for his vetoes we no doubt would have had an outright ban on third trimester abortions a decade ago. But move beyond choice, and you see a man dedicated to no principle other than winning. Not gay rights. Not environmental protection. Not health care. Not the poor. Not education. There was nothing he was willing to risk his own political skin for - which is a different charge than saying he didn't do anything good on those issues. He did, but only when it cost him absolutely nothing. He is a brilliant orator with a knack for making people believe that he “feels their pain,” but he put that tremendous skill to use in service almost entirely to himself, not the principles he ostensibly ran to champion.

The President is not only the head of the nation, but he’s the leader of his party. Clinton ultimately failed in both regards. During his tenure, the country was absolutely better off than it would have been under either Bush I or Dole, but he did nothing to secure that state of affairs for after his departure. When it comes to his party, his failures will continue to be felt for elections to come, I fear. Under his leadership, our state parties faltered, our grassroots withered, and we lost our principles. Bill Clinton’s no hero of mine, and neither are his campaign “pros” we’ve been so deifying of late. In my mind, they’re all old dogs that need to get out of the way if we hope to rebuild in any meaningful way.

E.J. Dionne, RIPPLE OF HOPE reader?

From E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column today, title "Let the Military on Campus":

But having won their principle in court, these universities, including the law schools, should now voluntarily open their doors to recruiters. Liberals especially should be worried about the growing divide between the armed forces and many parts of our society. They should acknowledge that if liberals stay out of the military, their chances of influencing the military culture are reduced to close to zero. Above all, liberals should worry about the unfairness in the way the burdens of service are borne.

Now where have we read that idea before?

Calling all princesses (and knights who aren't afraid of strong women)

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Rep. Henry Waxman recently conducted one of his periodic annoying-yet-loyal-to-the-cause investigations and discovered that--shockingly--we've spent a few hundred million dollars to fund abstinence "education" with curricula that, basically, is full of crap.

Congress at least had the good sense in this latest omnibus budget to refuse Bush's request to up our spending on abstinence ed, but in an era of deficits, this is a no-brainer. Before you know it, our trusty representatives in the House and Senate will be talking budget again, so keep your eye on this one and speak out to your reps. In particular, if you are represented by one of these people, or these people, they currently sit on the subcommittees that decide on education spending. Send them a note now and ask them not to waste our money on stuff like this (not to spoil the ending of the article for you):

One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

Country Mouse, City Mouse, and the Electoral College

I'm curious to know what people think of Jason's proposal to reform the electoral college by subtracting one electoral vote from each state as a way to "[strike] a new balance between the democratic principle of 'one person, one vote' and our federal principle that recognizes the importance of geographical cohesion, stability and diversity."

My own concern with Jason's proposal is that it puts too much emphasis on geographical cohesion to the exclusion of cohesion based on shared political and cultural attitudes. Let me explain: As fashionable as it is to talk about the divide between red states and blue states, I actually think that real political and cultural divide in America is between city and country. Rural Californians have more in common politically and culturally with rural Virginians than with Angelinos or San Franciscans, and they are effectively disenfranchised by the electoral college, even with Jason's proposed modification. Likewise, Atlantans have more in common politically and culturally with Chicagoans, and they are effectively disenfranchised by the electoral college, even with Jason's proposed modification.

I think a better change would be to allocate electoral votes based on victory by congressional district, which is the system in Maine and Nebraska. Under this system, we would see presidential candidates in rural California and in urban Texas, for example, and presidential elections would become district-by-district contests that would both enrich our politics and empower voters who are effectively disenfranchised by the current system.

Update on U.N. Modernization Project

In light of the recent U.N. reform report, I just posted the following to our U.N. Modernization Project discussion:

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, today the U.N. formally released its own report with 101 specific recommendations for reform, including variations on several of the ideas we have have discussed. You can download the full report here.

Our second 30-day discussion period has come and gone, and it's clear that our contributors, while committed to our purpose, face various demands that slow the pace of our effort. Therefore, I'd like to abandon any pretense to deadlines and turn this into an ongoing discussion.

Now that the U.N. has its own reform recommendations on the table, perhaps our contributors can take some time to review the report and we can use it as a jumping off point for our continued discussion.

Response to Tom on colleges barring military recruiters

Tom and I both agree that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is flat-out wrong and that the court ruling against the Solomon Amendment is a good thing. But his thoughtful disagreement with my argument against barring military recruiters from campuses misses two key points.

First, Tom argues "that schools can also make an impact by boycotting military recruiters, denying the military access to what it wants." But even if every single school in the country barred military recruiters, on-campus recruiting isn't the only way to attract college graduates. If there was a way for these schools to make it virtually impossible for the military to recruit new officers, Tom might have a point. (And even in that case, the military could expand the service academies and make them the only source of new officers.) But since a great many schools in parts of the country where "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" isn't that controversial will probably never boycott military recruiters, it would actually be a recipe for making antigay attitudes even more accepted in the military.

Second, Tom rightly distinguishes between a "culture of discrimination and a policy of discrimination," and suggests that military leaders could simply change the policy "in a single day" if only colleges made it difficult enough for the military to recruit new officers. But "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is neither an executive order nor a discretionary policy put in place by military leaders; it's actually federal law. Therefore, only an act of Congress or a Supreme Court ruling could end the policy, and elected leaders and the Supreme Court almost always defer to the military’s judgment on such matters. (In 1993, even an ostensibly pro-gay President and Democratic Congress ultimately bowed to the will of military leaders like Colin Powell in denying gays the right to serve openly.) In 1948, the growing acceptance of black servicemen in the ranks because of their performance during World War II made a big difference to Truman's ability to force racial integration on the military even in the face of resistance from many Southern white officers.

While I don't envision any scenario in which barring recruiters from campus would spur the military to beg Congress to change "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I can certainly envision a future pro-gay President and a future pro-gay Congress changing the policy aided by large numbers of officers from elite schools who refuse to tolerate antigay discrimination. The good news is that, as antigay attitudes in larger American culture have diminished, so have antigay attitudes in the military. According to the recent National Annenberg Election Survey, 50 percent of junior enlisted service members say that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, up from 16 percent in 1992. It seems to me that the last thing we want is for these young enlistees to be led by officers only from schools that don't have a problem with the military's antigay policies.

Who would you hire to plan a war?

Thousands of American servicemen and women in Iraq learned today -- many only through the media -- that their tours of duty will be extended to increase the number of American troops in Iraq to 150,000. This is more proof that generals know more about war planning than ideological civilian political appointees. From today's Washington Post:

Before the invasion, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz dismissed an estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government. "I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators," Wolfowitz told a congressional committee, "and that will help us to keep requirements down."

The original war plan, which was based on that assumption, called for a series of quick reductions in troop levels in 2003, to perhaps 50,000 by the end of that year.

A revision of that plan, devised 12 months ago, called for steady reductions this year.

Instead, occupation forces hit their lowest level last winter, bottoming out at about 110,000 in February. Then, in late March, the insurgency intensified and broadened, with heavy fighting in Shiite areas of south-central Iraq for the first time.

Since then, U.S. troop numbers have risen in response to the unexpected strength and growing sophistication of the enemy.

"Plan A -- what the U.S. actually did -- failed, and Plan B -- the adaptations since the end of 'major combat' -- hasn't worked either, so far," said retired Army Col. Raoul Alcala, who has served as an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, referring to President Bush's May 1, 2003, announcement that major combat operations had ended in Iraq.

Stomping out salmon recovery

Yesterday, President Bush reduced the miles of streams and rivers protected for salmon restoration by 80%. With a much narrower reading of the Endangered Species Act, the administration made it clear they only want to protect those streams and rivers considered "critical" to Salmon recovery. The administration even went to far as to say hydroelectric dams no longer threaten salmon runs.

"The move comes as the administration, in a separate action, finished a Columbia River Basin salmon plan that concludes major hydroelectric dams no longer jeopardize the survival of wild fish runs. That means federal fishery officials have officially dropped dam removal as an option in the multibillion-dollar effort to recover the basin's wild salmon and steelhead, reversing a Clinton administration decision made four years ago."

If this decision were based in science or recovery reality it would be easier to swallow. Instead it comes after Mark Rutzick, a lawyer who sued the government over its salmon protection plans, was appointed special counsel to the fisheries services. Rutzick developed the plan and is now trying to have it implemented.

This reversal is nothing more than a handout to developers, loggers, and farmers who believe consumers aren't willing to pay a little bit more for homes, food, and construction that is done with a larger ecological purpose in mind. Consumers and some forward looking homebuilders have shown that smart building which embraces conservation and livability, are not only cost effective to build but popular and affordable.

"But home builders and a conservative legal foundation, which have pushed for years to prevent fish recovery from tying up road construction and other building projects, were pleasantly stunned by the reversals.

"That's a huge change, and it sounds promising," said Russell Brooks, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which often represents industry groups in lawsuits over the Endangered Species Act. "I think the agencies are finally starting to look a bit more realistically at not duplicating efforts to protect species..."

"Such a designation often covers hundreds of thousands of acres, and does not typically affect most homeowners. But it does trigger significant reviews anytime the government wants to build something in that area, or anytime a private citizen seeks a federal permit to disturb a wetland, for example.

Developers and farm groups often despise critical-habitat designations because they can dramatically slow or change major construction projects, or limit water diversions."

Dino Rossi is officially the Governor elect of the fine state of Washington. He won by the narrowist of margins. Democratic challenger and loser, Chris Gregoire is threatening another recount. Unfortunately, another recount can only occur if she pays for it. Her campaign is broke and it seems unlikely the recount will occur. Yet, she refuses to concede and there is hope she might be able have the race judicially declared a draw in which case the legislature (which is now controlled entirely by Democrats) would elect her Governor. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this close election is Gregoire lost it because of write ins for Ron Simms, her primary opponents. Roughly 300 voters wrote the King County Executive's name instead of voting for Gregoire.

A two-second thought

A freelance writer named Bernard Moon had an op-ed in The Boston Globe yesterday that's generating a bit of controversy. (The Globe charges after two days, so I'm not pasting a link to it here.) It was a message to the "liberal elite" about what said folks need to understand about conservative Christians.

Part of the ire and irony from Moon's piece was that, in debunking myths about conservative Christians, he was guilty of employing just about every myth and stereotype there is about liberal elites. My husband (a bona fide Independent, not a traditional "liberal") and I were talking about it tonight, and he said, "Why are they called 'liberal elites,' and not 'educated Democrats?'" I thought that was a terrific point, and a terrific opportunity to begin replacing polemic language.

Desperate Housewives Meet the Press, and Democrats need an agenda on parenting

As a part-time stay-at-home dad and a loyal fan of both "Desperate Housewives" and "Meet the Press," the confluence of the three this past Sunday seemed like some kind of sign. On "Meet the Press," progressive evangelical Christian leader Jim Wallis called parenting "a countercultural activity." Here's the transcript:

REV. WALLIS:  Here's the common ground.  I was told to get a good night sleep before the show.  I tried hard to do it.  My six-year-old was sick all night long, so I was up all night.

MR. RUSSERT:  So you watched TV.

REV. WALLIS:  I'm a tee ball coach on Friday nights.  But I want to tell you this.  Around the country, when I talk about parenting as a countercultural activity, all parents' heads nod up and down, liberal or conservative.

REV. SHARPTON:  I agree.

REV. WALLIS:  Parenting--that's the real family issue.  It's not about civil unions.  It's about parenting and the pressures on parenting.  And this is, again, where we can find some common ground.  Strengthen families by strengthening parents and parenting.  Strengthen marriage and family.  Use your anti-poverty measures.  They help families across the board.  But they could bring us together.  Again, we're having these debates and we don't get to solving problems.  That's what I want to do.

Later that evening, Lynette (played by Felicity Huffman), the character on "Desperate Housewives" who gave up her high-powered job to stay at home with four unruly kids, had a complete breakdown, driven there by the pressures of parenthood. Only after lamenting to fellow Housewives Bree (Marcia Cross) and Susan (Teri Hatcher) how inadequate she feels as a parent, Lynette learns that, despite appearances, her friends have felt just as overwhelmed and, well, Desperate, as parents at times. "Why didn't you tell me?" Lynette implores.

In this excellent column on "Desperate Housewives" from a couple of weeks ago, Ellen Goodman rightly notes the following about Lynette:

She's saying, yes, you can want to be at home and still admit to going nuts at 5 p.m. Yes, you can be fiercely in love with your children and long to pack up the minivan and drive off. Yes, you can be dedicated to doing the right thing and not at all sure you're doing it.

It's worth recalling the lengths Bill Clinton went to, especially during the 1992 campaign, to show parents that he was on their side (think Sista Soulja, V Chips, Family and Medical Leave, etc.) This is both good politics and good policy, and Democrats need to define a specific agenda that will empower parents.

Announcing the new RIPPLE OF HOPE!

I'm happy to announce that "RIPPLE OF HOPE by David Englin" has evolved into "RIPPLE OF HOPE" with a group of contributors who will share their keen insight, incisive commentary, and strong progressive voices. The contributors are up-and-coming progressives with impressive backgrounds in policy, politics, and public service who devote much of their energy to pushing America forward in the direction of our ideals.

To coincide with the official launch of the new RIPPLE OF HOPE, you will see the following ad on some of your favorite blogs:

It's obviously a mischievous, tongue-in-cheek way to draw attention to the site, and it reflects my hope that the collective effort of our contributors will be for the greater good of our nation.

Please do your part to spread the word by letting your friends and family know about the new RIPPLE OF HOPE. Also, remember that you can sign up for a daily email summary of new posts here and you can join our mailing list here.

Thanks for your support!

RIPPLE OF HOPE: Colleges banning military recruiters are no wiser than Solomon

Ordinarily I favor policies of engagement, but I cannot agree with David's proposal that colleges allow military recruiters on campus, despite the recent court ruling that they need not.

David's reasons are noble ones. The military needs men and women who are "aware of and willing to confront antigay bigotry." These people are especially needed in positions of legal and advisory authority. We might add that we want our military to have world class lawyers just as it has world class pilots. And, of course, we want our military to be respected in general, not shunned from campuses. All this seems right. David asks, "What better chance for a school to make its mark on the military than by encouraging its new attorneys to practice law in uniform?"

One answer is that schools can also make an impact by boycotting military recruiters, denying the military access to what it wants until it changes its policy. There are good reasons for starting with resistance rather than engagement. First, if schools allow military recruiters on campus then they are knowingly advantaging some of their students over others (in this case, straight students over gay students) and thereby participating in the discrimination. This sends the wrong message to our students.

Now, you might think that this is effectively true of many corporations and professions (including my own), which statistically favor white males. But, and this is the second reason for starting with resistance rather than engagement, there is a distinction to be made between a culture of discrimination and a policy of discrimination. David is surely right that engagement is the only way to permanently change a culture of discrimination. But the military also has a policy of discrimination, and that can be changed in a single day. The military differs from other recruiters in that it has a stated policy of discrimination, and one way to respond to that policy is to deny it what it wants until it changes the policy. We already know that strong leaders, such as President Clinton, have failed to change that policy even when they knew that it was the right thing to do. So-called pragmatic concerns trumped justice. The way to respond is to make injustice costly, so that these so-called pragmatic considerations motivate the military to do the right thing.

There is evidence that this sort of tactic works. My own main professional organization was among those that boycotted my city, Cincinnati, because of an anti-gay amendment added to the city charter in the 1990's. Eventually the city realized that the financial cost of losing conferences and meetings, as well as the bad press of being called discriminatory, was hurting the city. This fall the amendment was repealed. This does not make conservative Cincinnati a gay-friendly city overnight, but it is a step in the right direction. Likewise, clearly the military knows there will be a cost to not recruiting on campuses, or they would not be investing in lawsuits. This is part of the process for getting the policy changed.

There will still remain much work to be done to change the culture of discrimination. That cannot be mandated away. But the men and women who are "aware of and willing to confront antigay bigotry" will be far more effective when the rules are on their side.

The Electoral College: A New Middle Ground?

I support the electoral college system. A person from New York views the world differently than a person from Kansas, and I want both views to play a meaningful role in our presidential elections. I also don’t want a president to ignore the people of Wyoming just because there aren’t that many of them, and their votes don’t matter much.

I’m often surprised at how quickly many people condemn this system as undemocratic. Few of those same people even question – much less argue that we should scrap – the U.S. Senate, which is also “undemocratic.” After all, Wyoming’s 494,000 residents get the same number of votes in the Senate as California’s 33.9 million residents. And no one seems to question the wisdom of requiring states to ratify U.S. constitutional amendments either. These are pillars of our federal system – and so is the electoral college.

Does the Electoral System Today Go Too Far?

But our electoral college may go too far in recognizing the importance of states. For example, the largest state, California, has 55 electoral votes and a population of 33.9 million people. By contrast, a group of 15 small states (WY, DC, DE, VT, ND, SD, MT, NH, ME, RI, ID, HI, AK, UT, and MS) also has 55 electoral votes, but has a population of just 14.8 million. As a result of the electoral college, over 19 million votes in California (33.9 million minus 14.8 million) are essentially “lost.” That is more than half of all votes in California – and more than the total number of votes in these 15 small states. (All of this, of course, is based on the simplifying assumption that the entire population is eligible to vote, but the point remains.)

This is not just a problem at the population extremes. For example, two large states, New York (3rd largest) and Illinois (5th largest) have 52 electoral college votes and a combined population of 31.4 million people. Seven mid-sized states, Indiana (14th largest), Tennessee (16th), Kentucky (25th), Oklahoma (27th), Kansas (32nd), Nebraska (38th), and Idaho (39th) also have 52 electoral college votes – but a much smaller population of just 25 million. As a result of the electoral college, more than six million votes in New York and Illinois – more than 20 percent -- are essentially lost.

It may be impossible to know when we strike a perfect balance between the competing interests of “federalism” and “democracy” here. But the present electoral college system seems to lean too heavily toward the former at the expense of the latter. My guess is that the disparity between state populations has grown over the years, and with it the disparity between electoral votes and popular votes. If this is correct, it would seem to suggest the system no longer operates as originally intended and is in need of reform.

Is There A Middle Ground?

The solution is certainly not to scrap the electoral college system. And I doubt it is to have states split their electoral votes based on the popular vote in the state, as Maine and Nebraska do. For one thing, until most or all states do this, those few that do will suffer. Presumably, if Nebraska and Utah (each with five electoral votes) are both close races, a candidate will spend her time in Utah, where a small lead in the popular vote would result in five electoral votes, compared to just one extra electoral vote in Nebraska. (Colorado voters understood this, which is why they overwhelmingly opposed such a measure in the last election.) But even if all states adopted this “split” system, the disparity between the popular vote and the electoral vote would remain: California’s 33.9 million voters would split their 55 electoral votes, while 15 other states, with just 14.8 million voters, would split their 55 electoral votes.

The solution may be to find a new middle ground between a popular vote and the present electoral college. Instead of giving each State a number of electoral votes equal to its Congressional delegation (with two senators plus a variable number of Representatives), it may be more equitable to simply subtract “one” from this number, so that only one of the two Senate seats counts.

This would mean that California (population 33.9 million) would go from 55 votes to 54, while our group of 15 small states (listed above) would go from 55 votes to 40. For the purposes of our electoral vote comparison, three States (Nevada with 4 electoral votes under a modified system, Kansas with 5, and Mississippi with 5) with a combined population of 7.5 million people would need to be added to the 15 other small states to equal California’s 54 electoral votes. This would greatly reduce the disparity between electoral votes and popular votes. The result would be that a much smaller number of California votes would be lost – striking a new balance between the democratic principle of “one person, one vote” and our federal principle that recognizes the importance of geographical cohesion, stability and diversity.