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Daily Archives: 23 Dec 2012
Scripting Romney’s Campaign
A very interesting detail in Michael Kranish’s article on the presidential campaign was that Romney’s chief strategist was Stuart Stevens. Actually, I knew that. He was the most intriguing member of the campaign. People often commented on how weird he was. My kind of man, I thought.
Anyway, in the article I learned that he had written some screenplays for Northern Exposure. When I was younger, I really liked that show, although looking at it now, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was that I had a crush on Janine Turner. It had to be the hair, because I knew even then that she was a weak actress and kind of dumb. (Really, this have nothing to do with the fact that she latter because a Tea Party wacko; watch interviews with her at the time. She’s dim.)
It turned out that Stevens wrote the script for the only episode of Northern Exposure that I remembered: “Jules et Joel.” And here I have put together a heavily edited version of it. The actual show would have been roughly 45 minutes and this is 28. But it gives you the main points. Basically, Joel’s evil twin brother Jules comes into town, they switch places, predictable things happen, and Jules leaves. Then Joel wakes up from what had all been a dream, having been knocked out due to a hit on the head. And there is a cute Wizard of Oz ending.
A couple of things really come out in this video. First, even more than I remember, Janine Turner is a terrible actor. Just in terms of screen charisma, Rob Morrow blows her away. Also clear is how good an actor Morrow is. His abilities really shine in the transitions from Jules becoming Joel and visa versa. Another thing that comes through is that the show was not that strong. This is especially true compared to more recent series like Ballykissangel and Kingdom. But for its time, it looks like it was all right. And the script is solid if not exactly inspired. (Kind of like Romney’s campaign. Hmm…)
Boston Globe Whitewash of Romney Loss
Michael Kranish has written an amazing post-election analysis of the 2012 presidential campaign, The story behind Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential campaign to President Obama. I do not mean that in a good way. It does nothing so much as apply the Romney family narrative on top of the facts of the campaign.
Kranish clearly had a lot of access to Tagg Romney, because he is quoted throughout the article. The story he is trying to push is that Romney lost because those meanies in the campaign wouldn’t focus on Mitt’s personal story and all the great things he’s done for the little people over the years. Early on in the campaign, Tagg made a list of 12 people who Romney had helped—things no one knew about. The campaign wasn’t really interested. And it is no wonder way. One of these stories—highlighted in the article—was Mitt helping the dying 14-year-old son of a church member write his will. Not exactly helping the lepers in Calcutta, right?
In order to push this narrative, Kranish deceptively writes:
Exit polls told a stunning story. The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions [Hallucinations? -FM], values, and leadership. But he had clearly failed to address the problem that Romney’s own family worried about from the start. Obama beat Romney by an astonishing 81 to 18 percent margin on the question of which candidate “cares about people like me.”
This is not true. Those who wanted a candidate who “shares my values” voted for Romney by 55-42. This is not the same as a majority of voters preferring Romney’s values. The same is true for people who wanted a candidate with a “vision of the future” (54-45). What Kranish, who I’ve always thought of as an honest reporter, is doing is nothing short of journalistic malpractice. I don’t know what he could be thinking. But given that he got the Obama statistic wrong too, it may just be that he is innumerate.
The other part of the narrative that Kranish is pushing is that the election all came down to Obama’s great ground game. There is no question that this helped matters. But Obama beat Romney by almost 6 million votes—over 3.5 percentage points. This is not due to the ground game and it is not the case because people didn’t get a chance to know that Romney helped 14-year-olds with their wills.
As Romney was very clear before he lost: the campaign was a clear choice on policy. Romney’s policies are unpopular. Romney was offering the policies of George W. Bush. And as bad as things are, as anemic as the recovery is, it a hell of a lot better than what we got from Bush. And it is getting better. That’s all you need to know about the 2012 presidential election.
To Quote or Not to Quote
Michael Stickings of The Reaction blog was suggesting that I might want to do more blogging that quotes. You know the kind of thing: “I found this interesting article” followed by a quote from the article. I think he’s worried about my health. He’s been at this blogging things for a long time (almost 8 years), and I think he has seen his fair share of blogger burn-out.
I told him that I’ve tried to do that. I just want to share something. So I start writing an introduction to it. And before I know it, I have five paragraphs and I haven’t even gotten to talking about whatever it is I started to write about. So logorrhea is part of the problem. Speaking of logorrhea, Not I by Samuel Beckett.
I was thinking of what Michael had said earlier today because of two stories I’ve read. The first was Ryan Grim excellent discussion of the Fiscal Cliff, that I wrote about earlier. The second, was an amazing (not necessarily in a good way) story about the presidential campaign over at the Boston Globe, which I will write about this evening. I’ve already seen other people writing about these articles. But the articles are all pretty much one sentence introductions followed by long quoted sections. I’m not really interested in doing this.
If you are Digby or Mark Thoma, it makes sense. Both of them have a large readership and, especially Thomas, read a lot of obscure things. But I only have one thing to offer: my insights. So unless I have something to add, there doesn’t seem to be much point. Unfortunately, that seems to be more the norm among bloggers.
There is an irony to all of this. Despite what Michael said, most of the articles that appear on The Reaction are not of that kind. They tend to be pretty quotation light. Certainly there are exceptions; there are exceptions here too: videos posts, Twitter posts, all of my quotation series. But generally, The Reaction adds to the debate rather than just amplifying it. And that’s what I want to do.
At least until I collapse exhausted on my keyboardaejrfffffff fffffffffff fffffffff ffffff ffoi vvvvvvvvv vvvvvv oijwjwj wjwjwjwjw jwjwjwjw
More Guns Does Not Mean More Safety
David Atkins posted this over at Hullabaloo. All I’ve done is turn it into a playlist so that you can watch it all together. This is a really good test to show that having anyone (much less everyone) armed when a shooter comes along is a bad idea. It is a bit less than 15 minutes and well worth watching. It isn’t just informative, it is fascinating.
Afterword
The cop who shot himself in the foot impressed me. The first thing he did was ask if everyone else was all right. Of course, maybe if you’re doing a demonstration for a grammar school class it would be a good idea to unload your gun. Just a thought.
Social Security: the Phony Crisis
Thirteen years ago, Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot wrote a book, Social Security: the Phony Crisis. I just read it. The most amazing thing about the book is that nothing at all has changed. They could have written the book this year. I still hear people calling for Social Security privatization. I still hear people crying Chicken Little about demographic changes that will crush the economy. And every day now we hear about changing how the government deals with inflation. Yet all of these are at best minor issues and more often the opposite of reality.
Privatization
The call for privatization is perhaps the most evil aspect of the anti-Social Security crowd. This is not because it is the worst thing for the program. Rather, it is just that it is done as a way for private fund managers to skim a large profit off the retirement savings of all Americans.
As they point out in the book, the assumption is always that the stock market will do as well in the next 75 years as it did in the last 75 years. This is compared to Social Security estimates that the economy will grow half as fast in the next 75 years as it did in the last 75 years. In the long term, the stock exchange can only do about as well as the economy. Otherwise, it is just a bubble. So those pushing for privatization are painting a ridiculously rosy picture of the future.
In the end, if economic forecasts turn out to be better than expected, Social Security will do better than expected. And there won’t be any broker fees taken out.
Demographics
Baker and Weisbrot deal with the demographic issue in great depth. In fact, I had to learn some more advanced economics just to understand part of it. The truth is there is a major demographic shift in this country. Most of it has already happened. But the bottom line is that increases in per capita productivity dwarf the changing demographics. I’ve used the following graph before. It is taken from Baker’s blog Beat the Press:
Even assuming poor economic growth (1%), there is nothing to worry about.
Inflation
People have long been trying to destroy Social Security by slowly draining benefits to the point where it is useless. Baker and Weisbrot show that in general, senior citizens tend to suffer a higher rate of inflation because they consume more healthcare, which is going up in price faster than just about anything. But even more telling, they show that it isn’t possible for the CPI to be that far off. If it were, then back in 1960, the vast majority of Americans would have been living in poverty, despite the fact that almost 60% owned their own homes and 75% owned cars.
The weird thing about the whole discussion of Social Security is how it is taken as an ultimate truth that the program is in bad shape and must be cut. This is the Social Security Paradox that I’ve written about before: we may need to cut benefits in the future so let’s cut them now. Baker and Weisbrot show that this is all nonsense. What we need is to provide more social security (in its generic forms), not less. If you want to be involved in the fight, you really need to read this book.
Don’t Fear the Fiscal Cliff!
Ryan Grim has written the best article I have yet read on the Fiscal Cliff, Fiscal Fail: Government Agencies Plan Few Significant Changes For January, Despite Cliff Hype. He starts by explaining what readers of this site already know: nothing happens on 1 January. The stock market won’t freak out. Tax collectors won’t go door to door demanding money. And an asteroid will not collide with the earth. Instead, John Boehner’s caucus will finally see that in fact they had no leverage all along and an agreement will be made to keep tax rates the same on the bottom 98% of tax payers.
I have been wondering how all of this would affect government agencies. In particular, the IRS has to tell businesses how to withhold taxes. And other government agencies need to know what to assume about their budgets. As Grim points out, they are all in agreement: they will proceed assuming that a deal will quickly be worked out:
[T]he letter also holds clues to the agency’s broader plans—or lack thereof. The IRS told lawmakers it would not reprogram its system to account for the possibility the AMT would not be patched because “if Congress were to act at some point next year to enact a new AMT patch, the time and substantial expense necessary for the IRS to reprogram its systems … would ultimately be wasted.”
Similarly, the GAO is looking well into the future:
The Government Accountability Office, charged with overseeing other government agencies, itself is not planning any January changes. Instead, the GAO is backloading any possible cuts toward the end of the fiscal year in June and assuming a deal will be reached before then, according to a source at the agency who isn’t involved with the press operation.
At first, the only people screaming about the Fiscal Cliff were conservatives who knew that a deal made before the end of the year would be much better for them than one made in the new year. But somehow—probably because there isn’t much else to talk about —the mainstream media have tried to turn these negotiations into a crisis. As Grim points out, however, just like with Y2K, the new year is going to come and everyone will be standing around wondering what was the big deal.
Hope and Poverty
Yesterday, I wrote about workers at UPMC who were trying to unionize because of the low wages. UPMC responded by starting a food bank. And I talked about how poor people have just as much self-respect and dignity as the rich. I explicitly put myself in that category of poor person. But there are various things that distinguish me from most poor people. One is options. My poverty is to some extent self-inflicted and reversible if I wanted to live someone else’s life. (Although even that would be hard until the economy recovers.)
But the biggest thing that differentiates me from most poor people is related to options: hope. I am working toward something other than just being able to pay my bills. The context of my life is far greater than survival. And that makes all the difference.
People (conservatives mostly) often note the way that poor people are so dependent upon status symbols. I don’t know how true this observation is. But certainly, high priced tennis shoes and cell phones have gotten a lot of attention. It is the same way in prison where very small things can be major status symbols. Status symbols provide some sense of individuality and thus power in a world where everyone is similarly powerless.
I think hopelessness is the ultimate tragedy of poverty. In most cases there are few options, none of which are good. So there is no hope for the future, except that you can meet the rent this month and buy enough food. And if you are very lucky, you’ll be able to buy a used iPod that no one with a decent income wants any more.