Transparency the B Teams

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

My political world view was heavily affected by Nixon's resignation, 30 years ago. And then 10 years later, I learned a lot from a graduate school classmate, our host Dr. Payne. Memorably, Rodger taught me about the Richard Pipes and his influence on government decisionmaking. Following the link leads to "Right Wing Web" entry that includes this historical tidbit:

Richard Pipes, a Russian historian at Harvard University, was a key anti-Soviet crusader in the 1970s and 1980s... [who] chaired the Team B Strategic Objectives Panel, a controversial effort in the mid-1970s to reinterpret CIA intelligence on the Soviet threat

I was reminded of Pipes when reading Digby this evening, who points to a Lawrence Kolb op-ed in the LA Times, "Its Time to Bench 'Team B'". Kolb nicely talks about the inaccuracy of Pipes and company (including Paul Wolfowitz) and then toward he discusses briefly the Office of Special Plans. If you haven't read Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece from 5/03 on the OSP, I'd recommend it. From the first paragraph:

In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found.

As Rodger has blogged,

A great deal of [Rodger's] academic work concerns transparency, which one colleague calls simply "the opposite of secrecy." The logic of transparency resonates widely, whether applied to governments, markets, or businesses. Citizens, investors and consumers ought to be able to make informed decisions about the large and powerful institutions that have a great impact on their lives.

Advocates of Transparency welcome honest and open discussion, which challenge their assumptions and thinking -- their commitment is to good decision making, and not to a particular outcome. Before Rodger schooled me on Richard Pipes and company, I naively assumed that bureaucratic decisionmaking was done with the best available evidence, by people with the best intentions (even after a poor experience at the DMV).

The problem with the B Teams goes beyond their amazing ability to be wrong, into their amazing ability to be wrong but influential. And out of sight and not accountable.

Obstructionist Republicans?

Thirty Years Ago today, Richard Nixon announced he would resign the presidency.

Three months later, the Democrats picked up 49 seats in the 1974 midterm elections, among the largest gains ever, and two years later President Gerald Ford was unseated by Jimmy Carter.

But since then, the Republicans have done just fine, thank you, controlling the White House after four of the last six 1974 elections, and breaking through for majority status in the House and the Senate in 1994. It has been since 1960 that the Democrats have won a presidential election with a nonsouthern candidate.

Political scientists such as Ric Uslaner have been writing about The Decline of Comity in Congress for a decade. The House is an institution where the majority controls the day, period. They write and interpret the rules to favor themselves. Comity, What Comity? Republicans complained about the Democrats steamrolling them for 40 years, and for the past 10 the Democrats have complained of similar treatment. Being in the majority in the House means never having to say you are sorry, as evidenced by the leadership leaving the voting open for nearly three hours than the customary 15 minute grace period last November so they could twist arms and win on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. (see Timothy Noah’s coverage of this, and potential bribery, in Slate.com).

The Senate is an altogether different animal. Historically, norms of equality and reciprocity have meant cooperation and compromise. The threat of the filibuster gives to the minority party a resource that means the majority party has to consider the minority’s point of view. So good leaders are still needed to guide the ship of state through the shoals of failed metaphors.

And apparently Bill Frist is not such a good leader, at least yet. Today’s Washington Post notes the trouble Frist has had finding his sea legs in the Senate. Among the mitigating factors noted is that Frist was thrust into this position without much warning – surely Trent Lott wishes Strom Thurmond had lived to be, say, 99 (or that no mikes were on, or that Lott had had a flat tire, or just plain didn’t say offensive things). And yes, it’s a closely divided Senate, at 52-48. But the article hints at some other difficulties, as well, including pressures within his own party:

Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader, is the most conservative of the three [Frist, Mitch McConnell, from KY] and is a relentless advocate of his causes -- sometimes heeded by Frist, sometimes not. He was the driving force behind the GOP's marathon session on judges last year and this year's losing vote on the same-sex marriage constitutional amendment.

For the first half or better of the 20^th century, their were cleavages within the political parties that moderate them – the Democrats were kept conservative by the strong contingent of southerners, and the Republicans had many moderates from New England (Bush’s grandfather, Prescott, a Senator from Connecticut from 1953-63, for instance, and more recently, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine) Over the past forty years – essentially since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – these cleavages within the parties have lessened, and the cleavages between the parties have increased. The largest factor is that South has increasingly trended Republican. Democrats switched parties (like Thurmond in 1964 or Rodney Alexander of Louisiana on Friday) or were defeated for reelection (like Al Gore Sr. in 1970), or now represent essentially safe seats in “majority-minority” districts. There are still a number of Northeast Republicans, although this group is shrinking in size, and most definitely shrinking in influence. Recall the switch of Vermont Senator James Jeffords from Republican to Independent in 2001. The House members especially are able to be more extreme in their leanings, as they have more homogeneous districts than senators.

A real challenge for Frist is that he in charge of an institution that has to pass legislation in exactly the same form as the much more conservative House. This has been an endless source of problems, especially given the behavior of the House, and the problems are revealed further in an article I saw read last Fall. In October, the Washington Post ran an article, “House GOP Practices the Art of One-Vote Victory” (by Juliet Eilperin , Oct 14, 2003 A1), which included these paragraphs:

Bringing legislation to the floor with only the narrowest prospect for victory has become a hallmark of the leadership of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Time and again, on high-profile bills involving Medicare, education and other programs, Hastert and his lieutenants have calibrated the likely yeas and nays to the thinnest margin possible, enabling them to push legislation as much to their liking as they can in a narrowly divided and bitterly partisan House.

More often than not, that direction is to the political right, and generally in line with President Bush's priorities.

The goal, insiders say, is to start negotiations with the narrowly divided Senate -- which is considerably more moderate than the House -- with a House position that yields as little ground as possible. That makes it more likely that the eventual compromise language will be more to House leaders' liking.

So what has Frist's response to the more conservative House been? Again, from today's Post:

Frist stood by when House Republicans handpicked two Senate Democrats who shared their views to participate in the House-Senate conference committee on the high-profile Medicare legislation, excluding Daschle and other officially appointed Democrats. They barred all Democrats from the conference on energy legislation. On other bills, Frist kept Democrats from forcing votes on their initiatives, such as raising the minimum wage and renewing the expiring curbs on some military-style assault weapons.

In order for this strategy to work, however, the Democrats' cooperation is still needed, if not in the House, then in the Senate. Back to October's "One Vote Victory:"

If the House strategy is good for suspenseful votes and animated arm-twisting, it offers nothing but cold shoulders for the House's 205 Democrats. "For my purposes, they're irrelevant," said Amy Steinmann, [Republican Whip Roy] Blunt's director of floor operations.

This, unsurprisingly, enrages Democrats, including those in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats play a much larger role. "The bitter partisanship we've seen in so many battles in the House has undermined the productivity of Congress overall," said Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

That productivity could not have been aided by Frist’s decision to campaign in South Dakota for Jim Thune, who is hoping to unseat Daschle this Fall.

As Newt Gingrich found out, it is a lot easier to be a back-bench bomb thrower than to actually have to govern. And there still remains a cleavage in the Republican party, between the social and the economic conservatives. Note that the fiscally profligate House did not meet their own budget bill deadline because they did not want to have to take a direct vote on raising the debt ceiling. The LA Times reported on June 25 this year,

An effort by House Republican leaders to shield party members from having to cast a politically risky election-year vote to raise the government's borrowing limit was foiled Thursday by an unlikely group: Republicans in the Senate.

The House had voted Tuesday to make room for a debt-limit increase in its version of a $417-billion defense spending bill. Critics said that action was designed to provide political cover for fiscal conservatives, who could say they had to vote for the increase because they could not vote against defense.

But the Senate refused to include an increase in the government's $7.4-trillion debt ceiling as part of its $416-billion bill approved Thursday on a 98-0 vote.

The debt-limit provision underscored the sometimes chilly relations between the two Republican-controlled chambers.

(In Blow to House GOP, Senate OKs Defense Bill Without Debt Increase, by Richard Simon, A26)

History Lesson

Earlier today, my family visited Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to the greenery, the Gardens feature numerous works of sculpture and I think this one is my favorite:



The piece by artist Bill Woodrow is called "Listening to History." I liked it a great deal.

As I remarked to my family, it reminded me of graduate school.

The Gardens are best known for "Leonardo Da Vinci's Horse: The American Horse" by sculptor Nina Akamu.



Basically, Da Vinci intended to make this horse, but a war forced him to abandon the project because of the scarcity of metal. Over the past few decades, a number of people have worked to bring Da Vinci's work to fruition based on the surviving notebooks and drawings. The horse stands 24 feet tall and the same castings were used for the horse in Milan, Italy as well. It's an interesting bit of history...

But the history lesson I really learned in Grand Rapids came from my visit earlier this week to the Gerald R. Ford Museum.

And no, I'm not talking about the cultural milieu of the mid-1970s, which is the subject of one of the better rooms in the museum, or even Watergate (the museum has the original burglar tools).

So what did I learn?

Well, remember, Ford was the only US President who was neither elected to be President nor Vice President. He is a true oddity, selected to be Vice President once Spiro Agnew resigned the position and elevated to the top job when Richard Nixon resigned (the anniversary is August 9).

But this post isn't a history lesson about "selected" rather than "elected" presidents.

Towards the end of the pathway through the museum, one finds a display featuring a hodge-podge of photos and artifacts from the Ford era. On the wall just before the exit, one finds a 1970s vintage ATM, or automatic teller machine.

So what?

Well, it was manufactured by Diebold, a company still in the ATM business.

Yes, this is the same Diebold that now manufactures electronic voting machines.

The same Diebold with all kinds of connections to the Republican party and right wing political causes. The same Diebold subject to somewhat reasonable paranoid suspicion.

The same Diebold that says it would cost too much money to add printers to their voting machines so as to provide a hard copy of each vote.

When ATMs were first introduced, many people refused to use them because they didn't really trust the machines. Indeed, my parents have never used ATMs. I don't think my mother-in-law does either.

To reassure their customers of the safety of the transaction, banks had to issue paper receipts for all transactions.

So here's the bottom line history lesson: Diebold has been making machines for decades that allow individual users to walk away from their transaction with a hard copy receipt.

If it was necessary for bank customers, it is essential for voters.

Dog Days of August?

Isn't August supposed to be vacation time in politics? Politicos evacuate DC because it's a hot and humid swamp, and thus media (even bloggers) get a break because of the lack of news.

Fat chance.

Bruce Springsteen has helped launch Vote for Change in order to dump Bush. He penned an op-ed for the NY Times and was interviewed for "Nightline" by Ted Koppel.

Halliburton, big surprise, manipulated perceptions about its profits during Dick Cheney's tenure as CEO. The firm committed securities fraud, essentially.

John McCain is once again defending fellow veteran John Kerry against right-wing smears of his record in Vietnam. So why was CNN still covering the campaign ad tonight on Lou Dobbs? Why give it more attention than it deserves? It is a slime ad.

And Colin Powell has been interviewed in the Valerie Plame case -- apparently about a conversation he had with George W. Bush in July 2003.

Meanwhile, I'm still swimming, eating lots of ice cream and hanging out with my wife and kids.

More later.

assorted tidbits

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Its been nearly a year since Rodger started this blog. In that time, he has developed a loyal following with his insights and writings on international affairs. As a guest blogger, I run the risk of blogging about stuff that is not relevant to why you are here. Or, interferring with his excellent posts, like this one on Democratization. What’s a guest blogger to do? How about mixing and matching? I’ll be back in the next couple days with more on framing and the 2004 election and beyond.

1. Newsweek is reporting that in the immediate shadow of 9/11, aides to Douglas Feith suggested Secret Proposals: Fighting Terror by Attacking ... South America?. And I still have failed to see the Iraq/AQ connection.. the idea was to catch Al Qaeda off guard, and not tip the hand that we would go into Afghanistan, while also attacking terrorists thought to be funded in part by Hezbollah. But apparently sounder heads prevailed.

Other proposals got greater traction. The 9/11 Commission says the idea of attacking Iraq also was pushed in a Sept. 17 memo by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz argued that the odds were "far more" than one in 10 that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, citing in part theories by controversial academic Laurie Mylroie that Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi intelligence agent. (The commission's report found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was behind the 1993 attack—and no Iraqi involvement in 9/11….)

Loyal readers will recall Rodger’s preeminent work on the trouble with Myrolie.

2. From Wednesday’s LA Times (registration required) : Democrats Claim Mantle of Fiscally Responsible Ticket. The article notes how both Kerry and Edwards are campaigning on this issue:

"This affects people's lives," [Edwards] said in Alexandria, a small town on the Red River. "And the deeper and deeper we go into deficit, the more and more Social Security is at risk. We are leaving our children with a debt and a responsibility that's not theirs."

Like Kerry has sought to do, Edwards framed the matter as one of "values."

"Talk about values, and our moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren?" Edwards asked. "How would you feel … if you were leaving your child with $20,000 in debt, instead of leaving them better off?"

Still, this has the Republicans on the defensive, and it should. Political scientists talk about "issue ownership" by political parties -- think military for the Republicans over the past 30 years, and social programs for the Democrats, and the dramatic efforts to wrestle thoseissues away by Lt Kerry and the prescription drug bill, respectively. The economy has generally favored the Republicans in peoples' minds. But Reagan, Bush and Bush have priovided the Dems with an opening. Clinton infuriated many liberals early on by a tax increase instead of the middle class tax cut, but most Dems are happy for the economic performance his adminstration caused (coincided with? pick a word. Ah yes, that framing stuff) And last week on PBS’s Wall Street Week, most panel members (but not the guy from AEI) made the point that the Democrats have a nice track record of managing the economy. Here is some previous discussion of evidence showing the economy has performed better under Democrats than Republicans. And on Thursday, the Washington Post ran an article about "Political Fissure in the Corporate World."

Its not clear just how Kerry would do reduce the deficit, of course (maybe he has a secret 2,500 page study, like Arnold?) – the proposals to resurrect the line item veto and to trim pork are laughable to anyone familiar with the driving forces of our 2.3 trillion dollar budget: social security and medicare take over one-third (and that will soon rise more with the full implementation of prescription drug benefits), the military about 20% and debt service about 15% (and rising quickly as deficits are forecast into the future). I want more fiscal responsibility, and if I were an undecided voter, "fiscal discipline" stuff of pork barrel and line item veto would irritate me more; as it is, I’ll chalk it up to the difference between campaigning and governing, and give Kerry a pass (especially after that whole compassionate conservative thing). Not all will, but Kerry is prepared. Again, from Wed LATimes:

By Bush campaign estimates, Kerry's proposals would leave a $1.3-trillion budget hole over the next 10 years.

Sarah Bianchi, Kerry's national policy director, said Kerry "doesn't need a lesson on fiscal discipline from the most fiscally reckless administration in American history."

3. Sadly, the Vote for Change Tour will not bring Springsteen to Missouri – St. Paul, at seven hours away, is the closest bet. And that’s a school nite. Some of the other big name acts include Pearl Jam, the Dave Mathews Band, John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, REM, Bonnie Raitt, and the Dixie Chicks. From the LA Times,

"Do I think we are going to get bashed?" said Springsteen. "Sure, in this political season, that's coming. But I have written about very basic American principles for 25 years. I wasn't kidding when we're on that stage. And there are particular moments when you have to [say], 'This is the moment when you take your place on the playing field and the chips are going to fall where they may.' "

Springsteen also had an op-ed in Thursday's NYT which includes the following:

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

4. Tuesday, Missouri became the first state to amend its Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Wednesday, a King County [WA] Judge rules in favor of same-sex marriage. Now, more states will probably be motivated to jump on the constitutional amendment bandwagon. King County Superior Court Judge William Downing ruled Washington state's Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and then stayed the ruling until the case is reviewed by the state supreme court. (Superior Court is the major trial court in Washington.)

Downing characterized the reasons for banning same-sex marriage and then refuted them as follows:

• "Morality requires it." Downing countered: "... Americans have differing views as to what morality requires in the definition of marriage. It is not for our secular government to choose between religions and take moral or religious sides in such a debate.

• "Tradition compels it." Downing cited the Massachusetts Supreme Court's opinion that "it is circular reasoning, not analysis, to maintain that marriage must remain a heterosexual institution because that is what it historically has been."

• "The institution of marriage is threatened." The judge said threats to marriage — notably a shortage of commitment and an excess of selfishness — come from inside the institution, not outside it.

5. Don't overlook the little things that might matter in an election. From Thursday's Washington Post: Kerry Detour to Visit Town Skipped by Bush

Reg Weber, one of three brothers who run a sausage factory on the edge of town, was waiting for Bush that day in May when he breezed past and was there waiting again this time when Kerry bounded out of his bus to work the rope line, a gesture that seemed to make all the difference. "By God, he's my man now," Weber said of Kerry. "All he had to do was stop and he got my vote. He recognizes the little people."

After losing the Reg Weber vote in Wisconsin, the GOP is Courting the Amish Vote in PA and OH.


6. The Thursday New York Times' web obit of Henri Cartier-Bresson runs five pages. Cartier-Bresson made the 35mm roll film camera famous soon after its invention in the late 1920s. As the most famous street photographer, he popularized the notion of photographers making great photographs by capturing the"decisive moment" . The photo accompanying the Times' obit exemplifies this idea, with the sutter snapped just before the man's foot hits the water. You can see more of his pix at the webpage of Magnum Photo.

Democratization

Months ago, I asked these questions:

Can a nation like Iraq be democratized by toppling a despotic regime and "building" a new nation from the rubble?

Was military force the best way to do this?

Today, on the beach, I read a piece that addresses these points pretty directly.

Former General Wesley Clark, in the May 2004 Washington Monthly:

[In the Foreign Affairs X article, George] Kennan argued that the Soviet system contained within it "the seeds of its own decay." During the 1950s and 1960s, containment translated that observation into policy, holding the line against Soviet expansion with U.S. military buildups while quietly advancing a simultaneous program of cultural engagement with citizens and dissidents in countries under the Soviet thumb.

These subtler efforts mattered a great deal. The 1975 Helsinki Accords proved to be the crucial step in opening the way for the subsequent peaceful democratization of the Soviet bloc. The accords, signed by the Communist governments of the East, guaranteed individual human and political rights to all peoples and limited the authority of governments to act against their own citizens. However flimsy the human rights provisions seemed at the time, they provided a crucial platform for dissidents such as Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov. These dissidents, though often jailed and exiled, built organizations that publicized their governments' many violations of the accords, garnering Western attention and support and inspiring their countrymen with the knowledge that it was possible to stand up to the political powers that be.

With the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, it became clear once more that it would be the demands of native peoples, not military intervention from the West, that would extend democracy's reach eastward. Step by step, the totalitarian governments and structures of the East lost legitimacy in the eyes of their own citizens and elites. The United States and Western Europe were engaged, of course, in assisting these indigenous political movements, both directly and indirectly. Western labor unions, encouraged by their governments, aided the emergence of a democratic trade union movement, especially in Poland. Western organizations provided training for a generation of human-rights workers. Western broadcast media pumped in culture and political thought, raising popular expectations and undercutting Communist state propaganda. And Western businesses and financial institutions entered the scene, too, ensnaring command economies in Western market pricing and credit practices. The Polish-born Pope John Paul II directed Catholic churches in Eastern Europe and around the world to encourage their congregants to lobby for democracy and liberal freedoms.

Such outreach had profound effects, but only over time. In his new book, Soft Power, the defense strategist Joseph Nye tells the story of the first batch of 50 elite exchange students the Soviet Union allowed to the United States in the 1950s. One was Aleksandr Yakovlev, who became a key advocate of glasnost under Gorbachev. Another, Oleg Kalugin, wound up as a top KGB official. Kalugin later said: "Exchanges were a Trojan horse for the Soviet Union. They played a tremendous role in the erosion of the Soviet system...they kept infecting more and more people over the years."

The entire piece is good.

Here's another strong excerpt:

Of course, military pressure played a vital role in making containment work. But we applied that pressure in concert with allies in Europe....

It was popular discontent with economic, social, and political progress, and people's recognition of an appealing alternative system, that finished off the repressive regimes of Eastern Europe, and eventually the whole Soviet Union. No Western threat of force or military occupation forced their collapse.

The Bush administration's approach, even outside Iraq, is quite heavy-handed and unlikely to work.

WAPO: Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts

From the Post article, a quote from the Presidnt:

"It's serious business," Bush said. "I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."

And since we did nothing after the August 6 PDB, is wasn't real, but merely historical information, as Dr. Rice is fond of saying.

Elections in the Heartland, II

Guest Blogger Paul Parker
Yesterday I wrote about Kansas, and the rift between the right and the far right of the Republican Party. That division has managed to help the Democrats win a couple offices. Party watchers are looking at the Republican primary for the Third Congressional District to see which faction can win; no major statewide races are being held.

As a result, the Kansas secretary of state is predicting a turnout of about 27%, as opposed to the expected 37% or higher in neighboring Missouri. Several statewide issues will draw Missourians to the polls today.

1. Kit Bond is going for fourth term; the likely Democratic nominee is Treasurer Nancy Farmer
2. Incumbent Governor Bob Holden is facing a stiff primary challenger from state auditor Claire McCaskill. This has been a divisive battle among the Democrats. Holden’s main claim to fame is that he has played reasonable defense against the Republican General Assembly for four years – although a year ago, the legislature overrode vetoes for the first time in fifty or better years (and the eighth and ninth times in the history of the state). One was to allow concealed weapons, and another was to impose a 24 hour waiting period for abortions. Attempts to override vetoes giving medical malpractitioners and their insurers more legal immunity failed last August and this June. While Holden has done okay given the relatively poor economic environment and the hostile Republican General Assembly, many Democrats think its time for someone new. That is the gist of Sunday’s KC Star editorial (may require registration), which along with the other major paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, endorsed McCaskill. The Springfield paper also endorsed McCaskill.
3. A race to replace Dick Gephardt in Missouri’s third district (South of St. Louis), and a race to replace Karen McCarthy in Missouri’s Fifth District (KC). The Dems have a decent chance of keeping both; presently the nine house seats are split 5-4, Republican.

Two big constitutional ballot issues will bring out many voters.

1. Amendment One would allow Riverboat Gambling near Branson, in Southwest Missouri. This amendment comes to us with a long history of mistrust by voters of the gaming industry. Put aside the betrayal felt regarding 'the lottery money will go to the schools'; that deception was a piker compared to the riverboat gambling.
   

Missouri first adopted “riverboat” gambling in 1992. Its been a tangled web, with a few absurdities:

Including the November 1992 balloting in which 62 percent of voters first endorsed legalizing riverboat gambling, Missourians conducted four statewide votes about the legal status of floating casinos during a six-year span. There also have been local votes on hosting casino boats

One was a court case over whether slots were “games of skill” (ok under the constitution) versus “games of chance” (not okay without an amendment). The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that slots are games of chance, and since slots are the moneymakers, we had to amend the constitution. After the voters rejected an amendment in March, the casinos opened with cards, the games of skill. With that foot in the door, the amendment passed it second time on the ballot. But the casinos wanted changes, and the legislature obliged. Back to court: can the legislature replace a voter-adopted constitutional amendment with a new statute? Nope.

There were other things that miffed many. Initially, this “gaming” was going to be aimed at tourists – think Mark Twain and cruising on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. But the Coast Guard thought river boats that actually cruised on rivers would be a navigation hazard for the barge traffic that dominates those rivers, and the gambling companies were happy not to have the added costs of fuel and a crew, and, well, boats with engines. So the companies built casinos near rivers. After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a river boat had to be on the river, moats were dug, and river water pumped in to surround the casinos on barges. Again, quoting the Columbia Daily Tribune, 2002:

The latest statewide vote was in 1998, when the constitution’s wording was changed by citizens - through an amendment written by casino companies - to retroactively legalize half a dozen operations that had dug moats near the rivers. The casinos had cited safety concerns, echoed by the Coast Guard, about actually cruising on the major shipping channels.

So against this backdrop, we are asked to vote on expanding the locales for riverboat gambling in Missouri. Those arguing for adoption claim this is an economic development action, allowing a small struggling town to revitalize itself, along with bringing construction jobs to many Missourians. Supporters also include many of the citizens in the Southwest corner of the state who envision better jobs – higher wages and better benefits, including child care are promised.

Con arguments are offered by those morally and economically threatened. The Southern Baptists have run commercials against gambling. They got my vote. The economically threatened include the owner of Silver Dollar City, a theme park near Branson, whose owner would face more competition for labor. Some are also concerned the wholesome Branson image would be tarnished by gambling 12 miles away (or, people might not make it to as many shows).

2. Amendment Two is about marriage: “That to be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman.”
   

In Missouri, an amendment needs a simple majority first from both houses of the legislature, and then from the voters. Its unclear why this issue was popular this year, although most speculate that the Republicans were aiming to increase turnout for the November election to help their party, including Bush and the Republican nominee for governor, Matt Blunt.

Once again, the Missouri Supreme Court had to get involved in political maneuvering. The Constitution states that the proposed amendment will appear on the ballot for the next general election “or at a special election called by the governor prior thereto, at which he may submit any of the amendments.” Countering the Republican effort to generate turnout for November, Holden called for the Amendment to be placed on the August primary ballot. But according to statute, the proposed amendment needed to be certified by the secretary of state by Tuesday, May 25. The Republican leaders in the house and senate stalled in signing the amendment and thus the secretary of state – Matt Blunt – argued that he could not put the amendment on the August ballot. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Constitution over the statute, and thus Holden over Blunt. Its likely amendment will pass either month, as its has been polling 2-1 in favor.

Results for races and issues will be available from the secretary of state's election night reporting web page.

Elections in the Heartland

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Missouri and Kansas hold primary elections on Tuesday, August 3rd.

Kansas – or the rural America it represents in Thomas Frank’s archetype -- has been the subject of much political discussion recently. Frank argues that rural Americahas essentially been duped into voting for conservatives on issues of values, thereby helping to elect the Republicans who run an economy that is against their interests. An interesting front page story in Sunday’s KC Star, “Those who work the land resist idea of playing on it,” by Scott Canon (there is no link, as the article is in “pay for access to archive” form) detailed the problems of an aging and shrinking population in western Kansas, as well as its bleak future as the remaining farmers drain the Ogallala Aquifer.

The news story follows a former Kansas governor, who is exploring an idea he used to think crazy: having the federal government buy farmers’ land and let it go back to natural. This was first seriously suggested in the later 1980s as part of a return to a “buffalo commons” throughout the plains states. Short of that, the article suggests making much of western Kansas essentially a large game reserve, with a new economy based on hunting and “ecotourism.”

“Decades of irrigation have forced farmers to drill ever deeper, and to take on steeper pumping costs to coax up enough water for their parched soil. Today parts of Kansas are within 25 years of using up water below.”

But the title of the article is reflected in the comments of the president of Southwest Kansas (natural gas) royalty Owners Association; about the aquifer, he asks,

”What are we saving it for? For future generations so they can’t use it either?”

The obvious question is, what future generations? A graphic with the article noted that “57 western counties combined for 450,995 persons, compared with 451,086 in Johnson County.” (suburban KC). Today western Kansas has such sparse population that there are 69 counties in the first congressional district, while three counties comprise the 4th District.

What growth has occurred in the west is largely due to the meat packing plants in Liberal, Garden City and Dodge City. And the locals are not universally fond of that growth, either: “Hispanics and other minority groups have gone from 36% of Garden City’s school population in 1990 to 68% today. All the school district’s signs appear in English, Spanish, Laotian and Vietnamese.”

In Fast Food Nation, (buy / review summaries) Eric Schlosser discussed the loss of good working class jobs in major cities, as meatpackers moved to rural areas, many on the high plains. Schlosser traced a movement from Chicago to Greeley, Colorado, but the story is much the same thoughout the Midwest. In Missouri, Kansas City and St. Joseph suffered fates similar to Chicago’s; meanwhile, smaller operations have been sprinkled thoughout rural areas, including Milan, Missouri (45 miles from here), Marshall, Minnesota, and Fremont, Nebraska. This move has been good for business in the form of lower wages, a more docile and transient workforce, and relatively lax environmental standards. It has made communities struggle with their identity. As Garden City Deputy School Superintendent Julie Ford noted, “The older people struggle with (the cultural influx). But its made Garden City a much more interesting city.”

Meanwhile, Johnson County continues its expansive growth, much of which has been driven by technology (e.g., Sprint), and suburban flight from Kansas City. If you ran a political party, how would you mobilize these disparate communities? On Tuesday, the battle for the soul of the Kansas Republican party continues; the conservatives just cannot get along with the moderates, and consequently the Governor is Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, and Dennis Moore is the Democratic incumbent in the third District (KC metro and Lawrence). Adam Taff is expected to be the favorite in the Republican primary to face Moore again, but the bigger battle will be among the Republicans in November. If they keep up their infighting, perhaps the Democrats can continue to appeal to the moderate Republicans, and begin to prove Thomas Frank wrong.

Ground Zero

Just so readers don't think I'm ignoring the gorilla in the room...

That CNN Election Express bus was in the parking lot of my hotel in Michigan about noon today. No, I didn't spot Judy Woodruff.

Since John Kerry is scheduled to appear in Grand Rapids about noon Monday, I guess this isn't big news.

But it was interesting. I resisted the temptation to run back inside the hotel and blog (from the free wireless high speed connection).

We took the kids to the Dutch Village instead.



Alas, we have other plans Monday and won't catch Kerry in person.

Framing and Rhetoric

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

In a previous post, I commented favorably on Kerry’s acceptance speech. Some others I have talked with, or listened to, were not nearly as impressed. One of the reasons is that they would still like more specifics from Kerry. How will he involve other countries in Iraq? How will he implement programs that he desires, and still be budget conscious?

The specifics trouble me less in the short run; as the post made clear, my enthusiasm was with the rhetoric of the speech. I focus on rhetoric – the art of persuasion – because I believe that the persuadable voters will be persuaded by the candidate who makes them feel good. That is a belief that has been percolating for a while, and it has had to push aside the belief that rational argument and evidence matters. It can, but often it will not. Language matters.

That humans (and by implication, voters) are not always logical, consistent, or rational in their decision making was well established by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky a generation ago. As one example, this site quotes Kahneman saying, “people may drive across town to save $5 on a $15 calculator but not drive across town to save $5 on a $125 coat.” They argued people often make decisions using mental shortcuts, or heuristics, and their research also demonstrated that how a problem or choice was framed, or stated, affected the decisions that people make. It was this latter work that was acknowledged with the Nobel Prize in 2002 – and the 2003 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Psychology (note that blogger Rodger directs the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order).

Relevant to this discussion of rhetoric is their work in framing: their results show that framing mattered for people's choices, even though the alternatives were mathematically equivalent. Quoting the American Psychology Association press release on the Nobel Prize,

When Kahneman and Tversky asked people to hypothetically decide what procedure to take to cure a disease, most preferred a procedure that saved 80 percent of people to one that killed 20 percent.

So the result is the same, but are you saving 80% or killing 20%?

Newt Gingrich has long understood the importance of framing, and he worked hard to develop phrases that the right could employ to effectively win an argument before it started. Why would sensible people want to vote for those “anti-family,” “anti-flag,” “tax and spend liberals?” I first ran across this GOPAC memo, Language, a Key Mechanism of Control, in Harpers in the early 1990s, but not through the beauty of the internet, you can find it many places.

This is the background for being pleased with Kerry's speech -- it might be short on specifics, and it might be more centrist than I would care for, but it was well-aimed, I felt. And the Democrats’ use of Republican phrases and themes pleased me. (this William Saletan article from Slate.com gives some more specific examples).

Among those who have made a career of arguing about the importance of framing for politics is Berkeley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff. Lakoff is associated with the Rockridge Institute, a think tank for helping the left think about how best to present their arguments. Or, in their own words, their program of Strategic Framing is“an effort to revitalize progressive discourse by reframing progressive policies in ways that speak to shared American values.”

Lakoff argues that conservatives have done quite nicely weaving an ideology through their policy positions – “The have successfully reframed issue after issue to make their language the language of everyday America.” Meanwhile, progressives have failed to do this, instead “hampered by a focus on specific policy issues, rather than the overall moral and ethical perspective that justifies specific policy choices.”

In this six page article from The American Prospect Lakoff proposes that conservative are essentially use the language of the “Strict Father Family: In this view, the world is a dangerous and difficult place, there is tangible evidence of evil in the world and children have to be made good. To stand up to evil, one must be morally strong disciplined.” Lakoff gives a few examples how this plays out, some more compelling than others, and then argues that progressives do indeed have a framework, too – but “many liberals are still largely unaware of their own moral system.” The framework Lakoff lays out for the left is The Nurturant Parent family, a view that justifies a greater role for government in assisting people, and social cooperation and community over competition.

Again, I am unsure that the consistency that Lakoff discusses is real, but his framework does seem fruitful for the left to think more about, and to develop. And it seems fruitful for the left to speak on their terms, as opposed to the terms defined by the right.

For further reading / listening:

Lakoff

• U Chicago Press, the publisher of his Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (2e) added the essay Metaphors of Terror to its webpage shortly after 9/11. The essay is 14 pages.
  
• NPR Interview: 2/9/04. overlaps heavily with the American Prospect article.
• NPR Interview: 11/20/03: “The success of the conservative argument.”
• Talk of the Nation: 5/7/96: more of same, eight years ago.
• He was NOW with Bill Moyers 7/23/04, and that web page notes he has a forthcoming book, “Don’t think of an Elephant: What every American should know about values and the framing wars.”

More on strategic framing from the Frameworks Institute at UCLA

Multilateralism in Iraq

I might be on vacation, but Juan Cole is doing some serious thinking. Check out his blog post called "The Kerry Plan on Iraq: How it Could Work if the UN were Brought In."

As he sees it, US troops could be replaced by forces from regional states -- funded by the US, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Perhaps European states and Japan could contribute as well.

If 10 countries could be convinced to come in, all but two US divisions could leave. If the effort were seen as one of ending the US occupation by supplanting the US with a UN/Arab League force, many governments that now fear to buck their own public opinion by collaborating with the US might be in a much better position to send troops. Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Yemen and Morocco could all easily spare 10,000 troops each, and more such partners could be found. Perhaps under these conditions even the French and the Russians would be willing to come in, as well.

It's concrete and I kind of like it.

Cole also talks about other tasks ahead: negotiating a solution to the Kurdish problem, creation of a new multiethnic Iraqi army, etc.

Key to the entire plan is US willingness to hand over the question of Iraqi security to multilateral command. If the US continues to assert operational control, then few other states will come on board.

Thus, don't put too much stock into media reports that the Bush administration is pursuing this possibility (or something similar).

There's also that pesky problem of reorganizing bureaucracies

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Tom Ridge will likely join Powell and Rice among Those Who Won't Be Back. According to MSNBC,

Ridge, 58, has explained to colleagues that he needs to earn money to comfortably put his two children, Tommy Jr. and Lesley, through college, officials said. Both are now teenagers. Ridge earns $175,700 a year as a Cabinet secretary.

What's it take to send a child to college? That may be an odd question from a college prof, but how do other families do it? Extrapolating from 1998 census data, the income places Ridge in the top 5% of Americans, at nearly three times the 2002 median income for a family of four. Is this an issue of the difference between income and wealth? Or do more common families rely on financial aid (which, with work, helped me to attend a private a couple decades ago)?

Here are a couple other suggestions for the Ridges: consider a public university well recognized for providing educational value. Might I suggest Truman State University? A number of our students are grateful for our quality / affordability combination. And for others, the parents struck a bargain to pay for a public undergraduate education, with a promise of some more help for graduate or professional school.

Alternatively, many schools have ROTC programs that Tommy and Lesley might check into. My kid went to dental school on the Navy's dime (he tells us San Diegohas nice weather, but lots of traffic).

Speechifying

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Kerry’s speech surpassed my expectations. My highlights closely parallel those excerpted in Mara Liasson’s report this morning on NPR’s morning edition, so if you missed the speech, you can listen online ("Kerry Delivers Forceful Challenge to Bush" segment). Most of the highlights were rhetorically masterful, saying something about himself, and about Bush, at the same time:

• The intros by the Swift Boat crews and by Max Cleland came off okay; like Kevin’s guest blogger Amy at the Political Animal, I was wondering if they were not taking this a bit too far.
• His biofilm and introductions stressing his life of service, coupled with the assertion that he has never backed away from service to his country, he projects the requisite strength. And also makes you wonder, who would?
• As Kos blogged in realtime, Kerry nicely turned Bush’s rhetoric of ‘restoring dignity and honor to the White House” back on Bush, promising to restore “truth and credibility.”
• The values talk, that paralleled Obama’s: we are all Americans, and please Mr. Bush, let us not divide America for gain.
• Kerry used religion, and used it well (the Democrats know they are losing lower income whites over values issues, and religion is central to this). First, he appealed to many people who might be religious (or who say they are, when they mean something more akin to spiritual) by noting he does not wear his religion on his sleeve. Second, he used Lincoln well: ‘its not about whether God is on our side, but if we are worthy of God.’ Note it’s a paraphrase. Third, he tied religious references to Democratic policies – a little over the top for the commentators on PBS, but a reward for the faithful: “honor thy mother and father,” means not privatizing social security. (‘well, what if we let Halliburton run it, sir?’).
• There’s more decent analysis of the religion talk by Steve Waldman at Beliefnet.org

For the bottom liners, Kos is usually first and fullest with the polls.

Happy Friday.

Political Advertising through the ages

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Political junkies may like to listen to Fresh Air host Terry Gross’s interview with David Schwartz, curator of film at the American Museum of Moving History. He discusses the evolution of campaign commercials since 1952. The interview ends with a discussion of George Bush’s campaign attacking his opponent as a Massachusetts liberal, weak on defense.

Yes, you remember 1988. And you’ll hear more about the evils of Dukakis in the next months. Innoculate yourself now by googling Dukakis + Kerry. His new show at The American

For those with broadband, relive the past with the online exhibit, The Living Room Candidate Here in the boonies, I am working on 19.2 kbps dialup speed. Text is good.

Say Hello to Peter

Let me introduce the other guest blogger who will soon be appearing in this space while I'm vacationing: Peter Dombrowski.

I've known Pete since graduate school at Maryland. He grew up in Massachusetts (yes, he's a long suffering Red Sox fan) and currently works nearby at the Naval War College. For some years, he has been a Professor in the Strategic Research Department, but this summer he took over as editor of the Naval War College Press.

Of course, Pete will not be blogging from work, nor will he be blogging as any kind of spokesperson of the Naval War College.


Doesn't he look serious?

In 1996, the University of Pittsburgh Press published his book, Policy Responses to the Globalization of American Banks, which means that Pete knows a great deal more than I do about international economics.

Loyal readers may remember that Pete and I have worked on some projects together, resulting in a couple of journal articles. Watch this space over the next few months for more news on that front.

Anyway, Pete travels the world for the Navy (or he did, before budgets became a bit tighter) and participates in all kinds of conferences and projects. At home, he travels far and wide with his wife Ann (also a Maryland PhD) as they encourage their daughter's athletic pursuits. Well...they went to Ohio for a meet and I was impressed.

The blog will be in good hands. Happy reading!

Say Hello to Paul

I'm going on a family vacation and will not be blogging all that frequently for awhile. I enjoyed the time away over the 4th of July and thought Avery did a great job filling in. He's still got a set of keys, so he's welcome to blog here, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be away too.

No fear. I've arranged for two other guest bloggers.

One is Paul Parker, who attended grad school with me at the University of Maryland and was later best man at my wedding. This means he is also a Political Scientist, but his expertise is public law.

Paul grew up not far from Seattle, but landed at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. You know he's my kind of guy; after all, he told an interviewer this:

I was excited to move to the Midwest in the late 1980s.

He's only a few hours drive from beautiful Kansas.

Let's see, what more should I tell you? Oh, Paul is an amateur photographer. About five feet from me, I have a terrific framed photo of Sandy Koufax that Paul took in 1987 when we were in Florida during spring training.

About two years ago, Paul published A Portrait of Missouri, 1935-1943: Photographs from the Farm Security Administration (University of Missouri Press), which looks like it includes a a number of really interesting photos from the Depression era.



Glancing around the web, I note that Paul has something in common with former President Jimmy Carter. He's also busy trying to help churn out future lawyers.

Anyway, Paul told me some of the things he's going to cover and I think readers will be well-served by sticking around and reading what he has to say. I won't steal his thunder; he can tell you the rest of the story.

Heck, invite your friends and family to read too.

Another view on Kerry

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Thanks to Rodger for a swell intro. He's deserving of some nice R and R with the family, and we'll try not to burn down the house while he's away.

Let me start by piggybacking on Rodger’s post on John Kerry and Iraq, and the frustration Avery expresses about the Kerry camp, and Kerry’s message not getting out. I heartily recommend Philip Gourevitch’s profile of Kerry in last week’s New Yorker. The profile provides nervous Dems some insight into Kerry’s thinking, and its also the kind of piece that makes my vote on November 2 transcend being “anybody but Bush.”

Here’s an excerpt, starting with a discussion of Kerry’s vote against the $87 billion reconstruction bill, after the vote for (Biden’s proposal to pay for it by rolling back tax cuts), the vote that gave rise to that Bush commercial soudbite that makes you cringe:

Kerry prefers to describe his opposition as a protest vote, since he cast it knowing that the measure would pass, and he considers it a minor matter compared with the Bush Administration’s own inconsistencies about Iraq. “They have flip-flopped every step of the way in this thing,” he told me. “They flip-flopped on their rationale, they flip-flopped on what they said they’d do, they flip-flopped on each of the promises the President made about how he’d conduct it. They flip-flopped on when they would transfer authority. They flip-flopped on to whom. They flip-flopped on the U.N. They have flip-flopped on the intel, and they have obviously flip-flopped on the numbers of troops needed and how they would manage those troops, what the deployment times would be. I mean, this is an unbelievable series of flip-flops, with grave consequences.”

At campaign rallies, Kerry often says of Bush, “If you think I would have taken us to war the way he did, you shouldn’t vote for me.” This line is carefully formulated, he told me, “Because I might well have been in Iraq if Saddam had stiffed the U.N., continued to not allow inspections, hidden things. But I would have brought other countries to the point of impatience with him. Then they would have been there with us. And the President could have done that. I know it because I spent the time to go up and meet with Security Council representatives. I talked to them at great length prior to the vote.”

The first paragraph makes me anxiously anticipate the campaign season and the debates. I trust Kerry will vocalize such things. The article points out Kerry sometimes makes his supporters uncomfortable in not being more aggressive. Indeed. But it also makes clear that's his style, and mostly he makes it work.

I would expect the second paragraph to be central to the Kerry message from here on out: policy choices, not intelligence failures, got us where we are. Bush places so much stock in being a decisive leader, it should be easy to link failed policies to failed leadership.

update: I wrote this midday on Thursday, and I finish it off as the biofilm is rolling at the Fleet Center. so by now, you have seen his speech, and the spin on the speech. But read the profile for more good insight to his thinking on Iraq I, the buildup to Iraq II, and the occupation / reconstruction.