links for 2009-07-31

• Mark Bittman – Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch – NYTimes.com

Shameless Self-Promotion

I have a new column up at Campus Progress on “Gatesgate,” you should check it out.

links for 2009-07-24

• Paul Krugman – Costs and Compassion – NYTimes.com

Friday Genius Ten

As promised, here is this week’s Friday Random/Genius Ten:

Original Song: “Planet Earth” — Duran Duran

And here is what iTunes gave me:

1. “Pale Shelter” — Tears for Fears
2. “Ashes to Ashes” — David Bowie
3. “The Walk” — The Cure
4. “Love is the Drug” — Roxy Music
5. “The Perfect Kiss” — New Order
6. “Radio Free Europe” — R.E.M.
7. “Private Idaho” — The B-52′s
8. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” — Devo
9. “Sunday Girl” – Blondie
10. “Can’t Stand Losing You” – The Police

I wish it would have given me a little more synth-pop, but this is a good enough mix.  In any case, here are a few Duran Duran and New Order videos to get you through your day.

Duran Duran:

New Order:

Party Out of Bounds

Dave Brockington hypothesizes about the structural difficulties facing the GOP:

I’m not going out on a limb when I speculate that the 2008 Presidential election in the U.S. featured the latter, especially in relation to certain racial categories.  The question that many will ask is whether or not these new voters hold.  This will make the 2010 Congressional elections informative for several reasons.  My suspicion is, backed by what we know from past elections, that the surge in turnout the youth cohort demonstrated in 2008 will hold.  It will fluctuate, of course, but it will hold in the main.

The problem that this presents for the Republicans is two-fold.  First, voters tend to maintain the party loyalties that they establish in their first few elections.  Again, this is on average, and there are anecdotal exceptions to the rule, but it is a general principle.  Second, the surge in turnout in the young cohort was not limited to African-Americans, but also Latinos and Asians.  If the Republicans continue pandering to their open-minded, inquisitive, generously tolerant Palinesque base, they’re only going to solidify these voters as Democrats.

To the extent that the system “works,” one of the things that keeps it working is the expectation – on part of the opposing party – that they will eventually be in a position to control the levers of government.  Not only does that expectation keep the minority party from sabotaging government, but it (usually) incentivizes positive behavior like working with the majority to get something done.

This shouldn’t be taken lightly; in a fairly calcified two-party system like ours (with an institutional arrangement as insane as ours) it doesn’t take much sustained obstinacy to cripple the system.  Indeed, we’re seeing that play out in California right now.  Part of California’s problem is that it is overwhelmingly liberal and will continue to be dominated by Democrats.  In said environment, Republicans have rationally concluded that – absent a full on collapse of the state – they literally have no chance at ever again attaining power.  And so, accordingly, they have decided to do just that: bring on a collapse of the state in an attempt to wrest power from state Democrats.

Given the institutional arrangement of the federal government, this isn’t terribly unlikely.  As Brockington notes, if Republicans continue to isolate themselves from young voters and minorities, they will find themselves in an electoral box, with little chance at regaining either house of congress (the presidency is a different story).  I’ve said this before, and it’s worth repeating: I don’t want the Republican Party to relegate itself to the ash-heap of history.  In fact, I want the Republican Party to be viable enough to win national elections (on occasion, of course) so that they have at least some incentive to work for something productive.

links for 2009-07-23

• Obama Talks Health Care With Fred Hiatt – washingtonpost.com

Interesting comparisons

You know, I don’t recall David Broder being nearly this upset with President Bush and congressional Republicans, even after they cut taxes and spent trillions of dollars on two wars and a massive expansion of the federal government.

links for 2009-07-22

• Black Folks Use Blue Tooth, White Folks Jog and Niggers with PhD’s Get Arrested » Cold Drank
• Matthew Yglesias » The Peril of Fiscal Federalism
• Economy — The Case For A Surtax

Success Doesn’t Hurt

The New York Times offers this silly criticism in an otherwise decent piece on Obama’s political challenges:

Polls show that Mr. Obama is more popular than his own policies, a worrisome sign for a president with such an ambitious agenda. Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman who is now vice president of the Aspen Institute, said Mr. Obama might be making a mistake in reading his election as a mandate for dramatic change.

“A lot of people supported Obama because they wanted to repudiate the Bush administration,” said Mr. Edwards, who backed Mr. Obama for president. “I was one of those people who supported him for reasons other than the policies he is proposing. He seemed more thoughtful, more contemplative — I felt he had the right temperament to be president. But I think his health care proposal goes beyond what the public at the moment is ready to accept.”

While there certainly were some people who supported Obama out of a desire to “repudiate the Bush administration,” the vast majority of voters who supported Obama did so because of his policy positions.  Take health care for instance; of the 33 percent of voters who said that they were “very worried” about health care costs, 66 percent voted for Obama, and of the 32 percent of voters who said that they were merely “somewhat worried” about health care costs, 54 percent voted for Obama.  That is, a supermajority of voters claimed to be somewhat or very worried about (presumably rising) health care costs, and of those, a clear majority supported Obama in last year’s election.  What’s more, as Matt Yglesias has repeatedly noted, the recent Washington Post poll showing a slight decline in President Obama’s popularity also reveals that a solid majority of Americans trust Obama far more than they do congressional Republicans on health care.

Contra Edwards, if there’s any danger for Obama, it’s in not passing an effective health care bill.  Voters won’t punish Obama for delivering on what he promised, they’ll punish him for failing.

links for 2009-07-20

• Obsidian Wings: The Anti-Tax Ideology
• Jimmy Carter leaves Southern Baptist Church, cites sexism – Feministing