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Are there any swing voters anymore?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2006 CommentThe answer over the past few years has seemed to be no. Both the Bush and Kerry campaigns in 2004 were run on the assumption that there were few swingable voters and that the prime task was to increase the turnout of your own supporters. Both succeeded, one more than the other: John Kerry's popular vote was 16 percent larger than Al Gore's, and George W. Bush's 2004 popular vote was 23 percent larger than his popular vote in 2000.
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More on Tony Blair—and George W. Bush
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2006 Comment (1)John O'Sullivan, British native and former aide to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has a good column on Tony Blair's predicament. His prediction: Blair is going to stay in for a while.
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Counterfactual history
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2006 Comment (8)What would have happened if we had not taken military action against Iraq in March 2003? Any assessment of the wisdom of that military action needs to take that question into account. Of course we cannot know exactly what would have happened—just as George W. Bush in March 2003 could not have known. But both decision makers and critics must make some estimate of the likely outcomes of action and inaction and take them into account when assessing the wisdom of decisions.
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CEO pay
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2006 CommentRegular readers of this blog will know that one issue on which I am still a flaming left-winger is CEO pay. I'm astounded by the huge amounts of money even unsuccessful CEOs take home. In today's Wall Street Journal the always perspicacious Alan Murray takes a look at the issue (subscription required). According to Murray, I'm not alone. Here's his lead:
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Ed Koch on Saddam, WMD, and the New York Times
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2006 CommentI am on the E-mail list of former New York Mayor Edward Koch and read his commentary and even his movie reviews with interest. I thought he made an excellent point in his most recent E-mail and hereby pass it along:
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Friendly reference
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2006 Comment (1)There's a nice mention of me in David Keene's column in The Hill, and he is kind enough to remember an incident I had forgotten. Keene thinks we may be looking at another 1994 again, with Democrats recapturing control of the House; I think that's possible, but still less likely than not. I'll keep watching for signs that I'm wrong.
In the meantime, thanks, David.
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Economic class-warfare politics
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2006 CommentIn a thoughtful column, E. J. Dionne addresses the claims that rich elitists tend to vote Democratic. It's true, he admits, in the relatively rich states, most of which John Kerry carried in 2004. But, citing and crediting a paper by political scientists, he points out that in relatively poor states, and especially in the South, there is a big divide between high-income voters, who vote heavily Republican, and lower-income voters, who are split, with lower-income blacks voting heavily Democratic and lower-income whites voting Republican but by smaller margins than high-income whites. All true, and a reasonably fair analysis.
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Plamegate
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2006 Comment"Plame's identity, if truly a secret, was thinly veiled," reads the headline on a story by John Crewdson in Saturday's Chicago Tribune.
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Why we fight with one arm tied behind our backs
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2006 CommentAs a postscript to Michael Ledeen's House testimony on encouraging peaceful revolution in Iran, here's a post from Belmont Club's Wretchard. It features three writers, of different views, whom I respect greatly: Oxford Prof. Timothy Garton Ash, who did such brilliant reporting and writing on the peaceful revolutions in eastern Europe; Col. Austin Bay of Texas, whose always incisive analysis is informed by his service as a reservist in Iraq; and Richard Fernandez (Wretchard), a native of the Philippines and student of history who now writes from Australia. Only in the blogosphere: an interchange between Oxford, San Antonio, and Sydney.
I want to quote the whole thing.
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Tolerating intolerance
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2006 CommentAccording to powerlineblog.com, the following article was removed from the London Telegraph Web site "for legal reasons." It's an account of Guyana-born Muslim-turned-Christian Patrick Sookhdeo's view of Muslim clerics and their strategy of seeking to have Muslim enclaves in Britain subjected to sharia law:
