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Congress's Labor-Driven Refusal to OK the Colombia Free Trade Pact Is Shameful
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2009 Comment (3)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Yesterday I argued that the Obama administration has been disrespecting the leaders of Brazil and Mexico. For much more on what is going on in Latin America, please read Mario Loyola's article in National Review. He highlights the growing ties between Iran and Russia with the leaders of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua and the dangers they pose. All the more reason that the United States should cooperate with the constructive leaders of Brazil and Mexico, the two most populous countries in Latin America. And why it is shameful that Congress, at the behest of labor unions, refuses to ratify the free trade agreement with Colombia, the third-most-populous country in Latin America and one under attack from the authoritarian demagogue Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Let's show a little respect for our friends and neighbors!
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Why Did AIG's Counterparties Get 100 Percent Repayment?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2009 Comment (4)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Congress has been bellowing about the bonuses paid to AIG-FP personnel, and Sen. Christopher Dodd is in deep, deep doo-doo for having inserted into the stimulus package language that guaranteed them. Dodd's defense is that he wasn't aware of AIG's bonuses. Huh? He was Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
But there's a larger issue, one involving 1,000 times as much money as the AIG bonuses: Why didn't AIG's counterparties have to take a haircut? We should be less interested in AIG's bonuses than in the 99.91 percent of the money that has been passed through to its counterparties, none of whom seem to be at systemic risk. Why didn't the people who set up the AIG bailout—which would be then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Federal Reserve President and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, require that AIG's counterparties take a haircut?
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Republicans Show Startling Strength in Race for Michigan Governor
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2009 Comment (35)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Yesterday I noted that Republicans are doing better in polls on the generic ballot question—which party's candidate would you vote for in congressional races—better, Scott Rasmussen tells me, in his polls than they have done since January 2004. Now I see that Republican candidates lead in Bill Ballenger's Inside Michigan Politics poll for governor of Michigan. This is at least a little startling. Barack Obama carried Michigan 57-41 percent and in 2006 Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, ineligible to run in 2010, won her second term in 2006 by a margin of 56-42 percent and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow was reelected by a margin of 57-41 percent: a pretty clear pattern. But now Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry seems to be running behind Republicans like Attorney General Mike Cox and Rep. Pete Hoekstra—with none of the three particularly well known to most Michigan voters.
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Obama's 21st Century Campaign Is Stuck In the Mid-20th Century
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2009 Comment (2)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
That's the theme of my column in today's Examiner. I'm not writing regularly for them, but I'm happy to be in the company of their regular and of terrific new hires like Byron York and Noemie Emery.
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Obama, Democrats Disrespect Mexico and Brazil--Where Are the Bush Critics?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2009 Comment (12)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
They will love us again, Obamaenthusiasts exulted, other countries will love us when we replace Bushchimphitler with a sophisticated, urbane leader who shows respect for other nations.
Well, how's that playing out? Not so well. Barack Obama, as it happens, has never visited Latin America. On the stump and otherwise he has paid little attention to it. So perhaps it's not surprising that in the last few days he has shown disrespect for the two leading nations of Latin America, Brazil and Mexico, two nations which between them have half the population of Latin America. Two nations which have intelligent, constructive presidents, the center-left Lula da Silva of Brazil and the center-right Felipe Calderon on Mexico.
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Republicans Get Good News in Polls as They Close the Ballot Gap on Democrats
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2009 Comment (39)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Republicans have the lead in the generic ballot in the Rasmussen poll and are running even in that question in the latest NPR poll. The Republican lead in Rasmussen is 41-39 percent, with Democrats at the low end of the 39-50 percent range they've been over the past year and Republicans at the top end of their 34-41 percent range.
Is this just statistical noise? Quite possibly. But if I were chairman of the NRCC I would sure be looking at targeting a whole lot more races than I had imagined I would three months ago.
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Young Downscale Voters Didn't Show Up At Polls in 2008 Elections
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2009 Comment (2)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
An update to my blog post yesterday on young voters: I've just checked out some Census numbers which I should have consulted before finishing that post. From the Census estimates of population by age in 2007, I find that of the 227,719,424 people 18 and over, 50,550,121 were 18 to 29. In other words, the under 30 population was 22 percent of the total adult population. So the young made up 22 percent of the potential electorate (or maybe one percent or two percent less, since they're probably less likely to be citizens and more likely to be imprisoned felons than their elders) but were only, according to the exit poll, 18 percent of the actual electorate. Which suggests very strongly that the young vote in 2008 was tilted heavily upscale, in terms of income and especially education, compared to the overall population. This reinforces my sense that the downscale young didn't show up and vote very much at all. So it remains, to me at least, a mystery how they would have voted if they did. I need to do more thinking and research on this.
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Ron Silver Was Articulate, Energetic and Made the Left to Right Political Journey
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 Comment (11)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Ron Silver, actor and political activist, has died at 62. I admired him as an actor and as a political thinker. In my occasional conversations with him, he was knowledgeable, articulate, clear-sighted, energetic. Lots of energy: his speech to the 2004 Republican National Convention roused the crowd as few speeches by anyone but the nominees and (sometimes) the keynoter do. He had made after 9/11, as I had made more slowly some years earlier, the political journey from left to right, but he seemed entirely lacking in the hard edge of hate that so evident in some liberals and some conservatives. I sensed that he retained a certain sympathy for his younger, more liberal self and for the people whose politics he had shared but could no longer. And I felt instinctively that he understood things—understood politics and, more important, understood public policy and the importance of standing up for civilization against barbarism. Roger L. Simon has a beautiful remembrance of Ron and John Podhoretz has a fine appreciation.
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Downscale Voters Aren't Marrying, Forming Families—Republicans Should Go Upscale
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 CommentBy Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
When I saw the headline "Bristol's myth" on David Frum's "New Majority" blog post, I braced myself for another of David's sneers at Sarah Palin. But he makes an important and broader point. And that is that unmarried motherhood is becoming quite common among young downscale whites, but remains very uncommon among young upscale whites. It's all very well and good, David argues, for Republicans to appeal to downscale middle-aged and elderly votes with conservative stands on cultural issues. But "family values," he says, are simply not going to be persuasive for young downscale voters who aren't marrying and forming traditional families. Here's his nut graf:
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The Left Pushes Secular Religions: Global Warming, Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 Comment (7)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It seems to me that many on the cultural left are, while secular when it comes to conventional religion, very much believers in something that might be called secular religions—the religion of global warming, the religion of embryonic stem-cell research.
My Creators Syndicate column discusses the Obama budget and how it caters to the religion of global warming by imposing huge costs on what now is an ailing economy in order to fight disasters which we are told will strike us—we area told that there can be no argument—you must have faith!—40 or 50 years from now.
