The Antony Gambit

An essay on a literary theme

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.
---Mark Antony, Julius Caesar III.ii

Rome: The Forum, shortly after the death of Caesar. Restless and uncertain, troubled by the suggestion of civil chaos, a crowd has gathered. Brutus, one of the chiefs among the conspirators, speaks from the pulpit in defense of their actions. He says the conspirators killed Caesar in order to preserve the republic of Rome---that Caesar was too ambitious, that he would become a king. The crowd is pleased and would make Brutus, too, king. This, he refuses. Stepping down, ending his workmanlike speech, he leaves them with Mark Antony. Antony has begged a chance to eulogize his fallen friend, and the conspirators, in an act of calculated beneficence, have allowed this.

Turning to the crowd, Antony says he comes to bury Caesar. But what does he raise in Caesar's place! Cutting, quick, eloquent, not needing instruction from any rules, Antony knows what to do: pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. With withering irony, he begins to assail the conspirators, those honorable men (so honorable they would plot to murder a man). His lugubrious attention to the body of Caesar complements his attacks upon the conspirators. He dwells on the bloody remains of the fallen dictator with an intensity that would make any local news station proud. Here is Caesar's mantle, here is the rent made by Casca, here the one made by Brutus ("the most unkindest cut of all"). The sympathy for the dead, the great narrative of betrayal, becomes the catalyst for Antony's domination of the crowd.

"Freedom" is not a word on Antony's lips. He does not speak to the crowd of the future preservation of republican liberty. He turns them backward, praises Caesar's great generosity (even if that generosity is purchased with Roman sweat and blood) to them, the bequests of his will: seventy-five drachmas to each citizen and orchards and arbors for the public enjoyment. Brutus spoke of liberty and a commonwealth, poor substitutes for the hard facts of coins and trees.

So Antony speaks, and it is the seeming voice of renewal with a sentiment of violence at its core. Antony does not seek to calm. He does not seek to clarify. He seeks to feed the rage of the people, to inflame their fears, to stoke their avarice. Antony aims to bring the assembled crowd to a white-hot wrath, and to pour that furious liquid into the molds of a sword and of a crown.

Creating a vast sense of longing and sorrow in his listeners, bringing them to the peak of emotion, Antony pushes them over the cliff into terror. The crowd spreads through Rome in seething wrath. Mobs run wild, destroying property and killing men. The tide has turned against the conspirators. Now, they must flee.

The whirlwind of that polarization and radicalization will engulf Rome once more in war. And this war is not for republican liberty or civic defense or even civic profit; it is a war for the gratification of the ambition of would-be princes. Antony and Octavius, Caesar's heir, defeat the conspirators in battle. A new triumvirate is formed to rule over Rome; like earlier triumvirates, this one falls, leaving Octavius the sole ruler. Octavius's ascent to the title of Augustus and toppler of the republic begins with this speech.

So for seventy-five drachmas would the citizens of Rome become handmaidens to tyranny. What is freedom compared to an orchard by the Tiber?

The sentiments and rhetorical techniques Antony used in his invective against the conspirators have a long history with the decline of republican liberty. It is fitting that Antony spoke in the penultimate minute of Rome's long republican twilight (an instant perhaps far too late for even the most idealistic efforts of any democratic Brutus or Cicero to reverse the course of). As democracy corrodes, public enthusiasm is used as a substitute for public rationality. Vengeance takes the place of hope (even as the placard of "hope" may be lifted high). Wrath takes the place of reason.

In such a time of decline, the people come to look upon government---and, as time goes on, the particular officers of government---as a force for mere provision. Instead of seeing the republic as a common enterprise that requires a common effort for its maintenance, the citizens come to view it as a sort of vague deity, which rewards supplication and submission with daily bread and circuses (it's no wonder many of the Roman emperors were deified). The people would accept the at-first comfortable fetters of servitude, whose velvet veneer soon rubs away in the toiling years ahead. But, once the locks have closed, they are so hard to open. The vase of the free republic, once shattered, remains a fragmented challenge for recovery.

Let us beware those post-modern Antonys, who enrage the public in order to enslave them, for whom the flash of anger is the sole light down the dark and twisted ways of the world. They use rage as a way of disabling critical thought and make scorn a substitute for analysis. Antony may have shown himself to be a master of political hardball, but, at a certain point, this hardball becomes an aggravating symptom of republican decay.

Those Antonys can be faced with a spirit of cheerful rationality and a dogged pursuit of the truth. Their mellifluousness may need to be countered with an eloquence of another kind---one that speaks to the highest principles, that cracks the strangling false dogmas of a moment to open the mind's vistas, that seeks to use passion not to enslave a man but as a way of opening his eyes to freedom.

Keep an eye on Delaware?

In addition to Pennsylvania and New York, things might be looking up for GOP fortunes in Delaware's 2010 Senate race. Rep. Mike Castle (R) leads possible Democratic opponent Beau Biden by over twenty points, according to one poll:

Poll respondents chose Castle by a margin of 21% with the incumbent congressman polling 55% to Biden’s 34%. Only 8% of respondents indicated that they are undecided. Among Republicans, Castle leads Biden by a margin of 82% to 12% and among Independents he leads Biden 55% to 28%. Biden leads among Democrats only by a 52% - 36% margin, however.

The Weekly Standard has more.

Change in the Northeast?

2010's a while away, but recent polls from Pennsylvania and New York show an electoral picture that may be getting more complicated. Quinnipiac says that former PA governor Tom Ridge may be in striking distance of Republican-turned-Democrat Senator Arlen Specter. Specter holds off former GOP Rep. Pat Toomey, however.

Newly-minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter would whip old Republican rival Pat Toomey 53 - 33 percent if the 2010 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race were held today, but if popular former Gov. Tom Ridge becomes the Republican candidate, he trails Specter by just 46 - 43 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Independent voters, who back Sen. Specter over Toomey 45 - 36 percent, switch to Ridge 47 - 37 percent if he becomes a candidate. The former Republican Governor also gets 14 percent of the Democratic vote, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

In the Specter-Toomey matchup, Republicans back Toomey 74 - 18 percent while Democrats go with their new convert 85 - 4 percent. Men back Specter 47 - 41 percent, as do women 59 - 26 percent. Union households go Democratic 62 - 27 percent.

In a Specter-Ridge face-off, Republicans go with Ridge 82 - 10 percent, while Specter takes Democrats 78 - 14 percent. Men shift to Ridge 50 - 41 percent, while women remain Democratic 51 - 37 percent. Union households back Specter 57 - 34 percent.

46% is probably not a very good number for an incumbent to be at, but that percentage may also reflect voter uncertainty/hostility about his recent party switch.

Meanwhile, things are looking dicey for New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand (D). According to The Marist Poll, New York voters are still plagued with uncertainty about her. And it looks as though she's losing support for 2010. She now trails former NY governor George Pataki (R) by 8 points (38-46). Though she still leads current Republican Rep. Pete King 42-31, she's lost ground against him, too. Gillibrand is fighting hard to win the Democratic primary as well; she maintains a 5-point lead over Dem. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, though many Democratic voters are unsure either way.

2009 may be shaping up to be a positive year for former GOP governors from the Northeast. In addition to these numbers for Ridge and Pataki, Mitt Romney's star seems to have risen in Massachusetts; current Democratic governor Deval Patrick is suffering from low approval ratings (57% of voters say they intend to vote against him in 2010), and a plurality approaching a clear majority (49%-32%) say that Romney did a better job of governing the state than Patrick has.

From the Department of Self-Promotion...

For those interested, I have an essay up at NewMajority.com on inequality and why Republicans should care about it.

Reconciliation Conference?

Via The Hill, here are the members of the House-Senate budget conference, which will decide whether to put in place reconciliation instructions for health-care:

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.)

Conrad is an opponent of using reconciliation, but he's feeling a lot of heat from the Democrats in the House and the White House. Certain members of the Senate leadership are now strongly pressing for reconciliation as well:

Conrad told reporters that he doesn't want to use reconciliation rules to pass healthcare reform but that he is feeling pressure to include the option in the budget resolution from House members and the Obama administration.

There are "three prongs that are involved in any budget discussion -- Senate, House and the White House," Conrad said. "And the White House and the House are insisting on [reconciliation]."

Asked if it was impossible to resist them, Conrad said, "We'll see."

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also called for reconciliation rules for healthcare on Thursday, the first time he has done so publicly.

When asked by the New York Times whether reconciliation instructions would be included, Reid replied, "I hope so, but it's up to the conferees."

The use of reconciliation would allow health-care reform to avoid the possibility of a filibuster so that it would only need a bare majority to pass. Back in the day (meaning 2005, when Democrats were out of power in the Senate), Sen. Murray issued a ringing defense of the filibuster:

We had an election this past year, and it's true that Republicans ended up with the majority in this body. But that does not mean that half the country lost its voice. That does not mean that tens of millions of Americans have no say in our democracy...Mr. President, in reality, this [the proposed "nuclear option" to end filibusters for judicial appointments] isn’t about judges. This isn't about a Senate procedural change. This is, plain and simply, a power grab and an effort to dismantle the system of checks and balances our Founding Fathers created.

Without that system, the U.S. Senate would become a rubber stamp for the president.

Will she stand by that principle now?

It might already be too late, but those who would defend the filibuster for health-care reform and ensure that such reform, if passed, requires a broader majority might want to raise their voices now and contact their representatives/House-Senate conferees (especially Conrad, Murray, and maybe Boyd). Certainly, the Democratic conferees are feeling a lot of pressure to use reconciliation in order to force health-care reform, and the White House is pushing for swift action (possibly as early as Monday for a budget package and Tuesday/Wednesday for votes on it).

(For more 2005 Democratic defenses of the filibuster, see here.)

UPDATE: Well, it looks as though a deal for reconciliation has been reached, according to Jonathan Cohn:

The final budget resolution will include a "reconciliation instruction" for health care. That means the Democrats can pass health care reform with just fifty votes, instead of the sixty it takes to break a filibuster...

The reonciliation instruction specifies a date. That date, according to one congressional staffer, is October 15. (The original House reconciliation instruction had a late September deadline.)

In other words, the House and Senate each have until that day to pass health care legislation.

If they haven't, then both houses will consider health care under the reconciliation process, which is relevant primarily for the way it affects the Senate. There will be a limit on the time of debate. Republicans won't be able to filibuster it.

Colorado Change?

April 2009 is probably too early to be reading too much into polls for an election in November 2010, but, that caveat aside, here are some numbers from a Public Policy Polling poll that might be give the GOP some (even if very small) hope:

Three months into his appointment as a Senator, Michael Bennet [D] isn’t making a strong positive impression on Colorado voters.

41% say they disapprove of his job performance so far, with 34% approving. 25% don’t have an opinion one way or the other. He is meeting with approval from 59% of Democrats but only 11% of Republicans, and his overall reviews from independents are negative as well, with 32% approving but 43% disapproving.

Bennet's numbers suggest that there could be some opening for a Republican pickup here, a sorely needed commodity for the GOP at the moment. However, Bennet leads a number of his possible Republican challengers in this poll; beating Bennet 43-42 in this poll, former Congressman Bob Beauprez is the only Republican candidate who leads Bennet. But Bennet's re-election numbers in these hypothetical head-to-heads linger in the low 40's and high 30's, so it certainly seems as though Colorado voters are open to voting for somebody else.

Talent recruitment could be incredibly important in a race like this one. If the GOP runs a strong candidate, it looks like it would have a real chance of taking this seat back (Ben Nighthorse Campell, a Democrat-turned-Republican, held this seat before Ken Salazar won it in 2004). Polls continuing to show Bennet as vulnerable would probably encourage challengers to enter the race. With tough poll numbers for some Republican incumbents looming overhead, the GOP and John Cornyn, who's heading the National Republican Senatorial Committee, might find a super-thin ray of hope in Colorado.

Reconciliation Coming?

Word on some of the lefty and newsy blogs is that budget "reconciliation" could be a real possibility for the Senate on health-care. This "reconciliation" process would prevent anyone from filibustering the health funding provisions. Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic writes:

Some well-placed sources on Capitol Hill* are saying it's likely that the final budget resolution will include "reconciliation instructions" for health care, effectively making it impossible for Republicans to filibuster reform...

...And while the outcome of those negotiations isn't certain--even some Democratic senators have spoken out against using reconciliation--it appears likely that the House will get its way. "I think reconciliation survives," says one senior House staffer, although the adviser noted it would probably take some pressure from the White House.

A senior Senate staffer agreed with that assessment. And, curiously, it's a staffer who just a week ago told me the outcome was very much in doubt.

I'm not yet sure what changed in the last few days. Nor can I be certain the confidence is well-placed. Another senior Senate staffer was more cautious, suggesting the inclusion of reconciliation is hardly a done deal.

One thing to keep in mind: Even if reconciliation is part of the final budget agreement, that doesn't mean Congress will necessarily use that option. The instructions will might stipulate that reconciliation only comes into play if, by September, the Congress has not yet passed a bill. That gives reformers several months to work out a bipartisan compromise, which is what most of the key players--including the Obama administration--have said they prefer.

Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic has heard something similar:

This column can say with good confidence that a betting man would wager heavily on the Senate including reconciliation for health care and education funding in the final budget agreement.... cap-n-trade...not so much.

For more "progressive" strategizing, see Ezra Klein's discussion of reconciliation options.

Will the sentiments of Democrats in 2005 prevail? Would Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) call this move "a power grab and an effort to dismantle the system of checks and balances our Founding Fathers created"?

Speaking of health-care reform, check out this passage from Reihan Salam's interesting piece in Forbes (emphasis added):

Earlier this month, The New Republic Web site hosted a thoughtful and informed discussion of the Massachusetts health reform that has covered 85% of the state's previously uninsured residents. One of the participants, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, was unusually frank. An architect of the reform, Gruber acknowledged that the costs have skyrocketed as coverage has increased--but Gruber sees this as part of its "genius."

"For decades," Gruber writes, "efforts to move towards universal coverage have always floundered on the shoals of cost control." But once universal coverage was achieved, or almost achieved, pressure groups rallied behind cost control efforts in order to preserve the gains for the uninsured.

As a political strategy, this is very clever indeed. It does, however, raise a number of pressing questions. What exactly constitutes an effective cost control effort? Assuming cost control efforts only go so far, will voters accept sharp tax increases? By deferring these questions, we make coverage expansion look very attractive--just as George W. Bush made his tax cuts look very attractive by deferring the question of how we'd pay for them in the years to come.

Then and Now

Even as some Democrats are now expressing their possible openness to using the budget reconciliation process to bypass a filibuster on health-care reform, a number of them were very critical of the so-called "nuclear option" of 2005, which would have ended the use of filibusters for judicial confirmations.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the Senate Budget Committee and a possible member of this year's House-Senate budget conference, now says that "everything's on the table." Sen. Murray came out strongly against the "nuclear option" in 2005. Back then, she warned that the destruction of the filibuster would weaken the institutional power of the Senate and betray some of the Senate's key aims, especially the protection of minority rights:

But what's so concerning about this recent rhetorical assault is that it's being backed by action – action that has nothing to do with judges and everything to do with increasing Republican power at the expense of the Constitution.

Republicans are trying to increase their power by ignoring rules dating to our country's founding. They want to push through radical judicial nominees who will serve a lifetime on the bench by eliminating a two-hundred-year-old American rule allowing each of us in the Senate to speak on behalf our constituents and fight for the ideals we hold dear.

We had an election this past year, and it's true that Republicans ended up with the majority in this body. But that does not mean that half the country lost its voice. That does not mean that tens of millions of Americans have no say in our democracy...Mr. President, in reality, this isn’t about judges. This isn't about a Senate procedural change. This is, plain and simply, a power grab and an effort to dismantle the system of checks and balances our Founding Fathers created.

Without that system, the U.S. Senate would become a rubber stamp for the president.

It would allow whichever political party is in power – Republican or Democratic - to have all the say over our nation’s courts. I will not stand for that.

This is a basic argument about the future of the Senate and how we will conduct our business. I believe in giving the people a voice, in standing up for those who sent me here, and in protecting the rights of minorities everywhere.

One of the first things every child is taught about the American government is the separation of the three braches. This separation, and the checks and balances that come with it, are fundamental to the greatest system of government ever created. This system is worth protecting, and that's exactly what I and so many of my colleagues intend to do...

Mr. President, recent comments by advocates on the other side, and even by some elected officials, have left me worried about the future of the independent judiciary. It seems many in this country are intent on running roughshod over the Constitution, bent on misusing their power to destroy fundamental principles of democracy.

That's not how America works. It is not what our founding fathers intended. In our democracy, no single person and no single political party may impose extreme views on the nation. The Constitutional system of checks and balances was set up for a reason. It has worked for two centuries. There is no reason to destroy this fundamental principle now.

Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) seems to be on the fence about whether he'd vote to use the reconciliation process on health-care, though he says he's hoping that process won't have to be used. In the past, Sen. Wyden has, as is his right, filibustered about oil prices and threatened to filibuster a new FISA authorization. Sen. Wyden used the filibuster as a way of fighting for his position.

Perhaps some of the most striking words in defense of the filibuster and Senate privileges have come from Sen. Russ Feingold, another member of the Budget Committee. In 2005, Feingold declared:

But the Constitution did not set up the Senate to be a majoritarian body. And that is what why renaming the nuclear option as "the constitutional option" is so wrong. The Constitution allows citizens from smaller states who could be easily outvoted in a majoritarian legislature, like the House, to have the same power in the Senate as citizens of larger states. This is not a minor provision, either. The founders clearly didn't think so, because they made it the only provision in the Constitution that cannot be amended. They designed the Senate to be an important bulwark against majoritarian pressures.

And the Senate rules from the very beginning have granted protections for the minority. There was no cloture rule at all until this century and the rule didn't cover nominations until 1949. While the cloture rule has changed over time, sometimes offering more protection to the minority and sometimes less, those rule changes have always been accomplished in accordance with the Senate rules. Until now. Until the demand for power trumped principle.

The Framers intended the Senate to act as a check on the whims of the majority, not to facilitate them. I will not pretend that the Senate has always been on the right side of history. At times, most notably during the great civil rights debates of the 1950s and 60s, Senators have used the powers given them to block vital, majority-supported legislation. But, notwithstanding those dark moments, the Senate has also served throughout the history of this republic as a place where individuals with different beliefs and goals are forced to come together to work for the common good. By empowering the minority, the Framers created a body that that has served this country well.

To continue down the road we are now on will be to irretrievably change the very character of the Senate, and irretrievably weaken the institution. Without the unique feature of extended debate, the Senate will be much less able to stand up to the President or to cool the passions of the explicitly majoritarian House. I know that my colleagues see themselves as guardians of this remarkable institution, as I do. When we leave the Senate -- and, some day, somehow or another, all of us will -- it is our responsibility to ensure that we do not leave this institution weakened. As Senators, we tend to see ourselves as pretty important, but none of us -- and certainly no judicial nomination -- is more important than the United States Senate.

Many Democrats---including Sen. Robert Byrd (WV), Sen. Tom Carper (DE), Budget chair Sen. Kent Conrad (ND), and Sen. Max Baucus (MT)---have expressed grave reservations about the use of the budget reconciliation process to force major policy reforms on the nation. Those Democrats who are wavering may do well to look at the words of their colleagues from four years ago and ask if their concerns about minority protections, Senatorial independence, and public consensus are any less relevant or true now (even if you don't agree with the filibustering of nominees---as opposed to laws---on grounds of principle).

Voices

Via David Freddoso, an interesting column by Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and great beneficiary of government funding, attacking the mechanism of private charity. There's a lot to go over in that column, but let's look at this point (emphasis added):

Second, voluntary private charity is a less equitable way to solve community problems. While many people assume that the rich amass their wealth on their own, the truth is that their business interests are almost always aided by public efforts such as roads, bridges and ports through which they ship their goods or public schools that educate their workforces. Given that even the wealthiest benefit greatly from this modern "public commons," it is wrong to give them unilateral power to decide whether their taxpayer-subsidized donations should go to, say, well-heeled operas or lavish care of pets rather than to organizations that meet more pressing communal needs.

It is fashionable these days to say that "the community," not government, should solve social problems. Yet no nonprofit leader, myself included, was elected by the community as a whole. Elected officials, whether we like them or not, are picked by voting citizens. In America, the government is the most legitimate voice of the entire community.

The bolded paragraph seems somewhat befuddling to me. First of all, as I've mentioned before, there can be something rather troubling about the identification of government and the community. Secondly, Berg makes an telling switch into the rhetoric of collectivist voices. It is far from clear to me that we should only view the "community" as a monolithic entity. A "community" is in fact comprised of a huge array of voices and not only voices but bodies, too. Each individual certainly has the right to speak in his or her own voice on his or her own behalf. Our private, individual voices themselves do much good for the community---as loving parents, friends, artists, teachers, builders, and so forth. They do not achieve their legitimacy (in a true sense) from the government. A society in which the only charity and good works are those of the government is one of either tyranny or bloody anarchy. Our daily kindnesses and acts of good will keep our society and government functioning. Our community has many voices; our nation has many communities. To try to nullify this variety, to rest legitimacy only in the majority of votes, is to begin to undo the underpinnings of a free society and to pervert our senses of charity.

UPDATE: Welcome Protein Wisdom readers! You might also be interested in this post on Arnold Schwarzenegger and the role of principles in politics.

"Progressive" Redistributionist Watch

Matt Yglesias brings out the claws for those nefarious fat cats:

Some people, as I understand it, just don’t think inequality is a problem. But for the egalitarians among us, I’ve never really understood the view that obscene executive compensation is an issue that absolutely positively certainly must only be addressed through the indirect Rube Goldberg-esque method of changing corporate governance rules. What if we had a 95 percent marginal tax rate on income over $10 million? What dire consequences would flow from this? Perhaps a certain outflow of top-flight baseball talent to Japan. But I don’t see this leading to any kind of economic calamity. Producers of certain classes of supply-constrained luxury goods would lose out as their prices go down. But my strong suspicion is that at the end of the day most of the super-rich would ultimately find it a relief to get off the treadmill of status-competition and the not-quite-so-rich would be thrilled to see their betters cut down to size.

An economic policy based on its appeal to cultural resentments---what could go wrong?

Granted, the US has had very high marginal tax rates before (with top federal income taxes reaching 94% during WWII and 91% through much of the 1950s), though changes in the tax code (including rules for exemptions, etc.) may make it a little harder to compare the rates of then to now. But I think we need to be careful about going along with the notion that our economy would be more egalitarian if only our government could intervene to a radical extent. We also need to be wary of the temptation to think that one person will be better off only if another person becomes poorer.

A government with the power to implement complete economic "equality" (defined not as a freedom to pursue wealth but a limitation on wealth) by fiat is a government that, in practice, will prove to be deeply inegalitarian. Concentrating that much power in the hands of a few will lead to radical distortions of the market and significant displays of political corruption. The Soviet Union, for all its limitations on private wealth, was a far less egalitarian place than the United States. One of the reasons for using a "indirect Rube Goldberg-esque method of changing corporate governance rules" is that these rules offer a way of arriving at more egalitarian outcomes through encouraging specific channelings of private, decentralized interests. Regulation rather than dictation can lead to an economic system with more freedom, more productivity, and more equality.

2010: Damaged Democratic Governors?

Following on this post by Soren Dayton about Governor Deval Patrick (D) of Massachusetts, who currently enjoys a 28% approval rating (with 48% disapproving), I went to SurveyUSA to check out the approval ratings of other Democratic governors elected in 2006 (many of whom may be up for reelection in 2010). The numbers aren't very promising for them. (Numbers are Approval/Disapproval; astrerisks denote governors who will not be running in 2010)

Chet Culver (IA) 46/47
Jim Doyle (WI) 40/55
David Patterson (NY) 30/66
Bill Richardson* (NM) 41/53
Ted Kulongoski* (OR) 38/52

Meanwhile, a poll in Michigan shows Republican candidates leading the likely Democratic candidate for governor in 2010. Dem. Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio (facing a 2010 race) still has a healthy approval rating of 56%, but it has fallen 7 points from a month ago.

A number of Republican governor numbers are holding up. Jodi Rell of Connecticutt has a 75% approval rating; Charlie Crist (FL) was, as of a month ago, at 67% approval; Bob Riley (AL), who's term-limited out of office in 2011, stands at a 64% approval rating. Tim Pawlenty of MN, who had a very close election in 2006, still has a net positive approval rating (48-44), but it's below the 50% mark.

While some GOP numbers aren't so good (yes, I'm looking at you, Arnold and Gov. Carcieri [RI]), a lot of Democratic numbers in a variety of states are low and seem to be sinking. If the GOP can recruit some top-notch talent, it has a good chance of picking up some governorships in 2010.

Cap-and-Trade Policy

The Detroit News slams the Obama administration's cap-and-trade proposal as a "giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland."

President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate revenue for more government spending programs.

The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.

The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.

Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times, "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch, pure and simple."

The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers. Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto parts production.

Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.

The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt across the economy.

Not only would many variants of a cap-and-trade program increase government's power to choose economic winners and redistribute wealth---they could also disadvantage US manufacturing. Why would a manufacturing company, facing newly onerous carbon taxes, decide to green its factory when it could merely close up shop and open a new factory in a country such as the People's Republic of China, say, or India where there is no such tax? A poorly designed cap-and-trade system would put another finger on the scale in opposition to US industry.

There seem a few ways of coping with this problem. Here are a few:

1. Do not have a cap-and-trade policy.
2. Create various global agreements, which would put binding fees on all nations.
3. Offer manufacturing rebates to local industries.
4. Place "carbon tariffs" on imports from countries without a carbon tax system.
5. Put in place various subsidies/investments so that areas hit hardest by these taxes could transition to new industries.
6. Have cap-and-trade and do nothing to cope with the industrial fallout.
   

All of these routes have their own complications. All of these---with the exception of 1---increase government intervention in the economy. 2 seems at the moment to be a very difficult aim for cap-and-trade. 3 opens up a huge can of worms for who would get rebates. 4 would probably run afoul of WTO rules, could risk inspiring a trade war, and may smack too much of "protectionism" for supposed "free-traders." 5 may offer some comfort to more manufacturing-based regions but may not stop certain forms of deindustrialization. 6 would also not help industrialization and would provide no other economic relief, either.

Cap-and-trade and other carbon tax proposals will necessarily involve questions of US trade policy. There is a political opportunity here as well as political peril. At its worst, cap-and-trade could prove to be a massive patronage system for those in power, a destroyer of US industry, a reducer of living standards across the board, an excuse for the invasive government management of our daily lives, a non-entity in terms of environmental protection, and an exercise in ideology that fails to meet the demands of practice.

A party which can prove itself an advocate for a responsible industrial policy could go a long way toward establishing a political base in the Midwest and in other areas. Republicans especially could burnish their middle-class credentials by asking piercing questions about how to balance industrial growth and environmental legislation. The GOP would do well to emphasize the economic dangers of ill-thought carbon proposals. Cap-and-trade could be an area where questions of government intervention in the economy overlap with middle class economic anxieties in a way favorable to Republicans.

Dangerous Elisions

In the midst of his take-down of Rush Limbaugh, Rod Dreher offers an interesting moment of syntax (emphasis mine):

Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause] When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government.

This is a comforting lie. It is Rousseau conservatism: the idea that man is born innocent, but corrupted by society, or government. Remove the chains of government, and man will return to his natural, good state, which is one of limitless possibility. This denies two bedrock truths of philosophical conservatism, which are that 1) human nature is fallen, and 2) man must learn to live within limits. A conservatism that is not founded on a conscious recognition of those two truths is a false conservatism, and has a shaky foundation from which to criticize liberal utopianism.

While perhaps there is a trace of utopian sentiment in this passage quoted from Limbaugh, the idea that certain government regulations can stifle individual achievement is hardly a Rousseauian idea. Limbaugh's statement is also hardly one of a radical Rousseauian anarchist. He is not attacking all forms of government but merely "onerous taxes, regulations, and too much government."

Moreover, there is a huge distinction between society and government. Society involves the complex of our daily interactions and habits; government is but a single institution of society. Most (if not all) conservative and all authentically liberal political philosophies depend upon recognizing that distinction between government and society. It is quite possible to criticize the extent of government power and to still acknowledge human limitations. Indeed, it would seem as though an acknowledgment of human limits could very easily align with the support of political and economic liberty. (This alignment was itself one of the principles of the American Founders.)

Layers of Feedback

Daniel Larison takes Patrick Ruffini to task here and asserts that the problem with the political right isn't messaging but the message itself. Ross Douthat offers the helpful metaphor of the layer cake: part of the right's problem is messaging; part of it is the message itself.

I think there can be a slightly different way of conceptualizing this relationship between messaging and message: I think sometimes for the right rhetoric can get in the way of policy rethinking---that tendencies for the messaging block new ways of reformulating the message. Part of what I was getting at with "code words" was the way in which the use of code words can suck up all the air in a space that could be used to debate more substantive ideas, policy, and so forth.

Don't Mess with Adam Smith

Patrick Ruffini warns conservatives and the GOP against succumbing to a type of bitter identity politics:

The legacy of that early movement -- alive and well at CPAC and in the conservative institutions that still exist today -- is one driven inordinately by this question of identity. We have paeans to Reagan (as if we needed to be reminded again of just how much things suck in comparison today), memorabilia honoring 18th century philosophers that we wouldn't actually wear in the outside world, and code-word laden speeches that focus on a few hot button issues that leave us ill-equipped to actually govern conservatively on 80% of issues when we actually do get elected.

This culture of identity politics means we get especially defensive about the Liberal Majority's main lines of attack, because we think of our position as inherently fragile. The one that spawned the Cult of Joe the Plumber was the meme that Republicans want tax cuts only for the rich and that we don't stand for working Americans. When find a highly visible figure who contradicts this notion, we swing into action. And we go on to press the argument to the point to absurdity, replete with plungers and custom "Joe" yard signs to prove our working class chops. These are the not the marks of a movement that assumes it operates (or should operate) from a position of political and cultural supremacy.

Perhaps for a moment we could hone in on that "code word," a virus which especially seems to infect and hinder those on the right at the moment.

The code word functions as an esoteric device, a means of marking those in the know apart from the ignorant. Through announcing certain ritual words---innocuous or incomprehensible to the rest of society---one gains an entrance into club, speakeasy, or other select society. Those in the group have their own private meaning for the code word.

However, politics is not only a question of private meaning: it also involves public ones. Here is where a political group can be crippled by its reliance on code. To many in the "base" of the right, terms like "San Francisco Values," "pork," "earmarks," "elitist," and a whole host of other terms tap into a certain cultural nexus and portray a certain political meaning. This code serves to strike up the partisan and---dare I say it?---ideological band. While these terms do tap into this set of meaning for the right, many on the center and the left have very different, if not uncertain, senses of what these terms mean. For many in the persuadable center facing this current economic crisis, terms such as "pork" seem out of touch if not outright distractions. For the right, saying these terms is the note of a true believer; for many others, these terms do not seem to respond to the pressures currently felt.

If it wants to gain traction in the public, the GOP's going to need to address public concerns with clear, focused, and innovative policy measures. It can't afford to be stuck in the union hall bound in a knot of secret handshakes.

However, there is a serious point of disagreement between Ruffini and me here: mocking pins celebrating an 18th-century philosopher---now that's a step too far! If there's one thing conservatives need more of now, it's a serious engagement with the history of ideas; through this engagement can come political renewal. Now maybe one could argue that pins celebrating Aristotle might be a little better...

(Ruffini might have more of a point if you consider the fact that wearing these pins might serve, for some, as a substitute for a serious engagement with philosophy. One of the last things conservatives need to do now is use ideas as mere rhetorical props.)

A Failure of Principles

I'll have to quarrel with the Governator's take on the current political situation here:

“You've got to listen to the people. If the nation is screaming out loud, ‘We need health care reform. We want to have universal health care. We want to have everyone insured. We want to bring the costs down. We want everyone to have access.’ I mean, that's what they want; that's what you do...Even though it maybe is against your principles or philosophy, you still have to go, because that's what the people want you to do...”

If anything, this is not how a representative republic is supposed to function. Holders of public office and those interested in public affairs should certainly take the range of public opinion into account, but they should not avoid bringing their own voices to bear in this wider public debate. They need to meet this opinion honestly, but if one believes that a majority of the public (at least as this majority is measured through polling) is mistaken on a given issue, the solution is not to roll over and surrender one's own ideas but to try to persuade more people to support different policies.

This is Governor Schwarzenegger's own position. Though the public of California ultimately voted against same-sex marriage, he has still expressed his opinion against the banning of same-sex marriage. That's his right as a citizen. Members and allies of the GOP have their own rights to advance their own arguments. It is, in many ways, a failure of civic responsibility to give up one's own ideas due to their mere seeming unpopularity.

Those in government can look at public demands in order to see what issues need to be addressed (that's one of the strengths of a democratic system), but the crafters of policy should strive to find the best and most workable solution and not lose all critical judgement in the face of polling.