Comments on News on the Political Front, Because the News On the Economic Front is Just Too Depressing

There is Only So Much Even a Dismal Political Economist Can Take

A story in Politico has this headline,

Michele Bachmann's misstatements: A constant staff worry

 which is very surprising, since they don’t seem to bother Ms. Bachman at all.

After taking quite a few rhetorical punches in the last debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is now going on the attack, and telegraphing his punches for the next debate.

"The model for socialized medicine has been tried before…whether it was in western Europe or in Massachusetts…The problem with state-sponsored health care is that you cannot contain it just within the borders of your state. When that plan took effect, it also increased Medicare/Medicaid costs.”

Perry also said [Mitt] Romney’s health care law, which last night he referred to as RomneyCare, had “killed” 18,000 jobs according to a Beacon Hill Institute study.



Mr. Romney is on the left - He  does not
cheat at cards - No Aces up his sleeve



Mr. Perry is also going to attack Mr. Romney on his wealthy upbringing.  He

repeated his "four aces" line from the night before, where he suggested he wasn't born with cards up his sleeve - a clear reference to Romney.

In a debate Mr. Perry is going to have to be more direct, his audience is not smart enough to get the reference and may think Mr. Perry is calling Mr. Romney a card cheat.  The Dismal Political Economist has a lot of problems with Mr. Romney but he does not think Mr. Romney cheats at cards.

The next Special Election for a House seat won’t take place until January 2012.  The election will be held in an Oregon District that is heavily Democratic and it is almost impossible for the Democrats to lose that seat.  Not too worry though, a Democratic spokesperson said “we have beaten even greater odds than that before, don’t sell us short, that’s the voter’s job”.

Blue Dog Democrats is a name given to the moderately conservative House members who are listed as Democrats but whose voting districts are sufficiently conservative that they themselves have to be more conservative than the typical Democratic House member.

Anyway the group has just announced a new head for their PAC.  The gentleman in charge is a former senior adviser to Blue Dog leader Heath Shuler (D, NC).  Mr. Shuler himself has been gerrymandered into a heavily Republican District and is now the leading candidate to be named Ex-Congressman Shuler.  Mr. Shuler’s personal PAC is called “Third and Long” referring to Mr. Shuler’s famed career as a college quarterback.  Given the change in his district Mr. Shuler may soon be calling his PAC “Fourth and a Mile”.

Finally, Peggy Noonan, the favorite of anyone who has to read the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal has an incisive look at the Democratic defeat in the New York’s 9^th Congressional District.  Unlike other writers, she eschews the local politics of the loss and blames it on national issues, specifically the failures of the Obama Administration.

She may be right, but there is no way to tell.  One can find evidence for whatever position one wants to take.  The notable thing, the thing that makes Ms. Noonan stand out amongst the mediocrity of the WSJ’s opinion pieces is that she places country above politics, and unlike Karl Rove who was positively gleeful at the President’s problems and the results in the New York race, Ms. Noonan is sad.  Here is how she ends.

This is all so dire and critical that I will swerve and end with three things I've admired about the president since he entered the White House.

The first is that he has an intact, multigenerational family, a wife and kids and mother-in-law all living together in that big house. This is no doubt a source of strength for him, but it's also moving and impressive to see in a country ravaged by family breakup and fatherless—and sometimes motherless—children. . ..

The second is that he isn't mean. His staffers do snark and push-back, but they don't do targeted abuse, they don't seem to try to take down foes in a personal way, as administrations before them have. Credit goes to the president because it's always the boss who sets the tone. . . .

The third has been a relative absence of deep political scandal. It's been good not to have a Watergate, a Whitewater.

She does end with a warning about the $500 million loan to a solar panel company that went bad.  A telling statement about the status of the White House in the Fall of 2011 is that they are hoping the incident was just plain incompetence, and nothing more.