Right in San Francisco

Parsing the Election

    Those who enjoy politics - and those who get paid to feed the habit - are poring over Tuesday's results to draw conclusions large and small. For those who cannot make it to the Oracle at Delphi, I offer some conclusions:

1. Most importantly, Obama cannot deliver. This is not to say that the elections were a referendum on his administration (as MSNBC pointed out ad nauseum) - voters were focused on their states or localities; there was no foreign policy component. But, what is important to the politicians who live in and around northern Virginia is the undeniable fact that Obama made a personal effort to energize his support base in favor of Democratic candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and he failed badly. (His incremental minority and youth vote stayed away in droves.) For Democratic politicians, this is not like the foolish effort to sway the vote on the 2016 Olympics - this is "what does it mean for me if I break with my constituents to support Obama's agenda."  A weak image is self-fulfilling - and Obama does little to nurture an image of strength.  

2. Republicans cannot win - even in solid Republican districts - without a strong candidate and a united party. In a perverse way, that is the lesson of New York's 23 district where the national and local Republican parties nominated a candidate with a liberal voting record on economic, social, and union issues and the unlikely alternative of the Conservative Party candidate was too little too late. Nationally, the party may have dodged a bullet by demonstrating Lesson Number 2.

3. Given a chance, many of the "Independents" will vote Republican. The anomaly is that voters self identify as conservative twice as often as liberal, yet they favor Democrats over Republicans by 4-5%. Many of them have abandoned the Republican Party as a result of disenchantment with President Bush and the past Republican Congress, but they haven't really changed. Add a better Republican economic story and good candidates and they will come home. And add Obama's foreign policy weakness - that's next week's blog!

4. For those seeking evidence of societal progress, the likely election of Mary Norwood would represent a post-racial milestone as the first white mayor of Atlanta since 1973. The success of a domestic partner law in Washington state and the defeat of a gay marriage initiative in Maine seem to define the public's boundary - all of the rights without the sizzle. (You didn't miss the White House's statement on either subject - there was none.) Unfortunately, Michael Bloomberg showed that $100,000,000 can buy 51% of the vote in New York City.   

5. There are also a few lessons on how to follow the political sport:

-  CNN actually was pretty good, with a panel of eight balanced experts; but Larry King and Wolf Blitzer have seen better days. Fox benefits with Karl Rove - the only commentator who really seems to understand the nuances of state politics; O'Reilly is trying hard to be "fair and balanced". Led by Keith Olberman's rants, MSNBC is in acute denial.

- Rasmussen's polling gains credibility as they called Virginia by 13% and New Jersey by 2%. They were the most accurate of the majors in 2008, and their "likely voter" (instead of "general population") methodology has been showing Obama below 50% in job approval.

   Meanwhile, here in San Francisco - Nancy Pelosi thinks it was a Democratic victory!!!

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   This week's You Tube demonstrates the growing sources of conservative political humor on the web. 

bill bowen - 11/6/09

  

Favorites: 
    1. Mitt Romney's "Free and Strong America" PAC web site. 
    2. Tom Campbell's California governor campaign web site.

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Crushing Coal - The Great Climate Debate

    While we have been watching the Great Health Care Debate, the Great Climate Debate has been quietly moving along in the background. As important as the government's trillion dollar program to take over health care is, the trillion dollar program to crush the energy and manufacturing industries will be more burdensome to American prosperity. It begins with global warming, and goes way off track.  

    With the next international convocation on global warming scheduled for December in Copenhagen, and the House and Senate going forward with bills to place major financial penalties on utilities and manufacturers, the the post-partisan President is calling anybody who argues the facts or has alternative solutions "cynical deniers".  With the zealots making it impossible to have a rational discussion about data that doesn't fit their model, American public belief in strong scientific support for global warming has dropped from a 2006 high of 77% to 57%.  What gives? 

   The logic process on global warming should be straightforward: Are temperatures rising?; If so, why?; and, what are the most practical and effective things to do about it?  Not in Washington.

   Question 1 - Are temperatures rising?  Over eons the Earth has seen cyclical Ice Ages with the last major version about 11,500 years ago, interspersed with warm periods (the last with "grapes in Greenland" about 900 to 1300 AD), and smaller cold periods (the last in the 1700s.) Reliable information shows an increase of about .4 degree Centigrade between 1880 and 1970, and an accelerated .17 degree per decade since.  The result has been a sea-level rise of about 7 inches over the past century with a projected acceleration of the trend. Like a Rorschach test, statisticians argue about the more recent data which shows the last decade to be somewhat below the high point of 1998. 

    Question 2 - Why?  This is more complex, with many things going on:

-  The amount of CO2 (the largest greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere, has increased 30% over the past 150 years as a result of industrialization, exacerbated by deforestation. The evidence is compelling, and few deny that this is a major factor and that it is increasing with China's rise.   

-  The Sun goes through an 11 year cycle of activity which results in varying levels of sun spots and radiation emissions which have an effect on the Earth's atmosphere. We are at the low end of this predictable cycle. Similarly, the el Nino warming of waters in the south-central Pacific has been at a low point, resulting in lower temperatures over a broad area. If voices can be lowered, these factors may help to explain the more benign data of the past decade.

-  There are a number of other causes with relatively minor effects in this time frame: The Earth's orbit and orientation to the Sun vary slightly over long cycles, affecting radiation absorption; there are relatively minor impacts of geothermal activity; animal methane contributes (truly); and radiation from space affects the upper atmosphere. The first is a major factor in the Ice Age cycle.

  Question 3 - what should be done?  The "Al Gore/Barbara Boxer" answer" is the developing legislation which would call for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, selling permits to industry to emit greenhouse gases, and extending the Environmental Protection Agency to be the "climate cop". The debate is largely about how steep the reduction should be, how much the charge for the permits should be, how they should be distributed, and how much bureaucracy is needed to monitor industry and individuals.  The partisan differences are predictable.  

  Rather than again being the "Party of No", Republicans should focus on some principles:

   - Global problems require global solutions. We are right to be major participants in the global discussion - and to have refused to be bound by the Kyoto Protocols which specifically excluded China, India, and (effectively), Russia.  Righteous self destruction makes no sense.

  - Solutions will require the best technology available. The refusal of the Left to accept nuclear energy is a sign of either fuzzy thinking or bad faith. The recent decision to fund  an agency in the Department of Energy to foster research (established under President Bush) is a good step.

    -  There is a transportation dimension, and a power generation dimension.  The first (electric automobiles; quantum greater efficiency) also serves to improve our unsustainable trade deficit. Power generation becomes even more important as cars become electric. (With our power generation being 50% coal, 20% nuclear, 2 % wind/solar, and the rest "other", it is hard to imagine a solution which does not include "clean coal" - although that technology needs some breakthroughs.)

  -  Politics matter.  Senator Boxer's shrug that her bill "averages just $100 per family per year", may work in the Bay Area, but not where incomes are lower, coal is the primary fuel, and massive mining and industrial job losses will follow. (It would also be nice to have the Congressional Budget Office put a cost on the bill before it is voted on.) The international battle will be between the high-emitting developed countries and the emerging economies who want a free pass while they catch up economically. Hopefully President Obama will place America's interests ahead of his international popularity.   

    There must be an open discussion of how much benefit there will be for how much pain. This is a challenge for the Right as well as the Left. Absent that, the government's flailing will be more dangerous than the Afghanistan dithering.

   For those interested in readings from the major advocates and skeptics:

    - The most authoritative group of American climate change advocates - The Union of Concerned Scientists.

   - The global mechanism for developing policies - the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

  - Facts that don't fit the model -  Harris-Mann Climatology.

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This week's You Tube is a snippet of an interview with General McChrystal in Afghanistan, reflecting a bit of his personality. For perspective, he was the head of special operations in Iraq, runs five miles per day, sleeps three to five hours a night, and eats one meal per day to avoid sluggishness. He's standing by the phone.

bill bowen - 10/30/2009