Huckabee was the only Republican I truly liked. He had a good sense of humor and could probably finesse Obama. Huckabee said last night he wouldn't run for president in 2012.
A sense of humor is an interesting thing: you have to have a moral dimension inside of it that works well in order to show the discrepancy between how things should be and how they are. And yet not get too indignant, or too nasty.
Obama is dangerous with his sense of humor. His remarks about the moat that the Republicans want along the Tex-Mex border, and to fill it with alligators, was amazing. It did about twenty things at once. It introduced a note of levity. It drew comparisons with the French aristocracy. It was superfluous and jolly, and yet it implied sadism on the part of the Republicans. It also showed that he thought the Republicans could be very wasteful to put a moat through a desert.
It was a very charged image. He probably didn't come up with that himself.
But this is very highpowered imagery coming from the president. He throws it lightly, but it packs a heavy punch.
Sarah Palin has a good uppercut, and can clock an opponent, but she's not reliable in her imagery. It's often a kind of lucky hit that takes an opponent out. As a woman, she might pull in the moms. That would be great, but most moms can't relate to her. She's just too feisty, and her kids aren't normal.
Romney is not quick with his imagery.
Huckabee had the relaxed dancing charm of a Ronald Reagan. He could hit without seeming nasty. He had only a few blemishes: the clemency issue with Keith Richards, and the demented killer come to mind. He's way too clement. He should have never allowed Keith Richards to get out of the speeding ticket.
That said, I don't now see anyone else for the Republicans who's going to matter.
I will, of course, vote for any Republican who runs, whether it's Gingrich or Paul, Palin, or Lurch. Bobby Jindal might get the Indian vote. What's that, 500,000 tech geeks in Silicon Valley? Of course he would get mine, too.
I would even vote for Thing if (he or she?) ran as a Republican.
But you have to have a clear solid moral dimension to run for the Republicans, and a very good deflective sense of humor to keep from getting too indignant from all the communists in the left media who will constantly bait you, and try to take you down as a greedy alligator with the heart of an ancient reptile. Huckabee with his pastoral sense might have been able to arrive on top, and yet take out the One.
Now, I think that Thing would have a better chance than any of the remaining candidates. Ron Paul is 75. He still looks fit, and the Tea Party would back him. But he often appears to me to be kooky, rather than wise. On further inspection, I often like his ideas, but he couches them in a slightly crazy manner. And he doesn't want ANY foreign involvements. How are we going to learn about other countries if we're not busy invading them? Why, I had no idea that Mosul and Ninevah are one and the same! I wuz learnin'!
If Paul wins the nomination, we might find out something about economics. He can't win, but he might bring up good issues that will school the perpetual adolescent. That would be a plus.
49 comments:
I think the more interesting Republicans aren't really on the national stage - at least not yet. Or they're saying their not running. I have my eye on Paul Ryan. But there are others: Christie in NJ; Lindal (spelling?) from Lousiana; Senator Rubio. Mitch Daniels (do I have the name right?) - IN governor.
That's the dilemma. I'm not even sure I have all their names right. But there are a lot of good ones out there.
About Huckabee I was never sure. Unless you want a kindly grandfather figure for president. But I'm not at all sure that's what these times call for.
JEP, how do you like Hermain Cain? I've only seen him once, and found him somewhat flat of foot. I think we need an intellectually agile, affable, quick witted, down to earth, etc. person.
Can I have that whole list?
Chris Christie has said no, I think. I think it's Jindal in Louisiana. He's from India. Rubio I like a lot. Maybe one of these will come from right field (out of left field is what I'm playing on) in the next six months and enter the fray.
My main problem with Huckabee is that he commuted a traffic ticket to Keith Richards in Arkansas during his term as governor. I think that just because someone can play incredible rhythm guitar doesn't mean they should be allowed to speed.
I like what Herman Cain says. I didn't see the debate. But I read his column and think he's usually right on.
The morning after the debate, I was watching that guy on FOX news who interviews people about their reactions to debates, political ads, etc. In this case he was interviewing South Carolinian Republicans. Most of them didn't even know who Cain was before the debate. After the debate, a good solid majority of them thought he was the one who impressed them most.
BTW, to comment on what you said about Obama's "sense of humor" and what he said about the moat: I don't think that was humor at all. It was ridicule, which is another thing altogether.
Herman Cain might trump Trump in the capitalism department, plus have a bit of the PC color-coding (I know it doesn't really stop the left from their endless ridicule of anyone who doesn't want the country to turn into Cuba, but it perhaps slows the thing a bit and creates just a momentary second thought), and he seems to speak clearly and well.
For the left, the alligators in the moat remark, I am certain, was deliriously funny. I'll bet many of my friends temporarily lost their mind in laughter.
I thought it was merely insulting. they had an Arizona sheriff on who said laughing at the kidnappings and slaughter that is going on in the border paralleled Marie Antoinette style cluelessness.
What about Michelle Bachman?
How many people in America still consider themselves to be classical liberals? Is Ron Paul that? Was Huckabee?
I'm pretty certain that Obama would not consider himself to be that.
He's some kind of socialist with a strong affection for Marxism.
Maybe he also has some interests in classical liberalism, but I can't find it, although occasionally his language veers in that direction (he mentioned that the killing of Bin Laden had to be done in the name of FREEDOM).
Are there still a lot of classical liberals in America?
I don't think either of the major parties really go after that group with any kind of intense intent.
We don't talk about the big paradigm any longer. We talk about whether you're for or against abortion, for or against socialized medicine, for or against military intervention in Iraq, but never about the bigger picture.
Maybe we're just a nation of simpletons.
This would have to be put down to the increasingly numbing experience of higher education which is largely running through a gauntlet of Marxists and crypto-Marxists.
I assume the seminaries are the same for the most part. Obama got his theology from Reverend Wright, who from what I could tell, was a Marxist from the ground up.
I sort of like Ron Paul, and am amazed to hear his very different viewpoint: which is strikingly libertarian. He said during the announcement of his candidacy that he wants to scuttle the Fed. Any kind of National Bank, he said, ends up making the nation's economy susceptible to socialist bailouts. This seemed directly against Hamilton's creation of the National Bank.
Many people think the Tea Party is racist, and that that's their real raison d'etre. But their spokesperson isn't Palin, or Rush, it's Ron Paul. They follow his ideas.
How that happened, or what it means, is a little beyond me.
what they think of Michelle Bachman is also beyond me. I find her funny and interesting, and like how she has an effect similar to Palin's. The Democrats assume all minorities and women should be with them. so when someone isn't, they turn up the juice and go after them and try to hurt their families and children.
I'm not sure how to compare Bachman and Palin. It would fun to have them on the ticket with one as presidential contender and one as vp just to hear the vicious rhetoric and the non-stop investigation of their private lives.
(O'Donnell in Delaware had to deal with this, too -- where it came out that she had once dressed up as a witch for Halloween in high school or something.)
The left is particularly savage toward women and minorities.
They like it when a white male patriarch and war hero like McCain runs for Republican nomination as it at least fits their stereotypes.
To have two women on the ticket would drive them out of their minds. I like that, but I wish that more than anything we could have a large paradigm discussion.
I think Ron Paul does initiate such a thing: which I like. I just can't always tell what I think of his ideas. There's a family at my church who swear by everything he says or does.
They are Calvinist transplants. The L. family passes out the Constitution and such literature on the Courthouse Square over the summer. I find this very interesting.
They are also Tea Party people.
Paul has three brothers who are Lutheran pastors.
But how his ideology squares with Lutheranism is beyond me.
Even how classical liberalism squares with Lutheranism is beyond me (although I think it does).
Is Paul a classical liberal? who is and who isn't?
I consider myself a classic liberal, Kirby, and I'm looking for somebody along the lines of James Madison to vote for. Since it's almost unimaginable such a creature might be found in the ranks of the Democrat party now (although not in the past), I seek my candidate amongst the Republicans. But they aren't doing all that well either IMHO.
The Constitution is a classical liberal manifesto. It would be nice if we could get back to it.
Trump announced today that he was out, too.
Ron Paul's constituency certainly hands out copies of the Constitution.
At any rate, I am exactly with you on the Classical Liberal notion. And I too no longer find any Democrats that fit that definition.
I did, up until Bill Clinton.
If Luther were around today, where would he fit in today's political realm?
I've read four books on Obama and the one thing all the books agree on is that he has a profoundly radical viewpoint: even his supporters such as Kloppenberg at Harvard U. claim that Obama's real roots are with Frank Marshall Davis, and Reverend Wright, and his own father: a fervent national socialist who wanted to oust the Chinese from Kenya.
I do think BO is OPEN to the classical liberals (to the degree that there are still some in either party).
But he himself is not one. I don't think he even thinks much of the law itself except insofar as he can manipulate. He didn't care about Pakistani laws, nor does he care about the laws in Arizona. He doesn't uphold the law.
He thinks he and whatever he thinks is right is the law.
Wikipedia has a good article on classical liberalism. Many "liberals" are actually socialists. The last paragraph points this out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding over this word. Reagan used the word "liberal" as if it means "communist" which it in reality does today.
But it meant something quite different until Roosevelt got in.
Your tired 'Obama thinks he is above the law' is one of the more hackneyed of your talking points -
Especially compared to the republican warrantless wiretapping, illegal-laws-in-Arizona-supporting (fed. gvmt's in charge of immigration, not state...) Repubs.
You have a claim wrt bin Laden - though if the Republicans want to make 'he ordered the death of bin Laden' a negative talking point, by all means - let them.
Biased books are biased - the fact that they say Obama learned his values from his father, whom he didn't know...that should tip you off right away to their illogic.
I like to base my understanding of a president on what the president does, and you have to look through an incredibly skewed lens to come to the Obama-is-Marxist meme that you can't get out of your head...
Obama is much, much, much closer to a 90s Republican than to Marx.
I'm sorry your party has moved so far to the right that the middle looks extreme to you...
Nowhere have I found a link to the actual study you're citing, JADL - In terms of active truther communities, they are pretty much all wackjob libertarians - So whether or not 50% of democrats believe trutherism the way 50% of Republicans are birthers (doubtful to me on both accounts), those actively promoting trutherism fall into 'extremist libertarian' veins.
I've got a libertarian streak in me, so it's not to say that Paul is himself a wackjob - but the active truthers attach themselves to him...
http://www.libertariansforjustice.org/?q=node/19
and google Alex jones...
www.infowars.com
etc.
Obamacare resembles Romneycare, but in no other way does Obama resemble any 90s Republican insofar as I can figure. There has been a redistributionist mentality in the Democratic party at least since Roosevelt but that poison was simmering on the backstove at least since 1911: one hundred years ago. The problem is with the way it's redistributed: with a huge federal government, many czars, czars of everything, with stars on leftist channels to help the soup go down. Even Hoover fell into the soup kitchen, and now, Gingrich. It's an enormous pot that turns everything into gruel and ferro-concrete.
Brett, he absorbed the father's thinking through his mother who was the dad's disciple throughout her life (according to D'Souza). You get traces of this same pattern in Kloppenberg's biography of BO.
On the 50%+ of Ds counting themselves in the "most likely" or "somewhat likely" "truther" camp, here's another site (Ben Smith at Politico should be liberal enough for you)
:http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/More_than_half_of_Democrats_believed_Bush_knew.html
As I was going to point out yesterday, I think some "truthers" and "birthers" affirm conspiracy theories just to voice opposition to whoever their target politician is, whether Bush or Obama.
"Brett, he absorbed the father's thinking through his mother who was the dad's disciple throughout her life (according to D'Souza). You get traces of this same pattern in Kloppenberg's biography of BO."
What?
How weird of an assumption is this?
I think Bush got his way of thinking from when his dad shook hands with a Saudi prince, and then that handshake passed on a worldview to the hand of Bush Senior, who, when giving Bush Junior a high-five, passed that wisdom onto his son.
All conjecture, all silliness and folly -
You can't judge a person's viewpoint by these sorts of shenanigans.
You have to do it by what they say, and more importantly, by what they do -
Obama's center-left - the biggest, most 'socialist' thing he's done (HCR) puts him in the same league as Bob Dole.
Health exchanges and individual mandates are 90s Republican ideas... Disagree with HCR, fine, but you can't call it socialist unless you think that 90s Republicans are socialist -
And that doesn't pass the sanity test.
You're too smart to pretend to be insane any more, Kirby.
And JADL - I agree that polls showing that 50% of Democrats are some level of truther, or that 50% of Republicans are some level of birther, are faulty -
So if we agree that those polls don't very much show the truth, when it comes to trutherness, then shouldn't we look for groups that actively promote trutherism? And in those instances, they're pretty much all libertarians...
So at the least can we agree that those who are actively truthery are perverted versions of Libertarians?
That's just, like, true and all...
Brett, have you any poll info on the numbers of self-identified libertarians who are "birthers"? And if you have, wouldn't the same caveats that apply to the responses of the R "birthers" and D "truthers" also apply to the libertarian "birthers" as well?
President Obama's perhaps "center-left" to you, but in terms of his former Senate record as well as his executive office programmes, appointments, and actions, he's further to the left than you admit. Is he a pragmatic and incremental socialist? I think so.
There are probably people even further left than Obama but they are nowhere near the Senate. They're in dingy cafes scribbling in notebooks all tanked up on coffee and what have you. I really doubt if there are any people inside the Senate who voted more to the left than O. I think Brett is counting leftist bloggers and people he knew in college. Not actual voted in members of the US government. The only persons further to the left than BO would be some of his czars, but they weren't voted in.
Bill Clinton was further to the left on HCR, at least...
remember Single-payer?
And yes, that is a nice list of vague generalities you put out there JADL:-)
And wrt libertarian truthers - just look up the 9/11 truth movement.
Everyone there is some form of crazed libertarian.
And Ron Paul's their guy...
Alex Jones loves Ron Paul...
It seems to me that having a debate about which president (or party) has been more (or less) lawless is sad beyond tears. The truth is, in my estimation, that the federal government has been "above the law" or "beyond the law" (by which I mean "unconstitutional") for a long time now. And we've gotten so used to it, that hardly anybody notices it any more.
I would like to cast my vote for somebody who will work to restore the constitutional republic. It will be a hard row to hoe, given our present circumstances. And it may be impossible. Once you've lost your liberties, can they be restored? Maybe. Maybe not. But I'd sure like to try.
Brett, Obama only met his father once or twice -- I can't remember the details. But remember that his memoir is entitled DREAMS FROM MY FATHER.
This means he's crucially important to him, and that his dreams (similar to the way MLK used dreams, he means his politics), came directly from his father. Obama himself says as much over and over and over. Even titles his book like that.
Now if Bush 2 had titled his recent book, The Saudi Saudi Shake, or the Secret Shake of the Saudi Shiek, and then gone on to detail what he got out of it, I'd be tempted to believe that there was something there.
Remember that Obama has written two books. One of them is about his dad's ideals, and how he hews to them.
JEP, could you enumerate the liberties we've lost, and how you'd like to re-constitute them?
Are you talking about the Bill of Rights and the other amendments to the Constitution?
Or something in the central body of the Constitution?
I'm not aware of this discourse and would like to be. Ron Paul often talks about the constitution, but as you know, everyone interprets it differently.
Obama has suddenly decided for instance that gay marriage is constitutional. While the Governor of Wisconsin has decided that gay marriage is against the STATE constitution.
Even the SCOTUS differs on many of its interpretations, and interpretations of interpretations. JEP, what are you reading these days, and how is it giving you a background to your thinking on constitutionality?
It's a big world and I wonder where people go to get their political ideals and ideas.
I'm slowly reading about Hamilton. After this week a lot of my school stuff will be put to bed and at that point hopefully I can speed up my Hamilton studies.
jep,
The truth is, in my estimation, that the federal government has been "above the law" or "beyond the law" (by which I mean "unconstitutional") for a long time now.
The underlying vision of the Constitution of 1787 was breathtaking. It is rightly viewed as a central document not just in the history of the United States, but in the history of the world. But it was also a Constitution that defined us as a nation in terms of who its authors were: slave owning men, and this was as true of the northern contingent as the southern.
You note, rightly, that a long succession of national governments have relied on interpretations of the Constitution which torture intent. Such longstanding disrespect for our foundational documents makes them less and less effective at restraining the actions of government. I agree, this is a bad thing.
But I think it is a mistake to blame the government alone for the historical divergence of US governmental theory and practice. A deeper problem is that the constitution itself no longer addresses the needs of this country, nor does it reflect a shared understanding of who we are as a nation. After all, some of us are men, but none of us are slave owners, and that's a world of difference. I'd argue that the Constitution of 1787 has been on life support since the secession crisis of 1861, and that the new vision of the United States (reflected linguistically in the passage from "these United States" to "the United States") underwent such a profound transition between 1861 and 1865 that the Constitution ought to have been rewritten after the Civil War. More should have been kept than tossed out, but clearly the 14th Amendment was an inadequate response to the Constitutional crisis brought on by secession. I'd argue that it ought to have been rewritten again after the Second World War, reflecting on the government's actions during the Great Depression, and on America's emergence as a world power with the concommitant of large standing armies and navies; and again after the civil rights era. But it wasn't, and I suspect that part of the reason why it wasn't is that it is excessively venerated: as if it were God's word, and not men's words.
A practical problem is that amending the Constitution in any serious way requires a national consensus on who we are as a nation, and what we aspire to be. It is all but impossible to undertake serious constitutional reform during the periods of division, as at present. In the meantime, I think that all we can reasonably expect from our politicians is that they'll continue to muddle through, and will take a position that is somewhere between the eighteenth century vision of our founding fathers, and our needs and aspirations in the present.
Kirby, the basic liberty I'm talking about is freedom from government telling us what to do all the time. And - no - I don't mean that there should be no government. Without one things would really be a mess! But government must be limited so that it does not unduly intrude into our lives. Hence the doctrine of enumerated powers and limited government.
We have by and large lost the idea. The most glaring example that comes to my mind is the incident where Nancy Pelosi (and I'm not choosing her because she's a democrat) was asked what provision in the Constitution authorized Congress to pass Obamacare. She didn't even try to answer the question. She just laughed and said, "Are you kidding?" As if the question itself were out of line. As if Congress can do whatever it wants to?
You know Congress has even passed legislation about what kind of light bulbs we have to use. There are at lest two things wrong with this. First, Congress is necessarily dumb in matters such as this. How can Congress know what lightbulbs are best for 300 million people? Such decisions are best left up to the marketplace where they belong. The second reason legislation like this is bad is because it opens the doors wide for corruption. If Congress can decide that, maybe I can get Congress to mandate people buy whatever I'm selling. Etc. Etc.
And the lightbulb thing is only one example out of ... who knows how many?
Oh - I know. It's all for our own good that Congress makes all these decisions for us. But then again, as C. S. Lewis said: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
As far as interpreting the Constitution is concerned, of course there will always be differing interpreations. Which is why original intent is the only way to go. Too much constitutional interpreation is political in nature. We twist it to say what we want it to say. Actually the language of the Constitution isn't all that hard to understand, and in most cases it seems pretty clear to me.
What am I reading? you ask. Well - lots of stuff. In this connection, I'd suggest the Federalist Papers. If you've never read them, you really, really should.
For ongoing and contempory commentary, I suggest the Patriot Post, which you can get emailed to you for free (well - they do ask for donations from time to time, but I've never sent them anything). There are actually three different publications each week: the Brief, the Chronicle, and the Digest. Go to www.patriotpost.us/subscribe to check it out.
It never occurred to me that once the precedent that the government could force you to buy something had been established that companies could make the Legislature force us to buy whatever it is they were making. What a nightmarish thought!
I didn't know of these Patriot Posts and these other venues, and shall google them. I just finished my grading today and am now officially free and able to focus and function. I think this is May 19th, but shall have to check. The last few weeks have been a blur.
stu -
I agree that slavery is the "original sin" of the Constitution. It would be surprising if there wasn't one, considering that it's a human product. Unfortunately, ending slavery wasn't in the cards toward the end of the eighteenth century.
Ironically (history is full of ironies!) the 3/5 rule may have turned out to be the planted seed that led to the end of slavery earlier rather than later. At the time of the constitutional convention, the southern/slave states wanted slaves counted as "whole persons" to increase their representation in Congress and in the Electoral College. The northern/free states didn't want the slaves counted at all to reduce the political clout of the slave states. The compromise was the 3/5 rule. How they arrived at that fraction I don't know. It must have been a very interesting debate at the convention.
At any rate, if the southern states got what they wanted and had a greater representation in the electoral college, would Lincoln have been elected?
Maybe. Maybe not.
In the 1860 election, the deep south went mostly for Breckenridge, casting 72 votes for him. Two other candidates, Douglas and Bell, received 12 and 39 respectively (mostly from "border states"). Lincoln received 180 votes from the solid north and west coast. Not exactly an electoral landslide. If the slaves in the deep south had been fully counted, would the election have swung the other way?
That's just speculation, of course. But it's an interesting scenario.
As far as the Constitution being "outmoded" (my word, not yours), I think it's a good thing it's difficult to amend - or, for that matter, to enact any law. It's intentionally set up that way to provide for stability and to save us from our own impetuosity.
This is on a separate but perhaps equal tangent. I've often wondered about the Freudian MArxist left that came to its symbiotic conclusion that the "repression" of certain elements of the society, and their "freedom" via the blacks, women, children, crazy people, homosexuals, bisexuals, foot fetishists, masochists, sadists, and others who had been pushed down by the reigning order were somehow "perfect" and if freed and put in charge (Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat) would yield a perfect new nation.
Thus all the old documents: the Bible, the Constitution, all and any law had to be overturned, since it was all part of the flawed older order, in order to set free the inner light of the id, which was what gave light to the seize the day notions of the 60s.
Even washing up was suspect since it was part of the older order (odor), and the left in the 60s wanted a new odor, one that was more natural, more relaxed, in which everyone was able to live out their wildest whims (sexual whims were just one symptom of this).
They wanted the outer world to perfectly accord with their inner world and thus reconstitute the Garden of Eden.
Work was part of the problem. Better to get a check from the government while laying around making love and smoking grass and dreaming of how the rich would take care of them.
In a candidate what I'm looking for is a sense that the world is a lot harder than that. Someone who realizes the inner realm of our dreams and uttermost desires is also chaos and never ceases its demands. The outside world of law and order also has demands.
I want someone who is realistic about the two and doesn't have any crazy ideas about how to bring inner whim (very chaotic) and outer structure (sometimes too rigid) into some profound new synthesis that constitutes "change," which the left sees as better.
The left distrusts the family and thinks government should take over this role instead. But it has to be a profoundly new kind of government in which the repressed elements of society are in charge. We need a black man. It doesn't matter if it's Idi Amin. We need a woman. It doesn't matter if its Imelda Marcos. We need a gay person. It doesn't matter if it's Nero.
The whims of the inner world are replaced by an arbitrary set of beliefs about turning the world inside out, in order to set in motion some kind of new synthesis while throwing over all the old odors and orders. I find this melange of ideas ridiculous, but it's what I see in most academics of the humanities stripe, to name one set of culprits.
Here I go again, threadjacking with a pressing topic - I think I do this because this blog is where I go to get informed, intelligent opinions about the issues of the day from smart people whose biases and worldview I kinda understand.
So Obama's shift on Israel/Palestine...
Proof that he's anti-Israel? The sort of pragmatic, tough, necessary stance that the situation requires and which other presidents haven't had the balls to make? Proof that he's a secret Muslin? An ill-advised overreach? What say y'all?
Obama has this weird sense of understanding his enemies' issues and trying to deflate them. He's good at it. the underlying hatred of the entire Islamic world toward the west stems from the imposition of Israel on Palestine. Osama said as much. So, he just killed Osama, but he took his issue seriously. This has at least one major rationale that I can think of: he doesn't want to be assassinated by Muslims, and is trying to say: look, I'm on your side. I think that's his main take. Also, the left doesn't recognize that Israel is superior in any way to its neighbors, or more like us in light of its democratic traditions. They see all cultures as equal.
Most on the right see this quite differently. They rightly see the Jews as good eggs -- viewing women's rights as the norm, viewing democracy, freedom, and the spirit of dialogue and freedom of speech and inquiry as the norm.
The right thinks in terms of overarching principles (or at least tries to). the left sees factions and tries to buy them off with concessions: we'll give you guys free apartments and checks in exchange for your vote; we'll give you guys jobs in exchange for your vote; we'll give you guys land in exchange for not blowing us up.
In that sense, the left is rather pragmatic, if totally unprincipled.
Kirby,
It would be very helpful if you could enable the feature on your blog that posts the date along with the time comments are posted.
jep,
Thank you for your thoughts.
I thought that the question you raised about the 3/5ths rule and the election of 1860 was interesting. I didn't think it made a difference, and it didn't, but let's work through it anyway.
There were a few things I had to work out to make the argument.
1) The apportionment of 1850 was still in effect during the 1860 election.
2) The apportionment algorithm was Vinton's (sometimes call Hamilton's), rather than the Huntington-Hill algorithm in use today.
3) Even though Vinton's algorithm was used, it was "tweaked." E.g., the actual apportionment gave one of New York's seats to Louisiana.
4) States that entered the Union after the beginning of the 1850 census (i.e., California, Oregon, and Minnesota) had their initial apportionment set by law, rather than by census. These initial apportionments were still in force.
Putting this all together (and skipping the "tweak"), I re-ran the apportionment counting slaves as full citizens. This did impact the electoral college, but less than you might expect: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virgina each gained a seat; Indiana, Massachusetts, and Ohio each lost a seat; while New York and Pennsylvania each lost two seats.
So this would have swung 7 votes from Lincoln to Breckinridge, meaning 173 Lincoln, 79 Breckinridge, 39 Bell, 12 Douglass, and Lincoln still wins outright.
A back of the envelope calculation helps give confidence. The house of 1850 had roughly 1 representative for every 100,000 in population. If this is held constant, then converting 250,000 slaves from 3/5 to 1 would gain you an additional seat, and that's pretty much what happened -- Louisiana at 244,809 slaves gained a seat, but Tennessee at 239,459 didn't. Only the seven states listed had more than 244K slaves, and the largest slave-holding state (Virginia at 472,528) didn't have quite enough to be guaranteed two.
As far as constitutional amendment goes, I agree, it should not be easy. I'm hardly arguing that we should rewrite the constitution every time the government changes parties. But I am arguing that there have been times at which the national consensus as to who we are has been general enough, and dissonant enough with the founder's vision, that the effort should have been made at those times to bring the written constitution into compliance with the consensus. And I'm also arguing that whether or not that happened de jure, it did happen de facto, and there's enough precedent on both sides to make Pelosi's remark on the PPACA (or equivalent remarks by Hastert on the Patriot Act) perfectly comprehensible.
The constitution deserves respect as a historical document, but will only be respected as a living foundational document if it gets more care and attention than it has.
Frankie: good suggestion. I did that with regard to putting in more of the time and date. I didn't realize it could be done, but it was quite easy!
I want to stay out of the conversation between Stu and JEP, as I think it's a valuable and new one, and hope that it continues for some time.
I also appreciate its respectful nature in spite of the large gap between the two in terms of their political differences.
stu -
I'm enjoying talking with you.
Thanks for your analysis of how the elctoral college votes would have been affected, although I don't have a clue what those algorithms are you're talking about.
No need to explain.
I'm curious about something else you said farther upstream. You said you thought the constitution should have been rewritten after the Civil War and then again after World War 2 because there were major shifts in the national consensus at those two times. At least that's what I take it you were saying. Except it doesn't strike me what those were times of national consensus at all. The Reconstruction Era was horribly divisive. And, as far as I know, there was no consensus (certainly not an overwhelming one) about Roosevelt's New Deal. Still isn't, for that matter. Or whether the emergence of the US as a superpower was a good thing or a bad thing.
In fact, I'd question whether there has ever been a national consensus about things political - at least in the USA. Only in dictatorships (either malevolent or benevolent) can anything like a national consensus be achieved. And only then because it is imposed.
David Mamet, a big Hollywood and Broadway insider, has now come out as a conservative in the Weekly Standard. He says that being a leftist was comfortable because you fit in with the herd. He said the Herd Instinct is what the left is all about.
Bill Campbell forwarded me this.
I don't really like contemporary drama.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/converting-mamet_561048.html
It's fun. He is from Chicago, and is Jewish.
He's now joining the likes of David Horowitz. He reads a bit like Horowitz. Drama depends on a lack of consensus. Maybe he's just being dramatic.
I wouldn't know anything about that.
jep,
I'm enjoying talking with you.
Likewise.
Thanks for your analysis of how the elctoral college votes would have been affected, although I don't have a clue what those algorithms are you're talking about.
No need to explain.
The details are a bit wonky. It turns out that four different schemes have been used for apportioning the US House, which is more than you might guess given the bland constitutional language about proportional representation. But the schemes are all pretty close -- the question is really about how the remainders get divided up. Such considerations could have mattered in your hypothetical question, so I wanted to get them right.
I'm curious about something else you said farther upstream. You said you thought the constitution should have been rewritten after the Civil War and then again after World War 2 because there were major shifts in the national consensus at those two times. At least that's what I take it you were saying. Except it doesn't strike me what those were times of national consensus at all. The Reconstruction Era was horribly divisive. And, as far as I know, there was no consensus (certainly not an overwhelming one) about Roosevelt's New Deal. Still isn't, for that matter. Or whether the emergence of the US as a superpower was a good thing or a bad thing.
Consensus is not the same as unanimity, and volume is not the same thing as numbers. During reconstruction, there were certainly highly disaffected members of the ex-confederate southern aristocracy, but they had little political power so long as the south was occupied by Union armies. The north, together with freed slaves in the south, and surprisingly large pro-union blocks within the south, had the power to dictate. The divisiveness that you refer to lacked power (and therefore political meaning) until the post-reconstruction era.
With respect to the post-world-war II era, I think there was an opportunity that ran essentially from the election of Eisenhower through the Kennedy Presidency for constitutional work. There was a generally shared bipartisan consensus on the cold war, and the post-war role the US was playing in Europe, if not the Congo and Asia. My recollection is that the people who were complaining about Roosevelt's economics during the late 50's and early 60's were pretty much the same people who believed he was complicit in the attack on Pearl Harbor. That such people existed is undeniable. But their numbers were small enough that excluding them did not rule out a meaningful consensus.
i think that jindal guy should be president just because of the look on his face
(:-{\~
Herman Cain jumped in today but is he Abel?
is he abel
i don't know
am i my brother's keeper
get a clue
A Republican candidate named Gary Johnson was on NPR this morning. He was the former governor of New Mexico. He does triathlons, and thinks it's ok to smoke marijuana for medical reasons, and gave NM a one billion dollar budget surplus by simply axing every spending bill that came his way.
He was nicknamed Governor Veto. He didn't do terribly well on the NPR game show, but he laughed a lot.
He wants to get out of all foreign wars. He backed Ron Paul in the 2008 contest. He's about 57:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_E._Johnson
It's another face at least to throw in the mix. He's run a huge construction company with 1000 person payroll and the company expanded a lot under his leadership.
He seems to enjoy himself a little too much, but maybe we could use that, I wouldn't know.
The FDR administration is when the last of the Civil War pensioners died off. Social security was basically an extension and revision of the Civil War pension system. Circulation of money independent of business cycles is good for business. People without jobs who get a monthly government check can still buy stuff and use it to keep their families functioning.
Craig, where did you get this information about how the Civil War pension scheme turned into Social Security?
How many people are currently served by Social Security?
How many were served by the Veterans Administration that served the Civil War veterans?
How many people were in the original administration? How many are in it now?
I know some have said that virtually anyone can sign up for social security now.
Also, I know that Ryan of the Republicans wants to restructure Medicaid, but not for those who are over 55. Doesn't Obama want to scrap Medicaid for many and replace it with Obamacare?
How big of an issue does this continue to be in the race for the next president?
Hermain Cain is now in and making a splash, but I think he won't wash with the evangelicals and will have to disappear. It would be fun to have two African-Americans in the race. Cain is by far the better businessman, but I think Obama will kill him in the speaking department.
Bobby Jindal is on no one's radar right now. He also has the multicultural thing going on, but how many Americans are from India? It's probably less than a million.
Whereas Obama locks in how many votes from African Americans? Last time 98% of that race voted for their homie. Has he lost any of that constituency during his first years in office?
What hope is there of unseating the one?
I think some college students have turned against him, but with the economy rising again, they may yet go back to him. I'm not sure where Obamagirl stands right now. Or sits. Or where she's moontanning. About a year ago she came out against Obama because he never called her after she made it clear that she was in love with Obama.
Huckabee was my candidate. With him out, I don't know where to turn. I don't want anybody too serious. Obama has levity, and now a little gravity too, since he killed Osama.
And more and more he's invoking the Bush doctrine with regard to the Middle East: we want democracies (although we will put up with the Palestinians and Hamas because they are such victims).
I would really appreciate a rightie who can formulate interesting sentences off the cuff. Right now, I don't see anyone on the right who could hold a candle to Obama on that front.
Obama can do it all day long.
stu -
You mean to tell me that FDR was not behind the Pearl Harbor attack?
Just kidding, but to make a point, which is that it's easy to detect a consensus when you dismiss those who disagree with the supposed consensus as a bunch of nut cases -or evil, or any other negative characteristic that makes them dismissable.
I'd suggest that one can never really know when a consensus has been achieved - at least in political matters without elections. Which is why we have them. And even the nut cases get to vote!
The constitutional requirment that amendments garner "super-majorities" is a way of seeking greater consensus. But you still have to count votes.
As I'm not clear what changes you think need to be made to the Constitution, allow me to float a trial balloon and suggest one - that we repeal the 17th amendment. That's the one that provides for the direct election of Senators. I believe it was a big mistake and threw the whole federal system out of whack. The election of Senators by their respective state legislatures served to check the power of the federal government over and against the states. As it is now, the state governments really have no representation, which is why, for instance, Congress gets away with passing all kinds of unfunded mandates. The loss of state government representation in Congress in effect turned the federal government into a national government. The two are different animals.
For what it's worth.
My great great grandmother's younger brother was wounded at age 20 in the Battle of Atlanta. He wore a uniform for less than a year and he spent the last six months of his service at a military hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. His total pay as a soldier might have been a little more than $100. He received a disability discharge in January, 1865, and began receiving a military pension that month. He died in 1916 after receiving benefits for fifty years. His wife, Fredericke, was receiving $30 per month when she died in 1928. A new Chevy sold for about $500 that year.
Most regiments enlisted about a thousand men. Wisconsin fielded more than eighty regiments. Roughly half of the male population in Wisconsin between 18 and 35 years of age served during the war.
My great great grandfather's regiment had a 25% mortality rate. Deaths from disease exceeded deaths from combat by a 20 to 1 ratio. Most of the soldiers who survived the war were about sixty years old if they were still alive in 1900.
Disabilities due to normal ageing were almost impossible to distinguish from disabilities due to military service at that point.
Most of these men died between 1900 and 1920, but not before the military had established a system for processing and paying millions of claims annually. When the economy collapsed in 1929 the government had the know how and expertise it needed to establish and maintain a national pension system.
jep,
At one level, I think we're very much in agreement. There is a process for amending the constitution, and I'm discussing lawful change, i.e., that the constitution be amended according to the process it provides. Elections matter, you'll get no argument from me on that point.
At another level, we're in deep disagreement. I do not favor repeal of the 17th amendment, as this would reduce public accountability, which is already low because of the relatively long senatorial terms. I understand your point on the balance between states and the federal government, I just come to a different judgement. It seems to me that most of the distinctive uses of state political power have been abusive, e.g., Jim Crow, or failure to properly fund pension systems.
I would argue for increasing the importance and integrity of elections. I'd favor elimination of the electoral college and the direct popular election of Presidents. I'd eliminate plurality voting in favor of a preference scheme like the Hare System (which reallocates votes cast for "losing" candidates to other, still viable, candidates, according to the voter's preference). I'd favor a structure in which quasi-governmental entities (e.g., the Federal Reserve) were defined in the constitution, with specifically enumerated powers. I'd favor long, say decadal, but not lifetime, terms for supreme court justices. With fixed judicial terms, it becomes feasible to think about fixing a very broken senatorial fillibuster system. I'd move away from two senators per state, in favor of a proportionate senate of six-year term and one-hundred members.
I'd want to see constitutional language that resolves the tension between having a President who is commander-in-chief of our armed forces, but who lacks the authority (but not the power!) to make war. The time scale of war-making in the 18th century is entirely different from the time scale of war-making in the 21st century, and we were oh so lucky not to pay the price for the difference in the 20th. I'd want constitutional language that repudiates "signing statements," which are simply unilateral legislation by the President. The notion of the "unitary executive" theory of the Presidency, especially as pushed recently, is an abomination to historical US constitutional values, and should be constitutionally repudiated.
How's that for a start?
I went through Pawlenty's Wiki page today, and I think he may have the right stuff at least on paper. I have only seen him once, and he didn't have the charisma of the ONE, but at least he hasn't built up a 13 trillion dollar deficit, and unlike Obama, who wants to distract us with other stuff, he's talking about the giant elephant in the room. Plus, he never pardoned a 60s rocker for speeding.
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