Election News and Non-Election Election News!
Americans put a lot of faith in elections as a sign of legitimacy and democracy–and we have had good reason. With some exceptions, our elections give legitimacy to the winner and are (usually) an expression of the people’s will. Should that confidence in elections color our policy in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The Iraqis have yet to pass the law necessary for elections in January raising questions about when U.S. troops will be withdrawn.
Mr. Abdullah has withdrawn from the run-off in Afghanistan leaving Mr. Karzai in place after a fraudulent election. What can nation-building mean in these circumstance and exactly what kind of war can the U.S. run in the circumstances? Times’ reporters say this: ”The election deadlock over the last nine weeks has highlighted the Afghan state’s fragility and has showed deep and growing divisions among Afghans. And it has, like so many other recent events here, posed a worsening problem for American and other Western leaders, who have found themselves stuck with a leader who has lost the support of large numbers of Afghans, and whose government is widely regarded as corrupt.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?_r=1&hp
And just to confuse matters: in Upstate New York, the duly-nomated Republican candidate has withdrawn, a move that favors the Conservative Party candidate supported by right-wing Republicans, Sarah Palin, etc.; in effect, delegitimizing local Republican party officials who chose the now retiring candidate, Dede Scozzafava. “G.O.P. Moderate, Pressed by Right, Abandons Race” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/nyregion/01upstate.html?hp
Sad & sadder. Where are the Diem’s brothers and his lovely wife when we need them?
Vietnam Afghanistan
Truman lost China Bush almost lost Iraq – will Obama lose Afghanistan
Kennedy/Johnson did not want to be seen as weak and gave credence to the domino theory and losing countries to communism; Johnson poured in more than .5 million US military – 50,000 were killed. Oh yeah, most Vietnamese were not communist; just nationalists who wanted an end to foreign occupation.
Will Obama pull out of Iraq only to be pressured into a 21st century version of the “domino theory” – if we do not stop terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Indonesian will fall? And what about the facts – the Taliban and Al Queda leadership have been in Pakistan for 7 years – the US spends more than 50 billion annually in Afghanistan vs. a few billion in Pakistan.
What is wrong with this picture? Every election in Vietnam from 1960 on was illegitimate; the US broke the UN and Geneva conventions to end the Vietnam conflict agreed to by the French.
History truly does seem to repeat itself.
Ms. Steinfels – to add to your last item, she came out today and endorsed her Democratic opponent; not the Palin backed conservative. It appears we are seeing a new phenomenon – neo-conservatives vs. any and all others.
I just met someone at Mass tonight visitng from Rochester (in the district south of the 23rd). When he heard that Scozzafava had dropped out, he said that sewed it up for Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate. The Republican Party behavior here leaves me totally flumoxed: kamikaze pilots? or the new secret plan to take over US politics? Any guesses?
What flumoxes me is the double standard that the media and pundits have on the “marginalization” of parties. The dems have been overtaken lock, stock and barrel by the hard left with virtually no moderates in positions of importance, yet we don’t have the same hand-wringing. It is hard to make the argument that the GOP lost its way by being too conservative. George Bush was for most conservatives simply better than the alternative, and the congress was anything but conservative. They did a lousy job governing, but it wasn’t because they were too conservative.
Our current government is ruling from the left and its leaders have the mistaken impression that most Americans agree with their policies even though poll after poll and just plain observation shows them it’s not so. If there are kamikazes out there its probably them unless they decide to change course ala Bill Clinton. If they push another stimulus bill you will know they are suicidal.
“Hard Left,” “lock, stock and barrel,” “virtually no moderates in positions of importance”? Clean your glasses!
I wear contacts.
Seriously – Beside Gates, Hillary Clinton is the most moderate person in the cabinet. Van Jones was a Communist not a dozen years ago for gosh sakes. In the last non-partisan voting evaluation by the Nation Journal before the election campaign, Obama and Biden were ranked 1st and third most liberal US senators.
Didn’t we just discuss something about ethics in blogging and the awful effects of polarization?
And all the happy labelling?
Etc.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, there’s a different kind of hopelessness, grounded in corruption.
The morass there makex our future prospects of “success” -another facile term – look fairly dim.
Contacts? That explains everything!
So… Robert Gates, Roy LaHood, McHugh from the 23rd now Secy. of the Army, Kathleen Sebelius (though her bishop is not a fan, she is a down-the-line, old-line centerist Democ.), Hillary!!! Christine Roemer, Larry Summers, Orzag, James Jones, natl. sec. advisor, Larry Summers, Paul Volker, … Adm. Mullens, Leon Panetta, etc…
Sean:
This is not about the GOP. The only people who want to make who the Conservative Party of New York nominates in this election relevant to the electoral chances of someone “chose[n]” by the “party officials” of an entirely different political party, the Republican Party, are either unfamiliar with electoral politics generally and more particularly in New York, or, as is the case with the article linked to, have a institutional imperative to sell a certain news product to their consumers which conforms to the needs of those consumers as well as to advance the electoral objectives of those consumers.
MAT: So who will win in the 23rd? And what does it mean, if anything?
The Secretary of Transportation is a moderate?!?! Wow – that changes everything!
Seriously, look at leadership and the direction of the Dem party. In the last election it was them, not the GOP that nominated from the far wing of the party. If you remember, Palin was chosen in part to provide conservative bona fides to the ticket. Accross the board the main policy makers are very liberal. Obama, Pelosi, Ried – Max Baucus is the “conservative” in the party.
All I am saying is that this confusion over the tilt to the right of the GOP is surprising. Of course they are going to go back to conservative principles – they want to win. Think about it. It’s when they start trying to please everyone that the GOP loses.
Hoffman will win the 23rd handily. As far as the NY conservatives being a separate party – they have a separate line on the ballott but the simply put the republican on it 90 of the time. In this case, I think the local party leqaders who controilled the process seem out of touch with their party membership and the electorate at large.
SH: If I bid Nancy Pelosi against Michelle Bachman in the “hard left” v. far-right sweep stakes, you’d win hands down.
“So who will win in the 23rd? And what does it mean, if anything?”
Predicting elections is a bad business to be in but the polls I’ve seen all indicate Mr. Hoffman has the advantage. He certainly has the momentum and is in the sweet-spot of the ideology of the district. The publicity this race has generated notwithstanding, I think it will be a typical off-year election which tends to reflect the underlying partisan leanings of the district. The reality is this shouldn’t have even been close but for the incompetence of Mr. Mondello.
Regarding meaning, I do not think it means much for the mid-terms. All politics is local and all that. You really do not have the statistical sample large enough until then to really gauge the political mood of the country. This election speaks more to the incompetence of Messrs. Mondello and Cox I reckon. Same with my current state of residence, NJ, for example. Barring DOJ intervention into the conduct of elections here, no GOP candidate will ever win state-wide election for the foreseeable future so when the incumbent Governor wins tomorrow in contrevention of all the current polling, and it would be stunning if he did not, I do not think those tea leaves are worth reading.
Yes, and Michelle Bachman is a 2nd term congresswoman and Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. I am not saying it is a good thing, but it is pretty clear that at least in Washington a moderate Republican is much more likely to be in a position of power than a moderate democrat. Look at the list – Pelosi, Hoyer, Dingle, Ried, Schummer, Rangle, Waxman etc. etc. Saying the left isn’t incontrol is just plain mistaken.
SH: It appears that our rights and our lefts are not the same. Of your list, only Henry Waxman appears to be tending to the left. Harry Reid! not only to the right-center, but incompetent to boot. Rangle, my congressman, may be a crook (but as we used to say in CHGO, he’s our crook), and certainly no leftie. Chuck Schummer! a running dog of the capitalists, if there ever was one. Nancy Pelosi may come from SF on the left coast, but she seems pretty much the representative of old-fashioned Democratic urban politics; perhaps she even remembers why the New Deal was a necessity. And we are so far from a new new deal that you wonder how the hinterland of Minnesota will survive–especially with Bachman representing it.What ever happened to a real left party like the MN farm-workers party (the party I believe of the quintessential centerist, Hubert Humphrey).
“As far as the NY conservatives being a separate party – they have a separate line on the ballott but the simply put the republican on it 90 of the time. In this case, I think the local party leqaders who controilled the process seem out of touch with their party membership and the electorate at large.”
The distinction here is important however, as it goes to the absurdity of the micro-narrative and therefore the meta-narrative which people, such as the author of that vignette in the NYT linked to here, who are either malicious or grossly ignorant, are trying to manufacture. This was not about the well-funded outside conservative groups imposing their will on the the little old NY GOP, this was about the incompetent and out-of-touch NY GOP and the party bosses from Nassau and Westchester trying to foist a wholly unsuitable candidate on the conservatives and the base rejecting her. Ms. Scozzafava supported Pub.L. 111-5 or ARRA or whatever you want to call it. But whatever name you want to use, as you know, for the GOP voter in 2009, support for ARRA puts one well outside the mainstream of the party. That the NYT purports to be unaware of that and therefore refers to her as a “moderate” is no surprise but Messrs. Mondello and Cox cut gosh only knows what back room deal with Ms. Scozzafava and the local party bosses and for once their little brother party doesn’t play the patsy. If Ms. Scozzafava is the “moderate” this traditionally solid GOP district is clambering for to represent them in the District, she should have stayed in and socked it to Governor Palin and the other alleged villains in this NYT fantasy. Alas, she did the nobel thing – quit and back the Democrat in the biggest display of egotism, childishness, and ideological phoniness this side of the Senior Senator from PA.
“Predicting elections is a bad business to be in…”
It turns out that was the best prediction I made!
Bravo! I take it you do not live in or near the 23rd. Or do you? I’d love to hear your take on this upset?!
I should have listened to the candidate instead of the polls. I heard an interview of Hoffman Monday evening and he was, well, not terribly inspiring.
Margaret – I guess so. According to the National Journal review of voting records Rangle is more liberal that Mike Capuano here in Mass, and he is considered our most liberal member of congress. Ried right of center?!?!? He has the 9th most liberal voting record – being more liberal than John Kerry, Dick Durbin and Russ Fiengold, who must be fascists based on your sliding scale.
I guess that’s the Manhattan view of right and left, but I don’t think you will find too many people the rest of the country who think Harry Ried is “center right.”
Everyone I know thinks Harry Reid is an idiot. Why do they say that? Because he’s center-right, ineffective, incompetent….etc.