Jeremy Blachman of En Banc watched the Iowa Democratic debate today instead of having the good sense to watch the Packers–Seahawks game. I actually tried to watch a few minutes of it, but every time I switched it on I almost immediately felt like throwing something at the screen.

I’m not a huge fan of literacy tests, but I have make an exception: every candidate for public office should be required to present evidence of having taken—and passed—a course in economics at some point in their lives. Especially idiotic was one candidate’s pronouncement (I think it was Kerry’s) that free trade would be just dandy if every country was exactly the same; of course, if that were the case, you wouldn’t trade at all because nobody would have a comparative advantage.

Meanwhile, Steve Verdon examines another aspect of Democrats’ economic illiteracy—their obsession with outsourcing.

Chip Taylor, who’s done a nice redesign on his blog over the past couple of days, comments on David Brooks’ latest NYT column that articulates a new organizing principle for the Republican Party:

For my money, the best organizing principle for Republicans centers on the word “reform.” Republicans can modernize the (mostly Democratic) accomplishments of the 20th century. That would mean entitlement reform, tax reform, more welfare reform, education reform, immigration reform, tort reform and on and on. In all these areas, Republicans can progressively promote change, while Democrats remain the churlish defenders of the status quo.

Now, I’ll grant that consolidation and reform can be an effective political strategy: successive British governments since 1979, from Maggie Thatcher through John Major to Tony Blair, have essentially followed a course of reforming the most counterproductive aspect of Britain’s immediate post-war policies without eliminating the essentials of the welfare state. Perhaps Republicans can follow a similar tack—although I’m unsure that playing “Democrats lite” will be popular enough with the party base over the long term. On the other hand, if the apparent Deaniac-Krugman alliance continues to pull the Democrats to the left, Republicans may get the political center all to themselves for a few years before the Dems regain their collective senses.

Dear lord: as Kevin Aylward, Oliver Willis, and Lair Simon have noted, Britney Spears apparently got married on Saturday morning, to another 22-year-old named “Jason Allen Alexander” of Kentwood, La.—apparently unrelated to the KFC pitchman and former Seinfeld co-star. Quoth the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Rumors were flying late Saturday that the surprise wedding at the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Las Vegas Strip was in the process of being annulled.

Meanwhile, the Sidney Morning Herald pulls out the scare quotes normally reserved for such normative terms as “terrorist” to describe the happy event.

On TV at the moment on Turner Classic Movies is WarGames, one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid. And, somewhat apropos of Matthew’s discussion of such things, it features Ally Sheedy, my first actress crush.

Also noteworthy: the classic quotes:

Jennifer: [Falkner] wasn’t very old, was he?
David Lightman: Oh, he was pretty old, he was 41.
Jennifer: Wow, that is old.

and, on the “it flew over my head when I was seven” scale:

Malvin: I can’t believe it, Jim. That girl’s standing over there listening and you’re telling him about our back doors?

Then again, I suspect “back door” wasn’t quite in the vernacular in 1983.

As I discussed here, I’ve been reading Black and Black’s The Rise of Southern Republicans, which is described by one blurb writer (Dick Fenno, I think) as the intellectual successor of V.O. Key, Jr.’s legendary Southern Politics in State and Nation. The Rise of Southern Republicans is both a descriptive account of, and an explanation for, what the Blacks term a “semi-realignment” wherein conservative southern whites largely realigned (permanently changed their party preferences) from the Democrats to Republicans, while moderate whites were dealigned from the Democrats (became more independent “swing” voters).

Suffice it to say that the Blacks’ book is generally quite excellent, and—like their other books—a must-read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary southern and American politics. That being said, there are a few noteworthy weaknesses:

• The book almost exclusively focuses on elections to federal office (the House and Senate); there is little discussion of the continued persistence of majorities of Democrats in many southern state legislatures, despite realignment at the federal level, nor are gubernatorial politics discussed. Then again, the book is bulky enough as-is.
• On occasion, I felt like I was being subjected to a “stat dump”: a long series of statistics from survey evidence about the attitudes and behavior of various subgroups of the electorate. This information would perhaps have been better presented graphically or in tabular form (Black and Black do make extensive use of figures to illustrate their points throughout; why these items weren’t presented that way as well is something of a mysery).
• While some chapters discuss senatorial politics while others discuss elections to the House, the chamber being discussed isn’t clearly identified by the chapter names—as a result, you sometimes start reading a chapter and immediately think “hmm, isn’t this the same thing they were discussing in the last chapter?”

Still, these are all nitpicks. It’s definitely a worthwhile read, and—unlike most books by political scientists—it’s accessible to general readers.

Robert Prather approvingly notes Radley Balko’s praise of Tennessee representative Harold Ford Jr. as one of his Libertarian Heroes of 2003. Quoth Balko:

Ford makes this list more for his rhetoric and his potential than his actual voting record. Ambitious and eloquent, he’s a fast-rising star in the Democratic Party. Ford has shown an admirable reluctance to wade into the partisan muck and mire. He’s a free thinker. His talking points aren’t dictated to him by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. He has flirted with support for school choice. He’s generally supportive of tax cuts. And there are rumors around Washington that he may eventually support one of several plans to give Americans ownership of their Social Security taxes. Ford is likely bound for the U.S. Senate, if not higher office. If his voting record ever aligns with his rhetoric, he could emerge as an important voice of reason in a party too consumed with class warfare and entitlement culture.

Ford is in the relatively unique position of being one of the first of the “new generation” of African-American political leaders—and the only Democrat among them to have learned the lesson of the previous generation, which is that amassing a left-wing record in the House in a majority-minority district will guarantee you a permanent seat, and maybe even some committee positions of note, but it absolutely kills any prospect of attaining higher office. Ford, instead, has built on his father’s organizational and constituency service strengths, but adopted a more moderate voting record than his fellow black caucus members—which not only has improved the security of his seat against potential Republican challengers, but also has positioned him to potentially gain broad support among moderate white voters in future statewide contests for either the senate or the governorship.

That isn’t to say that Ford has strong libertarian credentials—he certainly doesn’t—but rather that he’s become one of the south’s first black “yellow dog” Democrats who effectively combines liberal social positions with moderate-to-conservative economic policy views. In other words, he’s the sort of candidate the Democrats need to remain competitive in the south in the face of a relative decline of the black population that means Democrats will have to broaden their appeal beyond the rump group of whites that still identify with the party for economic reasons.

Also of note: Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution critiques Balko’s list for its exclusive attention to politicians.

Update: AlphaPatriot has more on this theme (thanks to Mike Hollihan of Half-Bakered for pointing the post out in an email).

I’ve been trying to make the transition to Mozilla Thunderbird as my primary email client. One annoyance: there didn’t seem to be any way to associate multiple email addresses with a single incoming email account. However, a quick Google search turned up the solution.

Steven Taylor has the latest link-filled Toast-O-Meter™ examining the prospects of the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, now fortified with an assessment of the vice-presidential prospects of the ABD candidates and a number of other Democrats.

From Legal Affairs: Lily Malcolm thinks Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin’s latest idea, called Deliberation Day, “is a really stupid idea the likes of which only someone like Bruce Ackerman could dream up.” Political scientist Arthur “Skip” Lupia isn’t buying, and neither is Richard Posner.

Fishkin has been trying to sell this concept for the best part of a decade, starting with his work on promoting something he calls The Deliberative Poll™ (yes, the trademark is his). It’s attracted a lot of positive attention from certain goo-goo political scientists who’ve made a career out of spending a lot of their time fretting about the lack of civic competence of the public—and, in many scholars’ minds, this lack leads to all sorts of calumnious outcomes, not the least of which is the election of Republicans. The underlying theme of their work is summed up rather nicely by Posner:

I think that what motivates many deliberative democrats is not a love of democracy or a faith in the people, but a desire to change specific political outcomes, which they believe they could do through argument, if only anyone could be persuaded to listen, because they are masters of argumentation.

Anyway, for a window into my little corner of the political science universe, go read all three pieces.

Patio Pundit Martin Devon links a Michael Kinsley column that cuts to the heart of the Valerie Plame controversy: that if syphilocon columnist Robert Novak stopped protecting his alleged source, the story would be over and we could all go back to our own lives. Money graf:

The purpose of protecting the identity of leakers is to encourage future leaks. Leaks to journalists, and fear of leaks, can be an important restraint on misbehavior by powerful institutions and people. This serves the public interest. But there is no public interest in leaks that harm national security, or leaks that violate the law, or leaks intended to harm blameless individuals. There is no reason to want more of these kinds of leaks. So there is no reason to protect the identity of such bad-faith leakers.

Yes, but that wouldn’t be consistent with Novak’s personal interest in bringing down the faux-conservative apostates running the Bush administration, now would it?

Update: Juan Non-Volokh notes that we know less about what really went on than most pundits think, pointing to an account from today’s WaPo.

Also at Martin’s place: an amusing Slate column on faculty-student relationships by Laura Kipinis.

Memo to Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, et al.: the first one of you to include the ability to search only for hotels with high-speed Internet access will get my business. Bonus: I’ll even pay your ridiculous booking fee at least once, instead of using your site to search and then booking directly with the chain’s site (my standard MO).

In lieu of this ability, I’m stuck either going through a satisficing exercise with the hotel chains that do offer high-speed access at their properties (like the consistently excellent Drury Inns), or at least the ability to search for it at individual locations (like the Hilton hotel family), or digging through hundreds of search results—something I don’t have the inclination to do, even if I do have the time at present.

James Joyner jumps on the wine blogging craze. I won’t be jumping aboard, as I’m not much of a wine drinker; however, I will say that you can’t go wrong with Rosemount, a purveyor of fine, inexpensive Australian wines.

This is unreal: Nick LeShea is being jeered by the crowd at the Orange Bowl halftime show. Granted, I completely agree with the sentiment—but still.

Steve Verdon discusses the possibility of congestion pricing making a difference in California’s budget woes and freeway congestion, and concludes that the benefits are likely to be far smaller than advocates suggest they will be.

Here goes:

Rose Bowl: Michigan 31, USC 17.
Orange Bowl: Miami 24, FSU 21.
Fiesta Bowl: KSU 28, OSU 10. (Update: If Ell Roberson doesn’t play: OSU 17, KSU 10.)
Sugar Bowl: LSU 35, Oklahoma 24.

Bonus prediction:
Cotton Bowl: Ole Miss 41, Oklahoma State 28.

Steven Taylor links a piece in today’s New York Times that looks at Terry McAuliffe’s plan to create a consensus nominee by front-loading the primary calendar. The plan looks likely to backfire by producing a presumptive nominee who is, according to writer Adam Nagourney, “bruised by the nominating fight and confronted with the challenge of uniting a deeply divided party.”

It doesn’t exactly help that many of the candidates’ strategies have, of late, focused on pitting Democratic factions against each other, with Clark’s recent attempts to play to African-Americans against Dean, Gephardt’s appeals to the unions, and Dean’s nonsensical—and continual—alienation of the party’s centrist and conservative elements.

You know, the only thing I ever lost at summer camp was my pocket knife.

Steven Taylor of PoliBlog gets to the bottom of the whole Clark/disenfranchisement discussion. Suffice it to say I agree with Taylor’s policy prescriptions; however, I will say that the use of outdated voting technology in poorer counties seems to be more the result of those counties being poor—and thus devoting their limited resources to things that were perceived as more important than voting machines (like economic development, law enforcement, and public education), at least in the minds of most prior to the 2000 ballot controversy—rather than any deliberate action to systematically disenfranchise voters. Outside a very small number of academics, virtually nobody even knew, much less cared, that punch-card ballots had higher error rates than other voting methods until it became an issue in Florida.

If you are under the age of 70, and—at any point in your life—decide you “feel old,” there’s an easy remedy: come to Ocala, Florida, where you’re virtually guaranteed to be the youngest person in any given establishment.

Update: Matt Stinson may have had more fun in Ocala during a single meal than I had in two years of high school. Sounds about right.

I’ve been in a bit of a blogging rut lately; I think our extended downtime in mid-December somehow got me out of the “blogging groove,” so to speak. That, and being at the semi-proverbial “ass end” of the Internet, along with holiday and no-job stress, is severely cramping my style.

Original thought, maybe, soon.

That’s the question D.C. Thornton is contemplating in deciding whether to return to the Republican Party. He writes:

If I want the Republicans to remain true to small government, low taxation, the ability of individuals to govern their own lives and pursue happiness as they see fit, and counter racism, the work has to be done from the inside. Ranting from the outside does nothing to change anything.

I doubt Darmon can do it on his own—but if enough like-minded Americans from diverse backgrounds do the same, libertarian-leaning Republicans can accomplish what the Christian right did in the 1980s—fundamentally remake the Republican Party in their own image. The downside is that the “libertarian right”—perhaps a bit of an oxymoron—doesn’t have anywhere near the level of institutional backing that the Christian right did when it mounted its takeover.

Brian J. Noggle adds more potential subversives for you to be aware of, in addition to those evil Almanac-toting folks.

Dad and I saw Master and Commander today, which was most enjoyable—even if I could have done without the ER/Black Hawk Down at sea bits. Swordfights? OK. Arms being amputated with meat cleavers? Merci, non.

Lots of people—sometimes, even me—have trouble remembering where their keys are. Venomous Kate apparently has problems keeping track of her vibrator. I guess Hawai'i is more exciting than the mainland after all.

Ken Waight’s Lying in Ponds, which combines semi-regular “weblog-style” entries with daily analysis of America’s leading newspaper pundits, is one of the more worthwhile diversions in the blogosphere, even if I don’t share Waight’s apparent antipathy toward partisanship.

Partisanship has numerous functions in democratic society. In the electorate, it creates a psychological attachment between voters and politicians by providing a convenient “brand label” for voters, and a shortcut for voters who don’t have the time or inclination to research the qualifications of down-ballot candidates—even though it’s not immediately clear what meaningful difference there would be between a Republican and Democratic sheriff.

At the elite level, much of the role of partisanship is about communicating a consistent message to the public—the key part of Lazarsfeld and Katz’s “two-step flow” of political information. In essence, the public uses cues from elite figures to help inform and decide their own positions on political issues. Strong partisans, like Paul Krugman and Ann Coulter, are part of this process—as are more conflicted pundits like Tom Friedman. If there’s a risk associated with pundits like Krugman and Coulter, it’s that they give an exaggerated version of their own party line that often borders on caricature. But I don’t believe they are quite as harmful as those like Waight, who are bothered by the most partisan pundits’ apparent singlemindedness, seem to think.