Russell Arben Fox has a lengthy summary of an article from February’s American Political Science Review, “Election Time: Normative Implications of Temporal Properties of the Electoral Process in the United States,” by Dennis F. Thompson.

Unlike my usual practice when it comes to the APSR (which is to scan the table of contents, find nothing of immediate interest to my research agenda, and then dump it onto the stack of journals—yes, I’m a bad political scientist when it comes to journal-reading), I actually read the article, and while I’m not quite as enthusiastic about Thompson’s conclusions as Russell is (particularly because I don’t at all buy the argument that campaign finance regulations, no matter how strict, will put an end to the “permanent campaign”), I agree that Thompson does make some worthwhile contributions to the debate, including a strong argument that partisan gerrymandering is fundamentally antidemocratic.

I do wonder, however, where one buys a single copy of the APSR, as Russell implores his readers to do. My advice: go to your local college’s library and read it for free.

Dean Esmay points out this interesting post by Citizen Smash, in which he talks to his local congresswoman, Susan Davis, about requiring government contractors to obey the law on the treatment of guardsmen and reservists when they return from active duty, or risk losing their government contracts.

There’s more at Phil Carter’s Intel Dump website:

In an ideal world, we’d have nothing but good corporate citizens, and there’d be no need for this kind of law. Indeed, I believe that most American corporations do the right thing when it comes to their reservist-employees. Yet, there are companies out there that don’t do the right thing, and it adds insult to injury when we allow those companies to profit from taxpayer money.

I concur with Phil: write your representative and your senators and tell them you want them to support this proposal. Better yet: call either their Washington office or local field office.

The Commercial Appeal (reg. required) yesterday took the admirable, if belated, stand that tossing a ton of public money at yet another publicly-funded sports facility wouldn’t be a great idea (at least, not for now). At issue is the deteriorating 1965 Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium (which dates from prior to my parents’ attendance at then-Memphis State University). The editorial says:

A major overhaul could cost 125 million or more. …

Councilman Rickey Peete suggested spending 5 million for minimal repairs if the work would buy a few more years of use.

The CA endorses the third option. But let’s go look at the benchmark for comparison:

It should be noted that the University of Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium, one of the largest stadiums in the country, has seen 16 renovations since 1921, according to the school’s web site. Renovations apparently have served UT well, since there are enough seats for 104,079 fans.

By comparison, the 62,380-seat Liberty Bowl has been twice renovated since it was built, according to the university.

To the best of my recollection, Neyland’s renovations were financed with money from boosters… and UT, which attracts 100,000 fans per game, needs the space—heck, they could probably sell another 20,000 seats if they had the space to install them. The Liberty Bowl, however, is lucky to attract 30,000 fans per Memphis home game in a typical season: last year, the team set a record by attracting an average of 40,262, a figure skewed by both the presence of the Ole Miss home game on the schedule (which attracted 51,914 fans, many of whom weren’t big Tigers supporters) and the Tigers’ atypically good performance in 2003. Don’t count on more than 35,000 per this year. (Stats from here.)

More to the point, the editorial doesn’t mention the real driving force behind a new stadium for the Tigers: keeping up with the Joneses. Or, in their case, keeping up with the Louisville Cardinals and their privately-financed Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, which manages to seat 42,000 fans in comfort (i.e. still above the realistic attendance level the Tigers can expect regularly) at the bargain price of $65 million—half the estimated cost the CA cites for an all-new stadium. (Louisville’s stadium is actually a “horseshoe” that can eventually be expanded with additional end-zone seating, similar to the current configuration of Ole Miss’ larger 60,580-seat Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, also paid for by private donations.)

Unlike Louisville’s boosters, however, the Highland Hundred want to dig into their fellow citizens’ pockets to pay for their new deluxe stadium. Why shouldn’t they? Michael Heisley, a man with no ties to Memphis at all, was able to schmooze and finagle his way into getting taxpayers to pony up for the FedExForum, leaving the Pyramid (which, admittedly, is a horribly designed basketball arena building) to do nothing except blind passing airline pilots with the reflection from its roof. Now all the Hundred have to figure out is how to shoehorn a football stadium west of Danny Thomas Blvd. and they’ll be all set!

Robert Garcia Tagorda helpfully notes the geographic illiteracy of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, who somehow managed to include the Philippines and Thailand among a list of countries aiding and abetting terrorists in one of those stupid “fundraising polls” that are included in letters soliciting donors.

Robert’s right: the only fitting word is “idiotic.” Especially when you consider that, as Conrad of The Gweilo Diaries points out, the Philippine government just broke up a major terrorist plot involving Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaeda affiliate group.

Dan Drezner assesses Richard Clarke’s book thusly:

Richard Clarke is the perfect bureaucrat. I mean that in the best and worst senses of the word. In the best sense, it’s clear that Clarke was adept at maximizing the available resources and authority required to do his job, given the organizational rivalries and cultures that made such a pursuit difficult. In the worst sense, Clarke was a monomaniacal martinet whose focus on his bailiwick to the exclusion of everything else is phenomenal.

Dan also provides more ammunition for those of us who think Dick Cheney should get the boot—not just because he’s deadweight on the ticket, but also because he “ha[s] inserted himself into the National Security Council process in a way that deliberately or accidentally sabotaged the decision-making process.”

As Glenn Reynolds might say: double-ouch.

Update: Hei Lun of Begging to Differ has more on Clarke’s alleged Republican credentials (frankly, mine are better). Special bonus: yet another takedown of Josh Marshall’s risible assertion that “I have no stake in Richard Clarke.”