Why bother going through the whole pretense of a campaign? I already know how I’m going to vote in 2004, more or less.

On Saturday, Eugene Volokh noted a poll conducted by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics that showed that 78% of respondents believe the media would have leaked news of President Bush’s Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad—a belief that is essentially identical among Republicans and Democrats, though perhaps even more strongly held by Independents.

As someone whose research interest is in public opinion, I have to wonder how this opinion came about, and it’d be a fascinating case study. It’s a shame Fox doesn’t contribute polling data to ICPSR like the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS and ABC do…

Dan Drezner and Steven Taylor are among those to note the reports that my favorite fake Tennessean, Al Gore, is about to endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination.

Is the primary process now effectively over? The part of me that’s been avoiding rereading Larry Bartels’ Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice hopes so (no insult to Prof. Bartels, who’s a smart guy—I just don’t have the time to reread it now), but as Lee Corso says, “not so fast my friend!” Why?

Well, for starters, nobody’s going to drop out until New Hampshire at least, and—more than likely—everyone will last through South Carolina. By March, the process may be effectively over, but there’s three months in which the unexpected can happen.

One potential response is that this will have a catalyzing effect on the “Anybody But Dean” faction. The ABD crowd is going to have to decide whether their mutual differences are sufficient to let them hand the nomination to Dean. Bear in mind that under the PR rules, candidates have to get 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district to get delegates; for example, if all the ABD guys are hovering at 10% in a district, but Dean gets 25%, Dean gets all of the delegates from that district. A promise that any one candidate’s delegates will support the ABD frontrunner at the convention is insufficient—because they won’t have enough delegates between them to make a difference. Plus, the more clearly Dean is the frontrunner, the more support he’s going to get in later primaries—such is the virtuous cycle that insiders call “the big mo.”

Especially with Sharpton likely to capture the support of a majority of the African-American primary voters, the ABD candidates are effectively screwed unless they get whittled down. Some of the candidates will figure this out on their own. The question is whether the credible ABD faction goes down from being five to two. (One alternative that might be effective is if the ABD faction executed a regional strategy: everyone but the best-positioned alternative to Dean stops campaigning in a particular state.)

The primary also still matters because it will largely decide who gets floor time at the convention. The more the ABD faction divides the vote, the more delegates are going to be gained by Dean and Sharpton under the 15% rule. Karl Rove must be salivating at the thought of Sharpton in primetime or seeing a procession of anti-war activists to the podium. Ironically, the better Dean does in the primaries, the less favorable the convention is going to be for his general election campaign—to be effective, he’s going to have to distance himself from the “anger” that brought him to the nomination, most fundamentally because most Americans are a lot angrier at Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein than they are at George Bush.

So, while Dean may be the presumptive nominee, the primary process is going to be an important factor nonetheless—both in how the convention is structured and, ultimately, how effective a bounce Dean can get from it in the general election.

You guessed it; this is my entry in the Beltway Traffic Jam. And, Matt Stinson thinks it’s payback for Gore’s being shafted by being in Clinton’s shadow.

I agree with Ryan of the Dead Parrots that the idea of replacing FDR with Ronald Reagan on the dime is true, unadulterated idiocy, which—given some Republicans’ worship of all that is Reagan—borders on idolatry. Besides, any good libertarian (or political scientist, for that matter) knows that the man whose face should be on the dime is James Madison…

Jay Rosen of PressThink has an interesting interview with Rodney Benson, a professor at NYU who is comparing the journalistic practices of American and French elite-oriented newspapers. Particularly interesting (to me, at least) was the discussion of the working theory of journalism’s role in mass politics, as articulated by Rosen:

A self-governing people need reliable, factual information about what’s going on, especially within their government. News provides that. The citizen at home absorbs the news, and maybe an editorial or column, and then forms her opinions. On election day she carries the information she got from the press, plus opinions formed on her own, into the voting booth, where she operates the levers of democracy. And that’s how the system works. Perhaps the most concise statement of this theory is, “get both sides and decide for yourself.” What you decide is your opinion. Later on, you vote based on that. For both activities one needs to be informed.

I’m not entirely sold on that model of opinionation in the mass public, which seems hopelessly idealized given Converse’s evidence of nonattitudes and Zaller’s R-A-S model, but it’s an interesting model nonetheless. I also found this comment by Benson interesting:

Sociologist Herbert Gans, who wrote the classic newsroom organizational study Deciding What’s News, has said that the American press could do more to promote democracy if it were less concerned with objectivity, and more concerned with presenting multiple viewpoints. Well, the French press, both individual media outlets as well as the system as a whole, does seem to me to approach more closely this kind of a “multiperspectival” ideal.

Anyway, if this sort of stuff interests you, go RTWT™.

Paul Muller at Heretical Ideas asks for feedback from Democrats on the reactions of Democratic presidential candiates to the President’s dropping the steel tariffs. Here are some quotes from the AP article:

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (news – web sites) said that despite Bush’s claims “the steel industry needs additional breathing room to get back on its feet.” Rep. Dick Gephardt (news – web sites), D-Mo., said Bush’s action demonstrated a “callous disregard for the workers and the communities whose jobs and livelihoods have been decimated by unfair competition.” Former Gen. Wesley Clark (news – web sites) said Bush needed to “listen to the 2.6 million manufacturing workers who’ve lost their jobs” while he has been in office.

I for one am extremely dissappointed in these three candidates. Well, Gephardt I expected it from, he’s Mr. Protectionist. But Dean and Clark are both smart enough to know that tariffs are not good for the American economy, and their pandering to the steel industry is just as pathetic as the President’s pandering was. (Although fortunately they can’t back up their pandering with real tariffs. Not yet anyway.)

It’s looking more and more like I’ll be sitting out the Democratic primary, assuming Lieberman drops out before the Tennessee primaries, and then voting Libertarian in the general election.

Here’s a question for the Constitutional Law experts out there. Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution grants to Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises". Article II does not grant the President any such power. How is it that the President has the power to impose tariffs on steel?

I’m guessing that some law passed by Congress granted this power to the President. But why wouldn’t that be an unconstitutional delegation of power? Have the federal courts ruled on this specific issue?

Keith Burgess-Jackson attempts to explain liberal anger from his converative viewpoint. His specific targets are Brian Leiter and Henry Farrell, but he lumps all liberals in with them:

Deep down, liberals know that they have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. They control the media, Hollywood, the courts, and academia, but little else. They sense that all is lost—that what they perceive as rollbacks will be permanent. ... What we are seeing is a grown-up tantrum.

So how do you explain all the angry conservatives, Keith?

My suggestion to everyone out there, left and right, is to quit the armchair psychoanalysis of the political opposition. It’s a load of patronizing bullshit when liberals do it, and it’s a load of patronizing bullshit when conservatives do it.

Fellow Ph.D. (gosh, it feels good to write that) Steven Taylor has the weekly update on the Toast-O-Meter, which now has a new feature—looking at the fortunes of the Nine versus Bush as well. After all, there’s now less than 11 months until Election Day! (Sick of the campaign yet?)

Meanwhile, Martin Devon joins the emerging consensus that Dean is virtually unstoppable at this point. Quoth Martin:

Even if Kerry and Gephardt lose early and withdraw from the race that still leaves four credible Dems spliting the anti-Dean vote. By the time two of the remaining four face reality it may already be too late for the survivors to win.

Sound familiar? I said the same thing three weeks ago.

Mike Hollihan of Half-Bakered has some predictions as well; I think he’s lowballing the Democrats and giving too much credit to the Greens (I can’t see the Greens getting 7% of the vote, especially if Howard Dean is the nominee).

Amanda Butler of Crescat Sententia notes the rather inexplicable case of Michael Ravellette, who was prosecuted for burning an American flag, found guilty, and sentenced to two weeks in jail. There’s one minor problem: the statute is unconstitutional, and has been for fourteen years, per the Supreme Court’s decision in Texas v. Johnson.

Even more inexplicable, according to the Southern Illinoisian of Carbondale, Ill.:

Ravellette’s defense attorney, McArthur Allen, wouldn’t comment Wednesday.

One suspects Mr. Allen needs to find another line of work if he’s somehow managed to get his client jailed for doing something that is not, and cannot be, illegal.

California’s idiot regulators have banned a glow-in-the-dark fish because it is the product of genetic engineering. Let’s watch the regulators explain the scientific basis for their decision:

“For me it’s a question of values; it’s not a question of science,‘’ said Sam Schuchat, a member of the state Fish and Game Commission. “I think selling genetically modified fish as pets is wrong.‘’

Now, if only the right to own glow-in-the-dark fish—let’s call that “economic liberty,” just for kicks—was as important in the eyes of our legal betters as the right to have sex with random people, maybe the courts would get involved…

The whole Valerie Plame business is rapidly approaching Theatre of the Absurd levels; Steven Taylor of PoliBlog and Glenn Reynolds have all the gory details. I’m not quite ready to proclaim the whole business “bogus,” but the bogosity meter is definitely edging toward 11 on the Spinal Tap scale.

Both Jane Galt and Steven Taylor ponder why Ralph Nader and Ross Perot elicit different reactions from “hard-core” partisans.

Interestingly enough, neither Nader nor Perot gained heavy support from self-identified strong partisans; the typical Nader voter wasn’t a hardcore Democrat, but rather a hardcore liberal with weak party identification—an important distinction to bear in mind. In a two-candidate race, the typical Nader voter would have been predisposed to favor Gore over Bush; however, that assumes he or she would have bothered to vote at all, something I’m not sure is the case. One other data point: more self-identified Democrats voted for Bush than for Nader.

The evidence that Perot cost George H.W. Bush the 1992 presidential election is very weak. If anything, Perot’s 1992 and 1996 candidacies hurt Democrats over the long term by costing Clinton the appearance of a mandate—bear in mind that Clinton didn’t receive more than 50% of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996, thereby weakening his position.

Yes, there’s more pre-defense jitters here in OxVegas. A brainteaser:

Q: How do you make your dissertation ten pages longer without writing a single word?
A: Realize that your page numbers are supposed to be 1″ from the bottom of the page, instead of the body text being 1″ from the bottom of the page. Grrr. (The scary thing: solving that problem in LaTeX took less time than figuring out how to get the right page number to show up on the copyright page in OpenOffice when I put together the signature page, title page, and copyright page. So much for WYSIWYG…)

Anyway, enough about me (12:45 and counting). Matt Stinson is getting medieval on Howard Dean’s latest foreign policy pronouncements. Rather than campaign contributions, I think Democrats should all chip in to make Dr. Dean sit through a few IR seminars, rather than getting his foreign policy advice from Jimmy Carter (whose latest accomplishment seems to have been to lend a hand to efforts to dismantle the state of Israel).

Reading Stephen Green on the president’s 180 on the steel tariffs, I have to ask aloud if there’s actually anyone in Washington who’s a principled proponent of free trade—or even freer trade, like NAFTA or FTAA (I’m not a huge fan of regional free trade blocs myself, but they beat the hell out of the Son of Hawley-Smoot that many on both sides of the aisle seem to want enacted). I mean, there’s Ron Paul, who probably wouldn’t vote for anything except a unilateral cut to 0% on all import tariffs—meaning anything likely to happen during his lifetime is out—but is there anyone else?

More to the point, what idiot thought in the first place that this pandering exercise would actually work? Now Bush has (a) made a bigger ass of himself with the steelworkers than he would have if he’d simply said “not gonna do it” in the first place and (b) probably retarded the economic recovery by god-knows-how-many months. I realize the president’s detractors will attribute this all to Bush, and his fans will attribute it to Rove,* but surely someone on the political side at the White House must have known this was a disaster waiting to happen.

Steven Taylor has two print columns today: one on the Democratic nomination horse-race in the Birmingham News, and another on gay marriage in the Mobile Register.

Both James Joyner and Dean Esmay note Deeds’ account of Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity with the troops in Baghdad (as noted here at Signifying Nothing on Saturday morning); James and Dean find Hillary’s snubbing justifiable, both due to her (and her husband’s) record in supporting the military and her party’s position on the conflict, while Howard Owens and Glenn Reynolds think she deserved better treatment from the troops, as she has been a relatively consistent supporter of the war in Iraq.

However, I think it’s instructive to look to what Deeds wrote:

Given Hillary’s constant trashing of the Administration’s policies and the work being done in Iraq, her advance people get a flunking grade on setting up a lunch to be with the “troops” and other Americans in the CPA mess hall. That was not the right thing for Hillary do to.

While Sen. Clinton may have supported the war, let’s take a look at what press accounts said about her visit to Baghdad. From Sunday’s Boston Globe:

Clinton and Reed arrived in Iraq on Friday, a day after President Bush made a surprise trip to Baghdad. Clinton, who represents New York, and Reed, of Rhode Island, spent Friday with military brass and troops, occupation officials, and aid workers.

They said Friday that the costs of rebuilding Iraq should be spread among more nations.

“I’m a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration’s thinking,” Clinton said. “I don’t see that it’s forthcoming.”

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Clinton and Reed said the expense and political burden in administering Iraq would be made easier with the U.N.’s stamp of legitimacy and help in transferring power to Iraqis.

From the BBC:

Both the senators said the governance of Iraq would be made easier with greater UN involvement.

In other words, the senator was in Iraq, criticizing the performance—and competence—of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and saying the UN would do a better job. No wonder her visit was as popular among CPA staffers as Deeds indicates.

One Fine Jay, in his trackback below, has some interesting thoughts on the larger meaning of Sen. Clinton’s visit for the Democrats. I still stand by my original belief that her visits to Afghanistan and Iraq are good things; however, I think she shouldn’t be surprised to get a cold shoulder from people working for the CPA after criticizing their competence from afar. That being said, she probably deserved a little better response than that documented at Deeds. Then again, senatorial visits have rarely met with great appreciation from the military; when former senator Jim Sasser, then the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, visited RAF Fairford in Britain once, I don’t recall anyone being particularly excited he was there. (If it sounds like I’m equivocating, it’s because I am; I really don’t know what to make of the Clinton visit at this point.)

John Galt of Deeds ran into another VIP in Baghdad on Friday. Let’s just say that her visit didn’t quite go over as well as the president’s.

Steven Taylor has the latest update on the Toast-O-Meter, with Howard Dean firmly in the lead. Says Steven:

Dean continues to race ahead, with none of the Other Eight seemingly able to catch up. As pollster Frank Luntz noted on Hardball this week, his status is so well established that when the Other Eight attack him, they are seen in a negative light, rather than the attacks bringing Dean back to earth.

I might also add a separate classification to the Toast-O-Meter: whether the candidate is achieving his or her goals—perhaps how “buttery” the toast is. For example, we all know that Al Sharpton doesn’t really want the nomination: he just wants to hog the spotlight at the convention. So being 2nd in South Carolina actually serves his interests, because he’ll rack up delegates. This, however, may only apply to the novelty candidates.

Mark of Southern Appeal links to the latest predictions by CQ analyst Craig Crawford, which correlate highly with those of the Toast-O-Meter.

Alec Saunders notes that the Canadian Alliance has had a bit of a bigot eruption, courtesy of one of its members of Parliament, Larry Spencer, who wants to make homosexuality illegal. Priceless quote from the National Post account:

But Mr. Spencer said any MP, and especially someone from his party, risks being labelled “a redneck or a hate-monger or homophobic” if they even mention such views in Parliament.

Let me see: you want to make homosexuality illegal. That sounds, I dunno, pretty “homophobic” to me. But then we get to the Globe and Mail’s story on the aftermath, which contains this gem of a juxtaposition, discussing the implications on the merger between the Alliance and Progressive Conservatives:

One of [the Progressive Conservative] MPs, Scott Brison, is gay, and has expressed interest in running for the leadership of the new party.

Mr. Brison said Mr. Harper has a responsibility to remove Mr. Spencer outright from the party for his “outrageous” remarks. …

“… It is absolutely essential that we actually be inclusive by not tolerating bigotry, prejudice and hatred,” the MP said.

Left unsaid is exactly how “removing Mr. Spencer,” and presumably those who share his views, makes the party more inclusive. Wouldn’t that actually make it, by definition, less inclusive?

David Janes has the latest go-round on this story, featuring debate between Colby Cosh (also in the National Post) and Mark Wickens; David’s reaction seems spot-on:

Larry Spencer isn't some ol' codger holding court at the red-and-white pole barber shop, he's a member of Parliament. And whatever the mode of his internal dialogue, whether it be based the 1970's or the 1870's, he correspondingly should consider exercising his internal censor occasionally too. Everyone has nasty thoughts, but most realize that there are levels of frankness aren't particularly refreshing.

Alec Saunders sides with Janes and Wickens over Cosh, too. And, there's more from Damian Penny, who notes that the National Post has apparently unearthed the source of Spencer’s anti-gay rhetoric.

As many in the blogosphere have noted, George Bush visited Baghdad today, while Hillary Clinton was in Afghanistan. Both visits were admirable—our troops deserve the recognition—but let me focus on Bush’s visit to Iraq, and the political implications of it.

The “obvious” political implication is that it’s an example of using the office to look presidential, something none of the Democratic presidential candidates can accomplish. But there’s a second political implication: Bush is now committed. He’s gone to Baghdad, and said (paraphrasing) “we’re not going anywhere until the job is done.” It’s free ammunition for Democratic candidates who do want to stick it out with American troops in Iraq—admittedly, not all of the field—if Bush decides to cut and run. This makes it that much harder for the administration to give up in Iraq—which, to those of us who think Bush should stay the course and follow through on our commitment to a democratic Iraq, is a good thing.

Dean Esmay has the text of the President’s remarks in Baghdad. In related news, John Cole is keeping an eye on the reaction from the less sane quarters of the left.

Matthew Stinson observes that financier and newfound lefty darling George Soros only seems to have a problem with regime change when he isn’t instigating it personally, at least according to Wednesday’s edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail.

On the other hand, Mark A.R. Kleiman believes Putin orchestrated the whole business in Georgia, with an assist from Washington.

Memphis state senator John Ford is up to his usual shenanigans, this time billing taxpayers for $2200 of personal FedEx charges; Mike Hollihan has all the juicy details (permalink bloggered; scroll down).

Conrad sees ominous signs in the latest sabre-rattling exercise by the Chinese government toward Taiwan (also noted by InstaPundit). Quoth Conrad:

I do, however, sense a significant change in tone recently in China’s comments regarding Taiwan. China’s bungling of the one country, two systems policy in Hong Kong have virtually eliminated whatever slim chance there was of a peaceful reunification while the CCP remains in power. Taiwan is now taking steps it believes will ensure its permanant independance and Beijing, having deceided to prop up its corrupt and despotic rule with juvenile patriotic appeals, realizes that the loss of Taiwan means the fall of the government.

A year ago, I’d have said that the chances of armed conflict between Taiwan and China were negligable. All the parties have too much to lose. Today, I’d rate the likelyhood at something approaching 50-50. If that happens, US involvement is all but a certainty. The US needs to make that final point crystal clear to Beijing.

Thursday’s China Post has the latest news on the story.

Matt Stinson has a roundup of reactions to HR 1, the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, which has a lot of the right’s underwear in rather uncomfortable positions. But then there’s John Cole’s reaction:

The only problem is that nothing in my experience, and in particular the rhetoric of the Democrats during the Drug Benefit debate, even gives me the slightest impression Democrats would be any better.

Mauvais ou plus mauvais. Doesn’t it always boil down to that?

Both Tavares Karol and Michael Van Winkle have posts at The Chicago Report trying to figure out the current strategy of the Republicans. Karol implies—although he doesn’t explicitly argue—that Republicans have borrowed Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” strategy and taken it to a new level. On the other hand, what Karol sees as good strategy, Van Winkle sees as being to the long-term detriment of the party:

Clinton left office without giving the Democrats any direction. The party under Clinton existed to serve his presidency, to defend his antics and get him reelected. All the while, Clinton’s policies were creating fissures in the party, fissures he had no intention of smoothing over with his leadership. When a party is split between two possible futures it’s up to the leader to pick one and raise the sails. Otherwise, the party is left aimlessly afloat and burdened with resolving the structural cracks itself. This is a very difficult process and we’re seeing it played out in the Democratic Primaries. The Democrats aren’t sure what their party is and where it’s going.

Bush is doing the same number on the Republicans. Sure, he is working toward reelection and will probably be successful, but what about that other role, Republican Party leader? Well, he doesn’t seem to take that role very seriously. He isn’t leading the GOP toward any coherent destiny beyond his own presidency. This is the primary difference between Bush and Reagan. They both cut taxes, but the latter did it with a vision for the future. The former has done it, primarily for political expediency (not that I am complaining). The Republicans have to ask themselves, “what happens after Bush is gone?” “Do we like the direction the party is moving?”

If the current course (or nonexistent course) is maintained, when Bush leaves office (whether 2004 or 2008) the GOP will undoubtedly witness the same kind of infighting that the Democrats are currently working through. The Dems’ problems may be exacerbated by their being the party out of power, but if the GOP is left adrift then they (the Democrats) won’t be out of power for long.

Perhaps it is the lot of parties in this media-centric age to regress to being personalistic in nature; many political scientists (myself included) have assumed that the personalistic nature of parties in developing countries (think of Mahathir in Malaysia, or Lee in Singapore) is a phase that will be outgrown as parties become more institutionalized. But maybe that’s a more widespread—and reemerging—phenomenon, particularly within ruling parties; can we think of Labour quite the same way without Tony Blair, the RPR without Jacques Chirac, the SPD without Gerhard Schröder, the Canadian Liberals without Jean Chrétien, Forza Italia without Silvio Berlusconi, or the Republicans without George W. Bush?

With the institutional power of American parties in rapid decline relative to both candidates and interest groups (witness George Soros’ large donation to MoveOn.org, rather than the Democrats), thanks to the incumbency advantage, widespread adoption of open primaries, and McCain-Feingold, it seems likely that the United States will see more of these fights for the heart and soul of the party, as candidates and interest groups try to gain control of the remaining institutional advantages of the major parties—their automatic access to the ballot and their “brand recognition.” Why build a third party from scratch when you can just hijack the Republicans or Democrats?

This is today’s entry in the Beltway Traffic Jam.