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The Bull about the Bully Pulpit - George Edwards and the Powerless Presidential Bully Pulpit : The New Yorker

When you’re running for President, giving a good speech helps you achieve your goals. When you are President, giving a good speech can prevent you from achieving them.

via www.newyorker.com

Ezra Klein wrote an interesting piece in The New Yorker, "The Unpersuaded," about the work of George Edwards, the director of the Center for Presidential Studies, at Texas A. & M. University, outlining a strong argument that presidents--even those considered good communicators--have far less power to persuade with public speeches than many Americans realize.

Consider the following about presidents Clinton, Reagan, and Franklin Roosevelt:

Between his first inauguration, in January, 1993, and his first midterm election, in November, 1994, [Clinton] travelled to nearly two hundred cities and towns, and made more than two hundred appearances, to sell his Presidency, his legislative initiatives (notably his health-care bill), and his party. But his poll numbers fell, the health-care bill failed, and, in the next election, the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in more than forty years. Yet Clinton never gave up on the idea that all he needed was a few more speeches, or a slightly better message. “I’ve got to . . . spend more time communicating with the American people,” the President said in a 1994 interview. Edwards notes, “It seems never to have occurred to him or his staff that his basic strategy may have been inherently flawed.”
.....
Reagan succeeded in passing major provisions of his agenda, such as the 1981 tax cuts, but, Edwards wrote, “surveys of public opinion have found that support for regulatory programs and spending on health care, welfare, urban problems, education, environmental protection and aid to minorities”—all programs that the President opposed—“increased rather than decreased during Reagan’s tenure.” Meanwhile, “support for increased defense expenditures was decidedly lower at the end of his administration than at the beginning.” In other words, people were less persuaded by Reagan when he left office than they were when he took office.
.....
[P]olitical scientists Matthew Baum and Samuel Kernell...found that [FDR's fireside chats] fostered “less than a 1 percentage point increase” in his approval rating. His more traditional speeches didn’t do any better. He was unable to persuade Americans to enter the Second World War, for example, until Pearl Harbor.

In fact, Edwards' evidence suggest that many presidents achieve their policy goals most efficiently without publicly advocating for them. For a president to publicly address a policy goal, according to Edwards, is often to solidify partisan opposition against it. But it can also strengthen support  among the president's own party. Presidents' public persuasion attempts often have a politicizing effect--whether they like it or not.

Edwards:

“Barack Obama is only the latest in a long line of presidents who have not been able to transform the political landscape through their efforts at persuasion. When he succeeded in achieving major change, it was by mobilizing those predisposed to support him and driving legislation through Congress on a party-line vote.”

Of course, this is not to say that presidential attempts to persuade cannot effect the rhetorical landscape. Jeffery L. Bineham, a rhetoric professor at St. Cloud State University, notes in a letter to the editor of The New Yorker that "death tax," "wars" on poverty, drugs, terror, and mottos like "government is not the solution but the problem," are all examples of presidential speech entering the political lexicon.

Krugman v./+ The Economist, and the Muted Middle

When Krugman of the economic (and social) American left and The Economist of the economic British and European right are agreeing...it's wise to pay attention. 

They're agreeing on characteristics of both the European economic crisis and to an extent what actions should be taken by various nations, including the US, to best deal with respective national economic problems.

What they agree on are mostly facts--realities; yet, realities shockingly seldom heard in the US especially among commentators on the political right, both partisan Republicans and self-described libertarians.

(Image: cartoon of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, and John Keynes. Heaven forbid that even if they weren't all equallycorrect and incorrect, each thinker might each have been at least somewhatcorrect--and incorrect! Heaven forbid one of them mightn't have been 100% correct and the other three 100% wrong!)

Both Krugman and The Economist have recently pointed out that the European crisis is rooted as much or more in monetary policy than in fiscal irresponsibility evidenced by bloated welfare programs.

In terms of welfare programs' role, Krugman notes in "What Ails Europe?" that:

[I]n 1991, when Sweden was suffering from a banking crisis brought on by deregulation (sound familiar?), the Cato Institute published a triumphant report on how this proved the failure of the whole welfare state model.... Sweden, which still has a very generous welfare state, is currently a star performer, with economic growth faster than that of any other wealthy nation. 

So, welfare programs' generosity aren't hurting Sweden. But note that Sweden is not a Eurozone country, either. Perhaps it's the Eurozone itself that's the problem. (Wait for it. The Economist ends up saying as much!)

But, Krugman looks at Eurozone nations, too, not just Sweden:

Look at the 15 European nations currently using the euro (leaving Malta and Cyprus aside), and rank them by the percentage of G.D.P. they spent on social programs before the crisis. Do the troubled GIPSI nations (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy) stand out for having unusually large welfare states? No, they don’t; only Italy was in the top five, and even so its welfare state was smaller than Germany’s.

The Economist in "A Very Short History of the Crisis" noted much the same recently:

Before the crisis the governments of both Ireland and Spain ran budget surpluses. Both meticulously kept within the limits for deficits and debts set down by the stability and growth pact—unlike Germany, which flouted the rules for four years from 2003 (and avoided punishment). Nor did Italy lurch into extravagance. (Emphasis mine.)

Krugman's summary of the European crisis is as follows, with The Economist's below that. Both note that large welfare bills are at least in part a result of the crisis.

Krugman:

By introducing a single currency without the institutions needed to make that currency work, Europe effectively reinvented the defects of the gold standard — defects that played a major role in causing and perpetuating the Great Depression.

More specifically, the creation of the euro fostered a false sense of security among private investors, unleashing huge, unsustainable flows of capital into nations all around Europe’s periphery. As a consequence of these inflows, costs and prices rose, manufacturing became uncompetitive, and nations that had roughly balanced trade in 1999 began running large trade deficits instead. Then the music stopped.

If the peripheral nations still had their own currencies, they could and would use devaluation to quickly restore competitiveness. But they don’t, which means that they are in for a long period of mass unemployment and slow, grinding deflation. Their debt crises are mainly a byproduct of this sad prospect, because depressed economies lead to budget deficits and deflation magnifies the burden of debt

The Economist:

Debt in [the GIPSI nations] has become a burden not because of government profligacy but because each enjoyed a decade of low interest rates and was then hit by the financial crisis. Easy credit fuelled debt in households and the financial sector. The European Central Bank oversaw a binge of cross-border lending. In the crisis unemployment and hardship have deepened, increasing the bill for welfare. Some countries, such as Ireland and Spain, have needed to find money to prop up their banks. These new expenses fell on the state just when tax receipts collapsed—catastrophically in countries that had seen a property boom

Krugman and The Economisteven share some degree of opposition to austerity as a way of addressing economies worsened by the 2088-2009 Great Recession, though Krugman is much more opposed. Also, he sees debt as a short-term necessary evil to be outweighed by the benefits of stimulus (i.e., government spending and tax relief) if the stimulus is sufficiently large, while The Economist is more fearful of debt and deficits.

Krugman's lack of alarm may be evidenced by statements like this:

[C]ountries that aren’t on the euro seem able to run large deficits and carry large debts without facing any crises. Britain and the United States can borrow long-term at interest rates of around 2 percent; Japan, which is far more deeply in debt than any country in Europe, Greece included, pays only 1 percent.

True, but a $15.5 trillion US debt? With interest it's more than $56.6 trillion! That's an astronomically staggering sum. Granted, the US GDP is $15.0 trillion, but can the US's GDP be expected to increase substantially anytime soon as a means of lowering the debt? Republicans say, yes, if taxes and regulations are cut. Output will increase and jobs and consumer spending will follow. Democrats say, yes, especially if government stimulus helps fuel new industries, increases the infrastructure the economy needs, and places money short-term in people's pockets--even the unemployed--so consumer demand doesn't devastatingly fall. To which Republicans have numerous counterpoints, to which Democrats have counter-counterpoints, etc.

It's an endless discussion, really.

An now to another point: it's an endless discussion that also is not going very well. I find the discussion to be most helpful when it's least ideological and partisan. But, that's dispiritingly rare these days.

I recently had the priviledge of joining Peter H. Schuck at a dinner at a friend's home. He's the author of Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics. While the book focuses mostly on debates thriving in the first few years of this century, there's a basic principle at work in his analyses--articulated in various places in the book--that's relevant even more now than when the book was published, and it's a principle that I keep finding myself coming back to: the once not-so-shocking principle that many issues are complex, that there's inherent value in trying to understand others' perspectives, and that it's exceedingly rare that one side of in a debate is 100% right while all the other sides are 100% wrong.

This position seems to be one that fewer and fewer Americans hold--it particular, it's exactly the position not-held by commentators on Fox News and CNBC on one hand and MSNBC on the other.* Heaven forbid, some problems' solutions can't be summarized by a bumpersticker slogan. That goes for economics, too. When someone shouts (and it's increasingly frequently shouted) that you can't spend your way out of debt, it increasingly frequently strikes me as an overly narrow simplification of all things to be considered. I feel exactly the same way when someone else shouts that you also can't cut your way to growth. It's been refreshing in the past year when I've heard non-shouting types on TV say that cutting too much government spending too fast is dangerous and in the same breath say that debt is a serious problem. Guess what? These might not be mutually exclusive realities! (Gasp!) But the last word seems usually given on TV to someone insisting that one or the other economic viewpoint is totally wrong. I'm then inclined to remember that as strong as religious fundamentalism is, there's such a thing as epistemological fundamentalism, too: it's called being ideological, and it results in the politization of problem-solving, and it can make problems even harder to sort out.

See also:Keynes v. Hayek, a BBC Business news feature.

*This is the secondary reason why I mostly get my news from The PBS NewsHour and the BBC--the main reasons being the measured tone of the NewsHour and the BBC and the refusal of each to dumb-down content.

On the ground...but not on the yard

I've recently returned from my annual holiday trip home to central Iowa. While there, a state legislator told me Rick Santorum would carry the local county on Jan. 3rd or come in a close second-place behind Ron Paul.

I was incredulous relative to Santorum doing so well. About 48 hours later, the first polls were released showing that a surge in the former US Senator's popularity had been occurring. I then recalled a pundit on ABC's This Week having said earlier in December to not underestimate the potential dividends of Santorum's months-long hard work in Iowa. It reminded me of the value journalists find in informed, honest, and sufficiently forthright sources near to the action, and in their own experience. We'll see if the legislator’s prediction and the pundit's observation hold true. Based on my own inexpert observations while in Iowa, I think Santorum may in fact win or come in a close second-place in the county that I was in, but I think Romney will win the state.

The only frontline observation of my own that I make with any confidence is that yard signs are thin on the ground! I saw only five signs in four days in and around a town of 15,500 people fairly near Des Moines. Also, I saw not one bumper sticker! When I was growing up in Iowa, forests of candidate yard signs cropped up in neighborhoods. Farmers put them in fields and ditches, and sometimes even painted the sides of barns with their favorite candidate's name. Even in December 2007, while driving along I-80, I recall seeing Clinton, Obama, and Edwards signs galore--at least one barnside proclaiming HILLARY in red, white, and blue, and plenty of signs for Huckabee, McCain and others.

Does the disappearance of the yard sign reflect a lack of voter enthusiasm, or perhaps indecision—an unusually long wait-and-see stance by Hawkeye Republicans? Or maybe smaller campaign budgets? Maybe lesser focus on Iowa by the campaigns? Has the rise of social media or the dominance this cycle of televised debates displaced the need for the valiant foot soldiers of Iowa caucus campaign advertising, those brave little signs that endure wind, snow, the rare defacement attempt, and the more common assault from dog urine? Here's to the return of the humble yard sign.

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UPDATE: Nate Silver's Iowa 2012 GOP caucus analysis - Updated Jan. 2, 2012 at 12:11 PM ET

	Vote Projection	Chance of Win
Mitt Romney	21.8%	42%
Ron Paul	21.0	34
Rick Santorum	19.3	20

UPDATE: Unofficial caucus results from my parents' precinct in Jasper County, Iowa - Updated Jan. 3, 2012

161 votes:
Santorum 48
Gingrich 39
Romney 31
Paul 29
Bachmann 8
Perry 4
Huntsman 2

CREW's list of 2011's 11 most corrupt Congress Members

Here they are....

For marriage rights for same-sex couples in New York

Only three NY State Senators, all Republicans, are thought to be undecided on how they will vote if gay marriage is brought to the floor of the Senate: Kemp Hannon (hannon@senate.state.ny.us), Stephen Saland (saland@nysenate.gov), and Andrew J. Lanza (lanza@senate.state.ny.us).

But their potential opposition is becoming less tenable as arguments mount against keeping same-sex couples excluded from marriage’s rights and responsibilities. Here are some that have been highlighted on this blog.

The Constitution’s call to Promote the General Welfare (US Const., Preamble & Sec. 8, Clause 1) gives reason for the expansion of civil marriage’s rights and responsibilities to gay couples, thereby also providing legal inducement for same-sex consenting adults to enter into this civil institution’s conservative realities: valuing another’s well-being and not just ones own, domesticity, creating a long-term household--caring more for community, law and order, property values, diligence in employment, long-term investments, etc. Expand it as the vote was for women, as civil marriage was for mixed-race couples. The general welfare is lessened by excluding gay New Yorkers from civil marriage, forcing them into legal permanently-single status and keeping them lesser in rights than incarcerated, cynically married, or even immoral citizens enjoying civil marriage rights by the accident of their birth as heterosexual. Increasingly, such inequality seems driven by animus.

The Economist, one of the most respected business publications in the world--free market and center-right--first argued for gay marriage as far back as 1996. They reiterated their argument in 2004.

If Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other states have done this and benefitted, why mustn’t New York?

Crain's New York Businesses' columnist Alair Townsend's offered commentary in this business publication with its fingers on the pulse of the NYC business community:

the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which withholds at least 1,138 rights and protections offered by the federal government to married heterosexuals. But today, our [i.e., New York's] state Legislature should cast off unreasoning fear, and act to protect the rights of an important minority group. 

The Williams Institute (UCLA Law) says in NY are 42,600 same-sex couples. About 7,200 of NY's gay couples are raising children, and the children number about 14,000.

At least two recent polls show a majority of NYers support marriage equality: Quinnipiac and Siena College Research Institute. Presuming that New Yorkers under the voting age of 18 (24% of the state by the 2000 census) were not among those polled and roughly 60% of polled those New Yorkers now support marriage equality--that's 8,664,000 voting age New Yorkers who are in favor of expanding marriage’s rights and responsibilities to gay couples.

Louis J. Marinelli, a former National Organization for Marriage (NOM) organizer and a conservative-Republican recently announced, “I now support full civil marriage equality.”

A NYC Comptroller’s report in 2007 found the City’s economy alone would gain $142,000,000 after legalization of same-sex marriage. And how much more in the rest of the state? It’s not a key argument but nonetheless true: marriage equality will mean more jobs in New York.

"The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage," by Ted Olson, US Solicitor Gen’l under Pres. George W. Bush, can be read here.

Don't tread on my tricorne! The Tea Party movement claims the Revolution

I like history, flags, and tea. I'm temperamentally conservative, but I default to left-of-center on political issues. I'm also aware that my maternal ancestors have been on America's shores since 1676. So, it's no surprise that I dislike the appropriation of Revolutionary War symbolism like the Gadsden flag (the yellow, snake, and "Dont Tread On Me" flag) and tricornes ("tri-corner hats" is a modern term for them) by the populist-right movement the Tea Party. It might also not be a surprise that even more than I dislike that trend, I dislike the abject surrender of these symbols by communicators and organizers of the political center and left. Frankly, I'm grateful that at least the Tea Party movement isn't letting America's Revolutionary past or symbols such as the Gadsden flag be forgotten!

Yes, all old symbols were once new, and, yes, new symbols can be at times more effective in political communication than traditional ones. Some might support that point by citing Sol Sender's Obama "O" logo, and Shepard Fairey's "Hope" image, which cleverly incorporated the Obama logo and transformed (albeit without credit) a photograph by AP journalist Mannie Garcia into a whole artistically much, much greater than the sum of its parts. But those are technically symbols about a person--though in a sense what candidate Obama came to represent for a time was a national movement actually transcending Obama himself; and Fairey's poster is undeniably noteworthy graphic design apart from who or what it served. But by successfully claiming an increasing number of symbols of America's Revolutionary War past, and to some extent patriotic symbols in general, the Tea Party is--without objection it would seem--symbolically claiming America's Revolutionary era symbols as entirely their own.

It's that "without objection" that I bemoan most loudly, however.

I find it disgusting that rich symbols of national heritage, including of the Revolution, are genuinely dismissed by a small minority of self-proclaimed progressives. But, I don't really have much more sympathy for the larger body of progressives that value such symbols but feel cowed into not using them because they feel that the symbols have been so well co-opted that their very meaning has changed into something adhering only to conservative and, currently, recklessly populist and largely partisan sentiments and meanings. (For some of these progressives, feeling vaguely embarrassed by or feeling proud of but somehow robbed of patriotic symbols of national heritage sometimes extends even to the flag of the United States.) My sympathy is limited because they've not fought well for, creatively used, engaged with, even discussed, or done much of anything relative to something they value. It's hard to respect someone who doesn't fight for something they value. (Those who don't fight for such things--regardless of their political opinions--because they don't recognize the power symbolism in the first place, they are simply idiots. Such people exist on the political right, left, and in the center.)

What would change all this? I'm not sure.

Kudos to supporters of the Kerry-Edwards campaign for at least trying a few years ago. Here are two images evoking Revolutionary patriotism used with the campaign. But do you recall their use? I didn't think so. If you're a liberal, there's some chance you don't take to patriotic symbolism--perhaps particularly Revolutionary symbols (after all, you didn't take to these two shown here, right?)--or if you do, you won't fight to claim it as your own as an American. And if you're a political conservative, you were never very aware of non-conservatives communication efforts in the first place. (Political communication efforts on the left are generally pretty bad anyway.... You didn't miss much.)

A British friend remarked several years ago how the national flag itself, the Union Flag or "Union Jack," became so associated with not just the partisan adherence to the Conservative Party but rightist and anti-immigrant organizations in the UK that it all but disappeared from private use by the vast majority of the population. But, it was gradually reclaimed after New Labour came to power and, especially and more importantly, after the nationwide holiday and festivals of the Queen's Jubilee in 2002. Those events reflected and fostered unusually widespread national pride that was not based primarily in fear or defiance such as can occur in a nation after it is attacked. It was a time of greater national unity. Granted, it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison since the British attitude towards the Union Flag has always been complicated compared to American attitudes towards symbols of the Revolutionary past broadly and especially the American flag in particular. The Union Flag is subject to no standardized code of use, it was created initially for use only at sea (technically it is still a criminal offense to fly the Union Flag from a boat in the UK), and it repesents a union of kingdoms and identities (Scottish, English, and later also Irish)predating modern nation-states with their clear identities and tidy written constitutions.

So, if unifying events in the UK shook ultra-conservatives' strangle hold on the Union Flag, it may be the case that a greater feeling of national unity based in positive pride will be needed before the American political left in all its diversity more widely uses patriotic symbols, including symbols evoking the Revolution and, relative to the minority of non-conservatives who let themselves feel robbed of it, the American flag. In the meantime, to lay the groundwork for that, and completely setting aside a discussion of new symbols, I can think of three symbols of the Revolutionary era--in this case all three are flags--that may be of use in political communication and organizing and that, I think, may not lend themselves as easily to manipulation by Americans wedded to the politics of division, anger, grievance, and an echo-chamber in which ideology and sloganeering dominate.

The flag of the Green Mountain Boys, the Vermont militia of Ethan Allen. The flag might serve to remind us all of Allen, a nice mix of skeptical rationalist and a determined patriot from a state known for its natural beauty, high well-being rating in surveys on health, and an independent streak that nevertheless has never really manifested itself in anything approaching secession.

Then there's the flag of the Bucks of America, the only all-black militia of the Revolutionary War. The flag might serve to remind us of the diversity of patriots, and the buck is a noble creature to be sure. It's also interesting that like the "Dont Tread On Me" Gadsden, it has a yellow background.

The Taunton flag might serve to remind us of national unity as well as liberty: the words on the flag literally spell this out. The Tea Party movement seems all liberty and no Union. What is more, their notion of liberty seems less than genuine when it comes to social issues.

One might argue against these. All three flags were originally regional and all but the Taunton flag remained so, the Bucks flag rather oddly has the initials of a dead 8-year-old on it, no original Taunton flag exists to absolutely confirm its look (but written descriptions exist and it is currently accepted historical fact that it was the first display of the word "Liberty" on a flag), and the Taunton also preserves the British flag of the time in its canton. (Oh well, so does Hawaii's, and what the Taunton flag petitioned for was colonists' full rights under the same English common law from which, in part, springs our own as Americans under our Constitution.)

In the end, what matters is not only the old symbol itself. That does matter, which is in part why museums and archives exists. But, such symbols also matter, especially in political communication, based on how they're used, perhaps re-interpreted. This is something the Tea Party organizers understand well. I guess I'd just prefer it if the Tea Party didn't end up successfully appropriating all the symbols of the America's Revolutionary heritage.

Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy

The Great Depression ended the last comparable Gilded Age, of the 1920s, and brought about major reforms in American government and business. Not so the Great Recession. Last week, as the Fed’s new growth projections downsized hope for significant decline in the unemployment rate, the Commerce Department reported that corporate profits hit a record high. Those profits aren’t trickling down into new jobs or into higher salaries for those not in the executive suites. And the prospect of serious regulation of those at the top of the top — the financial sector — is even more of a fantasy in the new Congress than it was in its predecessor.

Wall Street is already celebrating the approach of bonus season by partying like it’s 2007. In The Times’s account of this return to conspicuous consumption, we learned of a Morgan Stanley trader, since fired for unspecified reasons, who went to costly ends to try to hire a dwarf for a Miami bachelor party prank that would require the dwarf to be handcuffed to the bachelor. If this were a metaphor — if only! — Wall Street would be the bachelor, and America the dwarf, involuntarily chained to its master’s hedonistic revels and fiscal recklessness with no prospect for escape.

As John Cassidy underscored in a definitive article titled “Who Needs Wall Street?” in The New Yorker last week, the financial sector has paid little for bringing the world to near-collapse or for receiving the taxpayers’ bailout that was denied to most small-enough-to-fail Americans. The sector still rakes in more than a fourth of American business profits, up from a seventh 25 years ago. And what is its contribution to America in exchange for this quarter-century of ever-more over-the-top rewards? “During a period in which American companies have created iPhones, Home Depot and Lipitor,” Cassidy writes, the industry reaping the highest profits and compensation is one that “doesn’t design, build or sell a tangible thing.”

It’s an industry that can buy politicians as easily as it does dwarfs, which is why government has tilted the playing field ever more in its direction for three decades. Now corporations of all kinds can buy more of Washington than before, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and to the rise of outside “nonprofit groups” that can legally front for those who prefer to donate anonymously. The money laundering at the base of Tom DeLay’s conviction by a Texas jury last week — his circumventing of the state’s post-Gilded Age law forbidding corporate campaign contributions directly to candidates — is now easily and legally doable at the national level.

via www.nytimes.com

Nov. 1, 1860: The Last Ordinary Day

On Nov. 1, 1860, was less than a week before Election Day....

Lincoln held court each day in his borrowed statehouse office, behind a desk piled high with gifts and souvenirs that supporters had sent him — including countless wooden knicknacks carved from bits and pieces of fence rails he had supposedly split in his youth. He shook hands with visitors, told funny stories, and, answered mail. Only one modest public statement from him appeared in the Illinois State Journal that morning: a small front-page ad, sandwiched between those for a dentist and a saddle-maker, offering the services of Lincoln & Herndon, attorneys at law.

via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

Can’t Keep a Bad Idea Down

A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers.

via www.nytimes.com

Toronto Mayoral Race Turned Homophobic; Rob Ford Won

It’s civic election day in Toronto today, and the polls indicate a dead heat. By the end of the day, the new mayor of Canada’s largest city will likely either be George Smitherman, who happens to be gay, or Rob Ford, who has been featured on this site twice for ridiculous, homophobic conduct.

via www.slapupsidethehead.com

UPDATE: Rob Ford won the election with approx. 47% of the vote to Smitherman's 36%. Various other candidates (there were more than 20) obtained the remaining 17% of the votes.