Gideon's Blog

In direct contravention of my wife's explicit instructions, herewith I inaugurate my first blog. Long may it prosper.

For some reason, I think I have something to say to you. You think you have something to say to me? Email me at: gideonsblogger -at- yahoo -dot- com

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Tuesday, November 16, 2004
 
Probably because I've got a bad feeling about how things are starting out in the second Bush term, I've been thinking ahead, politically. I already posted something about 2006. What about 2008?

There's a good post at PoliPundit that rounds up the usual suspects. Some of his usual suspects I hadn't thought about - Judd Gregg, for instance, or Ernie Fletcher; I don't know much about them. I agree with many of McClure's points; I think Pataki is hopeless and awful, Hagel is a hairdo candidate, and Owens is a fading star.

I think McCain is going to sit it out, unless Giuliani actually goes for it, in which case he will campaign actively and heavily for Rudy. *If* that happens, then a lot of the early jockeying in 2007 will be about who represents the "Republican wing of the Republican Party" to knock Rudy out of contention, and the field could narrow earlier than I think. But I think, personally, that there's a very good chance Rudy doesn't run for President. Frankly, I think he knows he wouldn't get the nomination as things stand. But we're a long way out, so we'll see.

I do not think Condoleeza Rice is a serious prospect, but I'm surprised she doesn't even merit being dismissed from consideration. Ditto Elizabeth Dole; don't you think she's going to try again?

I like Mark Sanford alot, and I think he has the potential to be President some day, but probably not in 2008. He's still young, and would be an attractive VP choice to a candidate with less-than-perfect conservative credentials - much more attractive, electorally, than a lightning rod like Rick Santorum. I also like what I've seen so far of Bob Ehrlich, but he's unlikely for a lot of reasons. Also an interesting VP choice, though.

Bill Frist is presumed to be the front-runner, but I'm skeptical. I don't know if it's personality, the Senator thing, the Majority Leader thing, or what, but something about him doesn't say "future President" to me.

I agree with McClure that Kyl is an interesting prospect not often mentioned, and someone to watch. Along with Kyl, of the names that I know something about, George Allen, Tim Pawlenty and, to a lesser extent, Norm Coleman and Mark Sanford seem to me to be the undervalued properties in the 2008 market right now.

What's most striking about the list is how much longer it is than usual (remind me: how many serious candidates for President were there in 1996? In 2000?), and how much longer than the comparable Democratic list. Of course, the Democrats always throw up a bunch of nobodies and sometimes they pick one. But looking out at the field, there's Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson (more likely VP), John Edwards (in his dreams), Evan Bayh (too conservative), maybe Joe Biden, maybe Tom Vilsack. Who else? Al Gore? John Kerry? Howard Dean? Earth to pundits: Democrats don't renominate losers. Barack Obama is way to young and inexperienced; I'd be surprised if he got the VP nod, forget about the Presidential nomination. (Then again, I said that about Edwards . . .) I'm out of ideas. It's a very weak bench.

And one of them will probably be the next President, odds are.

 
Well, so far Bush is not taking my advice. Rice has gone to State, where I expect her to perform with a Democrat level of ineffectiveness. As a creature of Bush's, she'll have credibility abroad as speaking for the Administration, but by the same token she'll garner little respect in her own right. She has no proven management skills, so I don't expect the State Department bureaucracy to start functioning well under her. And she has no proven diplomatic skills, so I don't expect her to change the minds or hearts of any of the difficult characters we have to deal with abroad. I thought Powell was a weak Secretary of State relative to Jim Baker or George Shultz, precisely because he neither won the President's full confidence nor was able to effectively advance the President's agenda abroad. He was far better than Warren Christopher or Madeleine Albright, though. I fear Condi will represent a notable and further decline. She'll represent the President abroad. Whether she'll succeed in advancing his agenda is another story entirely.

The other departments don't matter so much to me. Gonzales looks like he'll be fine as Attorney General; a consolidator, which is what that department needs. Energy, Commerce and Education should probably be merged into other departments anyway, and the proposed replacements for these departments seem fine as far as it goes. And Agriculture I really know nothing about.

The real remaining questions are: will Snow and/or Rumsfeld go, and who will replace them?

Based on the record so far, Bush will be inclined to promote from within, and to promote people who are as nearly his own exclusive creatures as possible. Some on the right are spinning this as a sign of strength: Bush is moving boldly to advance his agenda. It doesn't look that way to me. If Bush was strong, he'd have *allies* he could rely on, rather than sticking exclusively with members of the "family."

 
The rais is dead; long live the rais.

Arafat died while I was in Japan, and what with jetlag and digging out from under a week of mail and email on my return, I haven't had a chance to blog about it. About Arafat himself, there is little to say. I can't be as magnanimous as my President, so let me just say this: may the souls of those who were killed at his command, and those who died at his urging, be permitted to bear witness when his soul comes before the throne of judgement. It is not for me to pray for mercy for his soul, but for them.

But as for the significance of his death: it will, I think, be disappointing. There are those on the Right who made the argument that things would be better without Arafat because then, at least, "we would know whom we are facing." I heard former Ambassador Dore Gold make this argument explicitly and I asked him: okay, once we know whom we are facing, what then? Once Hamas is in power in Gaza, what then? If the objective is winning debating points about the nature of the enemy, then yes, life without Arafat will be clarifying, because there will no longer be an Arafat pretending to be interested in peaceful coexistence. But that is not the objective. Israel has no more idea of a purely military solution to a confrontation with Hamas than it did to a confrontation with Arafat.

Meanwhile, the Left's hopes - mostly outside of Israel; the Israeli left is too disillusioned for hopes - have risen somewhat that Mahmoud Abbas, or whoever succeeds Arafat, will be open to a grand gesture by Israel, and therefore are already clamoring to pressure Israel to make such a gesture. But Abbas will be very lucky simply to live long enough to take nominal power. His actual power is likely to be very limited. And the notion that, with Arafat's body still warm, someone with such a weak power base would accept even what was offered at Taba and rejected by Arafat (which is the most that Israel will ever offer - more, in fact, than Israel will ever offer again) - the idea is absurd.

Finally, there are those who think, still, that free elections will bring to power a Palestinian leadership willing to make a deal with Israel. This is the neocon dream, and it will not die. Maybe - maybe - after a lengthy period of detoxification from the poison that Arafat poured into Palestinian politics, maybe then a truly pragmatic Palestinian Arab leadership would emerge, ready for a true two-state solution. But now? Today? Even if truly free elections were possible in a situation where armed gangs dominate P.A. politics, what makes anyone think that a majority of the Palestinian people want to settle for what was rejected? They are angry about corruption; they are angry at a failing strategy. But there is not an Arab polity on earth that accepts the presence of a Jewish state in their midst, not even Egypt, whose elites understand that the confrontation with Israel has, fundamentally, been counterproductive; not even Jordan, whose rulers know they have a certain common interest with Israel based on shared enemies. Even in these countries, who are formally at peace with Israel, the population - who have no rational interest in war with Israel, having suffered from such wars in the past - is overwhelmingly hostile to Israel, to peace with Israel, to the very idea of Israel.

This is Arafat's great gift to the region. Yes, he was a murderer, and a coward, and a particularly cowardly murderer. But, sad to say, murderers are not exactly uncommon. Arafat was also a great revolutionary leader. He embodied the cause that has dominated Arab politics for over fifty years. Since the death of Nasser and until Osama came along, he was probably the single most popular leader in the Arab world, and possibly in the larger Muslim world. And, because he never settled for any concrete achievement, he kept his cause alive at the cost - though he probably would not reckon it that way - of destroying not only the Arabs of Palestine but, to a considerable extent, the prospects of the entire region. If I am right that, had Arafat died in the 1970s or early 1980s, there was at least some possibility of a happier result in the Israeli-Arab conflict, then his life was yet another proof of the Great Man theory of history (albeit Arafat was, as Louis Farrakhan said of Hitler, "wickedly great.")

Now he is dead, but I suspect his legacy will not die so quickly. Left and Right alike are going to discover that without Arafat the situation is just as intractable as it was when Arafat was alive, and that Arafat's memory makes it nearly as difficult for the Palestinians to make a rational compromise as Arafat's living presence did. If Arafat had been removed from this earth twenty years ago, perhaps that would have made a difference (which is not to say that's all it would have taken for a solution to have been possible; Israel also would have needed to take the initiative, and been serious about compromise to solve the Palestinian problem). But now, after so much has happened . . . let's just say that I'd prefer to remain a pessimist. That way there's at least a slim chance I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004
 
Blogging from Japan, my first visit to the country. Got in last night, walked around for an hour, had dinner and collapsed in a heap. Meetings this morning followed by a lull after lunch, which gave me time to visit a Shinto shrine, followed by more meetings. Non-surprises: (1) Tokyo is super-clean. (2) The food is very good (I love Japanese food; Japanese breakfast this morning was a special treat). (3) The whole bowing thing has me regularly confused. Surprises: (1) lack of traffic noise. There are plenty of vehicles but much less noise than New York. Why? Have they figured out some way of muting the noise? (2) English. No, the waiters don't tend to speak English, but there is lots more English signage than I expected, which has certainly been helpful. And among those who speak English, the level of competance seems considerbly higher than I expected. (3) Security people not only at the entrance but also inside office buildings. And in pseudo-military costume (white gloves, epaulettes, etc.). Crime is very, very low in Japan, so what is this about? Status? Full-employment? (4) The Shinto gods drink sake. Shows excellent taste, I'd say.

So: enough about my trip. Shall we talk about the 2006 Senate?

After the last election, Democrats can make two consoling arguments: (1) the Senate was an uphill fight, with lots of open seats in GOP-friendly territory, so the lopsided result isn't as terrible as it seems; (2) Bush won only 51% of the vote, so even though it's the first majority since 1988, it's not a realignment of American politics. There are two problems with this consolation.

First, the problem isn't that the Dems happened to lose in GOP-friendly territory - it's that they lost even when they ran decent candidates, like Erskine Bowles. North Carolina has got to be the loss that bothers the Democrats the most, since Bowles had been ahead, had high name-recognition, and was a moderate, pro-business centrist. He's the kind of guy who is supposed to be able to win. Moreover, the problem is that the GOP appears better able to win on Democratic turf than vice versa, at least in the last two elections.

As for winning 51%: no question, that's no landslide. But the GOP retains a clear if thin structural advantage in the Electoral College, and the consequence is that they can *go* for 51%. And winning with 51% means, ideologically, moving the ball further down the field; a 51% majority is going to be more ideologically cohesive than a 60% majority, pretty much by definition. So if you go for 60%, you've got a more fractious coalition. I'm not just spinning here; there's a real sense in which the best outcome from a partisan perspective is a close but decisive election like the GOP just had. The Democrats, to win, can't afford to fight trench warfare over 150,000 or so votes in Ohio. They need to do what it looked like Kerry was trying to do early in the general election campaign: take the war to enemy territory in the Southwest and in the Upper South. The latter effort flopped massively. With the right candidate, the former is more promising. But regardless, they've got a tougher row to hoe than 51% would suggest.

In any event, the 2006 elections will be closely watched for signs of a backlash against the GOP. Knowing nothing but the fact that the GOP now has control of the entire government, and that Bush will be in his sixth year, anyone would bet on the Democrats picking up a number of seats. The GOP is in control of the agenda: they control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, and they just knocked off the Democrats' leader in the Senate. They will, logically, be held resonsible for anything bad that happens between now and November 2006. Furthermore, betting on a robust economy for the next two years is optimistic. We've been bumping along in recovery mode, more or less, for two years now, and interest rates are still at record lows. Either the economy is still shakey, in which case betting on two years of solid growth is optimistic, or the economy is going to heat up now, in which case interest rates should rise, which should cause things to slow down by 2006. Finally, the second year of a Presidential term is historically the worst for the stock market. I hope, of course, that everything goes splendidly on the economic front, but all else being equal that's probably not the way to bet.

All this augurs for GOP losses in 2006. But on the other hand, the landscape, surprisingly, is not so bad. Not as good as 2004, with five Southern seats abandoned by Democratic incumbents, but better than you'd think.

Let's look, first, at potential retirements. There are four Democratic Senators who may retire due to age or infirmity: Akaka of Hawaii, Byrd of West Virginia, Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Sarbanes of Maryland. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin is also rumored to be considering retirement, and John Corzine of New Jersey is likely to quit to run for Governor, so that's a total of six possible retirees. West Virginia is an increasingly red state, and Wisconsin is 50-50, but those aren't the only plausible wins. As noted, the GOP has shown an ability to win in Democratic states more than the other way around (Hawaii, Massachusetts and Maryland all have new Republican governors) so while Democrats should be presumptively favored in most of these races, none of these states should be counted out if the seats are open.

By contrast, potential GOP retirements are Burns of Montana, Frist of Tennessee (to run for President), Lott of Mississippi, Lugar of Indiana, and Thomas of Wyoming. None of these are easy states for Democrats to win in these days. In 2004, the Democrats got a pass in Illinois (where they were favored anyhow) and took Colorado as well; but Colorado, while it is still a "red" state, is changing demographically in ways that help the Democrats. Mississippi, Indiana and Wyoming are another story entirely. So there are both more potential Democratic retirees and the GOP retirees are in states that are relatively easy for the GOP to defend; if the Democrats win every blue state and the GOP wins every red state among the retirees, the GOP picks up West Virginia and has a shot as Wisconsin.

Of course, this is all highly speculative; no one, after all, has yet announced their retirement.

So: let's look at vulnerable freshmen. Not counting Corzine (who, as noted, is likely to quit), there are seven Democratic freshmen up for reelection in 2006: Cantwell of Washington, Carper of Delaware, Clinton of New York, Dayton of Minnesota, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska and Stabenow of Michigan. By contrast, there are only four GOP Freshmen up for reelection in 2006: Allen of Virginia, Chafee of Rhode Island, Ensign of Nevada, and Talent of Missouri. So again, knowing nothing else, the numbers favor the GOP.

But when you look at the individual races, things look even more GOP-favorable. Among the Democrats, Carper and Clinton strike me as quite safe; the other five are all distinctly vulnerable. Cantwell barely won in 2000. Yes, she's in a Democratic state, a state where the GOP can't even knock off the dreadful Patty "Osama is popular because he builds day-care centers" Murray. But with the right challenger, it's a possible target. Dayton is much more vulnerable; Minnesota is trending GOP, has a great organization, and Dayton is awful. Both Nelsons are in GOP-leaning states and neither is massively popular. And as for Stabenow, she is very weak herself and her state is eminently winnable by the GOP. The odds of the GOP taking several of these seats, even with strong candidates, is low; but the GOP has five real opportunities to try to pick off a weak Democratic freshman. They should be able to win at least one if they have any luck at all.

On the GOP side, meanwhile, Ensign and Talent strike me as reasonably safe, if not as safe as Clinton and Carper, and Allen should have a substantial tailwind given that he's from Virginia; the biggest risk is that Governor Warner runs against him. Chafee, meanwhile, may well switch parties if it comes to that, so this should be counted as a GOP loss regardless of who wins, but a loss doesn't really move the balance; Chafee, even if he stays in the GOP, will vote frequently if not usually with the Democratic caucus. So again, there appear to be distinctly more opportunities for the GOP to unseat Democrats than the other way around.

Finally, looking at the veterans unlikely to retire, I don't see any likely prospects for either party. The Democrats might try to knock of Dewine in Ohio, or the GOP to go for Conrad of North Dakota, but either is something of a long shot.

So that's how 2006 in the Senate looks to me: the Democrats have history on their side, the GOP has geography and Senate "Class" characteristics on theirs.

The governors' races in 2006 look potentially interesting, and the geography looks more encouraging for Democrats. It will be very interesting to see who wins in Florida, Ohio and Colorado, where GOP incumbents are term-limited out of office. All of these states are "purple" to one degree or another, and capture would be very heartening to the Democrats. Arnold Schwarzenegger should cruise to reelection in California, but George Pataki may pack it in back in my home state, and if he does that's promising territory for a Democratic pick up. (I'm curious to see if Spitzer runs for Governor, or whether he realizes that he has, in some ways, more power right where he is as New York's Attorney General.) Finally, there are a number of first-term GOP governors of blue states up for reelection for the first time in 2006: Lingle in Hawaii, Romney in Massachusetts, Ehrlich in Maryland. They should, by and large, be favored for reelection, but they won't get a pass. Where are the GOP opportunities for pick-ups? Not many. Red-state Democrat governors up for reelection include Freudenthal in Wyoming, Bredesen in Tennessee, Henry in Oklahoma, Sebelius in Kansas, and Napolitano in Arizona. Are any of these incumbents notably unpopular? Outside the clear GOP-leaning states, the best shots at knocking off a Democrat are probably Rendell in Pennsylvania and, if Vilsack retires, Iowa.

Finally: how does 2006 set things up for 2008? The number of plausible GOP candidates is very long, easily a dozen. Many of these candidates (e.g., Allen, Romney, Kyl, Sanford) are up for reelection in 2006. Others (Owens, Jeb Bush) are term-limited into unemployment. Others (Frist, Pataki) are rumored to be looking to retire from their current jobs to focus on the Presidential race. Yet others (Hagel, McCain) are not up for reelection in 2008. Still yet others (Giuliani, Ridge) do not currently hold elective office, and will not between now and 2008. It will be interesting to see how 2006 narrows the very wide field, or if it does. By contrast, there are far fewer plausible Democratic candidates, and most (Clinton, Richardson, Bayh, Edwards) are either shoo-ins to win reelection or have no current employment. 2008 looks likely to be the most fragmented GOP field since 1988; by contrast, the Democrats could well unite behind a consensus choice as early as the GOP did in 2000, for better or worse. Could make for an interesting dynamic.

Friday, November 05, 2004
 
Okay, a brief break from a discussion of tactics. Let's talk substance. How does Bush hit the ground running in the next few months? How does he set himself up for a successful second term?

I'm going to follow the same ground rules I did with the convention acceptance speech I wrote: the advice I give Bush is advice I think he *could* accept, realistically, and that I think he *should* accept, but I'm not predicting he *will* accept it.

So, with that basic ground rule in place, here are 10 pieces of advice for Bush. First five and staffing-related or domestic-agenda related. Second five are foreign-policy and diplomacy related.

1. Break up the neocon clique. No, don't conduct a purge. The neocons have some things right and some things badly wrong. But what they have most wrong is the conviction that they have everything right. They can't be permitted to continue to control one organ of American foreign policy - Defense - and conduct an internal war against their ideological enemies in other departments. Nor, for that matter, is it any longer acceptable to have the State Department effectively AWOL, unable or unwilling to advance the diplomatic agenda laid down by the President.

Bush has got to reorganize things. He's got to get someone at the NSC who is an honest broker and can act as a counter-weight to Cheney. He's got to get someone at State who shares Bush's larger diplomatic vision. And he's got to break up the neocon clique at Defense, and put someone in charge there who can consolidate what Rumsfeld achieved and correct what he messed up.

So: don't fire Paul Wolfowitz (the best of the neocons, by far) and don't promote him at Defense. Rather, move him over to State. Even, potentially, to the top job.

What, I hear you cry? Promote the guy responsible for the Iraq debacle? Are you mad?

No, I'm not mad. More to the point, I'm not getting even.

Look: people like to forget this, but taking out Saddam was bi-partisan, broadly-supported American policy. We almost fought a war to oust him in 1998. We made "regime change" national policy in 1999. John Kerry, in late 2001 as the Afghan campaign was winding down, said the real question was how do we shift and start taking action against Saddam Hussein. Blaming the neocons for our current mess is a bit too simple.

I blame these guys for, basically, three things: (1) believing Ahmad Chalabi; (2) taking that belief to the bank, and thereby concluding that we could plan a war that would *only work* under rosy scenarios; (3) shutting out all contrary information and cherry picking the information that did exist to make their case for war.

But, like I said, I think they got a few things right: (1) they're right that there's a fundamental, deep pathology in the Middle East, and that simply managing that pathology has gotten very expensive; (2) they are right that keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists is a paramount priority; (3) they are right that it is crucial that we appear the strong horse rather than the weak horse in dealing with the Middle East.

A purge of all the neocons would be counterproductive. We've got to separate the wheat from the chaff. Richard "Iraq is the tactical pivot" Perle and Doug "stupidest f---ing guy on the face of the earth" Feith are the chaff. Paul "hard to imagine [we'd need more troops post-war than to conduct the war]" Wolfowitz is the wheat

(Aside: anyone read the New Yorker profile of Wolfowitz? It confirms what I've been saying for a while: Wolfowitz was so strongly in favor of the Iraq war in part because he felt terribly guilty about the end-game in 1991: the betrayal of the Shiites, etc. Steve Sailer has a line, that one reason he's so pissed about Iraq is that he used to be able to say, "America doesn't start wars; we finish them" and now he can't. Well, he should realize that for Wolfowitz in particular, the Iraq war of 2003 *was* finishing a war, not starting one; it was finishing a war left unfinished in 1991. This also answers the "well, why don't we invade everyone" question: we invaded Iraq in part because we felt *responsible* for the situation there, which was the result of our *prior* war in Iraq. We don't similarly feel responsible for Robert Mugabe.)

So, if Wolfowitz is the best of the lot, and we're not going to fire him, what can we do with him? I suggest sending him to State for three reasons. First, it gets him out of Defense. We need to get new blood in there. Second, a neocon is needed at State for the same reasons that realists are needed at defense. Finally, State is where Wolfowitz's talents could get best use. His background is in diplomacy, his original posting being in Indonesia and his expertise in Asia generally. And Asia is going to be more important in this second term than it was in the last.

If we move Wolfowitz to State, to replace Powell, what other moves do we make?

Bush needs someone at NSC to replace Rice, who probably wants to go home. Her replacement should understand the military and diplomatic side of foreign policy, should have credibility with the President, and should be a counterweight to Cheney who is, effectively, a second National Security Advisor. One good candidate: Richard Armitage. He's tougher than his current boss, Powell, and the boys from State need a win if they're going to have Wolfowitz running their department. But I don't know what Bush's relationship with him is like.

As for Defense itself, I do think Rumsfeld has reached the end of his useful life. He's getting old, he's made his point, he's made some important mistakes, and he's alienated other parts of the government and (to some extent) other governments unnecessarily. If Rumsfeld was Rudy Giuliani, time has come to bring on someone more like Michael Bloomberg: someone who will carry on the same essential program but less caustically and with a greater managerial focus. Someone who will consolidate and continue progress on transformation but who has more appreciation for the grunt side of soldiering and the unfortunate necessities of modern warfare in the age of failed states.

If I had to put it in military personality terms: we've had enough of a fighter jock at Defense. But we don't want to take a step back and bring in an Old Army guy. What we need is a Marine.

Suggestions?

2. [Don't worry: the rest of the bullets are shorter.] Get a credible economic team in place. Look, let's not kid ourselves: Bush's economic policy guys have about as much markets credibility as my grandmother. Yeah, I know, Bush likes guys who make things, not pin-striped bankers. But John Snow is simply not taken seriously by anyone - on Capitol Hill or on Wall Street.

Bush has very big plans, supposedly, for reforming the tax code and for reforming Social Security. To push these plans through, he'll need somebody with credibility.

My own suggestion is: Roger Ferguson, Vice Chairman of the Fed. He's a classical "fresh water" economist, so that's good. He's a Greenspan protégé, which is good on a number of levels - political, ideological and in terms of likely base-level intelligence. He's written good things about the two most important priorities of our economic policy: to increase the domestic savings rate while continuing our strong recent record of productivity growth. And, while there's probably no legitimate reason to mention this, I will anyway because I think Bush cares about this sort of thing: he's black. And if Bush is going to lose Rice and Powell, he'll probably be looking for more "color" to add to the cabinet. Just saying.

Apart from Treasury Secretary, Bush needs someone of Larry Lindsey's quality back as his chief advisor. Feldstein is apparently being considered for the new Fed chair. If he doesn't get it, he'd be an obvious choice.

3. Bring back the Spirit of '86. I'm very skeptical of Bush's talk about reforming the tax code, because all his tax bills so far (especially the most recent one) added complexity and uneconomic loopholes to the law. Bush seems to think that any cut in taxes is a good thing, and this is not true; uneconomic loopholes are net losers for the economy in three ways. First, they encourage uneconomic allocation of resources. Second, they produce waste spending on lawyers and accountants who make it possible to shift assets in this way. And third, they naturally trade off against higher marginal rates on income, which are the worst broad taxes economically speaking. The Spirit of '86 is to go the exact opposite way: cut rates and broaden the base.

Personally, I favor a tax code based on taxing consumed income. Charitable donations and productive investment would be deducted from income. Net income could then be taxed progressively. Such a reform would encourage savings and investment by individuals, which is the only way to truly achieve economic security; would encourage higher savings in aggregate, which would address our most dangerous economic imbalance (or dependence on foreign capital); and would be much more politically doable than a shift from income to sales taxes because it would preserve transparent progressivity. As part of such a reform, I'd eliminate the estate and the corporate income tax, and tax all income at the individual level equally - whether that income was from wages, rents, investment or inheritance. I've written about this a number of times before; here's one place.

I think Bush would actually be pretty favorable to such an approach, but whether through inattention or lack of understanding or from having drawn the (wrong, in my view) conclusion that the most important question is the direction of tax levels rather than the structure of the tax code, Bush has gone in a very different direction: the code makes more distinctions, and more bizarre distinctions, between kinds of income than it did before Bush came into office, and more pork is disguised as tax cuts than before. So I hope he really does make a change and doesn't just make his existing tax cuts permanent and call it reform.

If Bush does want to seriously reform the tax code, I have two bits of advice. First, it might make sense to do Social Security and taxes together, because both would be structured as ways to encourage savings. Indeed, Bush's proposed Social Security reform amounts to a cut in the payroll tax, because part of that tax would no longer go to transfer payments but rather would become an asset owned by the individual taxpayer. And besides being mutually-reinforcing, both proposals will have to go through the same committee. Plus, Bush probably has a short window to try to push this stuff, before the 2006 elections start to dominate the calendar. So it might make sense to do both together.

Second, Bush needs some high-profile Democrat support. Bush should heavily court the most plausible Democrat supporters of each bill - Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh should be at the top of the list. The fact that the tax bill will (or should) be revenue-neutral on a static basis (and hence, hopefully, revenue positive on a dynamic basis) should make it much more possible to get Democrats on-board. I say Bush needs Democrats not because he needs to "bring the country together" or because he doesn't really have a "mandate" or whatever but because Bush is going to be asking people to sacrifice their per pork deductions and wrinkles in the code, and if he's trying to do that *and* pass the bill on a partisan basis, it'll never go anywhere. GOP Senators and Reps will be too worried about giving local opposition ammunition for 2006.

4. Get a serious manager in charge at Homeland Security. Does anyone think Tom Ridge has made this cobbled-together department functional? No one I know. Ridge clearly wants to leave, to start running for President in 2008. (Good luck; I don't think he has a chance.) Bush is going to be tempted to try to get someone like Giuliani in the job, but I think that would be a mistake. He needs someone more like Bratton: a professional, a manager, a CEO. Someone who can fix broken systems and processes and inspire the troops, not someone who can win public support as a politician. The department has massive public support. Now it has to get working. Again, I don't have any real names in mind. Any suggestions?

5. Nominate Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice. It seems very likely that the first retirement from the Court will be Rhenquist, and that retirement could be imminent. Bush should seize the initiative in a creative way, and get two back-to-back victories in short order, by nominating Thomas to replace him, and then picking another judge who is conservative but not unacceptable to moderates - a Michael McConnell, say - for the empty slot.

Why do this? Why go through two fights for one seat? Four reasons.

First, Thomas would be an excellent Chief Justice. He has a good judicial temperament, which is surprisingly rare. Scalia, his supposed partner in crime (they actually disagree about the average amount) is increasingly caustic, even bitter in his writings. It is impossible to see him uniting the Court. A nominee from outside would be just that: an outsider. Thomas is already a known and respected quantity to the other Justices and his opinions have been sober, even restrained. He's young, so the other Justices would know he'd be around a long time, which, I think, would incentivize everyone to work together. (After Thomas, I'd say the Justice with the most judicial temperament is Breyer, so I'm really not talking about ideology here.)

Second, he's the Justice most in-tune with Bush's own philosophy. Thomas' jurisprudence is rooted in natural law, the notional that the Constitution, while it should be construed strictly, must be read in light of some underlying principles, and these are, essentially, the idea of natural right as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That's not quite the same thing that Scalia thinks, but it is probably close to what George W. Bush would think, if he thought about such things.

Third, he's not Anthony Kennedy, the worst possible choice of those currently on the Court. Kennedy wants that Chief job *so bad*, but he would be terrible. Kennedy manages the extraordinary feat of being both a liberal activist *and* a conservative activist, depending on the case and the issue; the only continuity in his opinions is that Anthony Kennedy knows best. O'Connor is also highly idiosyncratic, but she's more restrained in her opinions; she doesn't re-write the Constitution on a whim, she just wants people to ask her permission before passing a law that someone might get upset about.

Fourth, the politics would work out very well. Who, precisely, is going to vote against Thomas for Chief? He's already on the Court! How can you say he's unqualified to run it? Bush thereby gets a win that pleases his base with very little risk. Then he appoints someone acceptable to the base but who's also acceptable to moderates - again, I think Michael McConnell would be an excellent choice - to fill the empty slot, and gets another easy win. With two victories under his belt, and his base happy, Bush should have more political capital to spend in the future and more lattitude in choosing the replacements for other Justices who may retire - O'Connor, Ginsburg, Scalia and Stevens are all possibilities.

6. Go to Asia. Kerry had a real point that the Bush years have seen a real upsurge in anti-Americanism. But the picture is more nuanced than that. The Europeans are pissed off for a long list of reasons, some legit, some not, but many of the legit ones are actually structural; they reflect real changes in our interests. Outside of Europe, anti-Americanism is much more complicated. The Middle East is, of course, a special case, but we are not universally reviled, for example, in Asia. And Asia is going to be very, very important, not just in the next four years but for the next forty. It is much bigger than Europe, more economically dynamic, is more unsettled politically and has numerous regional rivalries. It contains the most plausible future rival for American influence, regionally and globally - China; the world's biggest Islamic nation - Indonesia - which in turn controls the arteries through which flows much of the trans-Pacific trade; and on the periphery sits one of America's staunchest allies - Australia. We are the only honest broker from the outside who can mediate the dangerous potential disputes in the region, and we are also overwhelmingly dependent on the region for capital. And I haven't even mentioned Taiwan or North Korea. Bush should take a big Asian tour, visit Japan, South Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam - with John Kerry! - if he can think of a good excuse, even extend the trip a little bit westward to take in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bush would be delivering several messages: that Asia matters; that we care about America's image abroad, and our relations with other states; that our foreign policy is not a one-dimensional focus on terrorism; and that Europe's pretensions to being the center of the universe and the arbiter of the global "community" of right-thinking states are just that: pretensions, and empty ones at that.

7. Go to Latin America. Bush promised a Latin focus in his first term. For understandable reasons, we didn't get it. But we're no longer dealing with benign neglect; the region is starting to fall apart. Time to get some new focus south of the border. I think Bush should have three priorities, plus one overriding imperative.

Bush should make it a high priority to expand the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Chile, El Salvador and Colombia should be top targets for inclusion. Bush should make it clear that he's not trying to build an exclusionary trading bloc, but that countries that have reached a certain level of economic development, with a certain degree of respect for property rights and so forth, and which trade a lot with America are natural partners, and that free trade with such partners serves both parties and the world at large. This is something our friends in Latin America want, and we should reward them; plus it is truly in our own economic interest.

Bush should offer visible, vocal and substantive support to the government of Colombia. They are fighting the good fight in their own war against terrorism, and they are increasingly under threat from their volatile neighbor to the east, Venezuela. They have been an ally of ours, and we should show ourselves to be an ally to them.

Bush should openly court the friendship of the President of Brazil. Brazil is making a real bid to be the regional hegemon, and to that end Lula has tried to tie Argentina ever tighter to Brazil economically and to forge relations with Venezuela's Chavez. Chavez is a real problem, but Lula is a popular politician and not nearly as bad as some on the right make him out to be. Bush should work overtime to demonstrate that we want to be friends with countries that stay on the democratic path. It's not inconceivable, as well, that Lula could be helpful in dealing with Chavez. In any event, I think this would be a very low-risk gesture that could very much pay off.

Finally, the "overriding imperative." Bush has to sit down with Vicente Fox and have a little chat. "Vin" he should say, "last year I proposed an immigration plan that you said was perfect; gave you exactly what you wanted. Well, that plan almost killed me. I can't help you if you don't help me. If you want a guestworker plan of some kind, you have got to do whatever can be done to get people to stay in Mexico. Whether it's developing the south or finding jobs in northern Mexico for internal migrants, you have got to help reduce the incentives for people to migrate to El Norte. And you have got to do more to prevent criminals from escaping over the border into the USA. If you give me this cover, I'll try to get you what you say you need. If you don't, I can't risk my Presidency over this. And the alternative to my approach is much more punitive for Mexico, as you well know."

8. Have a chat with Arik. As long as we're sitting down and having confidential chats, Bush should have one with Ariel Sharon. It wouldn't be terrible if he had that conversation in Jerusalem, but I've already got Bush doing a lot of travelling. "Arik," Bush should say, "you've been through a lot. And we've stood with you through a lot. Your fight against terrorism and our fight against terrorism are one and the same. I'm not under any illusions that without Arafat suddenly peace is going to break out, and neither are you. We both know that peace is not going to come between Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, until there's a real change in the culture, a renunciation of anti-Semitism, and the acceptance of Israel in the region. But we both know as well that no such change is possible while Israel is ruling millions of Palestinians, and that the longer Israel holds on to the territories, the harder it will be to establish a Palestinian state separate from Israel, and the more likely it is that Israel will be transformed into an unstable bi-national state. Arik, I've given you a lot of diplomatic cover for a withdrawal from Gaza, supporting Israel's right of self-defense and maintaining that any map of a Palestinian state reflect facts on the ground that have changed since 1967. We're not going to back down from our commitments. Now it's time for you to deliver on yours. I need you to fulfill your commitment to withdraw from Gaza, on schedule and without equivocation. I'm not asking you to do anything you haven't already promised to do. I'm asking you to fulfill your promises. And if you can't do that, I need to know that now, and you need to know that there will have to be a consequence."

Why do I think Bush should have such a chat? Because I believe Ariel Sharon wants to do exactly that - withdraw from Gaza. It will only help him internally for the folks to his right - like Bibi - to know that Bush considers Israel to have made a commitment. Bibi's not a fool; there's a limit to how far he'll push things for electoral advantage. He's not going to jeopardize relations with America. At least I hope not. The purpose has nothing to do with relations with the Arab world or Europe; if Bush advertises such a message, it would backfire, because Sharon can't look publicly like he's surrendering Israeli interests to American pressure, and the objective is to get out of Gaza, not to win debating points in Paris.

9. Convene a conference on Islam and Democracy. Okay, this is a bit of a hokey PR stunt, but it's important anyhow. I think we should all take it as inevitable that Islam is a rising force; the question is the character of the Islam that will rise. I've said before that I'm optimistic that the AKP in Turkey will prove a positive development in the long run, albeit a negative development for Turkish-American relations in the short run. Bush needs to get out the message that we're not trying to install puppet regimes througout the Muslim world, or that our friendship and peaceful relations is dependent on subservience to America. If the regimes of the region take a hard line on terror and don't threaten our interests, then we don't mind if they develop along the lines they prefer culturally and politically. If it can be articulated as *consistent* with Islamic values, I suspect democracy will, in the long run, prove popular. A few points about the conference. It should take place in the region, not in America. (Tunisia would be an excellent location.) It should prominently feature non-Arab Muslims - Muslim leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, etc. We should move heaven and earth to get Sistani to come. Bush's Secretary of State at a minimum should address the conference, if Bush doesn't do so himself. But it should not be sponsored by America; any vetting we do of participants (and we should do that) should be very behind-the-scenes. I know this sounds like a really hokey idea, and I'm as skeptical as everyone else about the whole project of transforming the Middle East. But it's not black and white, and some effort to move that part of the hearts-and-minds agenda is certainly worthwhile.

10. Expand the Proliferation Security Initiative. This is the germ of Bush's effort to contain the spread of nuclear arms, and Bush needs to build on it. We need to offer real carrots to states who allow their nuclear facilities to be effectively run by foreigners charged with preventing proliferation. Bush should probably convene a commission headed by former Senator Sam Nunn and current Senator Dick Lugar to make recommendations on this; they know a good deal about the issue from their work on the post-Soviet states. The P.S.I. is basically all sticks, and that's good, and we need to get even more cooperation from other countries to tighten the cordon. But we also need carrots.

That's my list. I think that's enough for the first few months.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004
 
So, before we move on to something, I dunno, substantive: how'd I do as a prognosticator?

Well, back in September, after both conventions but before the debates (remember I was underwhelmed by Bush's convention) I predicted Bush 296 Kerry 242 and a popular vote margin of between 2% and 4%. I predicted Kerry would narrowly take New Hampshire, Minnesota and Maine, and that Bush would narrowly win Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. Kerry won Maine decisively, but otherwise that list is correct. The only state I got wrong: Wisconsin. I really thought Bush would take it. It's still conceivable that he does, after they count all the ballots, just as it's still conceivable Kerry wins Iowa after all the ballots are counted, but right now Kerry is ahead and I imagine that's where it'll end up. Still, I'd say that's a pretty good call, on both the Electoral College and the popular vote, from 5 weeks out.

Of course, I also made calls on the Senate, where I was way too pessimistic. I predicted GOP losses in Alaska, North Carolina, South Dakota and Oklahoma (!), and GOP wins in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Colorado (oops) for a net pickup of 1 seat. Instead, we have a GOP pickup of *four* seats - they won everything they possibly could win except Colorado. In retrospect, my calls on Colorado and Oklahoma were based on pure ignorance; I didn't know much about either candidate in either race and so took a wild swing. I'm genuinely impressed by the turnaround in North Carolina, albeit I thought Bowles would have made a fine Senator, the sort of Democrat the GOP can work with (and much, much better than Edwards). Alaska and South Dakota were just my pessimism, which turned out to be unfounded. It was a big GOP night in GOP country. Back in September, I expected more ambivalence - on both sides of the aisle.

 
My son made the New York Times! Check it out: that's me with the adorable kid (if I say so myself) on my shoulders standing in line behind Senator Chuck Schumer waiting for my turn to vote. Moses was impressed by the turnout, but on the whole he preferred the playground to the polling station.

 
Okay, I'm going to bed. Four years ago, I went to bed thinking Gore had probably won. Woke up and found out nobody knew who won. Tonight, I'm going to bed thinking Bush won. He's up several points in Ohio and New Mexico and there no sign of either state turning aroud. That gets him 274, just 3 more than last time. Tomorrow morning I'll find out if he squeaked by in Wisconsin, Iowa or Nevada to pad that total. If he gets all three, my September Bush prediction of 296 Electoral Votes will be spot on. (In fact, every state would be spot on.) But I wouldn't be at all surprised if he lost all three of those states, albeit by close margins.

Things look very good for the GOP in the Senate meanwhile: pickups in Georgia, both Carolinas, Louisiana, and it looks likely for Florida and South Dakota, though the latter two will surely go to recounts and potentially litigation. Offsetting losses in Illinois (certain) and Colorado (likely) mean a 3 or 4 seat pickup depending on what happens in Alaska. That's 2 seats better than I thought back in September.

Three thoughts re: likely Democratic recriminations tomorrow:

- Iowa is now absolutely tied. I really hope Bush wins it, just so that Democrats can think the following. John Kerry became our nominee because Iowans thought he was the most electable candidate. The Iowa Democrats couldn't even predict who would be most electable to their fellow Iowans! Why on earth are we listening to these people?

- John Edwards was picked as the Veep nominee because he'd help in the South. We lost every Southern state, including Florida, and every Southern Senate seat, including Edwards' old seat. Meanwhile, we lost Nevada (maybe) and New Mexico by squeakers, while we won (maybe) the Colorado Senate seat running a guy named Salazar who was credible with both Hispanics and rural whites. Maybe with Bill Richardson on the ticket, the whole Southwest would have been in play.

- We ran a lousy campaign with a lousy nominee against a wartime President with a fairly decent if not spectacular economy and all the advantages of incumbency and we came pretty darn close to winning. This party (the Democrats) still has something of a tailwind. If we could figure out how to fly this plane, we could go places.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004
 
I had been intending to write something quite extensive about today's election, but the pressures of work (you know: what they pay me to do) have made it impossible.

Contrary to what you might think, given that (for a New Yorker at least) I'm a pretty conservative Republican, this was not an easy election for me. Going into the 2000 election, I wrote a 20 page essay explaining why I was voting for Bush when everyone in my family was voting Gore. I was genuinely conflicted, then, because I faced two candidates with character flaws I thought were serious. But one had run a good campaign on a platform I basically agreed with, while the other had run a terrible campaign on a platform I basically disagreed with. Going into the 2002 mid-terms, I was fired up about a President Bush who had passed a bunch of his domestic agenda, won a war in Afghanistan, and made me proud to be a Republican. My character concerns with respect to Bush went substantially into abeyance. Needless to say, since then they have returned with a vengeance.

This time I'm faced with two candidates with serious character flaws - and *neither* is running a good campaign on a platform I basically agree with. And the stakes are higher than they have been in over 20 years.

In my heart, I know President Bush does not deserve reelection. As Steve Sailer put it: if you reward the kind of behavior he has displayed, you'll get more of it. If Bush wanted my vote, he should have levelled with me, given me some indication that he has learned from his mistakes, that he knows he has made mistakes. He hasn't.

In my gut, meanwhile, I want to vote for the guy who is going to kill evildoers. The President whom Bush most resembles in American History is Andrew Jackson, and 3+ years after 9/11 I am still in a pretty Jacksonian mood.

But I don't want to make decisions with my heart or my gut. I want to make decisions with my head. I'm not awarding a prize to the one who deserves it, nor am I voting to gratify my own emotional needs. I'm voting to choose who would be the best President: Bush or Kerry. That means weighing incommensurables like the two candidates' respective (profound) character flaws as well as their policy preferences as well as their likely ability to achieve their objectives.

In the end, I'm sticking with the President. I expect very little of him domestically in the next four years; his campaign has done nothing to build up political capital and I don't think he's got any interest in doing anything. And after the last two years, I'm increasingly convinced that if he tried to do anything he'd spend too much money and not do much to solve the problem. (See, e.g., Medicare "reform".) But this is an election about the war, and everything else is secondary.

Outside of Iraq, I actually think Bush's prosecution of the war has been pretty good. He won an important war in Afghanistan doing exactly the opposite of what he did in Iraq and exactly the opposite of what his Democratic critics are saying he should have done. He's working to contain the most dangerous potential threat to America - Pakistan's nuclear bomb - and I don't hear Kerry saying anything that suggests he'd do better on that front. This (Pakistan) is one area where Bush's emphasis on personal loyalty is an asset, and where he's completely dropped his enthusiasm for spreading democracy. Good for him. While Bush's relations with France and Germany are terrible, his relations with many Asian governments are much better, and frankly, the Asians matter more. Bush has no idea what to do about North Korea. Neither do I. Neither does Kerry. Bush is severely constrained in how he deals with Iran because of the Iraq war. So is Kerry, and Kerry's inclinations on Iran are exactly wrong.

Then there's Iraq. Frankly, furious as I am that Bush has held *no one* accountable for Iraq, and that he has admitted *no* mistakes, I still think Bush is the guy to clean up the mess. Kerry's inclination is going to be to cut and run, and blame Bush. We can't do that. We have to make the best of the situation as we have it now. And Bush is the better guy to do that.

There's a long list of pro-Iraq-war types who are actually backing Kerry (Andrew Sullivan, for example) or who have talked as if they might (Max Boot, even Bill Kristol). I won't join them, and the fact that they've made this switch strikes me as very instructive. They urged Bush in a certain direction, cheered him on, to a great extent on the basis of scenarios that did not relate to reality. Now that reality has struck back, they are not abandoning their scenarios; they are abandoning their President. I was among their number once, cheering the President on. I'm not going to be among their number now, blaming him for not implementing their policies with the perfection they required.

Finally, a word about Israel. Most (~75%) Jews are going to vote Kerry today. Kerry has a sterling voting record on Israel that cost him exactly no political capital and about which he had to think not at all. This record tells us nothing. Things change completely once you're in the Oval Office, and Kerry's character does not offer comfort. Carter was favored by Jews over Ford, and Carter turned out to be about the worst American President for Israel. Meanwhile, a minority of more right-wing Jews, particularly among the Orthodox, are going to back Bush strongly. They think Bush is going to support the grandest ambitions of Israel's Right. They are wrong, too. *Whoever the next President is* Israel is going to have less absolute support from the American President than Bush has extended at times in his term. And no one understands this better than Ariel Sharon. He knows what Bush has given Israel: breathing space to restore their deterrent and diplomatic support for unilateral moves that retreat from much of the territories and consolidate Israeli control of what Israel intends to keep. He knows what Israel owes America in return: action on the ground. His most vociferous supporters in America will echo calls for his head, and if Bush pressures him to deliver they will call for Bush's head. I won't be among *their* number either. But their behavior will *also* be instructive, if they (and Bush) behave as I expect.

For myself, I voted for Bush in 2000 against a Democratic nominee with a truly sterling pro-Israel record (and an Orthodox Jewish Vice President) because I thought a President who was baseline supportive of Israel but didn't try to solve all their problems for them (as Clinton did) and who didn't raise expectations among the Palestinians (as Clinton did) would be salutary; I also thought a President who was baseline supportive of Israel but had better relations in the Muslim world (which Bush did, via his father) would be better for Israel. I still believe all of that. The American President - whoever it is - cannot change the fundamental realities of Israel's situation; he can only improve things at the margin. What Israel needed more than anything in the wake of Oslo's delusions was a dose of realism. Arafat, Bush and Sharon, each in their own way, have provided that, and the Left's illusions are (mostly) shattered, at least in Israel. (In Europe, they have been replaced by even more alarming delusions, and outright paranoia.) Now, the group that needs a dose of realism is the Israeli Right. Limor Livnat, a member of Sharon's inner circle, recently said that Sharon doesn't want to make the same mistake the Right in Israel always makes, of refusing the best possible deal and hence getting a worse one. Shamir rejected Madrid, so Israel wound up with Oslo; the far Right torpedoed the Netanyahu Premiership, and so got Ehud Barak and the terror war that followed Taba. Sharon is going to walk through the door that Bush has left open, I truly believe that. Because the next available door to walk through will not be as appealing. But it will cost him. If Bush tries to give him a shove through the door - as he may - that will cost *him.* But not from me. I've learned from 1992, when America's Jews abandoned a President - Bush's Dad - who had garnered a healthy share of their support in 1988 for a man - Clinton - who, for all his deep emotional connection to Israel, helped lead her down a garden path to near ruin. They made that switch even though Bush I was instrumental in helping to get the Ethiopian Jews to safety in Israel (an interesting story - Sudan's help in achieving that exodus may have played a role in the fall of that country to the Islamists), fought a war with Saddam Hussein that certainly improved Israel's strategic environment, and in general "did right" by the Jewish state. His sin was in pressuring Israel to stop settlement construction and in trying to get a comprehensive peace deal at Madrid. In retrospect, Israel would have been far, far better off had that effort succeeded than in going down the path of Oslo.

Why do I bring this all up? Because if Bush gets 4 more years, and in those years tries to steer Israel in the direction of its best interest, against those of its own rejectionists, I won't be shocked, and I won't be appalled. And if Kerry wins, and either recapitulates the diplomatic errors of the Clinton years or simply backs away from the kind of diplomatic support that Israel does need at times, I won't be shocked either. Even if he does have a Jewish brother.