Tag: Democratic Party

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ballot access political challengers

The Logic of the Instant Runoff

Reid Wilson, at the Washington Post, regales us with seven U.S. senatorial races where Libertarian Party candidates could swing elections, and thus control of the Senate. Last weekend at Townhall, I exhorted readers to work for transpartisan reforms “like term limits . . . and other measures aimed at greater representation, [such as] establishing ranked choice voting.”

The two articles are not unrelated.

Conservatives and libertarians are often united in wanting to replace progressive Democrats with small-government contenders. But they are not united in how to do this. Many libertarians balk at voting for hardline social conservative candidates like Rick Santorum and middle-of-the-road statists like John McCain.

So the Libertarian Party runs candidates that have in recent elections gained traction with voters — enough to pull independent voters away from Republicans and sometimes enabling Democrats to win.

Republican entreaties to libertarians (“you’re killing us out here!”) appear to be no more effective than libertarian entreaties to Republicans (“want our support? try taking your limited government stances seriously!”).

What to do? Republican partisans should support Instant Runoff Voting, which would

  1. Allow people to rank their choices for office, and
  2. Instruct vote-counters to take the votes of those who selected a No. 1 pick of, say, a Libertarian who garnered the smallest number of votes,  and add those ballots’ second ranked vote (either for a D or an R) as the vote to count in the “instant runoff.”

This would allow for better expression of voter preference, solving the “wasted vote” problem and ceasing to make the “best the enemy of the good.”

Alternately, Republicans could continue their course, trying to limit ballot access, thereby alienating more of the electorate and ensuring that Libertarian votes can’t also be Republican votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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video

Video: That Sense of Belonging

Democrats have it — do you?

Credits: h/t Krys Walker … Thanks, Krys!

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies too much government

What a Deal!

David Brooks, writing in the New York Times on Independence Day, cajoles Republicans to accept the deal that allegedly now faces them: Raise a few taxes (just a few!) in exchange for the Democrats going along with “a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or even $4 trillion.” After all, he writes,

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.

And then Brooks goes off on how unreasonable the Republicans have become, how abnormal.

Well, we can only hope.

There’s good reason for recalcitrance in the Republican party. Our beloved congressfolk do not have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. They keep increasing spending, year by year, no matter what the revenue actually is.

Increasing revenue — which is still not certain even if marginal tax rates get upped or “loopholes” get closed — does not solve the base problem, which is spendaholic politicians.

Besides, the “trillions” in cuts are in the future, while the taxes would be immediate. We’ve been burned on such deals before, like Lucy and Charlie Brown’s football.

There was a reason the New York Times chose Brooks for its “conservative.” He can always be counted to chatter “kick the ball.”

Don’t fall for it, Charlie Brown.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Listening to the Voters

After Scott Brown captured the U.S. Senate seat Ted Kennedy had occupied for decades, we heard two different views of the event.

One said the surprise victory of an obscure state senator over the anointed Democrat in such a Democrat-leaning state had much to do with growing antagonism to runaway federal spending and spastic efforts to expand federal control over our lives. That Scott Brown promised to vote against Obamacare supports this view. So do exit polls showing that 41 percent of participants “strongly oppose” the health care legislation, only 25 percent “strongly favor” it.

The other notion is that Brown won only because people are frustrated. President Obama declared that “the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept [him] into office.” People are “angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

See, it’s all Bush-legacy stuff, not anything Obama and the Democrats have been doing.

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

Not everyone’s wearing blinders. Soon after Brown won, Democratic Senator Jim Webb said the election had been a referendum on both health care legislation and “the integrity of the government process.” He urged fellow Democrats not to try ramming Obamacare through before Brown could be seated.

Hmmm. Listening to the voters. Good idea, Jim.

And it’s Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption too much government

That Other America

As we tramp forth into 2010, America’s great divide widens.

A recent Rasmussen poll shows a stark difference. Government workers see the economy getting better, while those in the private sector see it getting worse.

Different perspective or different reality?

Well, during this economic downturn, 6 percent of those in the private sector have lost their jobs, while public sector employment has dipped only 1 percent.

Stuart Varney with Fox Business News says, “If you’re a government worker, you don’t lose your job. You have a very rich and generous pension. You have a very generous health care plan. . . . You’re protected from the real economy.”

He also points out that, “[T]he three wealthiest counties in America . . . are all suburbs of Washington, DC . . . full of very well paid government employees and lobbyists. They are the beneficiaries of a great deal of taxpayer largesse.”

In a column for the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone notes that unions overwhelmingly support Democrats, contributing $400 million in the last cycle. Union members account for only 7.6 percent of the private sector, but a whopping 40 percent of public employees.

This leads Barone to conclude that there is a partisan interest in protecting public sector jobs. He writes, “In effect, some significant proportion of the stimulus package can be regarded as taxpayer funding of the Democratic Party.”

Whatever happened to “we’re all in this together”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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term limits

Unexpected Analogy

Senator Arlen Specter has been around a long time. When he changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat last week, he referenced his early public service on the Warren Commission. Mobbed by enthusiasts, he said, “I don’t think Lee Harvey Oswald had this big a crowd trailing him.”

That wasn’t a parting shot — Specter aims to stay in office. He only switched after polls showed that challenger Pat Toomey — about whose candidacy I reported the week before — would best him in the Republican primary.

Yup. Arlen Specter wants to stay in office so badly that he’s willing to carry on even after he has been effectively repudiated by his party of over 40 years.

Most of the commentary has been about how small a tent the GOP has become. Most pundits say this is bad for Republicans.

I’m not so sure. If the Democrats fail to usher in Nirvana in the next two years — if things, say, get even worse — a narrowed oppositional GOP could turn the electoral climate around pretty fast.

What most interests me, now, is that Specter’s affiliation-change shows how difficult it is to change currents in government. The old guard can flip, stay in power, and the power brokers switch chairs from friend to foe and vice versa.

If senators served under term limits, this whole issue — and the problem it reveals — would not even come up.

With term limits, a metaphorical Jack Ruby isn’t even necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Voter Intimidation You Can Believe In

Big labor is tired of the private balloting that workers currently enjoy when deciding whether to unionize. The unions want to get rid of such balloting. By law. There’s a bill floating around in Congress that would do this.

Is a President Obama going to sign it?

The unionized share of the work force has shrunk in recent decades. Many employees don’t see the benefit of joining a union. Because voting on whether to certify a union is done by private ballot, one can’t claim that they are scared of retaliation from the boss.

So what would unions gain from a law that bans private balloting?

Well, if union organizers know how people are voting, and people voting know that the organizers know how they are voting, there would be much more opportunity to pressure and even intimidate employees into voting the “right” way.

Unions hope this would help turbo-charge recruitment efforts. As columnist Donald Lambro puts it, passage of the bill would make it “easier to unionize workplaces without the bother of the private ballot to protect workers in a free and democratic election.”

This anti-democratic bill has been around for a while. But now the chances of passage have increased dramatically. Candidate Barack Obama, at least when addressing union crowds, often promised he would push to make it happen. Will he do so?

You can bet the unions are watching. So should we.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.