Sunday Question for Everyone

What's a gift you would like to give to a politician you like? This is for sincere, not sarcastic, gifts, but creative ones if you can think of them.

Catch of the Day

I think this properly should go to Noam Scheiber, although he cites another piece when he says:

Here's why it doesn't matter if Warren or her fundraisers say she's not running in 16: she cant possibly know herself 

We can refine this a bit, I suppose. She certainly might know if she's running right now, even though she wouldn't know whether she'll still be running by the Iowa caucuses. And she might want to deny running, even if that's the case. She also might have some reason to be absolutely certain that she would never run, even if the thing dropped in her lap.

But for many candidates at this stage, it's more ambiguous, and the particular structure on the Democratic side in this cycle makes it even more so. Presumably there are several potential candidates who are in if Hillary Clinton drops out, but out if she remains in.

For Clinton, as many of us have noted, it makes sense to delay the overt candidacy as long as possible; not only does that leave all her options open if she's really undecided, but even if she is clearly running for now there's nothing much to be gained by becoming an overt candidate.

The thing is, for Warren or Clinton or whoever, making the move from "doing everything one would need to do to be in a position to being an active candidate in the months leading up to Iowa" to an overt candidacy may very well depend on how the first part of things goes.

Which is to say that for actual politicians going through the process, the decision isn't so much of a "if you could be president would you do it" or even a "if you could be the nominee would you do it" as much as it is "considering the chances of winning both the nomination and the general election, which are constantly shifting, is it worth continuing to move forward?" Which leaves two potentially moving variables: the point at which the politician believes it's worth making the run, and the assessment by the candidate of how close she is to that point. What I mean is that some potential candidate (say, Elizabeth Warren) might definitely be up for being president if it was handed to her and definitely wouldn't run if it was a sure loss without having definitively decided exactly what her perceived chances would have to be for her to be an active candidate in 2016. So deciding whether to run really means figuring out both the odds of winning that make it worth running, and what the current odds of winning might be -- which includes both the overall emerging political context and, as time goes on, what's happening in her own not-quite-a-campaign.

Combine all that with some legal and some practical political reasons for candidates to avoid overt candidacies until fairly late in the process -- along with a system in which contesting the nomination actually begins (at least) three years before Iowa. So we have good reason to heavily discount whatever they say about their (current? possible?) candidacies.

Therefore, in real life, we don't really have two separate piles of candidates and non-candidates; we get a whole bunch of people who are in between. Especially in the first two years of the cycle.

In other words? A very good shorthand for all of that is "she can't possibly know herself." So: nice catch!

And Now, Humorous Credit-Taking

Earlier I watched a truly great politician moment: "Gang of 14" Senators going to the Senate floor and congratulating themselves for working out an agreement to re-open the government and raise the debt limit. Not the agreement; the actual deal was apparently only tangentially related to the Gang's. But an agreement, nonetheless. They are immensely proud of having participated in a process which had little or nothing to do with ending a shutdown almost three weeks in, and raising the debt limit at the last minute.

There are basically two ways to take this.

One of them, and the one I try to be in favor of most of the time, is to just enjoy the spectacle of politicians being politicians. Of course they want to present themselves as full of spirit of bipartisanship, not to mention can-do efficacy. Of course they want to present themselves as part of the Good Washington. It's silly, but it's what politicians do, and we need politicians, so why complain?

The other one, when I'm in a less charitable mood...start with the Republicans. Some of them (John McCain, in particular, whatever his petty, personal motives; sorry, can't help that) have been pretty good about fighting back against the radicals. Others? Not so much. And while obviously the first blame for all of this has to go to the radicals, the truth by all accounts is that the radicals were dramatically outnumbered in both the House and Senate Republican conferences. And yet those sane Republicans too often hid their beliefs, voting to go along with most, if not all, of the craziness that they themselves said was doomed. Don't forget: these seven Gang-sters voted unanimously over the weekend, with the rest of the Republicans, to kill a clean debt limit bill by filibuster. Granted, what the Senate did wasn't very important in the grand scheme of things, but they could have provided a bit of cover House Republicans. They did not.

Then there are the Democrats. Maybe they deserve a break; one way of reading the entire thing (and Brian Beutler has been good on this) is as a process of producing tough votes for Democrats to take. Still: these moderate Democrats, by predictably clinging to whatever Republicans they can find in order to constantly prove their distance from Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and all, help to enable those sane Republicans to actually act as irresponsibly as Tail Gunner Ted and his group.

The true humor in all of this was that the Senators actually finishing up the deal and how it was going to be handled were off the Senate floor because they were busy working on it; the Gangsters were congratulating each other for working together to reach a deal precisely because they had time on their hands while the real work was going on.

At any rate, as I said, pretty much this is just what politicians do, and if you want to have a functioning democracy, you're going to need some politicians, and no question about it but that even the best of the workhorses will still take the opportunity when available to show off in the winner's circle.

Catch of the Day

I really like Ezra Klein's analysis of the Cruz, Paul, Sanders, and Wendy Davis filibusters/extended speeches, trying to answer the question: why don't more Senators pull this stunt, since it seemed to work so well for the four of them? Klein has three answers: doing it is difficult and carries risks (of saying something foolish); it's usually unnecessary in purely legislative terms, at least in the current Senate; and it can be annoying and counterproductive.

All correct under current Senate rules and procedures.

It's not surprising, then, that the three Senators who have done it recently share quite a bit in common. They're all ideological outliers; Paul and Cruz probably couldn't do much legislatively even if they tried, and Sanders isn't quite in the mainstream of Senate Democrats, although by nature he seems far more interested in going along to get along than Paul and Cruz do.

At least Cruz and Sanders are also good talkers, politicians who definitely have the ability to make it up as they go along (I know less about Paul, and even less about Davis). Not that it's strictly necessary; at least if rules allow it, as they do in the Senate, extended speeches can consist entirely of reading written material, and as all of these cases proved the world will provide plenty of material for any filibustering politician to read once he or she gets a sufficient amount of attention. I'd add to this that arrogance is probably a plus: not just that they have the ability to talk off the cuff at length, but that they believe that they can do so and that they can change opinion with their efforts.

Moreover, it's no surprise that at least two of the examples were seeking higher office (I don't actually know whether Davis was already intending to do so, but I wouldn't be surprised).

What all this suggests is not only, as Klein says, are there disincentives for these long speeches, but they most likely work together to severely limit the number of Senators who are interested in it. Still, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are more of these in the future. Probably right up to the point where one of them implodes.

Also: nice catch!

Q Day 6: Predicting Good Presidenting Skills?

Yet another anonymous commenter asks:

Does Hillary Clinton display any skills at 'Presidenting' that set her apart from Biden, Cuomo, Warren, and company? How much of this can we determine from past achievements? 

If I had an answer for that question...

Here's, I guess, what I would say:

1. Experience is better than lack of experience. Broader experience is better than narrow: Clinton's particular strength is that she's been involved in state government, she's been, if not quite White House staff, pretty close to it; she's been in Congress (don't forget that she's been House committee staff as well as of course being a Senator); and she has executive branch experience, and pretty much top-of-the-line at that as Secretary of State.

2. Workhorse is better than showhorse; evidence that the candidate can master her brief is a plus, as is evidence of a good grasp of multiple issue areas, and evidence of coalition-building and working well with others within the political system.

3. Pragmatism is better than ideological crusading. Also, look for evidence in governing record, not rhetoric; Reagan was a more pragmatic governor, and president, than his rhetoric would have suggested.

4.  You do want someone with healthy political ambition; you don't want someone too prone to hubris. No, I don't really know how to judge that.

5. And, yeah, you probably want to avoid a Nixon-style hater. If you can figure it out, and separate it from health ambition and from partisanship. Good luck with that.

Anything else?

Catch of the Day

Have to give one of these to Dan Drezner, for celebrating the craven self-interest displayed by politicians in the Syria matter:

Look, this isn't rocket science:  the opposition party will always be more skeptical of administration policy. Throw in a nation that's pretty sick of war and pretty hostile to taking action in Syria and this is a no-brainer position to adopt for most Republicans.  This is particularly true since I suspect enough Republicans will join with most Democrats to give the administration the necessary authorization.

Old foreign policy hands will likely cluck a bit and disparage the shifting ideologies of GOP members of Congress in the name of political self-interest.  To which I say:  hooray for political self-interest!!  It's not like the status quo in GOP foreign policy thinking had been serving them all that well over the past few years. This isn't to say that I agree with the GOP on this issue, but for once, the American political system appears to be working as intended. 

Key point -- and one of my favorites -- is that for politicians, trying to do the right thing is highly overrated, if doing the right thing means trying to understand the policy the way that a scholar might, and choosing the best option in that sense. If we wanted a system that put the experts in charge, we could easily do so. But part of the reason for a democracy (as I argued over at the Prospect last week) is a bet that it actually generates better policy outcomes than simply turning things over to the experts would yield. That happens (if it does) when politicians use their strengths: chiefly, their skill at sniffing out the political advantages and disadvantages of a position.

Anyway: nice catch!

Elsewhere: Immigration, Age Limits, More

I'm mostly over at Greg's place this week, so I guess I should drop one of these "elsewhere" posts by now, no? Let's see...

Yesterday, I responded to an excellent Ezra Klein post and asked (and partially answered) the question of what should incoming Senators read?

This afternoon at Plum Line, I said that the "calendar" as an obstacle to immigration reform is bunk.

And I'm beating the drum again for eliminating minimum age requirements for federal offices.

More:

Why going to Congress before war helps presidents

Yes, people still dislike ‘Obamacare.’ But they also dislike GOP plans to undermine it.

Conservatives make selling them out really easy

The debt limit timetable

The Iowa caucuses aren’t going anywhere

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Great judge, terrible political analyst

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Amanda Bearse, 55.

And with that, I'm off on a long vacation weekend. Off to Vegas with my dad. I should get the normal weekend posts up at some point, I'll have a Salon column as usual, and it's possible I'll wind up doing another item at some point, but today and Monday should be fairly quiet around here.

Some good stuff heading into the weekend:

1. Garance Franke-Ruta on living the life...aw, I don't know how to pitch it.

2. This is fun: how old were they on July 4, 1776? Todd Andrlik has the answer.

3. And more fun: scouting reports on...presidents! From David Temple.

Yeah, This Doesn't Work

Chris Cillizza, on why Chris Christie is a strong candidate:

As Mitt Romney, John Kerry and Al Gore can attest — and not in a good way — being, or at least seeming, like an average Joe is critically important to your chances of winning.

Except...well, you know what Romney, Kerry, and Gore have in common? They won major party nominations! And that's where things such as candidate personality are actually important. As...George H.W. Bush can attest.

Or maybe Cillizza would say that Michael Dukakis failed "average Joe" too. But then...well, Bob Dole was no average Joe, and neither was John McCain. And you know who else was no average Joe? Ronald Reagan. Maybe there's a movie star exception.

Does Barack Obama seem like an average Joe? Republicans don't think so...I don't know. But even spotting him the last three presidents, for whatever that's worth, he's still not getting there. Far more nominees fail that test than pass it, and before the Clinton/W/Obama group, I'm not sure when the previous average Joe showed up. Truman, I suppose. Surely not FDR, and he seemed to be just fine as a presidential candidate.

For that matter, thinking about FDR, or McCain, or Reagan, or perhaps Obama, reminds us that in fact "average Joe" is only one of a number of politician personalities that can work just fine. That's part of what Richard Fenno talks about in Home Style -- part of a politician's promises have to do with the type of person he or she will be, personality included, but there are a wide variety of choices. What's important isn't picking the right one; what's important is acting, after the election, how one "promised" to act.

In other words...it's just another one of those things that some political reporters and pundits are used to saying, but five seconds of thinking about it reveals that it's pretty much nonsense.

Sunday Question for Liberals

Same question as the one for conservatives, also leaning on the 4th of July week and my Salon column yesterday about the importance of elections:

What politicians are you most proud of having supported?

Sunday Question for Conservatives

Here's one for the week leading up to July 4th. Long-time readers will recall that I'm an advocate of particularly celebrating politics and politicians on the 4th; I also have a new column at Salon this week on the importance of elections (warning, conservatives: you won't like my examples, but the piece should work with examples of your own).

At any rate, this gets to the question: what politician are you proudest to have supported?

Old, Old, Senate Update

Two special elections to replace two older Senators, with the late Senator Lautenberg an especially significant case (he was 89).

I think I've written about Massachusetts before, but it's looking very much like a wasted opportunity. Ed Markey, the solid favorite, will turn 67 in July. That's not young!

The Republican in the race, Gabriel Gomez, is only 47 (he'll be 48 in August). So there's some hope of a relatively young new Senator. But I'll be pretty surprised if he wins.

In New Jersey, the only Republican in the race so far is Steve Lonegan, 57. It's looking as of right this minute that he's reasonably likely to win the nomination, but not be a very strong general election candidate at all in the October special, so the real question appears to be on the Democratic side. Three candidates there: Cory Booker, 44; Frank Pallone, 61; and Rush Holt, 64. C'mon, New Jersey!

By the way, it doesn't matter much in the long run, but for whatever it's worth the new placeholder Senator from New Jersey, is...48. Or maybe 47. He was born in 1965, says his newly-updated wikipedia page, and we have him as a 1987 Notre Dame grad, but so far no date of birth.

Representation Works (Weirdly Enough)

Jordan Ragusa has a very nice post today using the business about PolitiFact ratings to write about research showing that, yes, Members of Congress keep their policy promises.

As I've discussed at length, but not recently, there's more to representation than just policy promises. That's on of the main findings of Richard Fenno's work: promises also include all sorts of things, including style of representation. Among other things, that to me, is the "solution" to the question of whether representatives "should" be delegates or trustees; the answer is that they should do whatever they said they would do when they were campaigning. But that's just one of the many things that can go into representative style and the representative relationship that politicians develop with their constituents.

At any rate, one of the things I find most interesting is why any of this happens. Ragusa is good on this:

Finally, if citizens are (a) unaware of who their elected lawmaker is and (b) as a result woefully ignorant of their representatives’ position on key votes, the question is: what keeps lawmakers honest?  The answer is that while private citizens may not know how their representative or senator voted, general election opponents and interest groups sure do.  Thus, while the electorate is generally inattentive to lawmakers voting record, the reelection incentive—and the threat of attack ads from one’s rival—keep lawmakers honest.

Indeed, in the underlying paper, Tracy Sulkin argues that risk-averse politicians will likely attempt to keep their promises as if they would get in trouble from abandoning them. That sounds right to me, as is her argument that politicians are probably likely to make promises in the first place that they have an interest in keeping.

What fascinates me about this, however, is that I really don't buy the idea that politicians, no matter how risk-averse, are really keeping promises because of electoral incentives. It just doesn't wash that it's a significant enough constraint. Especially when it comes to promises about representative style. What we know about the ignorance of voters is just very hard to square with the idea that they will punish their representatives' misbehavior.

Sulkin's suggestion that politicians may choose to emphasize particular issues (and presumably style) for personal reasons, rather than for electoral reasons, is promising.

But overall, I think it's one of the more puzzling problems in representation, and therefore in democracy. I have an old paper in which I try to get to it (it involves political parties, Arendt, and the "touch of Harry in the night" scene, and yes, I suppose I should try to do something with that paper). I do think that representation is real, and really "works," and that the fact it works is central to how democracy actually does what we want it to do...but the whole topic is filled with difficulty.

Dynasty Semi-Update

Is there a new wave of dynastic politicians coming to Congress?

National Journal's Sarah Mimms has the story... or, at least, the beginnings of the story, highlighting a bunch of dynastic candidates (Mike Collins, son of Mac; Michelle Nunn, daughter of Sam; Gwen Graham, daughter of Bob, and more) running or considering running in the 2016 cycle.

Regular readers will know this is a story I follow. So I'm interested. At the same time, I'd urge caution about concluding that there's a trend here. The way this works is that national reporters are more likely to notice the candidates from famous families who are running or thinking of running, and to collectively overestimate their chances. In this story, we have some candidates who are actually running, others who are being urged to run, and even one who is saying he would like to run when the current incumbent retires -- which, as far as I know, could be in 2014 or could be in 2024.

The point is that we're far more likely to hear from the national press that Brendan Johnson (son of retiring Senator Tim) "hasn't ruled out" a campaign than we are to hear that some state senator that no one in Washington has ever heard of has also not ruled out the contest. And so it's easy to get an exaggerated impression of how common dynastic politicians really are.

Which isn't to say that the actual number is the correct one, whatever it may be.

Catch of the Day

Well, some days, you don't have much of a choice, do you? The catch has to go to economists Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin, who have a new paper out demolishing Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff on the effect of high government debt on the economy -- with a big assist to Mike Konczal, who wrote a clear and readable blog post explaining the conflict nicely.

The headline here is that Reinhart and Rogoff apparently made a simple computation error, but the Herndon-Ash-Pollin critique goes well beyond that -- as do other critiques previously aired (disclaimer: I haven't read either paper; I'm just relying on what economists and economics-literate bloggers and reporters are saying).

While it's probably a good idea to be cautious of the critique (just as it would have been a good idea to be cautious about the original paper), it certainly isn't good news for preachers of austerity.

I've seen some snark on twitter suggesting that no one who has recommended austerity, including those who specifically cited Reinghart-Rogoff as their reason, will flip as a result of this. That's probably correct! But only because it's extremely unlikely that very many people really relied on economics in the first place.

So my guess is that this debunking will get exactly as much weight now for most people as the original paper had: very little.

A more complicated question is how much should economists count towards economic policy? After all, if the profession is capable of making a mistake this big (apparently), should they be trusted? The answer, I would argue, is that politicians should certainly make use of economists -- and other experts -- but be very wary about hearing only what they want to hear. That's a lot easier said than done, and it doesn't really give policymakers any clear, bright rules, and it doesn't even assure success if you're good at it. All it does is increase your chances of policy success. But that's still worthwhile!

That is, all of this does really point to a key governing skill: being good at sifting through expert advice. And perhaps the first thing about that is that a politician will only be good at it -- only get good at it -- if she realizes that it's important and really tries to do it. As opposed, say, to simply choosing policy and then seeking out supporting expert opinions. Because one can always find expert support, no matter how goofy the policy preference. Again, however, even if you go about it the right way -- even if you are looking for what the experts really do think, and you want to take that into account when choosing policy -- it's still going to be extremely difficult to be good at it. Especially when you realize that policy-makers in general,  and presidents in particular, must do it across an impossibly wide range of policy areas which involve all sorts of different disciplines. Each of which has its own internal debates. Many of which have entirely different forms of credentialing and peer review. Most of which ever have a definitive answer -- but all of which have people who promise that what they have found is the definitive answer.

Also: nice catch!

Sunday Question for Everyone (1)

Off format this week just for a little variety...I won't divide these by conservative/liberal

As regular readers know, I'm a fan of John Seary's arguments about the minimum age for elected officials. Currently the minimum age for President of the United States is 35, Senate is 30, and House of Representatives is 25. What should it be? Are there any other changes (in any direction) for qualifications for office that you would make?

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Jonathan Demme, 69. I don't understand why Paul Le Mat didn't become a star, but I guess that's for another day.

So let's get to the good stuff:


1. Ross Douthat on Republican reformers and the states.

2. Good Conor Friedersdorf piece on the GOP-aligned partisan press.

3. They send letters, don't they? Official ones. Dave Weigel on a 19th century custom that works for the 21st century.

4. And I'm very proud of my brother's obsession with politicians at work.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Seth Green, 39. Mostly, as you might guess, because of Oz -- but I'm definitely a big Radio Days fan, too. And he was in Can't Buy Me Love, one of the greatest movies ever set in Arizona (okay, it's a short list. Even shorter if you limit it to modern, real-life Arizona. Psycho, if you count that. There are others. And, yes, there are lawns in Tucson for Lawn Boy to mow).

Some good stuff:

1. Jonathan Chait on the same topic I was on yesterday, sane Republicans. He does call them moderates, though.

2. Stan Collender on all the budget deadlines coming up, and how they may interact.

3. Dan Drezner's autogenerated Iran post.

4. The Democrats defend social science funding; John Sides has it.

5. And a great one from Marin Cogan on (mis)identifying Members of Congress.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Jacob Cruz, 40. Continued playing, and usually hitting, in the minors up through 2010, including stops in Korea and Mexico. Would he have made it if he was handled differently? Probably not, but we'll never know. I always liked him.

Some good stuff:

1. Jennifer Victor pivots off the schmoozing discussion to talk about social networks and why they matter.

2. Andrew Rudalevige on the recess appointments decision.


3. Patty Murray as Senate Budget Chair; Matt Yglesias is right about this.


4. Dan Larison listened to Bobby Jindal. He was not impressed.

5. Andrew Sprung on Obama and moving public opinion (and me).

6. And Chris Cillizza's great ode to "Saxby." Key catch: yup, it's Lamar!

113th House Fun Facts

The House Press Gallery has a nice fact sheet on the incoming 113th House. Lots of fun facts, some of which I knew (78 women, 59D/19R, not counting 3 delegates, all Democrats), and some of which I didn't (9 Asian Americans -- all Democrats, not counting two Democratic delegates). And one total shocker, at least to those of us who remember 1995.

Also worth noting...

7 of the 47 new Democratic Members are also old Democratic Members. Seems like a pretty experienced frosh class. Only one of the 35 new Republicans has been in the House before -- Steve Stockman of Texas.

27 incumbents were defeated in 2012, 20 in general elections (well, really, 20 by opposite party opponents; the one in Louisiana was a same-party general election runoff).

I'm really interested in the seniority stuff. First of all, I didn't realize that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was now dean of Hispanic Members; she entered the House in August 1989. More generally, and looking only at continuous service:

Five Members served while Richard Nixon was president. There are two remaining Watergate babies, George Miller and Henry Waxman.

21 Members served with Tip O'Neill.

46 served while George H.W. Bush was president. 23 entered in January 1993.

Add two more soon after that, and only 71 remember what it was like when Democrats always had the majority.

Only 12 remain from Newt's revolution class of 1995. And of those 12, only 7 are Republicans -- the 7/5 R/D ratio of remaining Members from that class has to be the craziest statistic of the incoming Congress.

122 served when Bill Clinton was president.

Over half of the House was not there (again, continuously) in 2006; only 202 of them served during the GOP majority that ended that year.

Only 233 Members of the 113th House served when George W. Bush was president -- 201 (there's one vacancy) Members have only (continuously at least) served while Barack Obama was president.

That's all for now; make of all this what you will. I'm still digesting that 104th Congress shocker. Nice job, Newt!