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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Richard Brookhiser to discuss his new biography of James Madison, his battle with Hamilton, his break with Washington, and the last years of Madison’s life, when he foresaw the secession of states from the Union.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Buy James Madison on Amazon
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WASHINGTON WIZARDS OWNER DECRIES CLASS RIFT CREATED BY OBAMA’S RHETORIC

Ted Leonsis may not be a member of the elite Obama Revolutionary Guard, but he’s not a third-stringer rank-and-file Democrat, either. Leonsis is a highly successful, self-made, multimillionaire businessman — a perfect demographic example of the “enemy” that Barack Obama warns about on Hispanic radio stations and rails against in calculated teleprompter speeches, as he continues his onslaught against the “Haves” — Operation Divide America – which is the key component of his reelection strategy.

Ted Leonsis is also a major contributor to the Democratic Party — and to Barack Obama himself. The owner of the Washington Wizards is fed up with being cast as a “bad guy in a black hat,” and he is fed up with Obama’s slash-and-burn class-warfare bull crap as well; he is finally saying so in no uncertain terms:

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RedState Morning Briefing
For September 28, 2011

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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Chicago has a rat problem. The furry kind that, according to a CBS Chicago report last year, dwell in the most densely populated areas of the Windy City. And, the worst part? Even though they’re from Asia, they’re called Norway rats.

They prefer fresh food, but will eat many things such as pet food, dog feces, garbage and plants. If food is scarce, the strongest rats may even eat the weakest and young.

See? They are nasty, don’t you think?

For awhile now, Chicago’s new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has had to balance budget issues by reassigning city workers from the rat patrol to garbage duty. Back in March, this led the Laborers union to criticize the city’s reassignments saying moving people from the Rat Patrol would lead to a bigger rat problem.

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President Obama is on the prowl for new targets for (1) raising more tax revenue and/or (2) demonizing “the rich” for campaign purposes. Among Obama’s proposals, besides raising taxes on high-income individuals generally, is to more than double the tax rate paid by many private equity and venture capital investors from 15% to 35%, by reclassifying sales of their businesses (or shares in their businesses) as ordinary income rather than capital gains (more detail here and, drawn from prior versions of the proposal here and here). A common trope being retailed in some form or another by Obama and his allies is that taxing the wealthy and private equity and venture capital has no impact on job creation. As is common to liberal arguments, rather than argue that they are proposing a worthwhile tradeoff, liberals deny even the possibility that their policies involve any tradeoffs whatsoever. As well they might: the voters are hardly going to accept anything right now that impedes the growth of private sector businesses and jobs.

Now, there are a lot of economic angles to this argument, which have been ventilated in more detail elsewhere. But a concrete example may be useful in illustrating how wealthy individuals, private equity and venture capital contribute to the growth of businesses and jobs: the story of Facebook.

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Would it be a violation of Godwin’s Law to point out that even the Nazis kept having elections even when we were bombing them? Heck, the United States continued having elections in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. We didn’t put democracy on hold just because we felt like it. There is this thing called the constitution.

But the constitution seems beside the point to one of America’s least popular governors, Bev Perdue of North Carolina. Maybe brains and constitutional fidelity go together.

Perdue has declared that we should just suspend elections in 2012 for Congress until congressmen solve our economic problems. Given her lack of popularity and the fact that her unpopularity coupled with Obama’s unpopularity will probably swing North Carolina to the GOP in 2012, I’m sure she was privately thinking we might as well suspend all elections next year.

After all, elections may matter, but they cost money.

Already people are suggesting she just had to be joking. Except it doesn’t sound like she was joking and to come out now and say she was joking after giving a rather level toned speech in which she did not chuckle about it and, instead, asked people to join with her and support the idea sounds more like post-idiocy spin than truth.

Bev Perdue, Governor of North Carolina, thinks that notwithstanding the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, or World War II, our country is in such a terrible place now that by God we don’t need no stinking elections because the people who cannot solve the problem right now will some how, miracle of miracles, solve the problem next year if only they don’t have to then be held accountable by their constituents — constituents who very likely will be purging Bev Perdue from politics next year.

Exit point: I think we’ve just had our first Democratic Governor go on record admitting our present economic situation is worse than the Great Depression.

from the diaries by Neil

As we debate just how much our government ought to be spending–and where that money should come from–I think it’s a good idea to reflect on the words of Margaret Thatcher on the subject of “public money” (of course, when is listening to Maggie a bad idea?):

Open thread.

I’ve gotten to know Paul Begala sitting with him in the greenroom at CNN and he has some of the most consistently awesome political anecdotes in modern America. Feel free to disagree with him on politics and policy as I usually do, but in any encounter with Begala you’ll come away knowing more about American politics than you entered the room knowing.

One of the anecdotes he shared with me once has stuck with me as perhaps the most insightful commentary on winning elections in America. Anne Richards was quite a popular governor in Texas and George W. Bush still managed to beat her rather handily. After Richards’ defeat, she called President Clinton and told him the lesson she’d learned from her defeat.

Governor Richards told President Clinton that it was not enough to run on what you did as a leader, but rather to run on what you were going to do as a leader. This connects in with one of the most consistent themes in American politics — people want to vote for something, not vote against someone.

In 2008, people voted against the Republicans, but if you asked most people they didn’t see themselves voting against Bush and the GOP so much as they were voting for something new and shiny — a new way, a new face, a new hope, and some change.

This is why Herman Cain won the straw poll.

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UPDATE: Ford is now out saying it was not “coerced” into pulling the ad and that the ad campaign will continue.

Wonder whatever gave the Michigan news media a contrary impression?

I told you a week ago that the White House and General Motors coordinated on GM’s ad campaign it rolled out before the 2010 general election designed to highlight the government auto bailout as successful.

Not only did the White House coordinate with GM, it is pushing for GM to rev up the ad campaign again prior to the 2012 election.

Well, if you will recall, Ford Motor Company has had out a very popular ad getting a lot of buzz. It is of a consumer saying he bought a Ford because he did not want to buy from a car company that relied the government to bail it out.

The message has been very well received in the public across partisan lines. But it turns out the White House does not like the ad campaign and views it negatively.

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The big news yesterday on the health care policy front is that the 11th Circuit case against the individual mandate is headed to the Supreme Court before the 2012 election, not after. This means a decision about the constitutionality of the individual mandate is likely to come in mid-2012, after the Republicans have chosen a nominee but well before the election ramp up. This is good political news for nearly everyone in the race on the Republican side, with one obvious exception: Mitt Romney.

Let’s back up a moment to explain why.

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I’m being inundated with angry emails that I have not linked to or championed the Zogby poll that OMG shows Herman Cain winning in a landslide!!!!!! OMG!!!!!

It is as if millions of Republicans took the Gardasil shot and suddenly developed rapid onset of the mental retardation Michele Bachmann’s been warning about.

The reason I have not cited and you should not cite the Zogby poll is because it is a Zogby Interactive poll which means it was done online.

IBOPE Zogby International conducted an online survey of 2,077 voters. A sampling of IBOPE Zogby International’s online panel, which is representative of the adult population of the U.S., was invited to participate.

This poll has more in common with the Gallup survey of “positive intensity” for candidates than it does who actually is winning. Phone surveys are far more accurate and reliable, whether it be Gallup, CNN, or Fox.

I am glad so many people are excited about Herman Cain. I think Herman won the debate. I think there are a number of reasons he won the Florida Straw Poll beyond the easy analysis that it was “to send a message” to other candidates.

But the Zogby Interactive Poll is like an online entertainment poll asking whether you’d rather be on “Team Edward”, “Team whoever that emo werewolf guy is”, or “Team venereal disease.”

As long as I am editor of this site, our front page will not treat an online interactive poll as anything more than a novelty.

We’ve seen this show before.  Republicans propose grand ideas to cut spending and implement free-market reforms; they speak ebulliently about their new ideas, and …they summarily scuttle them and cave to the Democrats.

Earlier this year, Republicans proposed a commendable plan to end the bipartisan pork fest of surface transportation spending.  Instead of continuing the inexorable expansion of transportation spending, House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica proposed a six-year highway bill that actually cut spending from $286 billion to $235 billion.  The bill was supposed to cap spending to the levels of its funding source; the 18.4-cent gasoline tax and the 24.4-cent tax on diesel fuel.  Additionally, this bill would have eliminated 70 duplicative projects and cut spending on mass transit.

Two weeks ago, Republicans agreed to pass an eighth stop-gap highway bill, which will lock in the excess levels of spending until next April.  They also passed the 22^nd stop-gap FAA reauthorization bill, which will continue to fund the wasteful rural pork programs until next February.

Now CQ is reporting that Republicans plan to cave on the long-term bill altogether:

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