May 16, 2008 6:51 AM

A New Washington Consensus?

For all the talk from "free trade"-backing politicians about needing to engage the world, most of them understand almost nothing about how the world sees our international economic policies. As I show in my new newspaper column this week, our so-called Washington Consensus policies on globalization are stirring a backlash in both the industrialized and developing worlds.

Continue reading A New Washington Consensus?

May 15, 2008 3:38 PM

Norquist Stuck Pining Away for His Glory Days

Chris Hayes attended the promotional event for Grover Norquist today and reports that Norquist noted that 70% Republicans are skeptical of free trade but, "they don't vote on that issue, so at one level I don't care."

Norquist may have been right in the past, but that seems to be changing, according to this post-election survey in 2006. It shows Republicans who considered voting Democrat listed the GOP's support for unfair trade deals as the top concern in considering the switch. That inkling, which started in 2006, may very well push these voters to Democrats in 2008, thanks to the recession and to more Democratic candidates voicing fair trade themes.

This is yet another example of why I said Norquist does not represent "new" thinking or "new" ideas - in fact, with this declaration, he's exposed himself as stuck in the past, still pining away for his glory days when rank-and-file Republican voters weren't so darn sick of the royalism he preaches.

May 15, 2008 11:05 AM

Check the NY Times Magazine This Sunday

Just wanted to let regular readers in on a project I've been toiling away at for some time that's now coming to fruition. I am scheduled to have a piece in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine that deals with some interesting issues boiling up in key swing states. I'll have more to say about the article when it comes out, but that's all I'll say for now. Be sure to check it out when it comes out and send me your feedback.

May 15, 2008 10:23 AM

The Mustache of Incoherence

Tom Friedman is known as the Mustache of Understanding for his pedantic, arrogant style - but, when you read Glenn Greenwald's piece this morning, you realize that's a misnomer. Tom Friedman is not the Mustache of Understanding - he is the Mustache of Incoherence.

May 15, 2008 6:55 AM

What Unions Mean for Different Kinds of Workers

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a new study out documenting what unionization does for different kinds of workers. Here's the crux:

"Using national data for 2003 through 2007, we estimate that unionization raises the wages of the
typical low-wage worker (one in the 10th percentile) by 20.6 percent, compared to 13.7 percent for
the typical worker (one in the 50th percentile), and 6.1 percent for the typical high-wage worker (one in the 90th percentile)."

There's state-by-state data in the report, too. Check it out here.

May 14, 2008 8:48 AM

"Gritty" vs. "Athletic" - How Racism Is Structural, Not Individual

As regular readers know, I've been doing a lot of writing on race lately, and in that light, I wanted to forward on this terrific column from the Rocky Mountain News by Paul Campos. It uses sports language to show how racism really is a structural - rather than individual - problem. Here's the key point:

A mistake people make about racism is to think it's primarily a personal flaw which some people have and others don't, as opposed to something that distorts our society at a structural level, whatever particular individuals may believe or say.

One of the easiest places to see this is in the sports world, where certain racial cliches and stereotypes get expressed in relatively unself-conscious ways. These stereotypes reflect the sort of language we are now seeing from Clinton and her advisers, about "blue-collar" voters.

Just as in Clinton's special political language, in the world of sports "blue-collar" is a code word for "white." A bunch of other terms - "gritty," "gutty," "hard-nosed," "lunch-bucket ethic," and of course "intelligent" - work in the same fashion.

The idea is that white players must overcome their lack of God-given athletic talent (which is apparently conceptualized as God's version of affirmative action for black players) through good moral character, and in particular the classic Puritan virtue of hard work.

As I said, read the whole column here.

May 14, 2008 7:18 AM

The Hostile Takeover of Tax Enforcement

In case you thought the hostile takeover of our government by Big Money interests ended with the 2006 election, think again:

"Pentagon contractors under scrutiny for setting up shell corporations in offshore tax havens are looking to the Senate as a line of defense against legislation that would curb such transactions. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, wants to attach language cracking down on the practice, which he authored with Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the next tax bill that moves through the Senate. But leading Senate tax-writers are still considering whether to back the Kerry bill. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, is reviewing the bill."

"Reviewing" - such a harmless sounding euphemism. But it's probably not:

"Senior employees of L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL) - parent company to MPRI, a defense contractor that has been the focus of scrutiny - donated generously to Baucus' re-election effort in March, according to federal records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those donations, made between March 19 and March 31, came from 14 top employees of L-3 and totaled $12,750, the records show. Most contributions were for $1,000, including from Ralph D'Ambrosio, chief financial officer, Charles J. Schafer, president of the firm's products group, and Curtis Brunson, senior vice president. The donations came just days after a March Boston Globe report revealed that KBR pays thousands of its personnel through a Cayman Islands affiliate."

This issue is about as pure as it gets in terms of corruption. As Dow Jones notes, if these loopholes aren't closed, these defense companies will "escape paying the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes" to the tune of almost $1 billion dollars over the next decade. Baucus - widely known as K Street's favorite Democrat - is in a position to block, water down, or support the Kerry-Obama bill. What he decides to do will tell us just how much the culture of corruption still dominates Washington.

May 13, 2008 7:56 PM

What About Missouri?

You may have noticed that everyone on television is repeating Hillary Clinton's line that "no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia." I wonder - why, when Barack Obama won a tough-fought race in the swing state of Missouri, did no one bother to mention that no Democrat has EVER won the White House without winning Missouri?

The point here is that stats like this are truly meaningless. I know, I know - we get used to hearing these kind of stats when we watch sporting events (you know, like when a pinch hitter comes up and the commentators tell you that the batter is 3-for-10 lifetime against lefthanded pitchers in the 8th inning when it's under 65 degrees out and the third Saturday of the month). But in this age when electoral maps can change dramatically, these kinds of stats are just silly.

May 13, 2008 4:53 PM

Analyzing the West Virginia Results on Fox News

I appeared on Fox News as Democratic primary results from West Virginia came in. We discussed what the results say about the general election. Check it out here.

May 13, 2008 12:23 PM

Fox News at 5:15 EST

I'm scheduled to be on Fox News at around 5:15pm EST. We'll likely be talking about the election. Tune in.

May 13, 2008 10:38 AM

West Virginia and the Race Chasm

Some folks have asked me today how West Virginia fits into my Race Chasm theory. It's a valid question considering Hillary Clinton is expected to win resoundingly, but the state is just 3% black (ie. outside the Race Chasm). My original article explained this:

Primaries are now looming in a critical group of Race Chasm states--Pennsylvania, Indiana (8.8 percent black), Kentucky (7.5 percent black) and West Virginia (only 3 percent black, but a place influenced by the Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania media markets, which undoubtedly makes race politics more customary than in other mostly white states).

May 13, 2008 9:07 AM

Right, Sure - There's No Race Chasm

Just a quick follow up from my post on Friday - here's the A1 story in the Washington Post. But, according to Serious Thinkers like Reihan Salam and Michael Lind, there's no Race Chasm - it can all be explained by Hillary Clinton's "waitress mom sensibilities" and by Scandinavian migration patterns.

Nope, no Race Chasm in America...nothing to see here...move along...