Happy Hour Roundup
Cato Institute: The Voters Are Ignorant And Proud Of It
Bryan Caplan at the Cato Institute has a fascinating new essay out, arguing what many of us have suspected for quite some time: The voters are stupid. "I offer an alternative story of how and why democracy fails," Caplan writes. "The central idea is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and they vote accordingly. Despite their lack of knowledge, voters are not humble agnostics; instead, they confidently embrace a long list of misconceptions."
Obama To Union: I'll Walk A Picket Line With You
Barack Obama made a bold promise to the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas: If the hotel workers can't get a contract, he's ready to march on the picket line with them. "All we’re asking for is make sure the burdens and benefits of this new global economy are spread evenly across the board," he said. "That if profits are going up for everybody, then those profits are shared with workers. If CEO’s have free healthcare, then workers get free healthcare."
Poll: Voters Think Rudy And Hillary Have Best Chance Of Winning
A new Gallup poll finds that more respondents think Rudy and Hillary are the candidates with the best chance of winning the nomination of their respective parties. Eighty-three percent of Dems think Hillary has the best shot at the Dem nomination, while 76% of GOPers think Rudy has the best chance at the Republican nomination.
Pelosi: Bush Still Doesn't Get It On Global Warming
Speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted what she called the Bush Administration weak new position on global warming: "Yes, he says now he believes that global warming is happening and he accepts the science that it is ... But if that were so, if he truly understood that, he could not have come up with a proposal that is 'aspirational.'" Pelosi is calling upon the House to pass legislation to restrict carbon emissions.
Obama Campaign Divests Of Rezko-Connected Money
Barack Obama's campaign has announced that it will donate to charity $5,000 that the Senator received in his 2004 campaign from Ali Ata, a former Illinois state official who has been indicted for helping to secure a $10 million loan for Antoin Rezko, money later used in a fraudulent scam. Obama's campaign has previously donated $11,500 personally donated by Rezko, a longtime patron of Illinois Democrats who is now under federal indictment. Rezko had helped to raise millions of dollars for Obama over the course of his the Senator's in Illinois.
Hedge Fund Money Going To The Dems
A study by Reuters shows that managers at the top hedge funds donated $1.1 million to Presidential candidates in the first quarter, and an astonishing 75% went to Democrats — a possible sign of the party's momentum. Chris Dodd received the most money, $347,300, followed by John Edwards $190,650, then Hillary Clinton at $164,600.
U. of Missouri Restarting Search For New Head — Could Trigger House Special Election
The University of Missouri is restarting its search for a new president from scratch after their reported top choice, businessman Terry Sutter, abruptly withdrew from consideration. Governor Matt Blunt (R) has now endorsed the candidacy of GOP Congressman Kenny Hulshof, who has also been angling for the job. If the university's curators ultimately pick Hulshof, his resignation from the House would trigger a potentially competitive — albeit still GOP-leaning — special election.
Please, Al, join the race! Your party needs you, your country needs you, your planet needs you! It is a call to action!
PEACE
June 1, 2007 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like a change. There are more than two families in this country. I'd like four years without a Bush or Clinton in the White House.
Please, Al, run!
June 1, 2007 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama, Edwards and Richardson are all not-Clinton/Bush's. It would be interesting to see Gore in the race, but it isn't necessary to demonstrate that we don't have royal families in this country. Incidentally, that poll wasn't aimed at finding who people wanted to be the candidates, but who they thought would be the candidates. Quite a bit different.
Hoppy in Sacramento
June 1, 2007 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would impossible in this little space (and my time) to even begin to counter Mr. Kato's sophistic arguments.
Arguing for open markets as social policy has as many holes as pure democracy.
Economists similar education (indoctrination) + ivory tower + ignored stacks of contradictory studies = economic hubris
June 2, 2007 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
To quote the dweeb from Cato: "A better understanding of voter irrationality advises us to rely less on democracy and more on the markets."
This is not only a fascile, sophistic argument, but also a highly ironic one. One of the key challenges to neo-classical theory (the kind that Cato loves too well if not too wisely) is behavioral economics, which holds that investors and consumers are frequently ... wait for it ... IRRATIONAL in their financial and economic choices. This irrationality, combined with the inevitable frictional costs and information barriers, means the dream of perfect, self-correcting markets is just that: a pipe dream.
It would seem Cato has just issued a back-handed endorsement of behavioral economics. If the voters are irrational in their political decisions, there is no empirical reason to think they will be any more rational in their economic decisions. Which in turn suggests that, horror of horrors, the Keynesian mixed economy and the regulatary nanny state are the best of all possible worlds.
What's a libertarian ideologue supposed to do?
June 2, 2007 2:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I won't bother to actually read the Cato piece at this time, not out of disrespect but out of 2 AM fatigue. I know from many years of on-the-street, door-ro-door, and state-fair style political interaction with a true cross-section of my fellow citizens that they are MORE IGNORANT THAN IRRATIONAL.
A great majority of citizens, even in a state with one of the best-educated populations, do not know who their congressman is. They do not know the difference between state and federal government. They do not know anything about the candidates in elections other than what is washed into their brains by the more effective t.v. commercials, or stuff they have absorbed from talk radio (98% fascist propaganda.)
There is a minority of relatively well-informed citizens, and they are proportionately more likely to vote than the others, and to cast an informed vote based on issue identification, party identification, or actual acquaintance with at the candidates.
But the know-nothing vote is very significant. A lot of modern electioneering is designed to demoralize potential voters. The ubquitous negative advertising succeeds not so much if it turns voters from voting Democratic to voting Reprobate, but if just discourages people from voting OR FROM EVEN PAYING ATTENTION.
Make politics seem so obnoxious that average people just want to tune it out entirely---that's an effective part of the same strategy that is also implemented with caging, voter list purges, intimidation at the polls, and black-box voting manipulation.
Yes, people often make irrational decisions. And in politics, under the influence of demagogues and message-manipulators, they often make emotionally-driven decisions which certainly look irrational.
Nevertheless, the (admittedly arbitrary if not irrational) faith of our Founding Fathers was that most of the people most of the time would be capable of making intelligent and reasonable decisions---for themselves.
And, in politics, what is the alternative? As Jefferson said, "Have we found angels in the form of kings" to rule us?
But for voting to work correctly, we need better basic education and we need leaders with clear vision and the courage of their convictions.
Suggestion:
Go to "what we know so far," a blogspot blog, and re-read Patrick Henry's famous "Give me liberty" speech.
June 2, 2007 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the link regarding Obama:
Could I be the only one reading that? If not, is it possible no one got the import of what was said in all sorts of ways?
I have been very disappointed in many things about Obama's campaign - most particularly his support of the occupation and his atrocious health care plan. But, man oh man, does this kind of thing show the man in a light that should fire the enthusiasm of most any liberal while perhaps not that of the DLC'ers among us.
What can I be missing?
Best, Terry
June 2, 2007 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What can I be missing?
The fact that a left-wing candidate cannot effectively lead a nation any more than (as we've seen) a right-wing candidate can?
June 2, 2007 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most excellent, cogent and apt, unfortunately.
UA
June 2, 2007 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
A few points - to you Gore lovers, please remember that this is the brilliant guy who chose Joe Freakin' Lieberman as his VP. That should tell you all you need to know about his political acumen. As for Hedge Fund money - it is a blight on the Dems who are accepting it. Hedge Funds are destroying what is left of our industrial base. That Edwards is taking so much of it pains me especially, as I had hopes that he believed his own economic rhetoric. As he is being bought by the leading purveyors of unregulated neo-liberal Darwinianism, I suspect it will turn out to be only that - rhetoric. I'm not surprised about Hilliary, and as for Dodd - who cares? BTW, Gore is a Hedge Fund MANAGER himself.
We are left with a choice between the unbridled imperialist, corporatist Fascism of the Repugnantcans (who wholeheartedly support the neo-liberal globalization agenda and philosophy), or a slightly kinder, gentler Dem version that pays lip service to an earlier, robust FDR program, but which nevertheless subverts said FDR program since the neo-liberalism they take as axiomatic is a philosophy in diametric opposition to it.
We either reconstitute the Democratic Party as the party of worker's rights, industrial protection, regulation and against the economic royalists rights to loot everything in sight in the social and economic darwinian frenzy currently proceeding and accelerating without brakes, or this country and the world will be in an economic collapse of far greater magnitude than FDR faced. None of the candidates (especially Gore, if he choose to run) are equipped to deal with this because they don't even question the assumptions of neo-liberalism, and don't think a FDR strategy is possible or even desirable anymore. We have a plentiful supply of talented sophists in this country, but no intellectuals or leaders worthy of the appellation that I can see.
UA
June 2, 2007 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say more about his political leanings.
The former "conservative alternative" says now that he has been freed from bondage he can do good instead of bad.
How nice.
Repentance is great but Gore hasn't gone nearly far enough.
Best, Terry
June 2, 2007 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink