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What's with that Hillary mention in SOTU?

James Fallows thought it was just plain weird.  Even "odd and uncalled-for."  One of the great things about Fallows' column at Atlantic is that when a reader disagrees with him and persuades him he could be wrong, Fallows says so.  Here's what the anonymous reader had to say -- and I think s/he's right.

... Perhaps I'm reaching here, the President has an eye toward the future... 2016. We know that he is a forward thinking and strategic guy. Let's assume he wins re-election. I don't think anybody sees Joe Biden, who will by then be 74 as a future President. The Democrats have four years to find and develop a rising star. Who is on the horizon now? I would have to say that on November 7 Hillary would be the odds-on favorite to be the next nominee. She'll likely step down after this term and that will give her four years to catch up on her rest, make another fortune on the private side, burnish her reputation further with Bill's Foundation, and raise a war chest for the election.

She would seem nearly unbeatable. Even now she is one of the few Democrats who seems unassailable. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are able to reference her admirably and get applause. They see it as a dig at the President, but he has the last laugh. After they mixed it up, he chose her for the biggest job she's ever had. And he did her the greatest favor imaginable. Rather than spending the last four years in the morass of the Senate, she has been out getting things done in a place where Republicans can't obstruct her.

So why reference her as a former rival? To remind the world that Hillary is her own person, her own brand. In four years, if the Obama administration is viewed as a success, she will be seen as one of its brightest stars. If the administration has mixed reviews or is starting to wear out it's welcome, she can still run as her own woman. ...Atlantic

Of course, a day or two after the State of the Union speech, she held a press conference and announced she wasn't staying on.

What Obama's chances look like

InTrade allows custom charts.  I chose November through January -- three months of trades/predictions on how Obama's doing.   Today's closing prices put him at just short of 55%, down a bit from 56%.

Maybe debates aren't such a good idea after all?

You could see it as an opportunity for the opposition to get ahead of the incumbent.  On one side you have the president, stuck with a hard job and not much time to campaign -- and no one to debate or grab camera-time with. On the other side, you have an eye-grabbing group of Republicans debating important policy points in interesting settings and with loudly cheering audiences.

Well, not exactly.

What we may be seeing is a year's worth of self-destruction on the part of Republicans and on camera. That's kind of what it comes down to, and the media are taking notice.

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney may be on a path toward mutually assured destruction, and both are refusing to unilaterally disarm.

Gone from the race in Florida are the long-winded outlines of their plans to create jobs, cut the national debt and pull homeowners out of foreclosure. Gone are the policy-based condemnations of who is too moderate or whose tax plan too unrealistic.

They’ve been replaced by attacks that would make a kindergarten teacher call a foul: Gingrich says Romney is a liar; Romney says Gingrich is a failure.

Republican insiders worry it’s not just bad for party unity, but could sink the GOP’s electoral chances far beyond the presidential race. ...The Hill

Let's also notice that the Republican audiences have tended to assist in that self-destruction, cheering racist comments and state-sponsored executions.  Many Americans watching the debates don't like what America has become or, above all, the kind of "conservatism" their party represents these days.  And it's not just that they don't much care for it, they're changing their minds about how much of it they can tolerate.

“This has got to stop,” said Al Cardenas, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida and head of the American Conservative Union. “Either because someone very soon becomes the de facto nominee or because they agree to a truce on personal issues.”

As the political atmosphere has become more primal over the past few weeks, polls show President Obama expanding his spread over his potential November opponents, Cardenas said — and the correlation is not coincidental. ...The Hill

Republicans themselves have come to realize what Cardenas also notices:  The party rejected Newt Gingrich years ago and with good reason.  What does it say about the party that he's back as a major contestant in their presidential primaries?

“He was given the opportunity to lead our party. You’re right, he failed,” Romney said. “What happened four years later? Well, he was fined for ethics violations. He ultimately had to resign in disgrace.” ...The Hill

All this adds up to a curious sense of fizzle on the right.

“The big loser is everybody in the conservative movement,” said Cardenas. “The whole ticket — up and down the ballot.” ...The Hill

Probably the most important outcome includes what we may be seeing hints of now:   a conclusive defeat -- death, absence of mourners, quiet burial -- of both extremism and narcissism on the right.

Over at American Conservative, the headlines suggest interesting questions being discussed by conservatives -- with some surprises.  Like "Is Israel a Failed State?"  And whether justice is working at Gitmo.  And the "wreck of capitalism."  Not to mention a defense of Bradley Manning. 

And questions about the defense industry, for god's sake! 

Aren't those the real debates we should be having?

Why are Republicans so worried about debating Obama?

It's not as though Obama is a particularly adept debater.  But the subject comes up constantly on the Republican side, or so Maureen Dowd believes.

They seem to have forgotten that, while Obama has had dazzling moments of strength in executing Osama and in swashbuckling derring-do against Somali pirates — if not in dealing with Congress — he was no Abe Lincoln in debates. He did not like debating, and Michelle urged him to be more visceral. He often faded onstage because he stubbornly refused to accept debates as alpha combat rather than beta seminars. He disdained anything he saw as superficial politics, from sound bites to macho put-downs.

If Obama continues to resist the gladiatorial subtext, while Romney embraces it, the debates could be more evenly matched than the Republicans dare to dream. ...Maureen Dowd, NYT

Actually, is it the Republicans who fear Obama in debates or the press who turn politics into a bloody conflict because that sells better than democracy?  Whatever.  Meanwhile, Dowd says Obama is getting into the habit of indulging in telling women off on the tarmac.

Usually, tarmacs are for joyous welcomes or teary goodbyes. But No Drama Obama saves his rare tempests for the runway. ...Dowd

All two tempests.  One in a set-to with Hillary during the campaign.  The other with Arizona's unattractive governor who felt "threatened."  She probably felt rejected.  Face it:  Obama is a powerful man and one who's attractive to women.  She thought she could win this one, but no.  He was telling her off, in profile and in public, and Fox had to work hard to buck Brewer up.

Both of Obama’s tarmac tiffs worked in his favor. After his encounter with Hillary, he told advisers that it was the first time he knew he could beat her because he saw fear in her eyes.

After his brouhaha with Brewer, dubbed “the dust-up in the desert,” he became a hero to the Hispanics he had gone West to court. They loved seeing their Cruella de Vil get dressed down.

Everything is breaking Barry’s way, as Mitt and Newt rip into each other in vicious ads and debates like alligators going after house pets. ...Dowd

So go ahead, Mitt. Tell him off.  Aggravate him.  Snipe at him.  Wear flame-red suits and use new eye make-up.  Hey, try tears if nothing else works!

Who's really working against legitimate elections?

Elizabeth Drew looks at the changes in our voting laws since 2000 and finds that we may now have elections that are simply unacceptable to many voters, thanks to growing restrictions and the dominance of corporate money.  Our elections can no longer be considered fair.

Citizens are now faced with evidence of the growing power of organized moneyed interests in the electoral system at the same time that the nation is more aware than ever that the inequality among income groups has grown dramatically and economic difficulties are persistent. This is a dangerous brew. Political power is shifting to the very moneyed interests that four decades of reform effort have tried to contain. The election system is being reshaped by the Super PACs and the greatly increased power of those who contribute to them to choose the candidates who best suit their purposes. But little attention is being paid to the fact that our system of electing a president is under siege. While the political press is excitedly telling us how the polls on Friday compare with the ones on Tuesday, little notice is taken of the danger to the democratic system itself. ...NYRB

Drew asks whether "an election that’s being subjected to such seriously self-interested contortions [can] be accepted by the public as having been arrived at in a fair manner? And what will happen if it can’t?"

Probably not a rush into the streets with our pitchforks. We are more mobile than we used to be.  America isn't the only home to many Americans. I suspect that many may have decided, each for his or her own reasons, that they can do nothing more to prevent American democracy from dying slowly at the hands of financial and industrial interests that have an interest in perpetual warfare and in regular boom-bust cycles.  Whole generations have grown up knowing there are healthier democracies and opportunities elsewhere.

The realization doesn't fit well with our naive pledge of allegiance.  But in the hundred and ten years since that bad idea was adopted and sanctified, Americans' views of our nation as a safe and sane place have been seriously challenged by dirty wars, unleashed transnational corporations, a detached and predatory Wall Street, and the corporate media.  Either we take them on in a serious fight (not a bad idea) or we move on.  Who's working against legitimate elections?  Maybe we all are, by default.

An economic recovery, but a biased "recovery"

More signs that we're chucking the good of the individual in favor of the wealth of the system.

The squeeze on consumers stands in stark contrast to the health of businesses. Not only is the economy growing in terms of what it produces, but corporate profit margins haven’t been higher since the 1960s.

And Friday’s report showed another sign of health: Busi­nesses are swiftly investing in equipment and software. Those investments were up 5 percent in the last quarter of 2011 and 16 percent the quarter before that, according to the report.

Conventional economic theory suggests that it’s only a matter of time before the health of businesses will lift the fortunes of workers as firms begin to hire more people, putting upward pressure on wages.

But although profits are high, many companies appear to be reluctant to hire, at least for now. ...WaPo

At some point, the individual turns on the system.  Are we ready for that?

Romney's campaign money

Well, most of it comes from perhaps the best-known financial business occupying Wall Street:  Goldman Sachs -- Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September.  Romney's blind trust was put into their hands; Goldman employees are grateful.  The ties to Romney have been good business for Goldman, perhaps not so useful to the candidate.

As many Americans have come to realize, the argument isn't so much about capitalism -- a useful system when used well.  The argument is about good capitalists vs. bad capitalists.  And as we've learned to our cost over the past several years, bad capitalists have a firm grip on America and, in particular, on the Republican party.  For the right, capitalism is a theology, not an economic tool. But it's only a tool, and when it slips from the hands of those trying to manipulate it, it gouges us, not them.

Goldman Sachs is just one of the Wall Street firms suffering from a reputation for sleaze.  Mitt Romney's personal and Bain Capital's financial ties Goldman are no help to his political ambitions.

No other company is so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days, Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another lightning rod to a campaign already fending off withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist, thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the forefront of the Republican nominating battle.

Newt Gingrich, whose allies have spent millions of dollars on advertisements painting Mr. Romney as a heartless “vulture capitalist,” seized on Mr. Romney’s Goldman ties at Thursday’s Republican debate in Florida, suggesting that he had profited through Goldman on banks that had foreclosed on Floridians. And as the fight over regulation of financial firms spills onto the campaign trail, Mr. Romney’s support for the industry — he has called for repeal of the Dodd-Frank legislation tightening oversight of Wall Street — may draw more fire. ...NYT

And that's just the beginning.  The more the candidate's background is examined, the closer he gets to the very system that pulled down the financial industry and the nation's homes and jobs with it.  A sample:

Bain’s mid-1990s acquisition of Dade Behring, a medical device maker with factories in Florida, has become a totem of the economic upheaval that private equity can inflict. Goldman invested in the acquisition, which brought the bank $120 million and Bain $242 million — but led to the layoffs of hundreds of workers in Miami. Democrats hammered Mr. Romney over the deal this week. ...NYT

Romney isn't much different from most mega-millionaires professionally or personally.  But that's the problem.  He's a member of the one-percenters in America, the group that had a good ride for thirty years at significant cost to the rest of us and to the reputation of our financial sector.  Now a presidential campaign is at stake and at least one candidate finds himself in trouble with voters who paid for his success with lost homes and jobs. Doesn't Romney represent the antithesis of what America needs?

Romney at home in New Hampshire

From an NYRB article on the candidate by Christopher Benfey. Photo credit:  Ben Baker/Redux

The cats... The Democrats are happily herded

There was something about that Al Green impersonation that got to the usually scattered, independent Dems.  According to a report in The Hill, Obama has been successful in persuading them to unite.

In a gesture of party harmony, House Democrats this week cut their own version of Green's song as a gift for the president — a hat-tip to Obama's solo act at the Apollo Theater, but also an indication that congressional Democrats are behind him 100 percent in the lead up to the November election.

The theme of unity dominated the Democrats' three-day retreat this week on the Eastern Shore, where they gathered to plot strategy for the year ahead. But the feeling of solidarity didn’t fully take hold until Friday, when Obama arrived to rally the troops.

An energized Obama didn't disappoint, exhorting Democrats to cooperate with Republicans when possible, and fight back when necessary.

“Where they [Republicans] obstruct, where they’re unwilling to act, where they’re more interested in party than in country, or more interested in the next election than the next generation, we have to call them out on it,” he said. “We can’t wait, we can’t be held back." ...The Hill

Meanwhile, unity is no longer a word one can apply to the Republican party.  Establishment vs. tea party.  South vs. north.  Mitt vs. Newt vs. Rick.  The charms of the right can be found in the comments section at The Hill.

Bye, Newt

From John Cassidy's "Alas, Poor Newt" in the New Yorker...

At one-thirty this morning, Intrade, the political betting site, was putting the probability of him winning the nomination at just eight per cent, and the probability of Mitt Romney getting to take on Barack Obama at ninety-two per cent.

Betting markets, like all futures markets, are far from infallible. In this case, though, I think they have it right. With the Florida polls having swung against Newt after a lackluster performance in Monday’s debate, and with the Republican establishment turning on him in savage fashion, he desperately needed a strong performance last night. But an event that the media, myself included, had billed as the debate of the year turned out to be a big disappointment—unless, that is, you are Romney or one of his supporters. “I thought it was a terrific night,” the Mittster said to CNN’s Gloria Borger as he left the Jacksonville stage, sporting a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat’s. “I think it’s going to give me the boost I need in the remaining couple of days of the election.”

From Gingrich, there was no comment, which was pretty much what he had offered up all night.

___

Paul Krugman also bids Newt ¡adiosito! and adds a farewell video.

Mitch Daniels hands the president a win

It would be nice if Republicans -- candidates and the rest -- could get their facts straight.  Mitch Daniels committed a serious blooper during his response to the State of the Union speech.  In doing so, he killed the Republicans' effort to hang Obama with the auto industry bailout. 

Paul Krugman picks up on the blooper.

Mr. Daniels tried to wrap his party in the mantle of the late Steve Jobs, whom he portrayed as a great job creator — which is one thing that Jobs definitely wasn’t. And if we ask why Apple has created so few American jobs, we get an insight into what is wrong with the ideology dominating much of our politics. ...Paul Krugman, NYT 

Daniels came out with this: "The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the president borrowed and blew."

Jobs created jobs, but not in the USA.  Daniels tries, and fails, to make Obama's job-saving intervention in the US auto industry into a big mistake.  It wasn't.  As we know now, for GM it meant triumph.

Although Apple is now America’s biggest U.S. corporation as measured by market value, it employs only 43,000 people in the United States, a tenth as many as General Motors employed when it was the largest American firm.

Apple does, however, indirectly employ around 700,000 people in its various suppliers. Unfortunately, almost none of those people are in America. ...Paul Krugman, NYT

Krugman adds another really important factor that rarely gets talked about.  A major reason for moving work overseas is that the environment for production is better outside of America.  What are we missing here?  We used to be such great producers.

Well, we no longer have "the advantages of industrial clusters — in which producers, specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual benefit."

And Chinese manufacturing isn’t the only conspicuous example of these advantages in the modern world. Germany remains a highly successful exporter even with workers who cost, on average, $44 an hour — much more than the average cost of American workers. And this success has a lot to do with the support its small and medium-sized companies — the famed Mittelstand — provide to each other via shared suppliers and the maintenance of a skilled work force.

The point is that successful companies — or, at any rate, companies that make a large contribution to a nation’s economy — don’t exist in isolation. Prosperity depends on the synergy between companies, on the cluster, not the individual entrepreneur. ...Paul Krugman

Why isn't this part of the discussion in Washington?  Too complicated?  Not a subject in which one party can blame the other?  One which Obama understood when he bailed out the auto industry but which escapes his Republican critics? 

The case for this bailout — which Mr. Daniels has denounced as “crony capitalism” — rested crucially on the notion that the survival of any one firm in the industry depended on the survival of the broader industry “ecology” created by the cluster of producers and suppliers in America’s industrial heartland. If G.M. and Chrysler had been allowed to go under, they would probably have taken much of the supply chain with them — and Ford would have gone the same way. ...Paul Krugman

Winning points to President Obama and thanks to Mitch Daniels for -- inadvertently, of course -- revealing one of the president's most significant successes.

___

The Hill reports that Congressional Democrats are warming up to a new tax initiative, one that would seem to spring from Mitch Daniels' blooper -- at least in spirit.

Democratic leaders are embracing a new strategy for tax reform that leans on President Obama's State of the Union call for tax fairness and economic equality.

The new strategy diverges from the 1986 formula, the last time Washington successfully tackled tax reform, and focuses on raising tax revenue from the wealthiest taxpayers and businesses that funnel jobs offshore.

“Tax reform after the president's speech now has a different definition,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday.

“We intend to pursue a different kind of tax reform that borrows from the president's proposals," Schumer, a leader in crafting Democratic messaging, told reporters. ...The Hill

"Such a strategy," the Hill's reporter writes, "would seem to have little chance of winning Republican support, making it seem more like election-year politics than a way to actually pass a bill."

Maybe not.  Maybe it's about time for the great greed machine to pay back what it owes to Americans who do their jobs (when they have one) and pay the taxes they actually owe.