Friday, April 27, 2012

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Jack Klugman, 90.

As for the good stuff:

1. Sarah Posner remembers Chuck Colson's latter years.

2. The decline of Tucker Carlson, by Alex Pareene. Brutal.

3.Super PACs might matter a lot more in Congressional elections than for the Romney/Obama contest; Ezra Klein is absolutely right about it.

4. Ben Adler has a nice piece on money in presidential nomination contests, in which he consults the tag team of Mayer and Bernstein -- editors of the most awesome edited volume on presidential nominations ever, perfect to assign for your upcoming courses in elections, parties, presidency, or what have you.

5. Jim Cooper's Golden Goose Award -- a great idea, and one that he deserves a ton of credit for. Good write-up by Suzy Khimm.

6. And Brad DeLong asks (and note Noah Smith's comment): why doesn't Wall Street reward Obama for booming stock prices?

10 comments:

  1. That entire Tucker Carlson piece can be summed up by one quote from it:

    "He is now giving the people what they want."

    Only a liberal would think this is disgraceful and shameful.

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    Replies
    1. Um, the thrust of the piece is that what he's giving the people is race-baiting, homophobic, and downright batty, and that he's doing so because that's what a chunk of people want.

      Honestly, I can't speak much to the truth of the piece. It could be cherry picking, for all I know. But, if that thrust is correct, then it IS disgraceful and shameful. Fanning the flames of hate just to make a buck is disgusting. Jerome Corsi makes a pretty decent living selling his crap, it seems; doesn't make the crap he's selling or his doing so any less odious. The market does not determine ethics.

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  2. Reuter's is coming around to reality on Zimmerman. I can't believe this piece isn't included in the list:

    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE83O18H20120425?irpc=932

    To the libs, consider what you believed about Zimmerman one month ago when the unbiased MSM was "reporting."

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    Replies
    1. It confirms my liberal bias that there are too many guns out there, and too many people taking the law into their own hands.

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  3. Re. Klein's piece: House Democrats were actually talking about this in the closest thing they could get to a House hearing last Wednesday:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTt5VbHUxNA#t=6013

    (It was part of a whole forum on the issue: http://tinyurl.com/6wdx7rh)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jonathan,

    I couldn't post this at Salon, but for your article on candidate websites, you should see the papers written by James Druckman and several co-authors, using a random sample of Congressional websites. (Data for published papers is from 2002-6 or 8, I think, but I know it's being updated this Fall as well.)

    On issue engagement:
    http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/workingpapers/2009/wp0907.pdf

    Issue salience and strategic considerations are influential in what issues are displayed. Seems likely that strategic considerations (or perceived strategic considerations) are keeping issues such as LBGT and public option support off the table.

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  5. Josh -- thanks. Will definitely take a look.

    My assumption here (and before I read their paper) is that the barriers would be pretty low for party aligned interest groups and other party actors to have some influence here -- that if candidates in Hawaii aren't saying they anti-DOMA, it's because no one has pushed them to be. Also, for the contested primary candidates, strategic considerations should push them towards having these issues included, no?

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  6. Brad DeLong's question (6) above has a simple answer: the Dodd-Frank bill. It is a compliance nightmare for the financial services industry, and parts of it are so unworkable (among others, the Volcker rule) that the financial regulators recently had to give the Street a two year extension to comply with it. Romney's promise to rework Dodd-Frank has brought him major support in the financial services industry. In addition, many of us on Wall Street admire Romney's success in our industry, and think that as a participant and leader in the private enterprise system he has economic competence beyond that of our community organizer and law professor President.

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    Replies
    1. Wait I missed that. Has Romney said he plans on reworking financial regulation? All I ever hear him and his surrogates say is that they intend on simply repealing Dodd-Frank entirely?

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    2. Wait I missed that. Has Romney said he plans on reworking financial regulation? All I ever hear him and his surrogates say is that they intend on simply repealing Dodd-Frank entirely?

      Delete

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