Clay Davis Memorial POLITICS THREAD

by **Harpua** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:41:24

jerseyhoya wrote:I hope dajafi just stays away from the politics thread today, for his sake and ours

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp

Hooray! More treating corporations like humans!

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:50:28

One of my favorite lines is Companies are people too

I don't know how much this changes things, just because with disclosure requirements, you're not going to want ExxonMobil throwing $250,000 into your warchest. Then, god forbid you get elected, and have to vote on a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies. Ad next cycle: Senator X received over a quarter of a million dollars from oil giant ExxonMobil, and when it came time to fairly tax their record $10 billion in profits, X sided with an oil company instead of you. $250,000 for X, Billions for ExxonMobil, and you pick up the bill.

Or something like that.

by **CalvinBall** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:57:54

what justices were in favor of this?

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:03:56

You could probably guess without looking

by **Bakestar** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:05:20

I'm almost as close to a free speech absolutist as one can reasonably get, so I really can't craft a principled argument against this.

Furthermore, I don't know how much worse our political/campaign discourse can really get anyway; it's just malignantly shitty already.

And I think we're generally fucked as a country anyway, so who cares?

by **CalvinBall** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:09:09

roberts, scalia, thomas, kennedy, alito

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:13:12

Um, I keep holding dollar bills up to my ear, but they're not saying anything. I stuck one in my cd-rom drive to be sure, but nothing. Then, I wrapped my I pod in some money. Nope, nothing.

I don't think money is the same thing as speech. Ergo, regulating political spending is not the same thing as regulating speech.

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:34:36

Also, I wonder how tough it would be to get the tea party types riled up on this.

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:42:04

jerseyhoya wrote:One of my favorite lines is Companies are people too

I don't know how much this changes things, just because with disclosure requirements, you're not going to want ExxonMobil throwing $250,000 into your warchest. Then, god forbid you get elected, and have to vote on a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies. Ad next cycle: Senator X received over a quarter of a million dollars from oil giant ExxonMobil, and when it came time to fairly tax their record $10 billion in profits, X sided with an oil company instead of you. $250,000 for X, Billions for ExxonMobil, and you pick up the bill.

Or something like that.

Well, how are people going to see that ad?

As I understand it, corporations and unions are still prohibited from directly financing candidates. They can run their own campaign ads, but they cannot be coordinated with campaigns. I suspect most corporations prefer that, as they probably don't want candidates shaking them down every five minutes.

by **drsmooth** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 13:52:35

TenuredVulture wrote:Also, I wonder how tough it would be to get the tea party types riled up on this.

processing abstract entities like corporations is waaaaay past their pay grade

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:12:24

How much does this change then if they can't give big piles of money to candidates? Do we think corporations will set up huge campaign arms to rival party committees?

by **dajafi** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:21:07

jerseyhoya wrote:I hope dajafi just stays away from the politics thread today, for his sake and ours

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp

Nice. So I'm PtK to you because I think this system is fucked?

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:23:38

I really haven't thought enough about it, but here's how we might see this playing out. Say a Senator is a swing vote on some issue that would be unfavorable to Google. Say he's thinking about voting against net neutrality. Google says--think about what you want to do here--it would be very easy for us to run 5 million dollars worth of ads that talk about how much you like to eat live bunnies.

Moreover, there does seem to be language in the decision that would justify eliminating disclosure rules, and possibly undoing candidate contribution limits as well. Again, I don't know if corporate America really wants to go there however. Exxon Mobil can do a pretty effective job getting fighting windfall profits tax without spending millions of dollars on campaigns as it is.

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:25:59

If the decision is really broad, moreover, it opens huge cans of worms--consider recent attempts by foreign companies to buy American companies--I'm thinking China and Dubai specifically. There really isn't anything stopping those corporations from setting up campaigns now as well to defeat the politicians who demagogued on that issue.

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:26:40

dajafi wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:I hope dajafi just stays away from the politics thread today, for his sake and ours

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp

Nice. So I'm PtK to you because I think this system is $#@!?

You've been a bit over-the-top in here the past two days. I don't want to see you having an aneurysm.

by **dajafi** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:33:23

jerseyhoya wrote:
dajafi wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:I hope dajafi just stays away from the politics thread today, for his sake and ours

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp

Nice. So I'm PtK to you because I think this system is $#@!?

You've been a bit over-the-top in here the past two days. I don't want to see you having an aneurysm.

Do tell.

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:38:54

dajafi wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:
dajafi wrote:Oh, there's a wave. A righteous coast-to-coast yearning for Tax Cuts 'n' Torture.

But none of you seem to care anything about policy anyway, so long as Red Team wins and you get that resultant dopamine rush.

It's people against the health care bill and cap and trade and the other action items on the Obama agenda.

Yes, while unemployment is at 10 percent.

You know enough political science to understand the relationship between the economy and election outcomes. If we were adding jobs and GDP was growing at 4 percent, don't you think "the Obama agenda" would be doing a little better?

I'm becoming convinced that almost all political analysts are as prone to magical thinking and fairy-tale like narratives and generally as full of $#@! as the Bill Plaschkes and Marcus Hayeses of the world. The intangibles probably matter a little more in elections than in baseball, but it's still mostly structural and quantifiable factors that have explanatory power. (This is why we all like Nate Silver, and even Republicans don't often throw the "bias" charge at him despite his frequent professions of progressive leanings.)

VoxOrion wrote:You're getting to be kind of a hateful angry dude.

by **dajafi** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:42:24

Yeah, that was a rabid, bat shit crazy post alright. I suggested a linkage between economic climate and political outcomes as opposed to your "THE PEOPLE IZ RISING UP AGIN THA SOCIALISTS" point, and that "pundits" were simplistic in their analysis. Whack job!

If you don't like what I say or disagree with me, that's fine. But "over the top"?

by **Woody** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:49:54

Sounds like someone needs to polish the lighthouse. Criminy

by **allentown** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 14:53:52

dajafi wrote:Yeah, that was a rabid, bat $#@! crazy post alright. I suggested a linkage between economic climate and political outcomes, and that "pundits" were simplistic in their analysis. Whack job!

If you don't like what I say or disagree with me, that's fine. But "over the top"?

Yes, any change seems riskier in bad economic times. Obama has been hurt by several things, in my mind. The biggest was having tied his star to a new bipartisan spirit in his campaign. This made it too easy for the Republicans to be the party of no and just keep saying if Obama was more bipartisan, they would cooperate. Meanwhile, his genuine bipartisan focus, probably the strongest in recent memory, has hurt not just with the base, but with middle. The bipartisanship prevented firmly assigning resopnsibility for the economic fiasco to President Bush, his administration, and Greenspan. President Obama exacerbated the problem by keeping the key elements of President Bush's economic team and policy. This has made him seem the sponsor of Wall Street and thus the enemy of Main Street.

He has also been hurt by pushing too quickly on a cap and trade approach to global warming. Not only is this something that he can take time to consider, but the Senate had trounced it once before, it is scary, really could wreck the economy, is certainly not something that can move in parallel with something else as big as healthcare reform. The smart thing was to just do the things that make sense even without global warming -- push for energy efficiency, push R&D on alternative energy, push natural gas and nuclear. Apart from the timing in the political and economic cycle, his push comes at a time when dishonesty on the part of both global warming scientists and sellers of carbon offsets have come to the fore. He couldn't expect the latter, but should have known that now is not the time for cap and trade and that cap and trade is inferior to other approaches like a carbon tax and renewable clean energy incentives, anyway.

He has also been hurt by the Dems in Congress.

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Clay Davis Memorial POLITICS THREAD