Democrats

You know, while there may be many reasons one is not comfortable with Obama as a potential President….you gotta admit that the guy can give a good speech.

I especially appreciate the passages of his speech which called for personal responsibility in affecting change, his reminding Democrats that they share some of the responsibility for the nastily polarized political culture in Washington, and his acknowledgement that more than a few of us are rather cynical towards politicians because of empty promises delivered in the past.

It was a darned fine speech.

Sadly, it didn’t overcome my cynicism of what havoc could be wreaked by a Dem in the Oval Office and Dems in power on Capitol Hill….but it did come pretty darned close.

It’ll be interesting to see how the GOP responds next week.

So, the choreography of the abridgement of the roll call, ending with Hillary moving to nominate Obama by acclimation, was very nicely done.

Sadly…why did they have to go and spoil the festivities with Chuck Schumer’s call for assistance in getting the Dems to 60 votes in the Senate?

The threat of either party having too much power is what drives folks like me to vote in support of divided government.  I think Obama’s interesting…but the thought of no one being able to act as a check on Congressional Dems is just as disturbing as the Bush/GOP virtual monopoly on federal power was.

Roll call speechifying makes for entertaining radio listening during the evening commute.

It almost brings back memories of when the conventions were more than just pep rallies.

So, I had CSPAN’s coverage of the Democratic convention on as background noise this evening.  I can offer a few thoughts:

• Is anyone keeping track of just how many times the words “Barack Obama” are being said?
   
• The speeches given outside the “prime time hour” were arguably more interesting…or disturbing…than those of the final hour.   In addition to a tally of the phrase “Barack Obama”, I’d like a subtotal for the phrase “Barack Obama will” and “Barack Obama believes”.  I realize that the conventions have become the launching point for the presidential candidate, but there’s the distinct odor of Kool-Aid in the air.  Some of those iterations of “Barack Obama believes/will” would have sounded slightly less cultish if they had been cast as “we believe” / “we will”.
   
• Props to Barack’s daughter who called her father on forgetting where he was phoning into the convention from.  First it was Kansas City…then it was St. Louis…then it was Kansas City.  (I’m sure the KC crowd is fond of being confused for STL.)

So, political convention madness is now almost upon us, and I offer you a thought:

If you should view the multi-million dollar extravaganza of either major political party…or both…remember that about $132 million of taxpayers’ money (or, more likely, federal IOU’s) is being spent to support them — $32 million in the form of grants to the parties, and $100 million as homeland security subsidies.

Don’t you think there is something better that could be done with $132 million, rather than subsidizing two partisan pep rallies?

Earlier today, I mentioned that the Dems have circulated a draft of their ’08 platform, and that I meant to comment on it if time permitted.

Well, I’ve had a chance to slightly-more-than-skim through it, and I can offer a few thoughts:

On health care and health insurance – I don’t think the Dems are planning to rely on too much in the way of contributions from the health insurance sector this cycle.  Several pages of the document seem focused on grilling health insurers.

There is, at least, one comment in the platform expressing a desire to control health costs, but the focus seems to be on addressing inefficiencies in the system (where there is indeed room for improvement), rather than the real drivers of health care inflation – Americans’ perceived entitlement to the latest and greatest (and generally very expensive) procedures and treatments, and the tendency for medical professionals to treat specific complaints, rather than undertaking thorough diagnosis, and considering the potential efficacy of less-sexy-but-still-effective treatments.  The platform buys into the notion that Americans should have access to the very best health care (and admirable goal), but does nothing about the unspoken question of “who’s going to pay for this”?

(Actually, I should take that back.  Throughout the platform there are promises to not raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000.   Above the magic $250,000 mark, the platform calls on households to pay “a bit more”.)

There are actually quite a few calls for new programs, to bolster the health and welfare of Americans.  They are all admirable goals….but the only spending cut I see mentioned in the platform involves ending our military involvement in Iraq.  I wonder if a Democratic monopoly in Washington would actually be significantly less fiscally irresponsible than the Republican monopoly was, or the lame duck / deadlocked government we have now is.

True, I didn’t expect to see a robust fiscal plan laid out in a platform…but it would be nice if a few more hints of budget-balancing could be seen in the document.

Also on the health care reform section of the platform – I can’t help but notice how many of the abuses (and perceived abuses) the Dems seek to end are targeted towards traditional health insurance providers.   Most health insurance these days comes from employer-provided plans which would likely be relatively exempt from such reforms…and/or have already been subject to such reform through amendments to ERISA.

Missing from that section – reform of ERISA itself.   While ERISA definitely provided some much-needed consumer protections in what was a then-failing pension system in the 1970’s….there are a few loopholes in the law which permit administrators of employee health plans to behave badly with minimal repercussions.   More detail can be found in an earlier post of mine…and it’s something that I’d like to see fixed.

The Social Security plank is disappointing, I think.   While it’s understandable that the Dems would slam corporations for underfunding pension plans, or walking away from promises previously made, statements like:

We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis

smell a bit like an attempt to score political points, rather than paint a constructive plan.  Yes, the platform advocates bolstering Social Security’s financing, and yes “crisis” is in the eye of the beholder…but acknowledgement that acting sooner rather than later would reduce the burden of any fix, and acknowledgement of the even-worse fiscal situation of Medicare would be refreshingly frank from a political party.

Oh well.  Democratic and Republican platforms these days seem to be mostly puff pieces anyway, so my frustration is to be expected.  I imagine this document and the forthcoming GOP platform will only reconfirm my disappointment with both major parties.

Dang, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of material worth commenting on during the craziness of the past few weeks.   Some of the more interesting articles include:

• Redstate referenced an article in the Telegraph entitled “The Great Oil Bubble Has Burst”.  While Redstate seems inclined to play up the influence of off-shore drilling expectations in the recent rationalization of oil prices, the more complete story seems to be the free market coming back into balance.  Yes, the markets seem to reflect expectation of new supplies, and global economic slowing is shifting expectations of demand, and these shifts in turn seem to end the incentive to dance the contango. 
     
  However, I do notice that both articles also fail to touch on expectations of the US Dollar strengthening / Euro weakening impacting dollar-denominated oil futures contracts, as well as China presumably ending its massive stockpiling of diesel fuel for Olympics power-generation.

  It’ll be interesting to see where  the new oil/fuel price equilibrium emerges.  It’s a little odd that I’d ever be happy over gas and heating oil prices locally dropping below $3.90 – a year ago that would have been an unsettling price to think about.  Hopefully planners and venture capitalists will continue to see the market potential of alternative power sources (wind, solar, non-food-based-ethanol) enough to justify further development of such technology.
   

• You may have heard that the Olympics are on. NBC apparently racked up record ratings, which annoys me since it will only support that network’s practice of tainting the games (and its ceremonies) with inane, fluffy chatter.   You’d think that with the advent of digital multicasting, there would at least be some move to provide a commentator-less soundtrack, as well as additional coverage of some of the less-popular (but more interesting) sports.
   
• Tyson Foods drew some flack in Nashville media for one provision in its recently announced 5-year contract at a Shelbyville processing plant – workers will no longer receive Labor Day as a paid day off, instead picking up Eid al-Fitr, the end of the month of Ramadan.  The fuss seems to be focused around the appearance of sacrificing an American holiday for an Islamic one.  
   
  However, not much seems to be made of approximately 60% of staff at the plant being Somali (and presumably Muslim)…and that not much work would be done that day anyway.  It seems like a rather practical approach to maximize plant efficiency while being sensitive to workers’ wishes.   It’s similar to how even the most secular institutions in the U.S. observe Christmas Day.
   
• The Dems reportedly have reached the necessary compromises to draft a platform for the ’08 election season.  I’m hoping to have time to look through it more carefully later, but I can observe now that quickly searching for the word “insurance” and skimming through the results makes me feel oh-so-loved, and causes me to wonder if I should be searching for “bread and circus” as well.
   
• And finally, while I might feel unloved by the Dems due to my association with the “evil” insurance industry, I still can’t help but compliment the Obama camp for seemingly almost mastering the art of media hype.   The current example of this is was the invitation broadcast far and wide for a text message alert when Barack’s veep choice (presumably Bayh) is announced (presumably in the next day or two).

Whew!  And now, it’s time for me to head back into the salt mine….

Seen on the AP wire:

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation’s first black president.[...]

Obama sealed his nomination based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and delegates’ public declarations as well as support from 22 delegates and "superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions to The Associated Press. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in Denver this summer.

From what I understand, reaction from the Clinton campaign was:

"I’m melting!"

(Yes, I know that’s horribly unfair of me.  But, while I respect the Clintons’ skill as politicians, that doesn’t mean I like Hillary.)

Seen at the Washington Post’s "The Trail" blog:

One thing about superdelegates is they can change their minds.

Even though I do not want to see a Democratic monopoly on power in Washington next year (all D’s is almost as bad as all R’s, in my opinion), it’s just about time to put the nominating campaign to bed, and quit the intraparty squabbling.

While a floor fight in Denver would be entertaining to watch, it’s bad political business.

If Hillary wants to sway some superdelegates, the thing she ought to be doing now is plastering all the superdelegates (especially the uncommitted ones) with clear, cogent arguments about how she would be more electable than Obama.   It should be short, concise, and not rely on funny numbers (like the spurious popular vote argument).

For example, consider the latest tallies at electoral-vote.com:

• Obama 276, McCain 238, 24 tied
• Clinton 327, McCain 194, 17 tied

That’s a pretty decent argument to make, I think.

I would rather not see Hillary get the nod…but the game she’s playing is not fair.   There are better, stronger arguments available to her, if she’d like to come across as the voice of reason rather than a sore loser.

I have CSPAN on as I type, after having sweet-talked the remote away from my wife.

Looking at the "every vote counts" protest, I’m still left to wonder — whatever happened to belief in the fairness of playing by the same set of rules?