Question One

All the cool kids seem to be making their pre-election predictions…so I’ll join in as well.

• I think it’s going to be a fairly good night for the Dems.  I’ll bet that Obama wins with 338 electoral votes, the Dems achieve 58 seats in the Senate (including Lieberman), and 249 seats in the House.  
   
• I believe that Lieberman will be permitted to continue to caucus with the Dems and retain his committee chairmanship, as his support will be needed for cloture votes.  However, I do believe that Lieberman will choose to retire in 2012, rather than run for the Senate again.
   
• I believe that both the Dems and the GOP will address their internal schisms: the intra-GOP battle between the religious right and traditional conservatives, and the intra-Dem battle between moderates and progressives.  However, I believe the GOP schism will be resolved in 2010-2012, while Dem reform will come only after the next bullet comes true.
   
• I believe that Congressional Dems will not be fully on board with Obama’s message of “change and personal responsibility”.   I believe that Pelosi and her minions will overreach, permitting the GOP to recover in public backlash in the mid-term and next general election.  (It almost seems like 1992 all over again.)
   
• I suspect that not much will change in the next two years.  The sheeple may be voting for “the other party” in choosing a President; but for the most part, the same jokers are headed back to Congress.
   
• Here in Connecticut, I believe that Question One will barely pass.  Some folks will vote for a ConCon on principle (like I did); others because they genuinely want ballot initiative; and still others out of general dissatisfaction with the state legislature.  However…
   
• I believe that the Connecticut state legislature will defang the resulting Constitutional Convention by gaming the rules of the ConCon and the delegate selection.

Those are my bets, and I’m going to stick to them (as much as I would like to be proven wrong on a few of them).

Anyway…have a good election day folks.  Remember to vote…and to vote often, if you were registered by Acorn. 

One of the problems with working a day job is that it interferes with blogging.  Sadly, for bloggers like me whose interests are too unfocused and whose writing style is rather amateurish, the day job pays better. 

While I was away, I flagged several articles I could point at, or topics I could write about.  Sadly, it looks like I’m not going to have to time to do much detailed catch-up (especially with another many-miles-in-little-time trip coming next week).

But I can do a quick chop-suey post.

• While transiting ATL yesterday, a coworker and I were accosted by Delta folks asking, “are you a SkyMiles member?”   I suspect they were trying to get folks to sign up with Delta’s affinity credit card.  I waved them off with the response “not until that part of the merger goes through” (I use Northwest’s program to aggregate my DL/NW/CO miles).   They didn’t seem entirely happy with that answer;  whether that was because they were getting few takers for the credit card offer, or disgruntlement with the Delta/Northwest merger (which apparently passed the last major regulatory hurdle while I was in the air), I cannot say.   I guess I can ask when I pass through ATL next week.
   
• I had thought Memphis’ days as a hub were numbered, with the merger of Delta and Northwest.  However, a Commercial Appeal article paints a more positive picture, due to capacity constraints at ATL.
   
• There is one advantage to Congress’ approval ratings being so low.  When spending time with a couple of coworkers whose political views seem to be frequently-in-opposition to my own, it’s nice to find common ground on the irrelevancy of the Presidential race, given the lack of turnover in Congress.
   
• IJ has a blurb on some good news (from an insurer’s perspective, at least) from the world of asbestos litigation.
   
• The Courant expects that same-gender marriages will begin in Connecticut on or about November 10.
   
• Travelers and the AIA are becoming vocal about how many mainstream property/casualty insurers are not in need of bailouts, and therefore we shouldn’t be bundled in with the woes of those carriers (life, surety, and some leveraged specialty/reinsurance) experiencing indigestion with the state of their investment portfolios.  However, word of CNA’s cash infusion from Loews illustrates the caveats that ought to come with such a pronouncement. (CNA, however, does deserve some respect for masochistically joining the no-bailout bandwagon.)
   
• I’ve seen rumblings that some folks believe the crash of ’08 marks the end of the soft market, and the beginning of a new hard market for commercial insurance.   For example, a Wall Street Journal article (subscriber link) quotes Ace’s chairman’s observations that the industry isn’t as overcapitalized as it was less than a year ago.
   
• Speaking of the end of overcapitalization, the Palm Beach Post has an article mentioning how several Florida-only subsidiaries may be up for ratings downgrades due to the current turmoil.
   
• The Moderate Voice has an interesting post up about the varying views on the oldest extracurricular activity for teenagers in red versus blue states.  
   
• CT News Junkie passed along word of a UConn poll suggesting a plurality of support in favor of Connecticut’s constitutional convention question (50% yes; 39% no; 11% undecided) .  A telling comment in the story: “The Constitutional Convention question appears to be a referendum on the performance of the General Assembly.  Connecticut residents unhappy with legislators in Hartford support holding a convention to amend the constitution, whereas those happy with the General Assembly oppose holding one.”  That’s in spite of the pro-ConCon campaign’s push to make a ConCon about ballot initiatives.
   
  That comment also furthers my amazement that incumbents by-and-large will likely be reelected countrywide, in spite of an apparent across-the-board dissatisfaction with most legislative bodies.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to watching Wednesday night’s ConCon forum (archived at CT-N’s website).  While it definitely wasn’t as polished as some folks might be used to from watching the Presidential campaign over the past couple of years…what do you expect for a local issue in a state the size of Connecticut?

I have absolutely no regrets for having cast a yes vote on principle, and not in support of the goals of the initiative crowd.

I did, however, come away with two major impressions.

First, one of the main arguments of the “no ConCon” presenters seems to be that it’s scary – anything can happen, there are no rules about who will be selected, what might come of the Convention, how long it would run…and why should we support  a call for a convention when there are so many unknowns?

It’s almost as if they say that the bidecadal constitutional convention question in the state constitution is too flawed to be usable, due to all the unknowns.

If that’s the case…aren’t constitutional conventions intended to fix those sorts of flaws in the fundamental law of the land?  A ConCon would be a perfect venue to fix the ConCon Question clause!

Second, although the subject at hand is whether to convene a constitutional convention, the folks campaigning for “yes” votes are seeking to get ballot initiatives introduced into Connecticut, and accordingly there was a little digression into what a Nutmeg-flavored initiative law might look like.

That aspect of the debate ought to be played up a bit more, as it would ease the concerns of folks like me, who would prefer not to see full-blown California or Massachusetts-style initiatives introduced to the state.

In a nutshell, the idea presented Wednesday evening seems to distill down to these points:

• High signature requirement (e.g. 10% of registered voters) for petitioners
• After successful petition, measure would flow through state legislature.
• Legislature could opt to approve as-is, vote “no” (and send it to the voters), or propose an alternative and let voters choose among the options.

If they’d add two other points:

• Allow a legislature to kill an initiative with a supermajority vote in both houses
• Initiatives only go before voters during statewide elections (i.e., Novembers in even-numbered years)

…it might not be such a bad idea.  With a high signature requirement, legislative filtering, and the preclusion of scheduling shenanigans, you would have the means to combat legislative stagnation, without the full-blown wingnuttery in California or Massachusetts-style initiatives.

But I digress.

While I understand the “fear of the unknown” argument raised by ConCon opponents (and I agree with their “fear of ulterior motives” point)…that is a lousy reason to vote “no”.  Wackiness should be kept in check by ConCon delegates, and ultimately the voters…and really, the idea of bringing in the constitution once every 20 years to check under the hood and confirm that everything works as well as can reasonably be expected just makes too much sense.

Given the checks and balances imposed by the legislature appointing delegates and voters getting the final say on any changes, there should be no reason to be afraid here.  There is no reason not to vote “yes”.

The video from Wednesday night’s forum debating the Connecticut ballot question of whether to call a constitutional convention is now available online from CT-N.

(I’ve mentioned this event previously here and here.)

I passed along word yesterday that the Connecticut Constitutional Convention Question was going to be debated at the Hartford public library on Wednesday evening.

For those of you interested in the subject but didn’t want to / weren’t able to trek to downtown Hartford, it appears that CT-N will broadcast a recording of the event at 1:08 EDT, Friday, 24 October.

I believe that they’ll stream the broadcast online, and I suspect the video will be available for download shortly thereafter.

CT News Junkie relayed:

Opponents and proponents of a constitutional convention will meet for a debate 6:30 p.m. tonight at the Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, Hartford.

The question, “Shall there be a Constitutional Convention to amend or revise the Constitution of the State?” appears on the ballot every 20 years. If voters decide in favor of a convention this November the legislature will appoint delegates to debate revisions to the state constitution.

Wednesday night’s panel will include Attorney General Richard Blumenthal; Matthew M. Daly, chairman of the Constitution Convention Campaign; John Woodcock, vice chairman of the Constitution Convention Campaign; constitutional scholar Kim Knox; and Peggy Shorey, Vote No Coalition campaign manager.

If I didn’t have other commitments…and if I didn’t hate going to downtown Hartford…I’d probably attend, out of intellectual curiosity, and even though I’ve already turned in my absentee ballot.

(Full disclosure: I voted YES to the question on principle, even though I disagree with the primary aims of proponents of the question.)

As of this writing, CT-N (Connecticut’s equivalent to C-SPAN) is reporting that they will be covering the debate, but there is no indication on whether they will broadcast live or when a tape-delay broadcast might be made.  I’ll pass along a link to their online video of the event, assuming one becomes available.