7th Circuit Hears Reparations Suit Appeal

Ann Althouse notes that a lawsuit against several major banks seeking reparations for being involved in the slave trade was heard in the 7th Circuit. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner asked why the case was just being brought now. "If you think you've been wronged, it shouldn't take 100 years to investigate the conduct [of the accused companies]," Posner said.

Legal action couldn't have come until after the Civil Rights movement, and it would have come earlier if companies had disclosed their ties to slavery, attorney Roger Wareham countered.

Posner is of course right in his observation, which is why the suit was thrown out of U.S. District Court.

But these suits just, for lack of a better word, piss me off. Assuming for a moment that these banks, most of which did not exist in the early 19th Century, actually took part in financing the slave trade--IT WAS PERFECTLY LEGAL BUSINESS AT THE TIME!!!!!! These banks did nothing illegal. Was it immoral--from our viewpoint in our time frame yes, but that is beside the point.

The banks in question were totally set up. A few years ago, groups of slave descendants, led by "need a headline right now to prove I am still relevant" Jesse Jackson and others essentially browbeat a number of banks and companies into admitting that they, their predecessor companies or companies they had bought long ago participated in the slave trade. Once these companies admitted to this fact, they might as well have retained attorneys right then since there were going to get sued.

The longer term problem with this suit is that we still can't erase the past and complaining and suing about in the present will not help the future of race relations in America. The fact that this country, despite its founding ideals permitted the slave trade cannot be changed--it happened and it was shameful. But we can recriminate all we want about the past, we can rue the slave traders and we can remember but if we as a nation are ever going to move forward with race relations, we have got to learn to leave the past in the past. Again, from the Sun-Times:

Among the descendants to show up Wednesday was Marcelle Porter, 77, of Chicago, who said his great-grandmother was a slave in Louisiana in the late 1800s. Porter said bringing the issue to an appeals court isn't about the money. "We're not after a check. We're after equality in schools, in jobs, in things most people talk about as the American Dream," Porter said.

"This is for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It's not for me."

If the suit is not about a check, what is the suit about? If it is about an apology, they already have that from the defendants. If the suit is prove that these companies were invovled in the slave trade, how will that be proven? This suit is about money and only money. What will the suit prove in the long run?

It has been over 140 years since slavery was abolished in this country. I am not suggesting we forget history, but I am suggesting that we stop living in it.

Maine Grassroots Communication Case Tossed Out as Moot

Allison Hayward reports:

A three-judge panel of the DC District court dismissed the Maine grassroots lobbying case as moot. Christian Civic League of Maine v. FEC, No. 006-614, 9/27/06. It should be available here, eventually.
Presently it seems to be the case that a group (not a PAC) intending to run an advertisement naming a federal candidate within the electioneering period, cannot obtain an injunction because of their inability to show a likelihood of success on the merits, cannot obtain a ruling in an as-applied challenge in the ordinary course because the time for running the ad will have come and gone, and cannot rely on any regulatory exceptions the FEC might author, because the FEC punted that opportunity.

The counsel for the Christian Civic League reportedly made the argument that these cases are capable of repitition, but evading review because of the short time frames involved. Yet the argument was rejected. I don't know if they would work with another Judge or not, but, as Allison notes, the only course of action for groups like the CCL is to run their ad and deal with the consequences later.

Ouch!!

Note to self, never get on Bob Bauer's bad side.

Presidential Public Funding Dead: George Will

Prof. Hasen points to this op-ed from George Will who notes taht while the Presidential campaign funding system will still exist, it is on its last legs.

In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush declined public funding -- and its accompanying restrictions on raising and spending money -- for the primaries, as did Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. In 2004, candidates accepting taxpayer funding were restricted to spending $45 million before the conventions. Bush and Kerry raised $269.6 million and $234.6 million respectively before the conventions. Any candidate who accepts public funding in the 2008 primaries will be considered second-tier. And, almost certainly, neither party's nominee will accept public funding for the fall campaign.

The problem with public funding of the primaries is that it perpetuates a 1970's era concept of campaigning, where primaries were spread all over the calendar and where spending was smaller and easier to contain in a given geography. Aside from my general dislike of government subsidizing political speech, the matching program tends to prolong the life of candidates with nothing to say and no mechanism for saying nothing.

Sen. Mitch McConnell rightly says taxpayer funding of politics has been the subject of the largest, most sustained and most accurate polling in American history. The polling occurs every year when 90 percent of taxpayers refuse to participate. Could it be that Americans recoil from funding political advocacy with which they disagree -- Republicans funding Democrats, Democrats funding Republicans, everyone funding fringe candidates such as the felon Lyndon LaRouche, who got infusions of taxpayers' money for a campaign he ran while in jail for fraud and conspiracy?

Indeed.

"Is Karl Rove really that smart?"

The Instapundit posts this about the NIE:

Reader Dale Harkey suspects a Rovian plot, given that the full document actually says that we're doing pretty well:

The set-up is oh so beautiful. Rove (it has to be Rove, right?) has the worst-case-scenario portions of a generally favorable NIE leaked to a gullible and traitorous media salaciously eager to run with it. The left-wing nuts explode in glee and establish their bonafides with all manner of stupid utterances. And since it is easily observed to be a politically motivated leak, (here comes the left hook the appeasers have leaned into because they can’t see it coming) what more justification can there be than to de-classify the original so the whole picture is available (and oh by the way, get the good stuff out there before the elections.) They sure couldn’t just hand the media a copy of the NIE and say, “hey, check this out, it says we’re doing okay,” could they? A dirty trick inside a dirty trick that turns the passion of the Bush-haters onto itself.

Is Karl Rove really that smart? "

Yes, I believe Karl Rove is smart enough to come up with the scheme, but also smart enough not to go through with it. Let's assume for a moment that Rove orders some underling to reveal parts of the NIE and the underling follows orders. While the NY Times, et al, may salivate over the possibility of publishing the material, despite their bias, they may ask questions of the source. It may not take too long to get back to Rove.

It is long past time for people in this country, especially on the left, to stop seeing Rove behind every little move that turns out to benefit the Bush Administration or comes back to bite the Dems on the ass. If a story is too good to be true, it usually is. To me this is just a case where the newspapers did not do a good job fact checking and looking for the original source but just rushed ahead with publication because it will boost circulation/ratings.

Could it be just that simple that the leftie press and the Dems want to embarass the Administration, selectively quote from a classified document and then point to Bush "dirty tricks" when it blows up in their faces?

A Very Good Question

There are a lot of people blogging about the National Intelligence Estimate, so I don't want to add anything, but John Podhoretz poses a very good question for the NY Times, LA Times and the Washington Post:

If the declassified version to be released today reveals that you were deceived about the contents, tone and interpretation in the NIE, will you reveal who leaked the information?

Hat Tip: The Instapundit

Porkbusters Busting Down the White House Gates

Porkbusters has arrived and will present at teh signing of the Coburn-Obama bill that will create a federal database of government spending. Although I have rarely commented on the porkbusters crusade, I have alwasy found it enviable and perhaps the single most important project for the public done by bloggers.

Asking the Hard Question: A Book Report

It is not that I have finally finished reading Our Underachiveing Colleges by Derek Bok, it is just that it has taken me this long to actually sit down and finish my review. All the buzz in the air at this time of the year about education, it is understandable that people are talking about the need to reform education, and Bok's book may be the best place for everyone to start, whether citizen or politician, whether your interest lies in k-12 education or higher education. While Bok focuses on higher education, the questions he presents are just as applicable in elementary and secondary education.

Among all calls for college exit exams and accusations of political bias, it is easy to forget to ask the basis questions. Unlike many books that criticize higher education as too politically correct, bastion of left-wing liberalism or having a curriculum that is out of touch with the needs of modern America, Bok takes to task the system which focuses too much on process and not enough of purpose. That is the thrust of Bok's book, what is the purpose of a college education? What should be the main themes of a college education, no matter what your major might be? Bok believes that most university officials and faculty, who are responsible for the provision and administration of curricula and policies, simply spend too much time reacting to various pressures, market, social, political and personal, that they fail to understand and account for the potential impact of their educational decisions. Too many of the decisions, Bok argues, are made from a standpoint of turf wars among faculty and not enough oversight and supervision by the administration to make the education experience a valuable one for students.

Bok asks the simple question, what should a college education provide? Bok answers with some fairly simple and straightforward answers, some we expect and some you might not. For example, of course critical thinking, writing and speaking skills make it on the list. Other goals, such as civic responsibility and preparing for a career might not surprise people. Bok also suggests, contrary to the relativist ethics currently espoused by many university settings, that character education, a favorite of conservatives should also be a goal of a university education. But fear not, liberals would also be happy to see sections on living with diversity and preparing for a global society also make the list.

In each of these sections, Bok takes us through what he believes should be taught, all based on a solid logic, and then proceeds to chastise the entire higher education establishment at one time or another for failing to achieve those goals or outright opposing the goal. From petty disputes over what should be taught in general education courses, to the dominance of faculty departments over the requirements for a major, Bok says that lack of an integrated thought about the purposes of a college education short-changes the consumer of education--the student and ultimately the employers and society that those students join upon graduation.

However, the significance of Bok's book does not start upon matriculation in college, but has proper application to the debate over reforming k-12 education. I have been just as guilty in the past of leaping in to the fray of reforming K-12 education without stepping back and looking first at what we are trying to accomplish? Some of the same goals Bok lays our for a college education also apply to K-12 education as well, namely, what are we trying to accomplish with elementary and secondary education? Certainly, skills such as reading, writing, and math skills are important. But what else should be looking to achieve? That is why things like character education--which Bok describes not as teaching a particular moral code, but asking students to examine moral questions, learning how to analyze the moral implications of particular actions and developing framework for addressing moral questions--are a questions to be asked.

Too often decision made about education occur in a vacuum, looking at dollars and cents, labor, curricula and other matters in a very narrow view. Bok reminds us that the education establishment and others involved in education need to look first at the purpose behind education and ask the hard question--what are we trying to achieve? Without an answer to that question, you can't begin the process of making education relevant, no matter what level concerns you most.

Other books I have read and reviewed

Charter Schools Defined

Terrence O. Moore is the principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools, the number one ranked public school in Colorado and has written a wonder piece on charter schols, available at Edspresso. In addition to defining charter schools and debunking some of hte common myths and misunderstanding about charters, Moore discusses choice and how choice holds schools accountable in ways that traditional public schools are not held accountable.

Opponents of charter schools must oppose them on one of these principles: their independence, their public funding and openness to the public, their reliance upon choice, or their accountability. Realize that these are extremely compelling, indeed extremely American, principles to oppose. If we study the arguments of these opponents, we shall find that their criticism boils down to their fear of competition and to charter schools’ receiving public funding based on the number of students they have. In short, these critics are monopolists. They want regular public schools protected from competition at all costs. I suppose there is an argument for monopoly, but we must wonder whether critics of monopoly would practice what they preach in other matters in which we take choice for granted. Do the critics of charter schools wish to be forced to buy Fords simply because Ford has fallen on hard times and could use the business or be required to buy HP computers though they might prefer Apple or Dell? If they go to church, do they wish to pay tithes to the church located closest to their house, though it is Catholic and they are Protestants? What if they do not go to church? If they live in Fort Collins, Colorado would they agree in all cases to send their children to C.S.U. and not to U.N.C. or to Colorado College or to The Citadel or to M.I.T.? Would these public-school apologists as parents agree to have their children go only to the closest pediatrician or dentist? Might they agree to being Denver Broncos fans even if they grew up in Pittsburgh or Dallas?

Choice is as American as apple pie in most everything except for schools. Indeed, Americans who do not like apple pie can always eat cherry or rhubarb without being thought un-American. Parents who send their children to charter schools, on the other hand, are often looked upon as some kind of traitors. Americans have accomplished wonders to make themselves the freest people who have ever lived, but in this one domain, the one that philosophers such as Plato considered the most important, they are substantially unfree, both in their practice and their thinking. Consequently, charter schools constitute a “rebirth of freedom” in an important human endeavor, the formation of children’s minds and souls, that has remained unfree for far too long.

So choice, for opponents of charters, is okay, so long as it is a choice defined by them.

Can They Call a Truce?

My article on amending the Maryland Charter School Act is available at Edspresso. I will probably post it here in a week or so.

Highway Backer a Steady Ehrlich Donor - washingtonpost.com

Well, golly geewillickers, I am shocked that a company and a developer that has wanted to build a road in Maryland gave money to a candidate who won approval for building that road.

The only purpose behind this story to try and make Gov. Bob Ehrlich out to be a tool of the developers. But later in the story, some facts come out. Kingdon Gould, the developer in question, paid a fair amount of money to former Governor Parris Glendenning's campaign as well, but soured on supporting Glendenning when the former Governor soured on the idea of the Intercounty Connecter--a stretch of highway that it is hoped will alleviate some congestion on the Washington Beltway.

Dear readers, if you have read this space for long, you know that I don't believe that political money buys votes or governmental actions, rather it is the other way around.

The timing in teh article is meant to suggest that the money flowing to the Ehrlich campaign somehow got the final hurdle signed off by the department of transportation. In all likelihood, Gould had good sources in teh office and knew the report would be approved. Finally, keep in mind that although there is good communication between the office of Governor Ehrlich and his campaign staff, they are not one in the same.

The Costs of American Education

From Edspresso comes this article by Dan Lips who explores what the cost of American education is. On the one hand:

How much does K-12 public education in America cost? One way to answer that is to look at direct taxpayer expenditures on education. In July, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average per-student expenditure in public schools was $8,310 in the 2003-04 school year. State's per-student expenditures ranged from a high of $13,338 in New Jersey to a low of $4,991 in Utah.

Altogether, spending on all elementary and secondary education topped more than $500 billion in 2003-04, or about 4.7 percent of the entire economy as measured by GDP. The U.S. spends more on K-12 education than the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, or Sweden spends on everything.

Based on the most recent per-pupil expenditure figures, the average student enrolled in public school for the next 12 years can expect to have about $100,000 spent on his or her education.

Half a trillion dollars, and decidedly mixed results. But Lips points to another, even more drastic concern--remediation--that is the expenses and lost productivity incurred by businesses and colleges and universities on teaching their workers and students that which is expected to be taught in elementary and high school.

Another growing cost of our failing public education system is remediation, which is the burden that other institutions like colleges and businesses shoulder to help people develop the basic skills they should have learned in primary or secondary school. The Department of Education reported that 100 percent of all community colleges and 81 percent of four-year colleges offer remediation. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy estimates that remediation costs colleges and business in just the state of Michigan approximately $600 million per year. If the other 49 states and the District of Columbia are anything like Michigan, the country spends tens of billions of dollars each year making up for public schools' shortcomings.

To do the math on that score alone, we are looking at $30.6 billion dollars spent on remediation, on a conservative estimate.

Education today, as it has been for a number of years, is a black hole for money. Even now, despite decades of effort, we are just now coming to the realization that money doesn't buy everything--and it particuarly doesn't buy an education.

West vs. Islamofascism: We're Too Nice

At Human Events, Deroy Murdock notes the difference between the West and Islamfascists:

"Throwing olive branches at Islamofascists is beyond futile. This is the War on Terror, not the Summer Olympics on Terror. If America won’t fight this like a war -- and win -- we might as well cut our losses, hand out the Korans, and start the mass conversions. "

It might seem a trifle harsh, but for years we have been making excuses, trying to talk to Islamic fanatics as if they were a trading partner or another democracy that can be reasoned with to some end. However, when the starting and ending point of the radical Islam position is "convert to Islam or die" there is not a lot of wiggle room in that position. When you are dealing with religious extremist, of any sort, you cannot expect to reach beyond fervor to rationality--it doesn't work.

Charles Krauthammer, a man whose writing I rarely agree with, makes a beautiful point:

"How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it'' is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation.

First, Salman Rushdie. Then the false Newsweek report about Koran-flushing at Guantanamo. Then the Danish cartoons. And now, a line from a scholarly disquisition on rationalism and faith given in German at a German university by the pope.

And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour.

In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.

Indeed.

Wisconsin politics as usual

The Milwauke Journal Sentinel Editorial Boardis none too happywith the goings on related to Mark Green, Jim Doyle and legislature uniwlling to do anything about it.

Members of the public are free to contact board members, of course, but the e-mails from attorney Michael Maistelman reveal a coziness that should cause discomfort for anyone who believes the board should be independent of partisan pressure.

"We need to accomplish the following," reads one e-mail to two Democratic board members. Another said, "Even if this ends up in Court, it is a PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money."

We? Us?

The Elections Board counsel is probably correct in saying that no laws were broken. Nonetheless, the ruling in the Green case does not deserve one iota of public confidence.

Doyle's campaign says the governor had no knowledge of the hiring of the attorney, who met with the campaign chairman. So who's in charge?

We'll wait to see if today's outrage over this translates into resurrected ethics legislation. If it doesn't, then it will be clear that today's howls of protest are every bit as partisan as the Elections Board ruling so obviously was in the Green case.

Green faces questions on individual donors

More on the legal saga of Mark Green. As noted earlier, there are now questions about Green's individual donors. According to a story yesterday in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Associated Press asked a group called Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to compile figures on individual donors. Alledgedly, Green has received some $48,000 in excess individual contributions, according to the group. But one has to question the motives of a group with some left leaning members.

Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said he thought the individual contributions would fall under the order that had already been issued to the Green campaign. McCabe's group had filed the complaint about the PAC money that prompted the Elections Board ruling against Green.

Elections Board legal counsel George Dunst said, however, that the board's order applied only to PAC money, so anyone challenging individual donations would have to file a separate complaint.

snip

The Green campaign has argued that Democrats on the Elections Board took their cue from Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in making what Republicans have said is a partisan decision that he must divest himself of the money.

Actually, as seen in these documents, it appears as more than just a cue from the Doyle campaign but it was everything short of a directive.

On a side note, why does the AP need the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to compile the figures? The WIDC claims that is has the only searchable database of campaign donors in teh state. The problem is that it is not very searchable. For candidates like Green, with over 10,000 individual contributions, it is difficult to search for anything other than a big list.

Mark Green Case Explodes

As I had previously reported a few weeks ago, Wisconsin Republican Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green had been orded by the Wisconsin State Elections Board to divest some $480,000 because of an ex post facto rule change. At the time, the action stunk of a partisan ploy. Now the news coming out of Wisconsin is that the ploy was not only partisan but appears to have been orchestrated by Democratic operatives and Governor Doyle's campaign staff actively lobbied Democratic Members of the Elections Board for a ruling that would put Green in a jam.

On January 25, 2005, Mark Green, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, transferred funds from his federal campaign to his campaign fund for Governor, in a move that had been allowed for nearly 30 years and was in 2002 by Democrat Tom Barrett. The very next day, the Democratically controlled State Board of Elections voted to outlaw the practice, including Green's transfer, indeed Green's transfer was the only such transfer affected. The state legislature had an opportunity to overturn the regulation, but failed to do so before the legislature adjourned in July 2006.

After the failure of the legislature to permanently revoke the initial SEB ruling, on August 30, the State Elections Board ordered Green to divest his PAC funds that he transferred from his federal campaign to his state campaign that were over the aggregate limit of PAC funds for gubernatorial candidates, some $480,000 dollars. Green then vowed to defy the order. Yesterday Green went to court in Dane County, Wisconsin to have the order overturned.

What is most shocking is the role and activities of the Doyle campaign. According emails (available here), As early as August 24 (nearly a full week before the ruling), Michael Maistelman, a lawyer for Doyle's campaign, contacted three Democratic members of the SEB, Kerry Dwyer, Carl Holborn and Robert Kasieta and began lobbying for a ruling that would punish Green (the title of the original email reads "Follow the law when it is good for me but not when it is not...."). On Monday August 28 , according to the emails, Kasieta met with Maistelman in his office to discuss the case and come up with some sort of plan of action. Later that day, in an email dated 8/28/06 at 3:53pm Maistelman thanks Kasieta for meeting with him that day and provides him with additional information regarding the case. Just nine minuts later, Maistelman sends material on the case to Dwyer and Holborn. The goal of the plan was to obtain SEC rulings saying:

• Bottom line-Green has a PAC limit like any other Gov candidate i.e. $485,000. When Green transferred his 1.3 Million dollars in January 2005, the PAC money that he transferred into his STate account should we {sic} counted towards that PAC limit...
• Bottom line-Non-Registered PAC's - a finding that he wrongfully accepted monies from PAC's not registered in WI. Nonetheless, the SEB will give him 7 days to get those non-registered PAC's registered in WI...

In an email dated 8/29/06 at 9:31am, Maistelman tells Dwyer and Holborn, "I have also been told that the Gov's Campaign and the Dem party and others will give you cover on this in the media."

Some more damning evidence of Doyle complicity comes in emails dated 8/29/06 at 9:33am, in which Maistelman says he has run the ideas past "Madison" and gotten the "green light" on the idea. Miastelman seeks a conference call the night before the vote to talk about plans with Dwyer, Holborn and Kasieta, but noted they should keep Sherwin Hughes off teh call in order to avoid violations of the open meeting laws. Hughes, by the way was directly appointed to the Board by Governor Jim Doyle. Maistelman also later amends the plans so that only two SEB board members would be on the conference call in order to not violate Open meeting laws. Maistelman also has the audacity to write:

"I am permitted as a member of the public to communciation with SEB members and to send to SEB members info and correspondence but I want to make sure whatever we do complies with the Open Meetings law."

While Maistelman is indeed a member of the public, he is not acting in this case as a citizen, but as a retained counsel and lobbyist. His actions and those of Dwyer, Holborn and Kasieta violate at the very least the spirit if not the letter of the law regarding Open Meetings. The fact that these ex parte communications are not divulged points more and more to a cover-up.

In teh meantime, it appears as though two separate investigations into Maistelman's activities are going to be opened, one by the state's Justice Department and one by the Waukesha District Attorney.

Here is a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial on the matter as well as a the Wisconsin Justice Deparment's response to the Green campaign motion for a temporary injunction. Brad Smith has comments here (and thanks to Brad for letting me know about these events).

It is highly disturbing that Wisconsin election officials seemed to think nothing of this. I served five years on the Federal Election Commission, and cannot imagine not recusing myself, and making public the communications, if lawyers for an interested party had ever lobbied me in such a fashion on an enforcement matter.

Update: Green is also facing questions about contributions from individual donors as well.

According to figures prepared by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign at the request of The Associated Press, 30 donors have exceeded the $10,000 maximum they are allowed to give under state law.

Not sure who the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is, but what I don't understand is why the AP can't do the research themselves, since the contribution information is publicly available.

Education Carnivals

Check out the 85th Carnival of Education over at The Median Sib.

The 38th Homeschooler's Carnival is up at The Thinking Mother

Enjoy.

Rebuttal Material for Democratic Anti-War Statements.

The next time you see and/or hear some Democrat talk about how Iraq is such a mess, send them these quotes and facts about Iraq from leading Democrats. My personal favorite:

Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President, or the credibility to be elected President.

John Kerry, Speech at Drake University in Iowa, December 16, 2003

Democrats Invent-Republicans Perfect

Bestsy Newmark has this post aboutthe GOP Get out the Vote Machine, commenting on this Washington Post article about teh GOTV effort on behalf of Lincoln Chaffee. Despite my disapproval of using the effort in a primary, I agree with Betsy that it is good to see the GOP warming up the GOTV muscle in advance of Nov. 7.

James Joyner seems to think that it is only a matter of time before the Democrats start copying the GOP turnout operation. Betsy disagrees and so do I. Betsy notes:

the Republicans have been bragging about their GOTV efforts since the 2002 elections and I have expected since then that the Democrats would copy it, but they haven't seemed to do so. In 2004 they outsourced a lot of their GOTV work to independent groups and they found out that it just doesn't work as well to have some independent effort that isn't run out of the Committee office. You'd think that the Democrats could imitate the massive computer effort that the GOP utilize.

The secret GOP weapon--nothing but a good database and sweat equity. As described in the Post:

About six months ago, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sat down with the Chafee campaign to construct a voter-turnout program. Weekly phone calls followed and a number of NRSC senior staffers -- including political director Blaise Hazelwood -- made regular trips to the state to ensure the structure was being built. They identified potential Chafee voters and pressed Democrats to change their party identification to "unaffiliated," a move that would allow them to vote in the Republican primary.

As the campaign wore on, Republicans began another slew of phone calls to unaffiliated voters to tell them that they could vote for Chafee and then immediately change their registration back to unaffiliated or Democrat. The RNC road-tested a new technology in the race that officials said is making their targeting program faster and more precise. It is based on a program that allows volunteers to call potential voters, note their political views and preferences on sheet of paper and immediately scan the results into a huge database known as the Voter Vault. Experts in the political practice known as microtargeting can then instantly analyze the results to determine which issues are moving voters and adjust their pitch.

All told, the Chafee campaign spent $500,000 on the effort, while the Republican National Committee chipped in an additional $400,000. The NRSC spent $1.2 million on the race -- primarily on an extended television campaign that attacked Laffey. Heading into the final day, Chafee said he had "deep apprehensions" about his ability to win.

So the GOP just works hard and uses some smart technology--but not technology that is so new as to be unproven.

But in a conversation last week with a client (the lovely and talented Cynthia) we discussed how the Democrats have invented many of the tools of modern campaigning, but the GOP has perfected it in the past forty years since Barry Goldwater. First the Democrats created a climate of ideas, starting with the New Deal. There were foundational prinicples upon which the party stood for. But by the 1960's and 70's a number of those ideas had been implemented and other discarded. But after the drubbing of Goldwater in 1964, the GOP sat back, took stock and started building a principaled platform that has resulted in a solid GOP core, culminating in our current posture, with the GOP in control of much of the governmental machinery. Even now, in the time when Democrats are chastising the GOP for its policies, there is a GOP machine behind the scenes that continues to churn out ideas. Democrats have made a practice of criticizing GOP policies without offering any of their own proposals.

Now, as a minority party, it is common to take the path of criticism, but if the Democrats want to be a party in control, they need convince the voting public that they have better policy proposals to offer. The danger in being contrary is that no one will believe you can do anything else. But the danger is not just for Republicans, but rather it is also for the nation as a whole. Multiple policy proposals, from multiple points of view generates compromises and often leads to better policy than one party rule. Ideas get tested, adjusted and tested again. Mere criticism comprising "that's bad policy" helps no one.

But ideas alone will not win elections. If the GOP had great ideas, but lacked the ability to move voters, they would not have won in 1980 with Reagan or in 1994 with the GOP ascension to power in Congress. In teh 1930's and 40's the Democrats built a solid, low tech method of winning elections--voter turnout--primarily with the aid of unions, but also within their own machinery. Democrat registration and voter turnout was king in the 60's, 70's and into the 80's, Ronald Reagan nontwithstanding. Even after Reagan's victory in 1980 and his landslide in 1984, the GOP continued serious efforts at maximizing their turnout machinery. Arguably, even the 1992 and 1996 elections could have been won by the GOP had it not been for the right sided challenge of Ross Perot. The GOTV efforts became, if not microtargeted in modern parlance, at least 50% more efficient through a solid ground organziation. The GOP learned that they can spend a lot of money on the air war, but if you don't have a ground orgnaization designed to get your voters to the polls, all the advertisements in the world are not going to win a campaign.

More in another post on GOP election operations.

The Other Districting Problem

Because this story in the washington Post over the weekend has a personal connection (in that my family is considering a move to Urbana), I thought it was interesting.

In many posts in this space, I have railed against the mechanisms by which political districts are drawn, decrying everything from majority-minority districts, to various efforts at redistricting reform and how the Voting Rights Act plays the role of an obstacle. But in reality, the way in which school district lines are drawn can have massive reprecussions for many students. Now the difference in the quality between Urbana Elementary and Centerville Elementary schools are probably more rooted in facility age than in anything else, that may not always be the case in school districting issues.

Given that the movement of a school district line from one side of a street to another can mean a great deal in some cases, the fact that parents get all riled up is not surprising. a district line that puts your child in a poorer quality school is likely to a cause for moving as getting a new job. All of which creates a death spiral as far as school quality, no matter how it is defined, goes. Kids with parents who can, leave the school's district for greener pastures. The school gets neglected because those who reamin lack the political efficacy of the motivated parents who move. Teach quality declines, teh facility deteriorates and the school slides further down the quality ranknigs.

Of course, some measures can be taken to arrest the slide. But a wholesale change in schooling would probably do more as schools that are more responsive to market forces (yes that is a euphamism for school choice, would be able to retain students no matter where the district lines are drawn. As Sara Mead noted:

Call me naive, or maybe one-note, but I have to wonder if these situations wouldn't be a bit easier if schools let parents choose their schools and differentiated the educational programs to balance demand. Of course, I realize this approach would have complications of its own.

Perhaps it does have complications, but I am willing to accept those complications.