Politics

The moral calamity that is Newt Gingrich

Erik Kain



Newt is “within striking distance” of Mitt Romney in South Carolina, Politico is reporting. Perry’s exit stage left and subsequent endorsement of the former speaker should give him some fuel heading into tonight’s debate. I imagine if Santorum, the newly declared Iowa winner, were to drop out and endorse Newt that he’d have a fighting chance of toppling Mitt Romney in Saturday’s primary.

Of course, the ABC interview with his former wife – the one he had a six-year affair on – won’t help.

She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich.

“And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,’” Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”

Marianne described her “shock” at Gingrich’s behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista “in my bedroom in ourapartment in Washington.”

“He always called me at night,” she recalled, “and always ended with ‘I love you.’ Well, she was listening.”

Damning stuff, to be sure, but the words of a spurned lover are never given as much credence as they maybe ought to be. And this is old news. Gingrich may indeed be a moral failure, a man whose vanity obscured his many vows and promises. But we all already know this, and he is playing the reformed Christian now, insisting in his own personal regret and redemption. Perhaps it’s true.

All I know is that I hope he wounds Romney in this primary. I started this election off thinking Romney was a decent moderate – not in any way my own pick for president, but not particularly scary either. I no longer believe this. Romney, I’m quite certain now, has no soul. Gingrich may have made bad choices – his soul may be black in a few spots – but he has one. He’s a human being at the very least, warts and all. Romney is a machine at best, a blank slate willing to say and do anything to get elected.

I never thought I’d line up in Gingrich’s defense at all, but the man has more character than Mitt Romney which, I realize, isn’t saying much. At least I know there’s a mind and a person and a very, very big ego underneath Newt’s exterior. With Romney, I have a hard time seeing the man behind the mask.

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SOPA and Censorship

Erik Kain



Listen to Julian Sanchez and Caleb Brown talk about SOPA in the above podcast, the internet blackout, censorship and free speech. No, the bill isn’t dead yet. Yes, there are ways we can target pirates without going as far as SOPA/PIPA go.

Alyssa Rosenberg also has a good post on why we should use this opportunity to have a grown-up conversation on piracy, artist’s ownership of their work, and censorship:

It might help for both sides to acknowledge the legitimate fears held by powerful interests on both sides of the SOPA debate. Changing the way the internet is governed, especially after a year when free access to it played a major role in critically important liberation movements, is a hugely momentous thing to propose, even if you feel that your industry is at stake. It may bedifficult to quantify the economic impact of piracy, but that doesn’t mean that there is none, or that it’s illegitimate for the people who work in an industry to feel insecurity about its transformation and their prospects for stable employment in it. Tech companies could do more to sell themselves to legacy content providers as beneficial partners. And legacy media companies could spend more time talking to consumers about customer service and cross-platform accessibility than scolding them. […]

It makes much more sense to embrace that connectivity and common interest, and for legacy and new media born out of tech companies to learn as much as they can from each others’ experiences getting rich content to broad audiences on diverse platforms. The SOPA debate has been bruising. But if it helps us lay out the issues that prevent these sides from working together, perhaps it’ll be worth it.

I agree. I wrote recently about piracy and economic frontiers and it really is a trick separating the long-term and short-term goals of all these different groups and sorting out how best to ensure that people can be creative and still make a living do it. There is no one perfect answer. The reason SOPA/PIPA are so pernicious is that they forcefully shut down debate and toss free speech out the window. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any problem at all, only that it’s not the right way to tackle the problem that does exist.

And before we can make any diagnosis I think we need a lot more data and a much more robust conversation.

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If Romney is the nominee, don’t expect Christie or any other moderate on the ticket

Erik Kain



There’s been rumblings that maybe New Jersey governor Chris Christie would make the Romney presidential ticket but I don’t see that happening at all. Christie makes for good television, but he’s way too moderate for the VP slot. He’s a tough-talker which Republicans like, but he tends to be pretty reasoned in his approach to Democrats and the president. None of that chewy red meat Sarah Palin threw to the masses in 2008.

Ditto for Huntsman who is, to be quite honest, much too Mormon for an already too-Mormon ticket. I could rattle off a half dozen other moderates that people like to speculate on but it’s just not going to happen. Romney needs a social conservative on the ticket – preferably an evangelical, not a Catholic or mainline protestant. That means Santorum and Gingrich are both out unless Santorum has some leverage nobody knows about. Obviously Paul will never be considered, and I doubt he’d sign up anyways.

So who does that leave? Jim DeMint? Michelle Bachmann? I honestly don’t know. Most of the speculation I’ve seen sounds like either wishful thinking or revelations of secret crushes…

In the above video it’s suggested that Ohio’s Rob Portman might be the Romney pick and that actually makes sense. Portman is pretty universally awful on all the issues as far as I’m concerned – which makes him perfect for the GOP.

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Why I’m Rooting For Gingrich In South Carolina

Erik Kain



Aspiring child janitors everywhere will not forgive Gingrich if he drops out after South Carolina.

Newt, this is not the former speaker we know and love. You don’t give up on politics, just on marriages!

Newt Gingrich came clean Tuesday afternoon, admitting that if he can’t win this state’s primary on Saturday, he probably can’t win the Republican nomination at all.

“If I don’t win the primary Saturday, we will probably nominate a moderate,” the former House speaker said, referring to Mitt Romney. “And the odds are fairly high he will lose to Obama.”

The question is whether Gingrich endorses Santorum if the frothy ex-Senator stays in the race after a South Carolina loss.

I suppose that depends on whether or not all this bad press actually puts a dent in Romney’s titanium exoskeleton. The fact that Perry, Santorum, and Gingrich all failed to get on Virginia’s GOP primary ballot may be a moot point if they all run out of money by March.

Obama must be sleeping like a damn baby these days. All these Super PACs are doing his job for him as the Republican field shreds itself to pieces. They’ll all line up like good soldiers behind Romney in the end (Ron Paul is a wild card on this point) but the damage will have been done.

Perhaps I just have a morbid fascination with Republican primaries, but I really do hope Gingrich or Santorum beats Romney so that this whole lovely mess gets dragged out even further.

(P.S. Totally unrelated random thought: why should we settle for just one president? We pay the president way too much. We could hire like 2,000 kids to do that job instead and teach them about hard work and responsibility all at the same time. Extend this logic to congress and you’ve not only saved money, you’ve dragged thousands of kids out of unemployment.)

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Colbert’s Brilliant Super PAC Ad ‘Mitt The Ripper’ (Starring John Lithgow)

Erik Kain



How can you not love an ad voiced by John Lithgow which accuses Romney of being a serial killer since he “killed” corporations who are “people, my friend”?

The thing is, this ad is essentially just an extension of Colbert’s show. The ad itself is hilarious, but it’s as much a spoof of negative ads as it is an attack on Romney. More importantly, it shows just how little these ads actually represent an existential threat our democracy. As I argue in my Atlantic piece, the real threat is two-fold: the stranglehold the mainstream media has over the political process – and the gads of money that the big corporations who own the mainstream money can spend on that process – and the money that greases the wheels of power. Citizens United allows people to spend more money on “electioneering” which is just not nearly as big a deal as many apoplectic souls make it out to be.

I enjoyed this ad in the same way that I enjoy Colbert’s television show. And I’m even watching it on an embed from Comedy Central, owned by Viacom, a media company historically exempted from campaign finance laws.

(Actually, some negative ad campaigns can backfire for candidates. Maybe more people should think about using cutting humor instead of boring, predictable vitriol, to make their point. Just a thought.)

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Two’s Almost As Bad As One: The Virginia Primary Will Be A Romney-Paul Showdown

Erik Kain



Rick Perry won't be on the Virginia ballot thanks to activist appeals court judges.

Politico is reporting that a federal appeals court has requested Rick Perry’s request to be added to the Virginia primary ballot. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum also failed to file in Virginia, which required them to collect 10,000 signatures by December of 2011.

This leaves only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on the Mach 6th ballot which is, to be perfectly blunt, both hilarious and wonderful at the same time.

It’s hilarious because three of the remaining five candidates are so disorganized and apparently under-staffed that they couldn’t get their act’s together enough to get on the Virginia ballot in time. What were they thinking? They were apparently spending too much time on Fox or prepping for various debates to do one of the simplest, most straight-forward possible things you can do in a campaign. If these guys can’t organize themselves enough to make it onto the Virginia ballot, can we really trust them to take that 3 AM phonecall from Vladmir Putin?

It’s wonderful because this will (probably) be our first glimpse at a one-on-one showdown between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. I have no doubt that Ron Paul is sticking this thing out, even if it does just boil down to him vs. Romney. Virginia may be a test of his success throughout the remainder of the campaign. It will be interesting to see how the vote shakes out. I think Romney takes Virginia, but I do hope that Paul gives him a good walloping while he’s at it.

Oh, and get ready for the activist judge rhetoric. Those dang activist judges are just trying to keep Rick Perry down! And, uh, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum down, too.

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Obviously Obama’s Attempt To Punish The Rich, Successful, Job-Creators Is Failing Miserably

Erik Kain



Mitt Romney has money to burn thanks to his super low taxes.

News that presumptive GOP front-runner and possible automaton, Mitt Romney, only pays an effective 15% tax rate proves one thing and one thing only: Obama’s job-killing taxes and burdensome regulations are stifling our Galtian overlords and sending them straight to the poor house.

Kevin Drum chuckles:

Did Romney really make up his mind on this literally overnight? Because in last night’s debate he sure didn’t sound very certain that he was going to do this. This is, perhaps, the only time that Romney has panicked during the campaign. If he’d made up his mind a little earlier and a little more deliberately, he could have had a much smoother answer last night. “I do plan to release my tax return for the previous year, as other presidential candidates have done, and my accountants tell me it will be ready to file in late March or April. As soon as it’s complete, I’ll make copies available to the press.”

Instead we got last night’s Palinesque gobbledygook. Very weird. Greg Sargent takes a crack here at figuring out what this all means for Romney’s chances in November.

Transparency is a good thing. Getting Romney to buckle like this is even better. Still, I doubt revelations of his wealth or his low tax rate or his utter lack of a personality will hurt him. It’s too late for that. Even a beating in South Carolina won’t necessarily set him back in Florida and beyond.

As  Nate Silver points out virtually every national poll sets Romney head and shoulders above the rest of the field. Republicans are going with the “electable” candidate, not the one they love, not the one that they think will do the best job in office (though to survey the line-up of candidates, especially after Huntsman’s departure, is to cast your eyes on a field of incompetence.)

I’m giving Obama strong odds in 2012. Unless the economy tanks, Romney is going to be extremely vulnerable in the general election. If he had the same record but a warmer personality I’d be less certain. As it stands…he’s just deeply unlikable. Andrew Sullivan has been calling him “creepy” lately, an apt description of the man. His handle on the truth is also rather disturbing. Forgivable things for the American electorate, true, but not for someone who we don’t want to go have a beer with.

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Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney’s Hypocritical Defense of Big Government

Erik Kain



Food stamps are one of the most effective voucher programs in US history.

Newt Gingrich has doubled down on his food-stamp-king line about Obama. In last night’s debate and elsewhere the former speaker has maligned both the president and the poor people, and especially blacks, who rely on government assistance during hard economic times. David Frum writes:

It’s worth remembering that at least one quarter of the South Carolina Republican primary electorate will likely exceed age 65. These voters also depend on government: for Social Security, for Medicare, and for other benefits. Newt Gingrich understands the merits of such protections for these voters. Shouldn’t a man who wants to be president of the whole country show equal understanding of the troubles and dangers facing all those who depend on government assistance: the poor as well as the old, the black as well as the white?

Frum is a backer of presumptive front-runner Mitt Romney, but Romney has also defended the benefits of elderly Americans and framed the issue as us vs. them. Speaking to crowds of Republican voters suspicious of Romney’s own Massachusetts healthcare plan, Romney has said repeatedly that ”Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare.”

Republicans talk about shrinking government but they have no intention of shrinking it for their electoral base: older, whiter, and more financially secure, the GOP base relies on programs like Medicare. Romney’s demagoguery on the massive government entitlement belies his, and the GOP’s, unseriousness about entitlement reform. Tax cuts for the rich, government programs for the elderly. But if we try to extend access to healthcare outside the bounds of the Republican electorate that’s socialism.

Gingrich’s race-baiting is reprehensible, but Romney is playing the same tune on the same piano.

Meanwhile Santorum panders to social conservatives on gay rights issues and abortion. But even the sort-of-populist Santorum thinks food stamps and unemployment are a bridge too far:

“What we should do, is have it just like welfare. Give it to the states, put a time limit. In the case of welfare, it was 40 weeks. Give flexibility to the states to operate those programs and even in unemployment, I mean, you can have as we did on welfare, have some sort of either work requirement or job training required as a condition. We’re not doing people any favors by keeping them on unemployment insurance for a long period of time.” [emphasis added]

Steve Benen is baffled:

So, in Santorum’s mind, it makes sense to require the unemployed to be employed before receiving unemployment benefits?

If you don’t have a job, you’ll be forced to get one before you’d be eligible to receive benefits that go to those without jobs?

It’s all the same act. It’s politics, sure, but it reveals a key truth: Republicans really do want big government, just a different kind of big government for a different segment of the population. Gingrich talks about ‘creating dependency’ out of one side of his mouth and defends government dependency out of the other.

The Tea Party is an illusion.

P.S. Actually, I do think we should help the unemployed find jobs instead of just giving them food stamps and unemployment benefits.

A looser monetary policy coupled with a serious fiscal policy and increased government spending (and decreased government firing) could help all these unemployed people get back to work. Maybe these Republicans are just advocating a sort of bizarre Keynesian jobs plan after all….

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Forget Citizens United – It’s Big Media We Should Worry About

Erik Kain



That’s the basic premise of my latest piece in The Atlantic:

In a 5-4 decision in January of 2010, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional campaign finance regulations which restricted corporations and unions from using funds from their general treasuries in elections, striking down previous court decisions on the matter. This was met with a huge public outcry, especially on the left. Despite the Court’s decision having been made on First Amendment grounds, many liberals, upset by disproportionate corporate influence over the political process, worried that the decision would further entrench the power of corporations in American democracy.

Colbert’s satirical super PAC, however, far from effectively satirizing Citizens United, illustrates why this concern is misguided.

Prior to the 2010 decision, one industry already had the ability to dip into its bottomless war chest to influence electioneering. The big media companies, and their parent corporations like GE, have been historically excluded from campaign finance laws like McCain-Feingold. This exclusion was understandable: restricting the freedom of the press is obviously unconstitutional on free speech grounds.

But the media has enormous power over the political process. Colbert’s nightly fake news show, for instance, has done a great deal more to influence American politics than anything his super PAC has achieved.

Read the whole thing.

(P.S. a big thanks once again to the editors over at The Atlantic for publishing me. It’s a huge honor.)

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A Young, Modern Republican Party? What’s Wrong With Voting Democrat?

Erik Kain



So long as the Republican Party is the party of old, white men we won’t get guys like Jon Huntsman at its helm (though, as Larison points out, he’s hardly as modern and charming as we’d all like to think.)

Ben Smith writes:

The party Huntsman imagined — modernizing, reforming, and youthful — could still be born. That might be the reaction to a second smashing defeat at Obama’s hands, or that might be where President Romney takes his re-election campaign. But it’s now hard to see Huntsman leading that change. He bet, too early, on a fantasy, and ran for the nomination of a party that doesn’t exist, at least not yet. His decision tonight to drop out just marks his recognition of that fact.

We already have the Democratic Party. In it there are lots of free market types, lots of good-government types, lots of people in tune with youthful voters, etc. I’d like more civil libertarians in the Democratic Party, personally, but I see no reason why we need a more youthful modernized GOP when the Democratic Party is already leaps and bounds closer to that mark.

What we need is more focus on civil liberties issues from our liberal leaders (though I welcome civil liberties being embraced on the right as well.) We need more Ron Wydens and Russ Feingolds. I see the Democrats moving toward a sort of populism that isn’t necessarily bad but that doesn’t particularly excite me either. It’s a response to Tea Party populism on the right. But fighting fire with fire isn’t always the best move. And since I’m a market liberal, a lot of progressive populism rankles me.

Obama has already illustrated perfectly well that if we want to actually contain the size of government through smart policies the Democrats are a better choice than Republicans. Bush grew government in all the worst ways. As far as I’m concerned, Obama is a competent enough politician and president but hasn’t done nearly enough to constrain those bad areas of the state that Bush let out of the box. A “modern, youthful, GOP” wouldn’t do any better, and would likely do worse. Part of the appeal of Ron Paul is his willingness to scale back those parts of the government which are illiberal and violent. What we need to do is work to cultivate a Democratic Party that believes we ought to scale back the military, end illiberal detainment and surveillance policies, and write off the war on drugs as an expensive disaster.

There are progressive politicians out there who do care about these things, just not enough of them. A primary attempt at Obama from the left flank would have been extremely stupid politically, of course, but we do need to find other ways to push the needle in the direction of expanded civil liberties and economic freedom and a more efficient welfare state. (Note: I do not necessarily mean a scaled back welfare state, but one which is economically efficient. I do think that for all its flaws the ACA moves us in that direction though I will go into more detail on that in the future.)

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