Super Tuesday Eve

I know I have yet to post anything about the economy, but on the eve of Super Tuesday, I feel the need to focus on politics. Here’s a little tidbit nobody’s talking about: remember all the urgency Washington placed on the ill-conceived stimulus package? President Bush had planned to roll it out during the State of the Union address, but instead announced it at a press conference a week early so that Congress could get right to work on it. House Democrats and Republicans then put aside their differences to quickly push through a compromise measure.

Next up was the Senate, and they tried to make some fairly significant modifications, but Senate Dems didn’t have the votes they needed. So they’re going to send it to discussion for a vote – Wednesday. But wait, they were ready to tackle it as early as last Thursday or Friday, so why the delay?

They’re waiting until after Super Tuesday to allow the Senators campaigning for President – Clinton, McCain and Obama – to wrap up campaigning before returning to Washington to do the job that we, the taxpayers, pay them to do. No, I am not making this up. They’re actually waiting until Wednesday, and that’s actually why. So when these three front-runners tell you that their primary concern is the economy, just know that the truth is their primary concern is trying to get elected. Then they’ll worry about the economy.

That brings me to another topic: the entire process is flawed. The candidates have been stumping for 19 months, during which time we’ve had 17 debates. The conventions are in late August for the Dems and early September for the GOP. So that means they’ll have been running for their respective party’s nomination for 26 months, then they’ll run for the presidency for two months. Is that really necessary?

It would seem a lot less expensive – in terms of the dollars they spend, the salaries they waste, and the suffering they put us all through – if we limited the primary campaigning to six months. Declare in January, campaign through the convention, then the final nominees can slug it out those last two months. Limit debates to one a month – six for the primaries, two for the general election.

Speaking of debates, I watched the last two, and they made me think that CNN is rigging the election. Virtually all of the questions for the Republicans were directed to McCain and Romney, and most of them were focused on the petty bickering between the two (“You’re a liberal!” “No, you’re a liberal!” “No, you are!” “You!”). When Huckabee – who, along with Paul, were the only ones that actually seemed to have something substantive to say – complained, they promised him “a flood” of questions.

Then they asked just one – and it was about his view of a McCain quote. It just seemed that CNN was dismissing Huckabee and Paul out of hand, and conceding the nomination to either McCain or Romney. Which is sad, since, again, Huckabee and Paul appear to be the only candidates on the Republican side with anything substantive to say.

On the other hand, the Obama-Clinton debate focused on issues, not differences. If I’d just been beamed down to earth from another planet, I’d think that the only thing the GOP had to offer was a couple of schoolboys in a good old-fashioned backyard pissing match, while the Democrats offered some genuine ideas. I don’t actually believe that’s the case, but these last two debates sure made it seem that way.

For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the remaining candidates.

McCain – am I the only one who’s forgotten that this guy was one of the Keating Five back in the S&L crisis days? Charles Keating – the highest-profile S&L crook, who wound up doing time – made major contributions to McCain and four other Congressmen, who then called regulators on the carpet and told them to lay off their investigation of Keating’s thrift. Trust me, this guy will NOT "stand up to the special interests." Oh, and if I hear “I was a foot-soldier in the Reagan revolution” one more time, I’m going to throw up. (Have you seen the new John McCain doll? When you pull its string, it says …)

Romney – sure, he made a ton of money at Bain Capital. But the transition from Wall Street to Washington doesn’t always spell success in the latter environment. (For anyone who thinks otherwise, I have two words: Hank Paulson.) He also makes John Kerry look steadfast in his convictions.

Huckabee – he actually has a lot to say, but nobody’s listening, thanks to the media.

Paul – ditto. He understands the economy better than any of the candidates on the docket, but he also has some rather, ah, avant-garde (read: nutty) ideas.

Clinton – I won’t go into all the reasons I don’t trust her. But I think what she really wants is just to be President. I think she’s wanted it since her Yale days. Her opening comments in the debate were telling: “One of us is going to be sworn in on January 20th, 2009, and one of us is then going to walk into the Oval Office.” Well, not quite. If it’s Hillary, she’ll skip, not walk. Then she’ll sit down in the big leather chair and spin around and around, yelling, “Wheeeee!” I also could never vote for anybody who pulls frat-house pranks in the process of vacating the highest seat of power on the planet, like encouraging staff to pull the “W” keys off the computer keyboards and stealing the china and silver off Air Force One. And don’t get me started on Bill.

Obama – I like a lot of what he has to say. His quote on the role of faith in politics was probably the most profound that has been uttered since the days of William Jennings Bryan. My biggest worry is his naivete. Like when he says he’d sit the Shiites, Shias, Sunnis and Kurds down together to “negotiate.” Barack, these people have been slitting each other’s throats since Abraham kicked Ishmael out of the tent. So good luck with that.

A final thought. The Republican race this year has followed what I call the algebraic election formula. Let’s call the numerator substance, and the denominator fluff. We started with a large number of candidates on both sides of the line, but more on the bottom. Let’s view those candidates as variables. One by one, they start to cancel each other out, until we have no variables left on the substance side, and several on the fluff side. It’s no accident that this means we’re left with a bunch of fractions; i.e., “values approaching zero.” The further through this process we go, the closer to zero we get.