A Clever Post Title Involving Evan Bayh’s Name

On February 23, 2010, In Filibuster, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

Last week the Senate and the Democratic Party were shaken up by the announcement that Evan Bayh, Democratic Senator from Indiana, would retire at the end of his term instead of running for re-election this fall despite $13 million in his campaign warchest and a 20 point lead in the polls. He cited the failure of the Senate to function as his main reason for leaving – ignoring the fact that his brand of centrism helped create the deadlock. Bayh, a “centrist” in name but seemingly a simple political animal in action, had an uncanny ability to annoy the living hell out of the more liberal wing of the Democratic party, his departure was met with something other than anger or dismay from both sides of the political spectrum. I personally couldn’t have been happier to show him the door, despite the chances of his seat turning red in November increasing with his departure.

Because the Washington media loves those like Bayh who position themselves as bipartisan or centrist (especially when it comes to the issue of the deficit), progressives derided his so-called “centrism” as mere political positioning that helped Republicans obstruct Democratic initiatives, and met his exit with a flurry of blog posts with titles like “Bye, Bayh” or “Bayh Low” (“Bayh” is pronounced “Bye” or “Buy” – thus explaining my overly complicated attempt at a joke in my blog title). Ezra Klein called him an “ordinary politician” and a “minor deficit hypocrite”. Jonathan Chait goes farther, and notes that “If Bayh’s loss is a “brain drain,” then the Senate is in even worse shape than I thought.”

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Keeping Up With Congress

On February 16, 2010, In Media, By Grahame

As someone who constantly (compulsively?) checks Twitter, RSS, the Huffington Post iPhone App, or anything else that will give me news about the political happenings of the moment, I can easily see the draw of a program like Netvibes. Netvibes is an online portal (a sort of advanced RSS reader with widgets) that can combine all the information you have, sort it into categories, and even – with some nifty programming – filter out the unless crap that comes with inhabiting this wonderful invention we called the “Internets”.

For my Netvibes page, I created pages for all the topics that interest me, but obviously put much more effort into my Comm217 beat: politics and the Senate. Thus, my politics page is organized especially well. I combined the mainstays of any political RSS I will ever create (Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Spencer Ackerman, etc), added a few more that I found via Delicious, and then created RSS feeds for Twitter searches and Google News searches of “senate filibuster”. Add in the New York Times politics widget and I felt like I was good to go.

More Senate learning, here I come!

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What Newspapers Can, And Can’t, Learn From The Music Industry

On February 9, 2010, In Media, By Grahame

(note: This is my essay for Comm 217, posted here because I think it is a cool topic.)

The comparisons always come fast and hard. Since the popular music industry was first, it must always be the industry that all others are judged against when the Internet catches up with old business models. After popular music went down movies, TV shows, newspapers, and even bicycles followed soon after. Yes, even the bicycle industry is being hit hard, since local bike shops can only stock so many different kinds parts and EBay can stock an infinite number, cutting heavily into revenue for local bicycle shops. The common denominator in all of these situations is the Internet breaking old business models. Music and newspapers, for instance, have both come to find themselves in a place where the cost of producing content remains pretty high, but the cost of distribution and reproduction has gone to basically zero. Thus, money cannot be made in the distribution of music or newspapers in the quantity that it was made before by record companies and newspapers. But while there are similarities between the situations that these institutions find themselves in, there are major differences as well. Thus, the modest success those certain industries have had in tweaking their business models to fit this new Internet age cannot necessarily be transferred to another industry. There have, for example, been many words written about the need for newspapers to create their own iTunes, or their own Hulu, when many problems with these comparisons arise with some scrutiny. First, iTunes and Hulu are not exactly successes for their respective industries (both are successes for technology companies, however). Hulu may not survive without a paywall (which will eventually kill it), and iTunes has not come close to replacing the revenues that CDs used to bring in. Secondly, it is incredibly difficult to imagine exactly what a Hulu for newspapers would look like. There is no single model that the newspapers have rallied behind, but if (or when) it comes, it will not look like iTunes (unless the Apple iPad really is the savior of newspapers) or Hulu. It will look completely different, and the newspaper industry will wonder why it didn’t think of whatever that model is earlier. (more…)

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RIP Filibuster, Jan. 2011? Don’t Count On It

On February 1, 2010, In Filibuster, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

It stands to reason that the complexities of the Senate’s procedures coupled with anger over the stalling of the Health Care Reform bill would lead to some very creative ideas about how to kill the filibuster, and with it, the Senate’s ridiculous supermajority requirement. One argument I have heard many times is that 51 Senators (or 50 plus the Vice President) can basically do anything they want. Now, there is an article by Ian Millhiser in the American Prospect arguing basically that fact:

What the Senate is not allowed to do, however, is tell future senators what rules must apply to their proceedings. Because Reichelderfer prohibits a previous Congress from tying the hands of a future Congress, the rules governing Senate procedure in 2010 cannot bind a newly elected Senate in 2011. The old Senate rules essentially cease to exist until the new Senate ratifies them, so a determined bloc of 51 senators could eliminate the filibuster altogether by demanding a rules change at the beginning of a new session. Once the new Senate begins to operate under the old rules, however, this can function as a ratification of the old rules — essentially locking those rules in place for another two years.

Millhiser is basically arguing that two Supreme Court decisions, Newton v. Commissioners in 1879 and Reichelderfer v. Quinn in 1932, make it possible for each new Senate to eliminate the filibuster, since the new Senate (the next one beginning in January 2011) isn’t beholden to any Senate procedures from previous Senates. (more…)

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Understanding The Filibuster In The 21st Century

On January 26, 2010, In Filibuster, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

Earlier today over at TalkingPointsMemo, a very useful article appeared that clarified most of the questions I had about the filibuster and the procedures as they currently stand.

Sure, in recent years, threats of filibuster have become more and more common — and getting 60 votes for key pieces of legislation has seemed to become evermore necessary. But at the same time, we rarely actually see senators filibustering, at least not like Jimmy Stewart’s character did in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Why?

The whole piece is worth a close read – though the title of the article gets to the gist of the matter: “How 41 Senators Control The Country Without Filibustering”. There currently are very few actual filibusters – the mere threat of one is enough to derail legislation (as we are currently seeing with the Health Care Reform legislation that has already passed both Chambers of Congress). (more…)

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Can The Sane Man Save The Crazy People?

On January 25, 2010, In Obama, Politics, By Grahame

Andrew Sullivan makes a plea to President Obama:

And somehow I suspect that at that nadir for Reagan, commentators like Krauthammer and Gerson and Brooks would not be advising him to heed public opinion, give up on his agenda, and recognize that it’s madness to push through policies that were broadly unpopular. Au contraire. Fight, Mr President. Fight. In the end, even the conservatives – perhaps especially the conservatives – will respect you for it.

Today, he quotes the President’s speech in Ohio. He is fighting: (more…)

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What Happens Tomorrow?

On January 19, 2010, In Politics, Senate, By Grahame

So has anyone heard? There is an election tomorrow. It is the special election to see who will serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s term in Massachusetts’ Senate seat. To the surprise of just about everyone, the incredibly blue state of Massachusetts (they gave President Obama %61.8 of the vote in November of 2008) is most likely going to give the majority of its vote to a Republican candidate, State Senate Scott Brown, who opposes just about every item on the President’s agenda, while turning heavily against the Democratic candidate, Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley. For a more complete rundown of what the polls look like going into the election tomorrow, check out Nate Silver’s analysis. The key point:

Overall, while I would probably take Coakley’s side of a 3:1 wager, her situation looks to be increasingly difficult. She is basically relying upon getting solid turnout from a “silent majority” of voters who have done little to make themselves seen and heard. We know that there are a huge number of potential such voters in Massachusetts, which remains a very blue state and which until the past three weeks had not behaved unusually in any obvious way. But the pollsters are no longer seeing and hearing from them.

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Who Needs An Undersecretary Of Domestic Finance During A Recession?

On January 12, 2010, In Politics, Senate, By Grahame

For all the words that have been written about the ridiculousness of the filibuster, it may not even be the most dysfunctional aspect of the the world’s greatest deliberative body. The popular replacement for this dubious honor has to go to Senate “holds”, where one Senator can anonymously put a hold, or indefinite delay, on any executive appointment that needs Senate confirmation. This was recently brought to the foreground after the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, which highlighted some problems with the Transportation Security Administration. The biggest problem? There is no one in charge of the TSA. The reason? Because Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) put a hold on President Obama’s nominee, Errol Southers, because DeMint doesn’t like Southers’ position on worker unionization. Then there is this:

President Obama has nominated a variety of well-qualified officials to fill key posts in the Treasury Department, including positions with jurisdiction over tax policy and international finance. Their nominations would be approved if the Senate were allowed to vote on them.

But that’s not happening, because Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) isn’t satisfied with — get this — enforcement of prohibitions on internet gambling. Kyl wanted enforcement in January, the administration said June, so Kyl effectively responded, “No Treasury Department officials for you.”

As Matt Yglesias points out, it might be a good idea to have an Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs or an Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, especially during a time of world-wide economic crisis. But one Senator who disagrees with a completely unrelated issue can leave one of the most important Departments short-handed just to make a point to the President.

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My Communication 217 Beat – Politics

On January 11, 2010, In Politics, By Grahame

So here I am blogging. This is something I never thought I would do, but that has been said of many different activities – most of them involving new technologies. First RSS, then Twitter (shameless plug: www.twitter.com/grahamelesh), and finally a blog of my very own. Thanks to my Communication 217 class at Stanford, I have taken the leap.

I am here to blog about politics – specifically national politics and the dysfunctions of surrounding many of the politicians and institutions in Washington D.C. Of a particular interest to me is the dysfunctions of Congress, particularly the Senate, and the difference between what the White House is expected to do and what it can actually accomplish. I plan to be opinionated, as I have a pretty solid set of beliefs about the current political actors, trends, and situations. I voted in my first national Presidential election last year (I was a month too young in November 2004) for President Obama, and I got bitten by a bug. I follow the horse-races, the policy debates, and just about anything else that comes out of D.C. So this blog will be about the things I find interesting about politics in the capitol of the United States. My audience is going to be young, engaged adults. I hope to find a public around my age who want to know more about politics and engage in discussion about it with me.

I am very opinionated, but I try to respect intelligence and legitimate difference of opinion, and on this blog will try to engage in these debates that I may find myself in (or purposefully put myself in). You never know, I may come away with a different opinion than I entered with.

The ultimate dream for me is to engage with the writers and thinkers who I follow – the people who have shaped much of my political thinking, who inform me, and who make me think. Wait, when I say the ultimate dream, I mean besides an A in Comm 217. People like Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, Bill Simmons (well, he writes about sports, not politics, but still…), and many others. These people have taken a new technological platform – blogging – and turned it into a forum for debate, a place thoughtfully engage others about political ideas. They come from many different backgrounds and have many separate specialties, and have all gotten to where they are through different ways, but they have come together online to engage each other. I would love to join into the conversation, and I believe that my ideas and my writing could add something to these discussions. It is the Internet that is has given me a way to realistically interject myself and my thoughts into these incredibly interesting and influential debates.

So this is it – the end of my first blog post. I should warn my classmates in Comm 217 – I may go off topic. Sports, music, TV shows, movies, etc. These are things I love, and I will occasionally write about these subjects. I’ll try to stay on topic, but you know how it is. A particularly good episode of Friday Night Lights (airing Wednesdays on DirectTV) might spawn a blog post. So would a ridiculous NFL game (tonight’s Packers v. Cardinals game being a good example). You get the idea. Professor Rheingold: I promise these will be in addition to the two-posts-per-week limit. Fair warning!

PS: I’m going to try an idea that I’m stealing from Spencer Ackerman’s blog: each post will have a song attached to it that I believe fits with the theme of the post. So for tonight, I’m going with Bruce doing “The Rising“

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