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Patriotism

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This is a piece first run for the election four years ago, updated a bit for today.

Election Day is not a national holiday, at least not in the traditional sense. But it is the one day that our nation asks something from all of us, even if it’s just a few minutes. If you follow calle ocho through Little Havana in Miami on Election Day, you’ll see a long line houses with the red white and blue of US and Cuban flags stretching off into the horizon. Families sometimes come together across generations, as with any holiday, before they go off to vote. Cuban exiles in Miami are a people that know what it means to be free because freedom and good times are often best measured against their opposite.

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2012 Predictions

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The election is a week away.  It’s time to make a few predictions and offer some analysis, if only so that everyone can make fun of me when this is all over.

Regular readers know how much disdain I have for the horserace that characterizes most of the reporting, but in the end it comes down to that.  Still, there are many issues revolving around the ability to call this thing properly that are fascinating, at least to someone too far into it.  My fondest hope is that at least some of them break in ways that defy conventional wisdom and shake things up.

Ready?

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Inequality

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Income inequality is one of those things that we find almost impossible to talk about in US politics.  Simply raising the issue automatically leads to charges of “class warfare”, a term that is empty enough in meaning to raise emotions without much intellect.  Yet it is important.

One of the great features of recent global economic turmoil is the downturn in the developed world amid continued growth in the developing world.  What’s the main difference between the two?  According to a survey by the Economist, one of the main features is that the developing world generally has increasing income equality but the developed increasing inequality.  Emotional arguments aside, there is a distinct trend that raises real questions of global competitiveness, at the very least.

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Paralysis

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“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

One of the key features of the time we live in is paralysis.  Uncertainty creates risk aversion, since risk is much more difficult to calculate.   After a few years living like this and people start to live day to day.  It eventually becomes “survival mode” when tomorrow becomes very difficult to imagine.  The result is nothing – and that often comes even when one person is calling the shots, let alone a system based on consensus among many.

The evidence is all around us that something unusual is happening.  Change is coming faster and in ways that are not often talked about adequately.  The economy is not simply recovering the way it has after any other post-war recession.  What should we do?  FDR had it right – try something and see if it works.  If that goes against every instinct you have right now, you’re not alone.  But let’s see if we can convince you that there are, in fact, some things that point to very different actions than we’re all used to.

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A Guy Can Dream

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The Presidential election is tightening.  That’s only to be expected as we get closer, especially through the debate weeks.  It was predicted here that Romney simply showing up and looking like a human would give him a bounce after weeks of demonizing, and he did better than that.  Obama will have to find his A-Game to seal this thing.

But it is still Obama’s to lose.  The “toss-up” states are nearly all ones that Romney should be ahead in already, and he will have to win almost all of them to pull this thing out.  The big money is going to continue to flee his campaign and look to the more interesting races, particularly for the US House.

The race for the House is very close by the only measure we have, the Generic Congressional Ballot.  That could make for something very interesting this January no matter which party manages to pull it out.  In a big world of speculation this is worth thinking through.

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