Planet Utah

Go ahead; don't cost nothin'

So, now that we know the "no blood for oil" crowd was dead wrong (see previous post), there will be a price to pay in terms of accountability, right?

Wrong.

That's one of the great frustrations in American public life--no one is held accountable for being wrong.

Take Joe Biden and Barack Obama, for example. Both opposed the troop surge in Iraq. Both said it wouldn't turn the tide of the war. Both said, in fact, that it might make matters worse, by further inflaming anti-U.S. sentiment.

Both were wrong.

This was no small thing to be wrong about. If they had had their way, not only would there have been no troop surge, we would have begun an immediate troop drawdown. The Iraq war would have been lost. Apart from a huge propaganda victory for al Qaeda, we might be looking at another radical Islamist state.

Boy, it's a good thing that two guys who were so wrong about something so important aren't in a position to do any REAL damage, right? 

Oh yeah...

Just so you don't think I'm being purely partisan, back in 1993, GOP members of the House and Senate unanimously opposed the first Clinton budget, saying that the tax increases would send the economy into a recession. Well, not only did we not enter recession, we enjoyed the most robust period of economic growth in American history.

I'll tell you, it's just a good thing that guys like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich never got near the levers of power after that. I mean, if you could be so wrong about something so important, you're obviously in the wrong line of work...

"No blood for oil" indeed (installment 83, roughly)

Looks like all American troops are coming home from Iraq by year's end, under an agreement put in place by George W. Bush, and finalized by President Obama. 

So, let's see, while we were in Iraq, we didn't take any of their oil, and we're not bringing any home with us. We're also not getting any special oil contracts, at least as far as I'm aware. And we're not being driven out by an enemy, but instead are leaving on friendly terms, having achieved our military objectives. So it's not as if we WOULD stay and steal oil if we could.

Long story short, it looks as if we sacrificed thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq, not for oil--that is, not for our own economic benefit--but to topple a violent dictator, to free a people, and to address a potential terrorism threat.

You might not consider those to be valid reasons for invading a country, particularly in light of the lousy intelligence that helped prop up the anti-terrorism rationale in the first place. But if you were one of those who said from the very beginning, "This is all about oil," it would be nice to hear you utter that most unusual of phrases: "I was wrong."

Footnote: And if you're Viggo Mortensen, it would be SUPER awesome if on top of that you also punched yourself in the head.

I won't say "never," but I will say "once"

About a week and a half ago, I predicted that President Obama would not be reelected. It's incautious to make such a prediction this far out, but I made it, so I'm standing by it. (I also still believe that John Kerry will defeat George W. Bush in 2004.)

I gave my rationale for the prediction in my earlier post, but I thought I'd try to bring a little more data to bear. You might think that would be easy, but the study of the modern presidency and modern presidential elections is complicated by what's known as "the small n problem." Fact is, there have been so few presidents and so few presidential elections in the era of the modern presidency--say, since FDR--that it can be hard to generalize. 

Here's one thing I can tell you for sure, though: Of the five guys whose approval numbers were roughly the same as President Obama's at this point in their presidencies--LBJ, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and HW Bush--only Reagan went on to serve another term. (LBJ opted out, and Ford, Carter, and HW Bush all lost.)

So, why can't Obama repeat Reagan's success? Because at this point in 1983, the economy was beginning to roar. The election year, 1984, saw the fastest rate of GDP growth in 25 years. From the beginning of 1983 to election day in 1984, unemployment dropped by about three percentage points.

Nothing remotely resembling that is going on now.

The other model one hears of is Harry Truman. He actually went into 1948 as a fairly popular president (above 50%), but by the spring he was only in the high 30s. He surprised everyone, though, by winning reelection after running a whistle-stop campaign against the "do-nothing" Republican Congress.

So why can't President Obama just do that?

While the "give 'em hell, Harry!" stuff makes for great political legend, the fact is that Harry Truman's political recovery coincided with an economic recovery. With the end of World War II, the economy in 1946 and much of 1947 contracted dramatically. In 1948, however, the economy enjoyed a real growth rate of 4.4%, and unemployment rates between 3.4% and 4.0%.  Without those numbers, I don't think Truman could have bounced back the way he did.

If the economic forecasts are correct, Truman's election-year economic numbers are the kind we won't see again for years. That makes a 2012 repeat of 1948 very unlikely. 

Good service and bad service (part 1)

I guess the bad economy affects every business differently, but in general, I would think that most businesses would really value my patronage these days. Apparently, I would think wrong. Some businesses seem perfectly content to give bad service, even in bad times.

The most obvious example--and the most surprising to me--is the number of home/lawn contractors whom I contact who can't be bothered to call me back or respond to my email. I'll send an email or leave a voicemail saying, "Hi, I've got some bathroom remodeling I need done...", etc., and then--I never hear anything back. This happens about one-third of the time. 

Bad service.

Now consider a good service example. I coordinate Stanford football watching parties here in Dallas. It can be a pain in the butt to find a location that's willing to put our game on, with sound. Why? We're a small group that's not going to spend a ton of money, we're from a small school so no one else cares about our game, there are always three or four competing games or events on TV that people DO care about, etc. Basically, if you're coordinating the Michigan or UT-Austin watch parties, the sports bars call you. Not so with Stanford.

But, earlier this week, someone did call me. Her name is Jenna. She works at a bar called Fox and Hound, and she wanted me to know that she could host the Stanford group this weekend and put our game on with sound. Nice! That means I don't have to drive and call all over town trying to find a venue.

Good service.

A couple of days later, Jenna called me back and said that she was terribly sorry, but because the Rangers were also going to be playing on Saturday night--something no one knew when she first contacted me--she couldn't have our game on with sound. BUT, she said, she could promise us a big screen TV, and would give us free wings and pizza for our trouble. And, she said, she would give us the same deal on food the next weekend.

Good service.

Now, let's flip back to some bad service. Before I committed to Jenna, I checked with another bar in town--a place where our group has watched four or five games. I asked the manager if they might be able to give us our game, with sound, this Saturday. "No," she said. "We're headquarters for the Texas/OU game, so that's going to take up the whole place." I said, "But the Texas/OU game is early in the afternoon. It should be done by the time ours comes on at 6:30." Manager: "Yeah, but the Texas and OU people have stuff the whole weekend--before, during, and after their game. So, that won't work." Me: "Well, then, Im glad I have a Plan B." Manager: "That's good."

Bad service.

How could she have done better? Like this: "We'd love to have you guys, but we've got Texas/OU stuff going on all weekend. I hate to turn you away, and pretty much any other weekend would be great, but the Texas and OU alums do a big, weekend-long thing here every year for this game. Anyway, if there are any Texas or OU fans in your group, this is a really fun place to watch that game, so we hope you'll come here for that, at least. And as long as you're here, do you know where you're going to watch the Stanford game a week from Saturday? I can check the calendar while you're here, and if it works for you, we can set aside some tables and TV screens right now."

That would be good service.

A failed presidency?

It's pretty hard to get labeled a failed president, and I doubt that Barack Obama will end up being considered a failure by historians. But one can make the argument that Obama is, in fact, a failure as president.

I'm assuming that the president will not have any additional domestic policy achievements in this term, and I'm assuming, too, that this term will be his ONLY term. (See the post just below this one for information on both of these assumptions.) So, on domestic policy anyway, I'm assuming that what the president has done is all he's going to do.

When President Obama took office, the biggest problem facing the country was the economy. That's gotten no better on Obama's watch, and in terms of the unemployment numbers, it's gotten worse.

In 2008/2009, the president himself, along with Republicans in Congress--though not most Americans--recognized the long-term budget deficit and the shaky financial footing of entitlement programs as a serious threat to the country's quality of life and quality of government. Progress on these issues, however, has been minimal, even trivial.

The president's other big domestic policy priority at the outset of his term was health care reform. He got that done, which would be a major achievement...if it were allowed to stand. But I don't think it will be. If the Supreme Court doesn't knock it down, it's likely that a Republican president will eviscerate it via executive order in 2013, or achieve outright repeal in concert with a Republican House and Senate. (Democrats in the Senate might try to filibuster, but the GOP can just use the reconciliation process, which only requires a bare majority. This is the same trick the Dems pulled to get Obamacare passed in the first place, so they won't be in much position to object when Republicans use it, too.)

These were the president's top domestic policy priorities, and they are all looking like failures. (As for global warming, illegal immigration, and the housing market, there's essentially nothing good to point to there, either.)

In foreign policy, killing Osama bin Laden was a BIG win...more in PR terms than in its impact on al Qaeda. Apart from that, though, there aren't any other high-profile achievements...we've just been holding the gains in Iraq, and grinding out progress in Afghanistan (which may very well be reversed when the troops start coming home).

There's another whole set of issues that political scientists and historians consider when sizing up a president--did he expand the power of the office? did he unify the nation or polarize it? did he change the political culture? was his presidency transformational? On all of these metrics, Obama has failed to live up to his own standards, let alone those of professional president-raters.

***

So, there you have it. While I don't think President Obama will end up being thought of as a failure, I do think that "profound disappointment" is probably the best he can hope for.

The Obama presidency is most likely over

It won't surprise most of you to read that President Obama will almost certainly not achieve any major policy victories over the next year. After all, with the House in Republican hands, and with the election season upon us, one should expect only routine business to get done. 

It may surprise you, though, to read that President Obama has less than a 50/50 shot to win reelection...much less, if you ask me.

Put those two facts together, and I think you can call the Obama presidency essentially over (in domestic policy terms, anyway).

Trying to call the election this far in advance is obviously very risky; a lot of things could happen. They would, however, have to be pretty extraordinary things--a foreign policy crisis that benefits the president, some exogenous shock that jump starts the economy, a John Edwards-style implosion by the Republican nominee, etc. Thought about differently, if events play out more or less typically, there will be ups and downs, ebbs and flows, times of hope and times of despair (for Obama supporters), but ultimately, the president will probably lose.

Why do I say this? HOW can I say this, especially when we don't even know who the Republican nominee will be, when there's a whole campaign to be run, when there are debates to be held, when there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on targeted campaign ads, etc.? 

The answer is that political scientists believe, and can demonstrate empirically, that presidential election outcomes are highly predictable based on the state of the economy, the strength of the two parties in the electorate, voter turnout, and so on.  That is, election outcomes are predictable based on things that have nothing to do with the day-to-day ups and downs of the campaign, candidate personality and message, debate performances, etc. 

So, let's think about the major factors that will determine the outcome of this election. Between now and next year, the economy is not projected to get much better--and some are even predicting a return to recession. You'd have to go back to the days of Franklin Roosevelt to find a president who was reelected with unemployment numbers as bad as they are likely to be next year. On top of that--and partly because of that--party affiliation trends should favor Republicans, as should election turnout (Dems will be dispirited; Republicans will be eager to bounce Obama, and will see a real chance to win back the Senate, too).

Against headwinds like that, it seems unlikely to me that President Obama can win a second term.

Footnote: If you read the forecasts that are available today (here, for example), you'll see that the president is predicted to win the popular vote by the slimmest of majories--an outcome that could still result in his defeat. (Just ask Al Gore.) What I'm proposing is that the forecasts that political scientists will make next summer--when they'll finalize their election predictions--will show an Obama defeat.

Anklenote: Some of you might wonder why the nitty gritty campaign stuff doesn't matter more. There are two big reasons for that. First, the vast majority of people in the electorate already know how they're going to vote next year, well before the campaign has even begun--conservatives and Republicans will vote Republican, liberals and Democrats will vote Democrat. The relatively small group of voters in the middle that are neither Democrat nor Republican, neither liberal nor conservative--the voters that the campaigns will be fighting over--don't pay a lot of attention to debates, political conventions, speeches, issue positions, and so on. They're much more influenced by macro factors--chiefly, the state of the economy, and their perceptions of how the country is doing--than they are by small-bore campaign stuff. Second, it's very easy to run a seemingly brilliant campaign when the economy is robust and there's peace abroad. It's exceptionally hard to run a good campaign when the economy is lousy and people are dissatisfied with your leadership. It's the difference between, "It's morning again in America," and, "Hey, we inherited this mess." Which one do YOU find more inspiring?