Tim W's blog

 New York's 23rd Cong. District has really changed over the years, and if Hoffman wins, I think that gives it a great deal of significance.

I grew up in St. Lawrence County, and riding the school bus 50 years ago, every other stop was at a small farm. The main street in the small city near me really was a main street filled with many small merchants.

It's nothing like that now: All the small farms are gone, or nearly so, replaced by a few large factory type farms. Nearly all the small merchants are gone (largely killed by state funded urban renewal) and replaced by a Wal Mart.

What was once a reliable Republican district has trended Democratic. When you hear lots of talk based on the "historic" Republican 23rd, don't buy it. It went for Obama by several percentage points in 2008. My own county, St. Lawrence, gave Obama a victory by some 6,000 votes out of about 38,000 cast. In a state assembly race, with neither candidate an incumbent, the Democrat won overwhelmingly.

The GOP here, like elsewhere in the state, is nonexistent. The Democrats have developed a good organization that turns out the vote. An economy based on small farmers and small merchants has been replaced by government jobs, with teaching and prison jobs the most coveted in the area.

My point is that if Hoffman wins, it's not just a conservative district voting true to type. It's a meaningful event, signaling a real disenchantment with Obama policies and politics. A recent PPP poll notes that Hoffman has a big lead over Owens head to head. I'm hoping that's the case, but I want to see it first.

Tim

 Our local newspapers in Northern NY have long been accustomed to being the big frog in a local pond. (Frog is singular; it's all owned by the Johnson family, newspapers and televison alike.)

It's also not surprising that they resent fiercely having their turf invaded by outsiders. Local editorials in the Watertown Daily Times and the Ogdensburg Journal have been strongly pro-Scozzafava and dismissive of Hoffman as supported by "outsiders."

The Times in particular has been after Hoffman for not supporting earmarks to improve the local army base, which is the home of the 10th Mountain Division.

The Journal has been dismissive, angrily so, of Fox News, etc., for interfering with what should be a local decision.

It's been a bit of an eye-opener just how biased the local papers have been, not just in editorials, but in choice of news stories. (Many about Scozzafava, her local roots, her local supporters, etc.) I should not have been surprised...but I am.

There's never been much local political organization up here. I was a registered republican for years and the only time I got contacted about a campaign was when a candidate for local town clerk (now there's a hotly contested election -- it's got a good salary) stopped by. No precinct workers I've ever seen in years.

If the tea party people, and Hoffman, want to make a difference, they will have to do it with organizing. Setting up precinct workers, telephone banks, etc. They will have a lot to overcome, but it will be worth the effort. This is an ingrown political culture, and there a lot of local apple carts that need upsetting.

Tim W.

A comparison between Sara Palin and Margaret Thatcher can be taken a bit too far. They are in many respects very different people. But the reaction to each by the intellectual "new class" in their societies is remarkably similar. I've been reading Hugo Young's 1989 biography of Thatcher and came across this:

"One of the most readily discernible issues between these two worlds was a matter of social snobbery, laced, on the part of the dissenting intellectuals, with a special tang of indignation deriving from the fact that their antagonist was a woman...

."...the baroness had once seen Mrs Thatcher on television choosing clothes at Marks & Spencer, and there was, she found, something quite 'obscene' about it. The clothes showed a woman 'packaged together in a way that's not exactly vulgar, just low.' Lady Warnock confessed to 'a kind of rage' whenever she thought about her.

"Scarcely less remarkable than such sentiments, which sounded as though they sprang from something deeper than the well of pure reason, was the willingness of these intellectuals to express them. It was as though the passions of the age had lifted all restraint from the canons of public conversation. Nothing, it appeared, was unmentionable, no depth of condescension need be left unplumbed..."

The Young biography is a bit old, and I've been thinking about picking up the Claire Berliniski biography. Is anyone familiar with it?

Tim Wright

If the poll numbers hold up, Republicans are going to have a lot of time on their hands to figure out where to go next. They sure won't be governing.

We could do worse than look north to Canada, where Stephen Harper and the conservatives, while not winning a majority, have strengthened their ranks. Harper's government I would suggest has succeeded by concentrating on middle and working class voters open to a conservative message.*

It's too early to determine how good a leader Palin might turn out to be, but someone who got up to speed at the level she did in the time she had shouldn't be "misunderestimated." You betcha' her appeal to working/middle class voters might be a good base for a future party.

What's certain is that a big government conservative party that takes care of Wall Street and forgets Main Street is a loser.

*(From Paul Wells'  Right Side Up, on the victory of Harper in Canada: "What was the alternative? A mostly economic conservatism, a modern Canadian version of the Thatcher-Reagan phenomenon. The basis of Reform's market should be the private-sector urban middle class, and the core of its message should be free markets and low taxes...[the party] would be stitched together from those parts of the urban middle class, urban working class, and rural population that can agree on an agenda of market economics and traditional values. Compared to traditional conservatism, this version would be substantially down-market."

Sounds pretty good to me. Before the GOP can right itself, it needs to know who its voters are.

Tim Wright

 In the midst of the good feeling (ok...relief) following the Palin-Biden debate, I would like to note that there is a column on the bailout and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisc) by Kim Strassel in the WSJ (Friday, 10/3) that is must reading.

Brief summary: Ryan opposed Mac and Mae when it was tough, and other Republicans didn't and were buying into the housing lobby. Now, when it's tough to do so, he's supporting the bailout, while other Republicans (in safe seats), who wouldn't rein in the GSE's, are trying to play populist. Read the column to get the full flavor of how good/smart/gutsy this guy is.

I've been reading Strassel for a while, and this column cemented it for me: I value and trust her political judgement.

Tim Wright

 I've just had the pleasure of watching Speaker Pelosi on a youtube video giving a highly partisan speech, attacking Republicans, before the vote on the bailout bill.

She had to know what the GOP reaction would be in the House....that her partisan attack would drive away enough Republican votes to kill the bill.

I think this says they made a decision that the bill is a political loser in House races and wanted it dead.

What was that saying? "I try to be cynical, but it's just so hard to keep up..."

Tim Wright

 Last night my wife asked me a question: What's with the House Republicans? Aren't they a Wall Street party? Why aren't they doing along with the deal?

Which led me to do some thinking: Are the Democrats now the Wall Street party? Given the level of political donations, and the similarity in thinking (government subsidies, and regulation, which contrary to popular opinion, is a favorite activity of big finance), Wall Street and the Democrats are a natural match.

Which also led me to dig out a good book I read on Stephen Harper and the rise of the conservatives in Canada. It's a couple of years old, but well worth the read (Right Side Up, by Paul Wells, 2006).

There was a fascinating passage in it, which is probably obvious to most readers of this website, but hit me. It's a lengthy quote, but bear with it, as it's worth it.

Quote:

What was the alternative? [i.e. as Harper was trying to put together a conservative coalition] A mostly economic conservatism "a modern Canadian version of the Thatcher-Reagan phenomenon." The basis of Reform's message should be the private-sector urban middle-class, and the core of its message should be free markets and low taxes. The  party should "tailor its broader, 'social' agenda to gain a sizeable chunk of the urban working class and rural sector 'swing' vote, without alienating its urban private sector middle-class 'core.' The key is to emphasize moderate, conservative social values consistent with the traditional family, the market economy, and patriotism."

...The second interesting thing is Harper's insight into the nature of that core audience. Flanagan, paraphrasing Harper, says it would be stitched together from "those parts of the urban middle class, urban working class, and rural population that can agree on an agenda of market economics and traditional values." Compared to traditional conservatism, this version would be substantially down-market. (emphasis mine.)

"The older model of a conservative party based largely on the middle and upper classes is no longer viable," Flanagan writes, "because so much of the urban middle class (for example, teachers, nurses, social workers, public-sector administrators) is now part of the 'new class,' or 'knowledge class,' as it is sometimes called, and is thus a political class dependent on tax-supported government programs. Political coalitions now divide less along class lines than on the question of public-sector dependence."

All in all, an interesting take to me, though probably old hat to many on this site. And one that sheds a little light on where the GOP in this country should try going.

...But to a great extent the ends of his political action are already visible here: to build a broad coalition aimed not at swells, fat cats, and less-affluent voters who nonetheless depend on assorted grants and subsidies, but at a lunch-bucket crowd of cabbies, skilled tradesmen, young families, and modest entrepreneurs.

Thanks for having this website.

Tim Wright