Take It Back 10: Health Care, Katrina, Community, and Closing

I finished James Carville and Paul Begala's Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006).

My latest reading covered health care and Hurricane Katrina, then the book closed with a resounding call for communitarianism, even going so far as to praise Ronald Reagan for his optimism and faith in America.  Here are three items:

1.  The chapter on health care was good, overall.  It went into how the cost of treating the uninsured results in higher health care prices for consumers, the fact that the uninsured consist largely of people who work, and a proposal to allow people to buy into the same health care options that are available to federal employees.  According to Carville and Begala, this proposal works well for federal employees, for the "government gets to say which plans participate, then negotiates prices, covered services, and other standards for care", and the "health care companies" accept those requirements because they want the nine million government employees as customers (page 279).

I appreciated Carville and Begala's discussion about the pharmaceutical industry, though I wish that they had gone a little deeper.  Carville and Begala say that "Drug companies that invest in research should be able to keep their patents until they've made back the amount they spent on research plus a reasonable profit" (page 280). This is an important point because Carville and Begala are acknowledging that the profit motive plays a significant role in the development of new drugs.  A number of conservatives and Republicans have argued that such measures as allowing the importation of cheap prescription drugs and permitting Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices would discourage the pharmaceutical companies from researching and creating new drugs because those measures would reduce the companies' profits, thereby undermining the profit motive for research and development.  But Carville and Begala are sensitive to the role of the profit motive, and so they say that drug companies should be able to keep their patents on their drugs until they have made a "reasonable profit".

But then Carville and Begala criticize drug companies for being "hell-bent on keeping their patents" and for seeking to inhibit cheaper "generic versions of the same drug from coming to market" (page 280).  According to Carville and Begala, Senator Chuck Schumer introduced a bill to prevent the gaming of the patent system, even as Republicans sought to restrict competition against the pharmaceutical companies.  This bill passed when the Democrats controlled the Senate.  I wish that Carville and Begala had gone deeper by explaining how they could support patents as a way for pharmaceutical companies to make a profit, while also not wanting for the patent system to be abused.  What exactly is abuse of the patent system?  Is it the pharmaceutical companies trying to hold onto the patent longer than they are permitted?

Another beef that I had with this chapter: Carville and Begala talked about how a Toyota plant chose to locate in Canada on account of Canada's national health care system, rather than in the U.S., where Toyota would provide employees with costly health insurance.  That's a good point, but Carville and Begala appear to stop short of advocating a single-payer system, the sort of system that attracted Toyota to Canada.  This issue is arguably relevant to Obamacare, as businesses in the U.S. are reducing workers from full-time to part-time status so that they don't have to pay for health insurance.  Leftists have contended that the big businesses are merely using Obamacare as an excuse for their own failures, and they may be correct on that.  But, in my opinion, a single-payer system is better for businesses than is requiring big businesses to provide health insurance to their employees.  

2.  The chapter on Hurricane Katrina was about how President George W. Bush failed to provide sufficient funds for the levies (since money was going instead to the Iraq War) when he was warned that this sort of policy would be disastrous, and how Bush appointed inexperienced political lackies to FEMA, whereas Bill Clinton had appointed competent and experienced professionals.  One of my conservative relatives once told me that Bush should not be faulted for failing to provide sufficient funds for the levies because Bush didn't know how bad the hurricane would be, or if there would even be a hurricane, but Carville and Begala narrate that Bush was warned that his policy could have ill effects, that "Bush's own federal government designated a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three 'likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country'" (page 284), and that there had been another hurricane earlier in the year.

I tend to agree with my conservative friends and relatives that others besides Bush dropped the ball on Hurricane Katrina----there were the local authorities that failed to use buses to help people to evacuate, for example.  But I still think that Bush failed to provide adequate leadership during that disaster.  I wonder if things have gotten better, in terms of the federal government's management of natural disasters.  President Barack Obama has been praised for how he handled Hurricane Sandy, but there are still people who complain about FEMA, and who say that they are not getting enough help.

3.  On communitarianism, I agree with Carville and Begala that we should try to see society in terms of "us" and not just "me".  Carville and Begala contend that Republicans tend to support a mindset of "What's in it for me?" (my paraphrase), but a number of conservatives and Republicans would come back and say that Democratic policies themselves engender this sort of attitude by creating an entitlement society in which people receive free stuff from the government.  I think that Democrats do well when they combat this narrative----when they show that it benefits society as a whole when people don't go broke because of medical bills, when people can receive a decent education, etc. 

I'll close this post by saying that I prefer Carville and Begala's self-reflection after the Democrats lost to how a number of Republicans reacted after Obama's defeat of Mitt Romney.  There were many Republicans who reacted to their loss by portraying the majority of voters in the election as moochers, who merely voted for Obama because he was giving them stuff from the government.  Even when Republicans lambasted this narrative, they did not appear to be overly authentic, for how often did they question this narrative before Romney lost?  Moreover, I'd say that the view that many Democratic voters are moochers is widespread among Republicans.

Carville and Begala, by contrast, did not seem to look down on those who voted for Bush in 2004.  You could say that a number of Democrats did look down on those voters, seeing them as duped by Republicans, who spoke to their values on wedge issues while undercutting their economic security.  But my impression was that Carville and Begala did not have that attitude (though they did recommend What's the Matter with Kansas?).  Rather, they acknowledged that Democrats had to work on showing that they were not hostile to the values of those middle-class and lower-income people who voted for Bush.  And Carville and Begala were authentic about this, for they talked about the place of God, guns, and the military in their own lives.  I did not always agree with their policy analysis, but I appreciated their outreach to American voters who differed from them politically.

Take It Back 9: Taxes

In my latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), James Carville and Paul Begala talk about taxes.

Carville and Begala criticize Republicans for supporting a lower tax burden on upper-income people, and a higher tax burden for those who are not upper-income.  They give examples.  First of all, there was a bill, passed in 2004 with overwhelming support by both Republicans and Democrats, that gave generous tax-breaks to corporations while reducing the per child tax credit for families making under $10,750 a year.  Second, on pages 260-261, Carville and Begala talk about aides to President George W. Bush who sought to "shield interest, dividends, and capital gains from taxation, and expand tax breaks for business investment", while possibly "eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance" (Carville and Begala here are quoting from a November 18, 2004 article in The Washington Post).  Third, Carville and Begala state that President George W. Bush and the Republicans supported cutting taxes that affect the wealthy, such as the federal income tax and the estate class (when the estate tax, according to Carville and Begala, really only impacts a small number of people, the very rich), while opposing a reduction in the payroll tax, which particularly impacts those who are not upper-income.

Carville and Begala admit that Republicans have run with the theme of simplifying the tax code, something that Carville and Begala believe that Democrats, too, should actually talk about.  But Carville and Begala maintain that Republican proposals for simplifying the tax code will make things worse, not better.  A flat tax, for example, would get rid of taxes on interest, dividends, capital gains, and inheritance, which in many cases affect the rich, while it would keep the taxes that middle-class people pay (payroll, sales, property, and excise taxes) and also hit the middle-class with an income tax (Dick Armey proposed twenty percent).  The national sales tax, according to Carville and Begala, would also shift the tax burden to the middle class.  Essentially, Carville and Begala believe that Republicans support a tax code that is biased against work.  On page 264, they contrast those who "work for a living" with "someone whose money comes from sitting on his rear end and cashing dividend checks." 

Carville and Begala refer favorably to the Center for American Progress' tax-reform proposal.  This proposal would treat "all forms of income alike" (Carville and Begala's words)----capital gains, dividends, wages, tips, interest, etc.  Those making up to $25,000 a year would pay 15 percent, those making between $25,000 and $120,000 would pay 25 percent, and those making over $120,000 would pay 39 percent.  The payroll tax would be abolished for working people, yet employers would pay it, and it would not be capped at $90,000 a year.  The Alternative Minimum Tax, which even hits the middle-class because it was not indexed for inflation, would be eliminated.  The per-child tax credit would be retained, expanded, and increased, and it would be extended to "folks who make as little as $5,000 a year" (Carville and Begala's words on page 265).  And $30 million in loopholes that corporations and the wealthy use will be closed.  As Carville and Begala say on page 264, Democrats should "shift the debate away from the old charge that Democrats are for higher taxes and on to the more relevant and salient debate over who pays."

Here are some of my reactions:

1.  I agree with Carville and Begala that it's simplistic to make a blanket assertion that Democrats are for higher taxes, whereas Republicans are for lower taxes.  I don't necessarily concur with every argument that they made to support that point, however, for their statement that a flat tax would retain sales and property taxes seems to ignore that the sales and property taxes are not federal and thus the U.S. government has no jurisdiction over them (though, as Carville and Begala note, people should be able to deduct their state and local taxes off of their federal tax returns), plus there is a history of conservative opposition to property taxes and support for the per-child tax credit.  But I find Carville and Begala's overall point to be sound, especially since a number of Republicans (including John McCain) supported raising the tax on employer-provided health insurance.  My impression is that Republicans are sometimes very revenue-conscious when the revenue is coming from the middle-class, but they are quick to support tax cuts on taxes that the upper-income pay.  See my post here.

2.  I have some issues with Carville and Begala's apparent disdain for investment (or so it comes across to me, and I'm open to correction).  Does not investment build companies and create jobs?  Why not, therefore, support tax cuts for business investments?  Carville and Begala, in talking about a national sales tax, refer to proponents' point that it would encourage savings and investment.  People wonder why we should cut taxes on the rich, when they would just sit on their money.  Well, them sitting on their money may entail them putting it into stocks, which builds companies.

3.  And yet, I am intrigued by the Center for American Progress' proposal that all sources of income should be taxed progressively.  Rather than, say, raising taxes on capital gains and dividends, why not just take income in its entirety and impose a rate on that?  I have questions about this proposal, though.  First of all, would that amount to an increase or a decrease in taxes on capital gains and dividends?  I can see it being an increase, since capital gains and dividends would then be treated as income.  On the other hand, I can picture it being a decrease, since there's a rate that taxes one's entire income----and that income is not just from capital gains and dividends but from other things as well.  Second, would not CAP's proposal increase the tax burden on lower-income people, since they would pay 15 percent?  Or would the deductions, such as the per-child tax credit, wipe that tax out?

4.  I've heard Republicans and conservatives argue that the per-child tax credit for the lower-income is technically not a tax cut for the reason that the lower-income do not pay taxes: thus, it's not a tax cut, but money from the government.  And Republicans and conservatives have used this as an argument against the per-child tax credit for the lower income.  I don't know enough about this issue to comment.  I think that it's a good idea for the lower-income to get some relief, or help, however. 

Take It Back 8: The Media

In my latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), James Carville and Paul Begala talk about media bias.

They dispute that the media have a liberal bias, for they note that the media were particularly hard on Bill Clinton during the 1992 election and also during Clinton's Presidency, and on Al Gore during the 2000 election.  Meanwhile, the media failed to cover some of George W. Bush's indiscretions: for example, Governor George W. Bush denied under oath that he had "discussed a funeral home investigation...with the head of the state agency charged with investigating funeral homes or with representatives of the funeral home corporation under investigation", and yet his appointee to the agency and the funeral home company's CEO and lobbyist contradicted his testimony.

What are the media's motivations?  Carville and Begala highlight a few.  They believe that, although the mainstream media consist of a large number of people who voted for Clinton, the media still relish the prospect of taking down a President, in this case, Bill Clinton.  Moreover, Carville and Begala cite a study by Professor David Croteau that shows that, while many in the media are socially liberal (i.e., pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay rights), they are economically conservative.  Plus, there's the personal factor: there were many in the media who personally liked George W. Bush, but they did not particularly care for Vice-President Gore.

Carville and Begala argue that the Right exploits the charge of liberal media bias to get the sort of coverage that it desires, as journalists bend over backwards to avoid accusations of unfairness and seek out conservative voices.  Carville and Begala also note an example of how, in this Internet age, one can distort the truth and the distortion spreads throughout the media like wildfire.  Essentially, it was alleged that John Kerry initially supported President Bush's outsourcing of the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden to Afghan warlords, based on something that Kerry said to Larry King about a whole other issue: whether or not we should smoke Osama Bin-Laden out of his cave.  But the distortion was picked up by Chris Wallace, David Brooks, and Charles Krauthammer, who presented it as truth.  And Carville and Begala discuss how George W. Bush's campaign and Administration played hardball with the media by punishing those who didn't report things as Bush wished, by denying them exposure to Bush and the Administration, by giving a story to a competitor, etc.  (Newt Gingrich made a similar point about President Barack Obama----see my post here.)

Carville and Begala offer ideas on how Democrats can cope with the media.  One way is to be aggressive in attacking Republican indiscretions and policy-proposals, which will get the media's attention because the media love to cover a fight.  Another way is to make use of local media outlets.  According to Carville and Begala, a number of Democrats seek the favor of the New York Times while ignoring local media outlets, but Bill Clinton in 1992 did not go that route, for Clinton appeared on a number of local stations.

What is my stance on the media?  I used to think that the media were liberal, and, to be honest, as I look back, I believe that this viewpoint on my part made me aware that there is such a thing as bias and that I can't necessarily accept everything that I read and hear at face value.  At the same time, this viewpoint allowed me to dismiss anything inconvenient to my Republican worldview as something made up by the "liberal" media, and so my view that the media are liberal made me critical and un-critical, at the same time. 

Nowadays, I don't dismiss that the mainstream media at times convey liberal views.  But I can't accept that as the full story because the media did attack Bill Clinton, and leftists would argue that the media pulled their punches during the George W. Bush Administration.  The media are often after acclaim and a story and are not always pursuing an ideological agenda.  Or maybe, as Carville and Begala contend, there are a variety of factors: perhaps the media only went so far in attacking Bush because they still wanted exposure to the Bush White House.

One thing that I thought about in my latest reading of Carville and Begala was my perception of George W. Bush.  Why did I like him and vote for him in 2004?  One reason was that I was a conservative, and I also was being a contrarian against the liberal environment where I was, which disdained and despised Bush.  But I also thought that Bush came across as a meek, humble, and friendly man, one who, like Ronald Reagan, did not have to be President in order to be happy.  Perhaps there was something to that narrative, but that has to be balanced out with the times that people say that Bush has played serious hardball in order to advance his interests.  Such stories don't make Bush look particularly meek, humble, friendly, or apathetic about having power!

Take It Back 7: Energy and the Environment

In my latest reading of James Carville and Paul Begala's Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), I read the chapter on the environment, and I started the chapter on the media (i.e., how the media does not really manifest a left-wing bias).  My post today will be about the environment, whereas my post tomorrow will be about the media.

What did I like about the chapter on the environment?  A number of things.  I liked Carville and Begala's point that Democrats should concentrate on climate change rather than drilling in ANWR (which many people don't visit anyway), that they should promote good environmental stewardship as a religious value, that they should highlight how environmental damage threatens people's health, that they should seek the support of hunters and fishermen by talking about how environmental damage leads to fewer places where people can hunt and fish, and that they should discuss how higher CAFE standards could lead to the production of more fuel-efficient cars and thus more jobs.  I also appreciated that Begala and Carville mentioned people who were being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.  They refer favorably to the advancements that Texas has made in terms of alternative fuels (and I talk about Texas Governor Rick Perry's discussion of Texas' environmental and clean energy record in my post here), as well as General Electric's profits from renewable energy, "water purification and cleaner transportation" (page 182).

After talking about GE, Carville and Begala criticize how a number of Democrats approach environmental issues: "We'll admit it: There are times when Democrats can be preachy and prissy and sanctimonious and scornful when talking about energy and the environment.  We tend to sneer at people who drive SUVs and at companies that create jobs but also contribute to global warming.  Worse, some Democratic environmentalists tend to be almost self-loathing about America's energy consumption.  Instead, we should celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of America; we should embrace the profit motive that is driving more and more corporate leaders to the Green/Green Solution."

I appreciate Carville and Begala's support for an environmentalism that is consistent with jobs, religion, and the desires of hunters and fishermen.  I remember a professor saying that, in some regions of the country, the National Rifle Association is a strong proponent of responsible environmental policies.  Why should environmentalists position themselves as extremists, when they can form alliances with a wide range of people, even conservatives?

What did I not like about the chapter on the environment?  I did not feel that Carville and Begala were sensitive to the deleterious effects that some of their proposals could have.  For example, they support cap-and-trade and the windfall profits tax.  But could not those lead to higher energy prices, as companies pass on the cost of buying carbon credits or paying the windfall profits tax to consumers?  Carville and Begala should have addressed that point.  It would be nice, though, if a windfall profits tax could work out, for I like the story about how Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska brought in higher revenues and gave Alaskans a check through taxes on oil profits (but see here for another take on that).

Take It Back 6: Suppressing Competition

In my latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), James Carville and Paul Begala talk about Republican corruption, as they go into the shenanigans of Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and others.  Whereas I criticized Carville and Begala in my last post because I did not feel that they offered a specific enough strategy for the War on Terror, I have to give them credit that, in their chapter "Don't Just 'Clean Up' Washington; Fumigate It", they provide new ideas on how to separate Washington from the special interests.

I won't go into their proposal in this post, however, but rather I will complain about how certain Republicans suppress competition, even though many of them love to shoot off their mouths about the free-market and how competition will supposedly solve our country's problems. 

In my latest reading, Carville and Begala give examples of Republicans attempting to suppress competition.  There was Jack Abramoff's strategy of using the religious right to pressure then Texas Attorney General (now Republican U.S. Senator) John Cornyn to put a Native American casino out of business, for the benefit of the Native American casinos that were Abramoff's clients.  There was Republican Congressman Roy Blunt's insertion of a provision in a homeland security bill that would crack down on "contraband tobacco" and make selling tobacco over the Internet more difficult, thereby increasing Philip Morris' profits.  (According to Carville and Begala, House leaders got rid of this provision because they feared bad publicity.)  And, on page 163, Carville and Begala discuss Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham's practice of getting MZM, Inc. government contracts.

I can add other examples.  Allen Michael Collinge states in The Student Loan Scandal that Republicans opposed allowing other companies to buy someone's student loans, thereby undermining competition and rendering the debtor subservient to Sallie Mae (see my post here).  There were Halliburton's no-bid contracts (which some justified by appealing to emergency wartime needs----see here).  There was Republican opposition to having a public option that would compete against private health insurance companies.

Libertarians have long argued that the government should not favor certain industries over others, and many Republicans echo libertarians on this when they critique the Obama Administration for picking winners and losers.  Shouldn't Republicans, therefore, be the first to oppose the influence of special interests on government policy, which has in many cases suppressed competition and benefited rich special interests?  Unfortunately, you don't see Republicans taking that kind of bold stand; rather, in my opinion, they have often been a part of the problem rather than part of the solution. 

Take It Back 5: The War on Terror

I was a little disappointed in the chapter on "National Security" in James Carville and Paul Begala's Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006).  The chapter had strengths: its argument (based on the concerns and actions of Al Gore and the Clinton Administration) that a President Al Gore would have prevented 9/11; its argument that the Bush Administration did not address certain vulnerabilities even after 9/11; its critique of George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War; and its explanation of how the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent put people's lives at risk and damaged certain U.S. intelligence projects throughout the world (i.e., if Valerie Plame is pretending to represent a company, and that company is revealed to be fake through her outing, what happens to the other agents who are pretending to represent that company, or the foreigners who act as if they are working with it?).  My problem with this chapter was that it did not adequately detail what should be done instead.

On some level, this is understandable.  If a number of Democrats were not too crazy about the Iraq War, then expecting them to come up with a solution to win it may be too much to ask.  As Bush asked about John Kerry in 2004, how would Kerry convince other nations to help the U.S. in Iraq, if Kerry publicly believes that the Iraq War was the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?  Or, as Carville and Begala say on pages 118-119: "Democrats should set the bar for Bush in Iraq: victory.  They should support any request for funding for our troops in the field.  But they need not be shamed into silence merely because they don't have a silver bullet for a problem that has no obvious solution."

The thing is, Carville and Begala (at least in this book) don't seem to have a silver bullet for the War on Terror, period.  They offer good insights, but (as far as I can see) they provide no proposals as to how to utilize those insights to meet a coherent goal.  They mock Bush's simplistic view that radical Islamic terrorists hate us because they abhor the American way of life (which, in my opinion, is part of the reason that they hate us, but not the whole reason), and they refer to Michael Scheuer's statement that the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia steals a lot of oil revenues from its citizens.  But what do Carville and Begala want us to do with Scheuer's analysis?  How would they use that analysis in a coherent plan of action?

On pages 124-126, Carville and Begala advance good reasons for multilateralism: that our allies (even France) have helped us in catching terrorists, and that we need other countries in order to defeat Al-Qaeda, which is a global network.  But then Carville and Begala go on to say that "Democrats cannot be the party of the permission slip", that is, asking the rest of the world for permission to defend our country's security.  But what if we want to undertake a project to defend our security and other countries won't back us up?  Should we go it alone, or abandon the project altogether?  Carville and Begala probably don't believe that the Iraq War was necessary for the United States' security, but do they think that unilateralism would ever be justified?  They don't adequately address this.  They say that Bush lacks clear thinking on the War on Terror, but I wish that their thinking had been clearer in this chapter.

Overall, though, I'd say that the Democrats have recovered from any perception that they are inept on the War on Terror.  President Barack Obama was part of the capture of Osama Bin-Laden, he has authorized drones to take out Al-Qaeda members, and he has continued some of President Bush's surveillance policies, even while pursuing a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan.  President Obama has also rebuilt relationships with other countries, such as Russia.  Detractors can argue that there are weaknesses to Obama's foreign policy, such as the disappointment that the Arab Spring has wrought, as well as the disaster in Benghazi.  And many leftists are concerned that drones have taken the lives of innocent people.  But, overall, Obama has had a strategy of fighting the War on Terror, something that Democrats seemed to lack for many years (or such is my impression).

Take It Back 4: The Iraq War

My latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future, by James Carville and Paul Begala, was about national security.  Essentially, Carville and Begala criticized how George W. Bush's handled 9/11----both the events leading up to it and also its aftermath----and also how Republicans who never served in the military have smeared Democrats who have stellar war-records.

In this post, I'll talk about my evolving view on the Iraq War.  There was a time when I would defend George W. Bush against his detractors and haters.  See this post as an example of that.  Do I regret doing that?  Not at all.  There are two (and often more) sides to every story.  Why should I assume that a left-wing narrative is the only one that's legitimate?

Just looking at the claims that Carville and Begala made in my latest reading, I could find articles that said something different from what Carville and Begala were saying.

----On page 93, Carville and Begala say that Cheney repeated the claim that a senior Iraqi intelligence official met with 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta in Prague, even though Czech authorities said that was false, and CIA and FBI officials investigated and found no indication that Atta left the U.S. during the time in question.  For Carville and Begala, the implication of this was that Cheney was lying to get us into a war.  Here, however, is Cheney's account of why he initially believed that Atta met with the Iraqi official in Prague, only later to repudiate that view.

----On page 95, Carville and Begala say that George W. Bush out-sourced the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden to local warlords in Afghanistan, which allowed Bin-Laden to escape.  According to this article, however, information after Bin Laden's death has shown us a different story.

----On page 114, Carville and Begala say that "It was Democrats who stood and fought when the Bush administration tried to eliminate imminent-danger pay and family-separation pay for the 148,000 troops in Iraq."  According to this, however, the Department of Defense had "an alternative proposal to maintain total compensation for those serving in a combat zone, or in direct support of a combat zone, through increased use of Hardship Duty Pay (HDP)."

Who's right, and who's wrong?  What's fact, and what's propaganda?  What is a legitimate claim, and what is an unfair attack, or spin in defense of a certain position or party?  I'm sure that people could go more deeply into these issues than I have done here, and than has been done in a number of discussion forums.

In my right-wing days, while I was skeptical about left-wing narratives about Bush and the Iraq War, there were seeds that were planted that led me to have second thoughts about my "yay rah Bush" attitude.  I was learning about the horrors of war, as I watched TV and read stories and heard about people who had lost life and limb, and my conservative friends' dismissal of those horrors with the platitude of "War is hell" did not cut it with me after a certain point.  In 2008, I was gravitating towards John McCain and Sarah Palin, and one thing that attracted me to them was that they either served in war (in the case of McCain) or had family that was serving in war (in the case of both McCain and Palin), and that differentiated them in my mind from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who, as far as I know, did not have family in the wars (but I'm open to correction on this).

There were other factors as well: my enthusiasm about Ron Paul; my reading about anti-war conservatism; Bill Clinton's discussion of the waste of money that was occurring in Iraq; the fact that politicians with stellar military records were speaking out against the Iraq War, and efforts to smear them were becoming old, if not tacky (which is an understatement, I know); how Halliburton was costing taxpayers a lot of money; the Iraqi woman in Fahrenheit 9/11 who lost a loved one as a result of our bombing and pleaded to Allah for justice; etc.  I still believe that there is more to the story than the "Bush lied, people died" mantra that leftists used to repeat.  But I concluded that there was more to reality than what I was hearing from the Bush Administration and right-wing media, too.

Take It Back 3: Bush and Kerry on Faith

In my latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), James Carville and Paul Begala criticize how John Kerry talked about his faith during the 2004 Presidential Election.  Essentially, according to Carville and Begala, Kerry "usually repeated a variation of JFK's line that the church would not control him" (page 65).  Carville and Begala found Kerry's approach to be outdated, especially in a time when the Republicans were resonating with a number of voters by talking about faith, whereas the Democrats were widely believed to have a problem with religion.  According to Carville and Begala, the Democrats should not be afraid to talk boldly about their faith and how that shapes their commitment to social justice.

Carville and Begala most likely have more expertise than I do on what is politically savvy, but, speaking for myself, I actually liked what John Kerry had to say about his faith----actually more than what George W. Bush said about it.  And this was a time when I was a conservative and an avid George W. Bush fan----one who actually admired Bush because of his commitment to evangelical Christianity.  What follows are quotations from the third Presidential debate in 2004, as John Kerry and George W. Bush discuss the role of faith in their lives and their decision-making:
Kerry was asked about the Catholic archbishops who said that it was a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate, and he replied:

" I respect their views. I completely respect their views. I am a Catholic. And I grew up learning how to respect those views. But I disagree with them, as do many.  I believe that I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith.  I believe that choice is a woman's choice. It's between a woman, God and her doctor. And that's why I support that.  Now, I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade...Now, with respect to religion, you know, as I said, I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me.  And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, 'I'm not running to be a Catholic president. I'm running to be a president who happens to be Catholic.' My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, 'What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.' And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people. That's why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That's why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.  But I know this, that President Kennedy in his inaugural address told all of us that here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own. And that's what we have to----I think that's the test of public service."

That was the JFK answer that Carville and Begala were criticizing.

Later, George W. Bush was asked about the role of faith in his policy-decisions, and Bush replied:

"First, my faith plays a lot----a big part in my life. And that's, when I answering that question, what I was really saying to the person was that I pray a lot. And I do. And my faith is a very----it's very personal. I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray for our troops in harm's way. I pray for my family. I pray for my little girls. But I'm mindful in a free society that people can worship if they want to or not. You're equally an American if you choose to worship an almighty and if you choose not to.  If you're a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you're equally an American. That's the great thing about America, is the right to worship the way you see fit.  Prayer and religion sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency.  I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, 'Well, how do you know?' I said, 'I just feel it.' Religion is an important part. I never want to impose my religion on anybody else. But when I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am. I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the faith-based initiative where we've unleashed the armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt. I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe.  And that's been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march.  And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me, and religion is a part of me."

And Kerry responded:

"Well, I respect everything that the president has said and certainly respect his faith. I think it's important and I share it. I think that he just said that freedom is a gift from the Almighty. Everything is a gift from the Almighty. And as I measure the words of the Bible----and we all do; different people measure different things----the Koran, the Torah, or, you know, Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day had their own special sense of connectedness to a higher being. And people all find their ways to express it. I was taught----I went to a church school and I was taught that the two greatest commandments are: Love the Lord, your God, with all your mind, your body and your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. And frankly, I think we have a lot more loving of our neighbor to do in this country and on this planet.  We have a separate and unequal school system in the United States of America. There's one for the people who have, and there's one for the people who don't have. And we're struggling with that today.  And the president and I have a difference of opinion about how we live out our sense of our faith. I talked about it earlier when I talked about the works and faith without works being dead. I think we've got a lot more work to do. And as president, I will always respect everybody's right to practice religion as they choose----or not to practice----because that's part of America."

So why did I prefer what John Kerry said about faith?  As I reread their comments, I don't think that John Kerry is being particularly fair if he's implying that Bush does not believe that faith without works is dead, for Bush talked about how his faith influences him to pursue policies that enhance the healing and freedom of others.  And yet, I like the low-key, matter-of-fact, succinct, and practical way that Kerry talked about his faith.  When I first heard Bush, I thought that he focused too much on how his faith comforted him.  Kerry, by contrast, talked about what the Bible taught, and how he tried to follow that (while not imposing his Catholic beliefs about abortion on people).  I (like Bush) am one who finds comfort in my faith, but I thought that Kerry's answer had more theological content and was more orderly than what Bush said.  That probably resonated with the religion student part of me, not to mention the Aspie part!

Take It Back 2

In my latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), James Carville and Paul Begala talk about how the post-2004 Democratic Party should address abortion, guns, and gay marriage.

Regarding abortion, Carville and Begala maintain that Democrats should stop trying to inhibit every single restriction on abortion, for polls indicate that many Americans would like at least some restrictions.  For example, Carville and Begala say that the Democratic Party should not attempt to stop the ban on partial-birth abortion.  Carville and Begala are also proponents of most abortions being safe, legal, and rare.  They laud a pro-life initiative by the Democrats for Life that seeks to reduce the number of abortions and includes the following proposals: "making the adoption tax credit permanent", "giving women with unplanned pregnancies counseling information on adoption", expanding the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program "which gives nutritional support to new moms and their babies", requiring insurance companies to cover contraceptives, and age-appropriate pregnancy-prevention programs in school (Carville and Begala's words on page 45).

Regarding guns, Carville and Begala acknowledge that guns are a tradition passed down from fathers to sons in many areas of the country.  They think that the Democratic Party should find common ground with the National Rifle Association, which has said that it supports enforcing the laws that are already on the books (though, as Carville and Begala point out, the NRA opposed many of those laws before they were on the books!).  Carville and Begala are also critical of a proposal that would require background checks at gun shows, for that would inflame pro-gun voters, plus a "study by the Clinton Justice Department showed that just 1.7 percent of criminals who used guns in the commission of a crime obtained their guns from a gun show" (page 49).  Moreover, Carville and Begala refer favorably to Howard Dean's critique of new federal gun-control legislation, as Dean argued that it should be a state-by-state thing.  For Dean, Montana and Vermont should not have the same stringent gun laws that are in New York and California, for "gun crime is not a big problem" in Montana and Vermont (Carville and Begala's words on page 49).

I did not finish Carville and Begala's discussion of gay marriage, but, in what I did read, they said that the Democrats should focus on an area where many Americans are in agreement with them: that employment-discrimination against homosexuals (i.e., people being fired for being gay) is wrong.  They also said that Democrats should personalize the issue by referring to family members who are gay.

Carville and Begala denied earlier in the book that they want for the Democratic Party to become more centrist, but it does seem to me that, at least on abortion and gun control, they were advising the Democrats to become a little more centrist.  Carville and Begala wrote this book after 2004, when John Kerry and other Democrats had lost, and one reason for that was that many voters believed that the Democrats were out-of-touch with their values.  Would Carville and Begala's analysis be relevant today, in 2012?  In 2012, a number of Democrats (including President Barack Obama) won, not by running away from the abortion issue, but by boldly championing choice.  In essence, many of the Democrats appealed to their base.  I seriously wonder if the Democrats today even need to pursue a moderate position on abortion or guns in order to win, for they have their base and a growing number of minority voters who vote Democrat, even as the base of the Republicans appears to shrink.

I wouldn't say that their analysis after 2004 is utterly irrelevant to 2012, however.  The argument that abortion should be reduced through contraception, sex education, and a supportive social-safety net is still around.  It's ironic that the Democrats for Life advocated requiring insurance companies to cover contraception around the time that Carville and Begala's book was written, for a number of pro-lifers today are critical of Obamacare for doing precisely that, and they note that there are birth control pills that can easily function as abortifacients, meaning that the line is sometimes pretty thin between contraception and abortion.  I hope, though, that Obamacare can reduce the number of abortions, and that the Obama Administration would support adoption reform.  There are some pro-life Democrats in Congress, and perhaps efforts can be made to reduce the number of abortions.

On guns, I have to admit that I'm not really part of the culture in which guns are passed down from fathers and sons, although there are people in my family who are a part of that culture.  Moreover, I have a hard time sympathizing with people who vote Republican because they want to preserve their gun collection, for I tend to regard, say, health care as a more important issue than helping someone to keep up a hobby.  I'll also say that I'm a little bit leery about Howard Dean's view that gun control (in certain areas) should be a state-by-state thing, for there have been shootings that have occurred in red states, such as the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.  But I'm not sure what the best gun policy should be.  I know I'm not for people carrying AK-47s!

Would Carville and Begala's analysis be different in 2012?  Perhaps it would, in areas.  But my impression from my latest reading is that they weren't just saying what they said to help the Democrats to win.  Rather, they were expressing who they really were as people.  They supported tolerance of different perspectives on abortion because they were Catholics and knew and loved their pro-life family and friends.  They desired pragmatism on the gun issue because they themselves owned guns (plus they noted that John Kerry actually was a hunter, meaning that wasn't something Kerry just did for a photo-op!).  I think that understanding where people are coming from and respecting their culture and values is still good advice for 2012, even if the Democrats may not politically need certain white voters in the red states.

Take It Back 1

I started Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future, by Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala.  This book was published in 2006, but it was written before the Democratic victories that year.  The setting of this book is the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry, and even Republicans whom Carville and Begala considered to be quite looney defeated reasonable Democratic candidates. This was a time when the Democrats were tired of losing.

The question that Carville and Begala ask is why the Democrats did so badly.  In my latest reading, they offered some answers: the Republicans crafted a narrative about John Kerry being an elitist flip-flopper, whereas John Kerry failed to convey a coherent narrative and even to attack George W. Bush adequately; the Republicans were able to identify people who were likely to vote for them and knew what buttons to push to get those people to the polls; and there was a feeling among a number of low-income and middle-income people that the Democrats did not share or even honor their values.

There were at least three noteworthy passages in my latest reading.  First, Paul Begala had a moving story about when he and his son were taking a ride back to Begala's farm.  They passed a trailer that had a new Bush-Cheney sign in the window, and Paul's son asked why poor people would vote for Bush and Cheney, when the Democrats are the party that cares for the poor.  Paul replied that they feel that the Democrats do not respect their values (i.e., religion, guns, right-to-life).  This has been a common narrative: that Republicans in the lower economic classes vote out of values rather than their economic interests.  But I can think of reasons that they'd be drawn to Republican rhetoric on economics, not just values.  They may value individualism and see dependence on government as a bad thing (even if they find that they have to receive government assistance in order to get by).  Perhaps they pay taxes----not federal income taxes, necessarily, but other taxes----and they feel that they are over-taxed.  And they may have seen or experienced government regulation of business and found the government's demands to be arbitrary and unreasonable.  Would Republican economic policy help them?  I doubt it.  But I can understand why they would be economic conservatives, not just social conservatives.

Second, Carville and Begala portray Tom Coburn as one of the looney Republicans who won in 2004.  As they say on page 2: Tom Coburn "called for the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions.  He also called his state legislators 'crapheads.'  And he decried 'rampant lesbianism' in Oklahoma schools.  He won.  By 12 percent.  Against Democratic congressman Brad Carson, who is a Rhodes Scholar, a former Defense Department official, and a member in good standing of the First Baptist Church of Claremore, Oklahoma----not exactly a dangerous extremist."  I myself remember Coburn being portrayed as an oddball in 2004.  And yet, my impression is that Coburn since then has come to be regarded as a reasonable and highly-respected public servant.  Coburn is one who is willing and able to work with the other side----he even sat by Chuck Shumer at President Barack Obama's State of the Union to take a stand against partisan rancor, after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.  People can surprise you!

Third, I got a chuckle out of what Carville and Begala say on page 12: "But absent an overarching story----or a clear, specific rationale for firing Bush and hiring Kerry----the [Kerry] campaign's issue litany didn't have any resonance.  Or, as Bush has said, 'It didn't resignate with voters.'  Sure, he mangles the nomenclature, but Bush...sure understands the concept."  Lol.

So why am I reading this book?  Barack Obama triumphed in 2012.  If there are any people these days who feel like ineffective has-beens who need to do serious re-evaluation about their stances and strategy, it is the Republicans, not the Democrats.  The reason that I'm reading this book has to do with where I am ideologically more than where the country currently is.  I believe in God and go to church.  I have long believed that life begins at conception.  But I have become disenchanted with the Republican Party on such issues as economics and health care.  Yet I wonder: does the Democratic Party speak to certain values that I hold, such as my respect for the life of the unborn?  If not, can it?  After 2004, the Democrats were chastened, they were humbled, and they were willing to acknowledge strengths in the ideology of the "other side", if you will.  Perhaps this book by Carville and Begala can help me as I struggle to define and to formulate my political ideology.