Is it really so hard?

Ad starts with a photo of a precocious, adorable 11-year old.

"Meet Billy. Billy loves his Mom and Dad, America, and especially his dog Skip. Until recently, Billy loved Little League, too. But Billy learned that he had (horrible disease). Billy's Mom and Dad weren't worried, because they had health insurance."

Switch to photo of dense, official looking letter.

"But their health insurance was with Charlie Baker's company, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Incorporated. Baker raised profits by enacting policies like the one that said that Billy didn't qualify for (procedure, care, test) for his (horrible disease)."

Switch to photo of Charlie Baker.

"Charlie Baker made sure that his company sent many letters like this to families that had trusted him with their money. Now, Charlie Baker is running for governor, so he can do to Massachusetts what he did to the people who trusted their health insurance to his company. Charlie, we just can't take that chance."

Last photo, of a happy Billy in a baseball uniform.

"Happily, under CommonwealthCare and Deval Patrick's governorship, Billy's family found affordable medical care, and Billy is make catching fly balls in centerfield."


Sorry, but if Deval loses to a health insurance executive -- one step above losing to the CEO of British Petroleum -- there's no excuse. If his campaign doesn't want to run an ad like this, find someone who will. It's not really that hard.

Huh? What?

You mean I'm supposed to keep this blogging thing going still? Since when?

Okay, it's been a bit of a break enforced by real-life. I have a great thing lined up on the reality v. the rhetoric of pensions, I'll type and buff up in the next few days. However, there's good stuff out there worth reading:

I've dabbled (here and here for starters) in the Globe's inability to talk straight about education, but this guy is doing a comprehensive series on the subject over at BMG. Wow.

Speaking of which, Arne Duncan (whose self-reported success stories fall apart under close scrutiny) cheers on the arbitrary firing of Rhode Island teachers. I wonder if the Obama Administration would be so enthusiastic if the victims were financiers rather than teachers. As I note here, the Globe's reaction is that this is a blunt questionable reaction that is nonetheless a good idea.

If you want to learn what real government waste looks like, check out this publicly built, brand-new $160 million airport in Japan that hosts... one flight per day.

RedMassGroup shows its true feelings -- remember when offices didn't belong to the holder, but they were all "the people's seat"?

Why is it that I read the headline "US school cancels prom because of 'lesbian date'" as a headline, I just know that this school will be located south of DC?

And of course, I could never say no to noternie (purveyor of Someday I Will). That's coming up soon.

He's just out of ideas

Presidential Mad Libs, Education Edition. Fill in the blanks:

Speaking today on education, Barack Obama said that in order to deal with the problem of (1)______ in the public education system, it is necessary to make it easier to (2) ____ . This is an approach that is (3) ____ conservative approaches.

The answer to #3 is "similar to", "indistinguishable from", or another synonym.
The answer to #2 is "fire teachers".
The answer to #1 is....well, it doesn't matter what the answer to #1 is, because the answer to #2 is always, always, "fire teachers".*

If the health care bill fails, and the Republicans win in 2010, I'm not sure I'll be able to tell the difference with this guy.

*Obama's current proposal, delivered before his natural allies in the anti-middleclass US Chamber of Commerce, is to spend his apparently unlimited funds on districts that fire more teachers. That will raise student achievement, close the achievement gap, lower the dropout rate.

Tune in a several months from now when Obama tells CPAC that we need to fire more teachers to, er, um, improve the quality of high-school basketball, or something like that. Remember: Fire Teachers!

LA does it smart

Los Angeles has figured out that maybe letting teachers do their job might work (emphasis added):

In a move that affects nearly 40,000 students, the Los Angeles Board of Education has let teachers' groups -- instead of charters -- take over failing schools in the city's Unified School District (LAUSD). Twelve failing campuses were overhauled, as were 24 newly built ones. Though charters were selected to operate a portion of the new campuses, the teachers' groups are charged with improving the failing programs.

The teachers' groups, composed of instructors previously under LAUSD authority with local union support, fought hard to maintain a certain level of autonomy -- they argued that greater control over staffing, budget, and curriculum allows teachers to target specific school needs that may not be addressed by district mandates. And so far, giving teachers a more active role in campuses has been an effective tool in fixing the problems of L.A.'s public schools, with various pilot programs receiving high remarks from district administrators.

Wow. What a concept. Have doctors, not HMOs, decide on medical procedures. Give the say to farmers, not multinationals on how to raise healthy food. Allow teachers, not paper-movers to direct education.

It's so obvious you'd have to be a private-sector politician not to get it. Speaking of which...

The Superintendent who unilaterally fired all the high school teachers in her district rather than suffer the indignity of negotiating with them has found two sources of support: a group of far-right taxhaters...and Obama's basketball friend Secretary of Education Arne Duncan could love.

Thank goodness they won

While the jingoistic side of me wished Team USA had won the hockey match for the gold medal today, it's better in the long run that Canada won.

It's a matter of perspective. See, there is no medal in any sport that means as much to the American zeitgeist as this one did to Canada. Ice hockey is Canada's only notable athletic endeavour and more than any singular event, an ice hockey tournament is the only measure of Canada's athletic greatness. On the other hand, basketball tournaments are pretty much a joke for the US in the modern era, we get silvers in ice hockey even though the vast majority of Americans live in areas where it isn't a realistic sport, and arguably most of our better athletes go into American football. Heck, in the second-tier sport of soccer, we made the quarter-finals of the last World Cup. Admittedly, baseball isn't America's strong suit at the moment.

On the other hand is Canada, a regular doormat in international tournaments (didn't qualify for the soccer World Cup, 2008 Beijing Olympics in basketball, etc.). The "Canadian" Football League survives on NFL sufferance and funding. Canada doesn't have the chops to handle more than a single major league franchise in pro baseball or basketball. This is truly all they have. Add in the fact that in a nation as culturally cleavaged as Canada, where one-fifth of the people live in a Quebecois culture which is more distinct than anything else in North America, and hockey is the only national touchstone the nation has. This wasn't an athletic win...it was amusingly close to a vindication of the Canadian experiment.

America wanted this gold medal.
Canada desperately, cryingly needed it. Good for them.

That said, I'm still more pissed about the Celtics losing at home to the New Jersey Nets.

PS: Anybody who watched the closing ceremony knows what I mean. A somewhat limp presentation from Sochi, Russia was followed by a tedious 45 minutes about what it means to Canadian, and Canadian iconography. If there's a culture in the world that cries out for legitimacy more than English-Canadian culture, I don't know it. I'd really have to rate this as the worst closing ceremonies I've ever seen.

Questions of Europe and Race

Do Europeans understand what race is?

Quite a contrast in two stories out of Western Europe today. First of all, a rather stunning decision of the French railways to post some rather, er, targeted signage at some railway stations. The signs read:

"In the last few weeks concerns have arisen about Romanians. Indeed, numerous baggage thefts have been noticed.
"We ask you to redouble your vigilance. In addition, all the activities of Romanians should be brought to the attention of the PCNS [rail security services]."

So apparently, there was little proof of this happening by people of a certain, distinct nationality. But to single out a single group (not Roma, or Gypsies, but Romanians) for pubic notice and shaming represents an astounding callousness -- especially seeing that France is probably the most ethnically diverse country in Western Europe, with about 9% of its residents being non-white. It also indicates that a typical French railway worker or customer unfailingly distinguishes between Romanians and Bulgarians, Hungarians, and other neighbors.

On the other side of the Channel, a merchant in England is apparently getting in some hot water for selling what seem to me to be rather humorous shirts:

A company selling "Anyone but England" T-shirts for this year's World Cup has rejected suggestions it is racist after police in Aberdeen visited its store.

First off, the idea that Aberdeen Scots would be upset about this shirt humors me...I'd sooner expect them to support that shirt as "Yankees Suck" is supported in Boston. Secondly, I think the shirt is funny, and understandable. The English have a less-than-sterling reputation as players and fans, and selling these shirts in Scotland seems plain smart to me. If they were selling an "Anybody but Canada" shirt in reference to Olympic hockey, I’d buy one. Thirdly, even if it's in poor taste, it amuses me that police would feel compelled to visit the store.

There are differences in the two stories: undersensitivity in France, oversensitivity in England, for example. However, what they have in common is two things: an official reaction...and poor understanding of the concept of race.

I don’t grasp how the police in England and a union in France declared these respective actions to be "racist". Sure, if you’re an English yob with no sense of humor, I guess you could say the t-shirt is prejudiced -- if you leave aside the fact that it refers to the English soccer team rather than the nation, and the team itself is mixed-race to begin with. But racist? Since when are the English a separate race? Or Romanians?

I’ve read many a survey form that lists "White (non-Hispanic)" as an option, implying that Hispanics are white. Even in the broadest definition, though, I can’t see how Romanians are a different race than the French, the English a different race than the Scottish. What I do see is a culture so inexperienced with multiculturalism and diversity that prominent unions and law enforcement don’t really understand what racism is, and isn’t.

It’s a good thing that whatever it is, they’re against it; but as trackless as American discussion of race seems to be at times, we’re still light-years ahead of the folks across the pond.

Health-care tale from abroad

The good news is that many Americans (such as Ezra Klein, kinda) have fallen out of love with the Canadian system as a model for health care, after they've gotten a decent look at it. Others (such as this example) haven't:

I'm not saying that Canada's approach is perfect. I am sure that it has its troubles, too, but it looks to me that they are doing a better job of caring for their citizens and that we could learn a thing or two from their approach.

However, north of the border, passions are aflame due to the decisions of an administrator of health care in the country. I remember weekends in Montreal where emergency room wait-times exceeded 24 hours. Danny Williams, premier (equivalent of governor) of Newfoundland decided in was in his interest to avoid the Canadian system:

An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the decision.

Later on, Williams defended his decision, because "this was my heart, my choice and my health". The premier of each province is responsible for administrating health care in his province and is presumably more familiar with his/her system than any other person. Yet Premier Williams -- like Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney years ago -- ducked out to Florida for care he didn't want to get in Canada.

Living in Canada for about six years, I can't and won't blame either one of them one bit. Wait times were atrocious, medical technology obsolete, and understanding of medicine too often questionable. Now, I am fortunate to be in the 84% of Americans who have health insurance. Before that, I was in the significant number of Americans in the remaining 16% who chose not to have it because I was in decent enough physical health.

Of course the system needs reform, for many reasons. However, whatever form that takes I hope it isn't the kind that gives some 30% of Americans better health care, and drives the other 70% to the point where they get care outside of the country if at all possible.

Question of scale I guess...

Why is something like this presented as a human interest oddity:

A shaman in Norway has suggested aboriginal people in B.C. might have cursed the Nordic country's Olympic athletes...when Norway's early results in the Vancouver Games were not as good as expected, the Norwegian broadcaster NRK sought out a Sami shaman — or indigenous spiritualist — who speculated his counterparts in B.C. might be the cause.

The main reactions are ones of mocking dismissal, treating this story as a spiritual amuse-bouche. Meanwhile this is seen as a serious (if outrageous) statement by millions:

Pat Robertson, the host of the "700 Club," blamed the tragedy on something that "happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it."...
The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "

Thinking of this sort has engendered actual discussions here and here, for example.

As for the wider scope of the Vancouver 2010 games, it's been interesting contrasting the coverage from American/Canadian sources, and the far less fawning -- even acerbic -- British. I'd say a lot of the British writing makes sense.

PS: I wrote up a thing of Louis Riel months ago. Think the story of that 19th century isn't still sharp? Check this out:

Liberals are demanding a Tory MP apologize for criticizing Métis leader Louis Riel. Edmonton MP Peter Goldring sent out a pamphlet in December to "set the record straight" about Riel's actions in the late 1800s...Winnipeg Liberal MP Anita Neville said the Conservative party should apologize to the Métis for what she calls a "smear campaign" against the founder of Manitoba.

But why?

During an online conversation at BlueMassGroup on charter schools, I got an interesting reply to some questions I posed to the still-not-fired Secretary of Education, Paul Reville:

Secretary Reville often notes himself: the distribution of student performance across charter schools is actually quite similar to the distribution of student performance across traditional public schools. That is really what the aggregate of available charter studies tells us. Meanwhile, some charter schools and some traditional public schools have achieved remarkable results.
--Tom Weber, Secretary Reville's Chief of Staff

I appreciate the willingness of Secretary Reville and his staff to continue this conversation, and the honesty of Mr. Weber in saying this. I'll give him credit.

But this statement to me is stunningly flabbergasting. The most rigorous study in the country says this, and Secretary Reville accepts that data. On average, there is no appreciable difference in student outcomes between district schools and charters. While student outcomes are the most important way to compare the two models, they aren't the only one. If outcomes are equal, then we go to other metrics.

District schools are accountable to democratically elected committee members. Charters are not. District schools educate all students, not just the easy ones. District schools don't shut down suddenly (PDF), get managed by felons, or squirrel public money into a rat's-nest of family and friends receiving astronomical salaries.

So here we see that Secretary Reville knows that charters don't offer anything better than districts in terms of student outcomes, and are beset with other problems. Yet he continues to promote charters in the general and the specific, to the point of engaging in legally questionable acts. On balance, district schools offer as strong an education as charters, yet offer superior service to the communities they serve.

Now, desperate, well-paid charter advocates may try to make hay of the fact that Reville implies that some charters are superior to some public schools, if you take the best extreme of the charter aggregate and the worst extreme of the district aggregate. Well, true. Some private security is superior to some police departments -- should we pour public money into private companies that provide security? If a Blackwater soldiers shoot better than a soldier in the US Army, should we make it easier to hire mercenaries? I don't hear anybody saying Medicare dollars should go to Anthem Blue Cross because an occasional Medicare procedure is worse the same as private ones. Smart policy making does not hope for the best of a given policy, but plans for the aggregate...not what we hope will happen, but what is most likely to happen. Doing otherwise is akin to betting on double zero at the roulette table.

So why does Reville so enthusiastically favor charters, when he frankly knows such policies do not benefit students and harm the democratic process? Why does our governor? I can't answer that question, but the best guide I've found is Secretary Reville's own words:

A number of key moderate allies like the Globe and the Boston Foundation

HB376 update and denouement

A draft post became published a while ago on this blog about HB376, a bill in the State House. The thinking is much more logically and clearly presented at my post on BlueMassGroup. I'll talk about the bill in a second, but I do want to relate my experiences attempting to contact the Democratic co-sponsors.

I have made three attempts to contact each Democratic state representative who signed on as co-sponsor of this bill over the past two weeks. I can understand that these representative are busy, so I must highlight Representatives Calter, Dwyer, DiNatale, and Rosa not only for replies to my initial inquiry, but extended the kindness of responding to a follow-up with a real discussion. I also had a productive talk with the legislative aide for Representative Lantigua.

The other representatives' offices have yet to offer even the courtesy of indicating that they have received my message. If anybody would care to contact the representatives below with questions of their own, please feel free. Maybe you'll get an answer; if you do, please comment it here.

Paul J. Donato 35th Middlesex 617-722-2090
Kevin J. Murphy 18th Middlesex 617-722-2877
Kathi-Anne Reinstein 16th Suffolk 617-722-2783
Angelo M. Scaccia 14th Suffolk 617-722-2060


As for the status of the bill itself, I've gathered through my conversations the following impressions:

1 - This bill was filed in a political and legal vacuum of sorts. Representatives signed on as co-sponsors before the initial process of examining the implications of this bill could be addressed. The facts that this law would be swatted down by settled precedent, or the effect of deputizing school committees to arbitrate between different religion(s) seeking time in ceremonies had not even been considered.

2 - Furthermore, given the paucity of sponsors and the deadline for the session on the horizon, there is little chance of this bill advancing toward debate, vote, or passage.

3 - This bill was written in reaction to a student's recounting of a solitary incident to members of the General Court. As described to me, that incident was mishandled by school administration according to current law. The law was not the problem; administration understanding of it was. This is an issue for that district's administration, not the Commonwealth's legal code.

All this to say that this misguided bill seems to have little chance of going anywhere, probably wouldn't stand up much to real scrutiny in the first place, and hopefully will not be re-introduced in the next session.

15%

Well, this is a new spot in which to find oneself.

Grace Ross is going to run for governor as a Democrat, forcing a primary between her and Deval Patrick for the nomination. Mind you, she isn't a Democrat, or at least wasn't when she ran four years ago. She was the Green-Rainbow candidate. This blog post from two weeks ago implies she wasn't a Democrat as recently as the special election.

So I'm in no hurry to welcome somebody who just joined the Massachusetts Democratic Party to campaign for the most prestigious post for a member. I do hope she'll rush out a platform and agenda soon, to make clear where she's coming from. Right now, were I in the voting booth on primary day, I'd likely side with Deval (whose inexperience and idealism resulted in a disappointing tenure) over Ross (who I think would be even worse).

But...

But. I'm hoping to attend the Democratic convention as a delegate. And one of my strongest beliefs as a delegate is that any candidate that rises above LaRouche-level insanity should be on the ballot. The voters should decide, not party activists. To my knowledge, Grace Ross is a serious candidate. And to get on the ballot, a candidate must win 15% of the delegate votes.

So as I present myself as a candidate for delegate, I gotta decide. Do I promise to vote for Deval Patrick, the better candidate, or do I stand with Grace Ross, so the people of Massachusetts can decide.

Thoughts?

Obama, talk, and action

I really like Obama. I really do, and so far I think he's done a fairly decent job. If somebody is forced to put out a fire he didn't start, it's not fair to blame him for getting everything else wet. He's handled the Afghan situation decently well, finding a way for the American military to basically ignore the Afghan-Pakistani border without the people in the two countries get upset as they'd have a right to. That takes finesse

However, I'm having trouble taking the State of the Union seriously, because a lot of it is talk we've heard before, without seeing much done to make it happen in the intervening period. There are a number of tools to deal with the Senate filibuster that have gone unused. If Obama pushed the public option, I missed it. Great Democrats such as Kathleen Sebelius and Janet Napolitano were sucked into the Cabinet and have pretty much disappeared from view. We're seeing a bad case of good intentions in bad times.

Ghosts of Jimmy Carter are in my peripheral vision when Obama's on-screen.

So, if I'm going to take the 2011 State of the Union seriously, 3 of these 5 things must be true:

-Guantanamo no longer holds foreign captives;
-Openly gay and lesbian Americans serve in the military;
-There is an exit date for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan;
-There has been a test vote on a public option in health care;
-Tim Geithner is long gone.

I don't care if this is done as a result of political considerations facing the midterms, or just because it's the right thing to do. But considering that numbers 2 and 5 can be done by Obama's office regardless of anyone else's disposition, this is an achievable list.

I'm not trying to put out a litmus test. If Obama wants to ignore a fair economic policy in favor of smart projection of American power, he can. If our president wants to ignore full rights for LGBT Americans, perhaps we can start respecting international conventions. But if Obama can't be bothered to do any of this...well, why should we vote for him?

PS: What real leadership sounds like:

You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people.

-- Nancy Pelosi, aka the only federal Democratic leader with my full admiration.

11 Mass. Dems against religious equality

Note: I did not mean for the following article to be published until Monday. It requires editing and will be updated and significantly clarified then. A special apology to Representative DiNatale, who has corresponded with me.

---

A bill designed to promote majority religions in public schools pushed forward by eleven Democrats. A law built on the template adored by the "Concerned Women for America". The end result would be local officials deciding which faiths to highlight and implicitly endorse at graduations, competitions, and school events. Is this Texas? Alabama? Wyoming?

No, it's happening right here in Massachusetts through bill HB376 -- "An Act to Protect Religious Freedom of Students". You can find it here in PDF format. Any time spent following the far-right knows that "protection of religious freedom" is just right-wing speak for "promoting Christianity". It's the same thinking that a doctor can abandon his obligations and oath if he doesn't like his patient for religious reasons. This particular bill is designed to order schools to accommodate the promotion of religion at public school events. It's the usual foolishness of the far-right, but I just don't know why eleven Democrats in Boston would think that's a good idea.

The bill mandates that public schools implement:

A policy that allows for a limited public forum and voluntary student expression of religious views at school events, graduation ceremonies, and in class assignments, and non-curricular school groups and activities.

First, ignore the word "limited" -- everything, even the universe, has limits (heat death scheduled in several billion years). What this bill provides for is a small group of people (perhaps one) deciding the appropriate expression of religious views at public school events. This bill provides for the exclusion of non-religious students and students holding less common faiths at public events. Make no mistake, a public school allowing the expression of any certain beliefs has the impact of endorsing those beliefs to the detriment of those who do not agree. And let's be clear that if only one speaker is making religious declarations at a school event...which religion do you suppose will get the slot? If 90% of the fans at a softball game are Christian, what's the chance of a reading of the Qur'an starting the game? As for the 22% of Bay Staters without a religious affiliation, well, they're excluded entirely. For that matter, even if the Qur'an is read at a certain high school graduation, non-Muslim students are left out that year.

This failed in the bright red state of Oklahoma, where Democratic Governor Brad Henry understood that this type of bill puts school officials in the place of balancing the Constitutional freedoms of students.

Texas school boards are constantly fearful in navigating what school boards call "the rock and the hard place" of mixing church and state, but in a "limited manner". Of course, far-right groups such as the hate-powered Massachusetts Family Institute love this idea and want to see it happen. It's an easy way to push popular religions in schools at the cost of religious freedom -- a trade-off reactionaries of the world would love.

Make no mistake: students have ample opportunity to live their religious beliefs in public schools as things stand. They do not have the opportunity to use public time and resources to compel others to endure their proselytization. This bill would change that. No student should attend their hard-earned graduation, only to hear the invocation of somebody else's God as school officials applaud, all on that student's dime. Participating on the local high school football team should not include hectoring to change your beliefs. That is what this bill would do.

Now, I don't expect much from Republicans, but I would urge people to call the Democrats who signed onto this bill and ask why non-Christians in public school should be left out of part of their own graduation ceremonies and other events (numbers here):

James Dwyer 30th Middlesex
Bruce E. Tarr First Essex and Middlesex
Dennis Rosa 4th Worcester
James R. Miceli 19th Middlesex
Angelo M. Scaccia 14th Suffolk
Stephen L. DiNatale 3rd Worcester
Paul J. Donato 35th Middlesex
Kathi-Anne Reinstein 16th Suffolk
William Lantigua 16th Essex
Thomas J. Calter 12th Plymouth
Kevin J. Murphy 18th

Reading elections: Lessons from Japan

Today, a note on how implacably elections are reduced to a single-issue frame so quickly and easily. Many Bay Staters are reasonably irritated that outsiders (especially those in Washington, DC) are taking Brown’s victory last week as a repudiation of the health care reform process underway in the nation’s capital. While health care was an issue in this election, it was not the only issue. Such a view ignores Brown’s skilled campaign, the Coakley implosion, Democratic over-confidence, and a number of other factors in the result. Worse still, it led to a short press to force House passage of the Senate health care bill, almost regardless of the bill’s contents.

Many bad effects of the special Senate election stem not from the results themselves, but a widespread inability to view an election result as having more than one cause. Just as the Brown victory was likely a combination of the factors listed above (see Nate Silver’s dissection) but has been reduced to a health-care referendum by DC Republicans, it has been simplified a populist surge among Bay State Republicans, and a poor Coakley campaign among most Democrats. However, this tendency to over-simplify election results is not necessarily ideological, nor is it restricted to the American press. One obvious example is the tendency to view every Israeli election as turning on relations with the Palestinian government(s). The fact that Netanyahu was largely elected on economic concerns rather than relations with Fatah and Hamas was almost ignored worldwide. A smaller example presents itself today in the BBC’s summary of the recent election for the mayoralty of Nago on the island of Okinawa. I choose the BBC as the high-water mark of thinking English-language journalism, and even that august organization has failed the test today.

This election occurred against the background of change in Japan. Recently elected prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has declared an interest in a more equitable relationship with the United States, and has been seeking allies within and without Japan on that score. Meanwhile, the US military was well into plans to move a large base on Okinawa (a source of great tension with the surrounding Japanese) per government request, when Hatoyama was elected. His activism on this issue has led to some arch tension between the two countries.

Anyway, let’s get into the story. The prospective new site of the base, the city of Nago on Okinawa, held a recent election wherein a candidate opposed to the base won election, beating the incumbent by a 53-47 margin. And universally, this election is being back-labeled as a referendum on the incoming American base. If the BBC is playing the role of FoxNews, Hatoyama is playing the role of the Republicans, trying furiously to spin a victory of a distant candidate who shares a belief on one issue as confirmation that the people are on his side.

But there are many things at play here (a partial list of issues from the subjective Stars and Stripes for example). Japanese frustration with incumbency has reached levels beyond even the American public and is narrowly targeted at the Liberal Democratic Party, that of the former mayor of Okinawa. The victor, Susumu Inamine, was kept at arm’s length by the government throughout the campaign, the actions of a popular party that wants to claim someone else’s victory of their own only after the fact. At the same time, the LDP is identified with the assimilation of the unique religious and cultural traditions and dialect of Okinawa into the larger Japanese culture, a trend that concerns many Okinawans. Add to this the ongoing problem of the economy – the main point of discussion about the base in Nago wasn’t about the cultural disruption of the American military, but the economic impact of it – not to mention the ground-level dynamics of the election, something that was a major factor in last week’s result for Brown.

The fact is that this election result was the sum of an array of elements, and not one issue -- you have a complex beast that’s being oversimplified by media from outside the electorate.

Kinda like our own Senate election. One wonders how many frustrated Okinawans today are having words put into their mouths by the Japanese prime minister and the worldwide media, just as is happening here in Massachusetts. Something to keep in mind next time we’re told why an election ended the way it did -- at home or abroad.

PS: Not at all related, but worth passing on; I present to you the most professional newscaster in Australia. That's the danger of using a live feed as a backdrop.

Thoughts going into the weekend...

• The Supreme Court is just making sh-t up with that "Citizens United" decision. I still don't see how money is speech (strange how the Canadian court can declare the exact opposite), or how corporations are persons. Next, the Supreme Court will decide that computers are actually trees. I think corporations should have to serve jury duty.
  
  
• This decision now makes unions more important as far as the left is concerned. I wonder if their input on bills will be accorded more weight. Considering their strong opposition to the middle class tax hike included in the Senate bill, that's another blow to the "pass a crap bill and call it reform" camp.
  
  
• If all this is true, anyone to the left of ExxonMobil's board of directors should be worried that union memberships in the private sector is shrinking -- by 10% this year.
  
  
• The best idea I've seen on health care in the Browned-out Senate is fixing the Senate bill already passed through the 51-vote process of reconciliation. That's smart, and smart is better than desperate.
  
  
• I'm thinking we have a tripartisan system -- Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the rest of the Democrats. This headline is pitch-perfect: "House doesn't trust White House or Senate on health care".
  
  
• I'm not saying it would have changed the result of Coakley-Brown, but I feel that if Chuck Schumer were still head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee rather than nobody Senator Bob Menendez. This doesn't augur well for November.
  
  
• If Republicans are electable in Massachusetts, and Deval has the market cornered on hope...what's left for Cahill? I predict he finishes below 20% on Election Day.
  
  
• With Norfolk County Treasurer Joe Connolly out, Steve Grossman stands unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Massachusetts treasurer. Of anyone on the November ballot, my vote for him and Barney Frank will likely be the most enthusiastic.
  
  
• Just how out of touch is the Obama White House? Their featured comic at the Correspondants' Dinner is...Jay Leno. As much as a bland comic can tick people off, he's done it. Why not just roll out Tiger Woods for some putting humor?
  
  
• An 84-year-old woman is found alive after 10 days in the Haitian earthquake rubble. In the wake of the calamity, when so many need so much and have so little, at least there is hope.
  
  
• After a half-hour of searching, I've found the text of the law named the "Education Reform Act of 2010" in some reports (PDF). I plan to be reviewing the text over the next few days.
  
  
• In other news, 11 Democrats are teaming up with the hate-driven Massachusetts Family Institute in a Texas-style cramming of religion down the throats of Massachusetts public school students. More on that next week.
  
  

This isn't the way to do it

For anyone still agitating that Democrats in the House must vote to push the Senate version to Obama's desk, let me remind them of two consequences:

1. It makes the "Nebraska exception" law. It was embarrassing enough that it was even in a bill (heck, even Senator Nelson was trying to backtrack it) but now the Democrats will write it into the books. This follows us into November and beyond.

2. The law hits people with medium- to high-value health plans with a 40% tax on those plans. Let me repeat this -- people with a good health plan will pay a 40% tax on the value of that. Some of those people are rich, lawyers and stockbrokers, etc. And it is virtually every cop, firefighter, nurse, doctor, and teacher in the country. Five groups that are middle-class and provide enormous union muscle and money to politics (of particular use in the wake of today's Supreme Court decision). If Obama and Pelosi decide that members of those five groups should pay hundreds, if not thousands, more in tax, there will far fewer Democrats on the rolls, at the polls...and in office.

Finally, anyone who still says that placing a new financial burden on the poor ("individual mandate") is synonymous with extending coverage, you're lying to yourself. You may as well just force all Americans to buy a computer, and announce who you've expanded Internet access around the country.

Three years ago, if someone you were asked which political party would force all Americans to buy health insurance from HMOs without a public option, place a huge tax burden that disproportionately affects government workers, and carve out a special exception for Nebraska...would you have said the Democrats? Amazing how people eagerly lower their standards.

Thoughts on the "day after"

• First off, everyone step away from the panic button. Just because the Democrats lost this special election doesn't mean that the entire agenda gets junked. Nor does it mean that we slap together a pile of cr-p, call it "health care reform" and pass it before Brown gets there (edit: or pass the crap that is the Senate bill through the House without even thinking). A morass that insists all Americans must funnel cash to a private industry is not going to help any Democrat on the campaign trail this summer and fall. Don't read too many implications into this odd election -- the last law passed in the midst of blind panic was the Patriot Act. Whoops.
  
  
• Politically, it's better to fail spectacularly at Republicans hands than fail incrementally with Democratic help. In policy terms, the best thing is for Reid to grow a pair, as he'll likely lose his re-election anyway. He may as well go out as the Senator who implemented real health care reform after junking the filibuster. Seriously -- if there's a legislative chamber that requires a 60% supermajority on all laws (as the Senate has over the last few years, suddenly) anywhere in the Western world, I've not heard of it. Nuke it.
  
  
• Moving on, there's plenty of blame for this loss to go around. Coakley, having forgotten about people like Weld and Romney, apparently felt that she didn't really need to earn anyone's vote in Massachusetts. Even the greats, Kennedy and Kerry, hustled against Romney and Weld for hard-won victories. She disappeared, and not just around Christmas but for several days in either direction.
  
  
• But it wasn't just her -- if you see your candidate screwing up, you're supposed to do something about it, I thought. There are people whose job it is to tell candidates to get over themselves and hustle for votes, often called the party "elders". They were snoozing as deep as Martha, whether it was the staties in Charlestown or the muckymucks in DC. Would it have killed them all for someone -- someone! -- to take a poll? At the end, Coakley owns the loss because her name was on the ballot, but Democrats who should know better were as complacent as her.
  
  
• Anyway, it's not all the Dems' fault. Brown came up with clever ads, got the help he needed across the state and nation, won every news cycle going away, courted the media smartly, interrupted any Coakley narrative, held his ground in the debates, and worked for the vote. You can be a Democrat with a sucky campaign and win -- just ask John Kerry after his victory over Beatty. Coakley gave Brown oxygen, and he used it in a way that connected with the electorate. Any Democrat who denies this is going to be caught unprepared as well.
  
  
• The electorate didn't change its mind from 2008...the electorate itself changed. People who would have helped Coakley in a regular election didn't vote -- turnout was under 40% in major cities. This gives me hope for 2012, but expecting the Democratic base to show up without being told why is a fool's game, as we saw last night. This to me is the grand lesson about preparing for November, and how to handle the agenda going forward.
  
  
• As to who takes on Brown in 2012, we'll have to wait and see. Here's what I expect: census indicates that some Congressperson must lose his/her seat. After some semi-public negotiation, one of them announces a run for Senate, and allows his/her seat to be re-districted out of existence out from under him/her.
  

Talk about the issues, Coakley

"How did it end up this close?" will be a question studied by academics and "pundits" for ages. There is no earthly reason that the typically measured electorate of Massachusetts would even be considering Scott Brown as Senatorial material, yet he's tied, perhaps leading, in the polls for Tuesday's election. So what's happening?

My answer is that the electorate of Massachusetts isn't considering Scott Brown as Senatorial material. They're not thinking of Coakley and Brown as possible Senators, but as celebrities.

Brown has masterfully guided this raise from any semblance of the issues, with a narrative-hungry media playing accomplice. When I call voters, they're not talking about health care, torture, or foreign policy. They're talking about the "negative tone" of the campaign and "it's the people's seat". This is a conversation where Brown has a shot, especially with his excellence at playing victim, and sending out his daughters to do the same. He's moved the question from who do you want doing the work of a Senator to who do you want to be Senator. It's a fine difference, but it allows him to move the conversation from the issues (where he loses) to random crap (where he does well). It may seem crazy, but George W Bush turned this strategy into two electoral victories.

The media, of course, has joined in, shelling Coakley with questions about the "negativity" of her campaign -- heaven forbid anyone point out what a nut Brown is -- and focusing on process stories. Unfortunately, bringing in Clinton and Obama makes it look that Coakley is playing down to Brown's level, hoping to borrow some charisma against his. Answering these silly questions rather that insisting that we talk about foreign policy or health care is a disastrous move. The race starting getting wobbly when the issues took a back-seat. The fact that Brown is too cheap and cruel to pitch in on his own employees' health care isn't as important as the fact that Coakley supports a regime where those employees don't have to rely on the goodwill of their bosses for affordable health-care. The fact that Brown breaks military policy by posing in his uniform for campaign materials isn't as important as the fact that Coakley supports a policy where the military isn't risking soldiers' lives by carrying out a dead-end mission in Afghanistan.

I personally find that the most effective thing in talking to voters is to stick to the issues. The message you send with your vote will be received that day. The consequences of your vote last two years. What consequences do you want?

Topic	Coakley	Brown
Placing any limits on US government use of torture	Yes	No
Women's medical needs override personal beliefs of doctors	Yes	No
Returning tax rates of the rich to Reagan/JFK-era levels	Yes	No
Expanding health care coverage of Americans	Yes	No
Respecting entirety of Roe v Wade	Yes	No
Preserving equality in marriage	Yes	No

The values of Attorney General Coakley are the values of the people of Massachusetts. This is the reality that Brown is trying to drown out with noise about his pickup truck and tender feelings. This is the reality that must be hammered home over the next 48 hours, top to bottom.

PS: Future studies of "what happened" would also do well to examine the decision to keep the Mass. Legislature in session over this period to discuss attempts to throttle labor rights in connection with Deval's education bill. Had all these folks been organizing, instead of defending the idea that contracts should be enforceable by law, how would things have gone differently?

I make the National Review!

For all the wrong reasons, of course. The Scott Brown subpage at National Review picked up my last post here (via BMG) as "When Massachusetts Democrats stop being polite and start getting real". My biggest exposure since DailyKos picked up on a sarcastic remark I made almost exactly one year ago. I guess I do my best writing in January.

I was pleased that the writer understood the tone I was attempting, although he indicated so with a dated cultural reference. Naturally, National Review was mendacious about what I said, claiming (without any supporting links) that the agenda promoted by Brown was prevailing public opinion. Of course, polling is against the excise tax on good health care plans and oppose the War in Iraq and believe we've done all we can there. But who reads NR for the truth.

The best part, of course, is in the last line. Unwilling to give anyone else the last word, the post ends with an attempt at flippancy:

With this kind of support for Coakely, who needs negative ads?

A tip to this guy: it's tough to condescend if you can't spell a candidate's name right.

PS: Andrew Sullivan quotes my title, too. This should be my last blog post...I'm peaking.

Suck it up: Vote Coakley

Let's get this out of the way. You might not want to vote for Martha Coakley. You might think she deserves what's she's getting after an absentee, self-satisfied campaign (why should I bail her out?). You likely want to send a message to everyone from the attorney general all the way to every Democratic official in Washington, DC. Odds are you didn't vote for her in the primary. And, you might be wondering if it'll make a difference who wins this Tuesday.

You got every reason to be pissed, but it needs to be clear: not voting for Coakley is the same as voting for Brown. And voting for Brown is a very, very bad thing.
sabutai :: Yes it sucks. Yes you have to vote Coakley.
Pissed? Me, too. Not just because I supported Mike Capuano. I'm frankly pissed about Washington, DC. Things are going very wrong -- President Obama was absent from the process as the public option was killed, and would rather tax public servants in the middle class with so-called "Cadillac health insurance" then ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. Health care reform is heading toward a route where more money comes from the middle class, with about half going to people who need health care, and half going to the insurance companies. Oh, and Guantanamo is still open while American soldiers walk the streets in Baghdad and Kabul. Remember Employee Free Choice? Meanwhile, Harry Reid races to catch Ben Nelson's and Joe Lieberman's farts on Capitol Hill.

But I don't think Senator Coakley wants to torture people, give the obscenely rich a tax refund, or tell a rape victim to hospital-shop until she can find the care she needs. Senator Brown does. And the right-wing, desperate to believe it's been forgotten how they ruthlessly dimmed America's power and pride over the last eight years, is pouring as much corporate money as possible onto our airwaves. Disciples of failure are already slavering over bullrushing one of their own into the Senate.

So suck it up and vote Coakley on Tuesday. If you stay home on Tuesday, and a smirking Jim DeMint puts his arm around Senator Brown next month, will you feel good about yourself? Will you take pride in your "message" when Tom Coburn assigns Scott Brown the task of maintaining the filibuster on any health care reform? When you see Scott Brown publicly wetting his pants over terrorists getting American justice, or the latest moron who fails in an inept plan to hurt our country, will you think "Yep, I'm the reason he's there to embarrass Massachusetts on the Senate floor."

I think some folks are already getting a message. The mortal scare the DC Dems are feeling this week about the voters of Massachusetts -- Massachusetts! -- considering walking away. They can read polls, and they realize what they've wrought. Maybe Reid, Nelson, heck even Obama needs a primary next time around, I don't know.

But nowhere on the ballot will be an option to send a message to DC. Your and my only choice is to send a Senator. And that Senator should be Martha Coakley.

(cross-posted on Blue Mass Group)