A previously popular elected officeholder who runs in his or her party’s primary and loses may come under tremendous pressure to seek election as an independent or write-in candidate. The jobs and futures of many staff and campaign workers are linked to the candidate, which, along with ardent support by some voters, can create strong pressure for the candidate to succumb to praise, flattery, and raw ambition to maintain power, especially when combined with the typical politician’s tendency towards narcissism. Under such conditions, the candidate may elect to stay in the race despite duty to party and prior commitments to abide by primary voters’ decision. By doing so, the candidate conclusively demonstrates lack of principle, character, and fitness to serve.
Category Archives: Politics
Local paper blues
What does one do if one wants to read a local paper but the only option has a strong liberal slant on most news, a truly sophomoric editorial page, and a political cartoonist, albeit with talent, who routinely activates one’s gag reflex? My approach is to briefly scan most of the news, skip most of the op-eds, glance only briefly at the cartoon, read the sports, and hope that declining circulation leads to significant change before it’s too late. I then read The Wall Street Journal.
The Dodd-Frank(enstein) monster
The Administration and Congressional Democrats demonized health insurers to help pass their healthcare reform agenda. They then demonized Wall Street to help pass their financial reform agenda. These “whipping boy” strategies had a common goal: substantial expansion of federal government control over the private sector.
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill vastly expands federal power over financial institutions and beyond, leaving most of the substantive details to be worked out by administrative agencies. The byzantine bill evades most of the underlying causes of the financial crisis. Its creation of a vast new federal consumer protection agency bears little relation to those causes.  It’s a bad bill at a bad time for the economy. It will hinder rather than enhance economic growth. It will hurt Main Street without preventing future crises. Unintended consequences will abound.
The bill’s namesakes procrastinated while Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the housing bubble grew rapidly. Their bill does not touch Fannie or Freddie. But it rewards the Federal Reserve with significantly expanded regulatory power, despite the Fed’s monetary and regulatory failures that played significant roles in creating the housing bubble.