Better Days Ahead, Or At Least a 66% Likelihood

I was interviewed today by a consultant doing research on the future of campaign finance reform. She asked me to speculate about the prospects for reform legislation under two scenarios: a Kerry victory, and a Bush victory.

I started talking and soon realized that there were really three different scenarios (along with all sorts of sub-elements, such as which party controls the House and Senate, but these are the big ones):

1. A Kerry victory, with either status quo in Congress or Dems take back the Senate. In that case, on the particular issue of campaign finance reform, it's not too likely that anything much happens, unless Kerry is able to forge a governing coalition that includes McCain and some of his allies as well as Northeastern moderates, and they demand it. More generally, the big question will be whether he can move forward on health care and taxes. Nothing else will matter. It will be a slog, but progress is possible.

2. A Bush victory, and more of the same. The DeLay gang controls Congress, they push through more tax cuts, the energy bill, Social Security privatization, etc. Foreign policy continues to be a disaster. Use your imagination.

3. A Bush victory, followed by the breakdown of the unprecedented command-and-control structure of Congress, a series of indictments and trials, further exposes on Iraq, Chalabi, Plame, Medicare, Halliburton, who knows what else. Bremer's apostasy on troops and the CIA's open criticism of the White House turns out to have been the beginning of the breakdown of omerta, and before you know it, no one trusts anyone and everyone has a lawyer. Enough conscientious Republicans are bold enough to defy their leadership that a few real hearings are held, and with Bush a lame duck a few of them start positioning themselves to be the "clean house" alternative to Jeb Bush or Bill Frist, like Howard Baker during the Watergate hearings. Then, in 2006, a clean sweep of Congress, comparable to the post-Watergate "Class of '74," with fresh Democratic faces and a new energy.

In that third case, a lot of things become possible, including significant structural reform in Congress, health care, real tax reform, etc. On the other hand, it means a very ugly period between now and then.

Which of these scenarios is least likely? I think it's scenario #2. Even if Bush wins, there are too many pots about to boil over. The autocratic control of Congress, so elegantly exposed this week in the Boston Globe, is simply unsustainable in a Democratic institution. And every modern president's second term is uglier than his first: Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. (A safe choice would be to never vote to reelect a president.)

I'll still hope for #1. But #3 has some positive aspects.

Comments

[Barry]

The problem is that this current crew has a lot of talent for corruption and getting away with it.
The GOP is disciplined. Meanwhile, the Dems just don't have the fire in the belly, or the discipline.

[Dan]

This does sound like wishful thinking! I hate to sound defeatist but Barry's point is surely right. And positioning oneself as the "clean house" candidate does not entail that one is, in fact, not cynical and corrupt. These guys are great at exploiting the appearance/reality distinction.
Here's my little bit of speculation (and perhaps wishful thinking). What we are saying shows the extent to which forceful political critique depends on some robust distinction between appearance and reality. Will the po-mo wing of the academic liberal-left now show some greater interest in its (philosophical and cultural) preservation? On this note, I recommend Bernard Williams' Truth and Truthfulness.

[cs]

Why not 1 plus 3?

[Wren]

Before Kerry resurrected himself in last week's debate, I thought #3 was the most likely scenario. Now maybe we get a Kerry win. But still lots of chances for chaos. In fact chaos is a lock. A few what-ifs.

Bush wins but the US must evacuate Bagdhad under fire in early January. How can he govern?

Several of his Cabinet members quit. He puts Condi and Paul up for promotions. Who votes for them? Who else wants the jobs?

DeLay gets tossed after the elections. Are Republicans ready to take his place who aren't covered in his shit? Do Portman or Lewis or Mica have their own hammers? Doubt it.

Kerry wins. Who runs the war for three months until January? Who gets killed last for Bush's mistake?

Kerry wins. Several members of the administration face legal jeopardy (think Plame). Do they sit and wait or opt for "extraordinary rendition"?

I hope Kerry wins but I think we get some version of #3 either way

[Chris]

Deep in the amoral recesses of my political heart I have wished for #3. But, we are morally obligated to pursue #1. Bush will definitely try for #2 if he gets the chance. That scenario pans like this: They will not stop pressing. They will not admit error. The high command has made a political suicide pact. They will over-reach and when the tide starts to turn they will tell the troops to stand to the last man in Stalingrad. We must thank God for this. When the troops finally break and fall into a route, we must pursue them stealthily and annihilate them to the greatest extent possible without inciting pity or fear in the electorate.

[Lloyd]

"More generally, the big question will be whether he can move forward on health care and taxes. Nothing else will matter."

And here lay the disconnect. Healthcare and taxes are only important to the living, they aren't really a concern to the Americans that were killed three years ago in New York, the passengers in Madrid or those children in Beslam.

Hate Bush all you want. Think of him as an idiot and bitch about inflated uninsured numbers and exagerated claims of tax breaks for the rich. Feel free - because you ARE FREE. But as you bask in your own sense of intellectual and cultural superiority over him, George Bush will continue to recognize what really matters and work to eliminate the threats that seek to kill you. (Scenario 2)

[Walt Pohl]

Bush has kept us free by miring the US Army in the wrong country by mistake?

[Lloyd]

Explain what you mean by that and I'll respond.

"Wrong war, Wrong time" type statements dont really say much. Are you saying that the US Military should be someplace else right now? Where? Why? You say "mired"; mired how?

It feels clever, I'm sure, to post that response but can you actually support it?

[Dan]

OK, some gratuitous comment about the debate tonight.
I can't believe how Kerry has struggled for months to find a succinct way to respond to the question: “Were you for removing Saddam or not?” There's a rhetorical fork here the Bush team have used very effectively: If he answers yes, how does he differ from the President? If he says no, he must support tyrants. (If he answers in detail, he doesn’t make the news.)
What is the man to do? My suggested response: We did the right thing the wrong way. This slogan explains how he can be for the war AND against it (or for removing Saddam but against the war) –and when you’re defending yourself against being a flip-flopper a long, nuanced explanation is the last thing you need. You need a blunt slogan that makes your point: right goal, wrong way. We all get that idea. No contradiction there! It’s the process, stupid.
He's gradually got closer to communicating this idea but he's yet to put the point in the kind of slogan the press love (and that, frankly, is all that many people will hear). And he needs it to block the fork!
I also think that he should bluntly reject the idea that these points about the conduct of the war are only now of historical and not practical interest. If the boss screws up badly enough, the boss gets fired. If your boss has made all your business partners mad at him (or her), there is a need *in the present* for some new leadership. (I hope Kerry can make some nice 'folksy' analogies like this to make his policy points connect with everyday life.) He's getting there though. I'm much more heartened of late. Fingers crossed for tonight...

[Dan]

A response to Lloyd: The fact that we have to be there now does not mean that we should have got ourselves there in the first place. See my post above. And see endless longer explanations all over the blogosphere! I particularly recommend hilzoy at Obsidian Wings.

[Crab Nebula]

I think that the GOP would need to suffer serious repeated electoral losses before having the courage to change direction.

And not just one loss - if Bush loses, too many will say it will be because Iraq went sour. They won't believe that a somewhat less radical small government, tax cutting pro privatization agenda is truly dead. They'll mount such a reaction strategy to '04 in '06, but really waiting for '08.....and then THAT must fail for a real re-evaluation.

Arguably, they might even need to fail yet again if they lose the WH in '08 to a Kerry re-elect, because it's "always tough to unseat an incumbent" - they'll be reluctant to draw lessons once again. But by then demographics will be killing them. Hopefully the Democrats don't get complacent with what will probably be by that time steadily increasing representation in Congress.

[Linette]

In scenario #1, with Republican control of the House and possibly even the Senate, Kerry is going to find it extremely difficult to "move forward on health care and taxes." He will be able to succeed in that effort only if he can present some very cogent arguments to the American people on tax policy that are so compelling, they put Supply-Side apologists constantly on the defensive.

Kerry will find those arguments at www.taxwisdom.org. The Taxwisdom arguments are powerful because they are derived from the same classical assumptions re: market dynamics that have always been championed by conservative economists. The conservative analytical tradition is used to reveal the ultimate folly of Supply-Side tax policy.

With Taxwisdom's market-based arguments in hand, Kerry and the Democrats will have the firepower they need to start heaping ridicule on the Republicans for the stupidity of their ideas on tax policy. It is really the only way that Democrats are going to be able to win back control of Congress.

[Lloyd]

I strongly encourage any and all Democrats to take TaxWisdom.com's conclusions to the American people and advance them as their own agenda.

Please, I beg you.

[Linette]

Beware of what you wish for, Lloyd...

[RonK, Seattle]

With respect to taxes, a President Kerry stands a fighting chance to enact Clinton-style reforms -- even with a marginally Republican House and Senate.

Today R's maintain discipline in defense of their President and his stated agenda. Many have deep misgivings on the deficit front. Some know in their bones the stagecoach is headed for the cliff (we're far from the edge, but it takes a long run to turn the corner). Handfuls of votes are in play.

Programmatically, Kerry gets next to nothing from a GOP Congress. (He might get damn little from a nominally Dem Congress.) But if he pushes in all his chips he might come out with a compromise upper-bracket tax hike and some loophole reform.

This will cut deficits more than Kerry/Altman/Rubin project, since Kerry gets less than projected on the expenditure side of the ledger.