Many people are holding out the hope that the government can somehow substitute for the pharmas, bolstered by the ludicrous claim that the government really discovers all the drugs. This is arrant nonsense; government-funded research discovers targets that might someday turn into drugs, if the Big Pharma chemists can: find a molecule synthesis can be economically mass produced; keep the molecule from killing rats, mice, dogs, or humans; get the molecule into a form that does not have to be directly injected into the bloodstream; tweak the molecule so that the liver doesn’t immediately chew it into pieces that no longer affect your target; and shepherd the entire thing through years of clinical trials. That’s just off the top of my head; research chemists will undoubtedly have more.
As the votes came in last night from the highly-contested Republican Primary election in Florida, it was clear around an hour after the last polls closed that Senator John McCain won this crucial vote. McCain earned 36% to Mitt Romney’s 31%, a decisive margin in a state where over 1.8 million Republicans voted (and where the closed primary prevents registered Independents, allegedly McCain’s strongest supporters, from voting). Rudy Giuliani came in 3rd with 15%, edging out Mike Huckabee’s 14% by 22,000 votes. The 57 delegates awarded to McCain for his victory under Florida’s winner-take-all system catapult him into 1st place in the delegate count, where he previously trailed Romney and Huckabee.
My take: In next weeks “Super/Mega/Ultra Tuesday” primaries, McCain can win Arizona, California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, as he led in the polls in these state before yesterday’s victory. McCain’s prospects in these states as well as in the closer states of Connecticut, Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma will probably be better once voters and pollsters react to Giuliani’s decision to leave the race and endorse McCain. After McCain’s good-but-not-great performance in tonight’s Republican California debate, all major news bureaus are reporting that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will endorse McCain tomorrow. It looks like McCain will come out of February 5th with a substantial lead in pledged delegates if not a plurality. McCain is also ahead in the later-primary but delegate-rich states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, and Ohio. Even if many in Republican Party establishment refuse to back McCain due to his frequent breaks with the party on high-profile issues (such as climate change, campaign finance reform, stem cell research, torture of terrorist suspects, and immigration reform) his support from delegates and voters makes it increasingly unlikely that Romney can edge him out for the nomination.
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This, by the way, is why things like personality and leadership style are relevant to voting decisions (and are tough to capture in surveys). A candidate’s policy positions are not the only thing that matter. The way in which the candidate will try to implement these policies matters too. I wouldn’t vote for a candidate who shared my precise policy positions but decided to implement them by constitutionally questionable methods, for example. Process matters just as much as substance.
Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Tufts Fletcher School (formerly an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Department of Political Science) and high-profile academic blogger. He is discussing the Electoral Compass, a below-average-quality online political quiz that purports to tell you which candidate’s positions are closest to your own.
Today was the 30-year anniversary of the day that William Shatner delivered his now-infamous live spoken-word rendition of the song “Rocket Man” at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards.
The votes from yesterday’s Michigan primary elections have been fully counted, but the results are a bit confusing.
Hillary Clinton won the Michigan Democratic Primary election, beating “uncommitted” 55% to 40%.
Over the summer, the Michigan Democratic Party and Michigan Republican Party authorities decided to move their primaries earlier to have more influence, against the wishes of their respective parent organizations, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC). In retaliation for disobeying instructions (and for escalating a timing race between New Hampshire and Michigan, as New Hampshire state law requires its primary to be a certain number of days before any other primary), the DNC stripped the Michigan Democratic Primary of all delegates to the Democratic Party nominating convention this summer, making that primary meaningless. Barack Obama and John Edwards removed their names from the Michigan primary ballot in solidarity with the DNC, so Hillary’s “victory” is very unusual.
The RNC punished the Michigan Republican party by removing one-half of Michigan’s delegates to the Republican Party’s nominating convention. The Michigan Republican Primary still affects the race for their party’s nomination, as with 30 total delegates allocated by the primary Michigan has more Republican delegates than New Hampshire.
Mitt Romney won the Michigan Republican Primary with 39% of the vote to John McCain’s 30%. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee won 16%, followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 6%. Romney was born in Detroit, and his father George W. Romney was one of the most popular politicians in Michigan state history (serving three terms as the governor of Michigan before being appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Richard Nixon). Mitt Romney faced a “must-win” in Michigan, and his victory there ensures that he will not have to abandon his bid for the presidential nomination.
John McCain’s second place finish in Michigan ensures that he and Romney will split the state’s delegates, with Romney receiving around 20 delegates and McCain earning around 5. The current delegate count places Romney in first with 52, Huckabee in second with 22 (depending on how you count Iowa’s delegates), and McCain in third with 15. Each of the three men has won a major competitive contest, and no one has gained clear command of the race. They now move on the South Carolina, with a primary this Saturday, and Florida’s January 29th primary. Fred Thompson (who has won 6 delegates) and Rudy Giuliani (whose strategy involves skipping the early primaries and caucuses) respectively are essentially making their last stands in those two states, so it is very difficult to predict which Republican will be riding a wave of popularity into February 5th’s “Super Tuesday”. On that day, the majority of the delegates for both parties will be in contention across 24 states (including Illinois, New York, and California). For the Democrats, Super Tuesday will almost certainly be a slugfest between Obama and Clinton, with the overall tone of the race determined by whoever seizes the mantle of national front runner via the upcoming Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida Democratic contests.
Posted in Politics | Comments Off on Michigan Primary Results
The purported Gospel of Judas, a fourth-century Gnostic religious text discovered in the 1970s and translated last year by the National Geographic Society and a team of biblical scholars, appears to have been substantially misinterpreted. Based on the preliminary translation released by National Geographic in 2006, this “lost gospel” states that Judas Iscariot was actually a hero and martyr, who was asked by Jesus to orchestrate the infamous betrayal to the Romans so that Jesus could fulfill a holy destiny. According to a Rice University Biblical studies professor, the previous translators made many egregious mistakes, and the text actually describes Judas Iscariot as a demon who sacrificed Jesus to dark powers.
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Weekly claims for unemployment benefits have fallen dramatically. Some analysts believe that this does not provide useful information, as the holiday season distorts the number of unemployment applicants. However, the jobless claim figures have historically tracked overall unemployment very well, despite the seasonal sampling problems. Developments in employment/unemployment numbers are being followed closely, as total US unemployment rose to the (historically low but recently high) rate of 5% after last month.
By the way, I think the answer to the title questions is “yes”. In my mind, there is a better than 50% chance that the United States will not experience a recession in 2008, and will at worst experience a mild recession some time over the next 3 years. I won’t go so far as to predict “no recession”, especially because I’m not sure how the economy will actually respond to the Fed’s new stimulus. (Recall that Tyler Cowen once wrote, “All propositions about real interest rates are wrong”.)
After the somewhat unexpected victories of the young, “paradigm-shifting” candidates Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama in the Iowa Caucuses, last night’s New Hampshire Primary results have changed the tenor of the primary elections.
Hillary Clinton, New York Senator and wife of the 42nd President of the United States, narrowly beat Illinois Senator Barack Obama 39% to 37% in yesterday’s election. Although the two Democratic Senators will split the state’s delegates about evenly, polls predicted an Obama victory. Former Senator John Edwards finished in a distant 3rd place. After delivering a highly-regarded New Hampshire concession speech, Obama has received more than $500,000 in donations over the past 20 hours (Hilary is trying to beat that total), while the top news headlines often failed to note how close the final vote totals were (and the fact that a few weeks ago, Senator Clinton held a commanding lead). Obama and his campaign representatives assert that they are preparing to adjust their strategy in the weeks ahead. Moreover, Hillary’s victory has reversed the seemingly-unstoppable momentum granted to Obama by his Iowa win, suggesting that the two well-known and well-funded rivals have a long fight ahead to win their party’s nomination for the 2008 presidential election.
Arizona Senator John McCain won the New Hampshire Republican Primary with 37% of the vote to Mitt Romney‘s 31%, followed by Mike Huckabee with 11%. Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani edged out Texas Congressman Ron Paul for fourth place by approximately 2,000 votes (<1.5%). McCain was predicted to win, but only by around 4-5%, and considering that his campaign has been short on supporters and money, and was declared dead by the media over the summer, the victory is significant. Many who backed McCain when he challenged George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 abandoned him for Giuliani (if socially liberal), for former Tennessee Senator/Law and Order starFred Thompson (if socially conservative). or left the Republican party entirely (if extremely dissatisfied by the conduct of President Bush). With Giuliani and Thompson finishing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire (both are pinning their hopes on later states where they are more popular) McCain’s campaign is attracting new recruits and donations and hoping to bank on their recent success (McCain tied with Thompson for 3rd in Iowa, despite not campaigning in that state–not to mention McCain’s strong opposition to federal ethanol subsidies, the largest beneficiaries of which are Iowa farmers and agribusinesses). McCain is now moving to compete against Romney and Huckabee in next week’s Michigan and South Carolina primaries. Romney–the son of extremely popular Michigan governor George Romney–faces a “must-win” in Michigan, while McCain won that state in 2000 and Huckabee has made inroads with the working-class socially conservative voters there (who were called “Reagan Democrats” in the 1980s).
A little less than six hours remains until the polls close in the New Hampshire Republican and Democratic Presidential Primary Elections.
As of yesterday, polls indicate that Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton far outside the margin of error in the Democratic Primary, with John Edwards in third and Bill Richardson in forth.
For the Republicans, John McCain and Mitt Romney are battling for first place, followed at a distance by Mike Huckabee while another close fight pits Rudy Giuliani against Ron Paul for fourth place. Most polls have McCain going into the primary with a 4%-7% lead over Romney (slightly less than the margin of error), but Romney’s perceived good showing in Sunday’s debate may make up some of the support he has lost in New Hampshire since he embarrassingly placed second in Iowa to Huckabee.
News reports and eyewitness accounts suggest extremely (possibly historically) high voter turnout. When projected turnout is compared to the existing electoral rolls, it appears that many independents and previously-nonvoters are participating today. Based on plausible speculation about the identities of these new voters, the high turnout is good news for Obama, McCain, and possibly Ron Paul (who is eager to beat Giuliani, as Congressman Paul and the former NYC Mayor have been involved in a bitter weeks-long argument over the root causes of the 9-11 attacks).
The Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder is again providing his excellent election liveblogging.
Posted in Politics | Comments Off on New Hampshire Primaries in Progress
Let’s say that the government subsidized the price of bananas, you bought so many bananas, put them on your roof, and then the roof collapsed. Is that government failure or market failure?
The Democratic Party Iowa Caucus is too close to call, with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards essentially in a three-way tie for first place, while Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd are trailing in the low single-digits.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee has a slight lead over Mitt Romney (barely outside the margin of error), and John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul are within a few percentage points of each other at a close 3rd, 4th, and 5th, respectively.
Posted in Politics | Comments Off on Iowa Caucuses Tonight
I strongly recommend the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, in general US release as of a week ago. Although it wasn’t as moving or artistic as Atonement, which I saw a few days earlier week, I found plenty to think about (and many good laughs) from this based-on-a-true-story movie. It also has the unusual property of being fun and educational (i.e., illustrative of historical facts) without being “wholesome” or a “feel-good movie” (it is definitely neither of those). For those lukewarm on the subject matter, Charlie Wilson’s War includes first-rate acting from Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, an off-the-charts performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, clever directing by Mike Nichols, and an excellent screenplay by Aaron Sorkin (writer of The American President and A Few Good Men, creator of The West Wing).
More discussion and minor spoilers after the jump…
I slept until 3 pm today because I haven’t been feeling well. I woke up to learn that Benazir Bhutto, prominent Pakistani opposition leader and one of the most well-known female political figures in the world, was assassinated.
My greatest condolences to Ms. Bhutto’s family, to her friends, supporters, and followers, and to the people of Pakistan.
More thoughts another time when I’m feeling better.
Posted in Politics | Comments Off on Fire on the Evening News: Benazir Bhutto Killed
I have been blogging Not At All the past week or so for two reasons: 1) my parents and sister will be out of the country from Christmas until after New Year’s, so I’m spending time with them before they leave, and 2) my laptop broke, so keyboard time has been severely reduced. I’ll be back soon.
Only two weeks until the Iowa Caucus!
Posted in Announcements | Comments Off on Blogging Holiday
Catholics used to complain that anti-Catholicism was the anti-semitism of the intellectuals, but this was before the intellectuals went back to anti-semitism.
Here is Roger Ebert’s review of the movie. Ebert, who is himself Roman Catholic (albeit one who is theologically agnostic about he existence of God), does not find either the movie or the book trilogy to be objectionable.
Everyone’s a consequentialist if the consequences are bad enough.
Economics journalist Megan McArdle, responding to George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan’s question about why so many self-professed libertarians supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Her point concerns the fall of the USSR and the recognition (by libertarians and others) that US Cold War military actions in Europe–unlike in Southeast Asia–created substantially positive net outcomes.
Posted in Politics, Random Thoughts | Comments Off on Runner-up for last week’s “Remark of the Week”
John McCain confirmed today that he still holds the position that made many (including myself) pay close attention in the Republican Presidential Primary eight years ago: opposition to US federal farm subsidies.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked about McCain’s low poll numbers in Iowa. Senator McCain admitted difficulties in that state, explaining his poor appeal,
I don’t support ethanol subsidies. I don’t support farm subsidies; I think they should be phased out.”
It’s good to know that McCain hasn’t abandoned one of his signature issues despite its unpopularity. It’s even better that one of the major candidates (other than long-shot Ron Paul) accepts the basic economic fact that farm subsidies enrich agribusiness and other non-poor farmers, harm citizens through higher taxes and higher food prices, and cripple farmers in poor countries who would could earn a living by selling agricultural products for the US market if they could compete fairly.
Here is more from that same interview, mainly about McCain’s response to an attack mailing by Mitt Romney:
Posted in Economics, Politics | Comments Off on McCain on farm subsidies
People strike back at what they perceive to be injustices. Having a lot of money is not an injustice. To repeat an idea from my review: people hated the Robber Barons because they were robbers and barons, not because they were rich. The labor movement was strong when it was perceived that firms were making superprofits that could be more equitably shared with the workers. Gender inequality and racial discrimination are opposed because they are unfair, not because they lead to an unequal division of wealth.
–Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Herbert Gintis, regarding his (negative) review of Paul Krugman’s The Conscience of a Liberal, and his view that American “liberals” are unproductively obsessed with the concept of economic inequality.
Unfamiliar observers should note that Gintis is about as far to the “left” politically as it is possible to be in the US without being a full-fledged Marxist (he would probably consider himself a Marxian-inspired heterodox economist). He is however, an insightful and fair-minded thinker who has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t care about developing good rhetorical points for political debates, but rather about studying social problems such as poverty and poor schooling so that these problems can actually be ameliorated.
Here are some thoughts from The Economist‘s Free Exchange Blog about strikes and negotiation.
While you’re waiting for your favorite TV shows or plays to resume (or if you’re stuck in traffic in Paris and have an iPhone or laptop), please enjoy this video of Billy Joel and his band performing the song “Allentown” in 1998 (before he started to lose his voice).
It’s quite clear to me, though, that Obama and Clinton loathe each other. When I hear people talk of a Clinton-Obama ticket, I want to know what they’re smoking and get some.
Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, has been elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Although the position conveys little additional authority on Church policy (all important decisions are handed down to the national conferences from the Vatican), it adds symbolic support to Cardinal George’s role as a leader and spokesman for American Catholicism. George has previously served as the vice-president of the Bishops’ organization.
Cardinal George received 85% of the vote for the conference presidency. George was elevated to Archbishop (stationed first in Portland, and subsequently in his hometown of Chicago) by the late John Paul II. Since John Paul’s death, Cardinal George has demonstrated himself to be a major supporter of Pope Benedict XVI.
Also on the agenda at the Bishops’ conference this week is the issue of political involvement for the 2008 election season. Here is a report on that topic from PBS.
Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments Off on A promotion for Cardinal George
Chicago, Athens, and Jerusalem 