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The System Worked

A thousand important things have been said already about the milestone of our first African-American president (and perhaps just as important for future demographic trends, our first mixed-race president.) But I've been thinking about something else this morning: not just Obama's election, but the entire system that led up to this moment. We hear so often that the American political system is broken, but I think the last two years suggest that our national politics are healthier than we have been led to believe.

It starts for me with Bush's approval rating. You run the country with breathtaking incompetence for eight years; you defy the constitution and the Geneva Conventions; you let an entire city drown; you fail to ask for an inch of sacrifice from the rich during the greatest concentration of wealth in our country's history. You do all those things, and it turns out the American people pay attention: you become the least popular president since the invention of polling. Yes, it took too long for the country to realize how disastrous the Bush Administration was, but 9/11 left us with a kind of political post-traumatic stress disorder that made it too hard to turn on our leader in time to vote him out the first chance we had. But eventually the country woke up.

Then when the campaigns began, they were serious, engaged, and hard-fought. Voters consistently out-manoeuvred the media consensus at pretty much every turn. Giant financial advantages or name recognition did not inevitably lead to victory. There were what, thirty debates? For the most part, the debates were serious and issue-driven to the point of being dull. But we slogged through them all.

Most importantly, the primary campaigns actually ended up selecting the best candidates. Both Obama and Clinton were top-of-their-class (both in their original education, and their current political standing.) They were both gifted and committed leaders, each of whom represented a demographic breakthrough that would have been unthinkable a generation or two ago. And on the other side, McCain was by far the most interesting and deserving in the Republican field. These were all people who -- unlike George W. Bush -- had the stature and intellect and instincts that we should expect in our Presidential candidates.

And when the system finally narrowed our options down to two choices, the campaign that followed had many commendable qualities. The debates were watched by record audiences. Crowds normally reserved for U2 concerts showed up to hear the candidates speak. Yes, there was an insane amount of money flowing through the Obama campaign, but the money was itself a measure of how engaged the electorate was, since the vast majority of it was coming from small donors. While many on the left prodded him to be more aggressive, Obama kept his legendary cool and ran an incredibly civil campaign all the way through. (Remember how people griped that he kept agreeing with McCain in the first  debate -- but then ended up winning it hand-down?)

The one glaring episode that smacked of the "old" American politics of illusion and pseudo-candidates -- the Sarah Palin pick -- looked for a few short days to be a successful ploy, but her boastful ignorance and her complete disregard for the truth were relentless chipped away by the media and the satirists. (We always complain that the media don't ask the tough questions any more -- who knew that the tough question would be "So, what newspapers do you read?") By the end, Palin was a net negative for McCain, and the condescending notion that McCain could win over Hillary voters with a candidate who shared none of their values was decisively rejected in the battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

And when it came time to vote, everyone showed up, waiting in those five hour lines to have their voices heard. This is the most engaged electorate in modern times, and encouragingly, it's the youngest generation that seems to be the most intent on participating in the system.

So I look out at that landscape, and I think: yes, the country is in a terrible state, and it's going to take an immense amount of work and sacrifice and intelligence to turn things around. But the system that lets us choose our leaders seems to me to be as healthy as it has been in a long time. We get the leaders we deserve. For once, that's a good thing.

Will She Stay or Will She Go?

As some of you may have noticed, last Friday at around 9PM, a few hours after the McCain camp announced the Sarah Palin pick, I twittered this:

          My prediction: Palin ends up withdrawing under scrutiny and backlash, Thomas Eagleton-style, within three weeks.

I've made some gut reaction political predictions before on this blog, some of which turned out to be prescient, others a little less so. I'm feeling pretty good about my Palin wager right now. (Fred Wilson turned it into a DubHub bet, which lagged through the weekend at around a 10% likelihood, but it has trended upwards over the past day.) On Friday, none of the pregnancy stories had yet appeared in the national media or blogosphere—I'd certainly heard nothing about it—but the speed with which the Troopergate story surfaced, and the fact that it was a live investigation, made me think that Palin was going to be an albatross for McCain from day one, and that sooner or later, he was going to realize admitting a mistake was preferable to a steady drip of Palin controversy dominating the news...

Still, it's hard to know how this will play out exactly. I think one key element will be her oratory skills; I can imagine a scenario where she gives a compelling, emotionally honest "hockey mom" speech that confronts the pregnancy issue head-on, and the tide turns dramatically in her favor, particularly among the evangelicals. On the other hand, the fact that she is going to have two infants in her household, one with major developmental needs, gives her and McCain an honorable, blame-the-media out: "Sarah realized the relentless media scrutiny was not ultimately the best thing for her growing family, and so she is withdrawing today her candidacy..."

New Hampshire

Absolutely fascinating. The one thought I had going to bed last night was that, for once, we New Yorkers (and Californians) were actually going to have a say in who gets to be our next President, given that the race is definitely going to be tight up through our primaries on Super Tuesday. That'll be a nice change.

One quick note on something that I found incredibly offensive last night: both Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews floated the idea that perhaps women voters had flocked to Hillary because they didn't like the way Edwards and Obama were "ganging up on her" in the debate. I thought that exchange was clearly pivotal, but it's just absurd to think that people vote for Presidential candidates because they feel sorry for them. Isn't it much more likely that the women voters liked the powerful and impassioned way she stood up to Edwards and Obama when they united in their attacks on her "status quo" campaign? She had a great set of counterpunches, I thought, and her later line about her likability ("Now you've hurt my feelings") was as deft and funny and original as anything that had been said in the debate.

Anyhow, this is going to be fun to watch. I've said all along that the best thing about this 08 Democrat field is that the roster of candidates across the board is very appealing -- they're all, in their different ways, top of their class. I'm pulling for Obama, and still think he'll end up winning. But if these first few days are any indication, it's going to be an extraordinary year.

Iowa, The Morning After

So far my predictions are looking pretty good. (I'd be enjoying it all even more if I didn't have a mean caucus-night hangover.) I imagine I'm not alone in getting a little choked up more than a few times during Obama's speech -- particularly during these passages:

I'll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all. And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home... who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century. Common threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.

Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you did here in Iowa.

... I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this; a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children -- when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

I love that temporal shift of projecting forward to our future recollection of the present -- "a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in..." It reminds me a little of the device Whitman uses in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" when he's directly addressing future city dwellers making the same passage across the East River:

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;	25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d. Those lines always choke me up as well -- but Whitman always does that to me. But political speeches almost never do. But maybe that, too, is about to change.

My Political Forecast

I've been meaning to write something about the Obama candidacy for a while now, and just haven't found the time, so now that it's the day of the Iowa caucus I thought I'd just jot down a quick thought and prediction that I've been pretty convinced of for the past month. And that prediction is that Obama is going to win it all -- Iowa, the nomination, the Presidency. And I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that he is a rare combination in American politics, in that he is both the "emotional" choice and the "electable" choice. The whole concept of an Obama presidency is just intrinsically inspiring, particularly after the last two terms. And yet at the same time, all the polls suggest that he's the candidate who can beat pretty much any Republican in the field -- unlike Hillary. All the independents in my extended family would vote for him in a heartbeat, and they'd never vote for Hillary. Everything I've read suggests that this pattern is going to repeat itself all across the country.

Traditionally, we've always had to make a tradeoff between the emotional and the electable choices -- "Sure this Howard Dean campaign is exciting, but the guy's never going to win a national election, so let's go with the politically experienced war hero." But with Obama the two sets overlap: you want the guy to win, and he also has the best chance of winning.

So there it is -- we'll see where things stand tomorrow. (My Iowa prediction last year turned out to be dead right, for what it's worth.) The other thing I've been thinking is that it's entirely possible that the Clinton campaign is going to implode quickly -- it's entirely possible that she could start the primary season with back-to-back third place finishes which would be a stunning early defeat. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we had an Edwards/Obama race by Feb 6.

Amazing story about how the Bush Administration won't remove a creationist account of the Grand Canyon from the Park Service bookstore there. (It turns out the Grand Canyon may have been created by Noah's Flood. Who knew?) But I just love this line:

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan,” Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book.

Denise Caruso's Intervention

When I first met Denise Caruso over ten years ago, she was writing the Digital Commerce column for the New York Times and running the influential Spotlight conference. At a time of great hype about all things digital, Denise offered a unique mix of intelligent skepticism and genuine long-term vision. (If you go back and read those Digital Commerce columns in the Times archives, you’ll see what I mean -- there was no one writing about the tech scene the way Denise was back then.) She then went on to explore a theme that’s also been central to my work -- interdisciplinary thinking -- by founding the Hybrid Vigor Institute, where she began exploring the question of risk assessment in times of immense scientific and technological change. That research led her to write her powerful and essential new book, Intervention: Confronting The Real Risks of Genetic Engineering And Life On A Biotech Planet.

Intervention takes as its primary case study the sorry state of real debate -- in the U.S. at least -- over the long-term implications of genetic engineering. As Denise writes, “We’re more than just ‘too far down the road’ with transgenic technologies. I’m not sure we even know what road we’re on; we’re driving too fast to read the signs.” But as crucial an issue as, say, genetically modified food is, Intervention is wrestling with an even more profound question: how we measure and anticipate risk with such complex, open-ended technologies. Denise makes it clear how “spectacularly nearsighted” we tend to be when evaluating radical new advances. And when we’re meddling with the primary forces of nature -- to quote Ned Beatty’s speech from Network -- we can’t afford to be nearsighted. Fortunately, we have people like Denise Caruso to improve our vision.

Should the Gatorade bomb plot help the Democrats? George Will seems to think so:

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Why The London Plot Helps The Democrats (Or At Least, Why It Should Help Them)

I hope the Democrats (or at least the anti-Iraq-war Democrats) are smart enough to recognize the Gatorade bombing plot actually supports their position on the war on terror. (Or, to put it less kindly, gives them an opportunity to actually formulate a coherent position, at last.) They should be saying something along these lines:

This plot demonstrates the seriousness of the threat posed against us, and, if all the early indications prove to be right, the continuing existence of the Al Qaeda network. It also demonstrates that top-notch law enforcement work, coupled with international collaboration -- and, yes, some wire-tapping -- can truly make us safer. If we had been in charge after 9/11, we would have devoted our military and law enforcement resources exclusively to tracking down Islamic terror networks, with the highest priority given to hunting down Osama Bin Laden. We wouldn't have introduced the huge distraction of Iraq, which has both been a terrible drain on resources and lives, and made us many new enemies in regions where we need more friends. If you elect us this fall, we promise a renewed focus on the enemies that actually threaten us directly. While we can't immediately withdraw from Iraq, we propose a steady re-allocation of manpower and money from Iraq to the immediate threats on American lives. We believe in the war on terror just as firmly as the Republicans do. We just think it should concentrate on capturing terrorists, not rebuilding the electrical grid in Bagdhad.

The Risk

Let's be clear about one thing: the way to win the war on terror is to not be terrified. Part of not being terrified comes from breaking up bomb plots. But it's just as important to do the math.

...it would seem to be reasonable for those in
charge of our safety to inform the public about how many
airliners would have to crash before flying becomes as dan-
gerous as driving the same distance in an automobile. It turns
out that someone has made that calculation: University of
Michigan transportation researchers Michael Sivak and
Michael Flannagan, in an article last year in American Scien-
tist, wrote that they determined there would have to be one
set of September 11 crashes a month for the risks to balance
out. More generally, they calculate that an American’s chance
of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in
13 million (even taking the September 11 crashes into
account). To reach that same level of risk when driving on
America’s safest roads — rural interstate highways — one
would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles.

Looking at all these images of endless security lines at the airports today, thanks to this foiled bombing plot, it occurs to me that the ideal solution would be the complete separation of passengers and their luggage. In other words, if the passengers boarded one plane and their luggage flew separately in another plane with only two pilots on board. (Perhaps the luggage plane could fly just a little bit faster, so your bags were waiting for you when you arrive.) Blowing up a plane full of luggage -- with a body count of two -- wouldn't have the same PR value for the terrorists, and passengers would be able to fly entirely secure (though without their laptops and lattes.) I realize, of course, that doubling the number of planes in the sky is not feasible, but still, if you were designing the system to be terrorism proof from scratch...