Dysfunctional Political System, Clownish Candidates

For anti-Americans and others addicted to Schadenfreude, it could hardly get better. The delicious clip of Republican candidate Rick Perry, unable to remember the name of one of the three departments of the federal government he had pledged to abolish, was a moment to treasure.

But seen in a larger context, the comic relief soon fades. For the American political system seems to be unravelling in the most extraordinary way. A president whom many regard as a failure, and who is a disappointment even to his most fervent admirers, looks likely to squeeze through the 2012 presidential election, now less than a year away, only because of the antics of the extraordinary menagerie of candidates the once Grand Old Party can put into the field against him.

In the meantime, neither the president nor the Congress seems able even to begin to address the United State’s grave problems — public and private debt, high unemployment, economic stagnation and policy paralysis. The fact that the next election is of vital importance to America and the world makes this a chilling reality.

Rick Perry’s amnesia in a televised debate is far from the only worrying aspect of his personality and campaign. He was the governor of Texas: yet even on questions about Texas’s constitution and its economy’s alleged immunity to national problems, he has proved evasive or uninformed.

Herman Cain is an even more implausible candidate, whose only qualification, it seems, is having accumulated a fortune selling pizza: the suspicion has been voiced that he is only running to push up his appearance fees. His own broadcast moment of embarrassment (over the administration’s Libya policy) was as excruciating as Perry’s, and he too has shown comprehensive ignorance of public life at home and abroad. The accusations of several women job applicants that he propositioned them further expose his flaws.

These two are only the most obviously absurd contestants. Mitt Romney, superficially the most acceptable candidate by conventional standards, seems dull, little more than a profile over a well-tailored suit of clothes. His qualifications for entering the race are that his father was a (not very impressive candidate) forty years ago, and that he amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in his private-equity business, Bain Capital. Two biographical details that might commend him to an unbiased observer — his loyalty to his Mormon faith and his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, where he passed a healthcare-reform measure — are seen by many Republicans and much of the media as negatives.

Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives and in the mid-1990s an influential and innovative conservative politician, has by default re-emerged as a plausible option among many Republicans, commentators and others. He a man of real political stature, but is vulnerable to media scrutiny of many details of his personal and financial life.

Someone will emerge a winner from amid the scrum of televised debates, costly advertising wars, and local votes. But so far the pre-election circus has had little to say about two fundamental questions:

Many answer the first question by identifying specific constitutional problems, such as the high barrier needed for invoking cloture in the Senate. But these are often a symptom rather than an originating cause. Here, two processes seem of especial importance.

The first is the breakdown of party, especially at the level of presidential electoral politics. While party allegiance has considerable importance in Congress and at the state level, presidential campaigns are essentially raids by charismatic leaders who campaign with little or no loyalty to party or party program (that is, charismatic in the classic sense in which Max Weber defined the term: leaders who attract a horde of followers with the promise of gain, here on earth or in the hereafter).

Since the campaign of John F Kennedy in 1960, few successful presidential candidates have owed much to party ideology and less to party organization. Their success, when it comes, is owed to personal magnetism, promoted by media manipulation, and sustained by massive fundraising. That is why candidates wealthy enough to pay for a significant share of escalating costs (Kennedy, Rockefeller, Bloomberg, Corzine, Romney and many others) have such an advantage in pursuing the race).

Moreover, as the two parties have become more defined and indeed polarised in ideological terms, presidential candidates emerge not from debate within a party organisation but rather impose themselves in a sort of ideological auction. The process is exacerbated in this electoral cycle by the influence of the Tea Party (itself supported by a small number of very wealthy men, from the Koch brothers to Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News).

The second process is that the influence of money in the system is increasingly excessive and distorting. The single reform that would do most to clean up American politics and to make the procedures of election more democratic would be a ban on political advertising. More than half the money spent on electioneering, which threatens to break all records in 2012, goes on advertising — and this overwhelmingly still means television advertising, which remains the essence of American campaigning.

The cost of buying space is exorbitant; the cost of hiring and paying experts to research, write, design, promote and buy political advertising is beyond all but the deepest purses. As a result, political consultants, often guns for hire with little coherent political philosophy, have excessive influence.

A reform of this kind, however, is unthinkable. The Supreme Court, since its decision in Buckley v Valeo in 1976 that political advertising is a form of speech and is therefore protected by the first-amendment guarantee of free speech, has steadily amplified the import of its commitment to this absurd proposition. The present court, dominated by conservative ideologues, has carried the protection of political advertising to new lengths. In January 2010, in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, the court removed all limitations on political expenditure by (among other bodies) business corporations.

This will give the Republican Party, traditionally the representative of corporate business and private wealth, an even greater advantage; and within the Democratic Party it will increase the importance of a number of sources of campaign funding, among them Wall Street and Hollywood. It may well, as a result, make it even more difficult or Democratic politicians, including Barack Obama, to be more even-handed in their approach to the (now more vital than ever) politics of the middle east and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

The current media dynamics, especially the migration of readers and advertising to the internet, make it likely that there will be even more attention to the personal issues and scandals surrounding the candidates, and less to policy matters (particularly the economy and foreign affairs). In this respect, the hopes of many that social media would democratize political campaigns have so far proved over-optimistic.

The second question is already being answered in the multiple signs of a diminishment of Washington’s authority in world politics, all of them overshadowed by the political consequences of the US government’s failure to deal with its debts, trade and structural deficits, and the economic slowdown.

President Obama and his treasury secretary Timothy Geithner have continued to berate European governments for their failure to solve economic problems that Washington itself has scarcely begun to address. For this and other reasons, it is probable that relations between the United States and Europe will deteriorate, perhaps quite sharply and quite soon. This will make the resolution of the economic and financial crisis much harder to achieve. The historic achievements of the alliance forged between the US and European (and other) democracies are near forgotten in contemporary Washington.

The inability of the American political system to resolve its problems has weakened the country’s capacity to sustain a central or decisive part in world affairs. Barack Obama’s reluctance to take the lead over Libya is a much-noticed example, though equally revealing is the influence of domestic politics on his awkward Afghan strategy (a mixture of military “surge” and preparation for withdrawal). The crisis in relations with Pakistan, and the loss of position in the Arab world — where Washington is sleepwalking towards a crisis where it will be found to be allied with Israel and Saudi Arabia against the spread of democracy — emphasize the dangers it faces.

The major commitments of American policy — to “containment” in the cold war, to the “western alliance,” to other international obligations — were once clear to its allies and adversaries alike. Some American leaders (such as Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner) continue to behave as if the United States were still a hegemonic power, unchallenged in its financial reach and ideological beliefs as well as militarily paramount. But many of their interlocutors, from China to Latin America and Russia to Israel, are ever bolder in their rejection of the implied claim.

As a result there is a serious and growing disparity between the assumptions of media and politicians in the United States and the realities of the world which its political elites still aspire to dominate. The latter are losing not just the power do so, but perhaps even the will to understand the world.

This ought to be a source of fear rather than of satisfaction abroad. The world’s mounting problems will be hard enough to solve even if the United States is trying to help and capable of doing so — but will be all but insoluble if it is not. But how can the US get into a position where it again can help? Only by a candid acknowledgment that the American political system is very far from being an inspiration to the world or governed by ideals that others now seek to emulate (as the neo-conservatives, with their ill-fated adventures of persuasion or force, believed) — and that this system itself is in serious need of reform.

It is near impossible to imagine any of the eight Republican candidates on show — obsessed as they are with self-pleasing fantasies about the American past — undertaking this work. For his part, Barack Obama was once invested with — and did much to cultivate — huge hopes that he could do so. There has been little reason to believe that in office he understands how vital and unavoidable it is.

John F Kennedy’s favorite general, Maxwell Taylor, posed an old question in 1971 that is more urgent now than ever: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”

The author writes well, but many of the comments betray a basic lack of familiarity with consensus reality since the Kennedy administration. If the Republicans were the party of plutocrats (itself an arguable proposition) they are not now. Most Wall Street executives are openly Democratic or give plentifully to the Democratic party which has subtly aligned itself with financial establishmentarianism while at the same time publicly appearing to lambaste the very wealthy. How is this done? Easy: attack high earners rather than those with high net worth. The former are on the way to aquiring power but the latter actually already wield it. Dems are not stupid, though they are mendacious beyond belief. And because most people are prone to think well of others before poorly, their deception works long enought to ensure they retain power.

And the Republicans are left with the stain of being thought plutocratic when they can’t even get a hearing in the plutocratic circles of power. That’s our problem, not the circus issue the author amuses himself with.

The writer seems very foolish to me.

This is what the primary system has wrought. But I would guess that the author favors the primary system.

The process is exacerbated in this electoral cycle by the influence of the Tea Party (itself supported by a small number of very wealthy men, from the Koch brothers to Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News).

An outright lie. Millions turned up at the National Tea Party. This is a true grass roots movement. Furthermore, he ignores the much larger influence of ALL THE REST OF THE MEDIA and George Soros supporting marginal leftist causes.

This (allowing corporations to spend on political campaigns) will give the Republican Party, traditionally the representative of corporate business and private wealth, an even greater advantage;

Which candidate spent the most last time around? Which candidate gave lip service to using public funds but then dropped it like a hot potato when it became clear that he would be able to raise unprecedented funds?

To return to the original question, why is the political system dysfunctional? It is because we no longer have consensus among a large majority of Americans as to how to govern. Instead, we have half the population that wants to keep their property, and the other half that wants it confiscated and redistributed.

"Herman Cain is an even more implausible candidate, whose only qualification, it seems, is having accumulated a fortune selling pizza"

Really? That is phenomenally dismissive of an executive career. He wasn't a kid in the high school band selling pizza kits door to door. He was running a pretty large company and doing so with impressive success. But he's black, so the far left trashes him for having no more experience than many kids still in school and then makes insinuations about Cain lusting after white women (a fear held by the far left but long since forgotten by their targets on the right who are waiting for evidence rather than whispers).

"Rick Perry, unable to remember the name of one of the three departments of the federal government he had pledged to abolish, was a moment to treasure. "

Again, the writer is missing the point. There are a disappointingly large number of cabinet departments that should be eliminated. To momentarily forget which ones you chose to list for dismantling is amusing but doesn't actually reflect on fitness for the job of dismantling a significant portion of our bloated federal government. Perry isn't one of my top few choices, but this was more a showmanship issue than a measure of readiness to lead.

***those who are too incompetent and incapable of actually doing always carp and whine hysterically at those who do***

Teddy Roosevelt: THE MAN IN THE ARENA

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It is near impossible to imagine any of the eight Republican candidates on show — obsessed as they are with self-pleasing fantasies about the American past — undertaking this work.

A very important point. Republicans in general dwell in the Kingdom of NeverWas, imagining the resurrection of a 1950's-era Camelot of their own, looking back to an economy boosted to great heights by the recent destruction of much of the rest of the world's industry and deeming that extraordinary moment in history to be "the norm".

This article is well written and yet so shallow and ill-informed it's like offering a man in the desert water from a sewage pipe. It does ask a good question:

* Why is the American political system now apparently so dysfunctional?

In 1984 the Press outed one of their own - Liberal Democrat Gary Hart. He challenged them. They took him down. They then stood about and asked, "What did we just do?" Their answer: "We took out the guy we like the best." They then resolved to never do that again. While before 1984 the Press was clearly biased - and to those of us on the right obviously so - the MSM still thought of themselves as objective.

After 1984 the bias exploded exponentially. Editors decided that the New York Times slogan, "All the news thats fit to print" should be altered to "We'll decide what the news is and you'll like it." The dinosaur media death threads here point out the wisdom of that decision on an almost daily basis. The answer to "why the dysfunctionality" is that the founders counted on the First Amendment empowering a Free Press to be a watchdog on the politicians. They never anticipated that the press would so uniformly choose one side over another.

Here's a great quote commented on expertly by the poster Cassandra

Under a Democratic president, the press have chosen to protect the powerful and ignore the afflicted. They wink at governmental corruption and abuse of power rather than exposing them.

Is it any surprise that the media have lost the trust of the public they claim to protect?

What he is really saying is Obama is such a complete idiot, I have to write a hit piece on all the GOP to keep Catholics on the welfare plantation. Catholic leaders have shown they will vote for abortion, sodomites, crooks, and murderers, to keep the food stamp train going. If Massachusetts Catholics can vote for Frank, Kennedy, Kerry, and Obama and still call themselves Catholic, they need re education. To treat Republicans like there is some sort of comparison between any Republican and Frank or Kennedy should be laughable. Frank was caught with a male prostitute running tricks from his house and of course, the great moral giant, Kennedy, killed a woman and left the scene and was still reelected,......multiple times.

So the gist of the piece is "Lets all stay with Obama cause at least they aren't Republican". Catholic leaders need to learn that the Bible says THE CHURCH should be feeding and clothing the poor, not stealing other people's money to give to the government. The Bible isn't a government manual to replace the work of the church. Jesus wasn't a communist because he said to give them your cloak. You won't get points from God to point the way to the welfare office to a hungry person. The church is expected to feed them.

Our President and First Lady waiting to meet the queen in England.

Can you imagine a POTUS and FLOTUS being photographed with expressions like that waiting to meet the queen of England or photographed like that anywhere?

What an embarassment these two are!!

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