Blog

On the topic of assessing my blog grade, I would say that I am in the B range. I received an A for the first half of the semester. But, during the second half of the semester I missed a few blogs, and didn’t take others seriously. On the topic of my likes and dislikes to the blog, in general I liked doing it each week. It sure beats a 10 page paper due at the end of the semester. However, I grew weary of it during the second half of the semester. I think a better plan of action would be to have the blog for the first half of the semester, and then have a shorter paper due at the end of the semester. I also found it difficult to comment on other peoples blogs; I don’t know if it was laziness or whether it was just a dislike for reading other peoples blogs and than commenting on them.

Sorting

Sorting is the process where people who affiliate themselves with a political party, now affiliate with the ideolgicially correct party. The idea is that people are now voting with the party that is most close to there preferences. With the advent of the end ot the southern democrat, and the beginning of the true republican south, we have seen "true" ideological parties. The odd thing about parties as we see them today is that sorting has also helped to emerge two distinct ideological parties.

A critical era

First we must define what a critical era is. A critical era is a time where there are drastic changes followed by a period of relative stability. When answering the question as to whether of not the 90s were a critical era, I am going to suggest that it was. First we can look at what Aldrich constitutes as the four main factors determining a critical era. 1) Changes in attitudes of the public 2) Changes in the attitudes of the elites 3) Changes in the institutions 4) major changes in policies. I am going to suggest that the 1994 Republican Revolution constitutes a major change, and was than followed by a period of relative stability, which makes the 1990s a critical era. We saw changes in the attitudes of the public by ushering in a Republican party that had control of both branches of congress. We saw a change of attitude amongst the elite, who amongst other things, changed the institution of the House by casting away the seniority norm (which technically is not a institutional change), and by cutting down the amount of committees, and centralizing power to Newt Gingrich. These changes also made for some major policy changes, and one of the largest was a tax cut to the wealthiest group of Americans. Based upon Aldrich’s reasons for the presence of a critical era, I am going to suggest that the 1994 Republican Revolution constituted a major change followed by a period of relative stability, and therefore a critical era.

Is today stable? We can look at the same checklist provided by Aldrich. I am going to suggest that we are in a period of relative stability. We have ushered in a Democratic congress, but they are not overwhelming. The attitudes of the elites have not changed, and we can see this by the continuing war in Iraq. We have not seen any institutional changes, and we have not seen any major policy changes.

Critical Era

First we must define what a critical era is. A critical era is a time where there are drastic changes followed by a period of relative stability. When answering the question as to whether of not the 90s were a critical era, I am going to suggest that it was. First we can look at what Aldrich constitutes as the four main factors determining a critical era. 1) Changes in attitudes of the public 2) Changes in the attitudes of the elites 3) Changes in the institutions 4) major changes in policies. I am going to suggest that the 1994 Republican Revolution constitutes a major change, and was than followed by a period of relative stability, which makes the 1990s a critical era. We saw changes in the attitudes of the public by ushering in a Republican party that had control of both branches of congress. We saw a change of attitude amongst the elite, who amongst other things, changed the institution of the House by casting away the seniority norm (which technically is not a institutional change), and by cutting down the amount of committees, and centralizing power to Newt Gingrich. These changes also made for some major policy changes, and one of the largest was a tax cut to the wealthiest group of Americans. Based upon Aldrich’s reasons for the presence of a critical era, I am going to suggest that the 1994 Republican Revolution constituted a major change followed by a period of relative stability, and therefore a critical era.

Is today stable? We can look at the same checklist provided by Aldrich. I am going to suggest that we are in a period of relative stability. We have ushered in a Democratic congress, but they are not overwhelming. The attitudes of the elites have not changed, and we can see this by the continuing war in Iraq. We have not seen any institutional changes, and we have not seen any major policy changes.

I inhale everytime!

I recently read an article about Barack Obama allowing Iowa caucus goers to ask provocative questions. The usual health care, Iraq war and immigration policy questions surfaced. But, near the end of the question session somebody asked about marijuana legalization. Obama is opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Which than lead to the question as to whether or not he inhaled. Obama said that he did inhale and that was the point. This question session poked at Hillary, and I think was very helpful to the Obama campaign. First of all, he made sure that everyone understood that these questions were not planted by anyone in his administration, a clear shot at Hillary because of the recent uproar about question planting in her campaign. The big question still lingers however, was it safe for Obama to tell the truth about inhaling marijuana? I think in the long run it pays to tell the truth (even though Bill got away with saying he didn’t inhale, which by the way is preposterous, How does one smoke and not inhale?). I want to hear somebody ask Hillary this question. Oh, and I have a follow up question to the marijuana inhalation question. What kind of smoking apparatus did you use to inhale the alleged marijuana? The answer to that question just leaves a funny picture in my head.



http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/did-obama-inhale/

Party project

I chose that the Republican party has dissolved. The new name for my party is the New Republicans. We are going to run on a staunch conservative platform. We will be pro-life and Christian. We will support no laws that hinder the carrying of firearms, and we will advocate a aggressive stance on terror. With this we will advocate bills that will send our country to war with Iran, and we will support simulated drowning as a tactic for interrogation. We will participate in dirty politics and by this I mean we will call the Democrats weak on terror, and advocate that they have made our country weaker for not allowing the surge enough time to work in Iraq. We will have our constituent bases in the South, and we will support moral Christian values that will allow us to win constituent bases among the religious factions that our country is springing up.

Party project

I chose that the Republican party has dissolved. The new name for my party is the New Republicans. We are going to run on a staunch conservative platform. We will be pro-life and Christian. We will support no laws that hinder the carrying of firearms, and we will advocate a aggressive stance on terror. With this we will advocate bills that will send our country to war with Iran, and we will support simulated drowning as a tactic for interrogation. We will participate in dirty politics and by this I mean we will call the Democrats weak on terror, and advocate that they have made our country weaker for not allowing the surge enough time to work in Iraq. We will have our constituent bases in the South, and we will support moral Christian values that will allow us to win constituent bases among the religious factions that our country is springing up.

Two party system

We have to remember that the most important thing to a candidate is to get elected, and continually be re-elected to a position. Through the two party system candidates, political elites, and interest groups have found a way to centralize that power, and use it to reach there ultimate goal. I feel that the two-party dominated system is actually a good thing for politics. Albeit this factious system is not what the founders intended, it actually has morphed into something workable that reflects American society very well. The idea that there are different factions in each party compliments the idea of checks and balances because these different factions all have a different median voter, and they end up balancing each other out. The same happens on a larger scale between the two major parties. Today, the two party system works well because I feel that many of the issues have just two different possible solutions and that is why we have two different parties. The Iraq war, for instance, we can either get out or stay. And the two party system allows for the two different views to join together and fight for what they believe in.

Lynn Cheney. Go back to Wyoming.

I am having trouble finding a topic for this week so I will speak about something that really angers me. Did anyone see Lynn Cheney on the Daily Show this week? I am so tired of these Republican conservatives and there double standards. First of all who cares about your childhood in Wyoming, we don’t want to read your book ma’am. She tries to be “cool” with the Darth Vader doll, but it goes down hill after that. It’s funny that Dick has his wife come on the show because he doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to come on the show and explain his actions for himself. John Stewart tries to joke, but it is a very awkward interview. I am listening as I am blogging; it is disturbing. I love when he talks about the gay marriage thing. It should be appropriate to talk about. YOU conservatives say that it is wrong, but when your child engages in these actions it is okay. This is not what the founders of our constitution would have wanted. “Mary is a good honorable person”, well stay out of peoples homes and let them do what they want. “Opposing gay Marriage is wrong,” well well well. How can I tie this into parties class? This has been the Republican MO. Do as I say and Not as I do!!!!! Lynn we don’t care. I love when she talks about how the history books will view this presidency/VP/ Thing. When the history books come out she will be married to the 2nd worst person in American History. Dick Cheney. The first being the child president from Texas. Check it Out! This is the Direction our country is going.

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=111468&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_daily_show/videos/celebrity_interviews/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true

links corresponding to blog post below

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/wire.ssf?/base/news/1191313303257540.xml&coll=2

http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061116/NEWS/611160383/-1/State

Conditional Party Government and the Dems in '06

In Aldrich and Rohde’s The Transition to Republican Rule in the House…, they argue that conditional party government is an “explanation of the impact of political parties on behavior within the legislature.” These conditions are met within the Republican house in 1994, and they make many points as to how and why Newt/and/or/Republicans were so successful in centralizing power and finally influencing outcomes of legislation in the House. While this hypothesis holds true for the ‘94 Republicans, I feel that the transition to Democratic Rule in the House in 1996 is a much different situation not granting the Democrats with an ingrained ability to meet the conditions of “Conditional Party Government.” Because the conditions are not met, the Democrats are left with less power than the Republicans. First, we must analyze the two conditions of the “conditional party government.” The first condition is that there must be inter-party heterogeneity, meaning that a line must be clearly drawn in the sand with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. Heterogeneity is not occurring between the two parties. If we look at the federal level of politics, and we will assume that House members will jump on the coattails of one of the candidates, the conservative Christians are willing to support a third party candidate if the primary winner is pro-abortion. This move of Republican candidates to distance themselves from the norm of being Pro-life is a direct assault on the heterogeneity principle. It is making the distinction between Democrat and Republican blurry, and unclear. The second condition is that there must be intra-party homogeneity. This means that the democrats must have a unified front, and agree on basic principles. The Republicans may not have had a unified front, but Newt didn’t allow divisive issues to the floor, and these divisive issues would clearly show the cleavages/weak spots of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party in ’06 does not have homogeneity. The blue dog coalition is a group of fiscally conservative democrats, mostly from the South, who have 44 seats in the house (almost 45 but Christine Jennings of Florida (D) is still crying about a seat that she thinks she won, but lost-see article). These blue dogs are creating a large faction in the House that has enough clout to make roadblocks in legislation. Since they account for 44 votes they must be made happy if anything will pass in the House, and this decentralizes power creating a more heterogeneous Democratic Party. So the difference between the Republicans of ’94 and the Democrats of ’06 is that the Republicans were able to meet the conditions of “conditional party government,” thus creating a centralization of power which gave them the ability to affect outcomes in the House. The Democrats do not have this power, and will have a much more difficult time passing helpful legislation.

Should there be Campaign Finance Reform?

The idea that money has been a major part of politics is not a new concept. How the money is raised, where it is spent, and who can give what amount is a new phenomenon in American politics. There is a lot of talk about campaign finance reform in Washington these days, but is it really necessary? Campaign finance does not need to be reformed because money will always play an integral role in American politics. The reform in 2002 labeled the Bipartisan Campaign reform act did not plug all of the loopholes of campaign finance, it created new ones. By eliminating soft money and increasing the amount of hard money that candidates could receive in each election cycle, the reform helped create a new type of group called the 527 group(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_groups). By trying to plug these loopholes we have created new groups. These groups find a way to get money to the candidate. Money is the lifeline of a candidate, he cannot live without it. Certain groups need friends in congress so they must provide him with adequate funds to remain/ get elected to office. These two prongs working together will always find a way to keep politics about money. We should spend less time working on trying to reform the system, and more time worrying about legislative bills that will affect Americans. The reform has eliminated brown paper bags being exchanged in seedy hotels, and has required full documentation of all funds obtained by the candidate, which should be sufficient to keep the money clean. Money is speech in modern society, and for a democracy to continue functioning it needs money, and we should protect that no matter what the cost.

When it comes to primaries, I'd rather have a beer

Firstly, I would like to talk about the effects of primaries on the voter. A University of Kentucky study called Voting in Primaries: The Impact of Intra- and Inter-Party Competition analyzed the effects of party competition with relation to voter turnout in the primaries, and also the general election. My focus here will be on the primaries. They concluded that “citizens are most motivated to vote when the potential stakes of voting are highest.” A very competitive party primary will yield the most amount of voters, and being a democracy we can say that high voter turnout is a good thing. Also, the study concluded that voting is primaries will be likely when the primary winner has a greater probability of winning the general election. Voters will turnout to the primary if they feel that the general election is actually the party primary due to weak inter-party competition in that state/county etc. So are primaries good or bad for the voter? It’s true that primaries take the power away from the party bosses, but in a primary where there is little intra-party competition primaries could be bad for the voter. Little intra-party competition yields a low voter turnout, and thus gives more power back to the party bosses who support a candidate. In primaries where there is a large amount of competition primaries are good for the voter. Primaries with little competition are bad for the voter because they take the power out of the voter’s hands.

http://www.jstor.org/view/00434078/ap020168/02a00060/0?currentResult=00434078%2bap020168%2b02a00060%2b0%2cFF03&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D26%26gw%3Djtx%26jtxsi%3D26%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dprimaries%26wc%3Don

Are primaries good or bad for democracy? First of all, any institution that puts power into many as opposed to a few is a good thing. Also, the advent of the idea of a candidate as an organization helps to increase the amount of competition in a primary. When a candidate does not have to rely on party funding or even party support to win a primary competition in primaries will rise thus increasing the efficacy of democracy. Candidate centered democracy is a good thing for democracy. In the eyes of the founders it certainly is a good thing because it reduces the probability of a faction rising to power, and thus spreading the idea of democracy.

Are primaries good or bad for the party? My quick answer is going to be that they are bad. If we look at the definition of a party it is a group of people gathering together to win elections. Candidate centered politics has started to dominate the party scene, and thus diminishing the power of the party. Since we no longer have informal/ caucus meetings the power has turned more to the people. This gives a candidate the chance to skew from the beliefs of the party and still win the primary election. We see a push to the center or moderate and this makes parties change there beliefs so they can win elections. Primaries certainly have an affect on parties, but we can see an inverse relationship where as the party power decreases with the use of primaries the effects of democracy start to take hold which I ultimately think is a good thing.

Democratic Majority Breeding More Power

In 2006, the Democratic Party won a large victory over the republicans taking over a majority amount of seats in the Senate. While this victory was a large one, it may be downplayed due to the feelings around the Democratic Party that 2008 could be an even bigger year. The democrats are looking to expand that majority. The Republicans need to defend 22 seats while the Democrats are defending only 12, and the Republican Party has been tarnished with the decreasing approval of the Iraq war and recent scandals in the party. Robin Toner suggests that this “political map” is not the only reason for this new optimism for 2008. She suggests that the political climate will also play a large role in this expansion of majority. The political climate will affect the fundraising (who gets what, and how much), and also will push strong party candidates to jump into key races while the incumbent Republican is most vulnerable. It also makes it a very difficult time for the incumbent Democrats to walk away and retire seeing the pendulum shifting in the favor of there party. One of the strongest proponents of the idea of political climate affecting the 2008 senate races is the expected announcement of former governor Mark Warner into the West Virginia Senate race. This is a position long held by Republican senators. Proving that the national tides are favoring the Democrats. The Democratic Party also will have no retirements in 2008 while the Republicans have three expected retirements in 2008, and open seats in congress make for a more “up for grabs” situation, also favoring the Democrats. In 2006 we saw the political climate pendulum slowly moving to the left, but expect a larger shift in 2008 that will favor the democrats. This is interesting to us because, like the Republican Revolution of 1994, we may be entering into a new era of politics where the dominating party is the Democrats. With this change of preferences, will we see a change in outcomes/ policy? The American people have only one alternative in the two party system, and they are putting there hope into the Democrats, who can hopefully change the outcomes and put this country on a new path.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/politics/12web-toner.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Where is the party at? (or party politics: progressive or digressive)

A political party is a group of people, bonded together by a common interest, ideology, view or moral standard that try and complete certain political objectives or agendas. Political parties have been around since the beginning of the republican style of government. It seems that our fundamental conception of the usefulness of parties in politics has changed since the formation of our government. If we look at George Washington’s farewell address in 1796, he clearly states that party distinctions are dangerous for a democracy… “and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.” Washington recognizes that this sort of take sides spirit is inherit in our psyche as humans, but also calls parties “worst enemy” of a government. One of the points that I respect greatly in Washington’s speech is his point to “remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country;…” Washington certainly formed his opinion of party politics, but did not see the effect of “time” and “habit” and “experience.” Washington and Tom DeLay have polar opposite views on the subject of Party politics. Is either one of them right? I do not know that is why I am taking the class.

yo

Does this work?