Is National Security a Loser?

"The 2006 exit polls, I think, mostly support the view that concern with Iraq was an important source of Democratic strength."

The impact of foreign policy on a Congressional election is dramatically different than the impact of foreign policy on a CiC election.

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"Fundamentally, I'm open to counterintuitive arguments, but I refuse to believe that being responsible for a failing war automatically helps the Republican Party"

Being responsible for a failing war, obviously, is not the reason why Iraq may help the GOP in '08.

But having a failing war to be solved is a plus for both McCain and Giuliani, given what they are trying to sell.

I tend to agree with Cowen that Iraq is a minor positive for the likely GOP candidates in '08. (Though I don't think it would be a positive for someone like Romney or Huckabee...)

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"Similarly, my understanding is that while Bush won the 2004 election, he non-trivially underperformed what had been predicted by deterministic models based on macroeconomic variables"

While I have no links handy to dispute you, this is most definitely not my understanding.

My memory is that most of the economic models showed an outcome very similar to the actual outcome.

A non trivial number of people have become ex-Republicans (like me) because of foreign policy. GOP disaffection with the war never breaks out of single digits, (though perhaps a Hagel candidacy could bring more of the woodwork) but I think it's enough to sway an election--provided the Democrat seems sane, practical, hard-headed. (I'm tempted to say "and not an African warlord" in reference to your humongous Obama thread, but he may, in the end, come to seem that way as well. My guess is Gore could pull it off better.)

This is Tyler Cowen, who is more Republican than any Republican, no matter who he might pretend to be. I suppose this is the sort of thinking that turns Hillary Clinton to Xena, Warrior Princess. Let's all war together forever.

"I tend to agree with Cowen that Iraq is a minor positive for the likely GOP candidates in '08."

Yeah, losing a war in Iraq for $2 trillion must be a positive even if only minor. How many Americans are dead? How many wounded? How many Iraqis? Remind me.

"I tend to agree with Cowen that Iraq is a minor positive for the likely GOP candidates in '08."

Hey, then let's have 2 wars. Let's have 3 wars and turn a minor positive to major positive. Another $2 trillion, sounds right to me.

To amplify slightly on one point:

The '06 elections took on the character of a referendum on Bush. The '08 elections will not be the same.

Historically, the '66 midterms were a referendum on LBJ and Vietnam and the GOP picked up a lot of seats. The '68 election was different, and Humphrey almost won.

The '74 midterms were a referendum on Nixon, Vietnam, and Watergate and the Dems picked up a lot of seats. The '76 election was different, and Ford almost won.

And in '08, since Cheney won't be the standard bearer, the GOP will find it even easier to separate itself from the Bush mess than were the cases in '68 and '76 (or '00).

Mind you, I think Edwards should be able to beat Giuliani or McCain. But I think those who are extrapolating '06 Dem strength out into '08 are missing some crucial background.

(And, of course, Cowen's highlighting of Edwards' general election strength is the part of his post you should have been blogging about...)

"Yeah, losing a war in Iraq for $2 trillion must be a positive even if only minor. How many Americans are dead? How many wounded? How many Iraqis? Remind me."

I'm talkin' electoral politics, not policy...

Dear Tyler, how much tragedy does it take to turn Iraq to a minor negative? For me, a single soldier killed or wounded is more than enough. But, that's just me. Is this the sort of thinking that makes for advising Hillary Clinton?

"I tend to agree with Cowen that Iraq is a minor positive for the likely GOP candidates in '08."

Then if this isn't what you mean, talk otherwise. Talk otherwise anyway, and cut the a-moral strategy advice. We have enough of that from the Clintonians.

I think a reasonably competent opposition party (not necessarily something that will emerge) ought to be able to turn Iraq to its advantage.

Well, it doesn't help if significant factions within the opposition party (a) want to take Iraq off of the table, or (b) believe themselves that while Iraq's a mess, the thought process that got us into it was not.

"I tend to agree with Cowen that Iraq is a minor positive for the likely GOP candidates in '08."

The point of leadership is moral leadership. Make it so, and save American and Iraqi lives and limbs and minds and hearts.

"The 2006 exit polls, I think, mostly support the view that concern with Iraq was an important source of Democratic strength."

My recollection is that 2004 exit polls did the same: "Concerned about Iraq" broke for the Dems, "Concerned about the GWOT [or maybe "terrorism"]" broke for the Republicans.

"Then if this isn't what you mean, talk otherwise."

It's exactly what I mean. I think having a failing war in Iraq is likely a net plus for a McCain or Giuliani general election candidacy.

That is my assessment of the electoral landscape. It is not an assessment of what our national policy should be towards Iraq. Similarly, I think marijuana should be legalized for recreational use, but I simultaneously think that holding such a stance would be electorally very bad for a Presidential candidate.

Surveying the electoral landscape is always best done amorally. Once you understand the landscape, then you can start figuring out the best moral route to your destination.

There are some people who'd rather be wrong than Democrat, and Cowen's one of them. This particular quote isn't especially bad, but he'll always be throwing some attitude our way.

I think I agree with Petey on the amorality meta-point here, but I don't know if the 1968 election is a good analogy. One thing to remember about the whole 1968 campaign is that it was All Fucked Up. Humphrey was part of the war administration, but his opponent, while he made some vague noises about ending the war, wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the peace candidate. The antiwar forces, if they weren't boycotting the election, were supporting Humphrey. Plus you had George Wallace, the aftermath of RFK and MLK's assassinations, and on and on. It's just hard to draw any sort of firm conclusion from that kind of chaos.

Here, you have a clearly identifiable War Party, and while their opponents aren't necessarily the Peace Party they're a whole lot closer to it than the Republicans were in 1968. My guess is that Iraq is a net plus for the Republicans if it does normal-poorly but a net minus for them if it keeps on going to shit like it is now.

"I don't know if the 1968 election is a good analogy."

No doubt that the '68 election is a perfect analogy. And I don't think the '76 election is a perfect analogy either.

But both have some strong lessons for '08 in the limits of extending the results of an unpopular President's sixth year Congressional election to the Presidential election two years after.

(And similarly to '68 and '76, I'd expect both Giuliani and McCain to be down big in the summer of '08, and make up ground late.)

Iraq will obviously be a double-edged sword for the GOP nominee. But I'd bet the positive of Giuliani and McCain's perceived national security strength to 'clean up the mess' will outweigh the negative of their hawkish profile during an unpopular war. And interestingly, that logic doesn't change no matter how bad things get on the ground in Iraq.

"No doubt that the '68 election is a perfect analogy."

Edit: is not a perfect analogy...

Petey's point that unlike 2006, 2008 won't be a referendum on Bush is very valid. I would not go so far as to say Iraq will be a positive for the Republican's. But it may not be the death knell it should be.

On this point, Petey: But having a failing war to be solved is a plus for both McCain and Giuliani, given what they are trying to sell.

I have to concede you maybe right on Giuliani. Though I think McCain's got to much Iraq falure stink on him at this point for that to be the case. In the public mind he's become Bush's successor on Iraq, at least.

All in all, Democrats should spend less time arguing about who was right in 2002, and more time talking about how to get out of Iraq with the minimal amount of blowback for the US.

"I think having a failing war in Iraq is likely a net plus for a McCain or Giuliani general election candidacy."

Then you are blindlingly wrong, but your blind and blinding wildly wrong advice will do wonders to make sure a candidate who would bring peace is not nominated or elected. These are the new warriors princes an d princesses, telling us all how to do a $2 trillion war against a country of no threat to us right.

"My guess is that Iraq is a net plus for the Republicans if it does normal-poorly...."

And, exactly how much tragedy would that entail exactly?

"No matter how badly Iraq goes it helps the Republicans..."

yes, it sure worked out well for them in '06, and I'm looking forward to more of the same.

"your blind and blinding wildly wrong advice will do wonders to make sure a candidate who would bring peace is not nominated or elected."

Funny. I'm operating under apparently bizarre impression that electing any of the Democratic candidates would be the most effective way of bringing peace. And a major reason (though not the only reason) I support the candidate you get to by clicking on my name is that I think he'd be the Democratic candidate most likely to win a general election.

Iraq has been among the most disastrous of episodes in American history. For Democrats not to understand this or understanding not to explain this will be to turn away from much possibly most Democratic supporters and voters. Suddenly, it is as though Republicans are being turned to for policy by Democrats or pretend-Democrats.

Thousands of Americans have died, tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded physically and mentally and morally, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and who can know have many are wounded. Trillions are squandered. Why? Where are the "mushroom cloud" phantoms by which we were driven to war and occupation?

A key quote (and link) from Matt's post:

I should note that there is reason to believe that fear and anxiety push people toward the Republicans.

This is the reason why, as Petey says above, "having a failing war to be solved is a plus for both McCain and Giuliani, given what they are trying to sell. The fear and anxiety caused by foreign crises cause people to seek a "strong daddy" who will provide stability and protection -- which is, of course, the GOP brand image (especially as marketed by McCain and Giuliani), even if the GOP brought us the war that is making people feel insecure.

This paradox is why we get the divide between the Lieberman/DLC stance of "support all wars, no matter how stupid they are" in order to seem strong, and people like Jennifer, who say Democrats should do the right thing no matter how damaging it is politically.

The solution is to state publicly (and repeatedly) the truth that 2006 voters intuitively began to figure out -- that the GOP approach of bluster and military force as the solution to every problem doesn't bring order, whereas a reality-based Democratic approach (better known as "common sense") is the best way to regain stability.

When Democrats discredit the hawkish-bluster ("Threaten loudly and shoot yourself in the foot") approach to foreign policy rather than just Bush or the Iraq war, then the war will be just as much an albatross for Rudy and St. John as it is for Bush.

(I wrote about this specific dilemma and its solution last fall, but sadly the world failed to rally to my banner -- even if particular pols such as Jim Webb seemed to grasp the basic concept.)

I think that the Iraq-Iran War could be a losing issue for the Democrats if they try to finesse the issue without addressing it squarely, or if they are thought to be stancing themselves with electoral voting blocs and polls in mind.

But what are the chances that the Democrats would ever do something like that? Or that the Republicans would ever make a big stink about it if they did?

And if the Democratic candidate does take a strong stance on the issue, certainly there's no chance that a bloc of Democratic leaders will stab him or her in the back.

So really, we're home free.

OK, I like John Edwards also. I just want us out of Iraq.

It's March 2007, twenty months until the election, and in the meantime, the war will surge, maybe another thousand or so will die, something unexpected and outrageous will happen, a war may or may not ensue with Iran, Al Qaeda will re-group in Afghanistan, maybe there will be another terrorist attack within the US, and maybe we'll enter hostilities with someone we're not even thinking about now, such as North Korea. On the domestic front, Congressional Democrats and the White House will skirmish about the authorization, funding, duration and strategic goals of the war, perhaps getting into a pitched battle about constitutional war powers. Meanwhile, various scandals about outed CIA agents, fired US Attorneys, tortured prisoners, innocent prisoners held without trial, warrantless wiretapping and probably something we don't know about yet (maybe it will be more trampled constitutional principles, or masbe it will just be something of dead girls and live boys variety) will raise the general stench and possibly get something going about impeachment, all of which will strongly color opinions about the legitimacy of the war.

The best thing anyone can say now about the impact of Iraq on the 2008 election is that it is utterly unpredictable, because our political situation now is more or less chaotic. We have crises, constitutional and otherwise, everywhere you look. How in the world will presidential candidates deal with all of this? The Republican might very well hunker down again with a message of "the end of the world is nigh, vote for me or die" as Bush/Cheney did in 2004; and the Democrat can either chicken out and go along with the basic premise, as Democrats have so foolishly done for so long, or hang the entire mess on their necks and make it a referendum on everything that they have done.

The Democratic nominee will, above all, have to be flexible and be prepared for just about anything, because anything including new war or new terrorist attacks or an impeachment trial, or something that we don't know that we don't know, are all possible between now and November 2008.

Petey,

You remind of a quote from The Big Lebowski:

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

The neocons, as appalling as they are, at least believe in something, warped as it may be. But believing, as you profess to, that killing brown people is wrong, but that the Democrats should support it anyway, in order to gain power, is a whole nother level of appalling.

Larry, Jennifer, being cold-blooded about analysis of a particular issue isn't the same thing at all as being generally cold-blooded. Petey may (or may not) be quite wrong about any number of things, but that doesn't mean he doesn't believe in anything.

I support the candidate you get to by clicking on my name is that I think he'd be the Democratic candidate most likely to win a general election.

Petey, if you're around, I'm curious how you rate Edwards vs. Obama at this point in time on electability against the likely suspects on the other side. Is the difference significant or marginal in your estimation?

"My guess is that Iraq is a net plus for the Republicans if it does normal-poorly...."

And, exactly how much tragedy would that entail exactly?

Sorry, you're arguing with me why?

I am arguing because if Iraq is a plus for Republicans, then we are a different kind of country than I care to understand. Iraq is a disaster, and Democrats needs to emphasize that or they will lose at least me.

I want to believe that Americans have understood and will understand how disastrous Iraq has been, and how we came to be and stay there. I want to believe that we will leave Iraq soon or at least right after the coming election. I want a candidate who is courageous as John Murtha and says get out now.

We all want to believe that. Whether it's true or not is a question of fact.

If you're right about the country, then Murtha's statement isn't courageous. Courage means saying the truth even if the country isn't naturally inclined to follow you.

You don't seem to understand the difference between positive and normative statements. Attacking someone's normative views based on a non-normative statement is stupid.

djw,

Am I being a bit unfair to Petey? Perhaps. But I've been reading his posts for months, and there literally isn't a hawkish statement by a Democrat that he hasn't endorsed. He has even defended that monster Lieberman, for goodness sake.

Which means one of two things: (1) he is less than sincere in his wishes for peace, or (2) he is hopelessly naive. I vote for a little of both.

The problems with his position, to name only four of many,

(1) Public opinion is shaped in part by their leaders. Hawkish Dems, adding their voice to hawkish Republicans, means more hawkish voters.
(2) His position assumes that the hawkish dems are lying for political purposes, and depends upon that fact. Aside from the dubious policy of supporting politicians in part because you believe that they are liars, what if they are telling the truth?
(3) A president who ran on a hawkish program will likely feel constrained to a large extent to follow that program;
(4) What about the next 2 years? Even setting aside Iraq, if the Dems maintain the (very) hawkish posture that Petey favors, the chance of the horrible crime of an attack on Iran will increase dramatically. And if that happens, nothing will be able to redeem this nation.

I could go on. Really, I'm mostly convinced that it's hopeless, and that the world and ourselves are screwed. Acceptable opinions on foriegn affairs in this country range from genocidal to "only" murderously imperialistic.

Oh, and one last thing. If the voters are really as hawkish as Petey thinks, then in the long run we (and the world) are fucked anyway.

Now, I expect that the voters may well be that hawkish, and as a result we probably are screwed. But I'd rather act on the assumption that they aren't, and put up a candidate with a sane and moral foriegn policy, and hope for the best, than support an ostensible hawk who I hope is really a dove who will trick the American people into voting for him by claiming to be a hawk.

"My guess is that Iraq is a net plus for the Republicans if it does normal-poorly...."

And, guess-wise, exactly how much tragedy would that entail exactly? I am not the least amused or impressed, and you better believe that John Murtha is courageous and inspirational.

I think Cowen's comments underestimate the change wrought on the GOP by Bush. Hawkish Republicans before were balanced by moderates, or relative moderates. When Reagan ran against detente, what was detente? The policy of a republican president. There was always a Scowcroft/Baker face to put on the party before. Kissinger, after being ostracized a bit, was welcomed back. The extraordinary spectacle of Baker being kicked in the face by the White House says a lot about the new Republican party. I think the brakes are gone, and the cult of Bush is still going to be a large and present issue for the GOP. Given that Bush's strategy in Iraq is more than likely to cause a steady rise in American casualties - in fact, this is a contingency all parties acknowledge - and that it is unlikely to pull together anything that looks like victory, the Republican candidate is going to be stuck, as Humphrey was in 1968, promoting a lie. The lie is that Iraq is going fine. It is one thing to be tough, it is another thing to fly in the face of the evidence in an almost mentally deficient way. When the Republican congress played tough this winter, the popularity of things like Murtha's plan did not sink. However, the Democratic unwillingness to get tough has sunk the perception of the Dems.
In fact, the problem for the Dems is that, basically, they have generally the same foreign policy idea as the Republicans. Just as Jimmy Carter's projected military budget and Reagan's were close, so, too, the Dem foreign policy wonks have a close kinship with the Republican policy wonks, but a different rhetoric. Eternal and irrational enmity towards Iran, continuing to shovel insane amounts of money into the Pentagon, a bruising, reactionary latin american policy, continuing 'free trade' treaties that rip off both American and foreign workers while rewarding the rich - that's Hilary Clinton and the Heritage Foundation. No real diff. Whoever becomes president is going to finally have to face the cost of all this, however. America is no longer the world's sole superpower, its strength is drastically reduced in the Middle East and in Asia and in Latin America, and its internal consumer market is highly vulnerable.

if Iraq is a plus for Republicans, we are a different kind of country than I care to understand

Agreed, but it might be true. Look, I suspect there's a good chance Petey's wrong about this, but that's no reason to impugn his motives. Elections and electorates are funny things.

The complaint I have is that I am not looking for a Hillary Clinton sort of triangulation between the planets, but a policy that can save American and Iraqi lives by stopping the occupation of Iraq. War is not peace, and it is time to stand for peace and I am not about to be told to be practical and stand for death and destruction.

Don't tell me about political strategy, because Hillary Clinton has been telling us she believes in war and occupation ever after and that is not my kind of strategy. I don't care a whit for that sort of strategy which is really belief in war and occupation as far as I can tell.

I'm beginning to think "Jennifer" might be some kind of elaborate meta-joke. Her comments started ringing a bell so I did a little googling and came up with this. Nine of the first fifteen comments are hers and about eight of them sound completely unhinged.

"My guess is that Iraq is a net plus for the Republicans if it does normal-poorly...."

And just how much tragedy does normal-poorly amount too? How many soldiers will normal-poorly amount to? How many families lives tragically changed does normal-poorly amount to?

Now, I expect that the voters may well be that hawkish, and as a result we probably are screwed. But I'd rather act on the assumption that they aren't, and put up a candidate with a sane and moral foriegn policy, and hope for the best, than support an ostensible hawk who I hope is really a dove who will trick the American people into voting for him by claiming to be a hawk.

Larry, I think your take on Petey is reasonable, although I don't agree with it completely. To the extent that its wrong Petey can defend himself. But regarding the topic of this thread, say we really are screwed. Why then shouldn't we try to convince the electorate to vote for Democrats in spite of their inclinations? Wouldn't we at least owe that to the rest of the world? Better to have the right leader for the right reasons of course, but if you can't get both, then I'd rather have the right leaders than the right rationale.

Jennifer, feel free to repeat that quote as many times as your heart desires. There's nothing in there that's objectionable.

The point has been clearly made, and to have a leader with the wrong policies is wrong. Wrong is not right. As long as Democrats understand this we will win the coming election. A Democrat playing at being Republican will lose.

I am not trying to be mean, but soldiers are dying and being grievously wounded each day and that is what I want to end and I will support no one who is not for a decisive end to the war and occupation. This war and occupation have been a horror.

When I am told that the Republicans will gain from the war and occupation, I only hear an excuse for a lack of moral leadership.

Matt, I believe that Bushie boy has pretty much destroyed all the illusions the gop has carefully built up about themselves over the last 30 years. That and The hopelessly inept 109th congress with the criminal Delay as poster boy.
These guys over the past 6 years have destroyed their party. No dem could have done such a thorough job of trashing the party to bits.
With Iraq a hopeless mess and civil war (and the pundits still being stupid and believing it's now going well instead of figuring out it's a ruse by the insurgents) and what the congress has done - I think foreign policy and tough and smart on foreign affairs is pretty much done. And of course the laughable Rice as Sec of State.
There is a sea change going on with perceptions and the lies the gop has built up as their and our image. The people in the mainstream are being to wake up to the fact that the gop cannot govern.

JP - I'm not sure we are disagreeing. I think we should nominate as "dovish" a candidate as possible (of the current big three on offer, that would be Obama, though I have serious doubts about him, both on foreign policy (where even he is is far too supportive of the imperial venture for my tastes) and otherwise (e.g., the incredibly offensive remarks about Edwards). That candidate should then do his best to convince the American public that our current course is both immoral and counterproductive.

What I don't want to do is to nominate someone like Clinton, who will run a very hawkish campaign, in the belief that that is what it takes to win, in the hope that she really isn't quite as hawkish as she sounds. Especially since she sounds every bit as hawkish as the current bunch of war criminals.

JP,

Re-reading your post, I think we probably do disagree. Let me put it this way: I'd rather take a chance on the American public (with candidate who questions the Imperial venture), than on an ostensibly hawkish candidate who I secretly believe isn't as hawkish as he, or she, claims.

Of course, as for Clinton, part of my thinking is that I believe that she is, if anything, MORE hawkish than she is letting on.

Larry, I was not aware that Barack Obama had insulted John Edwards. Please explain, for I admire both. Also, thank you for helping my understand the argument better.

OK, I'm tired of this topic. Let's pause for some Gilbertology. From the AP recap of tonight's game:

[Arenas] converted the free throw each time, making him the first player to have two four-point plays in the same game since Tracy McGrady did it for Orlando against Memphis on Nov. 12, 2003.

"That's what I do. I do things like that," Arenas said. "Right now I'm on top of the charts."

That bit of boastfulness was too much for teammate Antonio Daniels, who interrupted by shouting incredulously: "Did you just say, 'That's what I do?' That's what I do!"

"I'm allowed to say that," said Arenas, exercising his usual Gilbertology. "This is my interview."

Wait, there's more. The AP's Joseph White had some fun with this game:

More Gilbertology: Arenas was wearing only a white T-shirt and jeans during his postgame interview. When it was pointed out that he wasn't wearing green for St. Patrick's Day, he pulled a $50 bill out of his pocket. "Bam!" he said. Surprised by the reaction, he added: "You never did that in school? You don't have green on, so you pull out money?"

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/2008-and-counting-using-praise-as-a-weapon-on-the-trail-2007-03-14.html

"I want to wait and hear what John Edwards has to say, he’s kind of good-looking," Obama envisioned Iowa caucus-goers from the small town of Clinton telling themselves. During an appearance in West Burlington, Iowa, the phrase appeared again, this time with Edwards as "kind of cute."

Cowen goes on to say that he expects Rudy Giuliani to be the next president. The implicit promise of a Giuliani presidency for right-wing columnists is that Rudy will be just as aggressive towards Arabs, illegal immigrants, and other non-white populations as he was toward African-Americans in New York. In other words, they think Rudy can successfully apply white racial archetypes to the war on terror where Bush failed.

I don't think it will work. The failure of the war has weakened the archetype of the Dirty Harry type, macho white police figure confronting the inherently criminal non-white world. I just don't think Rudy can ride that image all the way to the presidency.

Thank you, Larry, but sometimes a joke is just a joke. I could easily imagine the 2 running together.

Petey is mostly right, but rarely shows the appropriate amount of horror and terror at the country he is living in. He is also mistaken that any candidate will actually lower the amount of killig done, tho some may contract it out, pay others to do it for us, and save American lives. My conscience is not relieved that our guy, Saddam, killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians with our material support.

Ya want peace and a clear conscience, move to Canada. But you live in Rome, folks, and going to the center of the Colosseum to call for peace will only get you eaten by the lions. Martyrdom suits some types.

I think Matt is learning. The war polls badly because we are losing. No fan cares about player injuries during the Superbowl. Welcome to Rome.

"Iraq will obviously be a double-edged sword for the GOP nominee. But I'd bet the positive of Giuliani and McCain's perceived national security strength to 'clean up the mess' will outweigh the negative of their hawkish profile during an unpopular war. And interestingly, that logic doesn't change no matter how bad things get on the ground in Iraq."

Petey is dead on here, sadly. And it's proof that there isn't a liberal bias in the MSM. North Korea has been an absolute foreign policy disaster yet the recent agreement, which puts us back at the point we were at in 2001 during which time they have exploded nuclear bombs, has been reported as progress. Even if we didn't count Iraq BushCo foreign policy has been incompetent at best yet the perception is that Republican candidates who have aggresively supported those policies have some kind of gravitas in this area that Democrats can't equal.

We live in an ugly time.

So, Bob, what you are saying is that Petey and I are closer than we realize, each of us just choosing different (futile) ways of trying to deal with a hopeless situation? Food for thought, though I'd be more likely to believe it if Petey demonstrated a bit of that "horror and terror."

"While I have no links handy to dispute you, this is most definitely not my understanding.

My memory is that most of the economic models showed an outcome very similar to the actual outcome."

The most famous one certainly didn't:

http://hnn.us/articles/8339.html
"Yale economist Ray Fair consistently argued during the campaign that based on his economic model Kerry never had a chance. Fair's model correctly accounted for the victories of every president since 1960 except for Bill Clinton's in 1992. Just days before the polls opened Fair updated his website to include a final revised prediction based on the latest economic statistics. He indicated that Bush would win 57 percent of the popular vote. Fair got the victory correct but obviously inflated Bush's win considerably."

By contrast, people like Allan Lichtman who used a multiple-factor it's-not-just-the-economy model did much better than Fair.

And if you're right, I'm more comfortable being the guy in the center of the Colosseum calling for peace, rather than the guy supporting Nero because he might be less of a monster than Caligula.

(Okay, I skipped Claudius because he screwed up the analogy.)

Jesus, one election every four years. Predict two right and you're a genius for the next four years at last. Then it's fifty/fifty you'll get three in a row and be a bigger genius yet. That's three coin flips in 12 years. If it doesn't work you find some other gimmick.

"If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further into the future." -- Madeleine Albright

Where's My Pony ...Max Sawicky, who is just a little older than me, and was in SDS in the 60s. Who I respect more than Gitlin, for instance.

"Maybe comfortable wasn't the best word. Main thing is, it's [peace] a marathon, not a sprint. When you're young you tend to discount how long it takes for things to change for the better. This can lead to rash acts and/or burnout. Personally I erred more on the rash side." ...Miracle Max, from comments.

Forty years, Max, and I feel worse than I did during Vietnam. How long does it take? My bet is that change comes from outside before America changes inside.

Hillary Clinton is neither stupid or evil.

"Okay, I skipped Claudius because he screwed up the analogy."

Did you forget Britannia, which Claudius conquered to gain domestic credibility? Tho half the tribes were happy to see us, umm the Romans.

Did you forget Britannia

hehe, good point.

Regarding Hillary, your comment was (typically) cryptic, which reflects your normal style (not that there's anything wrong with that). Now, people can define "evil" differently, and I suppose she is no more evil than your typical hawkish imperialist - I mean, after all, if all of the imperialists are evil then we are surrounded by evil ...

But then, aren't we? How is being willing to kill people who stand in the way of our nation's economic interests anything other than "evil"?

"No matter how badly Iraq goes it helps the Republicans," writes Tyler Cowen, "who benefit from an emphasis on foreign policy, an area where Democrats are never trusted."

It doesn't translate, because the party R's tend to be belligerent, but unwise (and policy central has been captured by fruitcakes), and the Democratic answer to this (c.f. Hillary Clinton) is to be slightly less belligerent and just as unwise. Tough and stupid beats weak and stupid any day.

The common concerns I hear are about the state of international opinion, looking bad, and about the soldiers. The fact that we're losing, badly, and that we should be profoundly embarrassed that bin Laden is not dead and Pakistan has played us for suckers doesn't even register. The D's lack the initiative and seem to not even to be able to concieve of the idea that they need to retake it from the R's to win.

Instead, they seem to view the whole thing as vulgar and not fit to discuss in polite company unless they're sucking up to AIPAC. shrugs

m, never gonna win like that

The Dems certainly were not trusted by the public after Vietnam, both because they originally got us into it, and because the Dems (after Nixon entered office) responded by going to great efforts to establish themselves as the Dove Party -- viewed by the public, with some justice, as the Kneejerk Dove Party. Carter made things worse with his obsessive Ferdinand the Bull behavior, as applied both to the USSR (he actually seemed genuinely shocked when Brezhnev double-crossed him in Afghanistan) and to Khomeini's obnoxious Iran.

But the political Wheel of Fortune always turns eventually, and the absolutely incredible degree to which Bush has botched both the Iraq War and the GWOT has clearly and radically changed the public's attitude toward the Dems at long last -- not (yet) because they're seen as competent, but because the GOP is now seen as similarly incompetent. The Dems won the 2006 election mostly on foreign policy -- and, my God, how many decades has it been since that last happened? The real question now is whether either party will produce a Presidential candidate who genuinely knows his ass from a hole in the ground on foreign and military policy. Up to now America has been incredibly lucky in having the right man in the White House during all its genuinely life-threatening crises, but there's always a first time...

This is somewhat orthagonal to the discussion, but inspired by Bruce's comment.

1972 is usually cited as evidence of the perils of a "dovish" foreign policy position even in response to an unpopular war. What people forget is that, his war crimes aside, Nixon had withdrawn most of our troops from Vietnam by the 1972 election. So Nixon, despite his (deserved) reputation as a homicidal monster, had addressed the concerns of the anti-war center - he had (mostly) brought our boys home. Leaving McGovern only the anti-war left. Hard to believe, but Nixon in 1972 was a pretty popular incumbent.

Obviously, to the extent that our troop levels are more or less the same in 2008 as they are now, the analogy with 1972 breaks down.

Of course, there are, as discussed upthread, other reasons to be concerned about the mod of the electorate in 2008.

Too volatile to tell this early

The electoral effect of hawkishness vs dovishness during and after Vietnam, until the Berlin Wall fell, was much more stable, and tilted in favor of hawkishness, for structural reasons that no longer apply. This was because the Cold War had become incontrovertibly bipartisan more than a decade before the big escalation of 1965-8 in Vietnam. Democrats who opposed the war had to overcome the perception of being feckless and opportunistic for abandoning a consensus they had agreed to at the outset of the Vietnam escalation, and even more fundamentally, earlier when the struggle against Communism became bipartisan. Even insofar as the doves seemed to have a pragmatic point about the war going so badly in Vietnam as to be unwinnable, the wider context of the Cold War served to make any local, tactical, concessions to reality foolish in the wider, strategic setting. Can't let that first domino fall no matter how hard it might be to keep it propped up, because its fall will simply make later struggles against the same worldwide Communist menace even harder.

Of course we're hearing the hawks on Iraq try to invoke the same arguments for this war. It doesn't seem to be working thus far, which should not be surprising. You just have to set up the parallel arguments to see how farfetched, and, more importantly, so far from any consensus shared widely and by both parties, they are. The hawks in this war can talk all they want about Iraq's status as the domino we can't let fall, lest the re-establishment of a caliphate in Baghdad lead to a Muslim re-Reconquista of "Andaluz", but all except the lunatic fringe recognize that as crazy talk. This is much more objectively crazy than the admittedly exaggerated fear that Red Army tanks would be in Paris if NATO weren't resolute enough. But, much more importantly, fear of the Red Army marching into Paris was clearly a folie a deux, bought into by both parties. Ho Chi Minh was clearly a Communist, and clearly receiving massive support from the leaders of the international Communist conspiracy, China and the USSR. Of course the hawks in this war have had to make the mutatis mutandis claims about Saddam's place in the worldwide radical Islamist conspiracy of terror. Except, of course, Saddam demonstrably had no such place, was, in fact, one of al Qaeda's biggest enemies.

Without a prior agreed bipartisan worldview putting this war into a wider context, success or failure of the war itself is free to determine its effects on how people vote. That, by itself, makes the part the war will play in Election 2008 much more volatile and unpredictable, though somewhat less so if you're confident in your predictions about how the war will go between now and then.

But the real political destabilizer in the current war, is that the absence of a bipartisan, mutually agreed, worldview about this war, leaves both sides open to potentially devastating attacks from the other party.

The Republicans have already pretty much shot their wad on accusing the Dems of treasonably undermining the struggle against the supposedly existential threat we were under from Saddam's Iraq. But this just makes clear that what they need is a better adversary if their strategy of scaring the bejeesus out of the electoratre is to work. The Iraqi insurgency has been woefully inadequate in that respect, killing our soldiers instead of our civilians. This is why the Republicans so desparetly need a war with Iran, or more to the point, why they need the second 9/11 that only Iran, of all the potential targets of US aggression, would seem capable of delivering. Let Iran kill a few hundred Americans, and, no matter how many Iranians we had to kill to get them to retaliate in this way, the Republicans can get back to depicitng the Dems as treasonably unwilling to kill as many Iranians as the Republicans think we should to protect this great country of ours from..., well, if enough American civilians are killed, the electorate will not be thinking that subtly. If this strategy works, as in, gets a second 9/11 that isn't too obviously a result of the administration's incompetence, the result could be a Republican blowout in 2008. What makes it so attractive as a strategy though, is that there don't seem to be any viable less desparate strategies out there, that might deliver less than a blowout, but at least a marginal victory.

The Dems are congenitally less inclined to go for either the jugular, or a Hail Mary Pass. Even if they were inclined to the offensive, this cycle looks favorable to them anyway to stay on the defensive, just sitting back and letting the Republicans lose the election by themselves on the weakness of a failing Iraq War. But the outline of an attack strategy for them is pretty clear. They could contend that the Republicans sought out this otherwise senseless war precisely in order to have some war going allowing them to deploy their patented anti-Democratic attack strategy of accusing us of hating America because we aren't as willing as they are to shoot first and never get around to asking questions. This strategy, if successful, also promises a blowout in 2008, or maybe even a Democratic President sooner, after Bush and Cheney are convicted in the Senate.

It really gets hairy when you consider the interplay of these strategies in a matrix with their payoffs. Going for the other side's jugular may quickly establish itself as the dominant strategy for both sides, because an ongoing war that lacks a pre-agreed bipartisan narrative simply leaves both sides no choice but to create their own narratives identifying the other side as the Bad Guys. Someone will have to be blamed for the fiasco, and if it isn't Them, it will inevitably be Us, so we better make sure it's Them.

The 2008 election, if there even is one, promises to be among our nation's most volatile, and all because of this war. It would be early even in a normal election cycle to tote up the probable electoral effects of even normal factors. This won't be a normal cycle, and the War in Iraq isn't a nomral factor.

But the outline of an attack strategy for them is pretty clear.

It's even easier than the one you suggest, Glen.

The GOP/hawkish Dem message, in short, is "No matter how badly things are going in Iraq, we have to stay, because it's the best way to defend America."

The problem with an "out of Iraq now" message is that it doesn't answer the second half of that sentence -- and so makes it easy for dishonest hawks to suggest their opponents don't care about defending America.

The solution, the basic message that the 2006 electorate was begging to hear (and I'm guessing the 2008 electorate will be as well), is "There's a better way to defend our country than having 1,000 Americans a year die in Iraq."

It seems obvious to me that this is the message that the entire Democratic party should be able to get behind, but strangely I don't hear any Democrats saying it plainly.

A Republican administration aided and abetted by a Republican Congress lost not one, but two wars during the past five years.
They also squandered a great deal of good will and support from our allies, neutrals, and a few of our nominal enemies. Had the US made a serious effort in Afghanistan and not invaded Iraq, it would have been possible to end Al Qaeda as we know it.

If the Democratic candidates for president can not turn what many have called the greatest American strategic disaster in a century into a negative for Republican candidates then they do not deserve to run the country. One tact I would take is proposing a vast increase in military spending especially retention policies for officers and senior NCOs. You can throw expanding special forces, creating some type of rapid reaction "terrorist hunters" (to be based over the horizon of Iraq) and expediting/increasing the production of MRAPs if the candidates feel they need more cachet.

"Britannia, which Claudius conquered to gain domestic credibility?"

Claudius realized that Britannia was the Central Front in the War on Druidofascist Terrorism, and was bold enough to take preemptive action.

This is getting very very very tiresome.

What Tyler Cowen and Petey are saying is the Received Wisdom. Petey's been repeating exactly that here for five years. Cowen apparently had a deadline and nothing special to write about.

If the Received Wisdom is that the Democrats lose, the Democrats' job is to change the Received Wisdom. Otherwise they will lose.

See? It's as simple as that.

In American politics the big winners over the last 25 years have been Reagan and Gingrich. They both changed the ball game by not accepting the Received Wisdom of their time, thus producing today's Received Wisdom: the wisdom which has helped Shrum lose ten out of ten Presidential campaigns.

T make anything happen, you have to confront issues rather than finessing them.

There were 6 American soldiers killed in Iraq yesterday. Will that help or hurt, whom? Is that a minor negative or a negative or a major negative, and to whom? This was a terribly bloody weeks in Iraq. Do we pay attention anymore? Do we know after 4 insanely tragic years? Please tell me of the minor negatives of Iraq.

Also, Barack Obama spoke in Oakland yesterday, and yes, there really were peace demonstrations yesterday, there really were, and Obama gave hope of peace in Oakland at least to the friends who excitedly thought to tell me so.

Hope of peace is a minor and major positive; for many.

I agree with Matt. I don't see any evidence that the Iraq war will help Republicans. Anyway, it's true that Americans generally prefer macho Republican rhetoric; but the Iraq war is so disastrous, voters will listen for a plausible plan, not rhetoric. I don't think there's a plan a Republican can propose for Iraq that won't alienate either the insane base or everyone else.

Similarly, my understanding is that while Bush won the 2004 election, he non-trivially underperformed what had been predicted by deterministic models based on macroeconomic variables

I remember hearing the same thing. Basically, Kerry never had a chance in 2004, and actually polled surprisingly well.

This pre-election article reports one model predicted Bush at 58%, but others as low as 51%:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/23/news/election_models/index.htm

Sounds like a good topic for further research.

"The impact of foreign policy on a Congressional election is dramatically different than the impact of foreign policy on a CiC election."

We don't elect a commander-in-chief. We elect a president. The prescient founders who created our Constitution envisioned people like you and Bush, who want to keep our country in permanent war so that they can claim the powers of the military for their own. Tough luck. Americans have always rejected the military dictatorship model, and always will. So stop calling Bush "our commander-in-chief". No other president has been so weak he had to pretend that one facet of his job was the only one that counted. All the others realized that they were not The Boss, but rather an elected public servant, elected not by some colonels but by the mostly civilian populace.

Well, except for Bush. He was "elected" by the Supreme Court, and I sure hope those justices are having trouble sleeping these nights.

For Americans under 40, George Bush has defined the Republican party.

They are fiscally reckless, divisive and incompetent.

They abandoned a major American city after the Katrina disaster, They launched a trillion dollar war against a toothless enemy and still managed to bungle it.

Nobody can claim that the Republicans are strong on defense anymore.

If Republicans are more trusted than Democrats on foreign policy, howcome every Republican President claims to be the reincarnation of Harry Truman?

Meself I like Julia Childs's definition of the politics she missed in the Eisenhower years: "FDR at home, Acheson abroad."

(Thoughts of the Marshall Plan brought about by my just having read Jeffrey Sachs's "The End of Poverty.")

I think that most of those who assume the GOP is "better" on national security haven't thought about specific policies. They just want to see the US flex its muscles abroad.

"Arabs attacked us on 9/11, so lets attack some Arabs now." That kind of thing.

A really good Democratic candidate ought to be able to cut through this fog, and explain how we're less secure today than before we invaded Iraq.

My hopes are with Obama here.

Swopa,

The hawk strategy you describe is what lost for them in 2006. It doesn't work anymore because we are now in our fourth year of empirical proof that the Iraqi insurgency either can't or won't touch us in America.

You could plot Dubya's favorables out from January 2001 to the present. They show a steady decline from his initial honeymoon levels, then a sharp spike up in response to the godsend of 9/11 (a godsend for the President, anyway, for the rest of the universe, not so much). From immediately post 9/11 to the basement in which his favorables now dwell, there has been a steady decline, punctuated only by occasional temporary sawtoothing back up in response to invading Iraq, Orange Alerts, capturing Saddam, and the other media events in the GWOT that they have staged since to terrorize the electorate. The levels always decline back to the overall downward trend line, however, within a month or two, as people gradually realize the non-event nature of what has been foisted on them. But it's been a good two years since they have been able to even stage one of these temporary bumps. The electorate is wise to the manipulation. Their response to the latest such stunt, the surge, was to skip the upward bump and go straight for the downswing of the sawtooth. We used to call this a "credibility gap" during an earlier war. Their credibility gap on this war has become unbridgeable, and so this war is of no further use to them, except as a way to get to a new war.

The hawks need a new, better, enemy. They need an enemy who can terrorize Americans, not just kill dribs and drabs of our ground troops occupying their country. Killing American civilians would be best, but closing the Gulf long enough to cause a depression, or even sinking an aircraft carrier or two, would probably work nearly as well. The hawks, in short, need war with Iran, and a war that will goad Iran into unleashing their terrorist associates and affiliates on America.

To survive, the hawks have to move on, to newer, bigger, "better", wars. We can't expect them to come at us in the old way, with just the puny old war that has lost its ability to terrorize the electorate into voting Republican. We have to be ready to stop the shiny new war they are trying to provoke with Iran.

I'm with John Emerson and Swopa here. I think the electorate is practically begging to get a new received wisdom. Sure, there are hard-core Republicans out there, probably mostly older people who have much stronger political memories of the 60s and 70s, but they can't save the Republican party by itself. Most of thinking America, and younger people in particular, would be completely done with the Republican party if the Democrats could get out the right political message.

The Dems could win this presidential election without doing this- but it would be squandering an opportunity. But if the Democratic party was able to marshal its energy behind the right message- kind of like Gingrich did, then the shift could be monumental. What's that message? The Republican party is full of dishonest and corrupt hacks. That rash war-making is not a moral foreign policy or a wise one. That pompous cock-strutting is a useful mechanism for winning wars. That torture is immoral and unAmerican and that the Iraq war is an unmitigated disaster and that the responsibility lies first and foremost with Bush and the Republican party.

Of course I could be wrong. But as John Emerson said, the alternative is still losing.

The '06 elections took on the character of a referendum on Bush. The '08 elections will not be the same.

I think you're wrong here- '06 was a referendum on the war, not the president personally. This is why the GOP as a whole suffered; it is the party most closely associated with the war, the war is even less popular now, and it will still be going on in '08.

Historically, the '66 midterms were a referendum on LBJ and Vietnam and the GOP picked up a lot of seats. The '68 election was different, and Humphrey almost won.

The '74 midterms were a referendum on Nixon, Vietnam, and Watergate and the Dems picked up a lot of seats. The '76 election was different, and Ford almost won.

...But I think those who are extrapolating '06 Dem strength out into '08 are missing some crucial background.

Posted by: Petey on March 17, 2007 05:39 PM

Ok, so in '66 the GOP picked up seats AND gained the White House 2 years later, and this was a reaction to a highly unpopular president.

In '74, the Democrats gained seats AND the White House 2 years later, and this was a reaction to a highly unpopular president.

BUT, we can't extrapolate from any of this that the war is going to hurt the GOP in '08 like it did in '06.

With respect, Petey, if you're going to cite historical examples, maybe you could use some that actually support your case, not directly refute it?

Don't get me started on the immorality (not amorality, immorality) of continuing an unpopular, unjust, illegal war of aggression and occupation... because if we just keep it up for another year, we'll gain the White House and more seats! It is no different from Bush, Inc.- use war abroad to gain domestic power.

The Democrats didn't start it, so it remains a GOP war- but enough Democrats enabled it, including Edwards, and now the party leadership seems willing to continue it on the grounds that it will hurt the GOP. It's disgusting.

Hey, I like Edwards. But I cannot support anyone who supported this war and only much later stopped supporting it. If we take him and Hillary at their word that they were fooled by that brilliant trickster W then they both reveal a disturbing naivete bordering on stupidity.

Neither of them are stupid or naive, so it's logical to assume their positions were based on exactly the sort of amoral political calculation you describe. In other words, they weren't fooled, but they went along with it because it was popular, and both are lying about that now. This is unacceptable to me, a lifelong Democrat. Come primary season, my vote will go to Kucenich, Obama, or any other early opponent of the war.

Salient to the point of morality v. amorality in national politics, I just came across this quote from Bill Richardson, reacting to questions about how his support for medical marijuana in NM will affect his presidential campaign:

"So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do."

THAT'S what used to be called leadership. You do the right thing because it's the right thing, and you trust the people to recognize it. If they don't, you take your lumps but keep your honor. This still matters to a lot of voters, and especially to grassroots supporters.

Of course, the consultantocracy that mismanages, for hefty fees, Democrats' national campaigns never, ever, get this.

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