Ideology and Redemption

The Right Wing’s Resurgence and the Left Wing’s Dreams

JUNE 18, 2010

It’s a good time to be Governor Bobby Jindal.  As the Gulf oil spill sends the Obama team fishtailing from emotional valleys to emotional peaks, the Louisiana Republican has seized a chance to burnish his image as a competent executive.  Jindal is calm enough to show steady leadership but concerned enough to project outrage.

For Jindal, these management plaudits represent a renaissance.  In February of 2009, with Obama’s ratings still sky high, Governor Jindal gave the response to the President’s economic recovery address to Congress.

Speaking from his governors’ mansion, Jindal painted a small government, free market portrait of the way forward.  He sounded traditional conservative rallying cries: lower taxes, less spending, and a strong national defense.  The Republican base loved it.

Unfortunately for Jindal, the Republican base doesn’t judge media outings; the pundits do.  They deemed the speech a disaster.  Jindal’s small-government views were stale and tired, they said.   If conservatism aimed to play in the Obama Era sandbox, it would have to learn to get along with the other kids.  The American people wanted government intervention and had proven so with their votes.  The limited government dog just wouldn’t bark anymore.

So much for that.

As political developments have shown, Jindal’s recent redemption is not his alone.  An ideology has been redeemed as well.

Just months after Jindal’s allegedly tin ear address, the Tea Party movement was grabbing headlines.  It attracted thousands to rallies, powered favored candidates, and dominated political discussion.  One poll showed the Tea Party with higher nationwide favorability than either of the major political parties.

The conservative surge was not limited to fringe activists, either.  Repeated surveys have shown a broader public backlash against President Obama’s expansive view of government’s economic role.  People want less intervention and rank deficit reduction and spending cuts as dominant concerns.  The commentators, not Jindal, were out of touch.

The Tea Party is not the whole story, however.  The commentariat’s botched reading of the political landscape is a window into modern liberalism.  The reason pundits were so quick to pronounce the ideology of Reagan dead was because they wanted it to be.  This was the big moment many liberals with memories of the ‘60s had been waiting for: a charismatic president with a mandate to remake the nation and finish the work of the New Deal and the Great Society.

The pundits mistakenly assumed that Obama’s election presaged the dawning of a new era.  The conservative heyday announced with Goldwater’s opening salvo and culminated by Reagan’s election was dead, left wrecked and smoldering thanks to George W. Bush.  Bush gave new life to the liberal dream of a return to the dominance of the New Deal coalition.  The talking heads were wishful thinkers.

They were one half of a division within liberalism: tortoises and hares.  The over-hopeful pundits represent the hares.  The hares believe the ‘60s aren’t over, or are repeatable.  The liberal progress and preeminence of that era can return again, they say, if only Democrats would start nominating true liberals, not the moderates who sent project off the rails.  For the hares, Social Security, Medicare, and similar milestones are all possible again.

Standing opposite from the hares are the tortoises.  They have a sense of American history.  They recognize that the huge changes of the ‘60s and the New Deal coalition supremacy in general were the result of specific, historical forces.  These included economic changes, social changes, and cultural changes, many of which were born in World War II (women in the workplace being one example).  Whatever their origin, these social forces were what forged the ‘60s, and they didn’t last.

Mid-century liberal progress was a fluke.  It was a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit in a center-right country with a history of small government and isolationist foreign policy.  Pre-Depression, the post office was the most contact citizens had with the government and the country’s first permanent foreign military alliance was NATO.  The tortoises take note of all this.

The tortoises differ with the hares over the future as well.  The hares want to speed ahead with big changes like single-payer health care or at least a public option.  They want a sweeping cap-and-trade bill, or even better, a carbon tax.  The tortoises are more pragmatic.  Because they recognize America’s more traditional, center-right view of things, they advocate incremental change in smaller packages, culminating eventually in the big goals.

President Obama can still be counted as a tortoise.  He is interested in reform, not revolution, and endorses centrist Congressional allies over MoveOn.org favorites.  Cognizant of the difficulty of repeating flukes, Obama allows compromise and concessions in the legislative process.  It’s a part of governing tortoises accept.

The Gulf oil spill, however, shows the limits of the tortoise strategy.  If the hares are guilty of overreach and political suicide, the tortoises are guilty of giving away too much.  Before the debate on a new energy bill started, Obama conceded offshore drilling to the Republicans without a fight.  The spill made that move look singularly foolish.

And so we are left with a Democratic Party divided against itself, but lurching forward with incremental reforms.  That looks and sounds like a win for the tortoises.  Indeed, the history of progressive change has largely been an incremental, gradual one.  With an invigorated conservatism, these tortoises might be the only ones that survive the oil spill.

Our Moment on Earth

APRIL 28, 2010

Dear Grandchildren,

I’m writing to you to explain what we did to your planet, and why we did it.  Let me first tell you what prompts my letter.

This month a very special event happened.  Eyjafjallajokull, an Icelandic volcano, erupted spectacularly.  From inside the earth came plumes of ash miles high, fountains of lava, and even lightning.  Much of the world was mesmerized by these images, as they conveyed to us the awesome power of planet Earth.

Our pause did not last long.  After a short delay, the world was back on schedule.    We picked ourselves up off the floors of airports and flew onward.  We returned to our sales pitches and war councils.  There were vacations to spend, meetings to attend, and crates to move.  Like sharks, we could slow down, but never stop moving, lest we die.

I wish we had taken more time to think about Eyjafjallajokull, for your sake, grandchildren.  It reminds us acutely of our place on this planet.  We are so small and so insignificant.  Despite all our best laid plans and carefully drawn schemes, it was all thrown into barely-controlled chaos by one volcano’s eruption.  Without regard for human plans, the volcano kept to its own timetable, forcing rich and poor alike to cope and scramble.

A stranded passenger waits with her luggage at Termini train station in Rome on April 19.

Eyjafjallajokull was so effortless in its exercise of raw power.  When we sent NATO fighter jets into the European skies to see if the danger had passed, the planes returned with severely damaged engines.  Think of all the hours spent in labs, perfecting those engines, only to have them ravaged by tiny silicate glass particles wafting through the air.  Nature doesn’t strategize.  It simply acts, and dominates.

We should have noted our impermanence as well.  For eons, volcanoes erupted without a human audience and for eons after we’re gone, they’ll continue to do so.  Recognizing the transitory nature of our moment on Earth should prompt a reevaluation of our priorities.  We should spend more time with our families, treat our bodies better, and feed and clothe all people.  With so little time in the world, these things are among the most important.

The important value I didn’t mentioned above is the focus of my letter to you: our planet’s health.  I was stunned by the beauty of Eyjafjallajokull’s eruption.  That beauty should have reminded my generation of our responsibility to care for the only home we have by ensuring its water is clean, its air is fresh, and its climate is in balance.

We have not done that.  As I write, our climate is changing in frightening and harmful ways.   When you read this letter, the disastrous effects of our disregard for the planet will probably be acute.  In fact, it may already be too late to reverse the change we started.  My most significant legacy to you may be what comes out of the tailpipe when I drive a car.

That’s a shame, especially since events like Eyjafjallajokull serve as potent reminders of how interconnected the world is.  When Europe shuttered its airports, flights across the globe were cancelled and international commerce was impeded.  This is the world we have made – one where all people are bound to each other.  This situation was not our innovation.  Nature, and its climate, was an interconnected web long before we were.  Events in one place profoundly affect the climate of places far distant.

A reddish sky at sunrise hangs over Budapest, Hungary, on April 17 as ash spewed by Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano reaches across Europe.

You might wonder how we let the planet get so damaged.  The answer is complex.  On one level, it was a product of our culture.  We were individualists, and with that mindset, caring about a web of life and interdependence was very hard.  On another level, it was bad incentivizing.  Dumping waste in rivers and selling gas guzzlers was profitable.  We made doing the right thing seem anti-business.  Little did we know how dangerous this short-term thinking was.

I hope things improve for you.  I hope when you read this letter, the planet is returning to balance.  I hope more events like Eyjafjallajokull’s eruption remind my generation of our meekness, our impermanence, our interconnectedness, and our responsibility.  We don’t have much time, so we should make the most of what we have.

Most of all, grandchildren, please do two things: forgive us, and do better.  I apologize for what happened.  If no one else apologizes, I hope mine is enough.  And please note where we went wrong, and how we tried to make it right.  That way, you’ll never have to write a letter like this.

Now go find your own Icelandic volcanoes, and make for yourselves a better world.

With love,

Grandfather

Russell and Me

APRIL 14, 2010

Russell Krantz is a conservative I can believe in.

I zipped down to Washington, D.C. in late February to check in with my good old buddy from the Grand Old Party.  Russell, a common sense conservative from Washington State, is a former Republican congressional intern.  He’s also one of the most insightful and intelligent political observers I’ve known.

Last summer, Russell and I roomed together in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Washington and discovered that conservatives and liberals can get along after all.  We shared dreams of what politics could be and should be: respectful, public- spirited, and bipartisan in tone and behavior.

To those ends, I’m turning over my column this week to Russell.  What follows is Russell’s take on current American politics, in snippets from a recent conversation of ours.  Our politics talk featured analysis, speculation, gossip, laughs, and above all, respect.

Stick that in your angry pipe, Joe Wilson.

Speaking of Joe “You lie!” Wilson, why are there so many Republicans with his South Carolina accent, and so few with, say, an Amherst inflection?

“I think it goes back to the southern strategy of Nixon how the rhetoric of the party shifted more towards social issues and a reaction against Sixties liberalism,” Russell said.  The Republicans “moved away from liberals and they just grew further and further apart.”  Regional polarization became a legacy of the Sixties.

“I think that for both parties, it was a period of redefining themselves.”  The Democrats, he said, disgraced by Vietnam, “moved more toward domestic issues” they could win with.

Republicans of that era “brought out more of the very pro-American sentiment and…‘nuclear family’ stuff.”  These issues were “a stabilizing force against the perception of society moving too far too quickly…” on social issues.

Can this polarization be overcome?  Russell found a few points of agreement for liberals and conservatives, like civil liberties.  “I think that a lot of…conservatives who tend more toward libertarian ideas, they tend to always be suspicious of the government.”

He said anti-government libertarians’ fears about civil liberties were always there, latent: “They just get more supporters when the person in power is somebody conservatives don’t agree with.”

Russell and I agreed populism is another bipartisan phenomenon.  “Both parties at certain times resort to populism to push their agenda.  I think that the president also has populist rhetoric.”

Obama’s populism is more evident, Russell says, “when he’s out in districts talking with local media…than when he’s in Washington talking to national media.  I’m simplifying it a little bit, but if you think about the way he talks during the State of the Union or in a press conference it has a different…tenor than when he’s in a contested congressional district.”

For Russell, Obama populism wasn’t an automatic plus.  “One of the things I like most about him is how he seems very analytical and level-headed about how he approaches things.  All that goes out the window when he’s out barnstorming…I would say I like D.C. Obama better.”

No wonder Obama likes to get away and have fun, I thought.  Washington is rife with partisanship.  What drives this?  Russell blamed the parties’ extreme wings, not mainstream participants.

“They always talk about the atmosphere of Washington as so polarized and poisonous.  My impression is that it’s more of a reflection of the atmosphere of the entire country.  I don’t think there’s any visceral hatred between members of different parties…the real venomous dislike and opposition is out in the districts.  That’s where you get the Tea Party people now or back in the Bush administration the really antiwar people.”

The Tea Partiers came up again in the context of the Republican 2012 contest.  “Is it going to be Sarah Palin?” I wondered.

“I would say at this point because of the sentiment out there it would not be Sarah Palin, but somebody who has the rural American populism down, who can speak in that language,” but has a thicker resume than Palin, Russell predicted.

Russell cautioned that not all potential Republican nominees could pull off that balance.

“I mean, Mitt Romney really tries to have that about him, but people keep realizing he’s a multi-millionaire from Boston who uses two gallons of hair gel a day and they can’t really relate to him.”  Russell mentioned Texas Governor Rick Perry as one who could blend Tea Party street cred with governing chops.

Texas governors reappeared as our conversation drew to a close.  I asked Russell if George W. Bush deserves a Nobel Peace Prize if Iraq succeeds.

“One of the greatest things about Bush’s handling of the Iraq war is that I don’t know if the idea of getting a Nobel Peace Prize even crossed his mind, or even if it had, it was the kind of thing that would’ve had the slightest effect on what he was doing.  The surge is the greatest example of that.  It was radically unpopular when it happened,” Russell said, noting that Bush nonetheless refused to waver from his vision.

An American Nobel winner with a steady, long-term leadership style – that sounded familiar.  Are Obama and Bush twins separated at birth?  The image was a little too much bipartisanship for one conversation.

“It was good talking to you.”  You, too, Russell.

“Up in the Air” of American Politics

MARCH 10, 2010

Like George Clooney’s character in “Up in the Air,” I’ve been traipsing from coast to coast, from airport to airport this past week.  As I crossed the continent from Amherst to D.C. to Oregon, I inhaled the country’s prevailing political winds.  Spoiler alert: for incumbents, there won’t be a Hollywood ending.

Over lemon chicken at Nooshi, a swanky East Asian restaurant in Washington’s Foggy Bottom district, and at neighboring George Washington University, I caught the latest political gossip.  Conservatives are pumped and excited.

CPAC, the right wing’s biggest get-together of the year, was “awesome.”  Glenn Beck’s speech was OK, but what really excited my conservative friends was the chance to witness the rising tide of disenchantment (and fury) with the Obama administration and the corresponding grassroots mobilization.  Republicans are clamoring to get back in power.

Liberals are not so pumped.  Perhaps cognizant of the White House’s failure to craft a coherent narrative for this presidency, they are searching for PR internships – not community organizing job.  If not seeking a PR gig, they are licking their wounds together at spots like Nooshi.

Out on the west coast in Oregon, with its blue skies, green grass, and surf, only the weather is sunnier.  Anti-incumbent candidates’ lawn signs litter the suburbs where swing voters live.  Oregon isn’t the Democrats’ biggest headache this year, but trends from elsewhere are visible on the ground.

What’s the most prominent of those national trends?  Frustration.  It’s a feeling I got at Seaside, Oregon where I went to hear the roar of the Pacific crashing at the beach, to breathe the misty, clean air, to write in the sand with driftwood, and relax.  Instead, I spent 45 minutes on hold, trying to make flight arrangements. It was a battle of wills that consumed all my available time at the beach.  Instead of admiring the power of the incoming surf, I listened to Delta Airlines promos.  This bureaucratic, unsympathetic, irritable, impersonal institution exasperated me.

That battle on the beach encapsulates how many Americans feel about institutions right now.  They are mad because those institutions all failed spectacularly.

Wall Street failed miserably, taking huge, irrational risks in a mad dash for bigger houses, cars, and yachts.  When their delicately built house of cards collapsed in a heap, taxpayers ended up paying the price.  Washington failed, too, by dropping the ball on regulation and oversight.  The sweet nectar of campaign contributions flowing from Wall Street’s coffers was too much for politicians to resist and the people’s institutions failed them.

How do we frustratingly live now?  Overhead luggage compartments on airplanes are overflowing because the airline industry’s sky-high checked baggage charges.  When people have to cram (or pay extra) they get mad.  The State of Oregon has been reduced to advertising its own usefulness.  At idle construction sites, signs read “Your tax dollars at work.”  The state government uses these signs to validate its existence and make it marginally less unpopular.

Some Americans are just moving on.  My seatmate was reading a book about a “Post-America world.”  Another was perusing an article about Shanghai’s upcoming World Expo, which promises to be the biggest since these exhibitions started in the 19^th Century and a coming-out party for the Far East’s thundering economic engine.

“Up in the air” this past week I saw Americans united in their doubt and disappointment.  The Establishment in field after field of endeavor failed them.  They are no longer sure our political systems can solve our problems at all.  And yet people still have slivers of hope left.  What options are we confronted with?

On one side stand the Republicans, dead set on drowning government in the bathtub.  Theirs is an ideology that promises to solve all your problems by letting you solve them alone.  It’s a so long to government itself.  Will the electorate choose this?

Or will they choose the Democrats and President Obama?  They promise to tax the fatcat bankers, get your money back, and spend it to end the recession, whatever the cost to fiscal health.  Shoot first, tackle giant deficit later.

Many voters want neither.  They are balancing their own budgets, expect government to do the same, and are worried about growing our debts to foreign creditors.  This ill-disposes them toward the Democrats.  And the Republicans are still tainted by their disastrous tenure at the helm: Iraq, Katrina, the unpopular bailouts.  These blunders left a lingering, pungent conservative aftertaste.

What we’re doing now is what we often do – negotiating our divided political consciousness.  We are a small government, rugged individualism country with a history of cooperation, socialized services, and government involvement.  We want Washington to mind its own business, but we know deep down that although anti-government ideology feels good, it doesn’t solve problems and hasn’t made the country strong.

What is uncommon now is the lack of decision emerging from this negotiation.  Usually this process enables one party to fall, the other to rise.  This time, we are frustrated with everyone.  The painful irony for Democrats is that they are now the incumbents and will bear the brunt of the country’s fury and wrath.

From coast to coast, frustration is king.  Woe to those who wear a crown.

very shirt live blog — FinReg vote

5:23 First Test Vote in progress.  Mr. Rockefeller? Mr. Rockefeller? “I”

5:23 Will the Republican line hold?  If one breaks, s/he makes the rest look obstructionist.  If they stay together, the ‘cynical partisan’ narrative might hold out.  The key here is to rule the narrative.  They can only do that if the picture remains the same–Republicans vs. Democrats.  If there is a diversity of opinion, we are in trouble.

5:24 Mr. Ensign? Mr. Ensign? “No”

5:30 Good Ol’ Ben Cornhusker Kickback Nelson votes no

The consequence: major waste of political capital.  Forcing a vote seemed like a great idea, unfortunately, the Democrats look partisan, Republicans can claim the wisdom card–demonization did not work.  Worse yet, Reid apologized to McConnell.

What I Found in Tibet

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

One day last fall I was stopped in my tracks by an advertisement on the streets of Beijing.  The ad for China Mobile, the country’s largest cell phone carrier, pictured a Tibetan woman in traditional dress talking on her cell phone, with snow-capped peaks and a Buddhist temple in the background.  I stared at it, aching to return to that magical land.  Then I snapped out of it.

The romanticizing of Tibet is pervasive, pernicious, and its effects on Sino-U.S. relations were on display last week when President Obama met with the Dalai Lama.  China traditionally howls whenever foreigners meet with the Dalai Lama, accusing them of interfering in Chinese affairs and abetting a separatist.  The Obama-Lama get-together was especially low-key since Washington can ill afford to offend China, America’s creditor and potential partner in defusing a nuclear Iran and combating the climate crisis.

America has been on the receiving end of these Chinese fits repeatedly, since it has a long record of embracing the cause of Tibetan freedom, a cause little understood by its most ardent American champions.  To understand why celebrities embrace the Dalai Lama like a hip bottled water, it’s necessary to grasp the history of Tibet’s image in the West.

In 1933, English author James Hilton’s novel “Lost Horizon” was published.  The book was set in the utopian kingdom of Shangri-La, hidden high in the Himalayas, where the characters discover a paradise of longevity and peace.  The name “Shangri-La” is now associated with such an Eden.  The novel was so popular FDR named his Maryland retreat Shangri-La.  It’s now “Camp David”, but the image of Himalayan Tibet as an idyllic throwback stuck.

This image was the cultural inspiration for the China Mobile ad that mesmerized me.  The world has come to picture Tibetans as uncorrupted, gentle people tending flocks in a mysterious, faraway land of snowy mountains and chanting Buddhist monks.  Famous photos of Tibet testify to this, featuring rainbows, palaces, and other mystical elements.

The romanticizing of Tibet and its people mask a surprising history.  The Tibetans once had a large empire that conquered others, used royal marriage as diplomacy, and mixed church and state.  In fact, the ascendant Tibetan Buddhist sect the Dalai Lama leads, the Gelugpa, won power with backroom intrigue and political maneuvering centuries ago.

I stepped into the idealized Tibet when I traveled to China’s Yunnan province in September.  I left Beijing for two weeks and traveled with my ethnic studies class, living and interacting with Tibetans.  The borders of the Tibetan Autonomous Region have been somewhat arbitrarily drawn by the caprices of history, and Tibetans live in neighboring provinces including Yunnan, where they have a large and influential presence (the T.A.R. is off limits to foreigners).  I was in what’s called “Greater Tibet.”

The reality I found did not match the myth.  “If you walk down the streets of Lhasa and ask ten people what they think about China,” my professor said, “you’ll get ten different answers.”  In the Tibetan village that hosted us, I was surprised to find photos of Chinese Communist leaders Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong in a home’s Buddhist shrine.  Our host mother explained that the photos honored “China’s most influential leaders.”  The posters featuring Chinese Communist leaders that I woke up to every morning may have been the work of the local Communist Party, but the shrine photos were not.  These Tibetans chose to put them there and felt some level of pride in being part of China.

True to my professor’s prediction, other Tibetans took a more skeptical view.  Our trip guide, Zhaxi (pronounced “Josh E.”) noted with resentment during China’s National Day celebration that he had been “working for China” his “whole life.”  Tibetans see Chinese tourists as rude, condescending, and dismissive.  Zhaxi confirmed this as often too true.

Although Westerners see Tibetans as tyrannized and crushed by the Chinese fist, Tibetans themselves cannot agree on the merits and demerits of China’s presence there.  Many are glad for and welcome the infrastructure benefits that have flowed from China’s attention.  Roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals have come to a land that didn’t know them before.  In short, modernization arrived.

Modernization, however, has an ugly downside – cultural destruction.  I was reminded that many of the statues and paintings I saw in temples were new.  Their predecessors were ransacked and destroyed during the the Cultural Revolution.  Traditional Tibetan ways also face challenges from market liberalization.  Tibetan culture struggles to adapt to a market economy, leaving many profitable businesses in the hands of Chinese and impeding economic empowerment.

In the end, ambivalence reigns in Tibet.  Most people appreciate Beijing’s development efforts, including the newly completed world’s highest railway, linking Tibet with prosperous eastern China.  Most Tibetans do not want independence – including Richard Gere’s buddy the Dalai Lama.  The situation is not simple, not a bumper sticker, and Tibet should not be romanticized as something it’s not.

My thoughts often return to a Tibetan village evening on my Yunnan trip.  A TV ad featuring rich people on a sailboat caught our host mother’s attention.  What was she thinking?  Was she puzzled?  Or amazed?  Or did she long to experience that glamorous life, if only briefly, leaving behind the cows and fields and yak butter tea of her village?  I’m not sure, but maybe longing for “Shangri-La” is something we can all relate to.

hrc has passed.

thank god?

two questions remain:

how does obama sell it?

the republicans can’t repeal it, but do they campaign on how they can?

Lost: The Democrats’ Malaise From Chicago to New York

FEBRUARY 10, 2010

The new season of “Lost” premiered this week, which is exactly how Barack Obama and the Democrats must be feeling right now.  Forget smoke monsters, polar bears, and secret hatches – if the Dems don’t right their ship now, November could send the whole party to a desert island.  A short survey is in order:

In Illinois, the story is so good you couldn’t make it up.  The Democrats nominated a self-inflicted wound for lieutenant governor in the form of pawnbroker/wife-beater/steroid-user Scott Lee Cohen.  Cohen was adamant that his past, which includes domestic battery charges for holding a knife to his ex-girlfriend’s throat (she was a prostitute, FYI), shouldn’t matter to Illinois voters.  On Sunday, however, Cohen announced at a bar he would be withdrawing from the race, stemming the blood loss from the Illinois Democratic Party.

As if that were not enough, the Democrats’ Illinois senate candidate, Alexi Giannoulias has bank trouble.  The 33-year-old counts President Obama as a mentor and spent a few years running Broadway Bank before becoming Illinois’ State Treasurer.  Unfortunately for Giannoulias, Broadway Bank collapsed spectacularly after making bad loans and Giannoulias could have been intimately involved in decisions to make them.

The Republicans have easily made hay over the bank mess.  As details from Broadway’s collapse have flowed out, questions like these – taken from a National Republican Senatorial Committee press release – have become legitimate:

· Did you authorize $15.4 million in loans to Michael “Jaws” Giorango – a crime boss that ran prostitution rings and engaged in illegal gambling?

· Did your decision to remove millions of dollars from Broadway Bank lead to the bank’s now-brink of collapse? Will you help to recapitalize the bank?

· Did your father contribute $10,000 to disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich’s campaign in exchange for your brother’s state board appointment – and did Tony Rezko push for his appointment?

Ah yes, Tony Rezko.  Like a zombie, the Chicago slum lord whose connections continually dogged Barack Obama on the campaign trail is back and the Republicans are likely to make insinuations about Giannoulias’ underworld connections part of a bare-knuckle brawl for the U.S. Senate.

Another site in the battle for the Senate is New York, where Democrats are forming a circular firing squad over Kirsten Gillibrand.  Gillibrand was a centrist upstate congresswoman appointed to the Senate by Gov. David Paterson.  Gillibrand attempted to shift politically leftward but still faces skepticism from the Manhattan crowd.

Attempting to capitalize on this skepticism is an unlikely candidate – Harold Ford, Jr. of Tennessee.  Ford was a Memphis congressman who made a losing bid for the Senate in ’06.  He relocated to New York City, got a gig at Merrill Lynch, and married Emily Threlkeld, a fashion industry/PR practitioner working for designer Carolina Herrera.  While not dining at the Regency, Ford has been touring the City by limousine and helicopter, even landing on Staten Island once.

If New York Democrats are unsatisfied with the centrist Gillibrand, they won’t like Harold Ford either.  Ford built his Tennessee persona on being a man conservatives could be comfortable with.  He was socially moderate – even conservative – and has liberalized his views on abortion and gay marriage for downstate voters.

It’s hard to see what ideological space Ford could occupy in the race, and what good it could do for the Democrats’ chances in November.  Ford could very well topple Gillibrand by simply not being Gillibrand.  But after the City’s elite anoint Ford over lunch in Midtown, Democratic voters will take a closer look and see a man who reminds them of the woman they just got rid of.  It’s not a recipe for high turnout or a victory, especially in a tough year like 2010.

If Gillibrand and Ford bleed each other dry and one limps into November, “American Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi’s father, Joseph, could well go to the U.S. Senate.  The Republicans lack a big name challenger to the Democrats, but Joseph DioGuardi is a potential candidate, and not having a prominent challenger is no obstacle to success, as Senator Harry Reid’s opponents have happily discovered in Nevada.

One might be forgiven for excoriating the Democrats’ lack of caution, discipline, and plain-old resume vetting.  Scott Lee Cohen was a needless mistake.  Gov. Paterson might have better appointed a less divisive figure for New York.  Giannoulias might have had more foresight and restraint regarding his business dealings.  But sometimes personalities matter less than macro-trends.

Historically, midterms like these are painful.  There are large forces at work – the economy, the wars, and skepticism about institutions in general.  These are too enormous and multifaceted to be manipulated day to day in a news cycle.  They have more power to affect November’s outcome than personality machinations.  They are so complex human beings can’t possibly fathom their myriad dimensions and outcomes.  It’s a phenomenon Carl von Clausewitz called, in reference to battle, the “fog of war.”

Democrats would do well to remember this, and take solace in the difficult, unpleasant fact that sometimes events are out of your control.  Rough times will turn good again, and if not, at least our next president will shoot moose from Air Force One.

The Revolution Will Not Be Googled

An anarchist friend of mine, decked out in his obligatory keffiyeh and Anti-Flag gear, had a memorable bumper sticker: “What if they held a war and nobody came?”  I’m asking the same question in the wake of the China-Google brouhaha roiling diplomatic channels on both sides of the Pacific.

Google’s departure from China has revived an old dream and an old fantasy – that the walls of authoritarianism are destroyed when oppressed peoples realize their information is being censored.  In essence, if you give them CNN, they’ll give you a revolution.  That revolution will not happen in China, because nobody is coming to the war.

I’ll explain why, but the nature of the fantasy is worth flushing out first.  It goes something like this: technology and its advance mean death for authoritarian regimes, from Tehran to Beijing.  When people have access to Twitter, Google, and other social networking and information gathering tools, they will throw off their chains.  It is a tempting dream.

In China this fall, I found an entirely different story.  Ryan Seacrest and Lady Gaga hold more currency than CNN (and the Chinese don’t want to topple Seacrest as much as I do).  The Communist Party’s hold on power is underwritten by a social contract Westerners find strange.  The people give up certain political freedoms in exchange for social stability and economic growth.

The Chinese people covet stability and growth since mass famine, civil war, and cities laid waste exist in living memory.  The fear of a return to such times keeps the Party in power.  Economic boom since the 1980s has lifted more people out of poverty and into the middle class than in any other country, ever.  From the Chinese perspective, it’s “Deal or No Deal,” and the answer is easy.

In China, I found my Chinese friends much more interested in personal success than joining a political rally.  My roommate Lu Yao and my tutor Lu Yan are students at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China’s elite ambassador factory.  They are interested in getting high grades, running the IT club, and finding a good job that provides security and familial honor.  They also happen to love their interests (business and teaching, respectively).

Lu Yao, Lu Yan, and others are not clamoring for access to Facebook and YouTube, much less the Huffington Post or any pro-democracy blogs.  They have other, more pressing concerns.  Westerners tend to see foreign political scenes as vibrant and effusive, like theirs.  That is not always the case.  In China and elsewhere, the people are not itching for change or freedom, a la “V For Vendetta.”

I thought my perspective might be skewed, so I asked Amherst freshman Lester Hu, a Beijing native, to let me in on his ancient Chinese secrets (mindful of the unscientific nature of my survey).  I never saw my roommate use Google, so I asked Lester how often Chinese people do so.

“It really depends,” he told me.  “I use Google all the time because you can search stuff in any language on that.  A lot of people, however, use “Baidu,” a Chinese-run search engine that might be more powerful in terms of searching Chinese articles.”

I asked Lester how Chinese people will react to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent criticism of Chinese censorship practices.  He found two opposing lines of thought here.

“Indeed a number of Chinese are critical of the government’s tightening up of its Internet policies under the name of ‘harmonization and ‘protecting intellectual property rights.’  Those who often use [the] Internet would probably be against those censorships,” he said.  At the same time, he added,

“…If Mrs. Clinton gives critical remarks on that, many Chinese might see this as ‘an infringement upon the independence of China’…as they are really, really sensitive to issues related to sovereignty.  In this way a lot of them, even though against censorships, are also against U.S.’s criticizing – or by their terms ‘interfering with’ – the Chinese Internet policies.”

Lester’s last point illustrates how profoundly misguided the Twitter Revolution fantasy is.  The Chinese government is not likely to be weakened by this episode, as many hope and proclaim.  It will likelier be strengthened.

The government can now reemploy rhetoric about “foreign interference” and “neo-imperialism.”  The technology-as-democracy boosters forget this recurring Party habit, as well as China’s century of exploitation at the hands of 1800s foreigners, which left a pungent and lingering aftertaste in the mouths of the Chinese people.

The Chinese authorities can also reiterate China’s raw economic power.  Companies that have not already taken note will discover the Party is running a “pay to play” scheme whereby foreign companies “pay” (submit to censorship) in order to “play” (make lots of money).  The Chinese Internet and mobile market is huge and profitable for foreign companies.  Google made $300 million last year in China.  Google’s take this year?  Probably almost nothing.  Beijing can now flaunt its ability to be choosy and empowered.

Are these censorship policies sustainable for the Party?  I asked Lester and he said the answer was “hard…to predict,” but noted a recurring cycle in Chinese discontent.

“…People tend to get angry when a new policy tightening Internet control comes out, yet this kind of sentiment will soon die out when they adjust themselves to the new Internet environment.”

Thanks, Lester.  I guess my “V For Vendetta” fantasies will have to settle for ousting Ryan Seacrest.

Let’s Hear It For New York

What’s Jay-Z so happy about?

His hit single “Empire State of Mind” is a love song to The City That Never Sleeps.  He takes listeners o n a winding tour up, down, and around town, extolling the virtues of the bright lights and the big city.

New York is great, but what’s all the extra fuss about?  The answer was staring us in the face the whole time.  Jay-Z is pumped about New York City for one reason – Rudy Giuliani is kissing it goodbye.

America’s Mayor announced last week that he was having too much fun to run for the U.S. Senate or New York governor.  Rudy G cited his business obligations stemming from his current moneyhole, a security consulting firm.

This is the same Giuliani who gave the thumbs-up to placing New York’s emergency command center in the basement of the World Trade Center.  That was after it had already been attacked once.  To Rudy’s clients I can only say, as a reminder, “you get what you pay for.”

Like an 8 million person-battered wife, New York is reliving a Giuliani jilting.  In 2000 he jumped into the U.S. Senate race against Hillary Clinton, causing everyone to salivate at the Shakespearean showdown that was brewing.  Lady Macbeth vs. Iago.  Unfortunately, Giuliani was stricken with cancer and bowed out, closing the curtains on the big show.

9/11 gave Rudy G’s career a shot in the arm.  He became a national hero and capitalized on his success to the tune of $9 million per year.  His ’08 presidential campaign reflected the Frank Sinatra theory of politics: New York – if I make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.

Giuliani made it nowhere.

The reason he failed, and the reason New Yorkers should be most happy he’s not running next year, is Mrs. Giuliani No. 3, Judith Nathan.  Judith made herself a terror and nuisance to Giuliani’s staff by requiring an extra airplane seat for her giant Louis V purse, dubbed “Baby Louis” by aides.  They feared her tirades, demands, and shopaholic tendencies.

She even called Rudy while he was mid-speech with the NRA.  Astonishingly he answered the call.  Aides said this had happened at least 40 other times during meetings.

New Yorkers can breath easy – she’ll never be their First Lady.  But look at what they missed: a woman who crowned herself with tiaras at charity events, tested medical staplers on live dogs, and snatched the mayor’s heart at a cigar bar.  It’s a pity Rudy and Judy won’t be around in an official capacity.

The most pressing question however, is not what we’re missing, but why Rudy is foregoing 2010 in the first place.  Was he dreading the prospect of petting goats at county fairs across upstate New York?  Maybe.  Why should the “Prince of the City” lower himself to that?  Especially when there’s more money to be made?

Jay-Z explains how this happens:

In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There’s nothing you can’t do, now you’re in New York.

These streets will make you feel brand new.

Big lights will inspire you, let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York.

Of course!  Rudy was dazzled.  Walking through those streets him feel brand new.  TIME’s Person of the Year – there’s nothing he can’t do!  Big lights inspired him.  Rudy doesn’t need this Podunk town anymore.

He has moved on to bigger and better things.  He’s making a killing on security consulting.  He billed pricey hours as a partner at the white shoe law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

But it’s not all about money; broadening horizons is important, too.  Rudy is jetting around the world.  The Brazilians just hired him to do the security for the 2016 Rio Olympics.  Rudy in Rio?  At least there will be plenty of candidates for Mrs. Giuliani No. 4, once Judy realizes she’ll never be sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Yes, Rudy Giuliani is finally enjoying himself too much.  The Italian boy who huddled alone listening to opera while the other kids obsessed over Bobby Darin and Richie Valens is now “The Prince” of Machiavelli fame, with a twist.  He clawed his way to the top and got everything he wanted – it just doesn’t involve power.

Who needs old Niccolo anyway?  Only fuddy-duddies are consumed with formal political offices.  Fox News Channel has great power, too, and that’s where Giuliani has been spending much time these days, sharing his insights into terror trials.  The pinkos at the New York Times even let Rudy spill some ink about cleaning up New York government.  Private life is where the real action’s happening.

Congratulations, New York.  You’re finally not enough for someone.  That’s why Jay-Z is so head up about New Amsterdam.  It scared off Rudy Giuliani.  No Rudy, no Judy, no banned art, no street vendor lockups, no eye-popping, squeegee men-hating, lisp-inflected tirades.  New York saved itself.

The city that never sleeps slipped Rudy an Ambien.